| "Seeds of Change" by Barbara Stauffer in The New World (Spring/Summer 1991, No. 2, pp. 6-7) The voyages of Columbus set into motion 500 years of biological exchanges that have had a profound impact on cultural customs, societal structures and economic systems around the globe. The National Museum of Natural History's Quincentenary exhibition, "Seeds of Change," examines these biological exchanges by focusing on five singularly powerful agents of changenamely, corn, the potato, sugar, the horse and disease. Transplanted either to or from America, each of these agents dramatically and lastingly transformed our world. Consider, for example, the potato. This nutrient-rich tuber, which has more than a thousand known varieties, originated in the Andes (now Peru, Bolivia and Chile). The earliest evidence of potato cultivation dates from approximately 6,000 B.C., and it was widely known and cultivated in the Inca Empire at the time Columbus reached the new world. Explorers brought it back to Europe in the late-16th century, where its strange shape and odd flavor met with mixed reaction. It was first considered poisonous and then hailed as an aphrodisiac. But eventually, the potato's considerable virtues (such as its adaptability to wide ranges in altitude and climate, high yield per acre planted, and high nutritional value) won over skeptics, and it became a staple in diets from Ireland to the Philippines. Corn, whose roots are deeply embedded in the ancient sociocultural systems of the Americas, has also had a major impact on the modern world's food supply. The maize plant is native to the highlands of central Mexico, yet by the time of the Spanish conquistadors, hundreds of varieties of corn were cultivated all over America, from Canada to Chile. When Cortez arrived in Tenochtitlan, the heart of the Aztec empire, he found a highly sophisticated society that placed great importance on corn. Corn was not only the main source of carbohydrates for the Aztecs, it was also central in their religion and mythology, figuring prominently in their ceremonies, ceramics and paintings. In contrast to agricultural products, disease is an often unrecognized biological agent of change; but its effect can be just as profound. For example, Africa, Asia and Europe experienced a population explosion due to the introduction of new world crops like corn and the potato, while the new world's native populations suffered decimation from an alarming array of old world diseases. Some of the first diseases introduced to America by European explorers and settlers, notably smallpox and diphtheria, had a truly devastating effect on the Indians. The new world, in its isolation, had evolved relatively few diseases compared to the old world; and native populations, like the Incas and Aztecs, had developed highly sophisticated medicines and customs, even surgical techniques, to cope with these ills. But with no exposure and hence no immunity to Europeans' germs, the Indians could not cope with the onslaught of the new diseases. In the 16th century, for example, smallpox no longer reached epidemic proportions in Europe, but it wiped out entire populations in the new world. Another advantage the conquistadors had in their invasion of the new world empires was the horse. Not only did they enjoy a distinct military advantage mounted on their powerful steeds, but the native Americans were terrified of these beasts which were larger than any indigenous animal in the new world. Nevertheless, the American Indians soon learned to tame the wild horses that came to roam the North and South American plains, and they turned that to their own advantage in their conflicts with Spanish, Portuguese and other settlers. The gauchos of the Argentine pampas grew out of the native Americans' quick mastery of horses and horsemanship, and their distinctive culture is a striking example of the rich cultural blends which evolved from the mixture of Spanish and native American peoples. By the mid-16th century, the horse had reached North America and was rapidly adopted by the native Americans. The fifth "seed of change" is a plant originally cultivated in Southeast Asia approximately eight thousand years ago, sugarcane. In Columbus' time, sugarcane was being cultivated by the Spanish and Portuguese in limited quantities on their East Atlantic islands, the Canaries and Azores; so it was natural for Columbus on his second voyage in 1493 to carry the plant with him to the newly discovered islands on the western side of the Atlantic. In doing so, Columbus initiated five centuries of exploitation, as the Caribbean isles came to be known as the "Sugar Islands." The five agents of change featured in the Smithsonian's Seeds of Change project vividly illustrate many of the critical issues and dynamic processes that arose from the encounter of the old and new worlds. The new world was a rich source of food products, such as corn and the potato, that were successfully adopted by the old world. This contributed to a population explosion in the old world which, in turn, led to increased pressure for people to emigrate to the new world. At the same time, old world diseases, in combination with European political, religious and socioeconomic factors, led to the conquest and destruction of many new world peoples and sociocultural systems. Subsequently, the European settlers brought with them many biological elements, such as the horse and sugarcane, which led to dramatic cultural, socioeconomic and ethnic composition changes in the new world. The Seeds of Change exhibition does not seek to mitigate the dark side to the encounter between the old and new worlds, but neither does it deny that some good came from the experience as well. Above all, the exhibition attempts to enhance our understanding of how today's world was shaped by the biological changes that resulted from Columbus' arrival in the new world. Seeds of Change emphasizes the point that we live in an interconnected world where isolation is no longer possible. By the same token, it reminds us that, like the explorers and settlers of the past 500 years, the choices we make today will have significant consequences in the future. Reprint permission granted by publisher. STAUFFR1 ART | |
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