1a Exploration, Discovery and the Columbian Exchange

0:03 welcome to our first lecture which is called exploration discovery and the Columbian Exchange I'm just a few notes on how the lectures work the lectures are the the powerpoints here are relatively sparse in terms of text I've given you like keywords and terms sometimes dates but generally you guys should try to write down or make note of more things than the text on the screen you should try to write down the gist of what I'm saying okay we begin our class about 500 years ago with the age of exploration and discovery in textbooks the history given to schoolchildren of this era is a story of heroic adventure

0:49 and European triumphs and progress as many children school children learn about the beginnings of American history Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 so I want to think about the way that American history is traditionally taught and this traditional story of conquest and discovery so according to this narrative European discoverers and conquistadors discovered a Christine untouched previously unknown land what came to be known as the new world and these Europeans supposedly brought progress civilization and advancement to the new world at the pinnacle of this

1:36 narrative is the Italian navigator and map made maker Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus famously discovered the new world entirely by accident actually on October 12 1492 in reality despite a discovery of the new world Columbus made one of the biggest mistakes in world history to his dying day he believed he had reached China which was actually eight thousand miles away and had miscalculated the circumference of the world by eight thousand miles in reality what Columbus believed was China was actually Cuba Hispaniola and the Bahamas so Columbus discovered the

2:21 new world by accident by mistake he was trying to go to Asia to the east but beyond Columbus is very obvious mistake I'd like to consider the other ways this traditional paradigm or model or theory of conquest and discovery is misleading on several fronts we're going to rethink this traditional model that I described to you first and probably most importantly Columbus was not actually the first to discover the new world we have compelling evidence that Christopher Columbus was actually not the first to quote/unquote discover the Americas Norse settlers Norwegian

3:07 sailors had actually reached and colonized parts of the new world around the Year 1000 and this is recorded both in literature in the Viking sagas and is also proven with archaeological evidence of boats settlements and burials early in the 11th century around the Year 1000 Norse sailors ventured westward from settlements in Iceland and Greenland and at adventurer and captain called Leif Ericson sail dressed sailed west and discovered three lands in North America in what is now Canada he reached the Baffin Islands labret Labrador and also

3:55 what they called Vinland in present-day Newfoundland so once again Finland as you see here is in present-day Newfoundland they also actually attempted to settle and colonize these areas but these settlements did not really last beyond a generation or two these Norse settlements were positioned at the end of a very long supply line from Europe from Scandinavia to Iceland and Greenland they were not well supplies supplied the land was very harsh with a short growing season and they also enjoyed bad bad relations with the local Inuit population so in short um in the 11th century Europe was simply not ready

4:40 politically economically or technologically to settle new lands nonetheless Columbus was not the first European to reach the new world the second point what has been in the scholarship more recently is that many scholars have speculated that the Chinese were actually the first to discover America there's wonderful books films about this so even more spectacularly there is speculation that it was the Chinese and not the Columbus who actually discovered America in the early modern period the world's most preeminent navigators with the most advanced technology were not European but Asians and actually Chinese under

5:26 the Chinese Admiral Shanghai Imperial China launched a series of maritime expeditions around the globe during these years 1403 to 1433 and some scholars argue that is Youngjae and his group actually discovered America before Columbus we don't have concrete evidence of this but nonetheless there is speculation we do know that Jen Hayes expeditions were huge in scope here is a model of his flagship in comparison to Columbus's so if they were huge his first expedition consisted of 27,000 men 62 large ships

6:13 and 233 smaller vessels which dwarfed Columbus's largest expedition his second expedition consisted of 17 vessels and 1,500 men hardly as big as the Chinese now the basis of their explorations was really the Indian Ocean based on the coasts of Africa and Asia they may have rounded the tip of Africa into the Atlantic world but this is a bit difficult to prove nonetheless they were the preeminent navigators a critical difference between these Chinese explorations and European expeditions was that Jin haze missions were primarily diplomatic trade missions

6:58 they sent ships and diplomatic gifts with representative abroad on behalf of the Chinese emperor to establish the political prestige of the Chinese emperor there was no intent to conquer settle or exploit the lands that they encountered so unlike Columbus the Chinese missions lacked the Europeans violent conquistador spirit they weren't out to conquer the lands they encountered they they were there to establish trade and establish diplomacy so beyond the idea that Columbus was not the first to discover the Americas I want to talk about how the idea of

7:46 Europeans discovery of the new world is misleading on more subtle and more important for us I want to think about and question this whole idea of conquest and discovery so here's what I mean the whole idea of discovery and conquest presumes that the Europeans discovered a new and untouched land it sort of presumes that there was nothing there before that as we know the Americas were home to very advanced civilizations like the Aztecs Mayas and Incas and advanced peoples and civilizations in North America implicit in the traditional idea of discovery is is really the idea of

8:32 one way encounter Columbus discovering the new world Columbus discovering the Indians but what we need to think about wasn't this as much a discovery for the Indians as the Europeans didn't the Indians discover Columbus and the Europeans just like Columbus discovered down so part of the reason why we question traditional notion of conquest and discovery it's because it presumes that the European conquest of the new world was total and complete that it brought progress civilization and advanced technology to peoples that were supposedly less advanced and I think this this traditional view was very chauvinistic it's in you know implying that European civilization was so much

9:20 more superior this traditional model also implies that the influence was one way one sided that is to say progress devolution coming from Europe to the Americas although Columbus and the other conquistadors were successful in conquering the new world civilizations politically the new world civilizations did resist in other cultural ways and American societies Native American societies also influenced European culture and society too and we will look at this in terms of case studies of commodities and foods things even like chocolate and tobacco a final legion why we question this traditional notion of conquest and discovery is because even

10:07 though Columbus is celebrated as a national hero today for supposedly quote-unquote discovering the new world and bringing progress westward the reality of the Columbian era was conquest enslavement and death some historians like the progressive American historian Howard Zinn even label the Columbian Exchange as a form of mass genocide in that either willingly or unwillingly the process that Columbus started wiped out entire native populations now of course you can read about this yourself in the excerpt from Howard Zinn's a people's history of the United States in any case the Democrat

10:54 the demographic effects of European invasion would be absolutely devastating on native peoples wiping out 80 to 90% of the native populations so again we've been rethinking this traditional model of conquest and discovery for several reasons listed here how to give you a more concrete example of why we should reconsider the age of exploration less as a one-sided sort of conquest and discovery but more as a two-sided sort of exchange and encounter is what historians refer to as the Columbian Exchange the Columbian

11:39 Exchange so the Columbian Exchange is a term named after a very famous book by an environmental historian called Alfred Crosby but let's talk about the Columbian Exchange so the Columbian Exchange refers to the transfer or migration of plants animals diseased foods and people that would transform both the old and new worlds in both positive and negative ways so once again the Columbian Exchange was a transfer a two-way transfer of diseased plants animals foods people's ideas even that

12:25 would transfer them both the old and new world and positive and negative ways it's the exchange of these things between the old world and new world critically the Columbian Exchange was not a one-way process but a type of two-way mutual exchange between old and new the old world brought some things but the new world brought others to the other things to the old world some effects were positive like the transformation of European and American culinary habits but other things were negative for instance with food today we have a global cuisine many food staples that we take for granted today were not native to Europe or the new world likewise many staples of European

13:12 cuisine we're entirely unknown in Europe before 1492 if you think of Tomatoes and Italian cuisine right that seems like a given but they were entirely unknown in Europe before 1492 other things like potatoes were unknown in Europe before 1492 chocolate was unknown in Europe before 1492 tobacco was unknown etc so as we will see in the next few lectures part of the Columbian Exchange is showing how American foods and and flavors conquered and influenced European tastes and we'll look at this in detail later

13:58 so the Columbian Exchange is that they have this idea of a two-way a two-way exchange between the old new world it focuses on sort of biological ecological things like this and again it's the idea of a two-way exchange and encounter not all of the ideas of cultural hierarchy and progress that is sort of implicit in this sort of helmet the type of helmet that Columbus and the conquistadors wore that's why I threw this in there undoubtedly however part of the Columbian Exchange was negative house we'll look at later the exchange of disease pathogen germs and epidemics European germs actually

14:43 killed far more Native Americans than European guns did European germs killed around 80 to 90 percent of the native populations between fifteen hundred and seventy seventeen hundred that is to say eighty to ninety percent of Native American Indians died from disease during this early period of encounter stated otherwise the single most important factor in explaining how Europeans will Abe were able to conquer Native American societies was European germs and the disease vulnerability of native indigenous peoples Europeans unwittingly fought a sort of germ warfare and introduced highly compiled contagious European pathogens

15:31 that's disease germs Dupree you see isolated people's this included typhus mumps measles but ultimately the most destructive was smallpox the effect was devastating demographically which permanently weakened and destabilized native political structures these diseases killed off the leadership class they made the people peoples less able to resist with economic and political systems crippled so many people were sick and dying from epidemic disease that agricultural work went undone this led to further hunger famine famine and psychological demoralisation and mass suicide so again some effects of the Columbian Exchange are positive

16:17 some are negative like disease the next topic that we're going to look at is motives for exploration for Europeans why did this happen in 1492 so even though Columbus was not necessarily the first to discover the new world Y 1492 well it was not until approximately these years that European technology had finally surpassed and caught up with the technology of the Middle East in Middle East in China in terms of science medicine and critically navigational devices and military technology before this the Chinese had

17:03 been the world's leading leading navigators and had also invented gunpowder so what were the motives for this era of exploration well the number one motive is undoubtedly profit as I mentioned the Americas were discovered by accident navigators like Christopher Columbus were looking for a more direct sea route to Asia they were trying to find a sea route to Asia so that Europeans could trade in luxury goods from Asia like spices tea and porcelain they wanted to find a direct land route

17:48 to Asia there were various overland routes but these were long dangerous treacherous and also many of the overland routes were controlled by Muslim middlemen in the Middle East added to this another reason that the land routes became more dangerous the land routes to Asia became more dangerous and less desirable was something in world history called the fall of Constantinople we don't have time for details but a major event in world history was in 1453 when the former when the capital of the eastern half of the Roman Empire the formerly Christian city of Constantinople fell to

18:35 the Islamic Ottoman Turks the fall of Constantinople it fell to the Turks because of their superior gunpowder army and big cannons it's a fascinating event we have to leave out the details but the important thing is that the fall of Constantinople was a major factor in making the overland routes more dangerous risky and a major incentive to exploration to the Seas to bypass the land routes surprisingly another long-term factor causing exploration or laying the groundwork for exploration was the European Crusades in 1095 the Pope called a series of expeditions to

19:20 retake the Holy Lands from the Muslims while the Christians did take Jerusalem the goal of retaking the holy lands was only temporary we don't have time for a history of the Crusades but the effect on exploration was this the European Crusades would have several unforeseen consequences that paved the way for exploration and we're going to look at about three factors first the Crusades were Europeans first large-scale exit exhibition expeditions pardon me to distant lands and they sort of served as a dress rehearsal in terms of practical

20:06 experiments experience for future expeditions so they were sort of a practical dress rehearsal for future long scale expeditions and the Crusades also sort of made Europeans hungry for future adventures to distant land so that's the first practical experience in long scale expeditions second was is to do with the end of feudalism the Crusades represented the death knell of feudalism feudalism as you might know is was the political system governing the Middle Ages and the Crusades in contrast to feudalism gave important opportunities to new men of lesser birth

20:54 of lesser noble birth or perhaps common birth as you may know a feudalism was the political and economic system governing medieval Europe feudalism was a system revolving around lower Prince's or lower Nobles or Knights so lower Prince's paying homage and loyalty to greater princes or kings usually the the lower Prince promised the greater Prince military service and loyalty in exchange for land grants which were called fees the point is that the Crusades sort of shook up the feudal system a little bit and gave opportunities to new men of lesser birth the third point relating to the Crusades

21:39 finally and most importantly the Crusades brought about new contacts with Asia in the Middle East and allow the Europeans to copy and co-opt the superior technology of Asia and the Middle East so the Crusades were like conduit bringing the superior technology of China and Arabia into Europe for instance a good example of this is some of the technological innovations navigational innovate that come about into Europe from the East and the critical navigational device that comes to Europe first was the compass so the compass a critical

22:28 navigational device was first invented by the Chinese and the compass came into Europe in the late 12th and 13th century through contacts in the Middle East stimulated by the Crusades the compass was critical because it allowed ships to navigate beyond the sight of land so this allowed ships to venture out of the Mediterranean and into the North Atlantic Ocean one of the first ventures into the Atlantic that was propelled by this new technology of the compass was led by two brothers from Italy actually the city of Genoa in northern Italy and their names

23:13 were galino and Verdi no of Ivaldi the Vivaldi Brothers they used the compass so they use the compass to sail from Italy past the Cape of Gibraltar they had the intention to circle Africa this was in 1291 their voyage was ultimately unsuccessful they never returned they never made it back but they probably made it to the North Atlantic islands the Canary Islands or Madeira nonetheless using the compass their voyage officially commenced the era of exploration as we will see the Age of Exploration involved a great deal of competition between nation-states the leaders of explorations are initially

24:00 the Italians but it really came to fruition to full development under Portugal and Spain and especially Portugal the northern European powers France and Britain only get involved in this competition later so undoubtedly the leaders of very early exploration or the Portuguese Portugal Portugal under ruler called Prince Henry the Navigator as well as Spain but it's really Portugal at first Prince Henry the Navigator is ruling in the early 15th century though the 1400s in 1419 Prince Henry founded a college to train seamen and navigators and this college would pioneer a number of nautical inventions

24:48 likewise Prince Henry sent a series of expeditions down the coast of Africa also to search for a water route to the east the Portuguese will also dominate the early slave trade as we'll look at in week 3 the Portuguese establish a number of trade posts in the North Atlantic islands they reached the Madeira islands by 1419 they reached the Azores they reached the Azores by 1427 both of these become important trade post posts for trade they also cultivated sugar there the Portuguese ventured further around the coast of Africa they rounded the

25:37 westernmost tip of Africa by fourteen sixty or so by the 1480s they founded major trading post on the Gold Coast which is modern-day Ghana where they traded European horses leather iron and textiles in exchange for gold and enslaves so again the overall idea is that is that the Portuguese dominate early exploration and the coach coast of Africa sometimes student asked me so this is actually Portugal here right why Portugal why such a small tiny nation so Portugal was geographically and culturally marginal to the rest of

26:24 Europe and Portugal was most disadvantaged by the overland route to Asia right there way over here and they have to go the farthest for Portugal Portugal was a poor country food was problem Portugal had dry rocky soil with very little high-quality farming which drove the Portuguese to fish in the North Atlantic and they'd also establish sugar plantations in these North Atlantic islands fishing was very important there was a tremendous demand for herring and caught in Portugal and the rest of Catholic Europe Catholics had dietary restrictions during Lent and

27:10 Portuguese fishermen began venturing further and further afield into the Atlantic they likely reached the grande fishing banks off the coast of New England and Canada so here and probably also cited North American land before Columbus but not actually landing why Portugal politically Portugal had United early as an independent nation state as you probably know from the 8th to 13th century Portugal like Spain was occupied by Moorish Muslim invaders it was occupied by Islamic invaders from the

27:57 8th to 13th century until a series of military campaigns by the Portuguese drove them out by 1253 Portugal had expelled the last Moorish evade invaders in what we call the reconquest and now turned its energies on exploration Spain turned to overseas exploration about 75 years after the Portuguese basically after it succeeds in doing what the Portuguese already had in 1469 Spain was partially united under King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella so in 1469 most of Spain was unified

28:45 that is to say the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon the rest of Spain would be United in 1492 when they succeeded in driving the last of the Muslims out of southern Spain Andrey conquering the southern kingdom of Granada so Spain was completely unified in 1492 and they were ready to turn their sights on exploration so looking back the influence of the Portuguese and technological developments and invention what were sort of the over some of the actual inventions or developments encouraged by prince henry let's look at these collectively the inventions gave

29:33 the Portuguese sailors they gave them the confidence and know how to sail for weeks and months without the sight of land so as sailors ventured further and further from the coast into the North Atlantic navigators developed detailed charts that show Coast harbors and landmarks and these were called portal ins portal ins were nautical charts that showed coasts arbors and landmarks the charts were fairly accurate but they were drawn freehand from observation not using mathematical devices other innovations address the problem of direction and latitude the sailors use

30:21 compasses as we discussed familiar since the 12th century they also used sorry they also used astrolabe shown here aster labs were an Arab device that were used to determine latitude position from the equator by using the position of the stars and the Sun as shown as shown here so astra labs help determine latitude also adapted from arabian technology was the cross staff the cross step was a device that used the sun's altitude measure the vessels latitude so all of

31:10 this helped with navigation the Portuguese also vastly improved ship construction and increase the sturdiness maneuverability and speed of vessels the most important changes were building a stronger hull fortified by a rib and kill Stella skeleton and changes in how vessels could be maneuvered for instance they new used a newer type of steering device mounted on the rear called a stern post rudder so how are these new ships different during the Crusades the ship's galleys the ship's depended as much on rowing manpower as using sails

31:56 and wind power typically medieval ships had large square sails like this that were fixed and could only be used when the wind blew from behind these square sails only worked when the wind blew a certain direction from behind newer ships that were called galleons and caravels were entirely dependent on sails for power they didn't use rowers manpower anymore and the real genius was that these newer ships used a combination of sails to suit varying conditions of wind and sea once again the newer ship used a combination of sails to suit varying conditions of wind and sea ships would

32:41 now use a combination of square sails shown here that allows ships to you harness the following winds following winds are wind's blowing from behind but they also used another type of style these these triangular sails the lateen sail sails were these triangular sails and lists lateen sails allowed the ships to catch the crosswinds or winds blowing from the side so simply put no matter which direction the wind was blowing the new ships had the power no matter which direction the wind was blowing in contrast in the Middle Ages right the sales were fixed they could only catch winds blowing from behind it

33:28 really significant this is something that Portuguese were very good at equally significant was the Portuguese is the Portuguese is mastery of wind and oceanic currents wind currents and oceanic currents okay let's just start by looking at the North Atlantic north of the Equator so close to the equator between the equator and the Tropic of Cancer the trade winds prevail the trade winds blow from east to west like this above the Tropic of Cancer this line the westerly winds prevail the westerly winds blow from west to east so it's like this giant pen will think

34:16 of these think of these currents like a giant pinwheel these are wind wills north of the Equator these wind wills rotate clockwise south of the Equator the wind wheels rotate counterclockwise but let's just use the North Atlantic as an example it was by mastering these wind currents that the Portuguese were able to achieve what they did for instance they were able to reach the North Atlantic islands like the Canary Islands very easily because they were able to use the prevailing trade winds the prevailing trade winds the trade

35:01 winds swept them out to sea because they pushed them westward however as they begin venturing out into the North Atlantic they faced a problem it was easy to go out in the Atlantic because they're taking advantage of the westerlies and the trade winds they're going with this pinwheel slow but going backward was going back to Portugal was an uphill climb because they're going and against this pinwheel current if you see finally the Portuguese discovered that it was easy to get to get back to home by going a bit out of their way the

35:47 Portuguese discovered that sailing a bit further out into the Atlantic not the direction they wanted to go would allow them to pick up the westerly winds that would allow them to return home because they're you they are blowing from west to east so we call this strategy Volta damar it's Portuguese for return by the scene return by the sea you don't need to know all the details of the currents but it means the idea of return by the sea it's using the wind currents and the oceanic currents to the sailors advantage in other words the Volta damar wasn't necessarily the shortest route

36:33 between a and B the shortest route between Portugal and this point in the Atlantic is here right let's take this random point in the Atlantic here here and here and Portugal but this was difficult to return directly right because of the prevailing wind currents they're blowing in this pinwheel direction the Volta damar is the idea of going out of their way to use the wind currents to their advantage so instead of sailing the most direct route they took a more roundabout route maybe sailing out further but this allowed them to use the wind currents to their advantage so in other words using the returned by the sea wasn't necessarily the shortest route between point a and point B but it used

37:20 the wind currents to sailors advantaged to wrap to dramatically advanced navigation so once again it means using the wind currents to the sailors advantage the same principle of the Volta damar applied to the South Atlantic with the exception that the wind patterns are reversed like a mirror image so the we here at blue clockwise here they blow counter clockwise now there are other factors to keep in mind there are ocean currents there are tropical zones with storms that made things tricky and it was precisely because of these wind

38:05 currents that the Portuguese were able to easily navigate their way down the coast of Africa using the prevailing winds right but once they reached Southwest Africa there they ran into trouble because they're going against the current so they got into trouble once they passed the equator equator let's talk a bit about how the Portuguese used this Volta damar strategy and really dominated early exploration so here's another image of the prevailing wind currents okay so the not the first but for us one of the first major voyages using the

38:52 Volta damar strategy was the voyage of Bartholomew Diaz in 1488 using the Volta Demark strategy in 1488 a Portuguese sailor called Bartholomew Diaz was able to round the tip of Africa and make it into the Indian Ocean so Diaz was the first to sail into the Indian Ocean his actual voyage was a bit more complicated let's look at it Diaz hugged the coast of Africa made it down the western part of Africa very easy because of the prevailing wind currents but has more difficulty here in the southern part of Africa he made it

39:38 down to present-day divya where he encounters some really rough weather and storms however doing what any wise Portuguese sailor would do he decided to rely on the Volta Demark strategy that is to say even though he wanted to sail east to India he sailed westward to pick up an oceanic current his idea was a brilliant strategy a brilliant gamble he caught a westerly he caught a westerly win around the southern tip of Africa and was able to be propelled into the Indian Ocean nonetheless his his goal was to go to India and trade

40:24 nonetheless he faced unrest from his crew being at sea for so long and is forced to turn back nonetheless Diaz his voyage proved two important principles first the passage to the Indian Ocean via the Atlantic Ocean was possible it was like the first step in a sea route to Asia it was a sea route to Asia and second he proved that the wind patterns of the South Atlantic are like those of the North Atlantic only reversed remember the wind patterns go clockwise up here and counterclockwise here so Diaz first European to make it to the

41:11 Indian Ocean Vasco da Gama had another expedition from 1497 to 1498 encouraged by Diaz's success another Portuguese sailor named Vasco da Gama set out from Portugal to India in July 14 97 and he used the same route as Diaz of rounding the tip of Africa da Gama's ships reached Calcutta in May 1498 where he picked up a lucrative cargo of spices so de Gama was the first European to reach India he returned home safely and was the first European to sail directly from

41:56 Europe to India he came back he was a national hero the Portuguese however sort of temporarily dropped the ball on further explorations and faced increasing competition from the Spanish and of course the most important of these voyages would be Columbus so Columbus his first voyage was in October 1492 he is Italian but he's sailing for Spain just to clarify in total Columbus made a series of four voyages between the years 1492 and 1504 he insisted to his dying day that the lands that he reached were China and the East

42:42 India's in reality he really reached the Bahamas Cuba and Hispaniola or present-day Haiti in the Dominican Republic but now we're going to look at his first most important expedition October 1492 so Columbus and here you can see his his first voyage Columbus was a Mac map make an expert sailor from Genoa Italy a commercial city-state that was important in the early Atlantic trade Genoa Italy Columbus like others before him he knew that the world was round he was not the first to think this Columbus knew what that the world was round and he knew that he could sail west in order to get

43:30 to the Far East in this regard sailing for Spain he's sailing for Spain right his strategy was brilliant because it would avoid direct confrontation with the Portuguese the Portuguese dominated and controlled this African route to Asia and India so why is Columbus significant he shifts the emphasis of exploration from the from going east to the west which was brilliant nonetheless he vastly miscalculated how large the world was he thought he could get to Asia like this easily but did not realize the distance between North America and Asia was 8,000 miles

44:19 so Columbus appealed to almost every crown head of Europe to finance the expedition but was denied denied funding by almost every crown head of Europe Columbus's idea which was to sail west to get east sail west to get East Columbus idea would be picked up by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain they were eager to catch up with their neighbors the Portuguese now as we mentioned 1492 Spain has just completed the process of unification and completing the conquest of the Christian reconquest of the Spanish lands Columbus persuaded the King Queen of Spain to finance the expedition it costs an

45:04 absolute fortune and he did this under the belief that he would reach Asia that he would discover gold and he would trade valuable luxury goods silks spices tea porcelain what would Columbus get in return for bringing back gold and luxury trade goods the king and queen of Spain promised Columbus 10% of the profits for the exhibition that's pretty he was to get a fancy military title he was to be known as Admiral of the ocean seas and he was to be appointed as governor of the new lands so his is here was his route he progressed from the port out of

45:51 Europe to the North Atlantic islands and then set this way around 33 days after his crew left the Canary Islands that's when they had last sighted land his crew spotted the first sights of lamb it was flocks of birds and branches and sticks in the very early morning hours of October 12 1492 a sailor the sailor on watch his name was rodrigo de Triana he first spotted land he first spotted the moon shining on white beaches this was actually an island in the Bahamas

46:37 now Rodrigo the man who first sighted land he was supposed to get a handsome yearly pension that was a stipulation in the expedition it was supposed to be get this reward for life Rodrigo never got it but Columbus did Columbus later claimed but he had spotted land the night before which was probably a bogus claim Columbus Chris in the islands San Salvador and believed he had reached an island off the coast of China in reality it was the Bahamas and what he believed was China was Cuba and Hispaniola Hispaniola is the present-day Dominican Republic and Haiti the crew was

47:24 immediately struck by the strangeness of the flora and fauna around them Columbus said quote I saw neither goats nor sheep nor any other beasts familiar and quote all the trees were as different as ours from night and so the fruits the rocks all things in particular Europeans were struck by the smallness of the animals they saw there were no livestock there was no horses no cows no domestic animal no cattle no sheep just small animals rats when we approached land Columbus's crew was immediately greeted by the natives the Arawak Indians the arocs actually swam out to meet them the air rocks lived in village communities

48:09 they practiced advanced agriculture they yams corn and cassava which were all products unknown in Europe before the Columbian Exchange the era rocks were adept at spinning weaving they made beautiful gold jewelry however they did not have iron weapons and horses and cattle were also unknown to them their their their weapons were made of stone Columbus remarked that these people were completely tight naive ignorant of weapons for instance the air rocks cut themselves when they were observing and touching these swords EDS because they didn't know what they were

48:55 and he thought immediately that these people might be subjugated into fine servants or slaves based on their supposed naivete their their stupidity I guess to make it simple when Columbus just saw the Indians gold earrings he took them as prisoners on board his ships and insisted that they lead him to the source of gold with Erics on board Columbus sailed on to Cuba and Hispaniola he dreamed wild visions of gold gold fields and wealth in reality there was no gold to be found on these islands only the tiny tiniest bit of gold could be mined from the streams a momentous thing happened a little bit

49:42 later so here again we can see the root of his first voyage the root of his first voyage so here he's coming from Spain lands in San Salvador on Christmas Day 1492 Columbus flagship the Santa Maria it rammed into a reef off the northern coast of Hispaniola also known as Santo Domingo so the flagship ran into a reef off the coast of Hispaniola it was shipwrecked he took this as a divine side from God as a sign from God that he was to build a fort there on Hispaniola using Timbers

50:30 from the shipwrecked ship Columbus built the first military base in the new world and named it fort Navidad Christmas and left 39 crew members there with instructions to find gold the crew left behind at the fort or later killed by the Indians they roamed the island looking for gold theythey exploited the Indians taking them as and the relations quickly broke down they did not find gold meanwhile still um exploring these new lands Columbus sent a famous report to the king and queen Columbus's report to the court in Madrid

51:17 made a series of claims he claimed he had reached China and the islands off the coast of China and was full of extravagant claims he boasted of fields of gold luxury where silks porcelain spices and he claimed to have found miraculously beautiful and fertile lands he said that the natives were incredibly open hospitable and they shared their possessions loosely they were naive of warfare and weaponry because of his wildly exaggerated claims in this report to the king and queen Columbus's second expedition would be given even more money and ships it would be given 17 ships and about 1500 men with the charge

52:05 to obtain gold what he promised and also slaves so let's talk about this second expedition Columbus the second expedition begins in 1493 and he made Hispaniola specifically what is now Haiti his new base of operations from his new base on Hispaniola actually present-day Haiti Columbus sent a series of expeditions into the interior the men found no gold fields but as such they had to fill the ships going to Spain with some sort of riches these riches would not be gold but they came in the

52:51 form of human cargo at slaves in the year 14.95 during this expedition Columbus's men went on a great slavery they rounded up 1,500 era walks and chose the best of these to load on ships going back to bane they chose about 500 more than half of these 500 Erik's died on the way to Spain the rest were sold but due to disease the vast majority of these Indian slaves in Spain also died in captivity meanwhile the story of the enslavement of the natives began back in Haiti during the second expedition Columbus

53:37 and his men ordered all people 14 years and older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months so every person over 14 had to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months when they produced it they would be given a copper token to hang around their necks with a pendant a sort of necklace Indians found without copper tokens were to have their cans cut off immediately and we're left to bleed to death the Indians therefore faced an impossible task they were to mine gold fine gold where there was none or basically none the Indians fled but were hunted down by Spanish dogs and killed the era rocks tried to resist but

54:24 without iron weapons without horses or or armor they were not successful Spanish took prisoners they hanged these prisoners and burned them to death among the Indians unable to resist mass suicides began they poisoned themselves with cassava in the instance babies were killed by their own parents to avoid a worse fate in two years half of the original population of Native Americans on his bunola were dead the original population was about a quarter million and in only two years half of these Eric's had died when it became clear

55:12 that there was no gold to be found the Indians were taken as a slave labor on plantation estates call and commie n does income en desu ka' Vienna's were plantations that grew very various types of cash crops cash crops are just an agricultural commodity an agricultural product that can be sold at a profit of an original population of quarter million by 1515 there were only 50,000 Indians left and by 1550 only 500 a report of 1650 showed none of the original error box or their descendants

55:58 left on the island of Sandeman so this is another reason why we think we are rethinking this traditional story of conquest and discovery in history books given to school children and history books given to school children Columbus is celebrated as a national hero for quote unquote discovering the new world and bringing progress technology civilization to the Americas the reality of this age of discovery was conquest slavery and mass death something to think about the pattern initiated by Columbus would be repeated by other Europeans

56:44 so what Colombians did to the Indians of the Bahamas the air wax would be repeated Cortes would do this to the Aztecs Mexico Pizarro to the Incas of Peru the English settlers of Virginia and Massachusetts did this to the Indian populations there as well this discussion of Columbus brings us back to the idea of the Columbian Exchange beginning with Columbus why this is a great question so Billick beginning with Columbus why were a handful very small number of Europeans able to so easily conquer America even though many of the

57:30 Native American societies were very advanced and had Advanced Technology and especially why were only a handful of Europeans able so easily conquer America when many of these Native American societies had strong military or warrior cultures well the Europeans possessed several advantages let's look at these in due course so first of all the Europeans had the advantage of steel and iron weapons over stone Europeans had gunpowder technology they had cannons and firearms when the Native Americans had bows arrows and slings the Europeans brought

58:17 horses and domestic animals for the first time to the New World horses domestic animals cattle entirely unknown in the New World besides the practical military advantages of horses European horses had a terrorizing effect on foot soldiers who had never seen these sort of beasts before but honestly all of the factors that I've listed so far pale in comparison to this one germ warfare was the most devastating aspect of the Columbian Exchange the main weapon that overwhelmed the indigenous populations of the New World was Europeans breath their germs from the moment that Europeans set foot in the new world thousands millions of Native Americans

59:03 were condemned to die 80 to 90 percent of the native population died due to European disease before 1492 approximately 75 million Indians lived in the Americas before 1492 approximately 75 million Indians lived in the Americas North and South America's this would number would be reduced to about a million within 400 years in what became the United States approximately five to ten million Indians lived before 1492 these numbers by 1800 were reduced to less than 1/2

59:48 million one important question to ask is why did the Native American military societies not resist more than they did one might expect that the advanced military societies of Mesoamerica like the Aztecs and the Incas should have easily fought off Europeans they were they were strong military cultures thousands upon thousands of highly trained military warriors should have been able to fight off the conquistadors who only numbered in the hundreds or even thousands you may know we'll look at this later the Aztecs first believed that the Spanish with their horses and guns the Aztecs first believed that thought erroneously that the Spanish were gods but even after this belief wore off they

1:00:34 were not successful we have long been hypnotized by the daring heroism of the European explorers and conquerors but we have been blinded to the Europeans deadly biological allies comparatively benign diseases from the old world turned into fatal epidemics in the new world in 1699 a German missionary commented quote the Indians die so easily that the bear look and smell of a Spaniard causes them to give up the ghost the most spectacular periods of mortality were during the first hundred years of contact when mortality rates

1:01:20 were around 90% during these first 100 years of contact there were dozens of what we call virgin soil epidemics let's talk about the Virgin soil epidemic a virgin soil epidemic refers to an outbreak of communicable disease it refers to an outbreak of disease among genetically isolated people this term was defined by the famous environmental historian Alfred Crosby here's what he said well virgin soil epidemics are those in which the populations at risk have no previous contact with the disease let's write them and are therefore in mu mu naught mu knowledge

1:02:09 icky almost defenseless so once again a burden soil is an epidemic that erupts among genetically isolated people ie Virgen new soil the Virgin soil epidemic follows this pattern in a virgin soil epidemic nearly every exposed person falls ill death occurs among most of the infected very few are well enough to care for the sick so therefore many people who might have recovered under normal conditions with normal care also die a further consequence is that crops are not planted or harvested normal

1:02:55 societal tasks aren't performed and the result is famine death and social economic political collapse histories of the Spanish new world are filled with complaints about the high native death rates Indian women and children were particularly susceptible but these diseases hardly ever affected people of European birth actually many or some Native Americans became so enraged about the apparent invulnerability of the Spaniards the Spaniards weren't susceptible to these epidemics they had already experienced them in Europe and developed immunity but some natives became so enraged about the invulnerability of the Europeans that

1:03:41 they put infected blood into their masters bred a through infected corpses into their masters wells their water supplies to no avail the standards did not become sick um now I do want to mention that the high mortality rates of the native population were not only due to disease they were also due to the exploitation and brutality and enslavement what we started talking about with Columbus were the high more holiday rates of the native population due to European brutality well the question is the answer is yes and no in fact most of the most devastating

1:04:26 mortality rates like upwards of 90% occurred in the very very first waves of contact the very very first years actually before European brutality had a chance to kick in so brutality and disease went hand at hand but again the most devastating virgin soil epidemics many of them occurred before the sort of brutal exploitative system set in was well what were the mortality rates connected to what we call the black legend the black legend was a termed coined by Protestant European historians in countries like England and the black legend was an effort to discredit the Spanish it was an effort to discredit the Catholic Spanish by English Protestants according to this legend the

1:05:13 Catholic Spaniards were exploited as cruel and were responsible and this cruelty of the Spanish the black legend was responsible for native exploitation and death clearly the Spanish brutally exploited the Indians as I described with Columbus but the goal the end goal was not to kill them they wanted to exploit them and use their labor so disease went hand in hand with brutality Spanish exploitation weakened the natives resistance to disease due to overwork hands so again we're looking at the effect of disease on the Columbian Exchange to argue that Europeans easily

1:06:00 conquered the new world not just through technology but through biology and jerem warfare which was really nothing to do with supposed superiority of Europe it was the fact that the Native American peoples were genetically isolated the classic example of the new world virgin soil epidemic is smallpox the first American pandemic was small small pox would be like the black death of the old world the first and most devastating American pandemic was smallpox smallpox was spread by breath and spread like wildfire among the native populations smallpox was

1:06:47 communicated through the air by means of droplets or dust particles the smallpox virus enters the host through the respiratory tract and has a period of 12 days of incubation smallpox results in high fevers vomiting these very disfiguring skin pox eruptions for those who do not die these pustules these pox dry up in a week and form scabs but left disfiguring pox behind the whole period of the smallpox illness lasted about a month after that you're either immune or you're dead in endemic levels smallpox killed people at a rate of 3 to 10

1:07:35 percent endemic means that a disease is not a major epidemic it's not a major problem it's just a sort of normal disease present among the population however when smallpox strikes genetically isolated people peoples the death rate is awesome upwards of 90% the first people to meet the Europeans in the new world where the arrows as we mentioned of the Bahamas and grit and other Caribbean islands the air rocks lived long enough to provide the Spaniards with their first generation of slaves there were about 1 million era whacks on sound de Ming Hispaniola when

1:08:22 the Europeans arrived by 1550 there were only 500 left by 1600 the arocs were extinct destruction of the air rocks has largely been blamed on Spanish cruelty the so called black legend that this idea that was that coined by Protestant historians undoubtedly this managed brutally exploited the Indians but not with the end goal of of killing them disease also played a major role the first so the as we mentioned about a million Native Americans on the island before Columbus

1:09:07 the biggest smallpox epidemic occurred in the years 1518 to 1519 in 1518 1519 smallpox appeared among the Indians of sandeman it came from Spain and killed one-third to one-half of the Indians in one fell swoop from Sandeman Hispaniola it spread to two Cuba and the rest of the Antilles crushed by 25 years of exploitation the air rocks died a slow and hideous death and from there

1:09:53 smallpox would be brought to the Aztec empire by Cortez troops corps smallpox also played a critical role in the conquest of the Aztecs so as we said the population was 1 million before Columbus by 1650 these people are practically extinct so disease was scholars argue the number one reason why Columbus and other Europeans are able to so easily conquer these Native American societies however not all aspects of the Columbian Exchange were negative disease was for the for the new world a very negative aspect of the Columbian Exchange not all

1:10:39 aspects of the Columbian Exchange were negative as we covered the Columbian Exchange was a two-way exchange of plants animals diseases and commodities like foods on these societies and continents bordering the Atlantic Ocean it's and it should it's an exchange between the Amer North and South America and Europe and Africa the Columbia exchange would profoundly affect people's everyday lives lives diets in many ways so what was actually at stake in the cola meeting change well other than disease right smallpox being the most important European disease coming from Europe the Native Americans for the first time gave the European syphilis but it involved in

1:11:26 exchange of a lot of food so let's look at these things um as as I said before many of the things that we take for granted today as staples in the Americas were entirely unknown before Columbus and likewise many staples in Europe were entirely unknown before the Columbian Exchange so what came from Europe what did the Europeans bring to the Americas European settlers and explorers brought non-native plants and animals to the Americas and revolutionized the American diet so this included things like domesticated animals and livestock horses cattle pigs sheep goats these are

1:12:15 unknown in the Americas before Columbus so livestock and domestic animals in terms of crops Europeans brought new crops like olive rapes and wheat sugar and coffee from Africa to the Americas Africa added to the Columbian Exchange things like yams millet Oprah black-eyed peas um but um also many things come from the New World to Europe and Africa from the new world some of the biggest crops to come from the new world are

1:13:02 crops like may corn or maize sweet potatoes peanuts regular potatoes tomatoes beans peppers there there's many many things squash as well as the highly addictive commodities of chocolate and tobacco we'll look at chocolate and tobacco later some of these commodities were well-received in Europe chocolate became a fashionable drink in the early modern period and also tobacco usage skyrocketed in the 16th and 17th surgery but other some of these other commodities were not so what what well well received and a good

1:13:49 example is is corn and potatoes Columbus carried corn with him back to Spain in 1493 where it was made into porridge but corn was not really liked by the Europeans it was considered a famine food for the poor you know only eaten in times of absolute crisis or at the worst corn was considered an animal fodder a food for animals one sixteenth century observer called corn a more convenient food for swine than men and even today corn possesses these sorts of connotations in many European countries so these are the some of these things that are exchanged

1:14:37 in the Columbian Exchange potatoes just to give you another example so as I mentioned you tomatoes were unknown in Italy before they Colombian exchange potatoes were unknown in England and Ireland before the 17th century what we think of as a staple today a final aspect of the Columbian Exchange is ideas and conflicting notions of land use this is something that we'll get into later Europeans believe that man enjoyed dominion over nature man controlled nature and Europeans like the Spanish and English had very fixed rigid notions of land ownership white European

1:15:22 settlers but in individual notions of land ownership land belonged to individuals Europeans measured status in terms of how much land a person owned Native Americans by contrast did not accept the European notion of individual land ownership they believed that land belonged to the entire tribe and really land should not be possessed or consumed without limits these conflicting notions of land ownership Europeans had a very fixed rigid notion of land ownership whereas Native Americans had a more fluid and relaxed one would lead to some serious conflicts between settlers and Indians

1:16:07 so in today's lecture we look at the role of Columbus the Columbian Exchange and we question what exactly this idea of exploration and discovery means and have tried to look at this era not as a one way thing of Europeans bringing progress to the Americas but more as a two-way exchange and encounter thank you very much for you