Columbian exchange
Topic: The Making of a Global World · NCERT: Class 10, Ch 3 "The Making of a Global World"
Meaning
The Columbian exchange is the movement of crops, animals, people and diseases between the Americas and the rest of the world after Columbus's voyage of 1492. The Americas had been cut off from regular contact with other continents for a very long time. Once contact began, foods from the Americas changed diets in Europe and Asia. At the same time, European diseases killed very large numbers of people in the Americas. It shows that globalisation, the growing links between distant parts of the world, has a long history.
Example
The potato came from the Americas. In Europe it helped poor people eat better and live longer. In the other direction, smallpox from Europe wiped out whole communities in the Americas in the 16th century and made the Spanish and Portuguese conquest easier.
Don't confuse with
- Silk routes: these were older land and sea trade routes that linked Asia with Europe and North Africa from before the Christian Era. The Americas were not part of them.