The Black Death in the 14th century and Small-Pox in the Colonial Americas in the 1500s -1700s - Essay Example

Environmental History - The Black Death (14th century Europe) and small-Pox in the Colonial Americas (1500s - 1700's) Name: Institution: Date: Environmental History - The Black Death (14th century Europe) and small-Pox in the Colonial Americas (1500s - 1700's) Introduction In the period spanning between 1339 and 1351 a plague voyaged from China to Europe. Commonly known as Black Plague, it was carried by rats and fleas along the Silk Road Caravan routes and sea routes that were used by spice traders reaching the Mediterranean basin in the year 1347. From there it travelled speedily across Europe from the European trade centers. It eventually reached isolated Viking farms and settlements in Greenland. A similar exchange of diseases, food crops, ideas and populations between the “old” world and the “new” world followed the 1492 voyage of Christopher Columbus. The old world (Europe and the whole of the Eastern hemisphere) benefitted from the Exchange of the voyages that began with Christopher Columbus to the Americas in numerous ways such as discoveries of new metals, new staple foods, etc. The exchange brought many loses as well. It brought with it the transmission of diseases to earlier somewhat isolated groups and this led to a devastation that was far much worse than the European Black Death (Leslie 1989). The infectious diseases that swelled from the so called “old world” into the “new world” are numerous. The key slayers comprise measles, chicken pox, whooping cough, bubonic plaque, malaria and typhus (Denevan 1976). Since the American Native people had lived in a disease free environment and had had no previous contact with the diseases of the old world, they were defenseless as far as immunity was concerned. According to Dobyns, the Europeans initiated the Columbian exchange of disease (germs and viruses), and before then, Americans knew no such illnesses as cholera, smallpox, bubonic plague, etc. (Dobyns 1983).Both the Black Death and the Columbian exchange were environmental problems. They were ecological disasters that affected the whole worlds since they did not spare Africa and Asia with the coming of colonization. The impacts of both disasters were catastrophic both on humans and specific animal populations from East Asia to lands as far as Greenland in Europe. This paper will discuss and compare both disasters from a historical point of view with emphasis on how the environment contributed to their spread as well as how they affected the environment. The paper will however discuss only Smallpox in the case of the American Columbian exchange case and not the Columbian exchange in its entirety since it’s a broad subject. Discussion According to Charles and Jared in Guns, Germs and Steel, The American population pre-Columbia was much larger than it had been believed to be. Their estimation is that small pox and Influenza killed close to 90% of the indigenous populations through their spread even before Christopher Columbus, Pizarro and Cortes conquered the land. Even though many social and humanity science scholars have long believed that the spread of diseases across Europe were as a result of imperialism, the environmental effects in America and Canada has never been established (Yeloff 2007). There is however a need to establish the intention that existed during the spread of the smallpox plague in America as well as the Black Death in Europe, in theory and history before it is possible to move on to the cultural and environmental impacts of both diseases. Europeans therefore intentionally chose to wage a biological war and communicable diseases were partly a result of Imperialism (Crosby 1988). During the French Indian war, between 1754 and 1763, a British Army General gave instructions to Colonel Henry Bouquet to find a way of infecting Indian allies of the French Army with smallpox and the colonel ,in turn replied in a letter that he would try and sow variola into some blankets and send them to the warring tribes. Europe intentionally chose to wage a biological war against America. This however is not conclusive evidence to establish or claim that communicable diseases were entirely as a result of imperialism. Colonial America had no mind to pass small pox on to Indians but to quarantine it since spreading it to Indians would mean that it could spread on to their white neighbors (Fenn 2001). However, Studies of 1837-1838 on the spread of smallpox show that the disease was contacted by an African American who was a member of a crew at trading centers along the upper Missouri and Yellowstone rivers. St. Peters, the boat on which the African American was travelling was transporting goods to trade centers along the river. The captain of the boat, one captain chatte, refused to heed the pleas of others in the boat to quarantine the victim instead choosing to ignore the danger of a small pox outbreak. There existed a scarcity of qualified doctors in those days who could correctly diagnose such diseases and this led to a disaster among indigenous tribes such as the Arikaras, Mandans and Hidatsas who lived close to the Mckenzie, Union and Clark trade centers. European and American passengers who were in the steam boats also suffered as well as people that resided near the trading centers. The outbreak that followed in the area around the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers between 1837 and 1838 was one of the most devastating outbreaks of the nineteenth century. It reduced the mandans from a populous 2000 to less than 150. The main reason as to why captain Pratte refused to listen to the pleas of others in the steam boat to recognize the disease as smallpox was motivated first and foremost by economic reasons. He was hoping that the sick member of the crew would recover soon and join the rest back in the crew and as soon as the crew member showed signs of recovery, he ordered him to rejoin the rest of the crew and this further helped to spread the disease to the rest of the members of the crew. It would be a reasonable thing to believe that captain Pratte had racist motives in disregarding the African American deck help’s right to medical care and the belief that African Americans are more expendable and physically stronger. This was a common belief among the Euro-Americans towards native people. This racist behavior led to carelessness toward their cultural, environmental and biological factors that had to do with their ignorance and the possibility of them carrying communicable diseases. It is of great importance for the sake of the scope of this paper that “Intention” should be interpreted to mean “responsibility” as opposed to premeditated action. This will enable us to better understand the extent to which Europeans should or should not be held responsible for the spread of communicable diseases and the mass killings that followed due to the spread of communicable diseases both in America and Canada. In Europe, the Black Death was caused by the “Bacterium Yersinia pestis that normally spreads among wild rats in their highly populated habitats also known as “plague focus” or “plague reservoir”. Plague spreads to humans when these rodents especially black rats which are the one that live close to men become infected. The black rat lives very close to human habitants and this is where the danger lies as opposed to the brown and grey rat which habituates in sewers and cellars. Plague takes around ten to fourteen days before it kills most of the infected rat colony leaving the fleas that endure on these rats to move to new colonies. The fleas can live for up to three days without food after which they turn on humans. The contagion after a bite drains to the lymph nodes which swell forming a painful bubo in most cases around the groin, armpits, neck or on the thigh which are the areas where the lymph nodes are located. The bubonic plague therefore gets its name from these bubo swellings. 3-5 days after infection the person falls ill and after 3 more days in about 80% of the cases, the victim dies. Hence from the moment an infection occurs in a contagion of rodents to the time the first human victim dies, it takes 23 days on average (Benedictow 2004) When for example Andrew Hogson who was a stranger died in Penrith on arrival from plague in the year 1957, he spread plague to the residents of penrith by a method known as “leaps” or “metastatic spread” and the next plague case in penrith followed in 22 days. Hobson was not the only one that carried fleas and spread bubonic plague in distant places. It happened in other places too and bubonic plague spread by metastatic means to other rural as well as urban centers and from there to townships and villages in the surrounding regions or rather districts. For bubonic plague to become an epidemic, it spread to other rat colonies and was there after spread to other inhabitants in the same manner. It therefore took time for people to realize that a dreadful scourge was breaking out in their midst (Fraser 2011). The time varied and in the villages it took forty days or so. In towns that had over one hundred thousand inhabitants, it took about six to seven weeks while in urban centers that had over one hundred thousand inhabitants it took about eight weeks or so. Another way by which bubonic plague spread was through contaminated droplets from the cough of victims and it came to be referred to as the “pneumonic plague”. However this type is not spread easily and occurs only by accident. Human fleas also didn’t contribute much to the spread because buboe bacteria does not incubate in the bloodstream of human beings and human beings do not die with enough bubonic bacteria in their bloodstream for human fleas to be able to sufficiently carry them to other human beings. Similar to the spread of small pox in America, Bubonic plague was spread in a significant way over long distances by rat fleas through ships. Infected rats after dying would leave infected fleas that would in turn survive and find new rat hosts and in turn infect humans since they are capable of travelling with their hosts unlike human fleas. They also infest the clothes of human beings and enter into homes and travel with them wherever they go. One case that emerges of how small pox was spread intentionally is when Hernando De soto passed through the north and southwest America in the years 1539 to 1543 with his private army carried by horses and supplied partly by pigs. De soto meandered through Georgia, Carolina both north and south, Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi in search of gold. Between Arkansas and what is currently known as Florida, he passed through regions that were densely populated. Later in 1682, these villages, most of which had been occupied by Indians were found deserted. It is believed that De soto’s pigs spread smallpox, influenza and measles to the natives. This is another similarity that emerges between the spread of small pox in America and bubonic plague in Europe in that both were spread by animals that come into close contact with humans. The spread of communicable diseases by animals domesticated or otherwise has been used to explain how the native cultures in these two countries disappeared and their resistance soon vanished as the native armies were stricken by epidemics (Fenn 2001) However, unlike bubonic plague which always killed in a sure way, there are cases of smallpox in Europe and America where those that survived developed some kind of immunization and in turn providing the children of those that survived with an increased resistance but not immunity to the disease itself. Immunity acquired from the replication of smallpox (scuba and pus) had been used in India and China for over one thousand years since the dynasty of Sung in 960 to 1279 AD. Attempts of immunization by inoculation in Europe were not done until about 1700 and until the late eighties, they were only experimental and those that attempted it were mainly from wealthy families who could afford to bear the costs of medication and nutritional care that came with it. One cannot separate the history of smallpox in America from European imperialism which to a large extends contributed to the spread of smallpox in America (Fenn 2001) Environmental effects of the Plague The fourteenth century in Europe has been hailed as catastrophic. Apart from the Black Death epidemic, Europe had been wrecked by famine, war, Earthquake and other horrendous factors. Unusual weather is one factor that caused the spread of the bubonic plague since it enabled fleas to thrive. The same weather caused crops to die and led to famine and a lack of proper nutrition (vegetables and fruits) coupled with war and bad weather compromised the immunity of the people rendering them weak. A conspicuous feature of the bubonic plague is that it is generally insect borne and as John Hatcher, a historian at Cambridge notes, there was a notable transformation in the patterns of how the bubonic plague spread. The spread took a seasonal pattern in England after 1348 in the sense that while it was rampart earlier on in winter months, in the century that followed its greatest mortalities occurred in the period between July and September and this was an indication of a alteration of the potency in the bubonic plague. This was an environmental factor that somehow lessened the effects of the disease making it seasonal. Both the American smallpox pandemic and the European bubonic plague were kinds of environmental pollution with comparable ecological shock. The Indians of North America despite their tribal differences believed in the sanctity of the wholeness of the land on which they lived and upon which their livelihoods depended. In realistic terms, they were hunter and gatherer groups and they starved when a noteworthy number of their hunters and gatherers fell sick from the smallpox pandemic. The roles of the native Indians in America cannot be underestimated in the maintenance of the natural environment and conservation of the natural in their selective manner of hunting of game to their strategic way of firing grass and maintaining a healthy prairie and woodlands (Crosby 1976) The regal intrusion into the land of the indigenous people both political and by disease certainly led to the change in the natural environment in America. As these indigenous groups were forced to stipulation, in the civil war period, they became depended on the government for food and upon the Euro-American farming which were not adequate enough for them because either thy never received the full amounts that the government allocated or the allocations were not adequate enough for them. The same applies to medicine. It is worth noting that a great number of the smallpox deaths occurred in rural areas than in urban areas. Diseases that are spread by means of cross infection between human beings gain increasing power to spread from the environmental factor that is posed by density in population which is well defined in population history because they are able to move from one person to another. But in the case of bubonic plague, more deaths occurred in urban areas than in rural areas. Another theory about the spread of bubonic plague indicates that it originated in the year 1346 during spring in the region of steppe. This is a place where the reservoir of plague extends from Caspian North-western shores in to the southern region of Russia. During this period, the area in question was under the rule of the Mongol Khanate who was a Muslim and did not tolerate trade between Muslims and Christians. This caused the Silk Road Caravan between China and Europe to be cut off and therefore cut off the spread of Black Death from East via Russia into Eastern Europe. This led to Russia being last to contract Black Death and when it lastly did, it contracted it from west rather than from east. The epidemic was later launched into Italian ships by Mongols via war at Kaffa, a trading center. The strong increase in the European and American populations during the middle ages led to inadequate agricultural supply of technology for further expansion and this led to the increase in clearance of land and villages in the mountains in order for them to eke out a living. The people were also forced to lean on animal husbandry, specifically animals (Hoof 2006). These village trade stations were located mainly along coasts but which also entered the villages located in the mountains and this led to the spread of smallpox and bubonic plague into the remote and isolated villages. The growth of populations and the great need for a means to sustain a livelihood was one of the major environmental factors that led to the spread of the Black Death pandemic and small pox in Europe and America respectively. It has also been referred to as “the golden age of bacteria”. Territorial spread as an environmental factor was another pattern in the spread of bubonic plague and smallpox over long distances by the rapid conveyance by ship. Historically, Napoleon failed in the conquest of Russia and Hitler did not succeed in conquering Russia as well, but the Black Death did. Bubonic plague conquered the whole of Europe an d did not spare anybody that came into contact with it just the way small pox did in America but in America, it ravaged the Indian native villages with a stronger impact than other parts due to the marginalization of these groups. The knowledge of general mortality is a crucial point in discussing of both social and historical impact of disease (Crosby 2004). The study of human nature among selected groups is therefore of more impact than the study of special groups. Because 90% of populations in Europe and America at the time of both plagues lived in the rural areas, the studies of rural groups become very crucial in the study of impacts of plague in both cases. Available data on the statistics of death during this period is of the nature of medieval registrations of populations. In some cases they are real census of full populations while in most cases they are tax records. Some are records of the poor families that did not pay tax. For some reasons, these systems favored the men who in most cases were the ones that survived as compared with the general population. There were often two sides to these records. One half comprised the members of the populations who were well off and could pay taxes and the other half consisted of the poor people. The indication from these records is that mortality was higher by more than 5%. The study of mortality data shows that there are two features that are highly conspicuous in both the Black Death case and the smallpox case namely: the extreme levels of mortality and the amazing reliability in establishing the rates of mortality. There is no doubt that both caused a lasting environmental impact in the way of reduced populations. They also affected populations growth and the aspects of change and development both industrial and Agricultural and hence the environment between the early medieval and modern periods. They have both been unparalleled in the history of humanity. Another environmental aspect of the Black Death and smallpox epidemics is that they killed both people and animals among them pigs, dogs, cats, and camels. Bad weather in particular caused the spread of the Black Death due to the increase in the number of rats. Afterwards the cost of living rose, the economy literally crumbled because nobody took care of them. But there were certain environmental factors of positive attribute to the epidemics (Arnold 1996). There was more land for farming after the plagues and crop yields increased thereafter. New technology arose and mining methods as well. The Plagues might have saved both Europe and America from many years of subsistence existence for many years into the future if the pattern of population increase had continued. Europe and America had too many people and the resources on which to survive were limited (Ponting 2011) The epidemics therefore set a stage for growth since they eradicated consumers. The Aborigine Factor The colonization of the Aborigines by Europeans and Americans in Europe and America and other parts such as Australia and New Zealand threw them backwards in as far as their economic and social progress was concerned. They died mainly from diseases in particular smallpox and influenza. Early depopulation especially in the Caribbean Islands can be directly attributed to the harsh treatment that they received from the Spanish. The French and English who came later had somewhat different interests but they still had no or little consideration of the survival of the Indigenous people and their culture. They considered the deaths of the indigenous people as a gift from God as a way of clearing land for them. In America, the occupants of conquered lands and especially Indians were converted into Christianity immediately and those that refused to be converted died in the process (Cronon 2011). The first case of smallpox among indigenous Indian populations in America began in 1517 about 25 years after the first infections in Spain. Over eight million natives living in the Caribbean died. According to Cook, by 1550, the whole indigenous population in the region would be gone (Cook & Lovell 1992).Death, Disease pain and destruction were a “dark nucleus” in the memories of the Aboriginal people and had continued to be so even in the present world of today in many parts of the world but are more concentrated in America, Europe and Australia. It is ironic to the very source of pain for the Aboriginal could have been the one to shed light on the issues that surrounded the Aborigines in the new world. The Europeans have written books about the psychological and social trauma of these people that followed the aftermath of these plagues (Radkau 2008) The debate on how many of them lost their lives continues to date but few discussions have taken place about the effects that the rapid depopulation of the Aborigines had on them from the Aborigine point of view. It is unfortunate that none kept any diaries that could help tell the tales of their sufferings. However, there are many letters on what went on in the lives of the Europeans during the four hundred years of the plaques. Conclusion The aim of this paper has been to provide a view of the Black Death and the Smallpox epidemics that ravaged the European and American continents from the environmental perspective. The new world provided virgin soils that were suitable for cultivation of products hence making them affordable to the general population but it also had less beneficial effects such as the two epidemics discussed in this paper (Crosby 1976) American and European populations were significantly destroyed. This depopulation together with the production of valuable products from the old world led to a demand for the labor which led to slave trade across the Atlantic. This in turn resulted to the forced transfer of persons from the African Continent to the Americas and Europe and a debilitation of the African social, economic and political life. In the broad outlook, there is still a great potential in the environmental impact that the two epidemics had on the American and European continent and the world at large. One such important issue is that of the relevance of the effects that they had on the domestic institutions, development and social structures generally. There is an already existent view that the new world had more economic, social and technological developments than the new world due to the impact of diseases on the new world. It is also estimated that English gained a lot after the discovery of the new world virgin soils. The question that lies therein is whether there were any welfare gains from other parts of the world. Another avenue for research is that of Agricultural productivity and health towards development (Fraser et al 2011). It has been a wonder to many Historians as to how the introduction of food crops affected health outcomes. 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