USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Christopher Columbus introduced horses, sugar plants, and disease to the New World, while facilitating the introduction of New World commodities like sugar, tobacco, chocolate, and potatoes to the Old World. The process by which commodities, people, and diseases crossed the Atlantic is known as the Columbian Exchange.

Detailed explanation-2: -Raw materials like precious metals (gold and silver), tobacco, sugar and cotton went from the Americas to Europe. Manufactured goods like cloth and metal items went to Africa and the Americas. Finally, slaves went from Africa to the Americas to work. This trade created great profits for Europe.

Detailed explanation-3: -Europeans brought deadly viruses and bacteria, such as smallpox, measles, typhus, and cholera, for which Native Americans had no immunity (Denevan, 1976). On their return home, European sailors brought syphilis to Europe.

Detailed explanation-4: -To meet the growing labor demands, especially on the expanding cash crop plantations, the Europeans turned to Africa. The Transatlantic Slave Trade represented the largest forced migration of people in human history with the transfer of 12-20 million Africans to the Americas between the 16th to 19th centuries.

Detailed explanation-5: -In 1492, Columbus brought the Eastern and Western Hemispheres back together. The resulting swap of Old and New World germs, animals, plants, peoples, and cultures has been called the “Columbian Exchange.”