Livi Bacci, Chapter 2: Demographic growth, choice & constraint

1. Livi Bacci, Chapter 2: Demographic growth, choice & constraint • Constraint, choice and adaptation • Hunters to farmers, the neolithic demographic transition • Black death and demographic decline in Europe • The tragedy of the American Indios • The French Canadians: a demographic success story • Ireland, Japan: 2 islands, 2 histories

2. Livi Bacci, Chapter 2: Demographic growth, choice & constraint • Constraint, choice and adaptation • Demographic growth and environmental constraints (dynamic, influenced by human activity) • Constraints: climate, disease, land, energy, food, space, settlement patterns • Choices: behavioral flexibility, adjusting population to constraints & changing the constraints • Adaptation: reproduction: age at access to reproduction (marriage), % marrying, sexual taboos, duration of lactation, abortion, infanticidemigration: escape environmental constraints

3. 2. From foragers to farmers: the neolithic demographic transition • 12,000 years ago: the beginnings of agriculture • Increased population densities, growth rates (~0.4% per annum) • Raised the ceiling of environmental constraints (fig. 2.1) • Shifted the balance toward successsmall populations – fragile, vulnerablelarger populations – greater stability • 2 theories on increased growth (fig. 2.2):1) mortality declined due to better nutrition2) mortality increased, but fertility increased even more (Ancient Americas?)

4. 3. Black Death and demographic decline in Europe (1340-1400) • 1000 AD: accelerated demographic growth in Europe • ~1300 demographic crises increased in frequency and intensity (depletion of land?, unfavorable climate?) • When the plague struck (1347) demographic catastrophe ensued (fig. 2.3) • Plague (bacillus yersinia pestis) transmitted by fleas carried by rats or mice • Case fatality rates: 2/3 to 4/5 of those infected (crude death rate ~100 to 500 per thousand) • Successive epidemic waves every 10-15 years engulfed Europe, successive waves less intense • Finally disappeared ~1700 • Demographic recovery (decline in age at marriage, baby boomlets, decline in background mortality)

5. 4. 1491: of paradise, purgatory and hell? …Main points: • 1491: Americas: paradise for some, purgatory for many—even at Machu Picchu, the Inca’s “paradise”. • 1492+: Demographic disaster cannot be explained by disease alone • The virgin soil thesis may be correct for small populations, but not for large ones: Mexico, Peru • Mexico: • Two of three major epidemics were native diseases • Smallpox struck only twice in 16th century: 1520, 1538 • Peru: • Disaster began before virgin soil epidemics struck • Smallpox did not enter until 1558 1491/2+: Paradise, Purgatory, & Hell

6. 1491: Pristine Paradise?Followed by tragedy! • Ancient America was no paradise: • slow rate of natural increase • widespread paleopathologies • diminishing height • Demographic catastrophe of Christian conquest and colonization • Causes of catastrophe: • Virgin soil epidemics? • War? • Exploitation? 1491/2+: Paradise, Purgatory, & Hell

7. Hard Times in Ancient Mexico • Epidemics happened (e.g., matlazahuatl, a severe form of typhus?), but not European crowd diseases like smallpox, measles, malaria, yellow fever, or bubonic plague. • Epidemics in 1450, 1456, 1496, and 1507 (according to Anales de Cuahtitlan) • “There’s hardly a person who walks who doesn’t complain of the bowels.” • Skeletal archaeology shows porotic hyperostosis as nearly universal (perhaps due to extreme dependence on corn). 1491/2+: Paradise, Purgatory, & Hell

8. 1rabbit(1454):“agreathungerkilledmany of the people” 1491/2+: Paradise, Purgatory, & Hell

9. Background demography: a high pressure system • Crude birth rate: ~60 per thousand • Early, universal marriage (vs. Western Europe with late marriage, and high % celibate) • Total fertility rate = 8 children (higher than Europe) • Crude death rate = ~55 per thousand 1491/2+: Paradise, Purgatory, & Hell

10. Precocious marriage among the Aztecs • The Codex Mendoza (1540) shows the life stages of boys and girls: marriage is celebrated at age 15 (and not at 18, 20 or 25 as often stated by historians): 1491/2+: Paradise, Purgatory, & Hell

11. Marriage (at 15) 15: 1491/2+: Paradise, Purgatory, & Hell

12. Female age at marriage: Italy vs. Mexico • Italy: Florence Prato 1427 17.6 years 1372 16.31458 19.5 1427 17.61480 20.8 1470 21.1 • Mexico: Aztecs1538: 12.8(a high pressure demographic system) 1491/2+: Paradise, Purgatory, & Hell

13. The Amerindian mode of reproduction • 1. Precocious marriage: a solution to high mortality, a high pressure demographic regime (paleolithic). • 2. Societies that did not learn to maximize their reproduction, disappeared. • 3. Those that did, survived--and survived the biological conquest of the Americas, “the greatest demographic catastrophe in human history” (Woodrow Borah). 1491/2+: Paradise, Purgatory, & Hell

14. 1491: Pristine Paradise?Followed by tragedy! • Ancient America was no paradiseslow rate of natural increasewidespread paleopathologiesdiminishing height • Demographic catastrophe of Christian conquest and colonization • Causes of catastrophe: Virgin soil epidemics? Exploitation? Care? 1491/2+: Paradise, Purgatory, & Hell

15. Demographic catastrophe in 16th century Mexico: 50%+ decline 1491/2+: Paradise, Purgatory, & Hell

16. First epidemic, 1520: “Large bumps spread on people, some were entirely covered. They spread everywhere, on the face, the head, the chest, etc. [The disease] brought great desolation; a great many died of it.” --Sahagun, General History 1491/2+: Paradise, Purgatory, & Hell

17. Codice Santa Maria:darkened faces show deaths—many due to cocoliztli, 1546 1491/2+: Paradise, Purgatory, & Hell

18. 1491: Pristine Paradise?Followed by tragedy! • Ancient America was no paradiseslow rate of natural increasewidespread paleopathologiesdiminishing height • Demographic catastrophe of Christian conquest and colonization • Causes of catastrophe: Virgin soil epidemics? War?Exploitation? 1491/2+: Paradise, Purgatory, & Hell

19. First epidemic: little effect on the outcome of the conquest • Chronology: • Spaniards defeated June 30, 1520 • Epidemic erupted in late Sept. • Ended in December • Siege began April, 1521. • City fell August 14, 1521. • Hugh Thomas, Conquest of Mexico (1993): “Extravagant” the notion that the smallpox epidemic had an effect on the outcome of the conquest. 1491/2+: Paradise, Purgatory, & Hell

20. Demographic catastrophe and its causes: viruses, Black Legend and the social context of epidemics Alonso de Zorita (~1565): “...and it is certain that from the day that D. Hernando Cortes, the Marquis del Valle, entered this land...the natives suffered many deaths, and many terrible dealings, robberies and oppressions were inflicted on them, taking advantage of their persons and their lands, without order, weight nor measure; ...the people diminished in great number, as much due to excessive taxes and mistreatment, as to illness and smallpox, such that now a very great and notable fraction of the people are gone, and especially in the hot country.” 1491/2+: Paradise, Purgatory, & Hell

21. Summary: • 1491: Americas: paradise for some, purgatory for many. • 1492+: Demographic disaster cannot be explained by disease alone • The virgin soil thesis may be correct for small populations, but not for large ones: Mexico, Peru • Mexico: • Two of three major epidemics were native diseases • Smallpox struck only twice in 16th century: 1520, 1538 • Peru: • Disaster began before virgin soil epidemics struck • Smallpox did not enter until 1558 1491/2+: Paradise, Purgatory, & Hell

22. END 1491/2+: Paradise, Purgatory, & Hell