|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
The Myth of Primeval Wilderness
| Article
# : |
20658 |
|
|
Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
|
| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1992 |
2,120 Words |
| Author
: |
William M. Denevan and Sarah O. Brooks
William M. Denevan is professor of geography and environmental
studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has been
studying the cultural ecology of the native peoples of Latin
America fro more than 30 years. Sarah O. Brooks is a doctoral
candidate in geography at the University of Wisconsin and is
doing research on pre-Hispanic terraces in the Andes. |
When Columbus made landfall in the Caribbean in 1492, he wrote of a paradise, fertile and luscious with vegetation, teaming with birds and animals, and populated with humans whom he called Indians because he thought he had reached India. Columbus believed the people who walked out of the forest to greet him with gifts were simple children of nature.
The vista of a wilderness barely touched by human impact, a vast land where people lived in harmony with nature, was promoted by romantic writers of the 1800s such as Longfellow, Cooper, Thoreau, and Parkman. Over the last two centuries the myth of a primeval wilderness has persisted. Yet historical documents and archaeology reveal quite the opposite. The impact of Native Americans in both North and South America was neither ephemeral nor localized; nor were resources always used in sound, ecological ways. Although many native peoples lived in balance with nature and employed systems of land management that were sustainable, they also greatly transformed the environment. Here we will focus on the form and extent of environmental modification by pre-Hispanic people in the Americas.
Native populations
In 1549 Spanish priest Bartolome de Las Casas wrote of a land full of people, "Like a hive of bees." He later wrote that by 1560 more than 40 million Indians had dies in the Americas. Until recently, scholars thought he had exaggerated. Recent demographic research has been based on the accounts of explorers and priests, archaeological investigation of ancient settlements, agricultural evidence, and incomplete tribute counts. These population studies suggest that an estimated 55 million people, or a range of 45-65 million, inhabited North, Central, and South America when Columbus sailed into the Caribbean. This total included approximately 4 million in North America, 17 million in Mexico, 6 million in Central America, 3 million in the Caribbean, 16 million in the Andes, and 9 million in lowland South America. The landscape in 1492 reflected not only the activities of this population but the cumulative effects of at least 12,000 years of population growth. In 1500, the populations of Europe and Africa were approximately 81 million and 46 million, respectively.
The European impact on the native populations was immediate and devastating. Old World Diseases (especially smallpox and measles) killed possibly 90 percent of the New World Population by the year 1600. (In return, explorers brought back to Europe an especially virulent, previously unknown strain of syphilis). The replacement of native
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
