Conservation Corner
By Corinne Peterson
Pocahontas County Naturalist
October 9, 2013
Columbus Day will soon be here. Across the Americas people will celebrate that fateful day when “in
1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue” and forever changed the course of history and nature.
Not everybody joins in the celebration, however. Many people feel we don’t need to glorify the man
who brought slavery, exploitation, and disease to the New World. Columbus’ journey may have resulted
in freedom, hope and opportunity for some, but it also brought oppression, despair and genocide for
others.
And while the political and economical fallout of that fateful day is still raining upon us today in the
form of disputes over immigration, trade policy, and culture wars, Columbus’s journey also triggered
ecological fallout not seen on Planet Earth since the death of the dinosaurs.
Recently I read Charles C. Mann’s 2005 bestseller 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before
Columbus. Tracking recent archeological discoveries and advances in mapping techniques and genetic
research, Mann presents a far different picture of the pre-Columbian New World than the one I was
taught in school.
In the ecology section, for instance, Mann proposes that Indians, as the keystone species, had been
actively managing their environment for thousands of years. After 1492, as smallpox spread like
wildfire and emptied the New World of its people, ecosystems also experienced violent change and
collapse. Here in North America, Mann proposes that the great numbers of passenger pigeons and bison
observed by early settlers are examples not of abundant wildlife but rather of populations and
ecosystems out of control.
Mann’s 2011 sequel, 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, covers the story of the
fallout we now call the Columbian Exchange. Following the breakup of the supercontinent Pangea, life
moved forward in separate hemispheres and in blissful isolation. That all ended on October 12, 1492.
As Columbus set foot in America, 200 million years of evolution collided as plants, animals, insects,
bacteria, and viruses from the Old World landed on the New World.
Whether on purpose or by accident, the end result is a world covered in fallout. Precip from the plant
storm includes Italian tomatoes, Florida oranges, Swiss chocolates, and Lao chili peppers. Here in
America, it’s why cowboys ride horses and Iowans enjoy corn-fed beef and pork. Here at Conservation,
it’s why we fight mosquitoes and dig earthworms for bait in the summer and spray for dandelions and
host honey days in the fall.
1493 even has a local connection. One of four sections, Atlantic Journeys, tells a different version of the
Story of Jamestown than the one I read as a young girl. Even though Pocahontas and John Rolfe still
have leading roles, Mann presents Jamestown as a case study in unintended consequences rather than a
romanticized myth of the founding of America. Next week I’ll share Mann’s chapter on Rolfe, tobacco,
and earthworms – brought to us by Columbus Day.