1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

In his earlier award-winning book, 1491, Charles C. Mann studied civilizations of the Americas prior to the arrival of Columbus. As a journalist on various scientific topics, he has written for the Atlantic Monthly, Science, National Geographic, and related publications. In 1493, he studies the effect of Columbus and the Europeans who followed him on plants, animals, and people of the Americas. He also studies the effects of transplanting plants and animals from the Americas to the other continents of the world. This movement of plants, animals, and people in both directions was called the Columbian Exchange (CE) by the historian, Crosby (1973). Mann follows Crosby by interpreting the voyages of Columbus as reuniting the separate continents to their earlier form when they were a single landmass called Pangaea, 250 million years ago. Mann emphasizes the importance of humans in overcoming geographical barriers and in re-shaping the world. He follows some biologists by calling the period after 1492 the Homogenocene, a new epoch in human history that results from the “mixing of unlike substances to create a uniform blend”. Mann's approach is to borrow from the literature of several disciplines that have addressed the CE, and to provide a synthesis that is informative to non-specialists. He introduces a personal element to the book by visiting important historical sites related to the CE and tracing the movement of crops, animals, and people from the time of Columbus to today. For example, he begins by visiting the site in the Dominican Republic where Columbus landed in 1492. He then visits a park in Manila that contains a statue of Miguel Legazpi, the Spanish founder of Manila. He also visits Yuegang, a town in coastal China that was important for the China-Manila trade, and Belem and Manaus, Brazilian towns that were important for the rubber trade. He visits Puebla, Mexico and discusses how the Talavera ceramics of Puebla were influenced by the Chinese ceramics coming from Manila, as well as ceramics from Talavera de la Reina in Spain. The book consists of nine chapters based on important products, locations, or groups of people. He includes separate chapters on the more important products, such as potatoes, sugar, maize, and rubber, and he provides shorter discussion of others, such as chocolate, chili peppers (capsicum), wheat, and cattle, that have altered cultures. A more comprehensive list of products that were exported from or imported to the Americas can be found in Crosby or Nunn and Qian (2010). Not all changes were beneficial, and Mann acknowledges unfavorable effects of the CE by including an entire chapter (“Evil Air”) on diseases. Death rates among slaves and natives of the Americas were high, but they were also high for early English settlers. In the Jamestown colony (1607–1623), 80% of the English settlers died within months of arriving. Mann provides useful information about the advanced civilizations that the Spanish encountered when they arrived in America. The corn-based civilizations were centered in Mexico, and the potato-based cultures were in the Andes. Columbus and the Conquistadors are villains to some modern writers, but Mann avoids judging them as villains or heroes. He does document the importance of these participants in the Columbian Exchange for the Americas and the entire world. After the Spanish realized that America was not India, acquiring gold and silver was their main goal. However, their search for precious metals had many unintended consequences. It initiated a diffusion of plants, animals, and people that had enormous biological and economic consequences throughout the world. Mann illustrates the diffusion process by following the travels of several important products. There were no potatoes in Ireland, Germany, or anywhere in Europe before Columbus. Potatoes were domesticated in the Andes as early as 2000 BC, and they were sent to Europe after Pizarro attacked the Andes in 1532. After a slow introduction, they became a major staple in Northern Europe, that contributed to population growth (Nunn and Qian, 2011). The European population data used by Malthus to construct his theory of population was based on a sample period that included the introduction of the potato in Europe. Historians, such as McNeill, consider the transplantation of potatoes from America to Europe to be a major reason for subsequent European domination of much of the world from 1750–1950. Potatoes were not without problems, especially the potato blight that contributed to the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s. Also the appearance of the potato beetle in 1861 caused problems that led to the development of chemical pesticides that first included arsenic. The Andes that sent potatoes to Europe also sent guano, the first intensive fertilizer. Guano exports to Europe experienced a brief boom period until they were displaced by nitrates from Chile and later by the development of chemical fertilizers. Mann identifies potatoes as an early example of the modern agro-industrial complex: improved crops, high-intensity fertilizers, and factory-made pesticides that have been praised by some for high productivity but denounced by others for high toxicity. Sugar was native to New Guinea, and it was gradually moved to India, the Middle East, and to the islands off the coast of northwest Africa. Sugar was often produced with slave labor, and in the ninth century, lower Mesopotamia was covered with extensive sugarcane plantations worked by slaves from East Africa (Findlay and O'Rourke). When sugarcane production moved to the Americas, beginning with the West Indies, the derived demand for slave labor increased, and millions of slaves were sent across the Atlantic Ocean. Mann discusses how diseases and immunities influenced the choice between slave and indentured labor. Traders from China and the Philippine Islands had traded long before the Spanish arrived (and named the islands after King Philip), but the founding of Manila by Legazpi in 1570 made Manila an important intermediary in the trade between China and Spanish America. The early trade was dominated by exchanging silver from Potosi in modern Bolivia for silk and porcelain from China. Potosi, a mining town above 10,000 feet in the Andes, became the largest town in the Americas. The trading relationship led to the transplantation of American crops to China, especially maize and sweet potatoes. Production of these crops grew rapidly in China and contributed to a spurt of population growth similar to what Malthus observed in Europe. However, planting of maize and sweet potatoes on steep slopes where rice would not grow also contributed to deforestation and soil erosion. When the Spanish arrived in the New World, South America was the only source of rubber in the world. Europeans were amazed to see their first rubber ball from America. Some Brazilian cities, including Belem and Manaus, enjoyed a brief boom while they were monopoly exporters to Europe. However, an Englishman, Henry Wickham, smuggled rubber tree seeds out of the Amazon in 1876 and planted them in the Kew Gardens in England. Later they were transplanted to Asian locations where they prospered. Because Wickham contributed to the demise of the rubber monopoly, some Brazilians revile him as a “prince of thieves” and a “bio-pirate”. Rubber production has expanded in South China and Laos recently, and Mann warns that the region is not prepared for the likely appearance of a plant disease. Changes induced by the CE were so fundamental that Mann considered the subsequent period to be an entirely new epoch. The human response to the new opportunities followed a trial and error process that resulted in enormous economic benefits as well as many errors, such as spreading disease and pollution and expanding the use of slave labor. Not all migrant plants and animals were welcome, and some were considered to be “invasive species”. The process of overcoming geographical barriers and reuniting Pangaea by moving plants and animals and people continues today. Mann applies the concept of the Columbian Exchange, originally introduced by Crosby, and extends it in several ways. He provides more detail about the connections across products and inputs and across regions of the world. He incorporates recent archeological information about specific sites relevant to the CE. He provides useful information about diseases that have affected plants, animals, and people in ways that influenced the CE. Mann assembles an extensive body of evidence to indicate why and how Columbus and participants in the Columbian Exchange were extremely influential figures. Mann is not an economist, but he has a good feel for identifying economic issues and recognizing economic connections. He shows some awareness of the economics literature on trade and growth, but he does not take a stand on the broader economic issues related to trade and economic growth that have been studied by others (Acemoglu et al. 2002), Nunn and Qian, 2011, Nunn, 2011, Grennes 2007). Reuniting the continents provided new trading opportunities, especially for European countries with an Atlantic coast. Spain and Portugal were the pioneers, but England and the Netherlands were better prepared (Acemoglu et al. 2005) and received greater benefits. New beneficial trade with America may have influenced the fact that the Industrial Revolution began in England. Economic growth spread to other countries, but growth was not uniform across countries. One result is the Great Divergence in incomes today. (Pomeranz 2000). As part of the Columbian Exchange, cultures have borrowed from each other extensively, whether modern residents know it or not. Mann closes with a song sung by Philippine children giving thanks for the pleasures of their culture, including traditional food, such as jicama, eggplant, string beans, lima beans, peanuts, radishes, mustard, onions, tomatoes, garlic, ginger, and sesame seeds. Unknown to the children and some of their parents, is the fact that all these products were transplanted from the Americas or other continents. To some ecologists, the Columbian Exchange was the most important event since the extinction of the dinosaurs (Crosby). It was also a crucial economic event in the history of globalization (O'Rourke and Williamson). The recent episode of globalization that began around 1980 has had a profound effect on modern economies, and the episode that began in 1492 shaped subsequent globalization in important ways. Mann has provided useful data and insights into the ongoing process. The immediate effects of the CE were on agriculture and on the broader agro-industrial complex. The mass movement of people, both voluntary and coerced, had a profound effect on migrants as well as those who did not migrate. The exchange of plants, animals, and people also had a broader effect on the Industrial Revolution and the subsequent pattern of world economic growth. Mann's book should be a good read for economists interested in history, specialists in other disciplines, and the general public.