Essay On Columbian Exchange

The Columbian Exchange was one of the first early forms of trade in our world that affected widespread areas. The definition of the Columbian Exchange is the exchange of animals, plants, and diseases between the Old and the New Worlds. Spanish and Portuguese immigrants to the Americas wanted a diet that they were familiar with, so they searched areas where they felt were favorable to those crops. Everywhere they stopped and settled, they brought and raised wheat and grapes also did well in some areas. Spain took longer to discover the areas where there was enough rainfall and suitable soil to nourish their olive trees, but in the 1560s, areas of Peru and Chile were filled with olive trees. On his second voyage, Columbus brought sugar plants and Spaniards introduced rice and bananas. All plants and trees involved in the trading process had to be brought to Europe, but they did not all arrive right on time. Unlike the Native Americans, who had little amount of animals for food, travel, and beasts of burden, Spaniards had many animals to do these jobs. …show more content…
This enabled them to move faster, farther and move heavy loads better that the Native Americans of the area. The Spanish and Portuguese then returned to Europe with corn, white potatoes, and many varieties of beans, squash, pumpkins, avocados, and tomatoes. Due to the growing conditions necessary for these crops, there is a very small growing season. These crops brought over by the Spaniards became important and slowly spread. This interested me strongly because this was one of the first forms of early trade used to connect different areas of the world. On the downside; however, people were also hurt by this form of trade. The native americans were strongly affected by diseases and were starting to lose the land that was theres to begin with. In conclusion, the Columbian Exchange was a great starting point to what we now know as global