Source: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/precontact-and-early-colonial-era/old-and-new-worlds-collide/a/the-columbian-exchange-ka
Colonial mercantilism, a set of policies designed to benefit the colonizing nation, relied on several factors:
Colonies rich in raw materials
Cheap labor
Colonial loyalty to the home government
Control of the shipping trade
Under this system, the colonies sent their raw materials—harvested by enslaved people or native workers—to Europe. European industry then produced and sent finished materials—like textiles, tools, manufactured goods, and clothing—back to the colonies. Colonists were forbidden from trading with other countries.
Colonial mercantilism was a set of policies designed to benefit colonizing nations.
Commodification quickly affected production in the New World. American silver, tobacco, and other items—which were used by native peoples for ritual purposes—became European commodities with monetary value. Before the arrival of the Spanish, for example, the Inca people of the Andes consumed chicha, a corn beer, for ritual purposes only. When the Spanish discovered chicha, they bought and traded for it, detracting from its spiritual significance for market gain. This process disrupted native economies and spurred early commercial capitalism.
What do you think is the best definition of the word "commodities" based on the second sentence of this paragraph?
As Europeans traversed the Atlantic, they brought with them plants, animals, and diseases that changed lives and landscapes on both sides of the ocean. These two-way exchanges between the Americas and Europe/Africa are known collectively as the Columbian Exchange.
Of all the commodities in the Atlantic World, sugar proved to be the most important. Indeed, in the colonial era, sugar carried the same economic importance as oil does today. European rivals raced to create sugar plantations in the Americas and fought wars for control of production. Although refined sugar was available in the Old World, Europe’s harsher climate made sugarcane difficult to grow. Columbus brought sugar to Hispaniola in 1493, and the new crop thrived. Over the next century of colonization, Caribbean islands and most other tropical areas became centers of sugar production, which in turn fueled the demand to enslave Africans for labor.
Tobacco was unknown in Europe before 1492, and it carried a negative stigma at first. The early Spanish explorers considered native people's use of tobacco to be proof of their savagery. However, European colonists then took up the habit of smoking, and they brought it across the Atlantic. Europeans ascribed medicinal properties to tobacco, claiming that it could cure headaches and skin irritations. Even so, Europeans did not import tobacco in great quantities until the 1590s. At that time, it became the first truly global commodity; English, French, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese colonists all grew it for the world market.
What is a global commodity?
Native peoples also introduced Europeans to chocolate, made from cacao seeds and used by the Aztec in Mesoamerica as currency. Mesoamerican Indians consumed unsweetened chocolate in a drink with chili peppers, vanilla, and a spice called achiote. This chocolate drink—xocolatl—was part of ritual ceremonies like marriage. Chocolate contains theobromine, a stimulant, which may be why native people believed it brought them closer to the sacred world.
The crossing of the Atlantic by plants like cacao and tobacco illustrates the ways in which the discovery of the New World changed the habits and behaviors of Europeans. Europeans changed the New World in turn, not least by bringing Old World animals to the Americas. On his second voyage, Christopher Columbus brought pigs, cows, chickens, and horses to the islands of the Caribbean. Many Native Americans used horses to transform their hunting and gathering into a highly mobile practice.
Native peoples in the Americas introduced the Europeans to animals like horses.
Travelers between the Americas, Africa, and Europe also included microbes: silent, invisible life forms that had profoundly devastating consequences. Native peoples had no immunity to Old World diseases to which they had never been exposed. European explorers unwittingly brought with them chickenpox, measles, mumps, and smallpox, decimating some populations and wholly destroying others. One disease did travel the other direction—syphilis, a lethal sexually transmitted disease, came with travelers from the New World to Europe for the first time
Because of their natural immunity, most native peoples could fight off the diseases that were carried by Europeans.
List some of the ways that the "Old World" benefited from the Columbian Exchange.
List some of the ways that the "New World" benefited from the Columbian Exchange.
List some of the ways that the "Old World" suffered due to the Columbian Exchange.
List some of the ways that the "New World" suffered due to the Columbian Exchange.
Which nations were the "colonizing nations"?
In mercantilism, colonists could only trade with the country that colonized them.
Commodification of materials contributed to the rise of which economic system?
Commodification of materials in the Americas was seen a positive thing by the native peoples who were living there.
The exchange of raw materials, goods, plants, animals, and diseases between the Americas and Europe was known as the Columbian Exchange.
What ended up being the most important commodity in the Atlantic World?
Put the following events in order.
Europeans attempted to grow sugar in Europe but the climate was too harsh.
Europeans brought sugar to the Americas and discovered that the Caribbean climate was perfect for growing sugarcane.
Europeans raced to establish sugar plantations in the Caribbean and enslave millions of Africans to work on these plantations.