Mrs. Provencher has put up a new white board in the SLS dedicated to a “word of the week”, a word we hope the students will internalize and use in the future. This week’s word was legacy.
A perfect word in Grade 8 History class this week.
Ask your student: “What items were ‘traded’ in the Columbian Exchange?” You might be surprised by what they tell you. The Columbian Exchange refers to the intentional and unintentional reunion of ecologies following the European conquest of the Americas, beginning with Christopher Columbus in 1492. Ever since the super continent Pangaea broke apart 200 million years ago into the several landmasses we know today, the “new world” (Americas) developed completely separate from the “old world” of Europe, Asia, and Africa.
[Side note: I once saw a guy wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Pangaea. Underneath were the words, “Breaking up is hard to do.”]
For example, did you know that the tomato was unknown to Europe prior to 1500? What the heck was on their pizzas? The tomato, along with peanuts, corn, potatoes, and tobacco, were all introduced to the Europeans by native Americans. On the other hand, those natives had never seen horses, sheep, coffee, or sugar cane.
So the legacy of the Columbian Exchange is a positive one, a legacy of trade and experiencing new things? Well, not exactly. It was, at best, a mixed legacy. Consider this:
American Indians—never before exposed to vicious Old World pathogens like smallpox and thus lacking any immunities to them—began dying at apocalyptic rates. Many historians now believe that new diseases introduced after Columbus’s arrival killed off as much as 90% or more of the indigenous population of the Americas.
Perhaps one-fifth of the world’s population disappeared in that “Great Dying”. Unbeknownst to those Europeans, they were carrying with them the greatest weapon not created by humans. Disease made their conquest of the Americas incredibly easy.
As we go forward, Grade 8 will be asked to assess the legacy of those early explorers–not just Europeans, but also Arabs and Chinese. What motivated them and how should they be remembered?