"The Great Exchange"
 
by Herman J. Viola
 
in "Archaeology" (January/February 1992, pp. 57-58)
 
     Little could Columbus have realized that his attempt to
reach India would set in motion processes of encounter and
exchange that would dramatically alter the life and health of
peoples the world over.  Indeed, who would have imagined that
because of one man's vision the dominant ethnic group in the
Caribbean would one day be African instead of Indian, that New
World plants like maize and potatoes would rival wheat and rice
as the food of choice in countries as distant from the Americas
as China and Russia, or that mankind would benefit from a variety
of wonder drugs from New World plants that cure us of everything
from neuralgia to malaria?
     "Seeds of Change", an exhibition at the Smithsonian
Institution's National Museum of Natural History, is not about
where Columbus landed, the route he took, or even his
nationality.  Its focus is what scholars call the Columbian
exchange--the transfer of plants, animals, diseases, and peoples
that resulted from the events of 1492.
     Of the agents of change that could have been selected to
tell the "Seeds of Change" story, the museum chose the horse,
disease, sugarcane, maize, and potatoes.  Although alternative
plants and animals--cotton, tobacco, quinine, rubber, cows, pigs,
and a dozen others--were important, these seeds were chosen both
for their immediate and enduring impact as well as for the
variety of peoples affected by their exchange.
     Following the success of his first voyage in 1492, Columbus
returned to the Caribbean in the fall of 1493 with an impressive
fleet of 17 ships that disgorged upon the island of Hispaniola
some 1,500 would-be settlers and a Noah's Ark of Old World
animals and plants, including horses, cows, pigs, sheep, wheat,
barley, and shoots of sugarcane.  Until that time, the only
domesticated animals in the Americas were the turkey, dog, guinea
pig, and llama.
     The impact of these importations was dramatic and immediate.
The natural vegetation of the islands was replaced by plantations
devoted to raising single crops.  Meanwhile, forced labor and
newly introduced European diseases--smallpox, measles, and the
common cold--decimated the Indian populations.  Little wonder
that many Native Americans echo the sentiment of "Seeds of
Change" advisor George P. Horse Capture: "For America's Indians,
1992 means that we will have survived as a people for 500 years."
     One of the few true benefits that Native Americans did
receive from Europe was the horse.  At first amazed by these
strange creatures, the Indians of North and South America
eventually became some of the finest riders the world has known.
Even today, members of many North American tribes regard the
horse as a vital part of their culture.  For the Plains people,
the horse introduced a brief but glorious era when mounted
hunters and warriors ruled the grasslands.
     Besides disease, perhaps the most detrimental introduction
from Europe was sugarcane.  The processing of sugar was an
arduous industry that required prodigious amounts of human labor.
When the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean died off or were
killed, entrepreneurs turned to Africa for the needed slave
labor.  Ironically, it was maize, a New World food taken to
Africa by Europeans, that sparked the remarkable population
explosion in West Africa that enabled Atlantic slavers to keep
the sugarcane plantations supplied with labor.  The exact number
of Africans kidnapped and sold into New World slavery will never
be known, but estimates range from 10 to 30 million.  Despite the
enormous number of slaves who died crossing the ocean and on the
plantations--scholars estimate that it cost on average the life
of one slave for each ton of sugar produced--Africans not only
made sugar production profitable but also replaced Indians as the
dominant population of the Caribbean.  Although individual
Africans paid dearly, African culture retained its vibrancy, and
the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas reap the benefit of
its music, food, storytelling, and the strength of its people.
     Potatoes, on the other hand, helped fuel the Industrial
Revolution in Europe by feeding the populations of the newly
industrialized towns.  The potato could be cultivated on fallow
land between plantings of native crops, and be left in the ground
until needed.  This extended growing season increased food
availability and provided a nourishing diet to masses of people.
     The voyages of Columbus unleashed forces of encounter and
exchange that altered the flora and fauna of both the Old and New
Worlds.  Trying to convey all of this in an exhibition is no easy
task.  Much depends on the quality of the visuals--drawings,
videos, dioramas, and artifacts--and the interpretive talent of
the exhibition devoted to the impact of slavery, for example, the
visitor can walk through a full-size replica of a ship's cargo
hold while listening to a former slave's account of the horror of
making the Atlantic crossing.  Another diorama features a
recreated slave village on the island of Montserrat.  The words
of a woman, spoken by Whoopie Goldberg, describe slave life on
the Galways Sugar Plantation as she prepares her evening meal.
"Seeds of Change" is an attempt to understand the impact of that
fateful day, 500 years ago, when Columbus stepped ashore in the
Bahamas and changed the course of world history.
 
Reprint permission granted by publisher.