Seeking a sea route to Asia, Christopher Columbus (sailing for Spain) landed in the Caribbean in 1492. This contact began the Columbian Exchange —a vast transfer of plants, animals, diseases, and people between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. Europeans brought horses, wheat, and sugar; they took back maize, potatoes, and tobacco. Devastating diseases like smallpox wiped out up to 90% of some Native populations.
President Thomas Jefferson purchased the Louisiana Territory (1803) from France for $15 million, doubling U.S. size. He sent Lewis and Clark to explore it to the Pacific. american history beginnings to 1877 myworld interactive
Southern states passed Black Codes to restrict freedoms. Sharecropping trapped many Black families and poor whites in debt. Violent groups like the Ku Klux Klan terrorized Black voters. Seeking a sea route to Asia, Christopher Columbus