1493_ Uncovering the New World Columbus Created - Charles C. Mann [245]
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 the 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