People and Planet Earth.
Trade, Colonialism,
Slavery and Disease
An alternative cuisine;
The
land area used to raise animals
is twice that used to grow crops.
A third of those crops are fed to
animals.
Alternatives? Over 2000 species of
insects are eaten across 119
countries.
If
half of traditional animal products
were replaced by imitation meats and
insects, we would need a third less
land to feed the world.
Enjoy!
We’ve
seen that as societies evolve,
their demands increase. Inevitably
that will involve interaction with other
(rival) societies. That interaction
probably begins with trade , but when
interaction becomes competition war
often results.
 Trade
routes connected the various
civilizations. Perhaps the most famous was
the Silk Road that ran from China to the
Mediterranean. It’s been in place for at least
3000 years.
 Although we usually focus on the land
component, there was a complementary
marine network.
One
inevitable part of trade and
warfare was slavery. The earliest
records go back 4000 years to the
Code of Hammurabi.
Slaves were traded, but were
commonly POWs. They were used in
agriculture, industry and in
households.
Prior
to Columbus, the focus of
European colonization was the Far
East. A major expansion phase came
with the discovery and exploitation of
the Americas. The establishment of
colonies was partly an extension of
empire (political), but largely an
economic decision (free land and
cheap labour).
Why was there so much interest in
southeast Asia?
Cloves, nutmeg and mace.
 The
result was a huge transfer of crops
and people across the world; the
beginning of biological globalization.
Much of this expansion involved the
plantation system and slave labour.
 One unwanted and often tragic part of
the package was the transfer of disease.
Diffusion of tea and coffee
Global tea (left) and coffee (right)
production
By far the most important of the
southeast Asian crops was sugar.
Epidemic disease – another consequence
of plants and animal domestication.

Most of our major diseases come from (and persist) in
animals. Examples include measles (cattle),
tuberculosis (goats and cattle), smallpox (mutant
cowpox), typhoid (chicken) and influenza (pigs and
ducks).

We share over 60 diseases with dogs, 30+ with
horses, 50+ with cattle, and 40+ with sheep and
goats.

These are termed zoonoses or zoonotic diseases.
 The
major culprits are viruses ( Hep A,B,C, HIV,
measles, flu, polio, etc), bacteria (Strep and
Staph infections, TB, Salmonella, etc.),
protozoa ( malaria, sleeping sickness, Giardia,
etc.) and worms. Their prevalence in humans
reflects (a) long-term, pre-agricultural
association, and (b) the genetic plasticity
/adaptability of the organism.
Diseases in hunter-gatherer
societies
 Pre-agriculturalists
were probably subjected to
a range of worm parasites, wound infections,
staph and strep infections.
 It
may be that some diseases such as
sleeping sickness, yellow fever and malaria
impacted early hominid societies, but for
reasons we’ll see in a moment, they were not
epidemic .
How did domestication change
the rules?
 1.
humans were brought into closer proximity to
the plants and animals on which they depended
 2. increasing sedentism, often associated with
unsanitary conditions, allowed easy transmission
of disease.
 3. increasing population densities - many
diseases require large populations to support
epidemics. So-called crowd diseases include
measles, mumps, chicken pox, smallpox, etc.
 4.
increasing numbers of synanthropic fauna
(rats, mice, dogs, birds, etc.)
 5.
environmental modification (forest
clearance, extension of irrigated agriculture, etc.)
 6.
increasing regional interactions and the
merging of ‘disease pools’ through trade, war,
colonization, missionary activity, etc.)
The changing geography of disease






We can identify five phases or transitions that are each marked
by changes in human interaction with disease;
1. a prehistoric phase – a long episode prior to plant and
animal domestication
2. a local historic phase - involving local to regional
interactions
3. a continental historic phase – involving trade and transport
and the mixing of disease pools
4. an intercontinental phase – marked by the European
colonialism and increasing mixing
5. a global phase – associated with changes in the trade
patterns and the speed of transport.
Disease pools;

Each region of plant and animal domestication had its
own suite of diseases (disease pool).
 In the Fertile Crescent and the Mediterranean the
disease pool contained strains of influenza, smallpox,
measles, tuberculosis.
 The Asian pool contained influenza, cholera and
probably bubonic plague.
 The African pool contained malaria, sleeping sickness,
yellow fever and a range of intestinal parasites. Later,
that pool would include HIV/AIDS, Ebola Virus, Lassa
Fever and West Nile Virus.
The American
pool contained few
nasty things (syphilis?). The lack of
domesticated animals?
The late arrival of people into the
Americas?
Mixing disease pools 1 – the first
pandemics

Of the top 20 global pandemics, two were smallpox, eight
were various type of flu, six were cholera and three were
bubonic plague. All of these were derived from the
mixture of European and Asian disease pools brought
about by trade and conquest.
 The Antonine Plague, 165-180 AD, a smallpox epidemic,
may have killed as many as 5 million people. The Plague
of Justinian,541-542 AD, thought to be bubonic plague
may have killed as many as 50 million.
In Europe, the classic consequence of this interaction is the
Black Death (various eruptions between 1300 and 1400
AD). Bubonic plague spread probably from China to
Europe. The movement appears to be associated with the
westward migration of the Mongols.
The most disastrous epidemic spread through the
Mediterranean and northwestern Europe from 1346AD.
The disease involves a bacterium, Yersinia pestis, fleas
and black rats and people.
Consequences

Demographic – perhaps 40% of Europe’s population died
during the 1340s outbreaks. In the British Isles, it took about 250
years for the population to recover.

Social, political and economic – the shortage of labour and its
high cost brought the end of feudalism, and the development
of the middle classes. Changes in the pattern and character of
agriculture. Persecution of Jews, lepers, gypsies, etc. Cynicisms
for standard religion and rise of radical credos (e.g. Flagellants).

New interest in art, science, literature, etc. –the Renaissance.
The Triumph of Death by Brueghel. An allegory
for the social upheaval and terror caused by the
Black Death
Mixing disease pools 2 – the
Columbian Exchange
 Colonization
of the New World by Europeans saw
the effects of the one-sided nature of merging
disease pools.
 (a) conquest brought first contact with the Eurasian
disease pool (measles, influenza, smallpox, etc.).
Syphilis in return (?).
 (b) the Slave Trade introduced the African pool
(malaria, yellow fever, Dengue fever, etc.).
The Columbian Exchange
The
trade in products between the
New World, Europe and later the rest
of the world has been called the
Columbian Exchange.
The Columbian Exchange
Sugar, slavery and indentured labour
The
huge demand for sugar was
satisfied largely from the cane
plantations of central America, the
islands of the Caribbean, the Guianas
and Brazil.
This labour intensive industry was based
initially on indigenous slaves, but most of
these quickly succumbed to disease.
slaves suffered from ‘virgin soil
epidemics’ – a lack of resistance to common
diseases such as measles, whooping cough,
influenza, etc.
Within a short time of European colonization,
the New World suffered perhaps 90%
mortality.
Why? Mixing of disease pools.
These
A ready
source of cheap and plentiful
labour was the west coast of Africa.
The first were shipped in the early
17C (first in US by 1619). Main
period in the Caribbean between
1701 and 1810. Abolition from 1833.
Main sources and routes
Slave trade estimates
When
slavery was abolished the
need was satisfied by the use of
indentured labour mostly from India
and China, and later, Japan. Over
3.5 Indians were indentured, through
the Indian Ocean, the western and
central Pacific and even into the
Caribbean.
INDIAN INDENTURED LABOUR IN THE
SUGAR TRADE, WORKING ON
RAILWAYS AND IN TEA PLANTATIONS.
Influence of slavery and indentured
labour on ethnicity in Hawaii and
Jamaica.
Distribution of Indian indentured labour.
Although
the New World experience
with disease is the best known,
catastrophic epidemics occurred
elsewhere.
In the early years of British
colonization of Australia, perhaps
50% of aborigines succumbed to
disease. A similar fate befell Maori in
New Zealand.
The mixing of disease pools 3 - Globalization

Facilitated largely by increases in the amount trade and the
speed of transportation.

Note that the connection between us and our wild and
domesticated animals continues. The emergence of new
epidemic diseases continues (HIV/AIDS from primates). Other
new diseases include Ebola virus (primates), Hantavirus
(mice), Lyme disease (deer). Some ‘old’ disease continue to
reoccur (malaria, plague, etc.). Perhaps the most persistent and
potentially most dangerous is influenza. Why?

It has numerous vectors/intermediaries.

It mutates very rapidly.

Remember that despite all of our efforts at eradication,
epidemic disease still has the potential to decimate
regionally and/or globally.
 Deadliest
pandemic in our history was the influenza
epidemic of 1918/19. It killed perhaps as many as 100
million people globally – more in a year than the Black
Death killed in a century.
 See
Barry,J.M.,2009, The Great Influenza: the Story of
the Greatest Pandemic in History. Penguin Books.
Sherman (2008) discusses ‘Twelve
Diseases that Changed the World’
 1.
Bubonic Plague
 2. Smallpox
 3. Influenza
 4. Cholera
 5. Tuberculosis
 6. Syphilis
 7. HIV/AIDS
 8. Malaria

 9.
Yellow Fever
 10. Hemophilia
 11. Porphyria
 12. Potato Blight
Climate change and human health;
Potential range of malaria in 2050 using
current models of climate change.
Relationship between the incidence of
malaria and dengue fever and global
warming.
Many
of the excesses of colonialism are
seen in island situations. As late as
1848, 40,000 out of 150,000 Hawaiians
died of measles and influenza.
In 1878, measles killed over 40,000
Fijians, (1/3 of the population).
Isolation produced vulnerable people
and vulnerable plants and animals.
Next week we’ll look at islands; their
peculiarities and sensitivities.