Sickness, starvation, and death in early hispaniola

Journal of Interdisciplinary History

Volumn 32, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 349-386

  Cook, Noble David ^a  

^a FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33751198955     PISSN: 00221953     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/002219502753364173     Document Type: Article

References (146)

1. Friars Bernardino de Manzanedo, Luis de Figueroa, and Alonso de Santo Domingo - who conducted the inquiry - landed on Hispaniola on December 20, 1516, after a voyage of only a month. Frank Moya Pons, La Espanoh en d siglo XVI: 1493-1520. Trahijo, sociedad y politico en la economla del era (Santo Domingo, 1978), 196-207.
2. Moya Pons, Espanola en el siglo XVI, 152-172.
3. Moya Pons, Espanola en el siglo XVI, Ibid., 156-160.
4. Emilio Rodriguez Demorizi (ed.), Los Dominicas y las encomiendas de indios de la isla Espanola (Santo Domingo, 1971), 282, 299.
5. William M. Denevan (ed.), The Native Population of the America; in 1492 (Madison, 1976; 2d ed., 1992), xxiii-xxiv,
6. and Cook, Disease and the Depopulation of Hispaniola, 1492-1518, Colonial Latin American Review, II (1993), 214-220, summarize the debate over numbers.
7. Alfred W. Crosby, Conquistador y Pestilencia: The First New World Pandemic and the Fall of the Great Indian Empires, Hispanic American Historical Rcvieii', XLVII (1967), 321-337;
8. it/cm, Tlie Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Westport, 1972);
9. idem, Virgin Soil Epidemics as a Factor in the Aboriginal Depopulation in America, William and Mary Quarterly, XXX (1976), 289-299;
10. Carl O. Sauer, The Early Spanish Main (Berkeley, 1966);
11. Varela and Gil (eds.), Cristobal Colon. The second revised edition of 1992, or subsequent editions, of this work are preferred; note that those prior to 1992 do not include the newly discovered Columbus letters.
12. Miles H. Davidson, Columbus Then and Now: A Life Reexamined (Norman, 1997), xxii, evaluated the libro copiador:
13. Spanish scholars accept these sixteenth-century documents as scribal copies of letters written by Columbus. The arguments presented herein are similar to those proposed in Cook, Burn to Die: Disease and JVcic World Conquest, 1492-1650 (New York, 1998), 26-39, but with important differences: (i) A richer eyewitness narrative is provided, with a more critical evaluation of accounts; (2) evidence not available to the author when the book was published raises the possibility of smallpox among the Indian interpreters from Hispaniola, as they embarked on their return to the island in 1493;
14. Francisco Guerra, Epidemiologia americana y lipina, 1492-1898 (Madrid, 1999). comes under close scrutiny; and (4) the issues of nutrition, starvation, and death among both natives and Europeans are examined in the context of the initial three years.
15. T. S. Floyd, The Columbus Dynasty in the Caribbean, 1492 la 1526 (Albuquerque, 1973);
16. Moya Pons, Espanola en el sigh XVI, 1493-1520 (Santiago, 1971);
17. Moya Pons, idem, Despités de Colon. Trabajo, sociedad y poh'tica en la cconomia del oro (Madrid, 1987).
18. Henry F. Dobyns, Disease Transfer at Contact, Annual Review of Anthropology, XX (1993), 273-291;
19. Henry F. Dobyns, idem, Estimating Aboriginal Populations: An Appraisal of Techniques with a New Hemispheric Estimate, Current Anthropology, VII (1966), 395-449;
20. Henry F. Dobyns, idem, An Outline of Andean Epidemic History to 1720, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, XXXVII (1963), 493-5'5;
21. Henry F. Dobyns, idem, Their Number Became Thinned: Native American Population Dynamics in Eastern North America (Knoxville, 1983).
22. Borah and Cook, Essays in Population History;
23. Angel Rosenblat, La pollution de America en 1492: Vicjos y micvos calculas (Mexico, 1967);
24. Angel Rosenblat, idem, The Population of Hispaniola at the Time of Columbus, in Denevan (ed.), Native Population, 43-66;
25. David Henige, On the Contact Population of Histpaniola: History as Higher Mathematics, Hispanic American Historical Review, LVIII (1978), 217-237;
26. Rudolph A. Zambardino, Critique of David Henige's 'On the Contact Population of Hispaniola: History as Higher Mathematics,'Hispanic American Historical Review, ibid., 700-708;
27. Rudolph A. Zambardino, idem, Mexico's Population in the Sixteenth Century: Demographic Anomaly or Mathematical Illusion, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XI (1980), 1-27.
28. See Guerra, La epidemia americana de influenza en 1493, Revista de Indias, XLV (1985), 325-347 (quotation, 326);
29. Guerra, idem, El efecto demografico de las epidemias tras el descubrimiento de America, Revista de Indias, ibid., XLVI (1986), 41-58;
30. Guerra, idem, The Cause of Death of the American Indians, Nature, 326 (1987), 449450;
31. Guerra, idem, The Earliest American Epidemic: The Influenza of 1493, Social Science History, XII (1988), 305-325;
32. Guerra, idem, The Dispute over Syphilis: Europe versus America, Clio Mcdica, XIII (1978), 39-62. The origin and nature of syphilis have received substantial coverage.
33. Drenda J. Baker and George J. Armelagos, The Origin and Antiquity of Syphilis, Current Anthropology, XXIX (1988), 703-737, provide a good starting point.
34. Guerra, Epidemiotogla americana, 114-125, reiterates his earlier arguments for the introduction of influenza. Most of his sources for the 1493 sequence are not actual eyewitnesses, but were prepared years later. :
35. Bartolomé de las Casas (ed. Agustin Millares Carlo and Lewis Hanke), Historia de las Indias (Mexico, 1952);
36. Gonzalo Fernândez de Oviedo (éd. Juan Pérez de Tudela Bueso), Historia general y natural de las Indias (Madrid, 1959), 6v.;
37. Fernando Colon (ed. and trans. Benjamin Keen), The Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus by His Son Ferdinand (Brunswick, 1992);
38. Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos en los islas y tierra nne del mar occano (Madrid, 1935-1957), lyv.
39. See, for example, Walter Mignolo, El metatexto historiografico y la historiografia indiana, Modem Language Notes, XCVI (1981), 358-402;
40. Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, Humanismo, retôrica y las crônicas de la conquista, in idem (ed.), hla a sit vticlo fngitiva: ensayos m'licos sobre literatura liispanoamcricana (Madrid, 1983), 9-25;
41. Rolena Adorno, Nuevas perspectivas en los estudios literarios coloniales hispanoamericanos, Rcvista de Critica LJtcraria Latinoamericana, XIV (1988), 11-28;
42. Margarita Zamora, Historicity and Literariness: Problems in the Literary Criticism of Spanish American Colonial Texts, Modem Language Notes, XII (1987), 334-346;
43. Margarita Zamora, idem, 'If Cahonaboa learns to speak . . .': Amerindian Voice in the Discourse of Discovery, Colonial Latin American Review, VIII (1999), 191-205.
44. Henige deconstructs the sources for the first Columbus voyage in In Search of Columbus: The Sources for the First Voyage (Tucson, 1991).
45. James C. Murray provides an overview in Spanish Chronicles of the Indies: Sixteenth Century (New York, 1994), 6-13.
46. The arguments are placed in perspective by Santiago Juan-Navarro, Archival Recctions: Postmodern Fiction of the Americas (Self-Reexivity, Historical Revisionism, Utopia) (London, 2000).
47. Guerra, La epidemia americana, 338. Colon, Life of the Admira], 121-122.
48. Guerra, La epidemia americana, 325-326, 338. Almost a decade later, Guerra, Early Epidemics at La Hispaniola and Demographic Collapse 1492-1518, Latin American Population History Bulletin, 23 (1993), 19, maintained his position: It can now be stated that every quotation by Guerra was correct, the facts stand as they were first presented, and even the Spanish dead from the influenza epidemic at La Hispaniola in 1493 have been found and can be counted. Henige, Is Virtual Reality Enough or Should We Settle for Less? ibid., 23, countered, the disagreeable fact is that, when treated integrally and contextually, Guerra's own sources undermine almost every aspect of his case.
49. Guerra, La epidemia americana, 339.
50. Guerra, La epidemia americana, Ibid., 327;
51. Guerra, idem, Origen y efectos demograftcos del tifu en el Mexico colonial, Colonial Latin American History Review, VIII (1999), 283.
52. Guerra, Colonial Latin American History Review, Ibid., 284.
53. Guerra quotes from Girolamo Bordoni's edition of Historié del Sig. Do Fernando Colombo: Nclle qtiali s'liaparticolarc, & vera rclatione dclla vita, & de'fatli Jell' ammiraglio Don Clmstoro sub padre . . . (Milan, 1614).
54. Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, I, 396.
55. Colon, Life of the Admiral, 145. Keen suggests that Columbus may have suffered a nervous breakdown (fn. 4, 299), taking a cue on this point from Samuel
56. Eliot Morison, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus (Boston, 1942), 479.
57. Varela and Gil (eds.), Crislobal Colon, 313.
58. R. T. Ravenholt, Encephalitis Lethargies, in Kenneth F. Kiple (ed.), Cambridge \Vorld History of Human Disease (New York, 1993), 708-710.
59. See also Cook, Born to Die, 54-56.
60. Guerra, Origen y efectos demogrâficos del tifu, 281;
61. Cook, Boni to Die, 37;
62. Hans Zinsser, Rats, Lice and History: Being a Study in Biography, which after Twelve Preliminary Chapters Indespcnsablc for the Preparation of ttie Lay Reader, Deals uith the Life History of Typhus Fever (Boston, 1963; orig. pub. 1935), 234.
63. Davidson, Columbus Then and Nou', 316, 319-320;
64. Gil and Varela (eds.), Tentas colombinos (Seville, 1986), 19-20;
65. Guerra, Origen y efectos demograficos del tifu, 275.
66. Gil and Varela (eds.), Cartas partknlares a Colon y rclacioncs coetaiicas (Madrid, 1984), 173.
67. See Michael Craton and Gail Saunderc, Islanders in the Stream: A History of the Bahamian People (Athens, 1992);
68. Mary C. Karasch, Disease Ecologies of South America, in Kiple (ed.), Cambridge World History of Human Disease, 538.
69. Rodriguez Demorizi, Los Dominicas, 322.
70. Varela and Gil, Cristobul Colon, 242:
71. que pusiese alii en tierra uno de los cuatro indios que alii avia toniado el ano pasado, el fiial no sc avici inncrto coma los otros de viniclas [my italics] a la partida de Câliz.
72. Henige, Numbers from Noirliere: The American Indian Contact Imputation Debate (Norman, 1998), 369, fn. 36;
73. Davidson, Columbus Then and Now, 335.
74. Oviedo, Historic general, I, 30, 28, 29;
75. Murray, Spanish Chronicles, 100-101.
76. Las Casas, Historia de las Indios, I, 332;
77. Andres bernâldez, Historia de los rcycs catolicos D. Fernando y Dona lsabel (Seville, 1870), I, 368-369.
78. Gil, "Noticia de Andres Bernai, cura de los Palacios," in idem and Varela (eds.), Tcmas Colombians (Seville, 1986), 1-5, points out the correct name of the chronicler.
79. For Bemal's sources, see Gil and Varela, Carlos partinilarcs a Colon, 20-23.
80. Gil and Varela, Cartas particnlarcs a Colon, 171.
81. Gil and Varela, Ibid., Carias particnlarcs a Colon, 170, 173.
82. Gil and Varela, Idem, Crislobal Colon, 242;
83. Gil and Varela, idem, Carias partiailarcs a Colon, 165.
84. Borah, "Introduction," in Cook and W. George Lovell (eds.), "Secret Judgments of Cod": Old World Diseases in Colonial Spanish America (Norman, 1992), 6-7;
85. Sebastian de Covamibias Orozco, Tesoro de ta letigiia castellana o espanola (1611) (Madrid, 1994);
86. Sheldon Watts, Epidemics and History: Disease, Power and Imperialism (New Haven, 1997), 86.
87. Roderick E. McGrew, Encyclopedia of Medical History (London, 1985), 313;
88. C. W. Dixon, Smallpox (London, 1962).
89. Guerra, Epidemiologia amcricana, 52, argues, without citing his source of information, that the smallpox virus can survive up to three years in clothing. Specialists disagree regarding the length of time that the virus can survive. Some suggest that it does not survive long; others argue for substantial periods under ideal conditions of temperature and humidity. Given the fact that smallpox has been virtually eliminated, we probably will never know for certain. The case of the ill Taino translators needs no argument for transfer by clothing or goods. A simple chain of infection from individual to individual is sufficient to explain what might have taken place.
90. Nicolau Barquet and Pere Domingo, "Smallpox: The Triumph over the Most Terrible of the Ministers of Death," Annals of Internal Medicine, CXXVII (1997), 635-642;
91. Donald Joralemon, "New World Depopulation and the Case of Disease,"Joni
92. F- Fogel and M. R. Chakravartti, "ABO Blood Groups and Smallpox in a Rural Population of West Bengal and Bihar (India)," Humangenetik, III (1966), 166-180;
93. Dixon, Smallpox, $-66.
94. Donald R. Hopkins, Princes and Peasants: Smallpox in History (Chicago, 1983), 1-3, 3839, 258;
95. Barquet and Domingo, "Smallpox."
96. Thomas A. Whitmore, Disease and Death in Early Colonial Mexico: Simulating Amerindian Depopulation (Boulder, 1992), 55-57, examines the key variables. The point about acute communicable childhood diseases not being documented derives from the author's several years of research in parish registers of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. The entries often indicate periods of exceptional mortality for children, but, frustratingly for the investigator, they make no mention of cause or symptoms.
97. Gil and Vareb, Tcinas colombinos, 17-23.
98. Russell Thornton, Jonathan Warren, and Tim Miller, "Depopulation in the Southeast after 1492," in John W. Verano and Douglas H. Ubelaker (eds.), Disease and Demograpliy in the Amcricas (Washington, 1992), 187-195;
99. Dean R. Snow, "Disease and Population Decline in the Northeast," in Verano and Ubelaker (eds.), Disease and Demography, 177-186.
100. Las Casas, Historia de las Indios, I, 419-420.
101. Varela and Gil, Cristobal Colon, 284, 313.
102. Varela and Gil, Cristobal Colon, Ibid., 318, 321, 328-329. Varela and Gil note that "one third" of the population died, according to Las Casas, who used Columbus' text.
103. Guerra, "La epidemia Americana," 330;
104. Las Casas, Historia Ac las IiiJias, I, 363.
105. Varela and Gil, Cristôbal Colon, 250-251.
106. The term fifioncs in Columbus' text can be translated as intermittent fevers-the clear definition provided in the 1611 dictionary of Covarrubias Orozco. 1611 it is also defined in Spanish, as noted in the diccionario de autoridades, Dicrionario dc hi Icngiia castcllana (Madrid, 1963; orig. pub. 1726-1737), 3 v.,
107. as tmiana sendlld (tertian fevers, ergo malaria). Many, including Guerra, Epidemwlogia Americana, 132-133, agree that malaria first arrived in the Aniericas on Columbus' fourth voyage,
108. but Cook, Born to Die, 46-50, suggests that it could have been introduced earlier.
109. Varela and Gil, Cristobal Colon, 255, 256, 257, 259.
110. Gil and Varela, Tcmas coloinbinos, 18-19;
111. Davidson, Columbus Then and Now, 314.
112. Gil and Varela, Temas cohmbinos, 1-48;
113. Aurelio Tiô, Dr. Diego Ah-arcz Chanca (Estitdio Bicgrâfico) (Barcelona, 1966), 19-29;
114. Guerra, "La epidemia aniericana," 328;
115. Varela and Gil, Cristobal Colon, 263;
116. Gil and Varela, Cartas particulars a Colon, 173, 175.
117. Sauer, Early Spanish Main, 76;
118. William D. Phillips, Jr., and Carla Rahn Phillips, Worlds of Christopher Columbus (New York, 1992), 200;
119. Gerald Weissman, "They All Laughed at Christopher Columbus," Hospital Practice, XXI (1986), 30-41, points out the similarities to Columbus' symptoms, as later described.
120. K. David Patterson, "Bacillary Dysentery," in Kiple (ed.), Cambridge WorU History of Human Disease, 605.
121. Guerra, "Earliest American Epidemic," 323;
122. Guerra, "idem, "Origen y efectos demogrâficos del tifu," 281.
123. Las Casas, Historic! de las Indios, l, 376-378.
124. Henige, Numbers from Noirlicrc, 173.
125. Cook, Bom to Die, 1-5; personal communication with Stafford Poole, March 16, 2000, and Adorno, May 19, 2000.
126. John Walter and Roger Schofield (eds.), Famine, Disease and the Social Order in Early Modern Society (Cambridge, 1989);
127. Watts, West Indies, 57.
128. Raaolta di document! e slndi pnbblicati dalla R. Coiiiinissionc Colombina nel quarto centcnario delta scopcrta dcH'Amcrica (Rome, 1892), III, no. I, 169.
129. Part of Ponzone's letter is provided by Gil and Varela, Cartas partiailarcs a Colon, 258.
130. See also Phillips and Phillips, Worlds of Columbus, 201-202.
131. Las Casas, Historia de Lis Indios, II, 266, 257.
132. Rodriguez Demorizi, Los Dominicas, 303, 290, 299, 322.
133. Rodriguez Demorizi, Los Dominicas, Ibid., 323, 324, 328.
134. Rodriguez Demorizi, Los Dominicas, Ibid.
135. Rodriguez Demorizi, Los Dominicas, Ibid., 330.
136. Moya Pons, Espanola, 241,
137. from the Colcccion de documentas inédites para la historia de las Indias, I, 366-368.
138. Francis J. Brooks, "Revising the Conquest of Mexico: Smallpox, Sources, and Populations," Journal of InlerdiscipUnary History, XXIV (1993), 29, posited that the epidemic that swept Mexico in 1518 may have been a mild form of smallpox, but few died. According to Brooks, those who argued that one-third to one-half of those affected died were wrong: "No such catastrophe actually occurred."
139. But Robert McCaa, "Spanish and Nahuatl Views on Smallpox and Demographic Catastrophy in Mexico, "Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XXV (1995), 397-431, clearly proved otherwise. McCaa also deals effectively with the extent to which smallpox was considered a childhood affliction in sixteenth-century Spain, discussing the matter of immunity versus genetic diversity to explain differential mortality.
140. See Francis L. Black, "Why Did They Die?" Science, CCLVIII (1992), 1739. The interval between smallpox epidemics is short when the disease becomes endemic.
141. See S. R. Duncan, Susan Scott, and C. J. Duncan, "Smallpox Epidemics in Cities in Britain," Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XXV (1994), 255-271.
142. Crosby, Columbian Exchange, 46;
143. Hanns J. Prem, "Disease in Sixteenth-Century Mexico," in Cook and Lovell, Secret Judgments of God, 21-48.
144. Oviedo, Historiageneral, I, 48.
145. Lynn A. Guitar, "Cultural Genesis: Relationships among Indians, Africans and Spaniards in Rural Hispaniola, First Half of the Sixteenth Century," unpub. Ph.D. diss. (Vanderbilt University, 1998), argues for Taino survival, especially cultural.
146. Koberto Marte (ed.), S.inlo Domingo en los ùljniiscritos Je Juan Bjiitista Muiïoz (Santo Domingo, 1981), 281, from the Muiioz Collection in Madrid, Tomo A/IOJ, folios 78-89.