Columbian exchange
Intercambio colombino
- Date
- 1493-1600 · confidence medium
- Place
- La Isabela, Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic
- Credited to
- European colonisers and American, African and European populations
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Massive transfer of plants, animals and diseases between the Americas and the Old World from 1492: potato, maize and tomato to Europe and Asia; horse, wheat and sugarcane to the Americas; smallpox and measles devastated the American population. The term was coined by Alfred Crosby in 1972.
The concept is historiographical (Crosby, 1972); mortality figures from disease are heavily debated (from 5 to 60 million depending on estimates).
What it led to
- Indigenous demographic collapse and reorganisation of American societies
- Population growth in Eurasia thanks to American crops
- Plantation economy and transatlantic slavery