It is obvious, in looking at the current state of affairs, that people of European descent dominate the globe. Yet how did this state of affairs come about? Were Europeans simply better placed in determining the outcome? Or were there various reasons why they were able to dominate the rest of the population?
As Jared Diamond describes in his landmark work “Guns, Germs, and Steel,” there were a number of reasons why other civilizations were unable to compete with European civilization in the era of colonization. He aptly names them as guns, germs, and steel.
While other civilizations had gunpowder, few had been able to properly harness its power into the primitive guns that did exist in 1492. The impact of guns upon humans who had no idea what they were is perhaps best expressed by the reaction to them by the ruler of the Incas, one of the most advanced cultures in the world, and soon to be deposed: he gave up. His people, though formidable, had nothing with the kind of force that gunpowder gives to back them up.
While guns were certainly of great value, germs were by far the most valuable tool of all. While Europeans had been raised with livestock, many others in other parts of the world had not been. The fact remains that livestock had largely been domesticated in the Fertile Crescent and areas adjacent, then spread from there. They certainly had not made it to the New World or Australia on their own, for example. The livestock simplified work, adding extra “’hands” by means of being able to reduce workload (in the cases of horses and cows, for example), but also conferred on the population a resistance to many diseases caused by livestock. Because the Europeans lived in close proximity to their animals, they were much less inclined to become infected by diseases which were devastating to populations with no natural immunity to these diseases.
The problem exists, though, to this day. How many millions were wiped out by smallpox because they had no immunity? How many millions could have continued to exist if we had had what amounted to, in terms of vaccines, a very simple one to make?
In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. He also discovered the West Indies, and opened up an entirely new side of the world to Western civilization. Most of the natives did not know it, but these Europeans also brought disease with them. Horrible disease. Disease that we still, to this day, in the 21st Century, do not entirely understand. They brought this upon entire civilizations. The disease spread faster than the people. To talk of native Algonquian peoples in Wisconsin, for example, at the time settlement really happened (the 1800s) is to ignore 3 centuries of horrible suffering due to European disease. The Ojibwa claim, for example, that they came from further east and left because of disease and warfare. The disease was most certainly due to the Columbian Exchange.
Probably the best example that could be found to demonstrate this phenomenon, however, is certainly the Anasazi in Arizona, New Mexico, and other related areas. They were geographically isolated, and their civilization appears to have collapsed around the time disease from Eurasia started to creep in. In any event, they seem to have succumbed rather quickly, leaving their housing units on the walls of canyons and disappearing without much of a trace. Except, that is, for the cannibalism.
In the 20th and 21st Centuries, it has been fairly well proven that cannibalism was practiced, at the end, in many Anasazi settlements. Why, though? An advanced civilization is unlikely to resort to such measures unless they are under extreme external pressures. Those pressures were provided by the germs that were transmitted in 1492. Unlike people, germs will move much faster when simply transmitted through a population. In this way, smallpox and other diseases moved rapidly through the Native American population, well in advance of colonization- much as horses did. Their civilization collapsed due to disease and its pressures.
But what else was eliminated in the New World? We will never truly know. The Mississippian culture, or at least its remnants, could well have been a victim. One of the most advanced civilizations of its time, the Mississippians fell victim to something. It could well have been smallpox- we know they were trading with people as far away as Florida. To ask what role germs played in that is macabre.
Germs probably played the most vital role when it came to the Columbian Exchange. However, it is important not to discount the role of steel.
Steel also played an important role. It was not that the Europeans were the first to discover it; rather, that they were the first to capitalize on the important iron compound. In the 19th and 20th Centuries, it would cause a great deal of trouble on the continent; prior to that, it was an accessible means of taking what was needed. Steel fueled weapons manufacturing, armaments, etc. It was seen as a necessity. Steel fueled not only the takeover of the Americas, but also the takeover of the entire world.
We look at these things now. What could have been done better? Certainly, the colonialist view of the world would be one thing to improve upon, without any question. But what can we really take away from this today?
The answer is germs. No question. Germs played the biggest role in the Columbian Exchange. Yes, it would be great to not have to think of the genocides that inadvertently resulted from the introduction of smallpox. Yet we can’t. For good reason, I hope. I hope that it means we will always, somehow, think about the people that died for our herd immunity. And I hope that it means that we will also, macabrely, remember the people that were butchered in Chaco Canyon. The pot shards of human bones discovered recently more than tell the story. People were dying of some unknown ailment. They then died. And there was too little food left to sustain them. So they boiled the people (parts of people?) in pots. That’s how the know. Pot shards. The Anasazi were a great people who fell quickly, quite possibly due to smallpox and other European diseases. It is hard to imagine a world in which the role that germs play in inter-human contact is diminished. Disease is probably just about the most human thing that we have. Something that has been with us quite a long time and intends to remain.
References:
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs and Steel. New York: W.W. Norton and Co. 1997. Print.
Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. New York:
Vintage. 2005. Print.
D’Ambrosio, Mary. “The Myth of an Empty Frontier: Explorers’ Diseases Wiped out
Native Populations Long Before Settlers Arrived.” San Francisco Chronicle. Aug. 14, 2005.
Cart, Julie. “Did Cannibalism Kill Anasazi Civilization?” The Japan Times. July 13, 1999.
Web. Retrieved from: http://www.trussel.com/prehist/news128.htm
