The Columbian Exchange

NOBLE DAVID COOK

The now widely used term “The Columbian Exchange” refers broadly to the biological impact of the linking of the Old and New World following Christopher Columbus's “discovery” of unknown lands midway between Europe and Asia as he sailed westward across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492.

Crosby stressed the most flagrant uneven exchanges as he highlighted the impact of the acute communicable crowd diseases of smallpox and measles that swept away vast numbers of Amerindians. The Columbian Exchange has both positive and negative outcomes. The Agricultural Revolution in the Americas, coming slightly later than that in the Old World, provided a rich biodiversity of consumable plants. Some, such as potatoes, maize (corn), and manioc (yucca), produced substantially greater caloric values per unit of land than Old World staples, thereby contributing to later population growth. Conversely, a greater variety of animals were domesticated in the Old World, and these introductions (cattle, horses, sheep, goats, and pigs being among the most important) had positive as well as negative effects. Similarly, the movement of Europeans, Africans, and Asians to America was part of the ^[111] Columbian Exchange. The biological and cultural consequences of migration and mixing were transformational.

Crosby's contribution was slow to be recognized by professional histor­ians. When the book was published, many major journals failed to review it, and most of the reviews that appeared in professional venues were critical or lukewarm. The practice of history at the time was still dominated by traditional political, biographical, and institutional historians, and Crosby's work failed to fall neatly within any one of these categories. But there were geographers, especially historical geographers, demographers, historians of medicine, and ethnohistorians who were beginning to seriously examine the impact of European overseas expansion. Simultaneously there was a growing interest in the impact of human settlement on the natural ecology. In 1949, American naturalist Aldo Leopold had challenged historians to examine past change with the environment in mind in his A Sand Country Almanac, but his call fell largely on deaf ears.^[112] By contrast in Europe, members of the Annales School, especially as seen in the work of Fernand Braudel and his student Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, stressed the relation between climate and the physical and cultural landscapes as they situated their subjects.^[113] Yet, in the United States there were also beginning to be calls for a rethinking of traditional historical research in order to make it more relevant. Alfred Crosby came of age during a period of intellectual ferment following World War ii and the Cold War. His studies and interests extend widely, from the history of medicine through the gamut of the social and the hard sciences. In a short monograph prepared for the American Historical Association in 1987, Crosby extended the horizons of his original thesis to include what he called the economic, nutritional, and demographic consequences of the exchange.

The Columbian Exchange begins in the first global age, starting in the mid-fifteenth century, and was dominated by Spain and Portugal until the mid-seventeenth century. The cultural foundations were laid in the four­teenth century, particularly in the cities of northern Italy, with Venice, Florence, and Genoa leading the way. The dynamism was based on commerce between northern and central European states and the Levant and even Asia. The excess wealth gave merchant-bankers of the northern Italian city-states immense influence, as patrons of art and architecture and new knowledge. And enough capital could be raised for risky yet highly profitable ventures if they were successful. Such investments led to long­distance trading expeditions, such as that of Marco Polo's family. His text describing the venture and the wealth of China stimulated further commer­cial efforts. His trip, and those of others, contributed to European techno­logical advances. The magnetic needle, a novelty that always pointed the same way, was converted to a compass for seafarers. The stern rudders used on Chinese junks were adopted, and, when built into the ships' hulls, proved to be capable of withstanding the massive storms of the Atlantic Ocean. Gunpowder, used by the Chinese for fireworks, found a military application among the constantly warring European states, and when used in cannons and harquebuses transformed warfare. Placed onboard the merchant ships, the new firepower provided the Europeans with the protection they needed to trade in foreign ports and securely transport the goods home.

To the west, the Iberian Peninsula stood at the crossroads of the Mediter­ranean and Atlantic, Africa, and Europe. Invaded and almost overrun with the expansion of Islam in the eighth century, the small surviving Christian kingdoms began a slow and continuous process of Reconquista that lasted until 1492. Portugal and Spain were among the first European states to consolidate power under a strong monarchy. With a solid population, viable economy, and a large number of mobile young men who had been engaged in warfare, plus a crusading mentality as the result of the long Reconquista, as well as sailing experience in the Atlantic, the Spanish monarchs were amenable to the scheme presented by a persistent Genoese navigator.^[115]

First generation: the initial Columbian Exchange (1492-1516)

In a brief generation in the circum-Caribbean the die was cast. The impact of the first Columbus expedition of 1492-3 was limited. Columbus's intent was reconnaissance; he wished to prove the viability of his proposal that one could reach eastern Asia by sailing westward across the Atlantic. He hoped to establish a route, claim whatever areas he could for the Spanish monarchs he sailed for, find out what was immediately valuable for trade, and weigh possible trade relations with local rulers. The expedition of three small vessels carried food and drink for the crews, as well as goods for gifts and exchange with the peoples they expected to encounter. Although there was hunger and lack of water during the outward voyage, no sickness was reported on the crossing other than for Columbus who frequently com­plained of ill health. Neither was there mention of sickness among the Amerindians the Europeans met on the coasts of the Bahamas, northeastern Cuba or Hispaniola. Yet, the exchanges and transformations that would be experienced throughout the Americas were already well under way.

Of diseases as part of the Columbian Exchange in the initial voyage we have only the possibility of syphilis, a disease caused by the bacterium Treponema pallidum, responsible for both venereal and non-venereal forms.

There were other exchanges initiated during the first Columbus exped­ition. The Europeans gave gifts, bartered for or stole a variety of plants, animals, and minerals in the Antilles and brought them to Europe to prove the potential that existed. They included parrots, feathers, cotton cloth, probably the pineapple, tobacco, rubber, and a dozen Lucayo (Bahamian) and Taino (from Hispaniola) boys, to display to doubters and to train as translators for the return.

After the Columbus expedition reached the port of Palos on 15 March 1493, news of the discovery and the promise of gold and wealth spread quickly, inflaming the hopes of many restless men. Suddenly a new possibility of becoming rich in lands to the west, only a few weeks away, seemed a reality. Columbus had no difficulty in finding adventurers for his second expedition. They flocked to join, from all elements of society: hidalgos with military equipment, farmers with their implements and seeds, artisans with their tools, miners, and merchants. There were physicians and clergy as well. Quickly they amassed and packed seventeen ships with 1,500 mostly men and sailed from Cadiz on 25 September 1493. In the first week of October they reached the Canary Islands, checked the ships, made needed repairs, and took on additional food (including eight sows) and water for the voyage. A document remains with the list of the plants and animals brought on the second voyage: horses, mares, mules, pigs, goats, sheep, all kinds of other animals, wheat, oats, and various types of trees and fruits.^[117]

With favorable winds and currents, the westward passage to the Lesser Antilles was swift, as they sighted the first island on 3 November. At this juncture some ships stopped off for food, water, and supplies and to conduct quick reconnaissance at several of the islands as they sailed in the general direction of Hispaniola. There are few records of these initial encounters, but evidence becomes more detailed around 28 November as the ships reached the northern coast of Hispaniola. Thanks to the recent discovery of the Relacion del segundo viaje, the account of the second voyage prepared by Christopher Columbus that covers the period 1493 to 1496, we have a better understanding of conditions on the island than we did a generation ago.^[118] Almost the moment the voyagers set foot on the coast, they began to experience hunger and sickness, and the situation did not appear to be good for the native islanders either. The question is why? The Europeans had brought just enough food and drink for the voyage, with little to spare. They needed to nurture and protect the precious few animals and seed crops they had transported until they could establish root and prosper on American soil. These could not be consumed, although some in desperation did, creating persistent problems. The option for Europeans was to tap the local resources. The large numbers of conucos (cultivated agricultural plots) seemed ample at first for both the 1,500 Old World invaders and the hundreds of thousands of Tainos. But the Spaniards were more interested in a headlong search for gold, promised as they joined the expedition. Uncontrollable, they swept over the island, brutally forcing the Taino to serve them, and then torturing them to take them to the elusive source of the gold.

The first months of the encounter were disastrous for both the Europeans and the island residents. Normal subsistence activities were disrupted, resources were wasted or despoiled, and the Spanish began to starve, with the Taino facing hunger as well. The Spanish had little stomach for the new food, and as the wine they had brought disappeared, they drank the water, filled with parasites they had no resistance to. Diarrhea, cramps, dehydration, emaciation, and fatigue combined to make those initial weeks not only memorable, but also deadly for many of the invaders. Within two years around two-thirds of the outsiders had succumbed to the Caribbean environ­ment, so alien to the Europeans. In this weakened state, they were suscep­tible to the various Old World diseases they may have transported with them. Those already suffering from malaria, endemic in Andalucia, were less likely to survive the challenge of old and new pathogens. Those who did survive the “greening” process in the early decades in the Caribbean formed the core of active participants in the conquest of the Amerindian empires on the mainland.

The Taino simultaneously faced the impact of the invaders and the pathogens they carried. We do know that their numbers fell precipitously. Of a dense aboriginal population of the island of Hispaniola, there remained only a handful a quarter century after 1492. We do not know the exact number at contact, for the documentation is sparse and subject to various interpretations. There is a wide range of estimates, from Vcrlindcn's low of 60,000 to Borah and Sherburne F. Cook's impossible 7,975,000. It is most likely that the number was between 200,000 and 750,000. Historical demog­rapher Massimo Livi Bacci posited 200,000 to 300,000, but he found little evidence of epidemic disease in the initial generation yet several contempor­ary witnesses attested to the presence of illnesses. Historian Frank Moya Pons, who has spent his life studying Hispaniola's past, has provided a measured range of from 377,000 to 600,000. Some Taino were killed outright in the chaotic first years, others died of starvation as their crops were destroyed by the invaders and their animals, and more succumbed to forced heavy labor. Sicknesses played a role as well. Medical historian Francisco Guerra suggests that influenza was introduced in the Caribbean by pigs on the second expedition. Guerra and others also believe that typhus was brought early. Malaria may have been introduced, but it is unclear if there was an American mosquito vector. The first well-documented smallpox epidemic hit the Caribbean in 1518, yet it might have come earlier. Smallpox was present in Andalucia when the 1493 fleet sailed, and there were young people aboard who might have been infected but did not yet know this. It is conceivable that they passed it to others on the journey and thus introduced it to Hispaniola as they disembarked, but there is no record of this. Of the dozen young male Taino and Lucayo carried to Spain on Columbus's return, six or seven were taken from Seville to the court in Barcelona for display and to train as translators for the return to the Caribbean. Columbus wrote in the recently discovered Relacion del segundo viaje that “I put ashore [in Samana on

Hispaniola's northeast coast] one of the four Indians that I had taken from there last year, who had not died as the others from smallpox on the departure from Cadiz.”^[119] It is possible the smallpox virus came with the fleet and passed in a chain of infection between susceptible young men until they landed on Hispaniola in 1493. Whether it did or not, smallpox reached the Antilles a generation later, in December 1518. That well-documented epi­demic swept away most of the remaining Taino and quickly spread to the mainland, contributing to the Spanish conquest of Amerindian states whose populations dwarfed the number of invaders.

Disease

The Columbian Exchange resulted in the transfer of Old World diseases to the Americas, and vice versa. The time of arrival of the diseases varied depending on the nature of the disease and the mode of transmission. The diseases arriving soonest were those that existed in active or latent form in the victims and could be passed by close contact, by touch, breath, or cuts that permitted blood to blood contact between individuals. Syphilis, smallpox, measles, and typhus were the principal Old World diseases dis­cussed by Crosby, but others were transferred as well. They include bubonic and pneumonic plague, malaria, mumps, scarlet fever, whooping cough, and typhoid fever. Precise dating of the appearance of each of these diseases is difficult. Yellow fever in epidemic form first appeared in the Caribbean in the 1640s and cholera in the 1830s. Chagas's disease, Oroya fever, and verruga peruana were New World diseases that did not transfer as easily. But there were several diseases with variants in both hemispheres: tuberculosis, syph­ilis, leishmaniasis, and hemorrhagic fevers.

Smallpox and measles, diseases spread by direct human contact, by air or touch, did the first damage. Despite being childhood diseases in the Old World with relatively modest mortality, both took a heavy toll when they erupted in areas in which there had been no prior exposure. Measles for example took up to 30 percent and smallpox 50 percent or more of those in populations that had not been previously exposed. Even Old World

populations living in areas that escaped these two diseases for a generation or more experienced high levels of morbidity and mortality similar to Amer­indians. Old World residents were not genetically protected from the killers, but those living in areas with frequent outbreaks had the protection of an acquired immunity. Sixteenth century Spanish physicians were generally able to identify both by their symptoms and the nature of the progression of the disease, although mistakes in identification of measles frequently occurred, because a skin rash often develops in various infections with high fevers.¹⁰

The Spanish also mention disease outbreaks in America that seem to be symptoms of diphtheria, mumps, and scarlet fever. Both are passed normally by close contact, by touch or cough, although scarlet fever can be carried also in infected milk. Scarlet fever is caused by group A hemolytic streptococci, diphtheria by Corynebacteria diptheriae, and mumps by a virus. In the pre­modern period it was almost impossible to distinguish them from one another, since all involved high fevers, general malaise, and soreness and swelling of the throat. But in the case of diphtheria the throat and neck could become so enlarged that victims could suffocate. In the case of scarlet fever the throat pain is severe, there are intense headaches, and a rash appears after three days. The wide distribution of related streptococci and bacteria that produce similar symptoms in infected human populations is a challenge for historical epidemiologists.

Diseases carried by insect vectors such as typhus, the plague, malaria, and yellow fever also exacted high mortality. Old World migrants to the Amer­icas were also susceptible to these diseases, and many died, although their mortality rate was lower for a variety of reasons. Although infected individ­uals carrying the arthropod vectored diseases periodically arrived from the Old World, the evolution of outbreaks in the New depended on the avail­ability of the preferred hosts to maintain a disease reservoir. In the case of malaria, the preferred mosquito carrier is the anopheles, with several species capable of transmitting it. There are three distinct strains of the malaria plasmodium: The most deadly is the P. falciparum, with intermittent, daily chills, prostration, and death. P. vivax is responsible for the “tercian malaria” with fevers every three days, and P. malariae, the quartan variety, with fevers coming every four days. Many people survive these lesser forms, but the result is a weakened population. Given the fact that malaria was common in the Mediterranean region, it likely arrived with infected passengers and

1^o Kenneth F. Kiple (ed.), The Cambridge World History of Human Disease (Cambridge University Press, 1993).

Table 5.1. Viral, bacterial, and protozoal agents introduced to the Americas*

*From Ann Ramenofsky, “Diseases of the Americas, 1492-1700,” in Kiple, World History of Human Disease, p. 324.

mosquitos traveling on the second Columbus fleet. It did not take long to spread through the circum-Caribbean, and its major ports of Cartagena, Nombre de Dios, Veracruz, and Havana became centers for its spread (Table 5.1).¹¹

Yellow fever, a viral disease, is also carried by a preferred mosquito host, the Aedes aegypti. Found in the tropics, it can extend its range well into temperate climate in warm, humid summer months. At onset the patient is lethargic, feverish, with a slow pulse, and ultimately jaundiced, hence the “yellow” fever label. Vomiting of almost black blood often signals impending death. It is endemic in much of tropical Africa, and weakens those who have it. Mortality varies widely, but is highest when it is in epidemic form in urban areas. Although it was surely introduced in the Americas early, the first well- documented outbreaks occurred in the Caribbean in the 1640s. Gradually extending into the temperate coasts of North America, yellow fever was much feared and deadly during the late summer months well through the nineteenth century.

Epidemic typhus was common in early modern Europe, and was espe­cially deadly in times of war, as urban dwellers or troops were housed in close quarters with inadequate food and unsanitary conditions. Transmitted by the body louse, Pendiculus humanus, the pathogen, Rickettsia prowazekii enters the human body through skin abrasions. Symptoms include fevers, ^[120] headache, malaise, and a rash after four to six days. If fevers are high and continue for over fourteen days there is generally delirium, followed by a coma, and death. Mortality rates are relatively low for children at 5 percent, and highest for the elderly, up to 50 percent. The rash could be confused with measles, but the more elevated reddish spots and their location on the middle of the body were seen by Spanish physicians to signal typhus, or tabardillo as they called it after a sleeveless cloak, or tabard. The troops during the final stage of the Reconquista, the war in Granada, experienced typhus in epidemic form, and many of these fighters were on the second Columbus fleet, just two years later. Some have suggested typhus was introduced into Hispaniola at this time, but given the Taino habit of little clothing and frequent bathing, it is not likely to have led to a major epidemic. But it did reach mainland Mexico as early as the Hernan Cortes conquest. There are reported epidemics in temperate highland Mexico and the Andes of South America in the mid-1540s, and it would reappear periodically, with a mortality of 5-20 percent in a healthy adult population.¹²

The most feared disease for the Europeans, from the time of its appear­ance in the mid-fourteenth century, was the plague, in bubonic or pneu­monic form. The plague (Yersinia pestis) is carried by a rat flea (Xenopsylla cheopis) and, when bitten, the human victim, after the incubation period, will display swollen lymph nodes varying in size from walnuts to softballs, which can be deadly if septicemia sets in. The word “bubonic” comes from the Greek word for these swellings. In the two to three years after it appeared in 1346, mortality in Italy ranged from one-third to half of the population, with urban centers usually having the heaviest death toll. It spared few sections of Europe in its inexorable spread, and sporadic outbreaks occurred for the next three centuries. There were periodic outbreaks in Seville, the major center for the Atlantic trade for the first century and a half after Columbus. Sevillian physicians described in detail the symptoms, leaving no doubt about its identification. The 1649 epidemic was one of the deadliest, with over half of the population extinguished. In its pneumonic form the disease is passed to another person by sputum, cough or touch and goes directly to the lungs; after a short incubation the temperature falls, there are intense coughs, then blood from the lungs and death. The mortality rate from pneumonic plague is close to 100 percent. Smallpox and typhus in hemorrhagic form mimic

Cook and Lovell, “Unraveling the Web of Disease,” in Cook and Lovell, “Secret Judgments of God,” pp. 225-7.

Table 5.2. Major New World epidemics, 1493-1600*

*Based on Cook, Born to Die, p. 132.

pneumonic plague, making accurate diagnosis in the era before modern medicine speculative (Table 5.2).^[121]

The consequence of the introduction and subsequent reintroduction of these disease pathogens was a rapid decline in Amerindian populations. Smallpox decimated the remnants of Hispaniola's Taino population in 1518, and when the pandemic swept central Mexico in the next years it contributed directly to the Spanish victory over the Aztecs. In the Andes of South America disease killed the Inca ruler Huayna Capac, setting off fratricidal conflict that led to the ease of Spanish conquest. It is impossible to determine how far from the original centers of infection smallpox extended during the pandemic. On the one hand, native trade networks served as a conduit for wide coverage; on the other, entire regions escaped. Where smallpox did most damage, 30 to 50 percent of victims succumbed. Fresh disease introduc­tions compounded the damage: Measles raged from Mesoamerica to the Andes in the early 1530s, and again from 1557-64. Typhus and perhaps pneumonic plague swept both regions in 1545-8. There were periodic out­breaks of malaria, influenza, and mumps. The most devastating crisis occurred when several disease outbreaks coincided, as in 1576-81 in Meso­america and 1585-91 in the Andean region. Historians have adequate parish and census records, beginning in the 1570s, to measure the impact of succes­sive waves of high mortality. Children and the elderly suffered most, and the number of children who reached reproductive age was insufficient to grow the population, or even to maintain stability. It would not be until the mid to late seventeenth century, as the epidemics settled into an endemic pattern and were regularly experienced, that the Amerindian populations began their increase. In the meantime, small populations, especially in hot, humid zones, were among the most vulnerable, especially as a majority of the people fell ill and no one was available to provide the care needed to bring the stricken back to health. Fear of those not infected often led to flight, making the spread of the infection more rapid. Areas with dense populations in cooler, more temperate climates suffered less. In some places entire ethnic entities almost disappeared; in more fortunate ones declines were less catastrophic (Table 5.3).¹⁴

Plants

Old World plants preferred by the Europeans took slow and tenuous root in the Caribbean islands. The weather was too hot and humid for the temperate

1 ⁴ Cook and Lovell, “Secret Judgments of God,” and Kiple, Cambridge World History of Human Disease.

Table 5.3. Major regional New World epidemics, 1600-1650*

*Cook, Born to Die, pp. 168, 170, 191, 193.

climate grains to prosper. Similarly the fruit trees - apples, pears, plums, and cherries that require cold winter temperatures for the best results - failed to take hold. Cabbage, carrots, radishes, and green peas also generally failed. But the Old World rice, chickpeas, and onions did survive in the Caribbean and on the mainland of America as well. Because of the heavy labor investment to produce it, rice did not become an American staple for many decades.

Although the Taino had a rich and varied diet, Spanish food preferences were fixed, and it took some time before they willingly ate American foods, let alone acquired a taste for them and adopted them. Wheat was the preferred staple, but it was not until the conquest and settlement of Mexico in the 1520s that its introduction and consumption was assured, thanks to the temperate climate of the central plateau. Similar introduction of the staple grain took place in the Rio de la Plata and the temperate valleys in Andean South America, with ideal ecological niches ranging from Colombia to Chile, beginning in the mid-1530s. In most cases, the individuals responsible for the first introduction of the grain, often women, became cultural heroes. In Peru Maria Escobar and Ines Munoz share in the attribution. Both were widows of important and wealthy encomenderos - men who had received grants of native tributaries from the Spanish crown - and both quickly remarried to rich husbands. Both had received sacks of grain from Spain around 1537-41, and had distributed and saw to its planting. Ines Munoz was also credited with the introduction of olive trees, thanks to her second husband Antonio de Rivera, who brought three young trees from Spain as a gift to his wife.¹⁵ In the case of Mexico the person who claimed in his service report to the Crown to have planted the first wheat some time between 1521 and 1523 was the Black African Juan Garrido, a former slave who had been freed for his military service. Garrido had participated in the conquests of Cuba and Puerto Rico, and the discovery of Florida, before he joined Hernan Cortes's conquest of Mexico.¹⁶ Mexican wheat was soon exported to settlers in tropical regions for making bread. Havana for example received shipments for the annual fleet returning to Europe, for the sustenance of soldiers in the fort, and for the support of the military outpost of St. Augustine, Florida. By the second half of the sixteenth century wheat was grown by European settlers in many regions of temperate America, including Argentina, where it was introduced along with barley.1⁷

The other elements of the Mediterranean food triad, olives for oil and grapes for the production of wine, were also introduced, took root, and finally bore fruit predominantly in the temperate and Mediterranean climate zones in the Americas. Both of these plants required several years before the trees and vines were mature and ready for harvest and subsequent processing. For decades Spanish producers of olive oil and wine, and the merchants in Seville, profited by exporting to supply the growing American market. The royal treasury also profited from the duties, but when New World production began to threaten Spanish exports, the Crown issued regulations prohibiting or limiting severely American competition.

In his report of the second voyage, Columbus noted prophetically that sugar cane should be planted, as it would be highly productive. Sugar cane thrived in the climate of rich soil, heavy seasonal rainfall, and warm tem­peratures, and in spite of the heavy labor needed for production, the already existing strong European market for sugar was ample incentive for investing. Within a generation it was transforming the island with an increasing number of sugar mills. Hispaniola became an economically viable exporter by 1520, and the island quickly replaced the Canary Islands as the major source for the Spanish sugar trade. Sugar also transformed the demography. Sugar was labor intensive and, with the rapid decline of the native popula­tion, the importation of African slaves accelerated. The destructive sugar economy not only required heavy manpower, it also consumed a vast number of trees needed for carbon for the sugar processing. Lumber was also needed for the homes of settlers, for storage facilities, and furniture, plus ship repair. The demand resulted in rapid deforestation of Hispaniola, and many other islands. By 1650 the ecological landscape of the islands would have been almost unrecognizable for the original Taino.¹⁸ Sugar soon expanded beyond Hispaniola. The Portuguese first had a tenuous hold on the coast of Brazil with little of economic value save for dyewoods, but in 1550 replaced this with a proprietary structure of governance by a royal governor and introduced sugar, which set the stage for success. Sugar production based on African slave labor was the economic foundation for their permanent presence on the South American mainland.¹⁹

Because ships leaving Spain for the Indies were required to include detailed records of what was loaded aboard for the voyage and potential planting in the new lands, we can trace the travel of foodstuffs westward. Similar documenta­tion was not required for eastward voyages, but we know that food for the mariners and passengers returning to the Old World included some American products. Since the annual treasure fleet departing the Caribbean congregated

1 ⁸ Alejandro de la Fuente, Havana and the Atlantic in the Sixteenth Century (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), and Carl Ortwin Sauer, The Early Spanish Main (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1966).

1 ⁹ Sidney W. Mintz, Sweetness and Power: the Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York: Penguin Books, 1986). in Havana to prepare the Atlantic crossing, it was there that many of the victuals were loaded. The Atlantic return averaged six to eight weeks,^[122] so it was important to have a mix of some fresh fruits and vegetables if possible, as well as foods that could be stored dry. Tomatoes can be picked green and ripened during storage, as can some other items such as pineapples and avocados. Manioc, maize, and potatoes (sweet) were clear possibilities, as were dried beans, fruits, and nuts. Via its port of Veracruz, Mexico was a main supplier of wheat flour for bread or bizcocho (hardtack). Most passengers returning to Europe were acclimated to American foods, and although they may have had a preference for the food of their homeland, they could survive eating New World staples on the return voyage. Given the high productivity of some of the American staple crops, some travelers must have recognized the potential commercial value of producing them in Europe, if the plants could prosper in the Old World soils and climate. Maize, in small amounts, was grown in Castile as early as 1498, at least according to Columbus. And by the mid-sixteenth century it was planted in small parcels not only elsewhere in Spain but also in parts of Italy. Acceptance of maize was somewhat slow in Europe, but by 1650 it was in France. Because its growing season was much shorter than that of wheat and it produced substantially more caloric value per unit of arable land, maize soon became one of the foods for commoners as well as for livestock.

Similarly the New World potato was transported to Europe. By the 1570s there are records of the production of Andean potatoes in Malaga, and by the 1580s they were seen as a source of sustenance when the wheat crops failed as a result of disease, drought, flood, or pest infestations. The acceptance of the potato in Europe was a slow process, with sharp regional variations in its adoption, and it was viewed alternatively as an aphrodisiac or a cause of leprosy, among other things. Maize was adopted more quickly in sub­Saharan Africa than in Europe, in warm areas of ample rainfall. American sweet potatoes and manioc were soon accepted as a food in Africa as well, as knowledge of their use spread outward from the Portuguese trading posts into the interior. Peanuts were also planted and harvested, and via Spanish and Portuguese trade they became popular along the Asian Pacific rim.^[123]

Although Europeans were relatively slow to adopt American foods, they assiduously collected, catalogued them, and sent samples along with their seeds back to Spain. Hernando Colon, Christopher Columbus's son, filled the garden plot of his house in Seville with hundreds of American plants. Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo (1478-1557) traveled to the Indies nine times, and wrote numerous texts on the natural and human environment. He likely started writing his Sumario de la natural historia de las Indias (Toledo, 1526) and a much more extensive history in 1514. The first volume of his longer general history (Historiageneral...) was published in Seville in 1535. In the Sumario he described in detail maize and the way Amerindians made it into “bread.” Oviedo also described how yucca had to be prepared to extract the poison. He also wrote about the American animal world, from birds to the giant edible hutias of Hispaniola that reminded the Spaniards of rats. From anteaters to insects, the descriptions continued. Mamey, gunabano, guayaba, coconuts and other fruits and nuts were covered. Oviedo also dealt with medicinal plants and their preparation and use. One American plant, the guaiacum called the palo santo in Spain and Holy Wood by the English, became a common treatment for syphilis. Oviedo's book was quickly translated and published in English, French, Italian, and Latin. Another of the most important works was that of Dr. Francisco Hernandez (1513-87), who was sent to Mexico in 1570 to system­atically study plants, especially medicinal, of the Nahua. During the next seven years he identified and described over 3,000 unknown plants. His multi­volume manuscript that included paintings was sent to Philip ii and was consulted for decades by others. Other similar compendiums appeared. One of the best was Jesuit Jose de Acosta's Historia moral y natural de las Indias, which was published in 1590, and translated into English in 1604. The speed of acceptance of American foods varied, depending on multiple factors. Pine­apples, easy to grow and transport, and sweet, juicy, and flavorful, were relished, as can be noted in still-life paintings of the period.^[124]

By the 1530s small test plots were planted, especially for medicinal plants, in order to evaluate their use. The value of undiscovered medicines was well recognized. Royal physician Dr. Alvarez Chanca was sent by Queen Isabel on Columbus's second expedition. His primary assignment after seeing to the health of the expeditionaries was to search for potential cures for disease. Profits coming from the sale of successful ones could be enormous. Horti- culturalist Simon de Tovar published his Hispalensium pharmacapoliorum recognitio in 1587, and kept an extensive collection of medicinal plants and herbs that was important enough for Philip ιι to order it placed under continued care after Tovar's 1597 death. Famed Sevillian Dr. Nicolas Mon- ardes had established a garden filled with American medicinal plants by mid­century; in 1565 he published his important text, Historia medicinal de las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias Occidentales que sirven en medicina, and in 1574 he published an expanded edition of this massive work. The book covers tens of dozens of usable plants, such as sarsaparilla, tobacco, and sassafras that were viewed as a treatment for a variety of ailments. Guaiacum promised to be a cure for syphilis, a false hope. Monardes' text was rapidly translated and published in Latin, Italian, and English and re-issued in Spanish in 1579. Jesuit Agustino Salumbrino, a trained pharmacist, was interested in native cures and noted that the Quechua in the Andes used the bark of a tree to control the effects of fevers. Fellow Jesuit Bernabe Cobo (1582-1657) may have introduced it on his return to Europe around 1638. Quinine can be extracted from the bark and it reportedly controlled dangerous malarial fevers. The scientific genus (Cinchona) of the tree assigned by eighteenth-century biolo­gist Linneus was based on its successful use to treat the wife of the Peruvian viceroy, the Countess of Chinchon. Originally called “Jesuit Bark,” the quinine extracted was soon viewed as the only effective treatment to control malaria. Its introduction into all world regions where malaria was endemic was another positive consequence of the Columbian Exchange.

Tobacco was another plant of the Columbian Exchange, and was soon harvested and prepared for sale in markets of Europe, Asia, and Africa (Figure 5.1). The Spaniards initially noted tobacco's widespread use in indigen­ous medicine, and in their tests the leaf proved to have some important medicinal qualities. Just over a century later, in the 1620s, the English discovered tobacco production and sale were the only ways to make their Virginia settle­ment viable, since they found nothing else they could successfully produce. For them, and their buyers, the enjoyment and good feeling that the nicotine in tobacco provided as it was smoked were more important than its medical properties, and led to its popularity and ultimately to addiction (Table 5.4).^[125]

Figure 5.1: Tobacco plant, in an English translation of Nicolas Monardes' work, “News of the New-Found Worlde,” 1596

Table 5.4. Origins of the most important domesticated plants. The list is incomplete and includes only better known and widely used products*

Old World plants

wheat barley rye rice oats millet sorghum okra

yams lettuce cabbage kohlrabi carrots beans

peas chickpeas black-eyed peas onions apples pears plums apricots walnuts citrus (oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruit) bananas ^figs dates

sesame

sugar cane coffee beans tea cotton

New World plants

corn (maize) potatoes quinua canihua beans squash pumpkin sweet potatoes

Table 5.4. (cont.)

New World plants

manioc (yucca, cassava)

chilli peppers

peanuts tomatoes pineapples avocados

pecans

cacao beans

matte

tobacco quinine rubber cotton

*Nelson Foster and Linda S. Cordell (eds.), Chiles to Chocolate: Food the Americas Gave the World (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1991); Julia Garcia Paris, Intercambio y Difusion de Plantas de Consumo entre el Nuevo y el Viejo Mundo (Madrid: Servicio de Extension Agraria, 1991).

Animals

Specimens of many of the animals of the Americas were sent to Europe for display and study, but none became popular food items save for the turkey. By contrast, there was a literal tsunami of Old World animals landing on American shores. Except for the American camelids, the llama and alpaca in the Andean region that were similar to the camels of the Old World, there were no native beasts of burden, and American camelids would carry only up to 85 pounds before stubbornly refusing to move. As noted, with the arrival of Columbus's second expedition horses were introduced into the Caribbean. They were critical for early reconnaissance and subsequent offensive and defensive actions to establish and extend Spanish control over the Amerindians. Cattle, goats, sheep, and pigs also arrived with the second expedition. Cattle did well, and by the mid-1540s hides from Hispaniola and Cuba were exported to Europe. Goats and sheep did not prosper until they were introduced into temperate, cooler regions on the mainland. Pigs, because of their high number of offspring and ability to forage on almost anything, multiplied with abandon, quickly providing Euro­peans with a meat they knew. A pair of pigs was often left on deserted islands with the expectation that food would be available when the Europeans returned.

The introduction of Old World domesticated animals, especially pigs, did serious damage to native crops and contributed to a crisis of traditional Taino agricultural practice. Given the heavy rainfall, the Amerindians generally prepared conucos, raised beds that were easy to plant and cultivate. They were double-planted with tall and short plants: manioc, maize (corn), beans (nitrogen fixing for soil fertility), sweet potatoes, and sometimes other plants as well. With natural fertilizers at least two harvests per year were possible. Columbus and others marveled at the seemingly uncountable number of conucos that supported a substantial population. Pigs found these plots irre­sistible and wreaked havoc as they multiplied without control. Damaged plots soon filled with grasses and weeds, ideal grazing grounds for cattle that by the late sixteenth century replaced the human population that had been decimated by disease and exploitation. The rapid ecological transformation of the island of Hispaniola was a portent of what would happen elsewhere in the Americas as a consequence of the Columbian Exchange.^[126]

The introduction of Old World animals into Mesoamerica was also quick. Within a quarter century following the conquest of central Mexico by Hernan Cortes the countryside changed radically. In Mexico's temperate plateau cattle and sheep prospered and multiplied. The quickly expanding populations of goats, horses, donkeys, pigs, and chickens destroyed traditional agricul­tural systems. The upheaval was so grave that indigenous diviner Juan Teton from northwest of Mexico City in 1558 preached that those baptized as Christians and who ate the meats of the newcomers - pork, beef, lamb - must have been transformed into the animals of the Christians. Only in this way was the sudden explosion of the Old World animal population in Mexico, coupled with the demise of indigenous people, explicable.^[127]

Turkeys were the only New World animals that became widely accepted as a food not only in Europe but Asia as well. Turkeys taken during the conquest of the Aztecs were probably shipped to Spain and to Charles v, along with other “gifts” Hernan Cortes sent as proof of the potential riches. They reached England soon afterwards, perhaps via English ships engaged in the Levant trade as they stopped in Seville on their return. This may explain why the English referred to them as Turkey hens. Their size, the quality of Table 5.5. Origins of the most important domesticated animals. Note the list is incomplete. It includes only better known and widely consumed or used as draft animals*

Old World domesticated animals

dogs

cattle

water buffalo elephants sheep goats pig^s camels horses donkeys chickens

geese ducks pheasants peacocks

New World domesticated animals

dogs

llamas alpacas guinea pigs muscovy ducks turkeys

*Crosby, The Columbian Exchange; Tannahill, Food in

History; Garagarza, “The Year the People Turned into

Cattle,” p. 39.

their meat, and their ease of care led to their quick acceptance and by the 1650s turkeys could be found on the tables of the elite during special occasions (Table 5.5).

People

The movement of people constitutes a major element of the Columbian Exchange. Crosby stressed disease, the transfer and impact of pathogens, plants and animals, and pointed to human migration as well, but he paid less attention to the “exchange” of people. European and African migration to the Americas was transformative, in a biological as well as cultural sense. The periodicity and volume of the flow varied during the first century and a half. The first Columbus expedition carried fewer than 200 mostly European males to the Caribbean, and only 38 were left behind to establish a presence. None of them survived; most died within a few months at the hands of the Taino. The second fleet was large, and among the 1,500 aboard there were a few women and slaves. Mediterranean slavery involved all human groups, although in the Americas it soon was composed primarily of Africans. Migration often resulted in premature death. At least half of the original members of the second Columbus expedition were dead within two years. The land of wealth advertised by the promoters of the venture did not materialize. What gold there was on Hispaniola was difficult to extract from small “mines” or panned from the riverbeds. Few of the newcomers intended to earn their wealth by agriculture or any other form of manual labor, and the first decade in the Caribbean consisted predominantly of small reconnais­sance expeditions. Another large fleet was not mounted until Governor Nicolas de Ovando in 1502 was sent to assume royal authority over the unstable venture. A new major fleet came in 1508. These and subsequent arrivals provided the foundation for efforts to establish bases on the mainland and other islands. The city of Darien near the juncture of today's Colombia and Panama was founded in 1510. Cuba's and Puerto Rico's permanent conquest and settlement began in 1511. By 1513 Balboa had sighted the Pacific Ocean and founded Panama City on its shores in 1519. It was clear by that date that the aboriginal population, and therefore the main labor force of the islands, had rapidly declined, and that the attempt to establish a viable Caribbean settlement based on mining had failed. It was also evident by 1514 that sugar cane and the export sale of processed sugar could provide the economic foundation for the Greater Antilles. But the sugar economy extracted a high human cost, and to make up the labor shortage the Spanish resorted to the purchase and transportation of slaves from the source they knew best, Portu­guese merchants who had established trading posts along the coast of Africa.^[128]

Although the movement of Old World peoples to the Americas got off to a slow start, it rapidly accelerated. The Mexican treasures sent by Cortes to Charles v stimulated popular interest, and a decade later news of Inca Atahualpa's ransom of gold and silver sent to Spain by Francisco Pizarro resulted in a deluge of fortune seekers. The discovery of a mountain of silver in Potosi and the riches that began to flow regularly to Spain by the 1560s contributed to both expanded Spanish migration to America and serious attempts by the English and French to gain access to the riches. By then the Portuguese, concerned by the increasing presence of foreigners along Brazil's coast, began to take steps to block further attempts. But even as late as 1650, the Amerindian population was substantially greater than that of the Old World immigrants.

Researchers for decades have wrestled with the question of the number of migrants, their origin, and destination as they traveled from the Old World to the New during the Age of Reconnaissance. During the past half century some of the best work has been on African, especially enslaved African, migration. The primary source of data has come from slave ship records because those engaged in the trade needed proof of numbers, costs, approxi­mate age and sex, ports of origin, numbers of deaths in passage, and the place of disembarkation. Some were contraband and escaped the record. Meticu­lous research by historians and anthropologists has led to a fuller understand­ing and appreciation of the role that Africans, both slave and free, played in the Columbian Exchange, and the cost they paid. The number of those who began the transatlantic crossing was substantially larger than the numbers actually “counted,” or more appropriately estimated, at various times as they were settled. The death rate was high, both in the original crossing and as a result of heavy labor in unsafe environments, especially in mining and agricultural work. Separation of the sexes reduced the birth rate, depressing any internal regeneration. Disease took its toll. The result was a constantly rising demand for slaves as the exploitative economies grew. The greatest populations of Africans were found in the areas of plantation agriculture, especially sugar, in tropical coastal regions from Brazil to the islands and mainland of the circum-Caribbean. This was true for the English and French as they later gained control and settled sections of the Caribbean. There were relatively few Africans along the English or French American Atlantic seaboard until after 1650, and these were engaged in the production of other commod­ities - tobacco, indigo, rice, and, especially later, cotton. There were clusters of African slaves engaged in dangerous gold placer mining, and there was a significant population in the silver mining center of Potosi. Each major city in Spanish and Portuguese America contained a substantial number of Africans, slave and free. For example, in 1614 over a third of the population of Lima, capital of the viceroyalty of Peru, was African.^[129] Many of the women in these cities were domestics and many men were involved in blacksmithing, leather­work, and carpentry. Some were healers using traditional African medicines.

The Columbian Exchange involved Asian migration as well, which centered on the Pacific coast of America from Mexico southward into the viceroyalty of Peru. By 1613 dozens of Chinese, Filipinos, and people from India were carefully enumerated in the Lima census. Although the Portuguese were already well established at fortified trading posts from southeastern Africa to Goa in India, Macao, and the spice islands of today's Indonesia, the Spanish still wanted an outpost in Asia. That came with Miguel Lopez de Legazpi's fleet of five ships, sailing out of the Mexican port of Acapulco in 1564. By the mid-1570s the Spanish established Manila, well situated in a chain of islands well off China's coast that they named the Philippines. From that position they were able to set up direct and indirect trade with Chinese merchants. By the 1580s twenty large Chinese ships arrived annually to trade for the silver. Although the Chinese had a vast array of luxury goods the Europeans were interested in acquiring, they suffered a dearth of silver. The silver mines of Mexico, and especially Potosi in the viceroyalty of Peru, provided the foundations for the commerce. With Spanish control of the islands and their commercial base in Manila, increasing numbers of Chinese merchants made the trip from the mainland to sell porcelains, silks, fine furniture, gems, ivory, and jade objects. Tobacco may have reached China via Portuguese merchants by the 1540s. It was certainly introduced from America via Mexico and the Manila galleons. Many Asian commodities that were transported to Acapulco were sold to wealthy settlers in the major cities in America. The bulk was carried across Mexico to Veracruz and exported on the annual Atlantic fleet for sale in Europe. The annual Manila galleons were the likely source of the introduction of American foods into Asia. Sweet potatoes soon became popular in the Philippines and from there they were probably introduced into China by merchants by the 1590s. Maize entered China through both Portuguese Macao and the Spanish Philip­pines, and ultimately peanuts arrived as well. All three crops would become staples in parts of the warm and humid climates of Asia.²⁸

University Press, 1992); Frederick P. Bowser, The African Slave Trade in Colonial Peru, 1524-1650 (Stanford University Press, 1974); James H. Sweet, Africa: Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441-1770 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003); and Matthew Restall (ed.), Beyond Black and Red: African-Native Relations in Colonial Latin America (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005).

²⁸ Charles C. Mann, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011); Carol Benedict, Golden-Silk Smoke: a History of Tobacco in China,

Table 5.6. Regional estimates for the Aboriginal American population in 1492*

*In millions. William M. Denevan, “The Pristine Myth: the Landscape of the Americas in 1492,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 82: 3 (1992): 369-85.

From the beginning European explorers, conquistadors, clerics, and set­tlers were interested in the number of people that were there when they arrived, and why they seemed to die so rapidly. Numbers vary wildly, often based on personal reasons for inflating or depressing them. Demographers agree that the exact number cannot be established, but that knowledge does not eliminate attempts to do so. The range of estimates for the Amerindian population as a whole in 1492 is nearly as broad as for Hispaniola. In the past century historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists have used a variety of methods to estimate population: carrying capacity, depopulation ratios, analo­gies with other regions, and mostly reviews of the “literature.” The estimates range from Alfred Krocbcr's 8.4 million to Henry F. Dobyns' 90 to 112 million. Most specialists accept historical geographer William M. Denevan's figure of 53.9 million for the population of the Americas in 1492. His caveat that with the “margin of error of about 20 percent, the New World population would lie between 43-65 million. Future regional revisions are likely to maintain the hemispheric total within this range” is plausible (Table 5.6).²⁹

Perhaps the most systematic effort to estimate population was that of N. D. Cook, but that was only for the original population of Peru at the time

1550-2010 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2011); and William Lytle Schurz, The Manila Galleon (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1939).

²⁹ William M. Denevan, “The Pristine Myth: the Landscape of the Americas in 1492,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 82 (1992): 370; Suzanne Austin Alchon, A Pest in the Land: New World Epidemics in a Global Perspective (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003), p. 171; and Noble David Cook, Demographic Collapse: Indian Peru, 1520-1620 (Cambridge University Press, 1981). of Spanish contact with the Inca Empire. Denevan's estimate for the “Andes” refers to the area covered by the Inca Empire, from southern Columbia to northern Argentina and Chile. Cook's analysis is based on review and evaluation of the results of several methods for population estimation: ecological (carrying capacity), archaeological, depopulation ratios using known data, social organization complexity, disease mortality, and census projections, as well as estimates of contemporary observers. He finds the disease mortality and census projection models to be most trustworthy, and concludes the Peruvian population in 1520 must have been within the 5.5 to 9.4 million range. In the second half of his study, he analyzes the nature of population change in six major regions, three of them coastal and three highland, over the next century in order to determine levels of mortality based on environmental and socio-economic factors. He finds in general, moving through the three northern and southern highland regions, the rate of population decline falls as one moves southward into the highest elevation basins and puna grasslands. The three coastal regions where people were densely concentrated in narrow irrigated valleys suffered the most catastrophic Amerindian falloff, with Europeans, Africans, and some Asians replacing them. The overall decline between 1520 and 1620 was about 93 percent.^[130]

Mestizaje, the biological mixing of peoples and cultures of many contin­ents, is one of the most significant consequences of the Columbian Exchange. The long-distance migration of people between continents accelerated slowly at first, but volume increased decade after decade. Migrants carried with them their panoply of cultural characteristics: religion, social structure, marriage and kinship patterns, food preferences and the manner of food preparation, material technology, and languages and thought patterns. All the European states involved in the Columbian Exchange attempted initially to replicate in the places they controlled the type of world they had left behind, and mixing happened slowly. For example, the population of Lima, the largest city and capital of the viceroyalty of Peru, in 1614 was 38.9 percent Spanish, 41.9 percent African, 7.9 percent Indian, and only 0.8 percent mestizo and 3.0 percent mulatto. Given deeply rooted cultural prejudices, often enforced by laws, officially recognized marriage between individuals from different groups was not always possible, and other types of sexual relationships varied in their frequency. They were most common in times and places with a sharply imbalanced sex ratio in the migratory group.

The mixed offspring of such relationships were often viewed as lazy, ugly, shiftless, and untrustworthy, and it was rare in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for such descendants to be “respected.” The celebrated writer, Garcilaso de la Vega, “El Inca” (1539-1616), was an exception, but he was the son of a conquistador and an Inca princess who left Cuzco for Spain as a young man. The majority of those of mixed parentage suffered discrimin­ation for generations. On the basis of a review of the literature, Angel Rosenblat estimated the mestizo population of America to have been only 3.23 percent in 1650, and the mulatto 2.17. Over 80 percent of the New World's population was still Amerindian.³¹

The migration of Europeans, Africans, and some Asians led in spite of cultural, religious, and economic taboos to the slow but inexorable rise of mixed populations, however. A similar process occurred in foreign outposts along the African coast, on the South and East Asian mainland, as well as in the Spice Islands off the Southeast Asian coast and the Philippines. From the time of stable settlement the complex and shifting process of transculturation began, a process that continued for generations.

People, plants, animals, and pathogens are the foundations of the Colum­bian Exchange, but these were only the biological elements of the transfers unleashed by the linking of the hemispheres during the Age of Reconnais­sance. The transfer of knowledge and the interactions of alien religious, political, economic, and social systems had even greater repercussions. Old World assumptions were challenged as new discoveries unfolded. The integration of knowledge of the “other” required generations to absorb, to weigh, and to accept or reject in a process of transculturation. Given the relative slowness of communications, the exchange allowed for freedom of experimentation. What worked in the changing environments survived, and what failed was cast aside. How does one assess the full impact of the exchange? Certainly the human cost was high for all parties, although the Amerindians suffered most. As a result of imported diseases, coupled with conquest, labor exploitation, forced migrations, and the disruption of native agricultural systems, over 90 percent was lost. The introduction of African

³¹ Claudio Esteva-Fabregat, Mestizaje in Ibero-America (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1995); Magnus Morner, Race Mixture in the History of Latin America (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1967); Cook, Demographic Collapse, p. 151; Kiple (ed.), African Exchange; and Angel Rosenblat, La poblacion indigena y el mestizaje en America (Buenos Aires: Editorial Nova, 1954), vol. I, p. 59. There has been substantial research since his estimates were published, but the percentages regarding distribution of the population are similar.

slaves to work on the plantations and in the mines and houses of the Europeans exacted a heavy human toll as well. On the positive side of the exchange, new animals and food plants introduced into the Americas pro­vided assistance to human labor and additional forms of nutrition. More positive may have been the transfer of New World plants to the Old. Although not a direct cause of the population growth that began in the eighteenth century in Europe and in the nineteenth in Africa, American food crops were a significant contributing factor. Adoption of American food plants in some parts of Asia allowed for an increasing supply of foodstuffs that were productive on marginal lands. The transfers of medicinal plants and knowledge also can be weighed as positive. Even more important was the transformation of the mind, as new knowledge challenged previous beliefs, contributing to the ferment of the European Enlightenment.

FURTHER READING

Alchon, Suzanne Austin, A Pest in the Land: New World Epidemics in a Global Perspective (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2003).

Benedict, Carol, Golden-Silk Smoke: A History of Tobacco in China, 1550-2010 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2011).

Bennett, Herman L., Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianity, and Afro-Creole Consciousness, 1570-1640 (Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press, 2005).

Cook, Alexandra Parma, and Noble David Cook, The Plague Files: Crisis Management in Sixteenth Century Seville (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2009).

Cook, Noble David, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492-1650 (Cambridge University Press, 1998).

Demographic Collapse: Indian Peru, 1520-1620 (Cambridge University Press, 1981).

Cook, Noble David, and W. George Lovell (eds.), “Secret Judgments of God”: Old World Disease in Colonial America (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001).

Cook, Sherburne Friend, and Woodrow Wilson Borah, Essays in Population History, 3 vols. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1979-82).

Crosby, Alfred W., Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 (Cambridge University Press, 1986).

Germs, Seeds, and Animals: Studies in Ecological History (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1994).

The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, 30th Anniversary Edition (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2003).

Denevan, WiUiam M. (ed.), The Native Population of the Americas in 1492 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992).

Esteva-Fabregat, Claudio, Mestizaje in Ibero-America (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1995).

Few, Martha, and Zeb Tortorici (eds.), Centering Animals in Latin American History (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013).

Foster, Nelson, and Linda S. Cordell (eds.), Chiles to Chocolate: Food the Americas Gave the World (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1991).

Kiple, Kenneth F. (ed.), The African Exchange: Toward a Biological History of Black People (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1987).

(ed.), The Cambridge World History of Human Disease (Cambridge University Press, 1993). Lovell, W. George, Conquest and Survival in Colonial Guatemala: A Historical Geography of the Cuchumatan Highlands, 1500-1821 (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1992).

Mann, Charles C., 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011).

McCann, James C., Maize and Grace: Africa's Encounter with a New World Crop, 1500-2000 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005).

McNeill, John R., Caribbean, 1620-1914 (Cambridge University Press, 2010).

Melville, Elinor G. K., A Plague of Sheep: Environmental Consequences of the Conquest of Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 1994).

Mintz, Sidney W., Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History (New York: Penguin Books, 1986).

Newson, Linda, Life and Death in Early Colonial Ecuador (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995).

Phillips, William D., and Carla Rahn Phillips, The Worlds of Christopher Columbus (Cam­bridge University Press, 1992).

Reff, Daniel T., Disease, Depopulation, and Culture Change in Northwestern New Spain, 1518-1764 (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 1991).

Rocco, Fiammetta, The Miraculous Fever-Tree: Malaria and the Questfor a Cure that Changed the World (New York: HarperCollins, 2003).

Sauer, Carl Ortwin, The Early Spanish Main (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1966).

Sweet, James H., Africa: Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441-1770 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003).

Tannahill, Reay, Food in History (New York: Stein and Day, 1973).

Thornton, John, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1680 (Cam­bridge University Press, 1992).

Verano, John W., and Douglas H. Ubelaker (eds.), Disease and Demography in the Americas (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992).