1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (71 page)

  94
Company demise: Horn 2005:272–77; Morgan 2003:101–07 (“their deaths,” 102); Rabb 1966:table 5 (£200,000); Craven 1932:1–23; KB 2:381–87; 4:130–51, 490–97.

  95
Traditional tobacco growing: Percy 1625?:95; Archer 1607:114 (describing one farm as “bare without wood some 100 acres, where are set beans, wheat [maize], peas, tobacco, gourds, pompions [pumpkins], and other things unknown to us”).

  96
Tobacco and soil depletion: Morgan 2003:141–42 (and cited sources); Craven 1993:15 (“In the tobacco regions of the South,…the planters seldom counted on a paying fertility lasting more than three or four years”), 29–35. Colonists observed that the “ground will hold out but 3 yrs” (KB 3:92; see also 220). Some aspects of Craven’s thesis (that tobacco’s capacity to exhaust the soil ultimately caused an agricultural collapse) have been contested (Nelson 1994), but not the exhaustive capacity of tobacco agriculture itself.

  97
English take best land and keep it: Rountree 2005:152, 188, 228 (see also 154, 187, 200, and 260, note 23); Morgan 2003:136–40; Wennersten 2000:46–47 (“centuries”). By the 1620s some English regarded this idea—taking over previously cleared land with the best soil—as a plan of action (Martin 1622:708; Waterhouse 1622:556–57).

  98
Deforestation, erosion: Craven 2006:27–29, 34–36; Williams 2006:204–16, 284–308 (“spared,” 294) Wennersten 2000:51–54.

  99
Animals imported, eat Indian harvests: Anderson 2004:101–03, 120–23, 188–99; Morgan 2003:136–40.

100
Impact of pigs on tuckahoe: Crosby 1986:173–76; Kalm 1773:vol. 1, 225, 387–88 (“extirpated”); KB 2:348, 3:118 (“into the woods”), 221.

101
Biological imports, honeybee invasion: Crane 1999:358–59; Crosby 1986:188–90 (“in all minds,” 190); Grant 1949:217 (pollination discovery); Kalm 1773:vol. 1, 225–26 (“English flies”); KB 3:532 (list of imports).

102
Fruit that needs pollination: Flowering plants are either open pollinated or biotic pollinated, which means that either they can pollinate themselves via the wind or they can’t; most mix both methods. Apples and watermelon are close to the purely biotic end of the spectrum; some (but not much) pollination of peaches can occur in the absence of insects. As a practical matter, all require bees. Apples originated in Central Asia, peaches in China, watermelons in North Africa. I am grateful to the farmers in Whately, Mass., who explained this to me.

103
Nicholas Ferrar: Skipton 1907:22–25, 61–63; KB 3:83, 324, 340 (investments).

104
Ferrar reads Bullock, longing for China: Thompson 2004. Summarizing Ferrar’s reaction to tobacco, the Oxford historian Peter Thompson called it “an inedible crop whose monetary value to the state could be construed as being inversely related to its detrimental effect on the nation’s morals and reputation.” (121). All quotes from online transcription. See also, KB 3:30; 4:109–10. Spain thought the English were building a chain of forts in Virginia to protect the China route: Maguel, F. 1610. Report to the King of Spain, 30 Sep. In Haile ed. 1998:447–53, at 451–52.

105
Worldwide spread of tobacco: Brook 2008:117–51 (“to buy tobacco,” 137); Céspedes del Castillo 1992:22–48ff.; Goodrich 1938 (daimyo ban, 654); Laufer et al. 1930 (Sierra Leone, 7–8); Laufer 1924a (Japan, 2–3; Mughals, 11–14); Laufer 1924b (pope, 56; Ottoman bribes, 61). See also Chap. 5. Three years after the khan’s ban the Chinese emperor also banned the foreign plant, decreeing that all tobacco vendors “shall, no matter the quantity sold, be decapitated, and their heads exposed on a pike” (Goodrich 1938:650).

CHAPTER
3 /
Evil Air

    1
Discovery of copybook: Varela and Gil eds. 1992:69–76.

    2
Translation of account of second voyage: Colón, C. Letter to the Sovereigns, Feb. 1494. In Taviani et al. eds. 1997:vol. 1, 201–39 (“tertian fever,” 233); Gil, J., and Varela, C. Memorandum to Centro Nacional de Conservación y Microfilmación Documental y Bibliográfica, 29 Dec. 1985. In idem:164–65 (“revelations,” 164).

    3
Tertian fever: A less common type of malaria is associated with a seventy-two-hour cycle: quartan fever.

    4
Cook and malaria: Cook 2002:375.

    5
Lack of malaria in Americas: Rich and Ayala 2006:131–35 (monkey malaria); De Castro and Singer 2005; Carter and Mendis 2002:580–81; Wood 1975; Dunn 1965.

    6
“had trouble”: Colón, C. 1494. Relation of the Second Voyage. In Varela and Gil eds. 1992:235–54, at 250. My thanks to Scott Sessions for helping me with this translation.

    7
Definitions of
çiçiones
: Author’s interviews, Sessions (Cook also discusses the issue); Covarrubias y Orozco 2006: fol. 278v; Vallejo 1944; Real Academia Española 1726–39:vol. 2, 342. See also M. Alonso,
Diccionario Medieval Español
(Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, 1986), 2 vols.; J. Corominas and J. A. Pascual,
Diccionario Crítico Etimológico Castellano e Hispánico
(Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1980–91), 6 vols.

    8
“marshy emanations”: Real Academia Española 1914:753.

    9
Malaria toll: World Health Organization 2010 (death, morbidity estimates, 60); Gallup and Sachs 2001 (economic burden).

  10
Extractive states: Acemoglu and Robinson: forthcoming; Acemoglu et al. 2001; Conrad 1998:84 (“disease and starvation”).

  11
Evolution of malaria: Rich and Ayala 2006; Carter and Mendis 2002:570–76. Half a dozen other
Plasmodium
species occasionally attack people, but the vast majority of human malaria is due to
P. vivax
and
P. falciparum,
with some from
P. malariae
and
P. ovale.

  12
Malaria life cycle: Interviews and e-mail, Andrew Spielman; Baer et al. 2007; Morrow and Moss 2007 (ten billion, 1091); Sturm et al. 2006; Rich and Ayala 2006; Carter and Mendis 2002:570–76. I ignore many, many complications here.

  13
Jeake’s attacks: Hunter and Gregory ed. 1988:210–25 (all quotes, 215).

  14
Differences between vivax and falciparum: Mueller et al. 2009; Packard 2007:23–24. The two species have different reproductive strategies. Vivax infects only very young red blood cells, about 2 percent of the total, but does so for a long time. Mosquitoes are unlikely to pick it up at any one feeding, but have a lot of time to do it. Falciparum attacks all red blood cells, but for less time. Mosquitoes are more likely to pick it up at any one feeding, but have less time to do so.

  15
Temperature sensitivity: Roberts et al. 2002:81. I drastically simplify the issue; for a careful calculation, see Guerra et al. 2008:protocol S2.

  16
Anopheles maculipennis
: Ramsdale and Snow 2000; Snow 1998; White 1978; Hackett and Missiroli 1935. The
maculipennis
species in coastal England,
A. atroparvus,
seems resistant to
P. falciparum,
an additional reason that falciparum was rare there.

  17
Draining wetlands and mosquitoes: Thirsk 2006:15–22, 49–78, 108–41; Dobson 1997:320–22, 343–44. Although rarer, malaria was likely present before drainage; Hasted, for instance, reports that Archbishop John Morton died of “quartan ague” in 1500 (1797–1801:vol. 12, 434).

  18
Improved drainage: (footnote): Dobson 1997:320–22, 343–44 (“pigsties,” 321); Kukla 1986:138–39 (cattle).

  19
English malaria misery: Packard 2007:44–53; Hutchinson and Lindsay 2006 (causes of death); Dobson 1997:287–367 (Aubrey, 300; burial ratio, 345); 1980 (mortality rates, 357–64); Dickens 1978:1 (“brothers”); Defoe 1928:13 (“certainly true”); Wither 1880:139 (“had there”); Hasted 1797–1801:vol. 6, 144 (“twenty-one”). The 1625 death figure is from the
Collection of Yearly Bills of Mortality.
My description is based heavily on Dobson’s work.

  20
Emigrants from malaria zone: Author’s interviews and e-mail, Robert C. Anderson (Great Migration Project), Preservation Virginia (Jamestown colonists), William Thorndale; Dobson 1997:287 (Sheerness); Kelso and Straube 2004:18–19 (Jamestown, Blackwall); Fischer 1991:31–36; Bailyn 1988:11. Anderson told me that “about 15 percent” of the English migrants to New England came from Kent alone; Thorndale (pers. comm.) is cautious about the precision of the individual Preservation Virginia biographies, which have not been formally published.

  21
Vivax hiding: Mueller et al. 2009. Worse still, victims can become carriers. By fighting off the disease, people acquire immunity—of a peculiar, dispiriting sort. If they are bitten by an infected mosquito, the “immunity” greatly reduces the symptoms of malaria. But it does not stop the infection itself, which can be passed on.

  22
A. quadrimaculatus
: Reinert et al. 1997.
A. quadrimaculatus
is strikingly similar to
A. maculipennis
(Proft et al. 1999). Indeed, their ranges almost overlap—
A. maculipennis
can be found in the northern fringes of the United States (Freeborn 1923).

  23
Malaria transmissibility: Author’s interviews, Spielman. In August 2002, two teenagers in northern Virginia were hospitalized with malaria. The victims, near neighbors, lived less than ten miles from Dulles International Airport. County and state officials came to believe that an asymptomatic traveler on an international flight at Dulles had been bitten by a mosquito, which passed on the infection to the teenagers. It was the tenth such case in a decade (Author’s interview, David Gaines [Va. Dept. of Health]; Pastor et al. 2002).

  24
Malaria by 1640: Author’s interview, Anderson. See also Fischer 1991:14–17. The vice director of the Dutch colony on Delaware Bay suffered a classic malaria attack in 1659 (“confined to my bed between 2 and 3 months, and so severely attacked by tertian ague, that nothing less than death has been expected every other day.… All the inhabitants of New Netherland are visited with these plagues” [Letter, Alrichs, J., to Commissioners of the Colonie on the Delaware River, 12 Dec. 1659. In Brodhead ed. 1856–58:vol. 2, 112–14]). See also, Letter, idem, to Burgomaster de Graaf, 16 Aug. 1659. In ibid.: 68–71. Ships came to New England after 1640, but their temporary visits were less likely to spread malaria.

  25
Quads and dry weather: Author’s interviews, Gaines; Chase and Knight 2003.

  26
Malaria by 1620s: Historians generally maintain that malaria was present in the Chesapeake by the 1680s and possibly by the 1650s (Cowdrey 1996:26–27; Rutman and Rutman 1976:42–43; Duffy 1953:204–07). Kukla (1986:141) suggests that “by 1610 it may have been present to greet Governor De La Warr, who ‘arriv[ed] in Jamestowne [and]…was welcomed by a hot and violent ague.’ ” But this is little more than speculation, as is my own.

  27
Seasoning: Morgan 2003:180–84 (later improvement); Kukla 1986:136–37; Kupperman 1984:215, 232–36; Gemery 1980:189–96 (improvement); Blanton 1973:37–41; Rutman and Rutman 1976:44–46; Curtin 1968:211–12; Duffy 1953:207–10; Jones 1724:50 (“Climate”); Letter, George Yeardley to Edwin Sandys, 7 Jun. 1620. In KB 3:298 (“seasoned”). See also KB 3:124; 4:103, 191, 4:452; Morgan 2003:158–62, 180–84.

  28
Sukey Carter: Carter 1965:vol. 1, 190–94 (all quotes; I omit extraneous material), 221 (death).

  29
Costs of servants and slaves: Morgan 2003: 66, 107 (servant pay); Menard 1977:359–60, table 7; U.S. Census Bureau 1975:vol. 2, 1174. Using similar figures, Coelho and McGuire (1997:100–01) estimate that a servant would have to return £2.74 a year to justify the purchase price, but a slave would have to return £3.25. To be sure, the servant would eventually be able to leave his master’s employ (Menard looked only at servants with more than four years remaining on their contracts). But the advantages of the slave’s permanence wouldn’t manifest themselves for years—and Chesapeake Bay with its high mortality rate was not a place where people sought long-term advantages. Such calculations ignore the profits from selling or working slave children. Little evidence exists, though, that slave owners initially understood this potential (Menard 1977:359–60).

  30
Adam Smith and slavery: Smith 1979:vol. 1, 99 (“by slaves” [bk. 1, chap. 8, ¶41]); vol. 1, 388 (“domineer” [bk. 3, chap. 2, ¶130). See also vol. 1, 387 (bk. 3, chap. 2, ¶9); vol. 2, 684 (bk. 4, chap. 9, ¶47).

  31
English slaves: Guasco 2000: 90–127 (slave censuses, 102, 122). Northwest Africa had a European slave population of about 35,000 in 1580–1680 (Davis 2001:117). Using a mortality estimate of 24–25 percent a year, Davis derived a total European catch of 850,000 in this period. A guess of an average annual total of two thousand seems conservative. Using Davis’s mortality ratios, this leads to 48,571 English captives in 1580–1680, hence “tens of thousands.” Hebb (1994:139–40) estimates that 8,800 English were enslaved in 1616–42, which would translate into ~25,000 during this period. Many more Italians and Spaniards than English were taken. Plymouth: Laird Clowes et al. 1897–1903:vol. 2, 22–23 (“Between 1609 and 1616, no fewer than four hundred and sixty-six British vessels were captured by [corsairs], and their crews enslaved”).

  32
Rare but legal English slavery: Guasco 2000:50–63; Friedman 1980. Slaves, mainly prisoners, were sent to England’s few galleys.

  33
Indentured servants: Galenson 1984 (one-third to one-half, 1); Gemery 1980:esp. table A-7. Most went to Virginia, so the figure there was higher, perhaps “more than 75 percent” (Fischer 1991:227). See also, Tomlins 2001; Menard 1988:105–06.

  34
Slaves in 1650: McCusker and Menard 1991:table 6.4; U.S. Census Bureau 1975:vol. 2, 1168.

  35
Turn to slavery in 1680s, emergence of England as biggest slaver: Author’s interviews, Anderson, Thornton. Numbers: Berlin 2003:table 1; U.S. Census Bureau 1975:vol. 2, 1168. Economics: Menard 1988:108–11, 1977; Galenson 1984:9–13. See also, Eltis and Richardson 2010; Eltis et al. 2009–.

  36
Size and profitability of slave trade: Eltis and Engerman 2000 (“tonnage,” 129; percent of GDP, 132–34; raw materials, 138). Eltis and Engerman argue that the profits were not oriented toward industrial investment, so the industry had no special role in the Industrial Revolution (136). This contradicts Blackburn’s conclusion that “exchanges with the slave plantations helped British capitalism to make a breakthrough to industrialization and global hegemony” (1997:572).

  37
Free land and slavery: Smith 1979:vol. 2, 565 (“first master” [bk. 4, chap. 7, §b, ¶2]), Domar 1970. “Wide-open spaces exhibit a bimodal distribution: lots of freedom or coerced labor” (J. R. McNeill, pers. comm.). Morgan (2003:218–22) observes that farmers “solved” the problem by buying vast tracts of land.

  38
Price rise in indentured servants as slavery cause: Morgan 2003:chap. 15; Galenson 1984. Morgan locates an effective price rise in increasing trouble with indentured servants in Virginia, Galenson an actual price rise from labor shortages in England.

  39
Little Ice Age impact in Scotland: Lamb 1995:199–203; Gibson and Smout 1995:164–71; Flinn ed. 1977:164–86.

  40
Scots in Panama: I rely on the fine account in McNeill 2010:106–23 (“of Panama,” 123—I have, with McNeill’s permission, slightly altered his words). Earlier studies are useful but, in McNeill’s phrase, “epidemiologically unaware” (106).

  41
“the world”: Bannister ed. 1859:vol. 1, 158–59.

  42
Founding Carolina: Wood 1996:13–20.

  43
Mississippians become confederacies: Snyder 2010:chap. 1; Gallay 2002:23–24.

  44
Slavery in Powhatan, confederacies, and colonists: Smith 2007b:287–88, 298 (examples); Rountree 1990:84, 121 (Powhatan); Snyder 2010:35–40 (Southeast); Woodward 1674:133 (Indians who sell slaves to Virginia). See also, Laubrich 1913:25–47.

  45
Flintlocks vs. matchlocks: Snyder 2010:52–55; Chaplin 2001:111–12; Malone 2000:32–35, 64–65.

  46
Spanish attack on Carolina: Bushnell 1994:136–38.

  47
Carolina slave trade: I am summarizing the argument in Gallay 2002; see also Snyder 2010; Bossy 2009; Laubrich 1913:119–22.

  48
Economics of trade: Snyder 2010:54–55 (160 deerskins, “Extreamly” [quoting Thomas Nairne]); Gallay 2002:200–01 (census), 299–308 (export estimate), 311–14 (prices).