Click here to view a larger image. THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF Copyright © 2011 by Charles C. Mann All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. www.aaknopf.com Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc. The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the Lannan Foundation. Portions of this book have appeared in different form in The Atlantic, National Geographic, Orion, and Science. Maps created by Nick Springer and Tracy Pollock, Springer Cartographics LLC; copyright © by 2011 Charles C. Mann Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mann, Charles C. 1493 : uncovering the new world Columbus created / Charles C. Mann. —1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. eISBN: 978-0-307-59672-7 1. History, Modern. 2. Economic history. 3. Commerce—History. 4. Agriculture—History. 5. Ecology— History. 6. Industrial revolution. 7. Slave trade—History. 8. America—Discovery and exploration—Economic aspects. 9. America—Discovery and exploration—Environmental aspects. 10. Columbus, Christopher— Influence. I. Title. D228.M36 2011 909’.4—dc22 2011003408 Front-of-jacket image: De Español y Negra, Mulato, attributed to José de Alcibar, c. 1760. Denver Art Museum, Collection of Frederick and Jan Mayer. Photo © James O. Milmoe. Jacket design by Abby Weintraub v3.1 To the woman who built my house, and is my home —CCM CONTENTS Cover Map Title Page Copyright Dedication List of Maps Prologue / In the Homogenocene INTRODUCTION 1. Two Monuments / Atlantic Journeys PART ONE 2. The Tobacco Coast 3. Evil Air / Pacific Journeys PART TWO 4. Shiploads of Money (Silk for Silver, Part One) 5. Lovesick Grass, Foreign Tubers, and Jade Rice (Silk for Silver, Part Two) / Europe in the World PART THREE 6. The Agro-Industrial Complex 7. Black Gold / Africa in the World PART FOUR 8. Crazy Soup 9. Forest of Fugitives / Currents of Life CODA 10. In Bulalacao Appendixes A. Fighting Words B. Globalization in Beta Acknowledgments Notes Works Cited Index About the Author Other Books by This Author Additional Images MAPS Map 1 The World, 1493 Map 2 Colonial Hispaniola Map 3 China Sea, 1571 Map 4 Deforestation and Reforestation in Eastern North America, 1500–1650 Map 5 Tsenacomoco, 1607–1670 Map 6 Malaria in Southeast England Map 7 American Anopheles Map 8 Recreating Pangaea, 1600 Map 9 Fujian in the Ming Era Map 10 Viceroyalty of Peru Map 11 China in the Qing Era Map 12 China Floods, 1823 Map 13 Spread of Potato Blight, 1845 Map 14 Rubber World, c. 1890 Map 15 Spread of Sugar Through the Mediterranean and Beyond Map 16 Estate of Hernán Cortés, 1547 Map 17 Portuguese Expansion into Brazil Map 18 Maroon Landscapes PROLOGUE PROLOGUE Like other books, this one began in a garden. Almost twenty years ago I came across a newspaper notice about some local college students who had grown a hundred di(cid:33)erent varieties of tomato. Visitors were welcome to take a look at their work. Because I like tomatoes, I decided to drop by with my eight-year-old son. When we arrived at the school greenhouse I was amazed—I’d never seen tomatoes in so many different sizes, shapes, and colors. A student o(cid:33)ered us samples on a plastic plate. Among them was an alarmingly lumpy specimen, the color of an old brick, with a broad, green-black tonsure about the stem. Occasionally I have dreams in which I experience a sensation so intensely that I wake up. This tomato was like that—it jolted my mouth awake. Its name, the student said, was Black from Tula. It was an “heirloom” tomato, developed in nineteenth-century Ukraine. “I thought tomatoes came from Mexico,” I said, surprised. “What are they doing breeding them in Ukraine?” The student gave me a catalog of heirloom seeds for tomatoes, chili peppers, and beans (common beans, not green beans). After I went home, I (cid:52)ipped through the pages. All three crops originated in the Americas. But time and again the varieties in the catalog came from overseas: Japanese tomatoes, Italian peppers, Congolese beans. Wanting to have more of those strange but tasty tomatoes, I went on to order seeds, sprout them in plastic containers, and stick the seedlings in a garden, something I’d never done before. Not long after my trip to the greenhouse I visited the library. I discovered that my question to the student had been o(cid:33) the mark. To begin, tomatoes probably originated not in Mexico, but in the Andes Mountains. Half a dozen wild tomato species exist in Peru and Ecuador, all but one inedible, producing fruit the size of a thumbtack. And to botanists the real mystery is less how tomatoes ended up in Ukraine or Japan than how the progenitors of today’s tomato journeyed from South America to Mexico, where native