Mae Hensley Junior High School

Ceres, California

Columbian Exchange and Atlantic Slave Trade

Directions: Watch the video. Next, Read the information (you may click on the speaker to hear the words as you read). Once you finish the reading click on "Quiz Group", answer the questions, and click "Check Answers". Then move to the next section. Don't forget to check out the pictures and maps.

 Right click on the video, click on loop so the check mark goes away.

To stop the video from playing, right click on the video, click on play so the check mark goes away.

Columbian Exchange

Europe's trade with the world resulted in a global exchange of people, goods, technology, ideas, and even diseases. This transfer is called the Columbian Exchange. The exchange of goods changed the ways people lived throughout the world. Europeans brought grains and animals that changed the diets of many people in the Americas. As Native Americans learned to use horses to hunt, buffalo became their main food source. Europeans brought Native American corn, potatoes, and other foods back to Europe. There, animals fed on corn provided more meat. By planting potatoes instead of grain, many more Europeans could live off the same amount of land. Many of these foods spread to Asia and Africa, boosting population growth there. Europeans brought tropical products, such as bananas and coffee, from Asia and Africa back to Europe and the Americas. The continents also exchanged people and cultures. Europeans moved to the Americas and elsewhere seeking religious freedom or economic opportunity. They shared their ideas and practices with the people in their new lands. Traders spread European languages. European missionaries taught Christianity and European values. Unfortunately, Europeans also carried germs to the Americas. Millions of Native Americans died of smallpox, measles, and malaria.

The Atlantic Slave Trade

Europeans enslaved and moved millions of Africans to the Americas to plant and harvest sugarcane in the Caribbean. In the West Indies, Spanish settlers developed plantations, or large estates, to grow tobacco and sugarcane. At first, they used Native American labor. Then Bartolomé de Las Casas, a Spanish priest, suggested replacing them with enslaved Africans. Africans were marched to a European fort on the West African coast. Tied together, they were traded, branded, and forced to board ships bound for the Americas. By the late 1500s, slave labor was a key part of the colonial economy.

The slave trade in Africa did not begin in the sixteenth century, but by then the demand for labor in American plantations—and the willingness of many African states to cooperate with European Slavers -- led to a great increase. By the mid-1500s, the Spanish and Portuguese were bringing thousands of enslaved people from Africa to the Americas. The following map shows some of the most important centers of the slave trade.

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