Discuss how the Columbian Exchange between the Old and New Worlds affected both societies.

The Columbian Exchange was the exchange of crops, livestock, and disease from the "Old World," which consisted of Europe, Africa, and Asia, to the "New World" of the Americas.

Some of the new goods that benefited the "Old World" were agricultural staples like tomatoes, potatoes, corn, cassava (which became the staple African "manioc"), beans, and sweet potatoes. As a result of the new foods transported to the "Old World," population increased; this was possible because...

The Columbian Exchange was the exchange of crops, livestock, and disease from the "Old World," which consisted of Europe, Africa, and Asia, to the "New World" of the Americas.

Some of the new goods that benefited the "Old World" were agricultural staples like tomatoes, potatoes, corn, cassava (which became the staple African "manioc"), beans, and sweet potatoes. As a result of the new foods transported to the "Old World," population increased; this was possible because the variety of new foods and nutrition allowed people to live longer. The Columbian Exchange also encouraged other explorers to make their way to the "New World" in search of land and new treasures; it was like a doorway to new riches that Europeans took advantage of in the form of forced labor and mercantilism.

The "New World" also got new crops, like sugar and citrus fruits, but the impact of the Columbian Exchange was remarkably worse on the native inhabitants. Afroeurasians (that is, people who lived in Africa-Europe-Asia) had been communicating and exchanging for centuries, but the native inhabitants of the Americas were isolated. One of the biggest problems with a new contact with the "Old World" was the transmission of disease. Smallpox, carried with "Old World" explorers, wiped out large portions of American populations; historians estimate anywhere between fifty and eighty percent of total populations. Entire civilizations crashed, like the Aztec in central Mexico and the Inca in South America. Europeans took advantage of the "New World" lands and people by setting up plantations, where indigenous Americans or African slaves worked to grow crops like tobacco, sugarcane, coffee, indigo, and cotton.