Guided Notes

Discussion Questions
Day 1 HW Sheet
Day 2 Exit Ticket
The Columbian Exchange

Goal:​ I can ​map​ the exchange of crops and animals and the spread of diseases across
the world during the Columbian exchange.
Focus Questions:
● What three continents made up the “Triangle Trade” of the Columbian
Exchange?
● What are some examples of specific crops, animals, and diseases that
Europeans brought with them to the New World?
● What are some examples of specific crops and goods that were introduced to the
Europeans and Africans by Native Americans in the New World?
● How were Europeans able to successfully achieve their goals of colonization?

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Guided notes:

● The Columbian Exchange is defined as the widespread exchange of plants,

________, foods, human populations (including slaves), _________, and ideas
between the Eastern and Western hemispheres that occurred after 1492 when
____________________ first voyage launched an era of large-scale contact
between the Old and the New World.
● Starting in the late 15th century, The _____________were the earliest
participants in what became known as the Age of ______________.
● Portuguese explorers sailed south along the West African coast in an attempt to
reach Asia.
● Columbus had a different idea: instead of going all the way around the massive
African continent to get to Asia, Why not just sail west across the Atlantic Ocean?
● He believed that the journey by boat from Europe to Asia should be not only
possible, but comparatively easy via an as-yet undiscovered Northwest Passage.
● His plan was first rejected in Portugal and in England, but in 1492, Spanish
monarchs ________________ and__________________ offered Columbus’ a
contract that promised he could keep 10 percent of whatever riches he found,
along with a noble title and the governorship of any lands he should encounter.
● October 12 1492, Columbus’ expedition first sighted American land, in the
Bahamas, later that month, Columbus sighted Cuba, which he thought was
mainland China, and in December the expedition landed on Hispaniola, which
 Columbus thought might be Japan.
● Columbus and his crew encountered the _________ people, whom he first
described in his letters as "naked as the day they were born."
● Columbus returned to Spain in March 1493. He brings back gold, spices, and
“Indian” captives. He was received with the highest honors by the Spanish court,
given the title “admiral of the ocean sea,” and was quickly granted another
voyage.
● His second voyage was by far his biggest following. It consisted of a large fleet of
17 ships with 1,500 ___________ aboard.
● They left Spain in September 1493, and got to Hispaniola by november. All the
men Columbus left there were found slaughtered by the natives, and he founded
a second colony.
● Columbus returned to Spain in June 1496. This time he was greeted less warmly,
as the yield from the second voyage had fallen well short of its costs.
● Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain, stayed greedy for the riches of the East, agreed
to a smaller third voyage where they instructed Columbus to find a strait to India.
● Columbus and his crew ended up landing in Trinidad and later traveled to
Venezuela where they soon realized they were in another continent.
● Columbus, a deeply religious man, decided after careful thought that Venezuela
was the outer regions of the Garden of Eden.
● When Columbus eventually returned to Hispaniola, he found that conditions on
the island had deteriorated under the rule of his brothers, ___________ and
____________. Columbus’ efforts to restore order were marked by brutality, and
his rule came to be deeply resented by both the colonists and the native Taino
chiefs.
● In 1500, Spanish chief justice Francisco de Bobadilla arrived at Hispaniola, sent
by Isabella and Ferdinand to investigate complaints, and Columbus and his
brothers were sent back to Spain in chains.
● He was immediately released upon his return, and Ferdinand and Isabella
agreed to finance a fourth voyage, in which he was to search for the earthly
paradise and the realms of gold said to lie nearby. He was also to continue
looking for a passage to India.
● May 1502, Columbus leaves Spain for his fourth and final voyage to the New
World.
● First returning to Hispaniola, against his patrons’ wishes, he then explored the
coast of Central America looking for a strait and for gold.
● Attempting to return to Hispaniola, his ships, in poor condition, had to be
beached on Jamaica. Columbus and his men were marooned and he was a
castaway in Jamaica for a year before a rescue ship arrived.
● Before 1492, Native Americans hosted none of the infectious _________ that
had long caused great and continual trouble to Europeans and Africans.
● In the centuries after 1492, these infections rose as epidemics among Native
 American populations.
● The impact was most severe in the____________, where by 1600, Native
American populations on most islands had plummeted by more than 99 percent.
Across the Americas, populations fell by 50 percent to 95 percent by 1650.
● The disease component of the Columbian Exchange was decidedly one-sided.
However, it is likely that syphilis evolved in the Americas and spread elsewhere
beginning in the 1490s.
● The animal component of the Columbian Exchange was slightly less one-sided.
________________ brought Horses, pigs, cattle, goats, sheep, and several other
species which adapted readily to conditions in the Americas.
● With the new animals, Native Americans acquired new sources of hides, wool,
and animal protein. Horses and oxen also offered a new source of traction,
making plowing feasible in the Americas for the first time and improving
transportation possibilities through wheeled vehicles like a Horse led carriage.
● On horseback, Native Americans could hunt bison more rewardingly, boosting
food supplies until the 1870s, when bison populations dwindled.
● When it came to __________, The Americas’ farmers’ gifts to other continents
included corn (maize), potatoes, cassava, and sweet potatoes, together with
secondary food crops such as ​tomatoes​, ​peanuts​, ​pumpkins​, ​squashes​,
pineapples​, and ​chili peppers​.
● Tobacco, one of humankind’s most important drugs, is another gift of the
Americas, one that by now has probably killed far more people in Eurasia and
Africa than Eurasian and African diseases killed in the Americas.
● Some of these crops had revolutionary consequences in Africa and Eurasia.
______ had the biggest impact, altering ​agriculture​ in ​Asia​, Europe, and Africa. It
also served as livestock feed, for pigs in particular.
● Today, Corn is the most important food on the ________ continent as a whole.
Its drought resistance especially recommended it in the many regions of Africa
with unreliable rainfall.
● Previously, without long-lasting foods, Africans found it harder to build states and
harder still to project military power over large spaces. In the moist tropical
forests of western and west-central Africa, where humidity worked against food
hoarding, new and larger states emerged on the basis of corn agriculture in the
17th century.
● The advantages of corn proved especially significant for Europeans in the slave
trade, which increased dramatically after 1600. Slaves needed food on their long
walks across the Sahara to North Africa or to the Atlantic coast en route to the
Americas. Corn further eased the slave trade’s logistical challenges.
● Eurasian and African crops had an equally profound influence on the history of
the American hemisphere. Until the mid-19th century, when most of slavery was
 abolished, “drug crops” such as ​sugar​ and ​coffee​ proved the most important
plant introductions to the Americas. Together with tobacco and cotton, they
formed the heart of a plantation complex that accounted for the vast majority of
the Atlantic slave trade.
● The _____________ was a very large part of the Columbian Exchange. About 10
million Africans arrived in the Americas on European boats as slaves. The
journey that enslaved Africans took from parts of Africa to America is commonly
known as the _____________.
● Today, millions of people in North America and South America, including the vast
majority of the populations in the countries of the Caribbean, are descended from
these Africans brought to the New World by Europeans.
● The Atlantic Slave trade was a critical component to the Columbian Exchange
because Slave labor developed many European colonies into longstanding
successful territories.

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1. What three continents made up the “Triangle Trade” of the Columbian

Exchange?

2. What are some examples of specific crops, animals, and diseases that
Europeans brought with them to the New World?

3. What are some examples of specific crops and goods that were introduced
to the Europeans and Africans by Native Americans in the New World?

4. How were Europeans able to successfully achieve their goals of

colonization?
HW On The Columbian Exchange: 11/20/2020

1. Why is the Columbian Exchange named after Christopher Columbus?

a.) He invented the term.

b.) His ship was nicknamed the Columbian Exchange.

c.) He was an expert on New World species.

d.) His voyages marked the Exchange's beginning.

2. During the Columbian Exchange, which way did plants, animals, diseases
and people flow?
a.) From west to east only.
b.) From east to west only.
c.) From both east to west and west to east.
d.) From both north to south and south to north.

3. What do potatoes, corn, and gold have in common?

a.) Native Americans transported them to the Old World
b.) They all made countries in Europe rich.
c.) They were all discovered by Columbus.
d.) Europeans introduced all of them to the New World.

4. Which of these had both positive and negative effects on the natives of the
Americas?
a.) Horses
b.) Smallpox
c.) Corn
d.) Slavery

5. Which of the following would have best prepared Native Americans for the
challenges of the Columbian Exchange?

a.) Access to sugarcane and other European crops

b.) Immunity from smallpox and the flu.
c.) The ability to shape iron into cookware and guns.
d.) The native population of horses to be domesticated.
 6. How did sugar-cane contribute to the formation of the Atlantic slave trade?

a.) Slave trading ships were made out of sugarcane stalks.

b.) Only african slaves knew how to grow sugarcane
c.) Sugarcane was the main currency used in the Atlantic slave trade
d.) African slaves were needed to work on sugarcane plantations.

7. Which of these is an example of the long lasting impact of the Columbian

Exchange?

a.) Horses are still used for transportation in many parts of Europe.
b.) Corn remains a staple of many North American diets.
c.) Smallpox can now be prevented with vaccines.
d.) Spanish is the main spoken language in many South American countries.

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Day 2 Exit Ticket: 11/23/2020

● Write a full paragraph (5-7 sentences) that explains at least one effect of the
Columbian Exchange. Briefly provide evidence that supports your claim.