War of the Worlds: The Invasion of the New World by the Old World
...ons on the Great Plains of North America. Brucellosis was particularly harmful in that it often caused spontaneous abortions, reducing the reproductive rates of the herd and adding to the already devastating loss in the adult population. All three diseases could be transmitted to native populations through the handling of infected meat (Flores 131), creating additional problems. The demoralization produced by the exponentially decreasing number of bison was as significant as the deaths caused by the diseases themselves. As John Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony commented on 22 May 1634, European disease pathogens and the lack of immunity in indigenous fauna cleared the way for Europeans to transform North America and Oceania into Neo-Europes (Crosby 208). The prolonged separation from the Old World and the subsequent lack of immunity to Old World diseases proved deadly for the indigenous people of Oceania and North America. Pathogens worked against Europeans in China and West Africa, providing an advantage for the native people instead and creating greater difficulty for potential European invasion. In West Africa, the evolution of hemoglobin S, commonly known as the sickle sell gene, provided native peoples with a natural tolerance to malaria—a common disease in the area (Crosby 146). Consequently, until the development of modern medical remedies, Europeans, who had no natural immunity, were relegated to the outskirts of West Africa if they wished to avoid devastating losses to malaria. Similarly, China had a “microlife and parasites quite like those of Europe” (Crosby 133), providing the “dense populations” (Crosby 133) of China with a natural immunity to most of Europe’s disease pathogens. In each case, the continued exposure through trade and various other culture contacts with Europe gave each area a significant advantage in defending against European invasion. Second only to pathogens in their invasion of North America and Oceania are European animals that, in the absence of sufficient natural predators, both animal and human, quickly spread across the New World, reinforcing Europe’s Old World advantage. China and West Africa, having had ample contact with Europe over the preceding millennium, had a variety of domesticated animals similar to those of Europe. West Africa had the additional advantage of severity of climate, leaving only North America and Oceania to experience the “deluge of Old World domesticated animals gone feral” (Crosby 193). Although Australian Aborigines had domesticated the dingo and American Indians had domesticated “dogs, llamas, alpacas, guinea pigs, and several kinds of fowl” (Crosby 173), the domesticated animals of North America and Oceania were both outnumbered and outcompeted by the species of domesticated animals Europeans brought to the New World. Europeans “arrived with horses, cattle, pigs, goats, sheep, asses, chickens, cats, and so forth” (Crosby 173). Pigs, cattle, and horses posed a particular problem to the New World as each species was adept at providing for itself in wilderness. The omnivorous pig forages for sustenance with an amazing lack of specificity, and cattle and horses are “as good at taking care of themselves in open grassland as pigs are in forest and jungle” (Crosby 177). In addition to these, Europeans inadvertently added rats (Crosby 190-92) and rabbits, both of which thrived in the absence of sufficient natural predators. European animals spread quickly throughout North America and Oceania, devastating natural grasses and crops. The disturbance of natural flora opened the door to an insidious group of European plants: weeds. The term weed “refers to any plant that spreads rapidly and outcompetes others on disturbed soil” (Crosby 149). Bartolome de las Cases wrote of the effect the spread of European animals had on the invasion of European weeds commenting that “cattle and other European animals in the West Indies [were] eating native plants down to the roots in the first half of the sixteenth century, followed by the spread of ferns, thistles, plantain, nettles, nightshade, [and] sedge” (Crosby 151), all of which were of Spanish origin. The weed species of Europe “were Old World colonizing species moving in with the explorers and advancing as fast or faster” (Crosby 151). The weeds specialized “in the occupation of ground stripped of plants by landslides, floods, fires” (Crosby 149) and the devastating wake of Europeans animals. By 1555, the Aztecs were familiar enough with European clover to have given it an Aztec nomenclature (Crosby 152). In New England, John Josselyn recorded twenty-two species of European flora growing in the New World (Crosby 155). American Indians referred to plan...