1491 and beyond: of paradise, purgatory and hells

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1491 and beyond of paradise, purgatory and
hells Main points

• 1. 1491 Americas paradise for some,
  purgatory for manyeven at Machu Picchu, the
  Incas paradise.
• 2. 1492 Demographic disaster cannot be
  explained by disease alone
• 3. The virgin soil thesis (European diseases
  were new to the Americas, causing catastrophic
  mortality) may be correct for small populations,
  but not for large ones Mexico, Peru
• Caribbean first smallpox epidemic 1518, 26
  years after demographic catastrophe
• Mexico
• 2 of 3 major epidemics in 16th century Mexico
  were native diseases
• Smallpox struck only twice in 16th century 1520,
  1538
• Peru
• Disaster began before virgin soil epidemics
  struck
• Smallpox first appeared in Peru in 1558, after
  the demographic catastrophe
• 4. Reflections
• Pre-1492 American populations were fragile, high
  pressure demographic systems.
• Post-1492 European diseases were deadly their
  effects were heightened by
• the catastrophes of conquest and colonization
• and the fact that natives did not know how to
  protect against European diseases or care for the
  ill.

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Demographic catastrophe and its causes
viruses, mistreatment and the social context of
epidemics

• Mexico Alonso de Zorita (1565) ...and
  it is certain that from the day that D. Hernando
  Cortes, the Marquis del Valle, entered this land
  ...the natives suffered many deaths, and many
  terrible dealings, robberies and oppressions were
  inflicted on them, taking advantage of their
  persons and their lands, without order, weight
  nor measure ...the people diminished in great
  number, as much due to excessive taxes and
  mistreatment, as to illness and smallpox, such
  that now a very great and notable fraction of the
  people are gone, and especially in the hot
  country.

3
1491 and beyond of Paradise,Purgatory and Hells

• 1. Ancient America was no paradise
• slow rate of natural increase
• widespread paleo-pathologies
• diminishing height over millennia due to enormous
  dependence on corn (2/3rds 3/4ths of diet)
• 2. Demographic catastrophe of Christian conquest
  and colonization
• 3. Causes of catastrophe
• Virgin soil epidemics (European diseases,
  smallpox)?
• War?
• Exploitation?

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1491 Pristine Paradise? (1491, C.C. Mann,
Knopf 2005)Followed by tragedy!

• 1. Ancient America was no paradise
• slow rate of natural increase
• widespread paleopathologies
• diminishing height
• 2. Demographic catastrophe of Christian conquest
  and colonization
• 3. Causes of catastrophe Virgin soil
  epidemics? Exploitation? Care?

The Backbone of History Health and Nutrition in
the Western Hemisphere (Cambridge 2002pbk 2005)
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Basin of Mexico a long view
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Shovel shaped incisorsgenetictrait of Native
Americans
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Fertility (average no. of daughters) in Ancient
Americas Low fertility Foragers and Fishers
2.3-2.6Highest Villagers 2.6-2.8Lowest
Urban 2.2-2.5
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Hard Times in Ancient Mexico

• Epidemics happened (e.g., matlazahuatl, a severe
  form of typhus?), but not European crowd diseases
  like smallpox, measles, malaria, yellow fever, or
  bubonic plague.
• Epidemics in 1450, 1456, 1496, and 1507
  (according to Anales de Cuahtitlan)
• Theres hardly a person who walks who doesnt
  complain of the bowels.
• Skeletal archaeology shows porotic hyperostosis
  as nearly universal (due to extreme dependence on
  corn).

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1rabbit(1454)agreathungerkilledmany of
the people
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Porotic Hyperostosis a physiological
adaptation to inadequate absorption of oxygen

• High frequency 1/3 1/12 of adults in these
  communities show signs of extraordinary bone
  remodeling.
• Increase over time as the transition to
  sedentary agriculture proceeded, physiological
  conditions worsened.
• No gendered difference A near complete absence
  of sex differentials in pathologies is
  surprising.

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Degenerative joint disease (DJD)

• One or two in five of adults of both sexes
  suffered from degenerative joint disease.
• From age 20, hard, repetitive work exacted severe
  wear on both sexes, particularly of joints
  required for mobility, manipulation of objects,
  and carrying loads.
• Sex differences the only statistically
  significant gender difference in pathologies
  discovered so far are in DJD and cranial
  fractures.

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Degenerative joint disease (DJD), spinepicture
worsens

• Generally high levels ranging from 25 to 83 for
  adults from the Mesoamerican sites leave little
  doubt about the ubiquity of an affliction (DJD)
  which is principally due to hard labor.
• Where the means of carrying heavy burdens is
  almost solely the human body as in Ancient
  Americas, an enormous biological cost is exacted
  from the organism.

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Stature, 3 features stand out

• 1. Males decline over time in mean height (1
  cm. per thousand years)--due to worsening
  nutrition?
• 2. Female stature constant over time even from
  pre-historic period.
• 3. Decreasing male stature from north (164 cm)
  to south (161 cm).

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Fertility (average no. of daughters) in Ancient,
Classic and Post-Columbian Americas Lowest
Early (4000 BC 800 AD) 2.1-2.3Higher
Classic (800-1500) 2.8-2.9Little change
Post-Columbian 2.8-3.0
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Machu-Picchu Paradise of the Incas, but
conditions were not ideal

• Dental disease (caries, abscesses) ubiquitous
  and life threatening
• Dental hypoplasia and cribra orbitalia
  (nutritional stress)
• Tuberculosis without a doubt
• Porotic hyperostosis common
• Skeletal fractures common
• Arthritis (hard work) not common!Machu Picchu
  images

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Background demography Ancient Americas
pre-1492, a high pressure demographic system

• Crude birth rate 50-60 per thousand
• Early, universal marriage (vs. Western Europe
  with late marriage, and high celibate)
• Total fertility rate 6-8 children (higher than
  Europe, TFR of lt6 children)
• Crude death rate 45-55 per thousand

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Precocious marriage among the Aztecs

• The Codex Mendoza (1540) shows the life stages of
  boys and girls marriage is celebrated at age 15
  (and not at 18, 20 or 25 as often stated by
  historians)

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Marriage (at 15)
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Female age at marriage Italy (lower pressure)
vs. Mexico (higher pressure)

• Italy Florence Prato 1372 16.31427 17
  .6 years 1427 17.6 1458 19.5 1480 20.8 147
  0 21.1
• Mexico AztecsCodex Mendoza (urban, 1540) 15
  yearsNahuatl censuses (rural, 1538) 12.8

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Thomas Robert Malthus, Essay on the Principle of
Population (1798)

• Two checks to population growth
• positive (1st ed.) famine, epidemics, war
• preventive (2nd ed., 1803) moral
  restraint--delayed marriage, chastity
• Malthus, the optimist with education, masses
  would adopt middle class fertility
• education --gt
• higher wages --gt
• taste for conveniences ---gt
• later marriage, smaller families

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Museo de Antropología, Mexico City Here is the
house of someone named...
and translated
...transcribed
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Household H-389 people, 3 generations
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Rules of household formation among rural
Aztecs.The head is

• 1. male (311 of 315 households)
• 2. married (97) or recently widowed (3).
• 3. the one who has the most sons resident (or who
  has the oldest son resident).

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The Amerindian mode of reproduction

• 1. Precocious marriage a solution to high
  mortality, a high pressure demographic regime
  (paleolithic).
• 2. Societies that did not learn to maximize their
  reproduction, disappeared.
• 3. Those that did, survived--and survived the
  biological conquest of the Americas, the
  greatest demographic catastrophe in human
  history (Woodrow Borah).

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1491 Pristine Paradise?Followed by tragedy!

• 1. Ancient America was no paradiseslow rate of
  natural increasewidespread paleopathologiesdimin
  ishing height
• 2. Demographic catastrophe of Christian conquest
  and colonization
• 3. Causes of catastrophe Virgin soil
  epidemics? Exploitation? Care?

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Demographic catastrophe in 16th century Mexico
50 decline
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First epidemic, 1520

• Large bumps spread on people, some were entirely
  covered. They spread everywhere, on the face,
  the head, the chest, etc. The disease brought
  great desolation a great many died of it.
• --Sahagun, General History

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Codice Santa Mariadarkened faces show
deathsmany due to cocoliztli, 1546
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1491 Pristine Paradise?Followed by tragedy!

• 1. Ancient America was no paradiseslow rate of
  natural increasewidespread paleopathologiesdimin
  ishing height
• 2. Demographic catastrophe of Christian conquest
  and colonization
• 3. Causes of catastrophe Virgin soil
  epidemics? Exploitation? Lack of Care?

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Demographic catastrophe Due to virgin soil
epidemics?Or/and war, exploitation,
environmental disruption?

• Smallpox Epidemic of 1520 was devastating 1538
  less so. Only 3 in 100 yrs.
• More severe was native diseases cocoliztli of
  1545-6 and matlazahuatl of 1577-79
• Most chroniclers list few epidemics of European
  origin
• Exploitation weakened native population

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Fr. Bernardino de Sahaguns General History
(Florentine Codex, 1576), native voices smallpox
epidemic of 1520 in Mexico

• Mexico, 1520
• ...Indeed many people died of them (pustules),
  and many just died of hunger. There was death
  from hunger there was no one to take care of
  another there was no one to attend to another.

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1157 BC Earliest recorded case of smallpox,
Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses V, died
Last case of smallpox, Oct. 26, 1977Ali Maow
Maalin (Somalia), survived
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Smallpox at day 9 and day 20
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Pox myths a. chronology
False

• ...on the very evening that the Aztecs drove the
  conquistadors out of what is now Mexico City
  June 30, 1520, killing many while routing the
  rest, a smallpox epidemic began. --Oldstone,
  Viruses, Plagues and History (Oxford, 1998
  derived from McNeils Plagues and People)
  same exaggeration in Tucker, Scourge (2001).

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First epidemic little effect on the outcome of
the conquest

• Chronology
• Spaniards defeated June 30, 1520
• Smallpox epidemic erupted in late Sept.
• Ended in December
• Siege of Mexico City began April, 1521.
• Mexico City fell August 14, 1521.
• Hugh Thomas, Conquest of Mexico (1993)
  Extravagant the notion that the smallpox
  epidemic had an effect on the outcome of the
  conquest.

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1520 Death of Montezumas successor, from
smallpox
he governed only 80 days
corpse enshrouded in glyphs for smallpox
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Rhetorical exaggeration vs. evidence
False

• Smallpox epidemic of 1520 raged across the
  continent, but note how slowly it spread from
  Veracruz to Mexico City, 300 miles, 4 to 5
  months (May to September or October).
• In Mexico, ever since 1520, the natives had
  suffered from severe smallpox epidemics recurring
  every seventeen or eighteen years. --Stearn and
  Stearn, 42.
• 1520-1740 of 17 great epidemics in Mexico only 3
  due to smallpox (according to the chronicler
  Cayetano Cabrera y Quintero).

False
True
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Of the three most devastating epidemic in the
16th century only smallpox was a virgin soil
disease

• 3 deadliest epidemics in 16th century Mexico
• Huey zahuatl (smallpox) 1520
• cocoliztli (Mexican typhus?) 1546-47
• matlazahuatl (hemorrhagic fever?) 1576-79
• Epidemics of lesser importance
• tepitonzahuatl (measles) 1531, 1563-4, 1590,
  92, 95
• smallpox 1538
• mumps 1550, 1595
• famine 1558-59
• influenza 1559-60
• virgin soil epidemic

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1538

• This year of seven rabbits of 1538 many people
  died of smallpox.note pustules on arms and
  legs.

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Genes or exploitation/care Why did natives
suffer so greatly from disease?

• Genes Stearn and Stearn (1945) ...even in the
  nineteenth century when some immunity had already
  been acquired by this race...
• Exploitation, the social context of epidemics
  Audiencia Judge Alonso de Zorita (1560) So the
  Indian returns home from his toil for Spaniards
  ... famished, unhappy, distraught, and shattered
  in health. For these reasons pestilence always
  rages among the Indians.

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Genes Francis Jennings, The Invasion of
America (197522)

• ...the Europeans capacity to resist certain
  diseases made them superior, in the pure
  Darwinian sense, to the Indians who succumbed.
• smallpox was smallpox...the Indians on the north
  bank of the Rio Grande had as little biological
  immunity to this epidemic scourge as the Aztecs
  had.
• Genetic vs. lifetime immunity. Did Europeans
  have genetic immunity to smallpox? if so, why
  is the USA stockpiling smallpox vaccine to
  protect against bioterrorism?

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Science F. Black (1994) and Peter J. Bianchine
Thomas A. Russo (1995)

• Black Smallpox was clearly more virulent in
  the Americas than in Europe but the causes for
  this remain an open question.
• Bianchine Russo given comparable care when
  ill and knowledge regarding the potential for
  surviving the illness, the death rates for
  virgin-soil Indian populations and repeatedly
  exposed Caucasian populations for measles were
  similar.

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Peru The Death of Huayna Capac led to a War of
Succession, but the proof that he died of
smallpox is weak
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379 The mummy of Huayna Capac enroute to Cuzco

• Guaman Pomas illustrationno signs of pockmarks
• Yet, other GP illustrations often depict facial
  features

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Peru first 16th century epidemic (1524?) was
bartonellosis not a virgin soil epidemic (such as
smallpox or leprosy)
Bartonellosis
Leprosy
Smallpox
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First medical photo in Peru Bartonellosis, 1857
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Bartonellosis an ancient disease in
Ecuador/Peru, still a medical problem

• Ancient Chimu pottery depicts symptoms of
  bartonellosis
• Early chroniclers vaguely ascribed Huayna Capacs
  death as due to fever (smallpox?,
  bartonellosis?)
• Only in 17th century was bartonellosis recognized
  by European medicine
• In 1871, Bartonellosis killed 8,000 Peruvian
  railroad workers
• Today, bartonellosis is still a public health
  problem in Ecuador and Peru, although mortality
  is reduced by antibiotics

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Reflections Why Blame Smallpox for the
Demographic Destruction of Peru?

• Too many
• Contradictions and contingencies in the
  chronicles
• Silences in the historical record
• No mentions of pockmarked survivors
• No mention of smallpox in the earliest dictionary
• Improbables
• That the disease would leap ahead of the
  Spaniardsthrough one of the most impenetrable
  regions on the planet
• That Huayna Capac would die, but not his
  embalmers or his son Atahualpa who kept some of
  his fathers flesh did not.

• There is a convincing, alternative explanation
  for the destruction of Tawantinsuyu
• decades of war, famine, wanton rapine
• The issue is the demographic catastrophe, not
  Huayna Capac
• Until there is more persuasive evidence (texts or
  remains)
• the smallpox/virgin soil hypothesis should be
  discounted for the Andean regionbefore 1558

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1532- Conquest1536 Manco Inca revolt1538
The Pizarros executed Diego de Almagro1541
Almagristas killed Fco. Pizarro1546 Gonzalo
Pizarro revolted, killing the viceroy1548
Gonzalo executed Hapsburg rule restored
Wars in Peru
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Reflections
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Summary

• 1491 Americas paradise for some, purgatory
  for many.
• 1492 Demographic disaster cannot be explained
  by disease alone
• The virgin soil thesis may be correct for small
  populations, but not for large ones Mexico,
  Peru
• Mexico
• Two of three major epidemics were native diseases
• Smallpox struck only twice in 16th century 1520,
  1538
• Peru
• Disaster began before virgin soil epidemics
  struck
• First smallpox epidemic in the Andes 1558, 25
  years after conquest

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Demographic catastrophe and its causes
viruses, mistreatment and the social context of
epidemics

• Mexico Alonso de Zorita (1565) ...and
  it is certain that from the day that D. Hernando
  Cortes, the Marquis del Valle, entered this land
  ...the natives suffered many deaths, and many
  terrible dealings, robberies and oppressions were
  inflicted on them, taking advantage of their
  persons and their lands, without order, weight
  nor measure ...the people diminished in great
  number, as much due to excessive taxes and
  mistreatment, as to illness and smallpox, such
  that now a very great and notable fraction of the
  people are gone, and especially in the hot
  country.

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END