Concepts
Columbian Exchange
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The transfer of crops, livestock, people and diseases between the hemispheres after 1492: maize, potatoes, tomatoes, cassava and cacao moving east; wheat, rice, sugarcane, cattle, horses and pigs moving west, alongside the pathogens that devastated the Americas. It rearranged what every continent grows and eats, and the term was coined by historian Alfred Crosby in 1972.
Facts
Origin YearThe exchange begins with the 1492 contact; the concept and term date to Alfred Crosby, 1972. Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Cacao, Crops A New World domesticate whose post-1492 spread to the Old World, and eventual global chocolate trade, is part of the Columbian Exchange.
Peanut, Crops A New World domesticate whose post-1492 spread to Africa and Asia is part of the Columbian Exchange.
A New World domesticate; its post-1492 adoption across the Old World is part of the Columbian Exchange, distinct from and later than its separately debated pre-Columbian Polynesian presence.
Turkey, Livestock Carried from the Americas to Europe as part of the Columbian Exchange, then bred there and reintroduced to North America by colonists.
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