1493_ Uncovering the New World Columbus Created - Charles C. Mann [234]
6 “magnificent walls”: Scillaccio, N. 1494. The Islands Recently Discovered in the Southern and Indian Seas. In Symcox ed. 2002:162–74, at 172.
7 Worldwide spread of tobacco: See Chaps. 2, 5; Satow 1877:70–71 (Tokyo gangs).
8 Early pan-Eurasian trade: Overviews include Bernstein 2008:1–109; Abu-Lughod 1991.
9 Colón as beginning of globalization: I adopt this point from Phillips and Phillips (1992:241), who say that the admiral “placed the world on the path” to global integration.
10 Exceptions: Decker-Walters 2001 (bottle gourds); Zizumbo-Villarreal and Quero 1998 (coconuts); Montenegro et al. 2007 (sweet potatoes).
11 Torn seams of Pangaea: Crosby 1986: 9–12.
12 Columbian Exchange: Crosby 2003.
13 Comparison to death of dinosaurs: Crosby 1986: 271. Crosby’s point (2003:xxvi) is increasingly accepted: “Even the economic historian may occasionally miss what any ecologist or geographer would find glaringly obvious after a cursory reading of the basic original sources of the sixteenth century: the most important changes brought on by the Columbian voyages were biological in nature.”
14 Santa María, La Navidad: Abulafia 2008:168–71; Colón 2004:108–13; Morison 1983:300–07; Colón 1493:177–86. La Navidad may have been near the town of Caracol, in northern Haiti; the anchor of the Santa María may have been found there in the eighteenth century (Moreau de Saint-Méry 1797–98:vol. 1, 163, 189, 208).
15 Taino: Rouse 1992.
16 Destruction of La Navidad: Abulafia 2008: 168–71; Las Casas 1951:vol. 1, 356–59; Chanca 1494:51–54 (“grown over them,” 54—I translate yerba as “weeds” and “vegetation”). Las Casas (1951:vol. 1, 357) gives the number of bodies as “seven or eight”; Colón’s son (2004:312) gives the figure as eleven. Michele de Cuneo (1495) says that the Spaniards feared they had been eaten.
17 Creation of La Isabela: Abulafia 2008:192–98; Las Casas 1951:vol. 1, 363–64, 376–78; Anghiera 1912:88 (gardens); Cuneo 1495:178 (“roofed with weeds”).
18 Reiter’s syndrome (footnote): Disease at La Isabela: Allison 1980; Aceves-Avila et al. 1998; Chanca 1494:66–67; Las Casas 1951:vol. 1, 376. Colón’s sickness: Colón 2004:329; Las Casas 1951:vol. 1, 396–97; and Colón, C. 1494. Letter to the Monarchs, 26 Feb. In Varela and Gil eds. 1992:313. Rheumatologist Gerald Weissmann has written up Colón as a case study (1998:154–55). According to Las Casas (1951:vol. 1, 363–64), whose father and brother were eyewitnesses, the admiral also fell sick in January; the summer attack may have been a second, worse bout. Colón described “a sickness that deprived me of all sense and understanding, as if it were pestilence or modorra” (313). Reiter’s is not linked to modorra (swoony somnolence, then regarded as its own disease), but has been associated with high fever and confusion, which may be close enough. Colón’s later symptoms, such as inflammation, match more closely.
19 Margarit’s betrayal: Abulafia 2008:202–03; Phillips and Phillips 1992:207–08; Poole 1974; Las Casas 1951:vol. 1, 399–400; Oviedo y Valdés 1851:vol. 1, 54. Poole argues that Margarit’s departure was less a betrayal than the action of a dutiful royal servant reporting the chaos in the colony, but this is a difference of nuance—his report was strongly anti-Colón.
20 War with Taino: Abulafia 2008:201–07; Colón, C. Letter to the Monarchs, 14 Oct. 1495. In Varela and Gil eds. 1992:316–30 (“the land,” 318); Castellanos 1930–32:vol. 1, 45 (Elegía II [chemical warfare]).
21 Dominican Republic in Columbian Exchange: E-mail to author, Bart Voorzanger (gross); Hays and Conant 2007 (mongoose); Eastwood et al. 2006 (swallowtail); Guerrero et al. 2004 (swallowtail); Martin et al. 2004 (forest understory); Rocheleau et al. 2001 (forest change); Parsons 1972 (African grass [bedding, 14]); Hitchcock 1936 (African grasses, 161, 259).
22 Fire