How Did The Introduction Of Animals In The Columbian Exchange

The Columbian Exchange: Plants, Animals, and Disease between the Old and New Worlds Alfred W. Crosby, Professor Emeritus, University of Texas at Austin © National Humanities Center

(part ii of iii)

	Giesslev, 1804 Library of Congress Plants cultivated by Native Americans and introduced to Europe afterward 1492 image enlargement

The contrast betwixt the two sets of organisms, Erstwhile Globe and New World, those closely associated with humanity—crop plants, domesticated animals, germs, and weeds—was very sharp. The difference between the two lists of crops was, with the possible exception of cotton, accented. (I am omitting dozens of not quite so important crops in these lists.)

	New World crops maize (corn) white potatoes sweet potatoes manioc peanuts tomatoes squash (incl. pumpkin) pineapples papaya avocados		Old World crops rice wheat barley oats rye turnips onions cabbage lettuce peaches pears sugar
"Ananas cosmosus" [pineapple], in Oviedo, La historia general de las Indias, 1535 Library of Congress				"Lactuca capitata. Cabbage Lettuce," in Gerard, The herball, 1633 SCETI

The difference between the two lists of domesticated animals is even more amazing. They differ not merely in content merely in length.

"Allocamelus" [llama], in Topsell, The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes and Serpents and Insects, 1658

New World domesticated animals dogs llamas republic of guinea pigs fowl (a few species)

Old World domesticated animals dogs horses donkeys pigs cattle goats sheep undiscriminating fowl

Equus caballus, in Ruini, Dell'anotomia et dell'infirmità del cavallo, 1598 Library of Congress

de Bry, "The Towne Secota," in Hariot, A Briefe and True Report of the New Constitute Land of Virginia, 1590 Library of Congress Corn, pumpkins, tobacco, and sunflowers grown by Algonquian Indians most the 1585 English colony on Roanoke Isle

The achievements of Amerindian farmers were as impressive as those of Old World farmers, peculiarly if y'all take into account the fact that the Amerindians' lands were smaller in area and they had fewer species of plants to work with than the Former World farmers, simply the achievements of Amerindian livestockmen were clearly inferior to their Old Globe opposite numbers. Possibly the Americas just had fewer species of big mammals that could be tamed. There were, for instance, no wild horses or cattle in the Americas to tame. What virtually North American buffalo? They resisted and all the same resist domestication. The Amerindians did domesticate the llama, the humpless camel of the Andes, just it cannot conduct more than about ii hundred pounds at most, cannot be ridden, and is anything but an amiable beast of brunt.

. . . an epidemic broke out, a sickness of pustules. It began in Tepeilhuitl. Big bumps spread on people; some were entirely covered. . . .[The victims] could no longer walk about, but lay in their dwellings and sleeping places, . . . And when they fabricated a motion, they called out loudly. The pustules that covered people caused great desolation; very many people died of them, and many simply starved to death; starvation reigned, and no one took intendance of others whatever longer. Excerpt and illustration from Sahagún, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España, c. 1575-1580; ed., tr., James Lockhart, We People Hither: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest Mexico (Univ. of California Press, 1993)

More amazing than the difference betwixt the length of the lists of Sometime Globe's and New Globe'southward domesticated animals is the difference between the lengths of the lists of infectious diseases native to the two. The New World had only a few, perchance because humans had been present there and had lived in dense populations, cities, for a brusk fourth dimension compared to the Old. Mayhap of greater importance is the relative lack of domesticated herd animals in America, one of our richest sources of disease micro-organisms. (For example, nosotros share influenza with pigs and other barnyard animals).

There were infections in the New World before 1492 that were not present in the One-time (Chargas' illness, for instance). There were those it shared with the Old World, certainly one or more of the treponematoses (a category including syphilis) and maybe tuberculosis; but the list is short, very short. When we list the infections brought to the New Earth from the Old, however, nosotros detect nearly of humanity'southward worst afflictions, among them smallpox, malaria, yellow fever, measles, cholera, typhoid, and bubonic plague.

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