The Columbian Exchange: Crops and Animals

After 1492, plants, animals and microbes crossed the Atlantic in both directions in what historian Alfred Crosby named the Columbian Exchange in 1972. From the Americas came maize, potatoes, tomatoes, cacao, chili peppers, squash and tobacco; from Afro-Eurasia came wheat, rice, sugarcane, coffee, horses, cattle, pigs and sheep. These transfers reshaped diets and landscapes everywhere: potatoes and maize helped populations grow in Europe, Africa and China, while cattle and sheep transformed grasslands in the Americas.

On the Great Plains, horses that spread north from Spanish settlements allowed peoples such as the Comanche and Lakota to build new mounted ways of life. The exchange was not equal or neutral, since sugarcane plantations were tied to enslaved labour. It shows how globalization changes not just what people buy but the very ecosystems they live in.