1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

Tertian Fever

-Tertian: From Latin for "three days" -Refers to bouts of fever and chills that occur in a regular forty-eight hour pattern -Day of sickness followed by a day of quiet, then a day of sickness as the pattern repeats -Signature of Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium falciparum, which cause the two most widespread types of malaria

Maize Cultivation (1491-1607)

-An early form of corn grown by Native Americans -The growing of Indian corn, a staple of many Indians diets, led many nomadic tribes to settle and develop great civilizations (e.g. Aztecs, Incas, and Mayans) -Spread from present-day Mexico northward into the American Southwest and beyond -Supported economic development and social diversification among societies in these areas -Domestication of beans and corn made this very popular in the trade routes that connected Mesoamerica with Peru to the south as well as with North America -Three Sisters: Companion planting of corn, beans and squash -Named for their importance to the people of the Americas -Beans entwine up the growing maize -Below the maize grew squash and gourds -Contrast to draft animals and single-crop plots of English farmlands

Plasmodium

-Ancient microscopic malarial parasites -Mass of cytoplasm, undivided by membranes or cell walls and containing many nuclei -Consists of but a single cell -Changes outward appearance -Sensitive to temperature -Plagues countless types of reptile, bird, and mammal -Malaria is caused by the two hundred or so species in the genus Plasmodium -Four of those species target humankind -Injected into human flesh by mosquitoes -In the body, Plasmodium parasites pry open red blood cells and climb inside -Reproduce in huge numbers inside the cell -Eventually, offspring burst out of the cell and pour into the bloodstream -Most new parasites subvert other red blood cells -Few drift in the blood to be sucked up by a biting mosquito -When a mosquito takes in Plasmodium, it reproduces yet again inside the insect, taking on a different form -New parasites enter mosquito's salivary glands, from which the insect injects the Plasmodium into its next victim -Speed at which the parasite reproduces and develops in the mosquito depends on the mosquito's temperature (depends on temperature outside) -Unlike mammals, insects cannot control their own internal temperatures -Parasites need more time to develop as it gets colder, until it takes longer than the mosquito's lifespan -Biochemical signaling synchronizes the actions of Plasmodium in the body -Most infected red blood cells release their parasites at about the same time -Single infection can generate ten billion new parasites -Immune system sets off paroxysms of intense chills and fever -Within days after recovery, a new assault occurs -Previous wave of parasites (hidden inside red blood cells) produce a new generation of Plasmodium, billions strong -Cycle repeats until the immune system at last fights off the parasite -Cells can secret themselves in corners of the body, emerging a few weeks later -Mark of malaria includes episodes of chills and fever, followed by a bit of respite then another wave of attacks -Respite: Short period of rest or relief from something difficult or unpleasant

Antiglobalization Martyrs

-Antiglobalization: Resistance to globalization -Opposition to the increase in the global power and influence of businesses (especially multinational corporations) -Active return to traditional communities, customs, and religion -Major international movement that protests the development of the global economy -Posit that globalization makes the rich richer and keeps poor regions in poverty while exploiting their labor and environments -Burst onto the world stage in 1999 with massive protests at a meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle -Rajah Sulayman: Muslim ruler of kingdom of Manila -Refused offer of "friendship" by the Spainards under Legazpi; didn't want Spainards around -Spainards wanted to use Manila's harbor as a launching point -Legazpi killed Sulayman and three hundred of his men -Modern Manila was established on the ruins

William Ruddiman's Thesis (Little Ice Age)

-As human communities grow, they open more land for farms and cut down more trees for food and shelter -Using fire, indigenous people in the Americas cleared big areas for agriculture and hunting -Annual fire seasons increased substantially, without which drylands would have been engulfed with trees -"Indigenous pyromania had long pumped carbon dioxide into the air." -The destruction of Indian societies by European epidemics both decreased native burning and increased tree growth -Each subtracted carbon dioxide from the air -European diseases caused a population crash across the hemisphere -Extraordinary ecological rebound as forests filled in abandoned fields and settlements -End of native burning and massive reforestation drew so much carbon dioxide from the air -Increasing number of researchers believes it was the main driver of the three-century cold snap known as the Little Ice Age -In the form of lethal bacteria and viruses, the Columbian Exchange "significantly influenced Earth's carbon budget" -Today's climate change in reverse -Human action removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere rather than adding them -"Meteorological overture to the Homogenocene"

Chesapeake Bay

-Between Maryland and Virginia -Largest estuary in the United States -Estuary: Tidal mouth of a large river, where the tide meets the stream -Bay on which Jamestown was built -Refashioned by its inhabitants into a working landscape like the English countryside the colonists left behind -Unlike English waterways, the bay is seemingly wet every season -Bogs, marshes, grassy ponds, seasonally flooded meadows, slow-moving streams -Freshwater marshes favor the growth of a semi-aquatic plant, tuckahoe, used when in place of maize when fall supply is exhausted -Credit for watery environment belongs to American beaver -These big rodents live in dome-shaped lodges made by blocking streams with mud, stones, leaves, and cut saplings -Dam smear water across the landscape

Introduction - In the Homogenocene

-Central Theme/Subject: How the New World was created -Homogenization of biological life after the physical reintegration of the once-isolated ecosystems of the Americas, Eurasia, and Africa after the late 15th century -Process of mixing, of bringing together things — people, plants, animals, viruses, insects — that were once mostly separate -Globalization of trading market (heirloom tomatoes) -Genetic modification of crops -Original inhabitants of the Americas -Indian plant breeders -Cristóbal Colón: Columbus's given name -History of America before and after Columbus -Biological transplants -Environmental history and Atlantic studies rise as disciplines -Origins of world civilizations -Ecological and economic role of exchange -Columbus's voyage marked the creation of the New World, rather than its discovery -Scientific tools and political changes aid research -Formation of a single new world from the collision of the old worlds -Economic system for exchange transformed the globe into a single ecological system (16-19th century) -Creation of globalized ecological system helped Europe seize political initiative -Economic and ecological roots of the "world-system" -Continuation of exchange between Atlantic and Pacific networks -Past as cosmopolitan, driven by ecology and economics -Globalization has been enriching the world for at least five centuries -Suffering and political mayhem caused by ecological convulsions of globalization -Every place has played a part in the human story, and all are embedded in the larger, inconceivably complex progress of life on this planet -Planting evokes home -Familiarity and timelessness of gardens testify the human capacity to adapt -To operate in ignorance -Garden as a biological record of past human wandering and exchange (rather than a locus of stability or tradition) -Locus: Particular position, point, or place -Transculturation: One group of people taking something from another, adapting and transforming to fit their own needs and situation -"Since Columbus the world has been on a grip of convulsive transculturation." (Mann, 16) -Virtually every place on earth's surface has been changed by places that were too remote to exert impact until 1492 -Constant connection for five ongoing centuries

Little Ice Age (1550-1750)

-Century-long period of cool climate in the Northern Hemisphere (13th-19th centuries) -Period of cooling temperatures and harsh winters -Accompanied by wide temperature fluctuations, droughts, and storms -Caused famines and dislocation -Onset and duration differed from one region to the next -Average temperatures cooler than they are now -Climate is not weather -Cold weather and bad harvest brought catastrophic hunger and starvation of millions of people -Less food led to more disease and more crime -Poor harvest often led to civil unrest, often bread riots -Water control systems and new agricultural technology in the Netherlands

Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)

-Chinese dynasty that ruled from 1368 to 1644 -Major dynasty that ruled China from the mid-fourteenth to the mid-seventeenth century -Marked by a great expansion of Chinese commerce into East Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia -Succeeded Mongol Yuan dynasty in China in 1368 -Initially mounted huge trade expeditions to southern Asia and elsewhere, but later concentrated efforts on internal development within China -Built the majority of the Great Wall -Captured Beijing, restored Confucian learning, built the forbidden city -Perhaps the peak of Chinese civilization with 300 years of peace and prosperity -They improved the Grand Canal, made great porcelain, and under Yong Le encouraged exploration -Little Ice Age has taken hold in East Asia too -Copious rain alternating with bouts of cold drought -Five worst years of drought in five centuries occurred between 1637 and 1641 -Rain drowning the crops -Impacts exacerbated by series of volcano eruptions in Indonesia, Japan, New Guinea, and the Philippines -Famine intensified by cold, wet weather and mass deaths (millions have died) -Ming court paralyzed by infighting and preoccupied with wars to the north -Does little to help the afflicted; simply does not have funds -Like the Spanish king, the Ming emperor backs his military ventures with Spanish silver -When the value of silver falls, the government runs out of money -Ming dynasty failed to protect China from malign foreign influence -American crops are spreading; American silver is dominating the economy; American trees help bring rain -Beijing (humankin's wealthiest society) overthrown and new Qing dynasty is established thereafter

Chapter One - Two Monuments

-Columbus founds first European settlement in the Americas -Chinese silk from Manila arrived in Mexico -Homogenocene: New epoch in the history of life in which human activity is the principal force on the earth's ecosystem -World bound together by Spanish silver -Anthropological roots of climate change

3.1 "Extractive States"

-Columbus states that after the expedition arrived at La Isabela, everyone became "gravely ill from tertian fever" (malaria) -Human malaria likely did not exist in the Americas before 1492 -If Columbus's men contracted malaria, they must have brought the disease with them from Spain -Sickness, starvation, and death in early Hispaniola -High European mortality rates -Places where European colonists couldn't survive are much poorer than places that Europeans found more healthful -Established different institutions in disease zones than in healthier areas -Unable to create stable, populous colonies in malarial areas -Settler Colonies: Established institutions to assure and secure their rights, properties, and long-term wellbeing -When Europeans brought smallpox and influenza to the Americas, they set off epidemics -Epidemics: Sudden outbursts that shot through Indian towns and villages, then faded -By contrast, malaria became endemic -Endemic: Ever-present, debilitating presence in the landscape -Extractive states are controlled by ruling elites whose objective is to extract as much wealth as they can from the rest of society -Established to exploit abundant natural resources -Only institutions necessary for the maintenance of power and the extraction of wealth are created -Inclusive states give everyone access to economic opportunity; often, greater inclusiveness creates more prosperity, which creates an incentive for ever greater inclusiveness

Delirium of Spanish Elite

-Cortés's conquest of Mexico and the plunder that came from it threw Spain's elite into delirium -Enraptured by sudden wealth and power -Monarchy launched a series of costly foreign wars against France, the Ottoman Empire, and the Protestants in the Holy Roman Empire -Even as Spain defeated the Ottomans in 1571, discontent in the Netherlands (then a Spanish possession) was flaring into outright revolt and secession -Struggle over Dutch independence last eight decades -Spilled into realms as far away as Brazil, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines -Spain fails to stop rebellion in the Netherlands -Spanish Armada: "Invincible" group of ships sent by King Philip II of Spain to invade England in 1588 -Armada was defeated by smaller, more maneuverable English "sea dogs" in the Channel -Marked the beginning of English naval dominance and fall of Spanish dominance

Anthropocene (Homogecene)

-Current geological epoch; new epoch in the history of life -Brought into being by the abrupt creating of a world-spanning economic system -Defined by atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen -Period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment -Dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems, including, but not limited to, anthropogenic climate change

Malaria (Paludismo)

-Disease caused by mosquitoes implanting parasites in the blood -Commonly associated with poverty -Each year 1-3 million people (mostly in sub-saharan Africa) die of this disease and hundreds of millions are infected -Comes from the Italian "mal aria", evil or bad air -Human malaria likely did not exist in the Americas before 1492 -Malaria can lie dormant in the body for months, only to reemerge at full strength -Many diseases causes chills and fevers, including influenza and pneumonia -For centuries, people couldn't distinguish that malaria was a specific disease -Tobacco brought malaria to Virginia, where it spread to most of North America -Paludismo: Spanish word for malaria; "group of deadly phenomena produced by marshy emanations" -Vector: Transmitting organism

Critics of the Galleon Trade

-E.g. labor groups, environmental groups, student groups -Globalization is not natural -Product of unfair and unequal economic policies that favor wealthy countries over poorer countries -Promotes free-market, export-oriented economies at the expense of localized, sustainable activities -Lost languages; loss of culture -Poor get poorer -Small countries have no voice -New modern era regarded with suspicion from the beginning -China was then the earth's wealthiest, most powerful nation (per capita income; military strength; average lifespan; agricultural production; culinary, artistic, technical sophistication; etc.) -China had long viewed Europe as too poor and backward to be of commercial interest -Europe's principal industry was textiles (mainly wool) -Meanwhile, China had silk -However, with silver, Spain finally had something China wanted -Spanish silver literally became China's money supply -Unease about having the nation's currency in the hands of foreigners -Fear of large-scale, uncontrolled change to Chinese life -"Neither from this land nor from Spain, so far as can now be learned, can anything be exported thither that they do not already possess." -Unexpected arrival of American crops such as sweet potatoes and maize -One of the most revolutionary events in in imperial China's history -Wave of deforestation -Waves of erosion and floods which caused many deaths -Chinese regime was further destabilized (to Europe's benefit) -Spain discontent about the galleon trade -Annual shipments of silver to Manila -Culmination of centuries-long quest to trade with China -Madrid, Spain spent almost the entire period trying to limit the exchange -Royal edicts restricted the number of ships allowed to travel to Manila -Cut amount of allowable exports -Set import quotas for Chinese goods -Instructed Spanish merchants to form a cartel to raise prices

1.3 Reversals of Fortune

-Earth in 1642, a century and a half after Columbus's first voyage -Nascent Homogenocene -Nascent: Just coming into existence and beginning to display signs of future potential (especially of a process or organization) -Potosí: Now southern Bolivia; Central node in network of Spanish silver; Biggest, richest strike in history -Great port of Lima is the seat of the Spanish colonial government -Andean slopes gripped in ecological turmoil -Millions of indigenous people died from European colonists and European diseases -Decades later in 1642, abandoned Peruvian villages and farms are overtaken by the wilderness -Panamanian silver bound for Europe, whereas most of the Mexican silver is bound ultimately for Asia -Spanish monarchy want the silver in the home country -Spanish colonists want to send as much silver as possible to China, where it can be traded more profitably than anywhere else -Tension inevitably leads to smuggling -European expansion as the primary motivating force in world affairs -Earth as a single economic unit largely driven by Chinese demand -Silver from the Americas made Europe of 1642 affluent and powerful beyond its giddiest fantasy -But Europe itself is plagued from one end to the other by war, inflation, rioting, and weather calamities -First time turmoil is intimately linked to human actions of opposite ends of the earth -"Trouble volleys from Asia, Africa, and the Americas to Europe, shuttling about the world on highways of Spanish silver." -Flood of precious metal unleashed by Cortés so vastly increased Spain's money supply that its small financial sector could not contain it -American silver overflowed from Spain into Italy, the Netherlands, and the Holy Roman Empire -Payments for Spanish military adventures coffers across the continent -The climate itself has been changing -Proposed that the Little Ice Age in Europe was attributable to a decline in the decline in the number of sunspots -Others theorize the temperature drop was due to big volcanic eruptions blasting sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere -William F. Ruddiman's theory on the anthropological cause of the Little Ice Age (2003) -Columbus's world centered around hot places, with the world's most populous cities at the time clustered in a band in the tropics (Beijing, Vijayanagar, Cairo, Hangzhou, Istanbul, etc.) -A century and a half later, that order is in the midst of change -Wealth and power flowing from south to north -Once-lordly metropolises of the tropics falling into ruin and decrepitude -In the coming centuries, the greatest urban centers will all be in the temperate north (London, Manchester, New York, Chicago, Tokyo, etc.) -By 1900, every city in the top bracket will be in Europe or the U.S. save Tokyo (most Westernized of eastern cities) -Order that had characterized human affairs for millennia had been overturned -"Today the tumult of ecological and economic exchange is like the background radiation of our ever more crowded and unstable planet."

Chapter Two - The Tobacco Coast

-English colonist John Rolfe developed Virginia tobacco -Successful tobacco trade with England -Swap of Virginia tobacco for English dirt -In order for the English settlers to live and prosper in the New World in their accustomed manner, they would have to transform the land into something more suitable for themselves -Jamestown's failure to cut through the American continent and pioneer a new route to Asia is considered (by Ferrar) to be the greatest error and damage that happened to the Virginia Colony

Virginia Earthworms

-English colonists brought the common nightcrawler and red marsh worm to Virginia -Until the 19th century, worms like these were viewed as agricultural pests -Charles Darwin's last book was a three-hundred page celebration of earthworm power -Eating their way through soil, earthworms create networks of tunnels that let in water and air -In temperate places like Virginia, earthworms can turn over the upper foot of soil every ten or twenty years -Before the arrival of the Europeans, New England and the upper Midwest had no earthworms (wiped out in the last Ice Age) -Earthworms do not travel long distances unless transported by human agency -Arrived with the Europeans, probably in Virginia, and spread with them -Like the colonists, the worms were conquering a new place -In both cases, the arrival of foreigners was an ecological watershed -Watershed: An event or period marking a turning point in a course of action or state of affairs -Worms can clear leaf litter up and pack nutrients into the soil in the form of castings (worm excrement) -Trees and shrubs species depend on litter for food and die off when they cannot access the nutrients worms tuck into the soil -Forest becomes more open and dry -Earthworms compete for food with small insects, driving down their numbers -Birds, lizards, and mammals that feed in the litter decline as well

John Smith

-English explorer who helped found and govern the colony at Jamestown, Virginia -Leader of the Jamestown settlement -Most accounts of Jamestown focus on John Smith -His leadership and strict discipline helped the Virginia colony get through the difficult first winter -Forced the colonists to work harder -Awed by the Powhatan Indians' royal chamber

Virginia Company

-English joint-stock company in London that received a charter from King James I that allowed it to found the Virginia colony -First joint-stock company in the colonies -Founded Jamestown -Charter guarantees new colonists same rights as people back in England -Promised gold, conversion of Indian to Christianity, and passage to the Indies

John Rolfe

-English settler and colony leader at Jamestown -Discovered how to successfully grow tobacco in Virginia and cure it for export -Made Virginia an economically successful colony -Man who married Pocahontas -Primary force behind Jamestown's eventual success -Helped to unleash a permanent change in the American landscape

Çiçiones

-Fever that comes with chills, which is attributed to the cierzo (mistral wind) -Acute, cold, and penetrating -Likely refers to tertian fever -In original Spanish, Columbus wrote that his men had contracted çiçiones (not malaria or tertian fever) -Columbus used this word indicating malaria, though he may well have been describing ordinary chills and fever

Part One - Atlantic Journeys

-First half of Columbian Exchange -Jamestown as the beginning of permanent English colonization in the Americas -Established as purely economic venture -Fate largely decided by ecological forces (introduction of tobacco) -Tobacco originates from lower Amazon -First truly global commodity craze (exciting, habit-forming, vaguely louche) -Louche: Disreputable or sordid in a rakish or appealing way -Silk and porcelain (Europe and Asia) trend next -Microscopic species introduced cause malaria and yellow fever, shaping American societies -Malaria's role in the creation of the United States (e.g. slavery, poverty)

Manila Galleon Trade

-First large-scale, uncontrolled international exchange in Chinese history -Heavily armed, fast Spanish trading ships sailed once or twice per year across the Pacific Ocean -Between Manila in Spanish East Indies (present day Philippines), and Acapulco, New Spain -Trading with Manila became a major revenue for Spanish Empire -Until 1593, three or more ships would sail annually from each port -A decree limit two ships a year, and and armed escort of galleons was approved -Goal was to have Asian and New Spain markets linked together to further trade -Spanish focused on this rather than exploring the Pacific Islands -Traveled across the Pacific Ocean picking up and trading goods -Luxury goods from China to Mexico -Silver from Mexico to China -Three Chinese ships appear in Philippines in spring of 1572 -Carefully chosen selection of Chinese manufactured goods -Test of what Legazpi would pay (the most) for -Spainards wanted everything, which delighted the traders -Chinese Silk: Rare and costly in Europe -Chinese Porcelain: Made by technology then unknown in Europe -In return, China bought every ounce they could of Spanish silver -Volume of trade grew enormous -Linked Asia, Europe, the Americas, and (less directly) Africa -African slaves integral to Spain's American empire dug and refined the ore in Mexico's silver mines) -Never before had so much of the planet been bound in a single network of exchange -Included every habitable continent except Australia -Spain's arrival in the Philippines was the dawn of a new, distinctly modern era

Native American Indian Agriculture

-Flourished in the South because of mild, moist climate, and rich, fertile soil -Different agricultural techniques than European riverside farms, which originally rendered single-crop plots using domesticated animals such as horses and oxen -Lacking draft animals and metal tools, the Powhatan perforce used different methods and obtained different results -Three Sisters: Companion planting of corn, beans and squash -Beans entwine up the growing maize -Below the maize grew squash and gourds -Contrast to draft animals and single-crop plots of English farmlands -Except for defensive palisades, Powhatan farmers had no fences around their fields (no cattle or sheep to be kept inside) -The English, by contrast, regarded well-tended fences of hallmarks of civilization -Lack of physical property demarcation signified to the English that Indians didn't truly occupy the land (it was "unimproved") -Because Native American crop species did not yet exist in Europe, the English saw Indian fallows as "unused" land -Fallow: Plowed and harrowed but left unsown for a period in order to restore its fertility as part of a crop rotation or to avoid surplus production

Spanish Horses

-From the southern edge of the Great Plains -Brought by silver galleons on the return trip across the Atlantic -Rush by Indian nations to acquire horses -Native farmers abandon their fields and leap onto the backs of Spanish horses -Long-sedentary societies becoming wanderers -"Ancient tradition" of the nomadic Plains Indian coming into existence -Rapid adaptation to the Columbian Exchange -As natives acquire horses, they come into conflict with each other and the labor force on Spain's expanding ranches -Ranch workers are Indians, African slaves, and people of mixed ancestry -Baroque racial lexicon to label particular genetic backgrounds (e.g. mestizo, mulatto, morisco, chino, lobo, zambaigo, albarazado) -Mexico City: Capital of New Spain; Richest piece of Spain's American empire; World's first twenty-first-century city -Jumble of cultures and languages with no one majority -Neighborhoods divided by ethnicity

Globalization

-Globalization: The single, turbulent exchange of goods and services that today engulfs the entire habitable world -Growth to a global or worldwide scale -Process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale -Connection of different parts of the world -Expansion of international cultural, economic, and political activities -Movement and integration of goods and people among different countries -Brough both economic gains and ecological/social tumult -More than just economic, globalization is also a biological phenomenon -Creation of the world market -"Events four centuries ago set a template for events we are living through today." (Mann, 13) -Pro-Globalization of Trade (e.g. economists, entrepreneurs) - Free trade improves societies and benefits both parties -Anti-Globalization of Trade: (e.g. environmental activists, cultural nationalists, labor organizers, anti-corporate agitators) - Unregulated trade alters political, social, and environmental arrangements in ways that are rarely anticipated and usually destructive

Powhatan Indians

-Group of Woodland Indians -Original inhabitants of the James River area -Inhabited the part of Virginia where the English decided to settle -Powhatan paramount chiefdom consisted of approximately thirty original tribes with a population of about 14,000 people in the area surrounding Jamestown -Sustained society with a structured government, economy, religion, language, and intricate social institutions -Gave the English settlers food -Taught settlers the ways of the forests (how to grow corn) -Introduced new crops (corn and yams) -Constantly warring with the settlers -Just as most Europeans lived in small farm villages, most of Powhatan's people lived in settlements of a few hundred inhabitants surrounded by large tracts of cleared land -Fields of maize and former maize fields -Villages clustered along the Rappahannock, York, and James rivers

John Ferrar (1588-1657)

-Hardworking man who spent his life tending the family business -Father, Nicholas Ferrar, was a cosmopolitan London leather merchant -One of the original stockholders in the Virginia Company -Investment did not bear fruit -Rather than pulling out, the family invested again in 1618, acquiring a plantation of several thousand acres -Firm was making money from tobacco sales but had piled up so much debt that Ferrar had to scramble to pay creditors -Daily crisis meetings held at family mansion on St. Sythe's Lane -Nicholas and John, portrayed as reckless swindlers, briefly thrown in prison (1622) -King put an end to the enterprise -In the end, Ferrar's hard work did not pay off -John never reconciled himself to the loss -As far as he was concerned, Virginia's mistake had been to ignore that the Americas were at most a few hundred miles across (Sir Francis Drake; 1570's)

Ecological Imperialism

-Imperialism: Policy of extending a country's power and influence through diplomacy or military force -Historians' term for the spoliation of Western natural resources through excessive hunting, logging, mining, and grazing -Introduction of exotic plants and animals into new ecosystems -Aggressive and often heedless exploitation of the West -Settlers often killed species to the point of extinction and farmed the lands dry -Hard land to live on -Ecological imperialism was sometimes the only way to survive and make a profit -Ecological Imperialism by Alfred W. Crosby (geographer and historian at University of Texas) -"European emigrants and their descendants are all over the place, which requires explanation." (Crosby) -People of European descent prominent in Australia, Americas, and Southern Africa -Social and scientific sense of European superiority -Biological advantage of Europeans (not technical)

Powhatan

-Indian chieftain who dominated the peoples in the James River area -Chief and founder of the Powhatan Confederacy -Comprised of all the tribes in eastern Virginia (loosely) under his control -The colonists inaccurately called all of the Indians Powhatans -Father to Pocahontas -At the time of the English settlement of Jamestown in 1607, Powhatan was a friend to John Smith and John Rolfe -When Smith was captured by Indians, Powhatan left Smith's fate in the hands of his warriors -Pocahontas saved John Smith, and the Jamestown colony -Pocahontas and John Rolfe were wed -Time of peace between the Indians and English until Powhatan's death -Probably in his sixties when the English landed -Capital of Werowecomoco ("kings house") on the north bank of the York river (parallel to the James) -Royal Chamber: Biggest structure in Tsenacomoco; great barrel vault in which visitors may greet the sovereign -To the English, he was the king of a small domain, with the lofty bearing expected from royalty

2.3 Soe Infinite A Riches

-Jamestown's failure to cut through the American continent and pioneer a new route to Asia is considered (by Ferrar) to be the greatest error and damage that happened to the Virginia Colony -A single expedition west would have discovered "Soe Infinite a Riches to them all as a passadge to a West Sea would prove to them." -Instead, they spent their resources on Virginia tobacco -Goal of the Virginia Company had been to integrate Virginia (and thus England itself) into the rich new global marketplace -Virginia tobacco (N. tabacum) was the first American species to disperse into Europe, Asia, and Africa -Global phenomenon; World hooked on smoking tobacco -First time people in every continent simultaneously became enraptured by a novelty -Leading edge of the Columbian Exchange -International culture of tobacco is created -Less important in itself than as a magnet that pulled many other nonhuman creatures, directly and indirectly, across the Atlantic -Plasmo-dium Vivax & Plasmodium Falciparum: Two minute, multifaceted immigrants causing malaria; played a devastating role in American life

2.1 Lowly Organized Creatures

-Jamestown, Virginia: First successful English settlement in the Americas -Colony of Virginia was an attempt by a group of merchants to collect gold and silver which they imagined (incorrectly) existed around Jamestown -English colonist John Rolfe developed Virginia tobacco -Successful tobacco trade with England -English dirt brought earthworms to the Americas -Tiny ecological engineers, earthworms reshape entire expanses -"It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures." -Charles Darwin -No idea what the long-term consequences of this gigantic, unplanned ecological experiment will be -Setting up camp on the marshy Jamestown peninsula, the colonists were, without intending it, bring the Homogenocene to North America

La Isabela (Hispaniola)

-La Isabela: Northern Hispaniola; Caribbean island -Now the Dominican Republic -Founded by Columbus on the 2nd of January, 1492 -The first European town in North America -Initial attempt by Europeans to make a permanent base in the Americas -Catastrophe; Abandoned five years after its creation -Despite its brevity, La Isabela marked the beginning of an enormous change -Inaugurated a new era in the history of life -Began the era of globalization -Creation of the modern Caribbean landscape -Admiral Columbus as an agent of imperialism -By founding La Isabela, Columbus initiated permanent European occupation in the Americas -Before Columbus, none of the epidemic diseases common in Europe and Asia existed in the Americas -Introduction of several viruses to the Western hemisphere -First epidemic (perhaps swine flu) recorded in 1493 -Casa Almirante (Admiral's House): First American residence of Columbus in La Isabela

Potosí, Bolivia

-Largest New World silver mine -Mine located in upper Peru (modern Bolivia) -Produced 80% of all Peruvian silver -One of the richest silver mining centers and most populous cities in colonial Spanish America -Located more than thirteen thousand feet up the Andes, Potosí sits at the foot of an extinct volcano that is as close to a mountain of pure silver as geology allows -Marked by extravagant display and hoodlum crime -Extraction and refining of silver ore

Juan de Salcedo

-Legazpi's grandson -Legazpi dispatched reconnaissance mission in May 1570 -Contact group led by 21 year old Salcedo -Salcedo's ship was pushed badly off course -Leaderless but eager, the Spanish soldiers continued towards the Chinese -Come upon the Mangyan and Chinese in Maujao -Chinese put on a show of force -Spainards rashly attack the Chinese in response, boarding their ships and killing many Chinese traders -Completely destroy one the Chinese ships -Salcedo was not pleased at the havoc when he finally arrived in Maujao -Far from requesting "peace and friendship" as he had orders, his men wantonly slain Chinese soldiers and left their ships in ruins -Salcedo apologized, freed the survivors, and returned the meager plunder -Chinese were humble and joyous -Salcedo ordered his men to salvage the remaining Chinese vessel -Brought to Spanish headquarters where Legazpi's men may help -Chinese sail home and report that Europeans had sailed east to the Philippines -Meanwhile, Legazpi took over Manila and waited for their return

Virginia Tobacco

-Main reason for initial settlement of America due to the high prices of this crop -Best tobacco sold for its weight in silver -Spanish brought back Nicotiana tabacum from the Caribbean -Sole source of fine tobacco were colonies of Spain -Rolfe harvested N. tabacum in Jamestown (1610) and shipped tobacco to England -Thrilled by sudden appearance of an English alternative (Virginia leaf) -Swap of Virginia tobacco for English dirt -Likely contained the common nightcrawler and red marsh worm

Chapter Three - Evil Air

-Malaria comes from Italian "mal aria", meaning evil or bad air -Ecological introductions shaped an economic exchange (African slave trade) -Resulted in political consequences that have endured to the present

3.2 Seasoning

-Malaria is caused by the two hundred or so species in the genus Plasmodium -Four of those species target humankind -Injected into human flesh by mosquitoes -Can hide in the liver for as long as five years -Periodically emerges to produce full-blown malarial relapses -In Columbus's time, the cause of malaria was unknown and no effective treatments existed -Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium falciparum cause the two most widespread types of malaria -Signature of tertian fever -Despite similar symptoms, the two Plasmodium species have different effects on the body -With both species, sufferers are infectious while sick abd can be sick for months -Mosquitoes that bite these victims can acquire the parasite -From the American perspective, falciparum came from Africa and was spread by Africans -Vivax came from Europe and was spread by Europeans -Queen Elizabeth I encourages farmers to drain marshes -Sets off an inferno of vivax malaria -(Native) Babies born in the marshland seldom "lived to the age of twenty-one" -Marshes have "bursts of mortality"

1.2 Shiploads of Silver

-Miguel López de Legazpi: Spainard founder of modern Manila -Andrés Ochoa de Urdaneta y Cerain: Spainard navigator who guided Legazpi's ships across the Pacific (1564) -Becauase Portugal had taken advantage of the Spanish failures of occupy the Malukus, the expedition was to find more spice islands nearby and establish a trade base on them -King ordered them to chart wind patterns -Introduce the area to Christianity -Thorn in the side of the Spanish king's nephew and rival, the king of Portugal -China: Stimulus that pulled Spain, as the vanguard of Christendom, to search the seaways -Hernán Cortés: Conqueror of Mexico -Cortés, Columbus, and Legazpi all sought China -Legazpi and Urdaneta left with five ships on 21 November 1564 -Reached Philippines -Legazpi set up camp on the island of Cebu -Plagued by mutiny and disease -Harassed by Portuguese ships -slowly expanded Spanish influence north, approaching China -Urdaneta figured how to successfully return to Mexico -Together, Legazpi and Urdaneta achieved what Columbus failed to do -Establish continual trade with China by sailing West -Legazpi and Urdaneta were to economics what Columbus was to ecology -The origin (however inadvertent) to a great unification -Europeans had silver, which was extremely desirable in China -Both sides gained by the exchange of silk for silver -Europe emerged in the stronger position -With the galleon trade, European gained consistent contact with China -Legazpi's encounter with the Chinese signaled the arrival of the Homogenocene in Asia -The rise of the West followed -Parks in the Philippines contain statues depicting Filipinos who died fighting Spanish rule -Statue of Legazpi and Urdaneta in Manila -Initiators of the silver trade across the Pacific -Formal commemoration of globalization -Chinese merchants equal partners in the exchange -Worldwide network still viewed with unease, even by many of its beneficiaries

Anopheles Maculipennis (Malaria Mosquito)

-Mosquito species involved in the transmission of malaria -Responsible for most of the malaria transmission in European Union countries -Human malaria transmitted solely by the Anopheles mosquito genus -Habitat centers on the coastal wetlands of the east and southeast -Seemed to have been uncommon in England until the late sixteenth century (including the Plasmodium vivax it carries) -Queen Elizabeth I encouraged landlords to drain fens, marshes, and moors to create farmland -Draining blocked the sea but left the land dotted with pockets of brackish water -Perfect habitat for A. maculipennis -Homes and barns of farmers who moved into the former marsh provided warm space for the mosquito (and the vivax parasites it carries) -Mosquitos survive the cold weather, ready to breed and spread in the following spring

Plasmodium Falciparum

-Most deadly variety of malaria -Most temperature sensitive Plasmodium -No persistent liver stage or relapse -Blood smear shows multiple ring forms and crescent-shaped gametes -Irregular febrile pattern -Associated with cerebral malaria -Plasmodium species that infects all red blood cell (RBC) stages -Responsible for the most morbidity and mortality associated with malaria -Kills as many as one out of ten victims -Thrives in most of Africa -Foothold in warmest precincts of Europe (Greece, Italy, southern Spain, and Portugal) -Unlike vivax, falciparum manages to alter red blood cells after inserting itself inside -RBCs stick to the walls of the tiny capillaries inside the kidneys, lungs, brain, and other organs -Hides the infected cells from the immune system -Slowly cuts off circulation as the cells build up on the capillary walls like layers of paint -Untreated, the circulation stoppage leads to organ failure

Tsenacomoco (Tsenacommacah)

-Name given by the Powhatan people to their native homeland -May have meant "our place" -Densely inhabited land -Three decades before 1607, Tsenacomoco had comprised six small, separate clusters of villages -By the time foreigners came from overseas, its paramount leader, Powhatan, had tripled its size -More than 14,000 people in its villages

Taino

-Native people who lived in Hispaniola conquered by Columbus -Native American people of the Caribbean islands -First group encountered by Columbus and his men when they reached the Americas -Hispaniola's native people have become known as the Taino -Spanish accounts suggest that Hispaniola had a large native population ("millions") -European impact on Tainos was horrific -Destruction of Taino plunged Santo Domingo into poverty -Chaotic war between European colonists and Taino Indians -Tainos eventually retreat -Still, Columbus wrote "that hunger would drive us from the land" -Taino alliance could not eject the Spainards from Hispaniola, but the Spaniards were waging war on the people who provided their food supply -Colonists wiped out their own labor force -Maladies shipped from Europe consumed Hispaniola's native population with stunning rapacity -Wiped from the face of the earth -DNA possibly survives in Dominicans

2.2 Strange Land

-On 14 May 1607, three small English ships anchored in the James River, located along Richmond and Jamestown -Flows into the Chesapeake Bay at the southern periphery -Land of the Native American Indian tribes led by Powhatan -Small but rapidly expanding Indian empire called the Tsenacomoco -Chesapeake Bay shaped by ecological and social forces unknown to the colonists -No domesticated animals in America at the time -Native Americans introduce English colonists to new manual agricultural techniques -Like the fields, the forest was shaped by native fire -Regular fall burning kept the Maryland forest open -Hunting of deer, elk, and moose by fire -Rather than paving roads, Indians used fire to make "corridors of travel" -Native fire "remade the land into usable forms" -Jumbled patchwork of ecological zones in coastal Virginia was essential to Powhatan culture and survival -But in the eyes of the incoming colonists, the Virginia coast was not a humanized place -Saw indigenous America as a random snarl of marshes, beaver ponds, unkempt fields, and hostile forest -In order for the English settlers to live and prosper in the New World in their accustomed manner, they would have to transform the land into something more suitable for themselves

Price Revolution

-Period in European history during the 1500's when inflation rose rapidly -Increase in prices in 16th century (inflation) -Increased demand for goods -Influx of gold and silver -New money chases after the same old goods and services -Prices rise in a classic inflationary spiral -Cost of living more than doubled across Europe in the last half of the 16th century -Wages could not keep pace and the poor were immiserated (economic impoverishment) -Uprisings of the starving exploded across the continent ("general/global crisis" of the 17th century) -Hope for peasantry provided by American crops

Maunder Minimum

-Period of very low sunspot activity that occurred between 1645 and 1716 -Closely corresponded with a cold climatic episode known as the Little Ice Age -Sunspots correlated with the sun's energy output -Fewer sunspots implies less-intense solar irradiation

Plasmodium Vivax

-Persistent hypnozoite liver stage with relapses -Blood smear shows amoeboid trophozoites -48-hour fever spike pattern -Most common/prevalent form of human malaria parasites worldwide (not the most lethal) -Vivax doesn't destroy organs, abd thus is less deadly than falciparum -During its attacks, sufferers are weak, stuporous, and anemic -Ready prey for other diseases -Endemic in much of Europe -Cooler places like the Netherlands, lower Scandinavia, and England

Domestication

-Process of changing plants or animals to make them more useful to humans -Taming of animals for human use, such as work or as food -Animal that is no longer wild, but has been bred or tamed by humans to perform various functions -Pre-Columbian Americas had few domesticated animals (no cattle, horses, sheep, goats, etc.) -Only a few species are readily domesticable -Willing to breed easily in captivity, thereby letting humans select for useful characteristics -In history, humankind has been able to domesticate only twenty-five mammals, a dozen or so birds, and, possibly, a lizard -Just six of these creatures existed in the Americas (dogs, guinea pigs, llamas, alpacas, turkeys, Muscovy ducks) -Lack of domestic animals had momentous consequences -In a country without horses, donkeys, and cattle, the only source of transportation and labor was the human body -Compared to England, Tsenacomoco had slower communications, a dearth of plowed fields and pastures, and fewer and smaller roads -Lower standards of living

Reconnaissance Mission

-Reconnaissance: Survey made for military purposes -Preliminary inspection or examination -Exploration to gain knowledge or information -Legazpi dispatched reconnaissance mission in May 1970 -Contact group led by Legazpi's 21 year old grandson, Juan de Salcedo -Reach island of Mindoro (130 miles south of modern Manila) -Luzon: Biggest island in chain of the Philippines; where Manila is located -Learn from local Mangyan people of Chinese ships (junks) at trading post nearby the modern village of Maujao -Maujao had long been a meeting point -China exchanges porcelain, silk, perfumes, etc. to the Philippines islands (including Mindoro) for gold and beeswax every spring -Legazpi orders the excursion's commander to contact any Chinese he encountered (politely) -Sent out two Spanish ships to meet the Chinese "and to request peace and friendship with them" -High winds separated the vessels

Part Three - Europe in the World

-Role of Columbian Exchange in Agricultural Revolution (late 17th century) and Industrial Revolution (late 18th century) -Potato introduced from the Andes to Europe -Rubber tree transplanted from Brazil to South/Southeast Asia -Both revolutions supported the rise of the West -Sudden emergence of the West as a controlling power -Deeply influenced by Columbian Exchange

Part Two - Pacific Journeys

-Second half of Columbian Exchange -Where the era of globalization began -Silver from Spanish America to China -Introduction of sweet potatoes and corn to China accidentally had devastating consequences -Feedback loop shaping subsequent economic and political conditions -Flowering and collapse of last Chinese dynasty -Eventual succession by Communist dynasty

Part Four - Africa in the World

-Slave trade, in human terms, the most consequential exchange of all -"Until around 1700 about 90 percent of the people who crossed the Atlantic were African captives." (Mann, 15) -Great shift in human populations -Many American landscapes demographically dominated by Africans, Indians, and Afro-Indians for three centuries -Their interactions have been long hidden from Europeans -Spasms of migration set off by Columbus -Mexico City: World's first polyglot, world-encompassing metropolis (planetary crossroads) -Polyglot: Knowing or using several languages -Mexico City represents the unification of the Atlantic and Pacific networks

Andrés Ochoa de Urdaneta y Cerain (1498/1508-1568)

-Spainard navigator who guided Legazpi's ships across the Pacific -Friend and cousin to Legazpi -One of the few survivors of Spain's failed attempt (1520's) to establish an outpost in the spice-laden Maluku Islands south of the Philippines -Shipwrecked in the Malukus for a decade -Eventually rescued by the Portuguese -Refused further offers to go to sea after his return and entered a monastery -Thirty years later, the next king of Spain ordered Urdaneta out of the cloister to make another attempt at establishing a base in Asia -Urdaneta's position as a clergyman made him unable to legally serve as head of the expedition -Legazpi was chosen for the job, depite term-46his lack of a nautical background

Miguel López de Legazpi (1502-72)

-Spanish navigator who took the Philippines through a relatively bloodless conquest -Founded the city of Manila -The first Spanish governor-general in the Philippines -Born about a decade after Columbus's first voyage -Trained as a notary -Worked in the colonial administration in Mexico for thirty-six years -Suddenly approached by Urdaneta and asked to be head of the king's expedition to Asia -Sold all his worldly possessions when he left (1564) -Sent children and grandchildren to stay with family members in Spain

Columbian Exchange

-Sudden interaction of ecosystems after Columbus -Transformation of other continents into ecological versions of Europe -Landscapes more comfortable to foreigners than their original inhabitants -Provided British, French, Dutch Portuguese, and Spanish with consistent edge needed to win their empires -Exchange between Native Americans and Europeans -Goods, ideas and skills from the Old World (Europe, Asia and Africa) to the New World (North and South America) and vice versa -Trading of plants, animals, diseases, and technologies between the Americas and the rest of the world following Columbus's voyages -After 1492, the world's ecosystems collided and mixed as European vessels carried thousands of species to new homes across the oceans -Vast biological upheaval has repercussions on humankind -Columbus's crew accompanied by insects, plants, mammals, microorganisms, etc. -Intentional: Cattle, sheep, horses, sugarcane, wheat, bananas, coffee, etc. -Non-Intentional: Earthworms, mosquitoes, cockroaches, honeybees, rats, dandelions, etc. -Ecological Release: Population explosion as a consequence of no present natural enemies -Eurasian bacteria, viruses, and parasites sweep through the Americas, killing huge numbers of people

Pangaea

-Supercontinent -Large, ancient landmass that was composed of all the continents joined together -Single landmass that broke apart and gave rise to today's continents -Geological forces broke up this vast expanse -Split between Eurasia and the Americas -Split between Eurasia and the Americas -Direct trade and communication between western Europe and East Asia were largely blocked by the Islamic nations between -Sub-Saharan Africa had little contact with Europe and next to none with South and East Asia -Over time, the two divided halves of Pangaea developed wildly different plants and animals -Eastern and Western hemispheres were almost entirely ignorant of each other's existence -Before Columbus, few venturesome land creatures had crossed the oceans and established themselves on the other side -Most were insects and birds, and also a few farm species such as coconuts and sweet potatoes -By the next generation, long-distance worldwide exchange increased globalization exponentially -No previous trade networks included both of the globe's two hemispheres -No previous operation large enough to disrupt societies on opposite sides of the planet -Sprung up quickly and functions continuously

Jamestown, Virginia

-The first permanent English settlement -Founded in 1607 by the Virginia Company of London for economic reasons -Colony was saved by tobacco -"Jamestown itself was a case study in unintended consequences." -China was the colony's ultimate reason for existence -Jamestown's founders intended to integrate isolated Virginia into the world market (to globalize it) -Purely as a business venture, Jamestown was a disaster -Despite their profits from tobacco, its backers suffered such heavy losses that their venture collapsed ignominiously (shamefully, disgracefully) -The colony inaugurated the great struggles over democracy and slavery that have long marked U.S. history -Established English America's first representative body -Brought in English America's first captive Africans -Jamestowns was the opening salvo, for English America, of the Columbian Exchange -In biological terms, it marked the point when before turns into after -"Jamestown was a brushfire in a planetary ecological conflagration."

Yellow Fever

-Tropical viral disease affecting the liver and kidneys -Causes fever, vomiting, and jaundice and often fatal -Transmitted by mosquitoes -Caused problem in the construction of the Panama Canal -Sugarcane brought malaria and yellow fever into the Caribbean and Latin America -Yellow fever, along with malaria, turned the Americas upside down -After malaria and yellow fever, previously salubrious areas holding millions of people became inhospitable -Former inhabitants fled to safer lands -Europeans who moved into the emptied real estate often did not survive the year -Malaria and yellow fever killed European workers in American tobacco and sugar plantations -Colonists then imported labor in the form of captive Africans ("human wing of the Columbian Exchange")

Anopheles Quadrimaculatus (Malaria Mosquito)

-Vector for malaria -Serves as intermediate host for plasmodium species protozoan that causes malaria -Southeast England rampant with malaria around 1642 -Malaria travelled in immigrant bodies from England to the Americas -Slave market beginning to quicken into existence -Partly driven by introduction of malaria -Slave ships from Africa form a kind of ecological corridor

Costs of War

-War spawned more war -In 1642, Spain is combating secession in Andalusia, Catalonia, and Portugal -France fighting Spain on its northern, eastern, and southern borders -Swedish armies battling Holy Roman Empire -Even though silver was coming in from Bolivia, Spain didn't have enough money to pay its army in the Netherlands -Men mutinied constantly (forty-five mutinies between 1572 and 1607) -To pay for its foreign adventures, the Spanish court borrowed from foreign bankers -King felt debts would be covered by future shipments of American treasure (bankers felt free to lend for the same reason) -Everything cost more than the monarch hoped and debt piled up greatly, up to fifteen times annual revenues -Court continued to view its economic policy in the optative mood -Few wanted to believe that the good times would end -Spain defaulted on its debts in 1557, 1576, 1596, 1607, and 1627 -After each bankruptcy, the king borrowed more money -Spain paid up to 40% interest rates compounded annually -High interest rates made next bankruptcy more likely -The process continued as everyone believed silver would keep pouring into Seville -In 1642, so much silver has been produced that its value is falling even as the mines slacken -Spain, then the richest nation in the world, in economic collapse which is dragging down its neighbors ("financial Armageddon") -Europe is complexly interconnected -Silver trade, though an essential part of this tumult, was not the only cause -Religious conflict, royal hubris, and struggles among classes were also important factors

1.1 Seams of Pangaea

Columbus's First Voyage Across The Atlantic -King Fernando (Ferdinand) II and Queen Isabel I of Spain grudgingly backed Columbus's first voyage -Transoceanic travel excruciatingly expensive and risky -The sovereigns' reservations drove admiral Columbus to minimize his expedition to three small ships and about ninety combined crew-mates -First voyage came to an abrupt end on Christmas Day, 1492 -Flagship Santa Maria ran aground off the northern coast of Hispaniola -Forced to leave thirty-eight men behind -Columbus departed back for Spain while those men built an encampment (later called La Navidad) Columbus's Second Voyage Across the Atlantic -Columbus triumphantly returned in March of 1493 -King and Queen enthusiastically send Columbus on second expedition just six months later (September 1493) -Vastly larger: seventeen ships and about fifteen hundred combined crew-mates -Dozen or more priests charged with bringing the faith to the new lands -The conjoined Spanish-Taino settlement of La Navidad was the intended destination of Columbus's second voyage -Returned in triumph on 28 November, 1493 -Failed establishment of La Isabela -Left to find China on 24 April, 1493 -Columbus believed he had found a route to Asia -Goal of second expedition was to create permanent bastion for Spain in the heart of Asia -Headquarters for further exploration and trade -Returned to La Isabela five months after his departure, after failing to reach China -Humiliated, Columbus set back for Spain on 10 March 1496 to beg the queen and king for more money and supplies Columbus's Third Voyage Across The Atlantic (1498) -So little left of La Isabela, Columbus landed on the opposite side of the island in Santo Domingo -Never again set foot in his first colony and La Isabela was almost forgotten -Spainards abandoned their homes to the insects -Santo Domingo was depopulated -Plague began to diminish -Novel microorganisms spread across the Americas throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries -Killed at least three-quarters of people in the Western hemisphere -No comparable demographic catastrophe in history -Columbus's signal accomplishment was to reknit the seams of Pangaea (Historian Alfred W. Crosby) -Four total American voyages