Ecological Imperialism 25In the mid-1690s the Spaniards regained control
of most of the upper Rio Grande. Thereafter they
maintained power with little difficulty. This was partly
because they had learned to deal less harshly with the
Pueblo people. The Spanish also recruited the nomadic
Indians of the region to capture more distant Indians
and sell them to the Spaniards as slaves.
By the early 1700s Spain had become master of a
huge American empire covering all of South America
except Brazil, and also all of Central America as well
as a region extending from California east to Florida.
New Spain was ten times larger than Spain itself. The
Spanish monarch ruled three times more Indian sub-
jects than Spaniards.
But while Spain had founded a vast empire, one
major and literally fatal problem remained: The
Indian population was declining rapidly, and had
done so from the start. Almost as soon as Europeans
set foot on American soil, Indians began to die.
Cabeza de Vaca, “Indians of the Rio Grande”at
myhistorylab.com
Conquistadores Torturing Native
Amerindiansatmyhistorylab.com
Legal Statement by Pedro Hidalgo, soldier,
Santa Fe 1680atmyhistorylab.com
Disease and Population Losses
Of all the weapons the Europeans brought to the
Americas, the most potent was one they could not
see and of which they were mostly unaware:
microorganisms that carried diseases such as small-
pox, measles, bubonic plague, diphtheria, influenza,
malaria, yellow fever, and typhoid. For centuries,
these diseases had ravaged Asia, Europe, and Africa.
By the 1500s Eurasian and African populations had
acquired some resistance to such diseases. An out-
break of smallpox or diphtheria might take a severe
toll on infants and the elderly, but no longer would
it decimate entire populations.
But American Indians had evolved over hundreds
of generations without contact with these diseases.
They lacked the requisite biological defenses. When
these diseases first struck, many Indian villages were
nearly wiped out. In 1585, for example, Sir Francis
Drake, preparing for a raid against the Spanish,
stopped at the Cape Verde Islands. While there some
of his men contracted a fever—probably typhus—but
sailed for Florida undaunted by their discomfort.
When they landed at St. Augustine, the disease
spread to the Indians who, according to Drake, “died
verie fast and said amongst themselves, it was the
Englisshe God that made them die so faste.”
ReadtheDocumentReadtheDocumentView theImageAfter the initial infestation by Europeans, the dis-
eases subsequently spread among Indians, rippling
outward, far beyond the areas initially visited by the
explorers. De Soto’s journey spread diseases through-
out what is now the Southeast, virtually destroying
the mound communities of Mississippian culture.
Indian losses from diseases were incalculable,
although the lowest estimates begin in the millions.
Scholars agree on only one fact concerning the pop-
ulation history of the North American Indians fol-
lowing the arrival of Columbus: The number of
Indians declined precipitously. (See Debating the
Past, “How Many Indians Perished with European
Settlement?” p. 26.)
Native American Population Loss, 1500–1700at
myhistorylab.comEcological Imperialism
Another reason why so many Indians succumbed to
disease was that they suffered from malnutrition. This
was because European plants and animals had dis-
rupted the Indian ecosystem. Pigs and cattle, brought
in the first Spanish ships, were commonly set loose in
the Americas. Unchallenged by the predators and
microbes that had thinned their populations in
Europe and Asia, pigs reproduced rapidly and ate
their way through fields of maize, beans, and squash.
Rats, stowaways on most European ships, also prolif-
erated in the Americas, infesting Indian crops.
Europeans also brought plants to the New World,
and in the process unknowingly introduced the seeds
of hardy European weeds. Like the kudzu vines from
Japan that have overrun much of the southeastern
United States during the twentieth century, dande-
lions and other weeds from Europe choked Indian
crops in the sixteenth century. Fewer ears of corn
were harvested and Indians went hungry. When dis-
ease struck, many died.
The ships that brought Europeans to the Americas
returned carrying more than gold and silver. European
soldiers often contracted syphilis, a disease native to
the Americas, and spread it to Europe and Asia.
European ships also brought back maize and potato
plants. These American crops yielded 50 percent more
calories per acre than wheat, barley, and oats, the
major European grains. Hungry European peasants
swiftly shifted to maize and potato cultivation; the
population of Europe rosesharply. Manioc (cassava),
another Indian plant with a high caloric yield, did not
grow in the colder climate of Europe, but it trans-
formed tropical Africa. Population levels soared. As
declining Indian populations proved insufficient to
exploit the seemingly inexhaustible lands of theSeetheMap