1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created

by Charles C. Mann

  70 Total immigrants and deaths 1607–24: See sources for chart, esp. Kolb 1980, Hecht 1969, Neill 1867, Thorndale pers. comm. A summary can be found in Kupperman 1979:24, though a ship-by-ship count suggests that her figure of six thousand for the 1607–24 influx is too low. I am grateful to William Thorndale for his kindness in discussing this material with an amateur.

  71 Accounts of Jamestown deaths: KB 4:148 (“extreamities”); KB 4:160 (“left alive”); KB 4:175 (“3000 p[er]sons”); KB 4:22 (“delivered”); Percy 1625?:507 (“out of his body”); KB3:121 (are dead); KB 4:238 (“servants are dead,” Rowsley arrived in spring 1622 [KB 4:162, Thorndale pers. comm.] and the note reporting the deaths was written in June); KB 4:234 (“leave the Contrey”); KB 4:235 (“well out of it”).

  72 Berkeley Hundred: Dowdey 1962:chap. 2; KB 3:230 (date, number of arrival), 3:207 (“Almighty god”), 3:197–99 (list of dead). In general, see KB 3:195–214, 3:271–74. “Hundred” refers to the number of acres supposedly granted to each partner in the enterprise. I am grateful to Jamie Jamieson for giving me a tour of Berkeley.

  73 “from the investment”: Craven 1932:24.

  74 Failed ventures at Jamestown: Hecht 1982:103–26.

  75 Pocahontas bio, abduction, marriage: Smith 2007c:423–27; Rountree 2005 (lack of clothing, Mataoka, 37), 2001; Horn 2005:217–18; Townsend 2004:100–06; Price 2005:153–58; Dale 1615:845–46; Hamor 1615:802–09; Rolfe 1614; Argall, S. 1613. Letter to “Master Hawes,” Jun. In Haile ed. 1998:754–55; Strachey 1612:630 (“all the fort over”).

  76 English counterattack: Kupperman 2007a:255–59; Horn 2005:180–90; Morgan 2003:79–81 (oatmeal); Fausz 1990:30–34; Percy 1625?:509–18; Strachey 1625:434–38.

  77 Initial refusal to negotiate over Pocahontas, subsequent pact: Smith 2007c:424–26 (“had stolne,” 424); Horn 2005:212–16; Rountree 2005:chap. 12; Fausz 1990:44–48; Hamor 1615:802–09; Dale 1615:843–44. Argall (1613:754–55) says Powhatan did negotiate, but Horn’s argument (2005:213) that he would not have wanted to seem weak by negotiating seems plausible—Argall may have been inflating the success of his disagreeable tactic.

  78 Pocahontas in captivity: Rountree 2005:chap. 12; Townsend 2004:chap. 6; Hamor 1615:803 (“discontented”); Rolfe 1614.

  79 Pocahontas’s first marriage: Rountree 2005:142–43, 166; Townsend 2004:85–88.

  80 Cease-fire and Opechancanough plan: Rountree 2005:chap. 15; Fausz 1977:320–50; Fausz 1981; Fausz 1990:47–49 (“formal winner,” 48). Many English thought Opechancanough had taken charge well before Powhatan’s death (Hamor 1615:808; Dale 1615:843). Powhatan did not create an orderly succession plan. Lear-like, he retired to a faraway village, dividing his kingdom among his younger brothers. Initially, another brother had the most formal power (Smith 2007c:447). Infighting was inevitable (KB 3:74, 3:483). Finally Opechancanough emerged as first among equals (KB 2:52, 3:550–51, 4:117–18; Smith 2007c:437–47 passim, 478; Rolfe 1616:868–69). Notching stick: Smith 2007c:442.

  81 James and tobacco: Laufer 1924b:17–19; James I 1604:112 (“braine”).

  82 Virginia tobacco in England: Morgan 2003:107–10 (servant pay, productivity), 192–98 (taxes); Hecht 1982:175–93, esp. table VII:4 (1,000 percent, 188); Laufer 1924b (debts); see also, Horn 2005:246–47, 280–83; Price 2005:186–87; Wennersten 2000:40–41; Gray 1927.

  83 First representative body: Horn 2005:239–41; Price 2005:189–94; KB 3:482–84 (charter).

  84 Jamestown slaves: Kupperman 2007a:288; Price 2005:192–97; Sluiter 1997; Rolfe, J. 1619. Letter to Sandys, E. In KB 3:243 (“20. and odd”). An intriguing investigation is Hashaw 2007; the basic source is Rolfe (KB 3:241–48).

  85 Virginia tobacco mania, near starvation: Smith 2007c:443–44 (“with Tobacco”; the quotation is attributed by Smith to Rolfe and Deputy Governor Samuel Argall); Morgan 2003:111–113 (taverns); Rolfe 1616:871 (Dale’s orders); KB 1:351, 1:566, 3:221, 4:179. (The colonists, the Virginia Company treasurer said in December 1619, “by this misgovernemt [sic] reduced themselves into an extremity of being ready to starve” [KB 1:266].)

  86 Clergy on Virginia: Glover and Smith 2008:62–67, 221–23; Horn 2005:137–41; Donegan 2002:3–4, Fausz 1977:256–65; Crashaw 1613 (“take it?,” 24–25); Symonds 1609. See also the Crashaw sermon in Brown 1890:(vol. 1) 360–75.

  87 Later rounds of financing: Hecht 1969:279 (known first investors: six people, £209 [no complete list survives]), 280–310 (1609–10 investors); Brown 1890:vol. 1, 209–28, 466–69 (1609–10); KB 3:79, 98, 317–39 (1610–19 investment rounds). Not every listed investor actually paid (Glover and Smith 2008:115).

  88 1622 attack and company finances: Rountree 2005:chap. 16; Horn 2005:255–62; Fausz 1977:chap. 5; Waterhouse, E. 1622. A Declaration of the State of the Colony and Affaires in Virginia. In KB 3:541–71; 2:19 (debt); 3:668; 4:524–25.

  89 Lack of planting, onslaught of unfed new colonists: Morgan 2003: 100–02 (captains’ incentives); Hecht 1982:appendix 2; KB 4:13, 41, 74, 186 (fear of planting maize), 451, 525 (abandonment of planting). In Fausz’s summary: “[J]ust as in the colony’s early days, the English were dependent upon the [Indians], now their implacable enemies, for the most basic, most crucial human need” (Fausz 1977:473).

  90 Second “starving time”: KB 4:25, 41–42, 62 (“of the Ground”), 65 (“bury the dead”), 71–75, 228–39, 263, 524–25 (more than one thousand dead, i.e., two out of three). Figures cannot be precise, as emigrants kept arriving and dying throughout the year.

  91 Poisoning (footnote): Rountree 2005:219–20; KB 4:102, 221–22 (“ther heades”); others put the number of dead at 150 (KB 2:478). Such treachery was common (Morgan 2003:100).

  92 English inability to attack successfully: KB 2:71, 4:10 (“they retyre”). Although they did not want to leave their tobacco fields (KB 4:451), they did destroy some Indian food stores (KB 3:704–07, 709).

  93 “their Countries”: Smith 2007b:494.

  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 t
he 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”).