“A Patchwork Columbian Exchange: Ecological Imperialism, Animals, and the Relaciones Geográficas of New Spain,” by Associate Professor of History Mackenzie Cooley, was recently published in the Renaissance Society of America journal Renaissance Quarterly.
According to Cooley, the article rethinks Alfred Crosby’s Columbian exchange, “the well-known concept describing the global movement of plants, animals, and diseases after 1492.” Drawing on 16th-century surveys from colonial Mexico to show that environmental change did not happen everywhere in the same way, but unfolded unevenly across different local landscapes. She argues that colonial environments were “patchworks” shaped by climate, animals, and Indigenous knowledge, challenging the idea that European ecological transformation was total or uniform.
Cooley says this “research highlights how Indigenous knowledge and local decision-making shaped colonial environments” and “offers a new way to think about environmental history, colonialism, and the origins of today’s ecological challenges.”
Posted January 9, 2026
