Definition
The Columbian Exchange is the name historians give to the enormous, two-way transfer of living things between the Americas and the rest of the world after Christopher Columbus's voyage in 1492. It moved plants, animals, people, technologies, and diseases across the Atlantic in both directions.
The exchange reshaped diets, economies, and populations on every continent. Some of its effects were beneficial; others, especially the spread of disease, were devastating.
Why it matters
How it works
The Columbian Exchange worked through ongoing contact. Once regular Atlantic crossings began, ships carried seeds, animals, and people in both directions, deliberately and accidentally. Crops were planted in new soils; livestock multiplied; and microbes traveled in the bodies of crew, settlers, and the enslaved.
The disease side of the exchange was the deadliest. Centuries of isolation had left Indigenous Americans without immunity to Old World pathogens, and epidemics swept through their communities — often ahead of the European armies that followed.