The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492

The Antilles are islands of the Caribbean Sea. They are divided into the Greater and Lesser Antilles, with the former including the larger Caribbean islands such as Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and Cuba. The Lesser Antilles is comprised of smaller islands like the Bahamas. Christopher Columbus first landed there in 1492, and he returned to the islands three more times. He left behind Spanish colonists who exploited the people and resources of the islands, and Columbus engaged in brutal treatment of Indigenous people. He enslaved some of the subjects he governed there on behalf of the Spanish crown, and his own journal writings attest to his exploitation of them. The Antilles were the first region of the Americas to be harmed by European colonization.

The Arawaks are Caribbean and South American Indigenous people, like the Taínos, whom Columbus encountered when he first landed in the Americas. European colonization devastated Arawak populations. Before Crosby’s publication, most historians identified Spanish maltreatment for their near destruction. The Arawaks certainly faced exploitation and brutality at the hands of their European colonizers, but Crosby argues that their decimation was the result of numerous European diseases to which they were exposed and against which they had no immunity.