Latin America: Ecological Colonizations

Barbados

Peru

Bolivia

Cuba

Ecuador

Trinidad and Tobago

Guatemala

Argentina

Haiti

Argentina

Argentina

Southern Argentina

Bolivia

Venezuela

Latin America

Features visible from outer space:

Amazon R basin

N-S mountain chain

Landforms of Latin America

oceanic plates subducting

Latin American Landforms:

Highlands

•chain of mountains 10,000 miles long along western edge of American continents

Lowlands•to the east of Highlands •2 exceptions: Guinea Highlands and Brazilian Highlands

Amazon Basin• Earth’s largest expanse of tropical rainforest• 20% of earth’s freshwater• more than 100,000 species of plants and animals• very deep basin so is navigable by large ships

4 Temperature-Altitude Zones

Colonialism and the Columbian Exchange

When people began to travel from the Old World to the New and back, lots of other creatures and plants crossed over the oceans with them.

Some of the items Europeans brought back to Europe from Latin America include...

Corn

Tomatoes

potatoes

As well as:

•manioc

•chocolate (cacao)

•peanuts

•peppers

•pineapples

•cotton

Sheep

And some of the items Europeans brought to Latin America include...

Olives

Bananas

Coffee

Rats

...and a variety of diseases.

As well as:

•rice

•sugarcane

•citrus

•melons

•onions

•apples

•wheat, barley and oats

The Columbian Exchange:

the interchange of crops, animals, people, and diseases between the Old World of Europe and Africa and the New World of the Americas beginning with the voyages of Christopher Columbus in 1492.

People indigenous to Latin America did not have immunity to many European diseases and when they were exposed to such diseases the death rate was high.

A demographic collapse occurred in Latin America around 1500 due to rapid die-off from disease. It is estimated that up to 75% of the population of Latin America died due to epidemics of small pox, influenza and measles.

European colonists turned the abandoned land into pasture for herd animals imported from Europe.

European draft animals like donkeys, horses, mules, and oxen filled in Native American irrigation canals, drained lakes, and plowed complex gardens into single-crop fields.

The exchange of animals and plants also had tremendous effects on landscapes and ecology around the world.

Consider how coffee is now grown in Africa, how tomatoes influenced European cooking, how manioc and maize are now grown in west Africa and how potatoes became so important to Ireland and potato famine caused migration to the U.S., New Zealand, and Australia.

Not to mention the impact of chocolate!

Climate

Precipitation:

•Influence of Trade Winds

•Influence of the Andes

•Antarctic influence on southern Chile

•Peru Current

•Atacama Desert of northern Chile