Editing Columbian exchange (section)

== Cultural exchanges ==

=== Clash of cultures ===

[[File:Evangelización por la Orden Franciscana.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.2|The [[History of the Catholic Church in Mexico|evangelization of Mexico]]]]

The movement of people between New and Old Worlds caused cultural exchanges, extending to what Pieter Emmer has called "a clash of cultures".<ref name="Emmer 2003"/> This involved the transfer of European values to Indigenous cultures, such as the concept of [[private property]] in regions where property was often viewed as communal, universal [[monogamy]] (though many Indigenous peoples were already monogamous), the role of women and children in the social system, and different concepts of labor, including slavery.<ref name="Emmer 2003">{{cite journal |last=Emmer |first=Pieter |title=The Myth of Early Globalization: The Atlantic Economy, 1500–1800 |journal=European Review |volume=11 |issue=1 |date=February 2003 |pages=37–47 |doi=10.1017/S106279870300005X }}</ref> Christianity was brought to the Indigenous peoples by priests and monks from Europe.<ref name="Christensen 2024">{{cite web |last1=Christensen |first1=Mark |title=Columbian Exchange |url=https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/columbian-exchange |publisher=[[Bill of Rights Institute]] |access-date=3 October 2024}}</ref> [[Tobacco]] was used in the Old World as medicine and currency,<ref name="Nunn Qian 2010"/> while in the New World, it was the subject of religious customs.<ref name="Nunn Qian 2010"/> Some New World peoples such as the [[Mapuche]] of [[Araucanía (historic region)|Araucania]] [[Resistance through culture|resisted the adoption]] of Spanish technology, holding to [[Mapuche religion|their ancestral customs]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Dillehy |first=Tom |title=Reflections on Araucanian/Mapuche Resilience, Independence, and Ethnomorphosis in Colonial (and Present-day) Chile |journal=Chungará (Arica) |date=2016 |volume=48 |issue=4 |url=https://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0717-73562016000400013&script=sci_arttext |access-date=27 April 2024}}</ref> Indigenous people have often been seen as static recipients of transatlantic encounters, but thousands of Native Americans crossed the ocean during the sixteenth century, some by choice.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Pennock |first=Caroline |date=2020-06-01 |title=Aztecs Abroad? Uncovering the Early Indigenous Atlantic |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhaa237 |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=125 |issue=3 |pages=787–814 |doi=10.1093/ahr/rhaa237}}</ref>

=== Atlantic slave trade ===

{{further|Atlantic slave trade}}

[[File:1670 virginia tobacco slaves.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|A depiction of slaves working at a [[slave plantation|plantation]] in [[Virginia]], 1670]]

The Atlantic slave trade consisted of the involuntary immigration of 11.7&nbsp;million Africans, primarily from West Africa, to the Americas between the 16th and 19th centuries, far outnumbering the about 3.4&nbsp;million Europeans who migrated, most voluntarily, to the New World between 1492 and 1840.{{sfn|Mann|2011|page=286}} The prevalence of African slaves in the New World was related to the demographic decline of New World peoples and the need of European colonists for labor. Another reason for the demand for slaves was the cultivation of crops such as sugar cane suitable for the climatic conditions of the new lands.{{sfn|Nunn|Qian|2010|page=181}} The Africans were less likely to die, too, from those diseases that had been brought to the New World.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Gates |first1=Louis |title=100 Amazing Facts About the Negro |url=http://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/how-many-slaves-landed-in-the-us/ |website=PBS |date=January 2, 2013 |publisher=WNET |access-date=25 October 2018}}</ref> Enslaved Africans helped shape an emerging African-American culture in the New World. They participated in both skilled and unskilled labor. For example,<!-- according to the work of [[James L. Watson (anthropologist)|James L. Watson]],--> slaves were involved in handicraft production. They could also work as ordinary workers, and as managers of small enterprises in the commercial or industrial sphere.<ref>{{cite book |last=Watson |first=James L. |author1-link=James L. Watson (anthropologist) |title=Asian and African Systems of Slavery |year=1980 |publisher=Basil Blackwell |location=University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California |pages=34}}</ref> Their descendants gradually developed an ethnicity that drew from the numerous African tribes as well as European nationalities.<ref name="Carney">{{cite book |last=Carney |first=Judith |title=Black Rice |url=https://archive.org/details/blackriceafrican00carn |url-access=registration |date=2001 |publisher=Harvard University Press |pages=[https://archive.org/details/blackriceafrican00carn/page/2 2–8]}}</ref>{{sfn|Nunn|Qian|2010|page=181}} The descendants of African slaves make up a majority of the population in some Caribbean countries, notably [[Haiti]] and [[Jamaica]], and a sizeable minority in most American countries.{{sfn|Nunn|Qian|2010|page=183}}