1493_ Uncovering the New World Columbus Created - Charles C. Mann [63]
“What would be the attitudes of a population that had a relatively high rate of illness and short life expectancy?” asked the Rutmans. Some have suggested that the reckless insouciance and preoccupation with display said to be characteristic of antebellum southern culture are rooted in the constant menace of disease. Others have described a special calm in the face of death. Maybe so—but it is hard to demonstrate that southerners were, in fact, unusually rash or vain or stoic. Indeed, one could imagine arguing the opposite: that the steady, cold breath of mortality on southerners’ necks could make them timid, humble, and excitable.
Tara (shown behind Scarlett O’Hara in this publicity image from Gone with the Wind) was created on a studio backlot. Nonetheless, it was a faithful image of the classic southern plantation. High on a nearly treeless hill, with tall windows to admit the breeze, it was ideally suited to avoid mosquitoes and the diseases that accompanied them. (Photo credit 3.3)
More than four hundred species of mosquito belong to the genus Anopheles. Perhaps a quarter can transmit malaria, but only about thirty species are common vectors. More than a dozen of these thirty exist in the Americas, the most important being A. quadrimaculatus, A. albimanus, and A. darlingi. Their habitat range and the average temperature go far to explain why the history of certain parts of the Americas—and not others—was dominated by malaria.
Click here to view a larger image.
A different point is more susceptible to empirical demonstration: the constant risk of disease meant that the labor force was unreliable. The lack of assurance penalized small farmers, who were disproportionately affected by the loss of a few hands. Meanwhile, the Rutmans noted, “a large labor force insured against catastrophe.” Bigger planters had higher costs but were better insulated. Over time, they gained an edge; smaller outfits, meanwhile, struggled. Accentuating the gap, wealthy Carolinian plantation owners could afford to move to resorts in the fever-free mountains or shore during the sickness season. Poor farmers and slaves had to stay in the Plasmodium zone. In this way disease nudged apart rich and poor. Malarial places, the Rutmans said, drift easily toward “exaggerated economic polarization.” Plasmodium not only prodded farmers toward slavery, it rewarded big plantations, which further lifted the demand for slaves.
Malaria did not cause slavery. Rather, it strengthened the economic case for it, counterbalancing the impediments identified by Adam Smith. Tobacco planters didn’t observe that Scots and Indians died from tertian fever and then plot to exploit African resistance to it. Indeed, little evidence exists that the first slave owners clearly understood African immunity, partly because they didn’t know what malaria was and partly because people in isolated plantations could not easily make overall comparisons. Regardless of whether they knew it, though, planters with slaves tended to have an economic edge over planters with indentured servants. If two Carolina rice growers brought in ten workers apiece and one ended up after a year with nine workers and the other ended up with five, the first would be more likely to flourish. Successful planters imported more slaves. Newcomers imitated the practices of their most prosperous neighbors. The slave trade took off, its sails filled by the winds of Plasmodium.
Slavery would have existed in the Americas without the parasite. In 1641 Massachusetts, which had little malaria, became the first English colony to legalize slavery explicitly. During the mid-nineteenth century, the healthiest spot in English North America may have been western Massachusetts