The Pristine Myth The Landscape of the Americas in 1492

“So dense was the original forest, it was claimed, that a squirrel might travel from the Atlantic to the Mississippi from tree limb to tree limb without ever touching the ground. Cleared of this nineteenth- century romanticism, the original accounts tell a different story….

“So open were the woods, one author advised with a touch of hyperbole, it was possible to drive a stagecoach from the eastern seaboard to St. Louis without benefit of a cleared road. The virgin forest seemed to many explorers not much different from the parks and champion fields they had known in Old England….

“It was not the forests of the New World that startled them and strained their vocabulary, but the grasslands. The virgin forest was not encountered in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; it was invented in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.” Stephen J. Pyne, Fire in America [p. 6]

“‘No other field in American history has grown as fast,’ marveled Joyce Chapman, a Harvard historian, in 2003.” Charles C. Mann, 1491 [p. 35] The Americas before Columbus

The “Pristine Myth” William M. Denevan How did it come about?

The Early Europeans

Romantic writers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries Michel de Montaigne Jean-Jacques Rousseau William Wordsworth Samuel Taylor Coleridge Henry David Thoreau Ralph Waldo Emerson James Fenimore Cooper

The Population Debate

300,000,000

Early Estimates James Mooney, 1910 Ethnographer, Smithsonian Institution North American population: 1.15 million Based on review of historic documents

New Estimates Henry F. Dobyns, 1966 “Estimating Aboriginal American Population: An Appraisal of Techniques with a New Hemispheric Estimate.” Current Anthropology North American population: 18 million Others have estimated as high as 100 million people in the Western Hemisphere

Low Counters vs. High Counters

Dobyns’ Research 1950s in Northern Mexico Studied records of Jesuit priests Noted that more deaths – many more deaths – than births were recorded

Dobyns’ Research Studied records in Lima Cathedral, Peru Smallpox ravaged the Incas in 1525 – seven years before the Spanish arrived Later epidemics of typhus in 1546, smallpox along with influenza in 1558, smallpox in 1589, diphtheria in 1614, and measles in 1618

Based on the Spanish records, Dobyns estimated that approximately 95 percent of the Indian population of the Americas died in the first 130 years of European contact.

If correct, Dobyns’ theories shatter many preconceptions about the Americas before Columbus, impacting disciplines as diverse as the social sciences, ecology, and forestry. As such, they have been hotly debated to this day. Some believe Dobyns’ work is politically motivated. Others criticize Dobyns’ baseline assumption of a 95% mortality rate. Others point to lack of archeological evidence supporting Dobyns’ estimates.

The Pilgrim’s Experience The Mayflower Massachusetts November 9, 1620 Only half the 102 people on the Mayflower survived the first winter

Hernando de Soto 1539: Landed in Florida with 200 horses, 600 soldiers, and 300 pigs Seeking gold

Rene-Robert Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle Was the next European to visit the Arkansas country in 1682 – 140 years after Soto La Salle

De Soto’s Pigs Pigs carry anthrax, brucellosis, leptospirosis, taeniasis, trichinosis, and tuberculosis. Ironically, these were the ancestors of the razorback hogs that became the staple of frontier diet.

Population & Decline Denevan’s Estimate: North American (.U.S. & Canada) population fell from 3.8 million in 1492 to 1 million in 1800

Agriculture in the Americas Corn (maize) Squash and Pumpkins Peanuts Kidney and Lima Beans Manioc Peppers Tobacco Yams and Potatoes Tomatoes

Maize Developed in Mesoamerica Genetic origins unknown Must be sown by humans Revolutionized agriculture

“Indians took the first steps toward modern maize in southern Mexico, probably in the highlands, more than six thousand years ago…. Modern maize was the outcome of a bold act of conscious biological manipulation – ‘arguably man’s first, and perhaps his greatest, feat of genetic engineering,’ Nina V. Federoff, a geneticist at Pennsylvania State University, wrote in It makes twenty-first century scientists sound like pikers, I said when I contacted her….

“… ‘That’s right,’ she said. To get corn out of teosinte is so – you couldn’t get a grant to do that now, because it would sound so crazy.’ She added, ‘Somebody who did that today would get a Nobel Prize! If their lab didn’t get shut down by Greenpeace, I mean.” Charles C. Mann, 1491 [p. 196]

The Milpa Maize, beans, and squash Nutritionally balanced Renews soil nutrients

Wildlife Management

“The impact of the Indian on the forest has not been admitted readily by historians, in much the same way as it has been ignored by plant ecologists in the past. More often than not the Indian has been depicted as the uncivilized inhabitant of an uncivilized environment – even a product of it – a migratory hunter devoid of the ability to clear the forests and cultivate the land.” Michael Williams, Americans and Their Forests [p. 32]

“American Indians learned how to manage trees and other plants because they depended on them for construction, materials, firewood, weapons, clothing, basketry, cordage, foods, wooden tools, dyes, and medicines. Obtaining what they needed without destroying all the plants required an intimate knowledge of each species and the restraint that comes from living things.” Thomas M. Bonnicksen, America’s Ancient Forests [p. 106]

“American Indians pruned, thinned, weeded, sowed, tilled, and transplanted wild plants long before the introduction of agriculture. They knew they could promote plant growth this way and increase the production of fruits and nuts.” Thomas M. Bonnicksen, America’s Ancient Forests [p. 107]

An Eastern Woodland Village

“...the plants and game upon which American Indians depended thrived in forest mosaics that included a variety of successional stages. Most animals require two or more kinds of vegetation for their habitat, such as openings where they can find food and closed forest for cover …. Impact on the American Forest

…Thus the forests and the Indians sustained one another. Remove the Indians and the forest and wildlife must change. They were inseparable. There is no doubt that American Indians were an integral part of America’s ancient forests.” Thomas M. Bonnicksen, America’s Ancient Forests, [pp ]