Written for Dustin Madari's AP World History course at Murray County High School, May 12, 2010. © 2010 Jackson David Reynolds – All Rights Reserved.

1. Socioeconomic Transformations in the Atlantic World from 1492-1750 CE
Due to New Contact Among Members of the Columbian Exchange
Jackson David Reynolds
May 12, 2010
AP World History
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2. The Atlantic, previously having been a predominantly dormant ocean, erupted with a
flurry of activity during the latter portion of the 15th century CE with the first voyages of
Christopher Columbus. With these came an onslaught of intercontinental trade, beginning,
obviously, with the Columbian exchange in the early 1500s CE. The expanse of time between
1492-1750 CE brought to all Atlantic shores what is debatably the greatest relative
transformation ever undergone by this region of the globe. In addition to the original bout of
explosive growth felt by Africa, Western Europe, and the Americas, the socioeconomic
ramifications of such were soon mutually experienced on all sides, if not in different ways. As
the practice of cash-cropping on a large scale took root, the need for slave labor increased
significantly across the board, this seamlessly facilitating a rich cultural amalgamation, the likes
of which never before been seen in the Americas. Within this particular period of time, the
enumerable cultures of the African, European, and American peoples desperately clung to their
own mores and practices, even in the instance of African enslavement. This, to me, brings up one
of the most interesting ways in which multiple social continuities have transpired throughout a
period of history, while simultaneously being transmogrified by the customs of the society into
which they went forth (or were brought into by force, presumably as the case would have been
for coerced laborers from Africa after being shipped to the Americas to work as slaves).
Without the Columbian Exchange, it is very doubtful that much change at all would have
occurred in the regions bordering the Atlantic during this time period, given that it allowed for,
and was originally, the sole source of non-Indio-Pacific transoceanic collateral dispersal. This
economized redistribution of goods and wealth throughout the West gave rise to marked
alterations throughout Europe, Africa, and the budding Americas. Many of these changes
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3. (especially those pertaining to the financial modifications that took place on both sides of the
Atlantic) are made quite evident by their queer superficiality alone. (For example, the Americas
were involuntarily ushered into the tradeoff between staggering population losses and equally
exponential gains in new crops, commodities, et cetera.) After the initial microbiological shock
of European conquest, the Native American peoples looked on as the dust settled over a very
different economic landscape than the one they had previously navigated as entirely sovereign
and self-sufficient tribal nations. The relatively rapid influx of new goods, crops, and animals
from Europe to the Americas (and vice-versa) caused the two continents to economically
explode. Equitably, the large number of American goods flowing back into Europe (and
eventually western Africa) caused a major shift in the European mindset as well as an even larger
bulge than was already present in the pocketbooks of numerous European royals. With the effects
of silver bullion mining in Spain spidering outward through Europe, Africa, and soon, across the
Atlantic to the New World to a slight extent, the West received yet another hit of economic
amphetamine in its hungrily awaiting veins. The monetary channels that had previously been
restricted by a shortage of resources, lack of new and/or “mysterious” (foreign) products, and the
ever present greed of autocrats, found themselves suddenly dilated enormously by new contacts
and trades amongst Europe, the Americas, and newly-appreciated (if not abjectly exploited)
African continent.
As always, however, one party invariably comes to draw the short end of the stick. In this
particular case, this unfortunate entity took the form of the impoverished denizens of Africa. In
an effort to preserve/expand the economies of their constituencies, many African rulers took
advantage of the rapidly growing new demand for slave laborers in the New World. The
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4. previously discussed J-curve of transcontinental/oceanic financial influx generated a massive
“need” for coerced, inexpensive labor not only in the Americas, but in Europe as well, where the
introduction of new cash crops like corn were being produced on a staggering scale. This
increased demand for slave labor in conjunction with the heinous willingness of many African
leaders to literally sell out their people for personal gain, to me, was one of the major
contributors to the overall European attitude of apathy towards the sickening atrocities occurring
within the slave trade, not only within the triangular trade itself, but additionally in the sugar
plantations of the West Indies and in other areas where African slaves were violent abuse of
African slaves was the horrifying norm.
On top of the transoceanic economic/agricultural boom and the subsequent rise in the
volume of human cargo being greedily ferried across the Atlantic, other, somewhat more subtle
transformations were occurring during this time, as well. Due to the steady flow of newfound
luxuries to Europe, many Europeans found themselves addicted to these newfangled vessels of
hedonism, thus sculpting an entirely new European mindset with respect to the natural moral
desert of luxury items by non-royalty. Across the Atlantic in the Americas, the large-scale
introduction of slave labor began to seed a melting pot (albeit not anything close to our modern,
feel-good, definition of such) of cultures, races, languages, and much more.
While the changes that occurred in the expanse of time between the latter portion of the
15th century CE and the mid 18th century CE were great in quantity, it is important to realize
that even throughout these hemispherical shifts, some specific elements of the involves Atlantic
cultures, social structures, and economies remained largely unaltered. The cultural and ethnic
mixing given a nod at the end of the previous paragraph brings up the interesting way in which
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5. certain parts of each Atlantic culture managed to remain preserved. Renowned zoologist and
evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins refers to these chronologically conserved cultural “data
sets” as “memes”. Dawkins theorizes that memes (defined by Dawkins as “any cultural entity
that an observer might consider a replicator”) present themselves at one point of time in history
and, if widely enough entertained, press on through a process of natural selection by society,
much in the same manner that physical genetic material is subjected to natural and artificial
selective pressures. It is these memetic fragments of culture that I believe constitute the
backbone of the continuities over this time period in the Atlantic. The mix of cultures caused by
the Columbian Exchange as well as slavery in the Americas (and, yes, Europe, also) is just that –
a mix. Even though so many changes couldn’t help but transpire due to the factors previously
detailed, the memes of each distinct social group shone through, remaining remarkably
sequestered from outside influence, and crossing, quite literally, the stormy seas of economic
shift. It is these memes that ever-so-subtly made their presence known (and continue to do so to
this day) in the meshed peoples of the Americas, Africa, and western Europe.
In brief, the Atlantic played host to enormous upheaval and change during the latter half
of the 1st millennia CE, while also (quite involuntarily, and most likely, unknowingly) providing
an ideal environment for the memes of multiple societies and cultures to partially mesh, allowing
for the existence of much of the cultural climate contemporarily present in the modern West.
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