Page 37 - Encyclopedia Of World History

columbian exchange 387

Honor sinks where commerce long prevails. • Oliver Goldsmith (1749–1832)

most influential of which was the Old World anthropoid includes smallpox, measles, influenza, malaria, yellow
Homo sapiens. Thereafter the peoples of the Old World fever, and typhus. Pre-Columbian Amerindians had tuber-
and the Americas evolved separately. The genetic differ- culosis and treponematosis (having probably brought the
ences that resulted were minor, but the cultural differ- latter with them from the Old World) and cultivated, un-
ences were major because the two peoples took different intentionally, new infections in America, including Cha-
paths in exploiting their different environments. gas Disease, but their indigenous diseases were few and
Both invented agriculture—that is, the domestication mild compared with those native to the Old World.
of crops and of livestock—but two very different systems (Syphilis is often nominated as a distinctively American
of agriculture. The Native Americans probably arrived infection, but that is debatable.)
from Asia with the dog and were therefore familiar with When Christopher Columbus brought the Old and
the concept of tame animals, but domesticated few crea- New Worlds together in 1492, he unleashed the organ-
tures in America, possibly because there were few suit- isms of each on the other. The most spectacular early
able. Those they domesticated included the llama and result of the intermixing was the traumatic spread of East-
alpaca, the guinea pig, and several species of fowl. The ern Hemisphere infections among the Native Americans.
Native Americans excelled as farmers, developing one- The European conquest of the Americas was not so
third or so of all of today’s most important food crops: much a matter of brutality, though there was plenty of
maize, beans of several kinds, the white and sweet pota- that, as of imported diseases. Smallpox figures signifi-
toes, manioc (cassava), squashes and pumpkins, peanuts, cantly in the Spanish conquests of Mexico and Peru, and
papayas, guavas, avocados, pineapples, tomatoes, chilies, again and again throughout the Americas. The Native
sunflower seeds, and others. American population fell by as much, claim highly re-
Not surprisingly, Old World indigenes, of whom there spected demographic historians, as 90 percent before be-
were many more than Native Americans and who lived ginning recovery.
in a wider expanse of land and participated in a greater On the other hand, Old World plants and animals
variety of ecosystems, domesticated more kinds of ani- immensely increased the capacity of America to support
mals and plants. Horses, donkeys, cattle, pigs, sheep, in time large human populations. Horses, pigs, and cat-
goats, chickens (today’s protagonists of our barnyards tle, for instance, went feral from Florida to the Argentine
and meadows and our chief sources of meat, milk, pampa and within a century had propagated into the mil-
leather, and animal fiber) are all Old World in origin.The lions. Old World livestock revolutionized human life and
same is true of wheat, barley, rye, oats, rice, peas, turnips, whole ecosystems in the Americas. Meat had been a rare
sugarcane, onions, lettuce, olives, bananas, peaches, item in the diets of the vast peasantries of the advanced
pears, and many other stock items of our diets today. Amerindian societies. After the Columbian Exchange it
became common in many regions and in the others, if
Separation of the Old and not common, at least more available than before.
New Worlds: Disease There had been no beasts of burden in the Americas
The Old World outdid the New as a source of infectious except the dog and the llama. The pyramids and other
diseases, too. The bigger number of people in a greater monuments of the high American civilizations were raised
variety of ecosystems were bound to have a greater vari- by human muscle. If the burro had been the only domes-
ety of diseases, especially because they lived in close con- ticated animal brought to Mexico by the invaders, it alone
tact with their livestock. The intermixing of Old World would have revolutionized indigenous societies there.
humans across Eurasia and Africa, and their propinquity The impact of the horse on Native American societies
with their animals, produced many of the historically was particularly spectacular. Many Amerindians who
most significant diseases.An undoubtedly incomplete list had been strictly pedestrian became equestrian. From