Columbian Exchange (jan 1, 1492 – jan 1, 1800)

Description:

Resulted in the massive movement of African men and women in to the New World, but while enslaved. This also meant that cash crops like sugar cane and eventually cotton would overtake otherwise diverse vegetable life. Connected almost all of the world through new networks of trade and exchange. After 1492, the motivations for European migration to the Americas centered around the three G's: God, gold, and glory. Gold refers to the desire to extract natural resources like gold and sugar from the New World. The resulting swap of Old and New World germs, animals, plants, peoples, and cultures. 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.

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