Of plants by the Spanish friar
Bernardino de Sahagún provided an early depiction of
maize, one of the plants the Spanish brought to the Old World. Because of the new trading resulting from the Columbian exchange, several plants native to the Americas spread around the world, including
potatoes,
maize,
tomatoes, and
tobacco. Before 1500, potatoes were not grown outside of
South America. By the 18th century, they were cultivated and consumed widely in Europe and had become important crops in both
India and North America. Potatoes eventually became an important staple food in the diets of many Europeans, contributing to an estimated 12 to 25% of the population growth in Afro-Eurasia between 1700 and 1900. The introduction of the potato to the Old World accounts for 47 percent of the increase in urbanization between 1700 and 1900.
Cassava was introduced from South America by the
Portuguese in the 16th century, and gradually replaced
sorghum and
millet as Africa's most important food crop.
Spanish colonizers of the 16th century introduced new staple crops to Asia from the Americas, including
maize and
sweet potatoes, contributing to population growth there. On a larger scale, the introduction of potatoes and maize to the Old World improved people's nutrition throughout the Eurasian landmass, Because crops traveled widely but at least initially their endemic fungi did not, for a limited time yields were somewhat higher in the new regions to which they were introduced, a form of
ecological release or "". However, the exchange of pathogens has continued alongside globalization, and crops have declined back toward their endemic yields. terraces on
Taquile are used to grow traditional
Andean staples such as
quinoa and
potatoes, alongside
wheat—a European introduction. The Spanish were the first Europeans to grow
cacao, in 1590. Though cacao was usually consumed by European populations in the form of sweets and was at first treated as an expensive luxury item,
chocolate helped with fatigue and provided energy. As for
vanilla, the pods of the plant after chemical treatment acquired an aroma, which was then used both in cooking and in perfumery.
Georgia,
South Carolina,
Cuba, and
Puerto Rico were major centers of rice production during the
colonial era. Enslaved Africans brought their knowledge of water control, milling,
winnowing, and other agrarian practices to the fields. This widespread knowledge among African slaves eventually made rice a staple food in the New World.
Citrus fruits and
grapes were brought to the Americas from the Mediterranean. At first, planters struggled to adapt these crops to New World climates, but by the late 19th century they were cultivated consistently.
Bananas were introduced into the Americas in the 16th century by Portuguese sailors, who brought them from West Africa. Despite this early introduction, they were little consumed in the Americas as late as the 1880s, when large plantations were established in the Caribbean. The
Manila galleon trading network introduced American plants such as
chayote and
papaya into Southeast Asia; these were incorporated into the cuisines there. Long before the arrival of the Spaniards, cultivators brought wild
tomatoes from Central America to South America. The first Italian cookbook to include tomato sauce,
Lo Scalco alla Moderna ("The Modern Steward"), was written by Italian chef
Antonio Latini and was published in two volumes in 1692 and 1694. In 1790, the use of tomato sauce with pasta appeared for the first time, in the Italian cookbook ''L'Apicio Moderno'' ("The Modern
Apicius"), by chef
Francesco Leonardi. Alongside the intentional introductions of cultivated plants that were Crosby's focus, many wild plants including
weeds of cultivation, such as
dandelions and
grasses, were transferred in both directions, permanently affecting the ecology of many parts of the world.
Of animals Initially, the Columbian exchange of animals largely went in one direction, from Europe to the New World, as the Eurasian regions had domesticated many more animals.
Horses,
donkeys,
mules,
pigs,
cattle,
sheep,
goats,
chickens,
dogs,
cats, and
bees were rapidly adopted by native peoples for transport, food, and other uses. The
Plains Indians, for example, made extensive use of horses for hunting. File:The Florentine Codex- The Conquest of Mexico.png|
Spanish conquest of Mexico, 1519–1521, with
horses,
pigs,
cattle, and
sheep being landed from ships.
Florentine Codex. File:George Catlin - Buffalo hunt.jpg|Native Americans learned to use horses, dramatically expanding their hunting range. The
Mapuche of
Araucanía were fast to adopt the horse from the Spanish, and improve their military capabilities as they fought the
Arauco War against Spanish colonizers. Until the arrival of the Spanish, the Mapuches had largely maintained
chilihueques (
llamas) as livestock. The Spanish introduction of sheep caused some competition between the two domesticated species. Anecdotal evidence of the mid-17th century shows that by then sheep far outnumbered llamas. The decline of llamas reached a point in the late 18th century when only the Mapuche from
Mariquina and the Huequén next to
Angol raised the species. In the
Chiloé Archipelago the introduction of
pigs by the Spanish proved a success. They could feed on the abundant
shellfish and
algae exposed by the large
tides. There are two primary hypotheses: one proposes that syphilis was carried to Europe from the
Americas by the crew of Christopher Columbus in the early 1490s, while the other proposes that syphilis previously existed in Europe but went unrecognized. The first written descriptions of syphilis in the Old World came in 1493. The first large outbreak of syphilis in Europe occurred in 1494–1495 among the army of
Charles VIII during its
invasion of Naples. Many of the crew members who had served with Columbus had joined this army. After the victory, Charles's largely mercenary army returned to their respective homes, spreading "the Great Pox" across Europe, which killed up to five million people. The Columbian exchange of diseases toward the New World was far deadlier. The peoples of the Americas had previously had no exposure to Old World diseases and little or no immunity to them. An epidemic of
swine influenza beginning in 1493 killed many of the
Taino people inhabiting
Caribbean islands. The pre-contact population of the island of
Hispaniola was probably at least 500,000, but by 1526, fewer than 500 were still alive. Spanish exploitation was part of the cause of the near-extinction of the native people. drawings of victims of
smallpox in the
Florentine Codex In 1518,
smallpox was first recorded in the Americas and became the deadliest imported Old World disease. Forty percent of the 200,000 people living in the
Aztec capital of
Tenochtitlan, later
Mexico City, are estimated to have died of smallpox in 1520 during the war of the Aztecs with conquistador
Hernán Cortés. Epidemics, possibly of smallpox, spread from
Central America, devastating the population of the
Inca Empire a few years before the arrival of the Spanish.
The ravages of Old World diseases and Spanish exploitation reduced the
Mexican population from an estimated 20 million to barely more than a million in the 16th century. The Indigenous population of
Peru decreased from about 9 million in the pre-Columbian era, to 600,000 in 1620. An estimated 80–95 percent of the Native American population died in epidemics within the first 100–150 years following 1492. Nunn and Qian also refer to the calculations of the scientist David Cook: in some cases no one survived due to diseases. The deadliest Old World diseases in the Americas were smallpox,
measles,
whooping cough,
chicken pox,
bubonic plague,
typhus, and
malaria.
Yellow fever was brought to the Americas from Africa, probably by the slave trade. Many people in Africa had acquired immunity. Europeans suffered higher rates of death than did people of African descent when exposed to yellow fever in the Americas, as
numerous epidemics swept the colonies and sugar plantations. On the other hand, European exploration of tropical areas was aided by the New World discovery of
quinine, the first effective treatment for
malaria.
Cinchona trees from the Andes were processed and
quinine was obtained from their bark. == Cultural exchanges ==