' , . . . Annals :·Articles · .. ·· - · . · · . . . of the Association of American Geographers The Americas before and after 1492: An

Volume 82 September 1992 Number 3 Introduction to Current Geographical Research , The Americas before and after 1492: Karl W. Butzer Current Geographical Research Department of Geography, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, Karl W. Butzer, Guest Editor FAX 512-471-5049

Foreword Stanley D. Brunn 343 Abstract. The controversy over the Columbian not yet be adequately reviewed, especially the Articles Quincentenary identifies two broad issues of impact of Colonial settlement upon the envi­ • The Americas before and after 1492: An Introduction to Current fundamental interest to geography: (a) the ronment, as distinct from the consequences of Geographical Research ...... Karl W. Butzer 345 decimation and displacement of indigenous the Industrial Era, its technology, and its de­ The Pristine Myth: The landsCape of the peoples, leading to creation of new human mand for raw materials. The debate raised by Americas in 1492 ...... Wmiam M. Denevan 369 and cultural landscapes; and {b) the relative the Encounter can and should refocus geo­ Agriculture in North America on the Eve of Contact: ecological impacts of indigenous and Colonial graphical research on related cultural and en­ A Reassessment ...... William E. Doolirtle 386 land use, as a prelude lo the global environ­ vironmental questions that require fresh atten­ landscapes of Cultivation in Mesoamerica on the Eve of the mental transformation introduced by the In­ tion. dustrial Revolution. This introductory essay Conquest ...... Thomas M. Whitmore and B.L. Turner II 402 Key Words: Precolumbian agriculture, indigenous outlines the contributions of ten critical or syn­ "Heavy Shadows and Black Night": Disease and Depopulation cartography, environment.11 degradation, depopula­ thetic reviews, setting them in a wider context 426 tion, diffusion, Colonial landscapes, ecological in Colonial Spanish America . . W. George Lovell of contemporary research, as a web of related myths, European perceptions, the Quincentenary. Spanish Colonization and Indian Property in themes focused on the Americas before and Central Mexico, ·152·1-1620 ...... 1lanns }. Prem 444 after 1492. These themes include: (a) pre­ Landscape, System, and identity in the '· Columbian population densities, environmen­ From Polemics to New Research Post-Conquest Andes ...... Daniel W. Gade 461 tal impact, and the myth of the Indian as Ecol­ Perspectives Pioneers of Providence: The Anglo-American ogist; (b) the labor intensity and technological Experience, 1492-1792 ...... Carville Earle 478 sophistication of pre-Columbian agriculture in ELEBR.ATION and anti-celebration. For From Cabot to Cartier: The Early Exploration of Eastern many areas; (c) the human implications and several years the media have played up North America 1497-1543 ...... John L. Allen 500 landscape impact of catastrophic indigenous the polemic of lhe Quincen1enc1ry, pil­ Rereading the Maps of the Columbian _Encounter ...... /. Brian Harley 522 depopulation; (d) the process of Spanish sel­ ling Columbus the icon against Columbus the tlemenl and landscape transformation; (e) dif­ • Addendum: Three Indigenous Maps from symbol of New World genocide and environ­ fusion, continuity, and syncretism in the resid­ mental destruction. While one group cele­ New Spain Dated ca. 1580 ...... Karl W. Butzer and Barbara/. Williams 536 ual indigenous landscapes; (f) the divergent brates the Columbian voyage and the creation • From Columbus to Acosta: Science, Geography, policies and impacts of French and Brilish col­ of a new Euro-American world, the other la­ and the New World ...... Karl W. Butzer 543 onization, and the comparatively limited atten­ ments the depopulalion and deculturation of tion given to Native American and African con­ the Ame"ricas. Pickets, mainly organized by Museum Exhibit and Book Review tributions to the North American cultural American Indian organizations, greet visitors at landscape; and (g) the diiferent perceptions, museums displaying artifacts or maps from !he Seeds of Change: 500 Years of Encounter and Exchange (exhibit) and Seeds cartographies, and geographies of the explor­ period of 1492, or interact with the smallish of Change: A Quincentennial CommemoraNon, Herman J. Viola and ers, the indigenous peoples, and the European crowds watching the arrival of replicas of Carolyn Margolis, eds ...... Stephen C. Jett and Joseph S. Wood 566 scholars engaged in the Columbian Encounter. Columbus's ships in Miami or Galveston. The final discussion identifies themes that can- Bui there is little evidence of a groundswell

AM,li of th~ t\o,<>er.llion al ,1m,,.,,..,, C.-.,~1•ph~r, 6:!W. 19?1. pp. Hi-lbll C C"P!',i8h! 1992 by AssociatKm of AmericJn ~grapl-,~ 346 Butzer Introduction 347

of American interest in the ongoing debate, let including the versatile volumes of North Amer· research on Prehispanic demography, agro­ died down, the search to understand the ques­ alone of any emerging position as to whether ican Exploration (Allen 1992). Geographers also technology, and resource management. A sec­ tions raised will go on. the "Discovery" was a good thing or not. Per­ organized and contributed invited papers to ond question concerns the human impact of haps the continuing media hype has led to a the 1992 scientific symposium of SCOPE-an the Encounter; here attention focuses on the premature sense of fatigue. Perhaps, too, the international agency dominated by biologists­ demographic collapse that followed the intro· A Persistent Myth: The Indian as issues raised do not seem relevant for Ameri­ devoted to the global legacies of the Colum­ duction of Old World epidemic disease, which Ecologist cans today, since Columbus was an Italian and bian Encounter (Turner 1992). demands attention to the scale of the human the arguments seem to concern Spaniards and Not surprisingly, historians have been prom­ tragedy it represents, as well as an examination One of the fundamental questions brought Native Americans. In contrast to the hoopla of inent in reevaluation of stereotypic and en­ of its implications for settlement discontinuity into focus by the Columbian controversy con· 1892, which Chicago, somewhat misguidedly, trenched ideas (Axtell 1992). Anticipating the and transformation of the human and cultural cerns what William Oenevan (this volume) calls celebrated as the birthday of the New World, current disgrace of inaccurate high school text­ landscape. A third question centers on the new the myth of a pristine New World landscape in , onternporary Auglo-Arncricans may have books, Axtell {1987) reviewed the mass of h.ilf­ societies that emerged in the Colonial world; 1492. The idea goes back at lea~I as far as the ~caled l>ac_k their historical horizons to Plym­ truths about "other" Europeans, Indians, and how did they shape and manage their diverse romantic prirnitivi::i\S of the nineteenth <.entury, outh Rock and 1776, leaving 1492 for Hispanics the Age of Discovery that mark such books. A cultural landscapes? A fourth and final ques­ but has recently been given new meaning. Sale to w,>rry about. comprl!hcnsive study of the historical context tion comprises the different perceptions, car­ (1990) claims that New World peoples lived in But the Quincentenary cannot be dismissed of Columbus (Phillips and Phillips 1992) offers tographies, and geographies-of the explor­ harmony with nature and refrained deliberately that conveniently. The year 1492 dramatically a welcome antidote to both the acid and the ers, of the Native Americans, and of the from altering their environments, to the degree changed intellectual conceptions of the world. saccharine (mis)representations of that ambig­ scholars engaged in the Encounter. Geography that they were somehow able to maintain an It brought the peoples of hvo semi-isolated uous figure now in circulation. encompasses a broad spectrum of environ· idyllic ecological equilibrium. Europeans, by hemispheres in10 confrontation, creating new Contrary to what one might assume, the mental and cultural, as well as interconncctive contrast, had a ruthless land ethic, "vere driven "realities," the moral implications of which Quincentenary has also prompted sober intro· and integrative concerns. We hope that the only by materialistic goals, and introduced ,111 cannot be ignored indefinitely. It also opened spection among Spanish historians, and a re­ papers will prove innovative and provocative agrosystern that was, by definition, harmful. the way for biological and technoiogical trans· cent congress in Sevilla focused on the social to other disciplines as well as our own. Sale believes the result was environmental de· fers on a vast scale, creating novel cultural, context of growing intolerance for ethnic diver· Constraints of space and time have set limits struction of apocalyptic proportions. economic, and biotic configurations in the sity on the Iberian peninsula during the century to the number of authors, to the temporal The central issues thus are twofold: (a) "New" World, with significant repercussions before 1492 (Benito et al. 1991). Throughout the focus, and to the depth at which specific prob· whether Native American peoples did or did on the "Old." In an increasingly integrated U.S., students are engaged in public debate, lems could be explored. Within these con­ not alter or degrade their environment; and (bl world system, the growing momentum of in· and panels of invited speakers argue among straints, the individual papers form a web of whether or not European settlers had an im· tercontinental energy flows favored the themselves or try to address searching queS· interlinked contributions, selected as exam· mediate and drastically negative impact on the Industrial Revolution, with its once almost uni­ tions from the floor. Critical classroom screen· pies from a wide spectrum of current research. environment (Butzer and Butzer 1992). The first maginable impact on the quality of global en­ ings of films such as Dances with Wolves and They address, often in unconventional ways, entails an assessment of aboriginal technology, vironments. The Columbian Encounter set in Black Robe are heightening awareness of the conceptual issues underemphasized in the land use, and population levels, as prerequisite motion immense social and environmental value of cultural diversity. In anthropology, ge­ specialist literature. They also illustrate re­ for evaluating their environmental impact. changes that will continue in the future, and ography, and history departments, existing search methodologies and implicitly identify The New World was not an empty land. As vvhich affect the lives of all Americans, whether course listings are being coopted to hold sem­ potential resources in libraries, in archives, or Oenevan argues, the Americas at the end of the they are aware of them or not. inars or give courses on the Columbian En· in the field. The authors represent American, 1400s supported a population of 43-65 million Amid the flurry of ideological controversy, counter. The themes discussed are not about Canadian, and German universities, and in· inhabitants distributed as follows: close to four glossy picture books, and surrealistic media the Columbian diaries or landfalls on some ob­ elude one anthropologist. Finally, the bibliog· million people for North America, almost 20 events, a coherent current of analytical studies scure island, but about cultural diversity or raphies are broad and current, and include million in Mexico and Central America, three has begun to emerge. This is reflected in the transformation of the world we now live in. works in languages other than English. million on the Caribbean islands, and 24 mil­ publitalions accompanying the museum ex­ It is commonplace that the controversy and This introductory essay attempts to set a lion in South America, lwo-thinb of whom hibits Seeds of Change (reviewed in this vol­ debate raised by important issues serve lo rcfo. wider context of contemporary research for lived in the Andean region. Mos! of these de· ume) and Circa 1492 (Levenson 1991), or in the · cus research on questions that require new or the individual papers, in addition to highlight­ pended on agriculture of varying degrees of special issue of Newsweek entitled When renewed attention. That is precisely what the ing their contributions. Themes that could not technical sophistication. Prehispanic built envi­ Worlds Collide {Fall 1991). It is also docu­ contributors to this volume have attempted to be covered by our collection of essays are ronments remain conspicuous in the landscape mented in the Smithsonian trilogy Cofumbian do, in writing ten critical" or synthetic reviews sketched out in the accompanying discussion, today, ranging from the ruins of great cities and Consequences (Thomas 1989-91), sponsored related to the impact of 1492 on human land­ to facilitate a broader overview of the Americas monumental ceremonial centers, to field pat· by the Society for American Archaeology, a scapes of the Americas. The focus of the col­ before and after 1492. Some basic questions, terns in· eastern North America or Amazonia special issue of Historicaf Archaeofogy (Vol. 26, lection is on principles, processes, and percep· such as the environmental impact of European and traces of road systems in New Mexico or No. 1, 1992), and in the Islamic perspective of lions. One pertinent question is the myth or settlement, cannot yet be resolved, because Peru. Some of the most convincing evidence to Lunde (1992), works that provide critical and reality of a pristine American wilderness before the requisite database is not available; they will this effect, namely extensive agricultural land· informative perspectives on the Encounter. Ge­ the arrival of Columbus; the resulting discus· require many more research projects in the forms such as raised fields or terraces in now· ographers were involved in several projec;:ts, sion brings together a body of contemporary coming years. long after the polemics have uncultivated areas, has been compiled by ge-

/ 3-18 Butzer Introduction 3-19

ographers since the landmark observations of historic settlement in Tennessee was also ac­ and plant foods, as in the eastern U.S. and in and Europe was overwhelmingly based on a Denevan in the early 1960s. In this context, the companied by forest clearance and weed ex­ parts of the Southwest (Butzer 1990). two-year cycle of crops and fallow, with pro­ exp;1nded field researches of Denevan and plosions, coeval with pollen and macrobotani­ Doolittle deals with the group (c) and fo­ ductivity maintained by animal manure, that Turner, and also those of Tichy {1974), Donkin cal remains of maize and other cultivated cuses on po.tential criteria to identify degrees accumulated during four-six months of grazing (1979), and Siemens (1989), find one of their plants. But the continuing prominence of tree of agricultural intensification, i.e., greater on stubble, grass, and weedy plants (Spurr several practical applications. pollen suggests much more localized defores­ labor inputs to increase crop yields per unit 1986; Vassberg 1984; Butzer 1992c). The so­ A wide range of ethnohistorical, biotic, and tation in Tennessee than in Middle America. area over a particular span of time. Inten­ called three-field system improved productivity paleobotanical arguments are reviewed by In effect, indigenous land use before 1492 sification is particularly relevant to the po­ in some areas during the Middle Ages, by in­ Denevan to demonstrate ecological modifi­ has left a very tangible record of ecological tential impact on the envirpnment, because it serting a year of legume cultivation, which cations of the temperate and tropical wood­ impact in the po11en and soil record, much as is linked to the persistence of agricultural ef­ helped restore soil nitrogen. lands as well as the prairies and savannas of the it did in prehistoric Europe (see Butzer 1982, forts in a specified area. For example, was a What remains uncertain in the New World is New World. To some degree these biomes chap. 8). That is surprising in one sense, since particular plot cleared and cultivated once the range of a/rernalive methods devised to were humanized in terms of physiognomy, Native Americans lacked the large domesti­ every twenty or thirty years, or was it perma­ maintain productivily without manure. For ex­ species composition, and reduced biodiver­ cated animals commonly assumed to have had nently kept open and planted every other year? ample, ridging or hilling, which involves re­ sity-long before the arrival of Europeans. Na­ major repercussions on ecological equilibrium The former would charaCterize extensive, moval of topsoil that was piled up on linear or tiVl' American use of fire, clearance for cultiva­ in the Old World. The empirical evidence slash-and-burn agriculture, while the latter round surfaces, is equivalent to deep mixing by lior11 and other forms of mJnipulation or therefore contradicts the romantic notion that would represent a form of intensive agricul­ a plow, and it can double the thickness of top­ exploitation had left an unambiguous imprint: Native Americans had some auspicious recipe ture. People also select among their options soil. Household wastes and night soil arc lim­ the forests of eastern North America were· rel­ to use the land without leaving a manifest and according to the quality of so.ii, while agricul­ ited, but permanent intercropping of beans atively open, the prairies of Indiana and Illinois sometimes unsightly imprint upon it. As tural activities can vary considerably during the with maize may have been practiced on a large were unable to return to a woodland-grass mo­ Oenevan argues convincingly, the "pristine course of a century or two. scale during late prchisloric times, a rnethod saic despite the shifts to moister climate during Precolumbian landscape" is indeed a myth. To deal with such problems realistically, that would retard soil depletion. 1 One study in the later Holocene, and the Amazon rainforest That has direct and indirect implications for Doolittle chooses to use surrogate data that central Mexico suggests that the size of house was (and remains) anything but virgin. contemporary ecological management, as dis­ can either be derived from early ethnohistori­ gardens, presumably devoted to complex inter­ These thematic and regional arguments cussed below. cal reports or identified in the field. These in­ cropping, ranged from 0.3-0.9 ha per house­ could be complemented by abundant refer­ clude physical evidence for canal irrigation, hold during the early 1500s (Williams n.d.). ences to specialized diachronic studies, such terraced fields or terrace-like check dams (in Such remarkably expansive "gardening" could as palynology and limnology, which directly Reconstructing Pre-Columbian channels or across valley floors) in the South­ represent one possible solution to the prob­ identify long periods of deforestation and soil Agriculture west, or ethnohistorica\ evidence for large cul­ lem. erosion in prehistoric times. The implications tivated areas amid permanently cleared lands These open questions notwithstanding, the of such studies in Mexico, Guatemala, and Exactly how did Native American farmers use in the eastern U.S., a record that is comple­ criteria proposed by Doolittle imply a measure Honduras are profound. They corroborate the land in Precolumbian times? William Doo­ mented by visible traces of systematic field-sur­ of intensification as well as permanent clear­ Denevan's evidence that "primeval" vegeta­ little (this volume) and Thomas Whitmore and face modification such as ridging or hilling ings in at least some areas, an argument con­ tion, even complex rainforests, can regenerate Billie Turner (this volume) marshal a suite of (small, regular planting-mounds). Household sonant with the botanical and pollen evidence in several centuries, given complete settlement cogent arguments as to the intensity of indige­ or house-lot gardens, with careful tending of a from the little Tennessee River Valley (Delcourt abandonment. They also show that indigenous nous agriculture and the sophistication of many diversified array of plants, were reported in et al. 1986). Since the ethnographic record is agriculture and high populations have invari­ of its technologies. both the East and Southwest. finite, Doolittle urges considerably more field ably led to fundamental biotic change and fre­ Agriculture was practiced in two major re­ All these features imply special efforts and a research devoted to recording agricultural quently to significant soil erosion. Poflulated gions of North America, in the eastern wood­ considerable investm~nt of labor; they can landforms so as to add detail to the map. More landscapes must generally have been open lands and in the Southwest and the adjacent therefore be considered as proxy evidence for paleobotanical studies are also needed, both landscapes, if not degraded ones. Such inten­ parts of Northwest Mexico. But depicting agri­ intensification. Most examples of this kind within and outside of archaeological excava­ sive disturbarKe can be documented not only culture on a map is complicated by the grada­ were reported from or are found on better tions (see Hastorf and Popper 1988), as are anal­ across many centuries, but even for time spans tional nature of dependence on cultivated food floodplain or valley-floor soils, anti observa­ yses of soil nutrients (sec Sandor 1992). lhesc as long as two millennia. One may also wonder plants as well as by changing patterns over tions by early explorers suggest that such cul­ may eventually afford a fuller understanding C>f whether the Maya population collapse in Gua­ time. Maps for A.D. 1200, 1500, and 1750 would tivation was effectively permanent. But this cropping practices, of the spatial extent and temala ca. A.O. 1000 was facilitated by unsus­ show different distributions. The ethnographic does not clarify whether large, rather than lim­ permanence of clearance and cultivation, or tainable kinds of land use. record includes: (a) hunter-foragers without ited areas, were cultivated every year, or every the degree to which cultivation every other For several generations, leading palynolo­ agriculture, primarily in California, the Pacific other year, or whether such practices could be year, for example, may have been sustainable. gists insisted that prehistoric land use could Northwest, and in the boreal woodlands of sustained indefinitely. Attention must also be paid to possible evi­ not be detected in pollen profiles anyv-;here in Canada; {b) hunter-foragers who planted sup­ The problem is that on all but the most fertile dence for pre-European soil erosion, poten­ the eastern U.S. The problem was that they plementary crops, mainly in the center of the soils, yearly cropping is almost impossible to tially preserved in the record of slope and concentrated on bog sites rather than settle­ continent; and (c) Indians who depended pri­ sustain without application of fertilizer, or ro­ stream deposits along North American valley ment areas. By changing that strategy, Delc_ourt marily on domesticated plants, but who also tation of grains with legumes, or both. Tradi­ floors.l et al. (1986) were able to demonstrate that pre- used a substantial component of wild animal tional agriculture in the Mediterranean Basin Whitmore and Turner employ criteria similar 350 Butzer Introduction 35l

to those of Doolittle, but they focus on three model, but emphasizes different patchworks of subjugation of the Tafno or Aztecs, or the Pu· invading Spaniards; and (d) the persislent mcsocale erwiro11111ent:d transects in Mexico agricultural microsystems that were attuned to ritan elimination of the Pequod. The con· problems of diagnosing exactly what diseases and Guatemala. The "Cortes transect," follow­ small-scale environmental variation within each quered are traumatized and the conquerors were responsible. ing that conquistador's route from th·e coast at elevation zone. Collectively these adaptations dehumanized, both by the killings and by the Lovell employs an unusual body of medical Veracruz to Mexico City on the high plateau, represented a complex human landscape, in subsequent uprooting of people and the viola· writings to show that clinical diagnoses are is an obvious choice. For the tropical lowlands, which large areas were often substantially tions of human dignities and freedoms. Hun· difficult at best. Disease symptoms change these authors single out raised fields, ditches, modified in order to rroducc food for large dreds of culture groups disappeared in the af­ their characteristic form over time, e.g., hem· and canals preserved in the coastal wetlands, populations. te.rnath of 1492, and dozens of other societies orrhagic smallpox or pneumonic, rather th,m and the subtle but visible patterning of fields Given a d~nser database and greater vertical were significantly changed. Displacement or bubonic plague. Compound epidemics also and emb,mkments on higher ground. Ethno­ differentiation of agricultural land use than in elimfnation did not even end wilh the Colonial cannot be excluded.~ graphic analogy is used to infer a complemen­ North America, this three-dimensional model era, as the expulsion of the Cherokee or the Given the fragmentary demographic infor­ tarity of rain-fed and seasonal wetland cultiva­ is particularly suitable to synthesize several mo­ shooting of women and children at Wounded mation for the early contact period, the com­ tion, in addition to household gardens and saics of indigenous land use. As a heuristic Knee remind us, without the need to invoke puter simulations of Whitmore (1991) offer an ore hards of fruit trees or cacao, at or before device, it presents an inviting challenge for similar atrocitie~ in independent Latin America. alternative perspective, anchored as thcy are in tilt' linw pf Conqt1t':-il. On the piedmont of the field stress on resources during periods of peak pre­ quest, however, was unprecedented in scale, arrives at an 89 percent reduction from 1.59 patchwork of rain.fed cultivation on slopes Conquest population, and the comparative not because of its unquestionable brutality, but million inhabitants in 1519 to 180,000 in 1607. modified by rock-faced terraces or vegetated productivity of Precolumbian and Postconqu· primarily through the spread of epidemic dis· Oenevan (this volume) estimates a 74 percent berms (metepantli), interspersed with irrigated est agrosystems. ease. By an accident of geographic isolation, decline in North America, 1492-1800, and 89 tracts, fed by floodwaters, small dams, or ca· The papers of Doolittle and Whitmore· the pathogens that evolved in the Old World, percent for the hemisphere as a whole from nals. Wetlands in the basin centers were partly Turner are both directed toward indigenous and which repeatedly wreaked havoc there, 1492-1650. converted into elaborate hydraulic systems, agriculture at or shortly before the Contact Pe· were excluded from the New World for many lhe nurnbers do matter, as Lovell contends. with cultivation on raised chinampa surfaces. riod. They represent complementary method· millennia. This battery of Old World epidemic They matter, above all, because they set param­ The "Montejo transect" cuts a.:;ross the sub­ ologies to reconstruct the human landscapes of diseases had several origins, but most were the eters for a demographic disaster that remains humid Yucatan Peninsula, where two the New World, by means of case studies, for result of coevolution bet-.veen people and do­ unparalleled in human history. Whether we rnesocnvironments are distinguished: karstic ahout the year 1492. Synchronic in focus, they mesticated livestock. J favor the lower or upper part of Denevan's plains with orchard-gardens and rain-fed maize provide methodologies for delineating varying Early European contacts with the New World estimates for a New World population in 1492, on thick soils, and rolling karstic hills, with levels of prehistoric population pressure and introduced new epidemics, in rapid succes· we must still deal with the appalling im· slash-,rnd-burn agriculture on shallow soils. the extent to which specific environments were sion, to populations without immunity, as ptications of between 40-60 million people suc­ lhe "Alvarado transect" cuts across Guatemala humanized or even degraded. But the dia· George Lovell shows in his paper. lnfluenu, cumbing to disease and fJmine as a result of from the humid Pacific coast to the tierra fri;J. chronic perspective remains important. The· smallpox, mtastcs, mumps, and pncurnonic the Columbian Encounter. Lovell suggests that of the highlands. Agriculture in the uplands matic historical studies, such as the evolution plague arrived first, followed by typhus, diph· this disaster contributed to the military defeat was intensive, with evidence of terracing, hill· of irrigation technology (e.g., Doolittle 1990), theria, malaria, and yellow fever. The result of of the indigenous peoples of the New World.s ing, and possibly raised fields, while the pied· or detailed local studies of smaller areas over each pandemic was disastrous, and before a Some entire societies, such as the Tafno, dis­ mont was used for irrigated gardens and cacao time, such as the work of Veblen (1975) on the population could rebound demographically, a appeared as a rcsult. But numbers provide only plantations. forests of Totonicapan, draw attention to pro· new epidemic struck, so that the "die off" be­ an unsalisfactory surrogate for the scale of the Spa11ish intrusion and depopulation by dis· ccsscs suc.h as in<:rcrncnlal chang<:, longer­ came cumulative, eventually leading to dc1110- human tragedy involved. Lovell is keenly aware case left the tropical lowlands of the Cortes lcrrn adaptation, and response to crises. Such grJphic wllapsc (Whitmore ltJIJ I). of this and iolr<,dun~s a sampling of poign,lnt and Alvarado trnnset:ts empty; the Culf Coast historical monitoring of land use and landscape Lovell deals with both the dcrnographic and human testimony from the period. lhis allows was converted to Spanish liveslock raising, the change can provide a cri!ical tool to examine human dimensions of 1hc tragedy, as docu­ us to apprccialt!, in some small way, the horror Pacific sector tO small-scale Spanish commer­ the long·term impacts of traditional agriculture mented in five representative areas: Hisprrn­ of what lranspired. cial plantations. In the high country as well as or to anticipate the hidden costs of high-tech­ iola, central and northwestern Mexico, Guate· The numbers also matter from an environ­ on the plains of Yucatan, the Spaniards intro­ nology development (Butzer 1992a). mala, and Peru. He evaluates a vast body of mental perspective, because they have to be duced the plow and Old World livestock, and literature to demonstrate (a) the scale and uni· reasonable for an overwhelmingly agricultural competed with the residual indigenous popu· versality of the disaster; (b) the trauma and population, given the technology, communica­ lation. These issues are developed and dis­ Depopulation and Discontinuity significance of the ftrst pandemic in each area, tions, and limited sources of fertilizer in 1492. cussed further below. either in destroying an entire population or in For the Basin of Mexico, the 1.6 million figure The approach proposed by Whitmore and The conquest of one society by another is breaking the resistance of indigenous peoples; of Whitmore is a third higher than the 0.8-1.2 Turner resembles the vertical ecozonation inevitably brutal, whether it be the Spanish (c) the advance of disease, even ahead of the million estimate of Sanders (1981), based on Introduction 351 Introduction 353

subjugation of the Tafno or Aztecs, or the Pu­ invading Spaniards; and (d) the persistent and what impact they had in Mexico during the outmigration from Indian communities, that ritan elimination of the Pequod. The con­ problems of diagnosing exactly what diseases first century of settlement. The land grants are accelerated the expansion of Spanish landhold­ quered are traumatized and the conquerors were responsible. indispensable to understanding how Spain ings. As Prem explains, the archival documen­ dehumanized, both by the killings and by the Love11 employs an unusual body of medical fashioned a new Colonial landscape. Indirectly tation for land grants can be used not only to subsequent uprooting of people and the viola­ writings to show that clinical diagnoses are they serve as a vehicle to explain the nature of reconstruct the procedure of land allocation, tions of human dignities and freedoms. Hun­ difficult at best. Disease symptoms change the relationship between the colonizers and but also to identify regional settlement histo­ dreds of culture groups disappeared in the af­ their characteristic form over time, e.g., hem­ the indigenous peoples in the rural world. In ries and the different roles of the Spaniards and termath of 1492, and dozens of other societies orrhagic smallpox or pneumonic, rather than regard to urban policies, see Butzer (this vol­ the Indian elites· in this process. Prem presents were significantly changed. Displacement or bubonic plague. Compound epidemics also ume). that information in a systematic context, by elimination did not even end wilh the Colonial cannot be excluded.~ A fundamental featUre of the land grant pol­ comparing Spanish acquisition in three major

cr,1 1 as the expulsion of lht! Cherokee or the Civen the fragmentary dem()graphic infor­ icy was that it favored prominent citizens who regions of central Mexico, based on a nurnher !>liooting of women and d1ildren al Wound1~d mJlion for lhc t',Hly nml,1Ct p1:riod, the <:orn­ h,1d rendered service lo the govemnH·nt, of supporting sh11lit''>. St·vt"r,il m,tior C'n acquired hy prirnJ.rily through the spre,1d of epidemic dis­ Ocnevan (this volume) estimates a 74 percent mon settlers, in outlying areas such as the Bajfo Spaniards. Sheep raising, rcstrktt:d to ease. By an accident of geographic isolation, decline in North America, 1492-1800, and 89 (after 1570), such land tended to be sold off to rough terrain and mountain slopes, was much less important than agriculture; In­ the pathogens that evolved in the O Id World, percent for the hemisphere as a whole from the expanding estates (Murphy 1986). As a re­ dian irrigation networks were coopted with and which repeatedly wreaked havoc there, 1492-1650. sult, institutional structures in the Spanish New little change in some areas (Butzer and were excluded from the New World for many The numbers do matter, as Lovell contends. World were heavily weighted against a small millennia. This battery of Old World epidemic They matter, above all, because they set param· freehold tradition (also Butzer 1992b). Butzer 1992), while in others irrigation was expanded or introduced, based on Spanish diseases had several origins, but most were the eters for a demographic disaster that remains Land grants began to be awarded in numbers initiative. result of coevolution between people and do­ unparalleled in human history. Whether we during the early 1560s, which steadily put 1n­ (cl Indian wage labor provided the work force mesticated livestock. 3 favor the lower or upper part of Denevan's dian properties at risk from Spanish acquisi­ on Spanish farms, operated by managers for Early European contacts with the New World estimates for a New Wor1d population in 1492, tion. Traditional Indian lands were sacrosanct owners living in Mexico City or Puebla. introduced new epidemics, in rapid succes­ we must still deal with the appalling im­ under Spanish law, but only as long as they sion, to populations without immunity, as plications of between 40-60 million people suc­ were cultivated. Indian depopulation in Mex­ farm holdings were steadily expanded George Lovell shows in his paper. Influenza, cumbing to disease and famine as a result of ico, underway since 1520, took on alarming through purchase and other methods, lead­ smallpox, measles, mumps, and pneumonic the Columbian Encounter. Lovell suggests that proportions after the pandemic of 1545, and ing lo the consolidation of relatively large estates. plague arrived first, followed by typhus, diph­ this disaster contributed to the military defeat was transformed into a demographic collapse (d) ln more peripheral areas, such as the valleys. theria, malaria, and yellow fever. The result of of the indigenous peoples of the New World.5 by the epidemic disaster of 1576. By 1580 there of Toluca, Mezquita!, San Pablo, and Oa­ each pandemic was disastrous, and before a Some entire societies, such as the Tafno, dis­ simply were insufficient numbers of Indians to xaca, Spanish acquisition of Indian property population could rebound demographically, a appeared as a result. But numbers provide only cultivate all the village fields. Indian settlement was far less complete, while livestock raising new epidemic struck, so that the "die off" be­ an unsatisfactory surrogate for the scale of the amalgamation (congregaci6n), begun in the increased in importance with greater dis­ came cumulative, eventually leading to dcrno· human tragedy involved. Lovell is keenly aware late 1540s, resumed in the late 1580s to aggre­ tance from Mexico City. graphic collapse (Whitmore 1991). of this and intr<,duces a sampling of poignant gate the few surviving (amilies of rnany villages Lovell deals with both the demographic and hurnan testimony frorn the period. This allows into new nuclei. Although congregaci6n did The first century of Spanish settlement ere· human dimensions of the tragedy, as docu­ us to appreciate, in some small way, the horror not generally alter the surviving Indian land­ aled a rural landscape in central Mexico that mented in five representative areas: Hispan­ of what transpired. scape as much as might be expected, primarily was largely, but by no means exclusively, con­ iola, central and northwestern Mexico, Guate­ The numbers also matter from an environ­ because compliance was incomplete, it did trolled by Spaniards, many of them wealthy. mala, and Peru. He evaluates a vast body of mental perspective, because they have to be lead to significant abandonment of Indian Agriculture produced large quantities of wheat literature to demonstrate (a) the scale and uni­ reasonable for an overwhelmingly agricultural lands in some areaS! But nucleation In new for urban Spaniards, but maize retained its versality of the disaster; (b) the trauma and population, given the technology, communica­ towns was also weakened by a steady migra­ prominence as the staple of the Indian major­ significance of the first pandemic in each area, tions, and limited sources of fertilizer in 1492. tion of Indian wage labor to live on Spanish ity, apart from the fact that wheat, as a winter either in destroying an entire population or in For the Basin of Mexico, the 1.6 million figure farms, locally or in other districts such as the crop, did not thrive without irrigation (Butzer breaking the resistance of indigenous peoples; of Whitmore is a third higher than the 0.8-1.2 Bajfo. This again reduced the work force of 1992b). Introduced livestock, mainly sheep, (c) the advance of disease, even ahead of the million estimate of Sanders (1981), based on traditional communities. grazed on uncultivated land, beyond the for­ It was depopulation and congregaci6n, and mer limits of Indian agriculture. In addition, 354 Butzer Introduction 355

o~erstocking of dormant winter pastures, Revolution, in 1910. By then, most rural Mexi­ tested, and accepted or rejected, and what the now be poured, as tapia, into box-like wooden reflecting recurrent frost and drought, was mit­ cans, Indian and Mestizo alike, had been re­ consequences of incorporation were. frames. Jointed beams simplified roof con­ igated by well-organized transhumance pat­ duced to a dependent class (Nickel 1978). Spanish introductions had their greatest im­ struction, roof tiles were more durable than terns, as sheep were driven to public lands in This overview of Spanish colonization out· pact in accessible valleys and basins at inter­ thatching, and wooden doors set in wood the tropical low country or far to the semiarid lines discontinuity and change in the cultural mediate elevations of 2500-3500 m, where the frames provided greater security. north (Butzer and Butzer 1992). landscape of New Spain. Many of the principles climate was temperate and the ecology analo­ As in Mexico, the Spaniards tried to remodel Beyond the heartlarid of central Mexico, re­ and processes are also applicable, in general gous to that of upland Spain. Gade dis­ the indigenous settlement pattern, moving gional settlement histories were very different terms, to other parts of the Spanish Americas. tinguishes between the many Spanish traits in­ people from scattered farmsteads or loose (Butzer and Butzer 1992). A second nucleus of Yet each region provided a unique context, troduced by the new settlers and the limited hamlets, next to their fields, into new gridiron Spanish agriculture developed in the Bajfo low­ with divergent development. The best Spanish selection of such traits that found approval towns. The native population again resisted nu­ lands, with livestock economies dominant fur­ administrators were sent to Mexico and Peru, among the indigenous people. This second cleation, so avoiding assimilation to Spanish ther north. The Gulf lowlands included large and it was here that the legal safeguards for repertoire ls of interest here. Wheat, barlr.:y, urban living. lr,1tb dominated by Sp.inb,h cattle raising,· indigenous rights were mos! consistently es­ sorry history of abuse, and others were totally nean fruit trees did not do well in the montane broader and more versatile diet. Spanish tradi­ carpment northeast of Mexico City remained dominated by entrenched Colonial elites. climate, but Old World bananas and oranges tions were sirnr>lified and then recomhined overv,,helmingly in Indian hands. For the ad­ These differences in socioeconomic evolution or Mexican capulf cherries did. within the Inca agrosystem. Such syncretism is ministrative region of New Spain, which ex­ during three centuries of Colonial rule contrib­ Spanish livestock gave greater subsistence evident in the agricultural components, diet cludes the west and north of Mexico, uted significantly to the fragmentation of Latin security and proved to be more important than and folk medicine, sett!crnent pJ;lterns and Spaniards controlled about 25 percent of the America after independence. the Old World plants. In the wake of depopu­ clothing, as well as in spheres such as religion land in the 1640s; they farmed some 4000 km 2 lation and increasing tabor shortage, they pro­ and language that are beyond the scope of and ran perhaps 6-8 million sheep and 1.;i-2 vided food with relatively little work or facili­ Gade's paper. Taking its present shape about million cattle (Butzer and Butzer 1992). The In­ tated transport and plowing. Donkeys, as well 1650, this modified and enriched Andean life­ dian agricultural domain probably represented Diffusion, Continuity, and as mules and horses, were superior to llamas way has remained rcm.irbbly stable across about 45 percent of New Spain, with the re­ Syncretism in the Indigenous as beasts of burden. Sheep were acquired by three centuries, presenting an increasingly ar­ maining 30 percent constituting what by Span­ Landscape 1560, with large flocks verified by the 1590s; chaic cast over time. Many originally Spanish ish law was public land. they provided meat and sometimes milk, and components today are perceived to be indige­ ln sum, there was a considerable degree of Our focus now shifts from the active role of their soft wool could be interwoven in textiles. nous. But they demonstrate that the visible cul­ continuity in terms of Indian ownership. But the Spaniards to that of the indigenous people. Unlike in Mexico, distinctive transhurnance tural landscape is not a simple legacy of the the large or small nodes of Colonial settle­ Native American languages continue to be patterns did not develop on a large scale. Inca past. ment, the new market orientation for wheat prominent in the highlands of Middle America Goats proved to be versatile grazers on very The selective acculturation described here and animal products, the introduction of do­ and the Central Andes, and a wealth of Pre­ steep slopes, just as pigs became waste proces­ was limited to a particular vertical ecozone. At mesticated stock as a major element of the hispanic cultural traits has been reported from sors in the villages. Castilian chickens were lower elevations, Spanish transformation was rural landscape, the recasting of Indian settle­ some areas by anthropological investigations. good produc_ers of eggs, and displaced the do­ more or less complete, while at higher eleva­ ment in the form of new gridiron towns, and Do such cultural landscapes reflect continuity mesticated muscovy duck. But grazing sheep tions indigenous patterns of land use and set­ the partial elimination of dispersed settlement, into the present from a Tarascan, Zapotec, and goats could also lead to soil erosion, and tlement proved their compelitive value and still all serve to highlight a fundamental discontinu­ Mayan, or Inca past? their intrusion into fields of standing crops pe­ pcrsi::;t. This is an exempl.iry sludy of inform,1- ity. New Spain had also become a dual society, Daniel Gade (this volume) examines that riodically led to damages. !lon diffusion and adaptive ch.ingc, th.it sug­ with separate Spanish and Indian towns, and proposition for the seemingly intact indigenous The light Andalusian plow, pulled by oxen, gests a methodology to examine persistence residential segregation in the cities-not ln society still esconced in the mountain redoubts provided distinct advantages over tr.:iditional and change in the cultural l;:indsrapc. !he evi­ order to "exclude" the lmlian population, but of the Central Andes. Instead of emphasizing spades or digging sticks to cultivate relatively dence for selective acceptance of Spanish to preserve a degree of Indian local autonomy the negative impacts of the Conquest, he ex­ level terrain and less stony soils. With only one crops, animals, and manJgement techniques and avoid intrusion by Spaniards into the In­ amines the ability of Andean peasants to ma­ plow team and plowshare per village, collec­ among the indigenous peoples of Mexico im­ dian domestic sphere (Butzer 1992b). nipulate and incorporate elements of Spanish tive or open-field cultivation of crops was in­ plies a similar pattern of qualified acculturation This new cultural landscape of Colonial Mex­ culture into their tifeways. Diffusion of infor­ troduced. Wheat was threshed by means of (Butzer 1992b). ico evidently continued to evolve. By the ~ation was a key component of the Columbian animal trampling. Simple Spanish gristmills Diffusion after 1492 was a two-way street. A 1700s, gre.i.t estates dominated much of the Encounter, but rudimentary lists of plants or were also incorporated, while ovens replaced number of New World plants were dissemin­ countryside, and palatial residences were built animals transferred from one hemisphere -to baking pits. Construction with adobe or tapia, ated in the Old World rapidly, others more on some of them. A century later, most rural another convey little information and also do a puddled-mud technique, expanded greatly slowly. Maize promptly displaced several spe­ Indians lived in new satellite hamlets around injustice to the complexity of cultural screening because of the Spanish introduction of cies of millet, becoming a key fodder crop in such haciendas. But the great estates .only or ecological adaptation. Studies of diffusion wooden molds to preshape adobe bricks, southern Europe, and a major source of human reached their zenith on the eve of the Mexican should therefore consider how new traits were while a mix of lime-rich mud and straw could nutrition in West Africa, India, and China. Po- 356 Butzer Introduction 357

ta.toes became a staple in many parts of Europe indeed suggest a reduction of cultural distance scape along the valley bottoms (Harris and key town that served as administrative center during the 1700s. Cassava roots (manioc) between Indian and Spaniard (see Graham et Warkentin 1974, 28-29). and economic entrepOt. Each colony also drew spread through West Africa and southern Asia. al. 1989), as does the SpJ.nish acceptance of Another remedy was found along the St. on a different reservoir of immigrants: Puritans These three food sources remain a corner­ maize, adobe housing, Indian mates and early Lawrence River and its main, south bank trib­ from East Anglia in New England, Quakers from stone for the livelihood of more than a billion marriage patterns, or a large indigenous vocab­ utaries, in present-day Quebec. Here clusters northern England in Pennsylvania, aristocratic people in the eastern hemisphere. ulary (Butzer 1992b). Such changes argue for a of farms were aligned along Pleistocene shore­ planters from southern England around Ches­ Other New World cultigens also enjoyed degree of acculturation. line ridges, immediately above the floodplain apeake Bay. The first two areas attracted im· success overseas: sunflowers, for the oils and meadows. Long lots, ten times as long as their migrant families, while the plantation colonies chewiness of their seeds; several varieties of width, stretched back across the old alluvium had the capital and the incentive to bring in beans; the tomatoes, without which Italian cui­ at right angles to the ridges. This long-lot sys­ single males, too poor to pay for the voyage, sine would be flat; the popular vices of cacao British and French Colonization tem was developed in eleventh-century Europe as indentured servants. and tob,H.to; as well as chili pcppc~rs, pincap­ lo coloni7, vanillJ, peanut:-., and quinine. I tHnpean l'r.irH c and Britain h,1d lilllc cxpcricn<"c in w.ikrslwds. During the 170(h, it ;dso ht·t ,um~ ,1 110111k 1--\n,tl-;, ting rur,11 l'I01H11lli(·~ 1h·· 1 oloni~b in tlw New Wmld aduplt:d the s;unt• c:oloni1Jlion wlwn they entered the American h,1!1111,uk of I rcmh scllh:rncnt in l tl11isi,m,1 ,1ru! Vt:lop1~d on tlu~ l.1-.l1•rn S1•.1ho,ud: (,1) ~rn.i!I­ pl.1nb, ,1!11'1 ~ome initi,11 rt:luc l,llH t!. ·1 h,11 is one th1•,,t1~r a century l.1ter th;m Sp,lin. By then, arourHI htind1 fur-tr,Hling post.<; at str.ilt~gic" S<:alc agrirnlturc, prim,1rily de-,igrn~d lo 1111:1•1 mc.rning of the Columbian Exch.mge (Crosby epidernic disease in North America had taken river or lakcshore sites in the Americ.,111 Mid­ hou,;chold s11b'iiste11ce ne1:ds in Ni'.w f'ngl,md 1972), the beginning of a global migration of a heavy toll. Agriculture had retracted in some west. By about 1800, the striking long lots and overseas grain markets in the Middle wl­ foods that has generally improved the qucility areas and indigenous populations had been began to interfinger with irregularly-shaped onies; and (b) commercial agriculture, succes­ of human life (See Langer 1975; Lunde 1992, generally thinned, so that there was little im­ properties measured by the British (and Span­ sively emphasizing tobacco, indigo, tidewater 47-55). mediate conflict over land. But French and Brit­ ish) metes and bounds system along the Mis­ rice, sugar cane, and ultimately cotton, from The scope of this exchange requires a sec­ ish policies and expedients for settlement dif­ sissippi River {Harris 1990). The imprint of Chesapeake Bay to Charleston. The northern ond look at the implications of adopting new fered, as they also differed from those of Spain, France remains visible today in field patterns sector experienced population growth and plants and managenH?nt techniques into an ex­ reflecting particular circumstances and histori­ that record the properties and the toil of its urban expansion, bencfitting from immigrant isting agrosystem, or new foods into a tradi­ cal precedents. pioneer settlers across the interior of North surges from several dissenting groups from tional cuisine. Do wheat, sheep, and garlic Although the immense estuary of the St. Law­ America (also Walthall 1991). Great Britain and later, Germany. By 1700, Bos­ make the Inca more Spanish, or do tomatoes rence River invited exploration as a potential Given the initial abt..lndance of land and weak ton had close to 7000 inhabitants, New York and maize make Italians more Mexican? Such water route to Asia (see Allen, this volume), market demand, French selllers in the New 4500, and Philadelphia 3000, while the largest questions are sufficiently disconcerting to de­ control over the fur trade may have been a key World abandoned familiar labor-intensive town in the soulhern sector, Charlestor,, had rn.rnd another look at acculturation. motive for french engagement in 1605; there forms of agriculture, such as three-course re­ only 2000. I\ I.ii re in Meso.irnerica <,r wheal, wine, and also were fishing rights to secure (Harris and lation of crops, heavy manuring, and improved With little female immigration and a less olive oil in the Mediterranean world are more Warkentin 1974; also Harris 1987). Settlement Slockbreeding (Harris '1984). Tr_ec stumps were healthy climate, demographic expansion was than foods. They carry additional levels of was initially placed in the hands of seigneurs, left to rot in the ground, manure was rarely slow in the south, and labor scarce. Indians meaning in the symbolic and ideological who played a similar role in the French coun­ used, and a two-course crop rotation substi­ were enslaved, but they were quickly displaced sphere. Such cultural interpretations are lost tryside to an English squire. The seigneurs as­ tuted. Such extensive agriculture gave medio­ by white indentured servants and, after 1680, ,vhen they become part of an alien cultural signed land to groups of colonists as perma­ cre yields, but disintensification with respect to by African slaves imported from the West In­ repertoire, in which they may or may not ac­ nent leaseholds in return for a variety of rents European antecedents also characterized the dies and Africa. Planters and merchants, in quire new symbolic meaning. The accef}tance and tithes on production. Beyond providing Thirteen Colonies. turn, collected the produce of these bonded of isolated new traits also differs from accep­ some minimal services such as a gristmill, the The British settlement experience, outlined laborers and rice, tobacco, and indigo were tance of a "package" of traits. Testing and seigneur normally lived in a larger settlement by Carville Earle {this. volume), was more com­ exported directly to England and the Conti­ eventual acceptance of a single new food plant and played no direct role in the development plex than that of France, reflecting distinct but nent-all of which accorded nicely with the at a particular time requires a perceived equiv­ of land use patterns (Harris 1964). Distinct re­ homogenous socioeconomic groups of im­ Crown's mercantilist aims. Plantation crops alence in form or function, and perhaps sub­ gional solutions were found, tuned to the local migrants from different parts of England gave out north of the Chesapeake, and farmers stitution for an indigenous "equivalent" with ecology, and based on French and central Eu­ ("ethnocultural pluralism"). The first tentative there turned toward mixed farmif1g system~ little or no symbolic significance. The accep­ ropean experience (Harris and Warkentin 1974, probings of the Atlantic Seaboard were linked which accented wheat and corn for export in tance of a whole array of new traits at once is chap. 2). to sixteenth-century piracy ("privateering") on the Middle Colonies and localized subsistence another matter. In the Andean example, it In Acadia, coincident with the later Canadian Spanish shipping. Reluctant to engage directly in the less hospitable environs of New England. would certainly require considerable structural maritime provinces, soils were poor except in in American settlement, the British Crown Northern merchants directed grain exports readjustment in terms of work scheduling, the coastal valleys. The high tides of the Bay of awarded concessions {"monopolies") lo char­ among the various markets in the Atlantic resource management, and dietary strategies, Fundy generate diurnal surges of water far up­ tered companies, who sought new investments economy and, led by Bostonians, assumed if not also in perception, social norms, or cul­ stream, converting the valleys into wetlands. on the Atlantic Seaboard, where the Hakluyts control of the intercolony trade linking the var­ tural values. The modern Andean conviction These were reclaimed by French settlers who had pronounced the "mediterranean latitudes" ious economic sectors and regions. These vig­ that their adopted elements are crioffo, or au­ built dikes to restrain the daily tidal bore, while of Virginia and North Carolina optimal for set­ orous coastal enclaves were filling up by the tochthonous, underscores the point. profiting from the fresh increments of fertile tlement. This decentralized strategy spawned early 1700s, and soon after Scols-lrish, German, Andean or Mesoamerican syncretism does flood silt to create a kind of mini-polder land- semiautonomous colonies, each centered on a English, and Welsh settlers spilled over into the 358 Butzer Introduction 359

less desirable piedmont to the rear of the plan­ Table 1. Demographic Patterns of Key Euro­ , colonies of these three powers evidently were New World as manifest in the cultural imprint. tations around the Chesapeake estuary. The pean Colonies during the First Century of very different. The integration of Native American themes rapid pace of interior expansion between 1700- Settlement Although there finally are two good histori­ into the repertoire of American historical geog­ 50 tested the Empire, occasioning, among Population cal texts on the Caribbean world {Watts 1987; raphy is more advanced, but it remained for a other things, hostile Indian responses, French (in thousands) Richardson 1992, chaps. 2-3), that region tends historian, William Cronon (1983), to highlight fears of British colonial pretensions, confusion Immigrants Europeans to fall between the cracks for American histor­ the competition and complementarity of Euro­ over titles to land, and sectional strife between ical geographers and their Latin Arnericanist American and Native A111erica11 subsistence Spanish Colonies to 1600 interior settlements and colonial administra­ counterparts. But as Table 1 suggests, North ecologies. Some examples of related research Mexico 90 ( 92 tions based along the coast. Central America } 20 America was at first little more than an adjunct by geographers can be cited. Ray and Freeman Characteristic of the decentralized and Caribbean 22 12 to the British and French colonial enterprises (1978, 231-60) illustrate how the "frontier" can multiethnic British colonial enterprise was its South America 63 116 in the Caribbean, at least in regard to financial be seen as an arena of interaction, even be­ diversity, rcflectt!d not only in its varied eco­ Total 175 240 returns (see Meinig 1986). The Southern Atlan­ yond the periphery of European settlement. rnnr1i1 pur~llih, liut ;ilso in it,; imprint on 1/w Fn·nfh CcJlonic•s lo 1700 tic Seaboard begs to be studied in conjunction Similarly, Albers and Kay ('19117) sketch a st.ir­ l,11ubc ,tpc {~l!t! Mitt hell aml (irovcs ·1 1JB7). quelii:t n with lht: C.irihlie,ltl. 11 .11~0 IJt:,w, 111e111ion 1h,1t tling ,iltt!rrlJlivc :;1 t:n.irio fo, 1h1• N,1tivt: Anu·ri­ Al:1di,1 2 the Afrk;m role in the d1nm1-Carihbc,111 pl.111· c.,111 prt!'.:IL'rl(C by showing lh,ll i11digc1u,u::. peo­ River-hon!, long-lot field p;ittcrns arc rnJinly C.1ribbcan 38 6 found in New England and other patterns of Total 45 21 tation complex (Curtin 1990) has Uccn ples had a rernJrk,;1ble cap,1city for multiethnic comparatively neglected by geographers. For long lots around Philadelphia; these generally British Colonies to 1700 coexistence. Contrary to the stereotypic view, date to the initial settlements. Metes-and­ example, Historical Archaeology recently de­ a sizeable number of early settlers did take Newfoundland 39 bounds surveying became dominant, however, New England { .~ voted an issue to Southern plantations that ex­ Indian mates, as Jordan and Kaups (1989, 87-92) and town plans increasingly regular. Subsis­ Mid-Atlantic region 116 { 54 amines the cultural record and livelihood of argue from historical and contemporary evi­ tence-oriented agriculture disintensified, with Southern region 104 African slaves (Vol. 24, No. 4, 1990). The vol­ dence. The large French-speaking minority of Caribbean 222 36 t-A•o-course crop rotation increasingly com­ Total 377 290 ume of involuntary African immigration (Table the Canadian Plains, the Metis, are mixed­ mon. The German settlers retained their three­ 2} consistently exceeded that of European col­ blood descendants of French fur traders Sources: Based on Boyd-Bowman (1976), Butzer (1992b), field system, but the Finns and Swedes on the Gemery 11980), Mitchell and Groves (1987). onists. Some 8.8 million African slaves were (Brown 1983). There also were smaller and little Delaware followed a more familiar shifting pat­ imported to the New World by 1810 (Rawley known multicultural communities among the tern of clearance and bush fallow, akin to that 1981), compared with roughly 1.8 million Euro­ trappers who began the settling of the Moun­ of the local indigenous peoples; this was sub­ settlement as a reference point. Caribbean set· pean emigrants. But death outnumbered births tain West (Lecompte 1978, 62-67, 221). Beyond sequently adopted by the Scots-Irish settlers tlernent evidently met with little demographic arnong African slaves, as a result of epidemics, the genetic contribution to American blood­ thJt spearheaded settlement beyond the Appa­ success, as a result of disease, low birth rates, famine, malnutrition, SL1icidc, a deficit of lines, there are good grounds to posit that In­ lachian perimeter (Jordan and Kaups 1989). and low life expectancies (see Gemery 1980; women, and high infant mortality. Conse­ dian won1en facilitated frontier expansion and Further south, tobacco producers also de· Curtin 1989). Surprisingly, many more British quently their numbers had to be constantly shaped its society. ployed shifting cultivation for maintaining soil and French emigrants went to the Caribbean replenished through "imports," even when the European settlers moving inland from the fertility in the Chesapeake, while rice planters than to mainland North America. New England plantation economy was not expanding. More coast, and their descendants crossing the in the Carolina low country engaged in had greater demographic success than the attention needs to be devoted by historical ge­ mountain passes to the interior, continued to mfcroreclamations of estuarine marsh (Hilliard Chesapeake region or the tidewater south. ographers to the links between Africa and the encounter settled or recently-abandoned agri­ 1978). Spanish population growth with respect to im­ cultural landscapes. Aided by Indian guides Although latecomers to the colonial process, migration was twice that of its British counter­ Table 2. African Slave Imports to the Euro­ and surviving on Indian foods, the pioneers at the British colonies on the mainland enjoyed part. Although Spanish regions of immigration pean Colonies during the First Century of the head of the Euro.American advance fol­ spectacu_lar, if often cyclical, advances. Fueled are obscured by a lack of separate data for Seulement lowed the signposts of cleared fields and or­ by the export of plantation crops and grains to Central America, and by a steady stream of Number of imports ch.:irds that recorded !he long experience of c,iger Atl,mlic m.irkcts, population and econ· transrnigrnnts from Mexico and Central Amcr­ (in tlwus.inds) Native Americans in selecting good soils and omy on the seaboard grew by more than three icJ to Peru, demographic growth was greatest m;maging louil ecologies wi1h a -;imil,ir let h­ lhirtccn Colonies (lo 17110) 'l.'J percent per annum, the area of settlement by on the Mexican Plateau and in the dry, temper­ British Caribbean (to 1700) 2fA nnlogy (Butzer '1990). As the Spaniards in an­ more than two percent. The infrastructure of ate lowlands of Peru. French Caribbean (to 1700) 156 other time and place, British and American trade and commerce which sustained these ad­ A notable difference between the different Dutch Caribbean (to 1700) 120 settlers followed readily in the tracks of indig­ Spanish Colonies~ (to 1600) vances, in turn, enabled these colonies to take colonial systems is that 48 percent of the Span­ 75 enous farmers, on_ly to be frustrated where (1600-1700) 295 the lead in movements of independence and ish settlers lived in towns with more than 2500 Portuguese Brazil (to 1600) 50 these gave way to mobile hunters or foragers. industriJlization during the Age of Revolution Europeans at the end of the first century (1600-1700) 560 A new· cultural landscape was built on the ( 1770-18JO). (Butzer 1992b), while only 5 percent of the pop­ Total to 1700 1,553b traces of an older one, regardless of whether Rates of immigration were by no means pro­ ulation in the British colonies would qualify for Sources: Based on Curtin (1969), Rawley (1981), and Klein abandoned or functional. ·1hcsc pcrspcr..:tivcs portional to the subsequent size of European such a definition of "urban" in 1700. This not (1986). of interaction, ecological convergence, and su­ only reflects different social preferences, but 'Primarily for mining in Mexico and Colombia and for populations in the New World. Table 1 com­ agriculture in low!Jnd Peru ,md the Gull·CarihhcJn perimposition imply a less ethnocentric vision pares Spanish, French, and British coloniza­ also the limited Opportunities for small free­ rc~inn. of America's p,1~t. They do need to be invcsli- tion, using the first century of immigration and holders in Spanish Colonial agriculture. The Includes 401)0 to Danish An!illt,s. 360 Butzer Introduction 361

gated, sooner rather than later, by a new gen­ ment; surviving information about the Viking By the early 1500s, maps can also be seen as serve to introduce the re.icier, in stages, to the eration of geographers. settlement of Vinland (Newfoundland) ca. A.O. media to present the New World as a "theater" unfamiliar form of spatial representation dis­ 1000, and recurrent Medieval tales about mid­ for European colonization. Indeed, a second cussed by Harley. Atlantic islands or voyages into the unknown. level of symbolic intent can be inferred. The Integrating the two main thrusts of hiS paper, Multiple Perceptions, On our part we continue to speculate whether imposition of European place-names and the Harley reveals the coexistence and dialectic of Cartographies, and Geographies some of the Portuguese, British, and Breton engraving of a Christian, European landscape indigenous and European cartographies. The fishermen known to have fished off the New­ with churches and a europeanized environ­ purpose of his revisionism is not to denigrate The very terms "New" World and "discov­ foundland banks after 1500 may have stumbled ment can be viewed as a means of cultural the feats of the· individuals central to the Age ery" highlight the dialectic between Europe upon North America some twenty years earlier. appropriation and transfer. In order to attract of Discovery, nor to impugn the strength of and the Americas. The irony has not escaped Allen traces the information for the voyages of settlers or console emigrants with memories of intellecl and will reflected in the European a succession of humorists who describe the the Cabots--Genoese navigators sailing with the Old World, such maps, deliberately or not, achievements of the period. Rather it is to open Indians greeting the landfall of 1492 with com­ Bristol sailors in the service of England-who projected a new geographical "reality." Maps our vision to a broader context that allows rn1:r1h sw ha,; "we h..1v1~ ht~1~n discovered!" or redisn>Vercd Newfoundland in 1497 and ex­ became tools with which Europe could impose greater analytical facility. Only by removing the "You mu~I be ( ·01un1IH1~." ·11111:e of lhe p,1pt:rs plrnl'd p,111s of 1111: Atl,H1tic Sl?aho.nd from its own i1n,1ge, values, and aspir,1tions on the introvertecl hli111h·rs imposed by ethnocen­ in this volume explore perceptions, cartogra­ 1-198-1509. Unlike Columbus, the Cabots fol­ 11ewly di::irovered world. t inally, rnap,; b,1:-,L'd trism--· an ad,1ptive fc<1ture of ull culltH(:S - <.,in phies, and geographies, well-documented in lowed the trajectory of their Celtic and Viking on exploration could precede actual coloni­ we appreciate the wealth of skill and experi­ the case of the Europeans, fragmentarily pre­ precursors, by steering out to the northwest. zation, thus anticipating and even shaping ence embodied in another cartographic tradi­ served in the case of the indigenous peoples. Thus the notion of a Northwest Passage to Asia government policy. This explicitly revisionist tion or even hope to understand the percep­ If Columbus had not crossed the Ocean Sea was born. stance shatters ethnocentric preconceptions, tions of Native Americans in 1492. in 1492, another explorer would have done so Following the British initiative, France en­ allowing us to see lhe Age of Discovery in a The intclleclual confrontation of Europeans within a very few years. Ship construction, nau­ gaged the Florentine navigator Verrazzano to more objective light (see also Axtell 19921. wilh the environment and the peoples of the tical skills, and knowledge of the ocean cur­ explore the Atlantic coast of North America in At the same time, Harley raises the matter of New World posed a similar problem, com· rents and wind patterns had improved dramat­ 1523, leading Cartier to explore the St. Law­ indigenous cartographies, noting that histories pounded by dogmatic world views inherited ically during the fifteenth century, setting the rence River in 1534 and 1535, with an unsuc­ of cartography and published collections of from a Classical and Medieval past. That partic­ stage for bold voyages into the open sea. But cessful attempt to found a first settlement at historical charts tend to ignore Native Ameri­ ular Encounter provoked novel methods of em­ captains did not set sail into the unknown with­ Quebec 154·1-42. Cartier's penetration up­ can maps. Such nrnps of indigenous origin, pirical description, organization, analysis, and out a body of empirical and noncmpirical in­ stream to present-day Montreal not only had a mainly dating to the early Colonial period, are synthesis that m.iinlinc histori,1ns h..1ve been formation sufficient to convince them that revolutionary impact on cartography, but di­ well-documented in Mexico. Harley explores unable to fully appreciate. As a result the im­ such a vcr1ture promised success. rected the tater French Colonial enterprise to this arena briefly, arguing that, like some Me· pact of the Encounter on science in general, The vision of Columbus, in expecting to find the river and lake systems of the continental dieval maps, their Middle American counter· and geography in particular, has been under­ Asia in the west, was built on his interpretation interior, to establish the theoretical and exper­ parts projected space and time onto the same stated and overlooked or largely forgotten. The of flotsam washing up on the beaches of the imental basis for North American exploration two-dim~nsional plane, to create "spatial his­ paper by Karl Butzer (this volume) examines Madeiras, liis reading of Medieval travelers' during the next three centuries. The remark­ tories" that combine geographical percep­ seven methodological spheres: observational accounts and fables, his belief in Ptolemy's in­ able resolution of the Mercator map of 1569 tions, ancestral migrations, and dynastic histo­ skills, environmental analysis, classification of correct estimate of the earth's circumference, reflects these feats. ries. On a much broader level, Indian biota, ethnography, town planning, geograph­ and the conviction th..11 he h,1d a divine mission Brian 1larlcy {this volume) reverses the per­ geographical knowledge was also incorporated ical synthesis, and a scientific framework for (see Phillips and Phillips 1992, 100-11). The spective by critically examining the historical inlo European m.:ips nf the period.his known the natural hist<>ry and p~oples of the New paper by John Allen (this volume) takes the claims of these maps to "truth." The Renais­ that explorers used Indian guides, that some World. The presentation centers on exemplary premise that Europe was conceptually and op­ sance revolution in cartographic knowledge Europeans commented on Indian mapping individuals, who illustrate the diverse back­ erationally prepared for the eventual discovery and cognition coincided with a fundamental abilities, and that a few mapmakers of Euro­ grounds, abilities, and interests of the period. of new land:, to the west. • te argues that th!! shift from portolan charts, designed as aids for pean origin specifically acknowledge Indian i\fany came from rural backgrounds and had initial voyages of exploralion were based on navigation, to dornmcnts increasingly used for contributions lo their charts. Fin;.1lly, on rnorc little formal cduc.ition, but this may have been existing geographical lore and on observation geopolitical ends. Decorated with national tenuous grounds, Harley sugg<:!sls that Indians advantageous in cxarnining New World phe· and experience, as well as on myth, legend, flags, coats of arms, and the names or portraits may have reappropriated Europ_ean carto­ nomena, both in their own right and in com­ and rumor. In their turn, the subsequent voy­ of discoverers, some maps became a visible graphic traditions as tools of resistance. parison with similar categories in the Old ages were influenced by the accumulating ex­ record of conquest and imperial claims, demar­ The three maps added after Brian Harley's World. Geography itself was the unifying perience of earlier ventures and the evolving cating national boundaries. Other ideological sudden and premature death are accompanied theme for these diversified strands of scientific geographical images of the New World. statements include crosses and religious in~ by an addendum by Karl Butzer and Barbara analysis, which illustrate the intellectual prow­ Allen reviews the many categories of lore scriptions or portraits. In one form or other, Williams that explains and suggests a first level ess of Spain during the century from 1492-1590. available before 1492, including: ocean voy­ maps had begun to represent reified symbols of interpretation of the superimposed percep­ A comparative study of the observational ages in classical antiquity; legends of early Me­ of power-a tradition continued until after tual and conceptual landscapes the maps skills and geographical sophistication of indig­ dieval, Celtic exploration in the North Atlantic, World War II by the use of distinctive colors on illustrate. These maps, dating from ca. 1580, enous Americans must await further research based in part on Irish knowledge of Iceland maps and globes to rcp"resent the overseas pos­ suggest a transition between indigenous and along promising avenues for investigation. The prior to Viking (Norse) discovery and settle- sessions of the imperial powers. European cartographic traditions and therefore opportunities identified by Harley represent 362 Butzer Introduction 363

one such window, and a comprehensive study World colonies moved to independence. The woodlands, to feed the ovens of the early iron 1992). Such examples warrant much greater of the environmental and cultural content of parameters and perspcclives for what tran· mills, reached their climax in the Upper Mid· caution in drawing intuitive conclusions. the maps accompanying the re/aciones spired after 1776 are different, reflecting a spate west during the 1830s, and soil erosion, not The continuing absence of evidence for at geograficas of Mexico (see Butzer, this volume) of technological innovations, accelerating de­ surprisingly, followed in their wake (Knox least a general trend to environmental distur· is a must. But proper symbolic and historical mand for distant raw materials, rapid popula­ 1987). There is as yet no case to accuse Colo­ bance in Mexico before the mid-1700s probably interpretation require special skills, as Rinc6n· tion growth, and a more complex global net­ nial settlers of the Atlantic Seaboard or the St. has an explanation. Livestock were deliberately Mautner (1990) points out, in studying the work integrating raw materials, industrial Lawrence Valley of landscape devastation. If managed in a highly mobile fashion; based on pinturas preserved in villages of the Mixteca. A production, and markets. anything, as Denevan argues, the forests of older Iberian experience, overstocking on second window is sllggested by Barbara The precise question in regard to a hypothet­ eastern North America regenerated between confined dry·season pastures was avoided by Williams's examination of Aztec soil taxonomy ical Devastated Colonial Landscape centers on: 1500-1750. long.distance transhumance for sheep and me· and comprehension, measured against con· (a) the livestock, domesticated plants, and For Mexico, it is popular to point to the in­ dium-distance mobility for cattle (Butzer and tempnrary folk soil taxonomies (B. Williams weeds introduced by Colonial settlers, in troduction of Spanish livestock as an agent of Butzer 1992). This goes to the heart of Sale's :1nd ( )rlf/·Solorio l'JIII; B. Willi;um 19112). Yet conjunction wilh p;uticul.ir management tech­ ecological deteriorJtion, but here again the ev­ (1990) indictment of the European land ethic. ,1tl '>ll!;gi·\1t·(l lly tl1e f,ir~l·h,itHI niqu1·'> ,md a plow lt•1 hnology; ;uHI (b) wht:lhcr idt•rH t? is f,ir from ccmvindng, a! lt'a~t for a The empirk.il t·vidcnce ~hows that Furoppan indigenous irtlo1111Jlio11 reLordetl in the ~ix­ or not I ll!Opt:,111 l,t11d ust:

of medicine, informs me that a more secure Benito Ruano, Elr<)y, el al. 1991. La penfnsuf.J and modifkJlion, is of singulJr importance and scripts to the printer. William Dcncvan could always identification nf the New World epidemics of the ib.Jrica en la cr.1 de fos dcswbrimiemos 1391- be depended on for sound ,1dvicc and essential suµ• dcseives a new round of attention by geogra­ sixteenth century would require subst,mti,11 an:hi­ 1--192, Ill. Jorn.it!Js I lisp<1no·!'ortugucsas de port. Bill Turner's grasp of the importance of the val research, not only to document the temporal Historia Medieval, Sevilla, 25-30 November 1991 phers, especially in North America. Demand­ Encounter remained a source of inspiration, and Car· ing good temporal controls for observed evolution of a particular outbreak, but also to (Book of Abstracts). ville Earle's professional skills helped refine many of understand the changing vocabulary used to de· Bowden, Martin 1992. The invention of American change, and distinguishing processes before the papers. I also owe a debt to the many referees in scribe symptoms. J. and after 1776-for example-is not at all spe­ the U.S., Canad,1, Colombia and Europe who gave 5. Without the demographic collapse, it seems im­ tradition. Joum.11 of /--/istoric,1/ Geography 18:3- cious: the methods and motivations of con­ their advice. Laura Gutierrez-Witt made it possible to probable that the Spaniards would have been able 26. include copies of indigenous maps. Judy S. White Boyd-Bowman, Pl!ter. 19i6. Patterns of Spanish current land use must be understood. The to control the populous highland peoples of Mid· and Beverly Benadom word-processed five of the die America and the Andes, thus limiting assimi­ emigration lo the Indies until 1600. Hispanic complexity of deforestation and forest regen­ manuscripts through multiple editions with infinite lation and accelerating the decolonization pro· American Historical Review 56:580--604. eration, with different plant successions and patience and care, making ii possible to meet the cess. The implications of such a scenario, perhaps final deadlines. The endowment of the R.C. Dickson Brothwell, Don, and S;mdison, A. T., eds. 1967. dominants, is illustrated by the Haivard Forest modeled on Western "intervention" in China Diseases in antiquity. Springfield, IL Thomas. Professorship of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas (1841-1949), are provocative. Program (Schoonmaker and Foster 1991; Fos­ Brown, J. S. H. 1983. 'Women as center and symbo! covered the substantial, cumulative costs of multiple 6. Congregaci6n was designed to (a) replace Indian ter forthcoming). Ooes the closing of a forest copying, redr:ifting, telephone c;:ills, faxes, postage, p1,pul.ition centers with planned, gridiron towns in the emergence of Metis communities. Cana· preserve to human use todJy, with inhibition and expn.•!.s m,1il. (sec lhUler, this vohmie), a grtl1I, by pl,11 ing < onlcmpor,uy CjlH!'>lions 111101,1·,111 p,,pul.11iu11s h.ul h1:et1 g1•1wlh,1lly ~t:· Allier!>, I'., ,md KJy, Jc,111nc. l'IU/. ~h.11111g llw ---- ,11111 llulH·r, lli\.• lwth I<. f'l'l.' 11.111·,[,·1 ol of ecolk C( ot1,J1t1y to N,·w diversity into sharper focus. the 1470s. Yellow fever, an epidemic disease, and A cultural geography of North American Indians, Spain: Adaptation and c

ArqueOlogia: La huelfa del hombre en el ish Isles to the New World, 1630--1700: Infer­ idence and truth.- The polemics of native reset­ Schwarcz, Henry P.; Melbye, J.; Katzenberg, M.A.; ecosistema meditemineo. Symposium, Uni­ ences from Colonial populations. Research in t!emen1 in sixteenth-century Guatemala. Journal and Knyf, M. 1985. Stable isotopes in human versidad Internacional Menendez-Pelayo, Valen­ Economic History 5:179-231. of Nistoricaf Geography 16:277-94. skeletons of southern Ontario; Reconstructing cia, July 1-5, 1991. Graham, Elizabelh; Pendergast, David M.; and Jones, Lunde, Paul. 1992. The Middle East and the Age of paleodiet. Journal of Archaeological Science Cartwright, Frederick F. 1972. Disease and history. Grant O. 1989. On the fringes of conquest: Discovery. Aramco World 43 (3). 12:187-206. London: Rupert Hart-Davis. Maya-Spanish contact in Colonial Belize. Science McNeil!, William H. 1976. Pfogues and people. Siemens, Alfred H. 1989. Tierra configurada. Mex· Cronon, William. 1983. Changes in the land: Indi­ 246:125-1--59. Garden City, NY: Anchor. ice City: Consejo Nadonal para !a Cultura y las ans, colonists, and the ecology of New England. Harris, R. Cole. 1984. The seigneurial system in Meinig, Donald W. 1986. The shaping of America. Artes. New York: Hill and Wang. early Canada, 2nd ed. Montreal: McGill-Queen's A geographical perspective on 500 years of his­ Solano, Francisco de. 1991. C~dulario de tierras Crosby, Alfred W. 1972. The Columbian Exchange: University Press. tory, vol. 1, Atlanlic America, 1492-1800. New (1497-1820): CompilaciOn de legislacion agraria Biologic:J! and cultural consequences of 1492. ---, ed. 1987. Historical alias of Canada, vol. 1, Haven, CT: Yale University Press. colonial, 2nd ed. Mexico City: Universidad Westport, CT: Greenwood. From the beginnings to 1800. Toronto: University Mitchell, Robert D., and Groves, Paul A., eds. 1987. Nacional Aut611oma de Mexico, 1nstitulo de ln­ Curtin, Philip 0. 1969. The Atlantic slave trade: A of Toronto Press. North America: The historical geography of a vestigadones Jurfdicas. et•ns11~. /1,\;uli~on: University ofWisecmsin Press. ---. 1990. French landscapes in North America. changing continent. Totowa, NJ: RowmJ.n and Spurr, M. S. 1986. Arable cuhivation in Roman Italy l'JB'J. [)1•,1tli by rnigi.1tiw1: llw l'urop!:,rn In 1/u! m,1kin,; of the A11wric;m fondscape, ed. littldicld. c. 200 B.C.-<. A.n. 100. London: Society for the cnu1u11tcr with the t1opi(Jl wodChristopher Columbus. New kultureHgiOse Reliktformen a!tindianischer ethnobotanical and pa!eoeco!ogical record of logical plant remains. Chicago: University of Chi­ York; Cambridge University Press. Besied,lung. Erdkunde 28:194-207. human impact on vegetation in the little Tenn es· cago Press. Rawley, James A. 1981. The Transatlantic slave Trimble, Stanley W. 1974. Man-induced soil ero­ see River Valley, Tennessee. Quaternary Re­ Heinselman, M. L. 1951. fire and succession in the trade. New York: Norton. sion in the Southern Piedmont, 1700--1970. An­ search 25 :330-49. conifer forests of northern North America. In Ray, Arthur J., and freeman, Donald. 1978. "Give keny, 1A: Soil Conservation Society of America. Denevan, William M., ed. 1992. The native popu­ Forest succession, ed. D. C. West, H. H. Shug­ us good measure~: An economic analysis of re­ ---. 1985. Perspectives on the history of soil /,1/ion of tlie A11u:rk.1s in 14'J2, 2nd ed. Madison: art, and D. 8. Botkin, pp. 374--405. New York: lations between the Indians and the Hudson's erosion control in the eastern United States. Ag­ lJnivcr~ity of \.Vi~t.omiu l'rcs~. Springer. /l,1y (."01111>,'!lly lwfure J7(d. Toionto: llniv('r~ity rirn//ur,d 1/i~twy 'i'): If,'! HO. Donkin, R. A. 1979. Asricullur,1/ terracing in the HiltiJ.rd, Sam. 1978. Antebellum tidewater rice cul· of ·1 orcmlo l'rc:,s. TuJ.11, Yi-l'u. l'J(>IJ. 1Jb1 rq1.u1< i1·~ b!'lw1·t'll ;•1wiro11- New World. Viking Fund Publications in Anthro­ ture in South carolina and Georgia. In European Richardson, Bonham C. 1992. The Caribbean in mental attitude and behavior: Examples from Eu­ pology 56. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. settlement and development in North America, the wider world, 1492-1992: A regionaf geogra­ rope and China. Canadian Geographer 12:176-- Doolittle, William E. 1990. Canal irrigation in pre­ ed. James R. Gibson, pp. 91-115. Toronto: Uni­ phy. New York: Cambridge University Press. 89. historic Mexico: The sequence of technological versity of Toronto Press. Rinc6n-Mautner, Carlos. 1990. The territory and Turner, B. L II, ed. 1992. legacies of the Colum­ change. Austin: University of Texas Press. Jordan, Terry G., and Kaups, Matti. 1989. The environment of San Miguel Tulancingo, bian Encounter. Madrid: Conseio Superior de Dycl.teeflth Cl'nlllry, ed. 1-l. R. Harvey and ti. J. Klein, Herbert S. 1986. African slavery in Latin 1992. Historic human environmental im­ versity Press.

Prem, pp. 229-52. Albuquerque: University of America and the Caribbean. New York: Oxford pact in the Mixteca region of O.1xat"a 1 Mexico. Veblen, Thomas T. 1975. The ecological, cultural, New Mexico Press. University Press. Abstracts, Annual Meeting, Association of Amer­ and historical bases of fores! preservation in Earle, Carville V. 1988. The myth of the Southern Knox, James C. 1987. Historical valley floor sedi· ican Geographers, S3n Diego, p. 204. Totonicapan, Guatemala. Ph.D. Dissertation, De· soil mi1u-r: M,Jc 1ohi~1ory, agrkullur.il immva­ rncnt,1tion in tlw upper Mississippi Valley. Ann.1ls Sale, Kirkpatrick. 1990. The Conquest of P,1mc!i~e: partment of Geography, University of C.ilifornia,

ti,m, ,md t'11viro11r111·r1t,1l < li.111gc. In lh<1 end~ ,if of 1/Je A\.\o< i,1/1011 of Atm:ric,111 c;i.'og,.q1lu•1.~ ( /11i•,/<1J1lw1 f.'()/111n/J11~ ,mr/ //1e ('11/11111/11,111 /,·1; lli•rkdi:y. !he e,ul/1: /'cr~pel.livus on modem environmen­ 77::ZH 44. JC y. New Yori,.: Knupf. W,11!!.Jlt, lolm A., i-d. 1'!'11. I n•111 li, olo11i.d ,,ri h,11• tal history, ed. D. Worster, pp. 195-210. New Langer, William L. 1975. American foods and Sanders, William T. 1lJBI. Ecological ad,1pt.ition i11 ology: Ilic llli11ois to1mtry ,UHi the W1:>tt·rn York; Cambridge University Press. Europe's population growth, 1750-1850. Journal the Basin of Mexico: 23,000 B.C. to the present. Great lakes. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Ebright, Malcolm, ed. 1988. Spanish and Mexican of Social History 8:51-66. In Archaeology: Supplement to the handbook of Watts, David. 1987. The West Indies: Patterns of land grants and the law. Journal of the West Lecompte, Janet. 1978. Pueblo, hardscrabble, Middle American Indians, ed. J. A. Sabloff, development, culture, and environmental 27{3). greenhorn: The Upper Arkansas, 1832-1856. Nor­ pp. 147-97. Austin: University of Texas Press. change since 1-t-92. New York: Cambridge Uni­ Foster, David R. Forthcoming. land-use history man: University of Oklahoma Press. Sandor, Jonathan A. 1992. long-term effects of versity Press. and forest transformations in central New En­ Levenson, Jay A., ed. 1991. Circa 1492: Art in the prehistoric agriculture on soils: Examples from Werner, G. 1986. landschaftsumgestaltung als gland. ln f-luman impacts on the environment, Age of Exploration. New Haven, CT: Yale Univer­ New Mexico and Peru. In Soils in archaeology, Falge v_on Besiedlung, Vegetationsfoderung ed. S. Pickett and M. McDonnell. New York: sity Press. ed. Vance T. Holliday, 217----46. Washington: und landnutzung

Basin of Mexico. Annals of the Association of --. n.d. Ethnohistorical rural scttk·mcnt data American Geographers 81 :464--87. compared with archaeological surface remains: Williams, Barbara J. 1982. Aztec soil glyphs and A test of preservation from Contact Period contemporary Nahua soil classification. In The Tepetlaoztoc. Manuscript in preparation. THE AMERICAS lnd1:1ns of Mexico in pre-Columbian and modern -- and OrHz-Solorio, C:ulos. 198"1. Middle limes, ed. M. E. R. Jansen and T. J. J. Leyenaar, American folk soil taxonomy. Annals of the As­ pp. 206-22. Leiden, the Netherlands: Rutgers. sociation of American Geographers 71 :335-58. BEFORE AND AFTER 1492 --. 1989. Contact period rural overpopulation Williams, Michael. 1989. Americans and their for­ Current Geographical Research in the Basin of Mexico: Carrying-capacity mod­ ests: An historical geography. New York: Cam­ els tested with documentary data. American An­ bridge University Press. KARL W. BITTZER, Guest Editor tiquity 54:715-32. Foreword by Stanley D. Brunn September 6'/4x10 224pages Ui5786-397-0 paper $12.95 This Issue of !he Annals of the AAG Is also available as a hook for both Individual aud course use. As you c,111 sec, these outstc1nclln!:! essays examine the Americas In both lights-pre- and post-Columbian-and offer differing views on the polemic of the Quincentenary which pits Columbus the Icon against Columbus the symbol of new world genocide and environmental destruction. The book will be excellent supplemental reading for courses in historical geography and will appeal to anyone with an interest in this period of American history. Order your copies with the coupon below or give this ------information to your bookstore. 0 RO.-.·,~, .• · - _ The Americas Before and After 1492 1-5578&-397-0 paper@ $12.95ea Sub Total All orders must be prepa1d by credit card, check or money order. There Is a $25 Sales Tax (NY, MA, IL. VT & Canada) minimum on all credit card orders. Postage and Handling (No. A.mer.: $2.00, Ovcrscu: $6.00)

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politan schools. New Haven, CT: Yale University Waldseemllllcr, Martin. 1507. Cosmographie in­ Press. troductio. Facsimile, trans. Joseph Fischer and -. 1972. The pinturas (maps) of the relaciones Franz von Wieser. Reprint 1966. Ann Arbor, Ml~ geograficas. In Guide to ethnohistorical sources, University Microfilms. part 1, ed. Howard F. Cline, 243--78. Handbook Wallis, Helen M., and Robinson, Atlhur H., eds. of Middle American Indians 12. Austin: Univer· 1987. Cartographical innovations: An interna­ sity of Texas Press. tional handbook of mapping terms to 1900. Tring, Sale, Kirkpatrick. 1990. The conquest of paradise: Herts., UK: Map Collector Publications and In­ Christopher Columbus and the Columbian leg­ ternational Cartographic Association. acy. New York: Knopf. Waselkov, Gregory A., ed. 1989. Powhatan's man­ Schwartz, Seymour I., an.d Ehrenberg, Ralph E. tle: Indians in the Colonial Southeast. Lincoln: 1980. The mapping of America. New York: University of Nebraska Press. Harry N. Abrams. Washburn, Wilcomb E. 1992. landfall controversy. Scott, James C. 19'JO. Domination and the arts of In The Christopher Columbus encyclopedia, ed. re~i.\(;Jnce: lfidden tr.1nscri11ts. New lt;JVen, C:T: Silvio A. BcJini, vol. 2, forthcoming. New York: Y,1h~ IJniY1:r~i1y l'n:s~. Simon & S< luhter. Smilh, Mary Eli,ubcth. 197 J. Picture writing from Walts, P,rnlinc Moffitt. 1'1115. l'rophc1.y a11cJ cJiscov· ancient So.uthern Mexico: Mixtecplace signs and ery: On the spiritual origins of Christopher maps. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Columbus's enterprise of the Indies. American Stewart, George R. 1982. Names on the land: A Historical Review 90:73-102. historical account of placenaming in the United Winsor, Juslin, ed. 1884--89. Narrative and critical Stares, 4th ed. San Francisco: Lexlkos. history of America, 8 vols. Boston: Houghton Szeg0, Janos. 1987. Human cartography: Mapping Mifflin. A the world of man. Trans. Tom Miller. Stockholm: Wood, Denis, and Fels, John. 1986. Designs on r. Swedish Council for Building Research. signs: Myth and meaning in maps. Cartographica Thrower, Norman J. W. 1976. New geographical 23(3):54-103. _; '·1 ... J horizons: Maps. In First images of America: The Woodward, David. 1985. Reality, symbolism, time, impact of the New Worfd on the Old, ed. Fredi and space in medieval world maps. Annals of the Chiappelli, vol. 2, 659-74. Berkeley: University Association of American Geographers 75:510---2"1. of California Press. ---. 1987. Medieval nwppacmundi. In The his­ Todorov, TLvcl.u1. 19M. 7/ie ('(){lque~t of Americ.1: twy of t'illlogrJphy, vol. 1: Cartography in prchis· The question of the other. Trans. Richard How­ toric, ancient, and medieval Europe and the Med· ard. New York: Harper Row. iterranean, ed. J.B. Harley and David Woodward, Vargas Llosa, Mario. 1990. Questions of conquest: pp. 286--370. Chicago: University of Chicago What Columbus wrought, and wh.!.t he did not. Press. Harper's 282(1687):45-53.

Addendum: Three Indigenous Maps from New Spain Dated ca. 1580 K.irl W. Butn•r• and Barhara J. Williams"" •1 kp.11 l11wnr ()f ( ;1•()1:r,1phy, I lnivc•r,i1y of J t'X,h, Au,!i11, IX 711712 ••/kp.11l11u•11l of (,1•1igr,1pliy, lluivl'ti,lly ol Wb< umi11 ( ·(·11lt•1, ~!11 k ( 'lly, f,11wwl111•, WI i; !'i·1'i FAX 6081755·2732

Three indigenous maps were selected from the The heuristic advantages of the pinruras attached pictorial maps (pinruras) that accompany the official to the re/adones are several: {a) They were all drawn geographical reports (re/aciones geograficas) pre· at about the same time, and their date is known. (b) pared in Mexico in 1577-85 (see Robertson 1972; also Each was commissioned for the same purpose, with Butzer, this volume). Of the seventy-five extant explicit instructions to draw a town plan and illustrate pinturas, thirty-seven are now at the University of the "site" and "situationH of such a town {Robertson TexJs, and they illustrate a wide range of European, 1972, 246). (cl The text of the re/aci6n provides infor, mixed, and indigenous cartographic techniques. The mation on the indigenous officials and elders who three chosen here represent a spectrum, suitable to were the source of much or most of the information introduce the reader by stages to the several levels collated in response to the various questions posed, of meaning embodied in Mesoamerican cartogra· and older indigenous maps were sometimes pre· phies. sented in evidence. (d) The information given by a . figure 1. 1579 Map of Misantla, Veracruz. North at top. After Benson Latin-American Collection, University of Texas at Austin, Map JG1-XXIY·13, with permission. 538 Harley Rereading the Maps 539

,' ,,, .

I] --~-:7.,_,.

figure 2. 1580 Map of Zempoala, Hid~lgo. So~t~ at top. After Benson Latin-American Collection, University of Texas at Austin, Map JG1-XXV-10-4, with perm1ss1on.

'.

Figure 3. 1579 Map of Atengo and Mixquihu~la, H1~a· Igo. E~st.,a1 lop. Aft er Benson Latin-American Collection, University of Texas at Austin, Map JGI-XXlll-11-3, w1th perrmss1on. 540 Harley Rereading the Maps 541

refaci6n helps explain the features represented on are similar to those used in the map of Atengo {Fig. great hill, surmounted by a female head rendered in and continuous orange line, along which scattered, the corresponding pintura (see Acuna 1985a, b). Al­ 3), and follow strict indigenous conventions. The a nonindigenous, perspective view, completely unidentifiable trees and schematic prickly pear are though drawn in indigenous style, the pinturas are trees cannot be identified, although the text of the dwarfs the finely drawn Franciscan monastery. shown. The text emphasizes agaves (maguey) and not Prehispanic, and they were devised to meet Eu­ re!aci6n mentions two tropical genera (mamey and This conceptual aspect of the map, as an historical mesquites; the former remain common but the latter ropean objectives. But they are ideal as introductions peruetano) in addition to cedro (bald cypress). Most statement, is completed by the "house~ of the ruler are now replaced by the South American pepper tree to an unfamiliar cartography, precisely because the of the hills in the north approximate European con­ of Mexico-depicted by a conventional symbol for (pirrif). The Rio Tula cuts across the map prominently, context is known, eliminating an excessive number ventions, but two are shown by the indigenous hill tecpan palace, a flat-facade structure with a framed its configuration fairly accurate. The cultural land­ of variables that would otherwise make interpreta­ glyph. The hatched cones atop the "hills" are prob­ doorway and supra!intel panel with a disk motif, scape of 1579 is highlighted by the monastery tion unduly difficult. lematical, but Misantla is surrounded by steep and below and to the right of the foundation symbol for churches of the three towns, as well as a small church The three pictorial maps are reproduced and ana­ conical, basalt hills, now crowned by stands of trop­ Zempoala; this does not refer to an old palace, but (representing a dependent village) and a thatched­ lyzed below. The first appears to be strictly a percep­ ical trees. Comparison of the various hills repre­ to the site of Moctezuma's defeat by Cortes in 1520. roof church complex whose three buildings front a tual map that delineates a visible landscape. The sented on the map shows that some are "decorated" The visible or perceptual landscape is also shown. courtyard. These symbols of the Spanish presence second shows a striking combination of perceptual with upside-down U symbols, that are sometimes The terrain conforms with the plain and several hills stand out from the remaindt:r of the map by being and conceptual components (see Robertson 1972, used to indicate a cultivated field; the cross-hatching described by the text, and the many agaves (maguey) drawn in ink, with the aid of a straight-edge. Three 256-,57)-an historic;:il, symbolic: world, overlain by a may mean uncultivated. The groups of light, elliptic.al and prickly pear (nap.if, shown with red fruits) arc partial enclosures near the top show sheep estancias. contemporaneous cul1ural landscape. The third is lines hctween the hills and west of Misantla also arc also noted in the text. At least eight other kinds of Far rnore prominent is tht'. c:on(.£:plu.11 map, pre­ prim.:uily a nmlcptual rn,1p, whkh seem~ to express not dcnm11ivc but symbolk of some environmental trees arc

its founders) is unknown except that the old small (sacred?) hills. The maps that the informants pinturas which the inhabitants of the town have prepared for Villacastfn deleted all but the most im­ ... indicate that fthe founders} came from distant portant conceptual and historical aspects of their lands ... According to these pinturas, the town landscape, substituting a new iconography of was founded 415 years ago ... (Acuna 1985b, 132- churches and chapels. From Columbus to Acosta: Science, 33). The salient importance of the Coatepec report is that it underscores the antiquity of indigenous charts It appears that the drawings in question combined combining spatial, symbolic, and historical informa· Geography, and the New World ger,1ealogical histories and symbolic attributions of lion. The maps with the relaci6n and those shown in place with some form of geographical representa­ Figures 1, 2, and 3 imply that their traditional coun­ Karl W. Butzer tion. The three maps accompanying the relaci6n are terparts also included a variety of topographical and primarily perceptual in character, except for one environmental details, together with a schematic rep· glyph and the symbolic representation of several resentation of the built environment. Department of Geography, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, FAX 512/471-5049

Abstract What is called the Age of Discovery peoples probably put observers with rural evokes images of voyages, nautical skills, and backgrounds on an equal footing with those maps. Yet the European encounter with the steeped in traditional academic curricula. last Americas also led to an intellectual confronta· but not least, the essay points up the enormity tion with the natural history and ethnography of the primary documentation, compiled by of a "new'' world. Contrary to the prevailing these Spanish contributors during the century view of intellectual stasis, this confrontation after 1492, most of it awaiting geographical re· provoked novel methods of empirical descrip­ appraisal. ' tion, organization, analysis, and synthesis as Key Words: Acosta, Columbus, ethnography, geo­ Medieval deductivism and Classical ontogen­ graphic.al planning, gridiron towns, history of sci­ ies proved to be inadequate. This essay ence, landforms, l6pez de Velasco, natural history, demonstrates how the agents of that encoun­ New World landscapes, Oviedo, rcfaciones ter-sailors, soldiers, government officials, gcogr.ificas, Ren.tissancc, SahagUn, Spanish geogra­ phy. and missionaries-made sense of these new lands and peoples; it highlights severi method­ ological spheres, by examining the work of The world is so vast and beautiful, and contains so exemplary individuals who illustrate the di­ many things, each different from the other ... verse backgrounds, abilities, and interests -Francisco LOpez de G6rnara (1552) characteristic of the p-::riod. These examples include the observational skills of Columbus in Renaissance Science 1492, the' landscape taxonomy of his son Fer­ nando, the biotic taxonomy of Oviedo, ·the HE European encounter with the Amer­ cultural recording of Sahagun, the regional ge­ icas in 1492 falls within what Western ography of Cieza, the pervasive role of Velasco historians call the Age of Discovery. Hu­ in both geographical synthesis and town plan­ manists have long been fascinated with that ning al the government level, and finally, the encounter as a source of myths and images overarching scientific framework for the nalu­ {Green 1968, Ill, pt. 1; Gerbi 1985; Crcenblutt ral history and peoples of the New World pro­ 1991). Historians of science in general and of posed by Acosta in 1590. The evidence rehabil­ geography in particular are preoccupied with itates the reputation of Columbus who, like so navigalion and cartography {Kimble 1938, many others with little or no formal education, chaps. 5, 9-10; Parry 1981; James and Martin had a spontaneous capacity to observe and 1981, 63-95; Nebenzahl 1990; Harley 1990; describe. The origins of Native American ste­ Buisseret 1992). The thesis of this essay is that reotypes are identified, but there also were the Spanish encounter with the New World remarkable "insider" studies that, in the case also had a far-ranging impact on environmental of SahagUn, touched up0n the semiotics of and cultural understanding. culture and landscape. Allhough Sahagun and The boundless enthusiasm with which the Acosta had scholarly training, the confronta­ first writers described the landscapes and biota tion with new environments and unfamiliar of the New World was integral to the Renais-

1,m,h ol the,\=oatiorl otAm<:r,C..., Ceosr,p>,...-,. Slill. 1992. pp. S·H--565 O Copyrig~t 19n by As1<>,,,...,;can Cc,ograph<<> Butzer from Columbus to Acosta 5-45

sance, or reawakening of Western civilization. It can be debated whether Renaissance ge­ and cultural geography as a consequence of ing and slave hunting activities from 1434-48, That Renaissance marked an uneasy transition ography was the revitalization of a Classical the Columbian Encounter. My argument is that punctuated by incidental comments on indige­ from the Medieval to the modern world, char· tradition or the spontaneous product of a new the European discovery of the New World re­ nous customs; only its commercial prospects acterized by many cross-currents of thought intellectual climate. Two personalities of the quired new observational and descriptive stirred interest in Portugal. To the credit of and expression. One hallmark of the Renais­ later Middle Ages illustrate the problem. In skills, as well as explicit discussion of environ­ Columbus (Crist6bal Col6n), his voyage of 1492 sance \Vas the rediscovery of Classical writings 1410, the French Cardinal d'Ailly (1948) wrote a mental and cultural phenomena that could no inspired much more than additional coastlines during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries world description based almost exclusively on longer be taken for granted: things were either on the portolan charts. Even though he thought and their translation from Creek into Latin, as Classical sources; it begins with a series of in­ different or similar on the other side of the he was in East Asia, Columbus recognized the a new source of information, ideas, and es~ teresting figures for the astronomical subdivi­ ocean. Geomorphology soon received a de· novelty of the landscapes, flora, and people on thetic prototypes. But the resulting humanistic sion of the globe, but his regional chapters are gree of attention that it had never been ac­ the other side of the ocean. However obser· resurgence did not immediately lead to more a mix of old fables and obsolete toponyms, for corded in Antiquity, and biogeography was re· vant were other captains or ship's pilots of the critical analysis, let alone philosophical reas­ whi'ch endless fictional or mythological expla­ invigorated. Ethnographic observations period, they lacked his ability to describe the sessment. The deference once given to the" nations are offered. Quite unaffected by such gradually added greater depth to the appreci­ novel in ways that would excite acadernic and Bible or Christian theological authority shifted ballast from Antiquity, the Venetian merchant· ation of cultural phenomena, and these several lay curiosity in Europe.• to that of leading Classical scholars, but empir­ traveler Marco Polo (1958) left a remarkable geographical strands were integrated into what Columbus's credentials as a scientific figure ical contradictions to "new" authorities such as account of his travels in Asia (1271-95) that in­ could be called regional geography. All of this have long seemed unimpressive to his critics. Aristotle were only offered with hesitation. At cludes vivid descriptions of landscapes and cul­ was abetted by the Spanish government's Born 1451 in Genoa under modest circum­ its worst, the rediscovery of Antiquity led to an tural patterns.1 Pierre D'Ailly and Marco Polo official role in normative urban planning. stances (his father was a weaver), he·went to unproductive antiquarianism that took prece­ represent two extremes among precursors of The study focuses on Spain and the New sea as early as age fourteen. During the mid- dence over new observations and stifled intel­ the Renaissance, but the pattern remained.2 My World, rather than on research developments 1470s he sailed the Mediterranean, perhaps on lectual progress. point is not that intellectual roots are unimport­ in other parts of Europe. Renaissance geogra­ a galley in the service of France; about 1476-64 Medieval science had already included a ant, but that the prevalent Renaissance para­ phy in Italy, Germany, and France has received he was based in Lisbon and the Madeiras, sail­ component of empirical, practical observation, digm overemphasizes the significance of Clas. some attention (e.g., Baker 1963; Beck 1973; ing to West Africa, probably with slavers. 5 All but was dominated by scholastic discussions or sical antiquity, to the degree that it obscures Broe 1980), but the originality and quality of we hJ.ve to attest 10 his lcJrning J.re the surviv­ the excerpting of older texts, seldom introduc­ the acuity and originality of Renaissance obser­ Spanish geography during the period has been ing letters in his handwriting (see facsimiles ing materials derived from personal observa­ vational skills and comprehension. underappreciated, even by Spanish authors reproduced in Thacher 1967, Ill, 84-490; with tion. The three realms of natural history, con· The discoverers, explorers, and observa­ (see Becker 1917; Martinez 1945; Arfja 1972, discussion in Varela 1982, li-lvii); his script was sisting of animals, plants, and minerals, had tional scientists of the Renaissance were at best versus Menendez Pidal 1944), The emphasis is bold and sophisticated, varying in execution been studied in a compartmentalized fashion, familiar with a very limited selection of Classical necessarily selective, and several key authors according to the formality of the occasion, and without a grasp of fundamental interconnec­ works, that were frequently cited only for ef. have been chosen for closer examination. This comparable to that of educated scribes and tions, except as an expression of a divine plan. feti, sometimes in the final stages of revision focus on individuals is not an attempt to create notaries of the time.6 Any doubts about ln many ways it was a period of introverted (see Cieza de Le6n 1984, xxxiii, n. 12). Strabo, new icons; it is essential to elucidate the inter­ Columbus's ability as a cartographer and geom­ reilection on the self-sufficient truths provided an available and obvious source, was barely ests, abilities, and limitations of the period. eter are laid to rest by one of his diagrams by theology, and the individual was part of an used, and Columbus's consultation appears to The differences among the individuals selected showing a three-dimensional projection, con­ ahislorical cycle of life and death, of suffering have been very selective and from a derivative also reveal the degree to which the evolution verted from a sphere to a plane (see Harley in llw present and anticipated reward in the digest in his possession (see Broe 19110, 18,200; of sixteenth-century Spanish gcogr,1phy was 1990, 42, fig. 36), which is found ;:imong his hereafter. Harley 1990, 37, 42). More influential was mullilinear, not unilinear. Geography itself was annotated copies of l'to1crny, /\l.1rco Pohi, .ind The rediscovery of Antiquity provided a new Pliny's Natural History {1940-56), the de facto the unifying theme, rather than a by-product D'Aitly (see Taviani 1985, 446-55; Harley 1990, sense of history, identifying new role models encyclopedia of the Renaissance (Broe 1980, of this scientific evolutlon. 34-43). His report on the Third Voyage (1498-- of scholars-not only soldiers or kings---who 15). For cartography and navigation, the tables 1500) also makes numerous references to Clas­ had made their mark in a secular world of the of geographical coordinates by Ptolemy (1932), sical authors then only available in Latin (see living. Renaissance scholarship included indi­ and the maps attributed to him, provided a Observation: Christopher las Casas 1965, I, 482-96). viduals who were motivated and willing to em· direct or indirect datum for most large·scale Columbus Columbus was essentially sclf~taught, as he bark on a new search, with a fresh curiosity. charts from the mid-1300s to the early 1500s. 1 admitted in a letter of 1501 to the monarchs of Only a minority of these had both the talent Geography during this period was a part of The discovery of the New World initiated an Spain: and boldness to emphasize the empirical and what was called cosmography (Waldseem0ller unprecedented interest in geography and nat· In navigation [God] endowed me generously, of the inductive, to reexamine deductive theories 1966), which included astronomy and nautical ural history. Somehow, earlier maritime discov­ astronomy he gave me what was needed, and the critically, and to draw conclusions from direct science, particularly as applied to cartography. eries by Europeans had failed to generate evoc­ same of geometry and arithmetic, with the talent observation or experiment. Although time­ But between WaldseemUllerwriting in 1507 and ative reports of new lands and peoples. Even of mind and hand to draw this globe and upon it honored religious beliefs set constraints to dis· Munster (1968) in 1550, cosmography also the exploration of West Africa instigated by the cities, rivers and mountains, islands and ports, all in their proper place (Varela 1982, 251; Las Casas cussion, the Renaissance was the beginning of began to include what today would be called Portugal's Prince Henry "the Navigator" (see 1965, I, 31) {all translations by author). a spirit of free enquiry, with renewed interest physical and cultural geography. Fernandez Armesto 1987, 185-200) led to such in verification, accuracy, and systematic under. The present paper is directed to the origins, dreary works as the Cr6nica da Guine (Beazley Accordingly, he hewed to a pragmatic, carto­ standing. · rapid gro\.Yth, and crystallization of physical and Prestage 1896-98), a leaden saga of seafar· graphic tradition of the period, one concerned 546 Butzer From Columbus to Acosta 547

wlth the making of geographically realistic Kelley 1988, folio 24 vuelto 45-25 recto 1). Two there are suggestions of partial comprehen­ executed in Spain, it later had great impact on maps intended for the practical world of navi­ sources derived from the lost diary of the Sec. sion.3 It was his articulation and dissemination physical observation in the Americas. As recon· gation (see Campbcll 1987). 7 and Voyage (1493-96) offer the first description of his ideas, his way of putting words together, structed from the surviving materials (F. Co16n Columbus's insight and intellectual impact of a mangrove coast on the southern shores of and his rhetoric that provoked scientific inter­ 1908-15), its purpose was to: deseive more sympathy than has been ac­ Cuba; H was replete with cienegas and swamps est in a New World that he himself refused to (a) Inventory all settlements, their dependen­ corded him by Carl Sauer (1966, chap. 2) and for tv,ro leagues inland, with almost impenetr· believe was new. Columbus, though at times a cies or abandoned sites, any castles or mon­ Kirkpatrick Sale (1990, chap. 5), Whatever his able thickets of plants and trees (F. Col6n 1984, medieval visionary and mystic and given to Bib­ asteries, lhe distance to the municipal motives and however annoying his use of hy­ 189). "According to Columbus this region is lical metaphors and prophecies, demonstrated boundaries in different quadrants, and the perbole, Columbus attempted to inform about completely submerged and covered with water tenacity as an explorer and a longing for great. Jurisdiction (royal, aristocratic, monastic) to the new lands he saw. His descriptions of the and its coasts are marshy and full of trees" ness and discovery that mark him as typically which they belonged. people and their lifeways, incidental to his nar­ (Martyr 1964, 139). modern and, in thought, action, and results, (b) Determine the number of resident house­ ratives about encounters with the indigenous Finally, there are Columbus's instructive, if unlike other of the great personages of the holds (vecinos), presumably as ba'>ed on d~batablc, climatological ideas. He explained Middle Ages (Gerbi 1985, 13). inhabitants, contain rnuc:h useful ethnographic local tax rolls and provided by the town information (sec Sauer 1966, chap. 3) and novel the great heat of the Bahamas by their tow councils. insights on the physical environments of the elevation and the prevailing easterly winds (c) Record the quality of land in each territory (Oct. 29). On the daily tropical showers, he Landscape Taxonomy: Fernando New World. (casco); this included location with respect Columbus was untutored in the sciences, noted that late in every day a cloud bank Colon to rivers and mountains, types of land use, and his lack of botanical knowledge frustrated formed on the western part of Jamaica, result­ and over 15 more-or-less standardized cate­ him: "l believe there are many plants and trees ing in rain for an hour or less; this he attributed Fernando, born out of wedlock in C6rdoba gories of topography and natural or sponta· (in the Bahamas) worth much in Spain as dyes to the great forests of the island, with reference in 1488, was the son of Columbus who had neous vegetations (fable 1). These charac· or medicinals but I do not recognize them, to his previous experience on the Canaries, intellectual ambitions, and who had a pro. teristics were recorded along all roads in all which I greatly regret" (see Spanish transcrip· Madeiras, and Azores (July 1494, F. Co16n 1984, found, if little-known, impact on Spanish geog­ directions, specifying rough dist,rnces to tion of the First Voyage dia,y, by Dunn and 193-94). He appended a remarkable ecological raphy for a century. At the age of five he saw each change of kind use or l;:rndscape, Kelley [1988, folio 15 recto, lines 25-281). But note. On those Atlantic islands, "they have cut his father off at the docks of Sevilla, and aboard hence the designation of the project as an his lack of formal training did not prevent his so much forest and trees that hindered them the Fourth Voyage he served as chronicler in ltinerario ·(Itinerary). from venturing comparisons of the New World [from expanding cultivation} that such clouds 1502-04 (F. Co16n 1984, 162, 288). In between, palms with those of West Africa or the Medi. and rains no longer form as they once used to." he was a page at the royal court and privately This effort was funded by the crown, with terranean: "They have a great number of palms The observation is telling because it shows that tutored, in part by a key historian of the voy­ salaries paid to a team of assistants who lrav· of a different kind than those of Guinea or our Columbus was aware of and concerned about ages, the Italian humanist Peter Martyr (c. eled around the country, following explicit but own, of medium height, with smooth trunks environmental degradation on the recently-set­ 1458-1526). At least some of the natural history lost guidelines, presumably issued by Fer· and very large fronds" (Dunn and Kelley 1988, tled Madeira islands. observations on the Central American coasts nando. folio '18 recto, 13-16), nor from recognizing six Much in the manner of more recent field were probably made by Fernando, including Close to 10,000 settlements (perhaps 80 per­ to eight different classes of palms (1493 letter observers, Columbus repeatedly drew analo­ the first description of pineapples (F. Co16n cent of those in Spain at the time) were inven· in Varela 1982, 141). He also noted the distinc. gies bet\.veen the Old World and the New: a 1984, 317). He was on Hispaniola in 1509, after toried before the project was terminated by tiveness of the trees, fruits, and plants of Cuba similar tree but with larger leaves than a coun­ which he was sent to Castile to study, "because royal decree in 1523, possibly in retaliation for and of Hispaniola (see Varela 1983, 141). And terpart on an Aegean Island (Nov. 12); live oaks he was inclined to the sciences and had many a renewed round of litigation against the gov­ he commented on the unusual association of and arbutus (madror'ios) as in Castile (Dec. 7), books" (las Casas 1965, II, 370). Indeed, he ernment initiated by Fernando in that year (De pines and palms growing in one river valley healthy river waters as compared with pestilen­ spent much of 1512-16 studying at the Spanish la Rosa 1906; Ponsot and Drain 1966; Arranz, in (vega), whose surface alternated between level tial ones of Guinea (Nov. 27), finely cultivated Franciscan monastery in Rome, under the hu. F. Co16n 1984, 17). Incomplete and lacking hills (montes llanos) and low plains (baxos) lands recalling the plains of C6rdoba (Dec. 14), manist Pedro de Salamanca (De la Rosa 1906; official sanction, the results were never col· (Dunn and Kelley 1988, folio 29 recto, 26-28; weather like April in Castile (Dec. 13), or moun­ Ponsot and Drain 1966). lated into the planned, alphabetical gazetteer see also Humboldt 1845-47, 11, 56). tains like those of Sicily (Oct. 28). Fernanrlo was precocious by any stanrlarcls. (Vocabufario), from which a land use and phys· He likewise demonstrated an intuitive grasp Some of the comparisons were motivated by He was captain-general of the fleet sailing b,H.:k ical map of Spain app.1rcntly w.-i:; to be con­ of geomorphology. He found it remarkable natural curiosity, others by economics, and from Hispaniola in ·1509; a year later he began structed. The notebooks of raw data were left that the steep slopes of tall mountains were others still by sheer aesthetics. They give point the complex lawsuits against the crown, in re­ to gather dust in the remarkable private library densely vegetated and not rocky (Nov. 14 and to his verbal paintings of an exuberant tropical gard to the titles and New World revenues due of 15,300 volumes and manuscripts that Fer­ 26, 1492), and that broad rivers debouching vegetation, nourished by an eternally spring· to the heirs of Columbus, who had died nando left behind at his death in 1539. When into the sea lacked sand or gravel bars (Nov. like climate, and inhabited by peaceful and wealthy but frustrated in 1506; he proposed a that library was rescued, at the end of the nine­ 27), both phenomena that we would now attri­ naked innocents. Columbus thus created an circumnavigation of the globe a decade before teenth century, only 4,400 of the town invento­ bute to deep tropical weathering. On another image of an Edenic land that was at once prim· Magellan; and in 1517 he began what was ries and 5,000 of Fernando's books had sur­ occasion he defined a ca/a (a local term for itive yet familiar, and in so doing his rhetorical probably the most ambitious national project vived. drowned valleys of the Balearic Islands and analogies delineated a powerful theme in Euro· yet conceived for Spain, a countrywide geo· Nothing like the Itinerary had ever been con­ Sardinia; see Butzer 1962) as "a narrow jnlet pean humanistic thought. He demonstrated an graphical survey. ceived before. t--lowever abortive or premature where sea water enters the land" (Dunn and ability to observe, compare, and describe, and Although this project was designed for and it may have been, this sophisticated geograph· 548 Butzer From Columbus to Acosta 549

ical survey represents the first attempt to de­ Table 1. Land Use and landscape Classes lands belonging to the town, and the nature of Bishop Las Casas over the character of the New velop and implement a comprehensive field Utilized for the Geograpl-iical Survey of Spain Indian agriculture and handicrafts (as liable for World Indians, whom he had refused to ideal­ approach to the cultural and physical land­ (1517) by Fernando Col6n~ taxes in kind), together with a description of ize, and Las Casas intervened to effectively stop scape. Arable land the topographic setting-llano, espalda, sierra, publication of the remaining volumes (see Without questioning the pivotal role of Fer­ Wheat cultivation (tierra de pan or labores, and Fragosa (rugged) are common terms. Veg­ Hanke, in las Casas 1965, I, xxii-xxiii), which nando in conceptualizing his geographical sur­ /abranza) etation was characterized by such words as were not printed until the 1850s. vey, the concepts and terminology used (Table Olive groves (Olivares) sabana (open parkland) or monte (woodland); The bulk of Oviedo's work is devoted to the Vineyards (villas) 1) do not seem to have been his own. In his Irrigated tracts (huertas) when trees were suitable for timber or history of Spanish exploration and conquest, biography of Columbus, Fernando Co16n Minor categories, including almond, fig, citrus, firewood, the accounts may specify oak, pine, but even his derivative accounts single out im­ (1984) employed a fairly sophisticated geomor­ apple, etc. orchards or groves or key tropical forms. Other features noted portant geographic and biotic data, such as the phologic vocabulary, including terms such as Grazing land and degraded woodland (monlc bajo) include potential pastures for livestock, the comparison of the cold-temperate biota of montana, collado (hill), pefla (hilltop, cliff), Desigr1ated pastures (de/Jesa) presence of wet lowlands (ciCnegas), and Patagonia and Newfoundland (Alvarez: 1957). 1/anura (plain), planicie (plane), cienega Rough grass and shrub (esparlinas, monte de springs or rivers suitable for irrigation. The For areas Oviedo knew first hand, his accounts (marsh), fango (swamp), arroyo, espafda (high atocha) similarities with Fernando's project are too are substantive as well as evocative; they teem Sderophyllous scrub (fentiscafes, romerales, slope, mountain crest), pertascosa (cliffed), matorrales) close to be coincidental, demonstrating that with nostalgic, comparative images of town­ pecfregosa (rocky) and quebrada (broken to­ Thorny scrub (mantes jara/es) the idea of the geographical survey was by no scapes and landscapes in Spain or Italy (Gerbi pography), none Qf which are used in the Itin­ Scrub oak (chaparra/es, maraflales, carrascojas) means forgotten in the deliberations of gov­ 1985, 188-94). In an era when academics wrote erary (Table 1). Only llano, cerro, and aspera Palmetto scrub, possibly abandoned farm land ernment at the highest level. Surprising, too, in restrained Latin, Oviedo deliberately pre­ (pafmares) are common to both, while sierra, Joma, Rocky surfaces with shrubs (berroca/es) is the implication that lower-placed officials sented his materials in Spanish, salting his text cuesta, derribadero, and doblado are exclu­ had the competence to make reliable observa­ with vignettes of Spanish abuse of the Indians, Primary or secondary forest (monte alto) sively found in the Itinerary. Most important, Deciduous oak (robledaf) tions of great value for the landscape recon~ quips about greedy clerics or armchair histori­ monte in the Itinerary is exclusively used in the Uve oak (encinal, carrascaf) struction of sixteenth-century Mexico (see ans, and candid personal anecdotes. His enthu­ traditional Spanish sense of scrub or woodland Cork oak (a/cornoca/) Butzer and Butzer forthcoming). siasm for the natural world is illustrated by an vegetation, whereas for Fernando it was a hill Pine (pinaf, pinar) incident from his travels between Panama ar,d or low mountain, equivalent to cerro. This sug­ Topography and landforms Nicaragua (August 1S27). Spotting what he gests that the vocabulary and possibly also the Floodplain (llano de ribera def rio, vega) Biotic Taxonomy: Oviedo thought were live oaks, in the mountains above systematic approach should be credited to Level plain (//ano, tierra Ilana, campifla) the Gulf of Nicoya, he noted that the trees had Irregular plain (tierra doblada) unidentified Spanish collaborators. Certainly Rough, dissected topography (tierra aspera or Scientific research only began in the New no acorns. So he stopped his party and had his the vegetation categories are those of derribadera) World thirty years after Columbus's fateful voy­ companions search the ground around the Spaniards with rural backgrounds and, not sur­ Flat-topped hill (loma) age, and it was initiated by an unlikely source. trees until they found a dozen acorns: Hill or peak (cerro) prisingly, none of these terms are used by Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo (1478-1557) was And I ate them, though they were somewhat dry; Col6n (1984) in his Caribbean accounts. Mountain and valley country (sierras y val/es) Escarpment (Cuesta) a royal official with humanistic credentials who and they were no more nor less than in Spain--live The only potential consultants of Fernando once translated a novel of chivalrous love into oaks in terms of the tree and the leaf, as well as that can be identified are Pedro de Salamanca, 'Derived from F. Co16n (1908-1S); see also De la Rosa Spanish. Raised at the Spanish court, he spent the fruit (fern3n

ized under the categories of quadrupeds .sion that Oviedo relied heavily on Native Amer­ or material phenomena such as property, pacity of the Indians." The seemingly strange (book 12), fishes (book 13), birds (book 14), ican informants, although he did not admit it. labor, dwelling, food, or technology. behaviors can be explained, he argued, by dif· and insects (book 15), witb the recognition Oviedo's general contributions to understand­ In the unhappy tradition of European ethno­ ferent beliefs and world views, and in this rel· that most, but not all, of these diverse ani­ ing the aboriginal inhabitants and their customs centrism, while some enlightened individuals ativist context, the New World peoples did not mals belonged to families represented in also have value. He had no illusions about sought to understand, many others recklessly merit the pejorative connotation of "barbaric." the Old World. human nature, and was impartial in his criti­ destroyed the cultural diversity that they en­ But his ethnographic materials are so highly cisms of Spaniards and Indians and their foibles countered in the "New" World. Not surpris­ selected and sanitized that they retain little Oviedo was the first to confront the dazzling (see also Gerbi 1985, chap. 19). He heaped sar­ ingly, perhaps, some of the most explicit ac­ value. 11 His dogmatic conclusions that human profusion of unfamiliar plants and animals that castic abuse on Pedrarias, De Soto, and certain knowledgments of Native American creative sacrifice and cannibalism once were universal made New World biogeography so daunting a other conquistadors noted for their brutality capacity and achievement come from some of traits and that this demonstrated "a higher con­ sulijctl. hcitcd but unperturbed, he impoSl!d (sec also S;ilas 1CJS4), and he blamed the lndi;in the men who knew them best-the cnn1111istJ­ cept of God'' among "the most religious peo­ order through a taxonomy which organized life demographic collapse on Hispaniola squarely dors. f lcrnan Cortes, in his letter of 15'..!.0 to the ples" (lJs Cas.is 1%7, ll, thaps. ·1s7, IUS) arc forms into morphological classes and define.: on the Spaniards: forced labor and other gross emperor, expressed wonder at the splendors particularly disturbing. ated commonalities and differences with Old abuses, the resulting suicides, and on smallpox of Tenochtitlan (later, Mexico City), its mar­ More solid contributions to understanding World forms. For unfamiliar genera or families, (Fernandez de Oviedo 1959, I, 67). His compar­ kets, and the great temple in a classic descrip­ New World cultures were advanced by the he applied indigenous names that, at the time, ative analysis of Spanish exploration or con­ tion, expanded in 1552 by his biographer, early Franciscans in Mexico. Diego de Landa wt•rc rapidly ,H quiring an almost universal cur· quest of different parls of the ArneriGl!i not I 6pez di' C.Omara ("1966, 11 147-58; SN• the controlled missionary activities in the Yucatan rency in the tropical colonies of Spain (J. O. only convinced him of the common nature of prose of Simpson ·19&<1, ·156-.67). Indeed, most 15119--79, and although ht~ was responsible: for Sauer 1976)-the "folk taxonomy" that was humanity in both world hemispheres, but he of the ethnographic materials synthesized by burning countless Mayan documents (see Lov­ generally practiced before the binomial was the first to recognize that indigenous peo­ Fern.indez de Oviedo (1959) came from the ell 1991), he also assembled an invaluable ac­ l inn..1e.in cl,1ssific..1tion. t lis natur.il history was ples of southeastern North America, the Carib­ chronicles of minor conquistadors or their count of ancient Maya cthnogr.iphy, history, published promptly, translated into several Eu­ bean, and South America had varying forms more articulate rank-and-file. Arnong the l.ittcr and religion. Based on his own experiences as ropean languages, and had a profound and levels of human culture (i.e., cultural com­ is Cieza de Le6n (1985), who assembled the well as oral and written information, this ac-· scientific impact. plexity, a concept later explicated by Acosta first history of the Inca from oral testimony count included "the first accurate knowledge Oviedo modeled his taxonomy on Pliny [1%2, 6.191). Ballesteros (1957) further detects given by Indian informants. of the hieroglyphic writing" (Tozzer, in Landa {1940-56), with whom he was familiar, rather an implicit recognition of an historical progres­ The most successful students of cultural phe­ 194·1, vii). Toribio de Benavente Moto!infa than on Theophrastus's more sophisticated sion of culture. nomena are found among the ranks of the mis­ (1969, 1971), one of the "first twelve" mission· conception of plant morphology and ecology, Like Columbus, Oviedo came to the New sionaries. The first of these came to the Amer· aries to arrive in Mexico in 1524, also authored which he did not know. But unlike Pliny, World as an amateur and was promptly filled icas with Columbus on the Second Voyage. works which include a wealth of ethnographic Oviedo's descriptions and organization were with wonder by what he saw. But unlike Co­ Although working with little christianizing suc· description on the pre-Contact Aztecs and based on years of empirical observation, lumbus, Oviedo became a dedicated scholar cess on Hispaniola 1493-96, the obscure some of their archaeological sites. Yet unlike guided by m·o firm principles: accuracy and who produced the first great scientific work on Jeronymite friar Ramon Pane (Panel) evidently Pane, who slips at times into an "insider" pre­ inductive approach." By virtue of his lack of the New World. No less an authority than Hum­ listened with great care. He was able to re· sentation, Motolinia's mode remains that of an formal training, Oviedo broke the mold of Me­ boldt (1845-47, II, 298) believed that the foun­ count the origin myth, beliefs in the hereafter, "outsider." dieval herbalists, who organized their plants dations of modem physical geography were and ritual medical practices, as well as obser­ The main Dominican contribution, com­ alphabetically, not comparatively (Alvarez laid in the studies of Oviedo and Acosta (see vations on ethnic and linguistic distributions of pleted In 1581 by Diego Duran ('1967), recon­ 1957). 12 In consequence, he offered a bold, bi­ below). the Tafno people (as in F. Coton 1984, 205-29; structed Aztec historical annals and their ritual ological macro-framework for the New World see Wilson 1990 on their culture). Even by calendar, based on indigenous informants and as well as the first systematic study of natural modern anthropologi!=al standards, this ac­ manuscript sources. His writings are inter­ history since the time of Pliny (first century Cultural Landscapes: Sahagun count is remarkably objective, and qualifies as linked with those of his Jesuit relative, Juan de A.D.). a first effort to record the self-perspective of Tovar. A specialist in three indigenous lan­ Allhough Oviedo seems not to have under­ The biggest challenge for the first European another people. Pane's account is con1p!e­ guages, Tovar was cr,mrnissioncd in 1576 by the stood the principles of ecology, his work is observers in the New World was the encounter mentcd by the descriplive ethnogrJphy of the Viceroy of New Spain to write the history of the filled with suggestions of ecological associa· with new pc()plcs possessed of unfamiliar and Sevill.:1110 physician for the expedition, Diego indigenous people he was to govern, "with the tion that elevate it from taxonomy to biogeog­ puzzling languages, lifeways, beliefs, and val­ Alvarez Chanca (Jane 1988, I, 20-73; Gerbi assistance of the native historians and their raphy. His is the only document we have that ues. The problem, then, has been to grasp the 1985, 23-26). Although Las Casas (1967, II, 178) books" (Warren 1973, 80). Although this work describes the drcum-Caribbean region in a rel­ indigenous vision of an indigenous world, to maliciously described Pane as a Catalan who was lost, it was used extensively in another atively unmodified biotic state (Alvarez 1957). move from description to understanding. That spoke Castilian poorly and was a bit simple­ Jesuit study (Acosta 1962) of the indigenous Equally important, Oviedo offered a detailed vision was elusive because Native American minded, Las Casas himself fares poorly by com­ civilizations of the New World. These investi­ and focused account of economic botany that reading of the landscape was set in a different parison. gations, encouraged by the government, signal remains unique, and that retains its importance cosmological perspective (see Licate 1980), one Las Casas (1967) assembled a massive corpus a period of genuine and sensitive scholarly ac­ for the cultural geography of peoples in the which cast the supernatural, the individual, and of information during the 1540s-50s on the rit­ tivity devoted to Aztec social history, one which region who have become extinct. In reading the community in unaccustomed interrelation­ uals and customs of various New World peo­ presupposes the existence of indigenous doc­ these sections, one repeatedly has the im!)res- ships, and lent different meaning to concepts ples in order "to demonstrate the rational ca- umentation which, like many of the missionary 552 Butzer From Columbus to Acosta 553

writings, has been destroyed or "lost" in pri· has an entrance, vaulted, with cross beams, with a recognize the linkages between the world of also exemplary and can be reproduced in trans­ vale collections. covering ... (Sahagun 1969, XII, 27Q-.71). appearances and the cognitive structures be· lation: The finest cultural research of the sixteenth Klar (1988) regards SahagUn as "the father of neath it that influence individual and group The region of Collao has many snow-capped century, the great Florentine Codex, was ac· modern ethnography," and he offers an in­ actions, a discovery made possible by his lin­ wastes and mountains, as well as plains covered complished by the Franciscan friar Bernadine sightful discussion of Sahag\Jn's methodology guistic analyses. But SahagUn himself was only with good paslures that serve the domestic live­ de Sahagun (1499-1590). Born in a small town and the problems of relating indigenous con­ rediscovered in the 18805, and his semiotic stock wandering across them. In the middle is a lake, possibly the largest and widest in {South of Le6n, Sahagun came in 1529 to Mexico, ceptions to European categories. Entering conceptualization of culture and landscape America], and most of the towns of Collao lie next where he occupied his next forty years with Aztec culture as a participant observer, Saha­ should attract postmodern cultural geogra­ to it. The cultivated land [and anything of value] is Aztec linguistic and cultural studies, materials gun saw the native cultures as equal and, in phers today (see Rowntree, et al. 1989, 213-14). found on large islands within the lake, because that have attracted the attention of a century some ways, superior to imported European cul­ these are deemed safer than the towns, which lie along the roads. of intcrnulional scholarship. Completed in tures. He grasped what is now called cultural This region is so cold that not only docs ii lack final form in 1579, the thirteen-volume work relativism, that each culture is rich in hurnan Regional and Synthetic fruit orc.:hards, but maize is not grown bc<..iuse it (Sahagun 1950-69) constitutes an encyclopedia information, and 'that the values embraced by Geography: Cieza de Leon will not ripen, for the same reason. There are great of Aztec culture, recorded in their Nahuatl lan­ the people who share that culture have merit. numbers of birds of many kinds in the reed .guage with abbreviated Spanish translations. He "remained convinced that the conquest of The talent to integrate environmental and marshes of this lake, including large ducks and other fowl, and two or three kinds of tasty fish .... Ranging across cosmology, philosophy, sod· the New World brought only one arguable cultural information in spatial and logical terms The lake is so large that its circumference is 330 ety, natural history, economic bo1any, and the gain: religion" (Nicolau and Cline 1973, 207; may be inborn rather than learned, at least if km and its depth [according to Captain Juan artifactual realm, the materials stem from de­ Nicolau 1987). Pedro Cieza de Le6n is taken as an example. Ladri11ero, going out with his brigs] 25 fathoms or cades of in-depth interviewing of indigenous The Florentine Codex marks the close of sen­ Cieza (1984) was raised in Llerena, an Ex­ so, more in some parts, less in others. This size, informants in several towns, whose responses and the waves raised when the wind blows, sug­ sitive research into Native American cultures in tremaduran town of 5000 inhabitants when he gests an embayment of the ocean. It is not known to a structured questionnaire were transcribed Hispanic America. In 1577 the Inquisition and and his parents embarked at ?evi!te for Colom­ why so much water is held in this lake or where in Nahuatl and in the cultural style of the infor­ the Council of the Indies barred or suppressed bia in 1535. At the time he was either thirteen that water comes from: although there are m.:iny mants. Of particular interest to geography are works in native languages by the missionaries. or seventeen years old (his books give hvo streams and arroyos flowing into it, this seems parts 10-12, dealing primarily with crafts and They ordered SahagUn's manuscripts to be versions), but within a year he was campaign­ inadequate, mainly because the lake is also drained [by a deep river that flows strongly] ... Possibly trades, markets and eccmorny, architecture and turned over, but fortunately they were saved by ing up and down the Andes as a common sol­ the 0(•1ugt~ left this w.ltc-r bd1ind because, as I s1•e construction methods, medicinal plants, and the Inquisition's censor in Mexico who held dier. In describing the hardships, he com­ it, it shuu!d be salty rather th.in frc~h if it had been the Aztec perception and classification of the different views (Nicolau and Cline 1973). This plained of the exorbitant price of a piece of part of the ocean, and furthermore the sea is 300 environment. These sections contain almost reversal of policy, directed from Rome, en­ paper, implying that he was taking notes. His km away . The great lake of Collao is called Titicaca, after two-thirds of the '18--16 indigenous illustrations tailed fundamental changes in missionary strat­ terse, informative, and evocative, prose indi­ the temple built on it ... (Cieza 1984, chap. 103). (see Quiiioncs 19811) found in the work, but egies which the Archbishop of Mexico and the cates an educated man; but that education which so far have only been published as mendicant orders in New Spain strenuously must have been largely informal, acquired on Ciez.l's account rivals the regional geographies simplified sketches (Glass and Robertson 1975, but vainly resisted. From Moto\inia in the 1520s his own and on-the-go. He died young, in 1554, of the nineteenth century, which is all the more 190-92). to Sahagun in the 1580s, the goal had been just as his introductory volume to a four•tomed remarkable because Cieza was untrained and An example best illustr.itcs the cornplexity of conversion, not assimik,tion. When, in the history o( Peru was published. This first hook, had no mentors or role models. Although Clas­ cultural information encoded in what to Euro­ 1590s, that benevolent Indian policy was set which relates a district-by-district geogr.iphy of sical geographers like Strabo provided good pean perception is merely a material object. In aside, particularly by the Franciscans, a steady the Andean world from Panama to Bolivia regional descriptions, they lacked the ability to explaining the term tecpancal/i, a pre-Contact erosion of cultural integrity ensued. (Cieza 1984), is of particular interest here. shift the scale of vision, to gather so much hard palace, Aztec respondents unraveled multiple The Spanish observers of the sixteenth cen­ Again and again he describes the dramatic observational data, to analyze interrelation­ levels of meaning as they connected function tury had great difficulty in finding a model with physical environment, its diversity, and the cul­ ships, or to systematically treat a large region with physical description: which to view and understand the diversity of tural landscapes and subsistence forms of its according to a particular set of criteria. Native American cultures. Through the widely various ecozones. In one paragraph he sweeps A very different type of regional geography, lt means the house of the ruler, or the government disseminated elaborations of Martyr (1964), the reader from the mangrove coasts and rain embracing most of the New World, was at­ house, where the ruler is, where he lives, or where tempted 1571-74 by l6pez de Velasco (1971), the rulers of the townsrncn, the householders, Columbus's account of the Talno of Hispaniola forests of the Pacific slope into the snow­ assemble. It is a goo

towns and 1.7 million Indian "tributariesll liable which he put to good use. In the course of his not liable to flooding; once the site was se­ begun in 1531, also conforms to the ideal type to tax or work demands as well as 40,000 Afri­ travel and sojourns, he compiled a wealth of lected, the streets, plaza, church, and house of grid layout {Yanez 1991), and many other can slaves, not counting people of partial black papers, maps, reports, and first-hand obseiva­ lots were to be laid out in an explicitly "regu­ examples in various parts of Hispanic America ancestry. tions. lar" (ordenado) manner, from the very begin­ predate 1573. Velasco's is a classic regional geography, a Vjzquez came from a poor, rural background ning. A geometric grid is evidently meant, but The ordinances merely articulated and legal­ coherent work of synthesis. First the coastlines in the olive-growing country just west o( no-particular arrangements are specified for ized a systt•m alrc.:i.dy Wldl established and in of a region are described, much in the manner Sevilla. Equipped with a primarily religious ed­ the various components. Cortes (1963, 589-90) common use 0·\ardoy 1978). But the prescribed of a navigational chart, followed by an outline ucation, and lacking the conceptual rigor or received almost identical instructions in 1523, model was not always followed. Most such grid of the topography, a description of the envi­ analytical skills of Velasco, Vazquez compen­ that added the caveat to avoid locations that towns are more or less axially oriented to the ronment, a summary of the main cultural phe­ sated for his shortcomings by a ready appreci­ were excessively windy, foggy, or steep. cardinal points, not at 45~ to them, while the nomena, and a systematic account of towns ation for complex landscapes and a lively inter­ But the details for the gridiron format were church and public buildings were always on the and agricultural activities. Miscellaneous est in the rural economy. He provides, for only specified in the "laws for settlement," plaza (or on one of tvvo plazas). Hardoy (1975) points cover topics such as climatic constraints example, unique quantitative data on wine and proclaimed in 1573 (Ordenanzas 1973, 112-25). examined 292 maps for 134 Spanish Colonial to settlement or agriculture. Historical digres­ olive oil production in Peru; he also remains a These ordinances called for towns to be organ­ towns, only 22 of which were founded before sions or travelers' "tales" are few. Unlike key source for demographic data. The Com­ ized along four main streets running at right 1600; he found that only 42 percent had been Cicza, \vho wrote spontaneously on the basis pendium spans the Hispanic dominions, and angles to a central plaza and opening to four planned from the outset, another 32 percent ol direct observation, Velasco presented a his regional descriptions brim with quality, sys­ external gates; eight additional streets should were gradually modified to conform to a regu­ more "academic" synthesis. tematic information. He was unsparingly criti­ diverge from the cardinal directions at the cor­ lar plan, and 26 percent evolved spontane­ The work's rigor and systematics make it a cal of what he regarded as short-sighted and ners of the plaza. Diagonal alignment of the ously. In short, the ordinances were not very volume of lasting historical scientific interest, abusive administration of the indigenous peo­ square and axial streets was thought to avoid effective after 1600. as is shown by Menendez Pidal's (1944) recon­ ples, by both church and state; yet his own direct exposure to unpleasant winds. The lawn Some authors argue th,,t the Hispanic Amer­ struction of a New World geography for about attitude was paternalistic, and unrelieved by square was to be rectangular, with a ratio of ican grid plan was influenced by (or even 1570, based primarily on Velasco. The moder­ sophistication for other cultures. At the time of 1 :1.5, varying from 60 by 90 m to 240 by 460 m, grounded in) the Roman architect Vitruvius or nity of his secular and empirical synthesis, con­ his sudden death, his manuscript was in press, depending on the initial and expected size of Classical town models, and Mendoza's remod· ceived at a global level through its inclusion of and like so many others, it remained unpub­ the town. One ordinance specified that, ac­ eling of Mexico City was indeed influenced by oceanic navigation and East Asia (L6pez de lished. cording to Mediterranean custom, tho church the Italian archited and planner, Leon B.i.ttist,1 Velasco 1971, 29--49, 273-309), contrasts .with To the works of Cieza, Velasco, and Vazquez should be on the highest point and not neces­ Alberti (1404-72), who drew many ideas from the continuing use of an obsolete Ptolemaean can be added a variety of other travel reports sarily on the plaza, with the public buildings Vitruvius (Tovar 1985). But most new towns in framework and a theological paradigm to the or regional histories, with enlightening geo­ located between the two (Ordenanzas 1973, Europe founded after about 1200 already had end of the century for presenting new geo­ graphical introductions. Collectively they show 124). Where possible, location on a river or some form of regular layout long before the graphic inform,,tion in Central Europe that synthetic as well as analytical geography coast was recommended, with sanitation dic­ delayed publication of Alberti's book in 1485 (Menendez Pidal 1944, 4; see also Ptolemy was an integral part of what would now be tating that craft centers be located near the {e.g., Hardey 1975; Kubler 1978; Benevolo 1966; Mi.inster 1968, BUttner and Burmeister described as scientific thinking in sixteenth­ water. 1980).'~ Considering the inordinate role of lead­ 1979). Unfortlmately, Velasco's prototype for century Spain. That normative geography was These ordinances are remarkable in that they ing conquistadors or administrators in deter­ synthetic geography remained unpublished espoused in government circles should there­ dictate norms for urban planning more than mining the actual forms of the first planned until the fourth centenary of Columbus's voy­ fore come as no surprise. tvvo centuries before the rectangular suivey towns in the New World, it seems more rea· age. Although Velasco's work had no impact began to create checkerboard town plans in sonable to attribute urban evolution to adapta­ on geographical scholarship, it deseives to be the U.S. The approximate grid plan for Santo tion of already familiar Spanish prototypes to considered as a precursor to Carl Ritter and Government Geography and Domingo (1502) was_ laid out without instruc­ new opportunities and requirements: the avail­ Elise Redus. Town Planning: Lopez de Velasco tions to that effect {see CDl 1879, vol. 31, 17). ability of abundant space; the need _to quickly This first epoch of Spanish geographical in­ The 1522 foundation document for Nata, Pan­ establish a few dozen initial settlers;· the prior­ quiry aptly concludes with another compen­ The role of Spanish government policy in ama specified a traza ("trace"), implying a reg­ ity of economic over defensive strategics, fa­ dium of a New World regional geography, Iha! urban planning is relatively well know_n (see ular layout, and informs us that the principal voring level terrain and the conjunction of falls a little beyond our period of cxamin.:i.tion. S!anislaw::;ki 1947), but dbagrccrnenl rnntinucs stn!

the 1573 ordinances and the role of govern­ series); (4) compilation of a New World re­ were generally quite good since their accounts once-prosperous town of Old Castile, Acosta ment in marshalling geographical information gional geography, based in part on the parish were based on interviews of long-term resi­ studied philosophy at the university of Alcala was Juan L6pez de Velasco (c. 1530-99). He reports; (5) development of a geographic and dents in Spanish towns and native elders in de Henares 1559-67. The fifteen years 1572-87 came from the remote village of Vinuesa ethnographic questionnaire dispatched to all Indian towns. In addition, many of the were spent in the Americas, almost exclusively (Soria), where his family owned some houses district magistrates in the New World (in final re/aciones included local pictorial maps, many in Peru, but he had close contacts with Tovar and irrigated fields; checks of student enroll­ form 1577) (Edwards 1969; Cline 19n); (6) the drawn by Native Americans, that illustrate six­ and Dur.in in Mexico from whom he derived ments at various institutions of higher educa­ questionnaire produced relaciones geogr;ificas teenth-century cultural or symbolic land­ most of his ethnographic information. tion confirm that he lacked a formal education for some 500 communities (mainly 1577-86), scapes, and sometimes include exquisite detail In his Historia natural, Acosta made (Perez-Rioja 1958). According to his last will, his now available in fourteen published volumes, on vegetation. Collectively the relaciones pro­ significant original observations on physical sister in Vinuesa lived in poverty; some of his covering parts of Mexico, the Antilles, and the vide an inestimable resource of analytical infor­ phenomena, e.g., the latitudinal organization money went to her sons that they might go to wider Andean region (Acuna 1984-88; Latorre mation on landscape change and indigenous of world climates in which he recognized that America-something that he had been unable 1920; Jimenez 1965; Edwards 1980); and (7) a cultural geography (see Edwards 1975; Bustos the rainy seasons of the tropics were linked to to do. Despite such impediments, Velasco parallel set of questions directed to towns in 1988; E. K. Butzer 1989). But that should not let the zenith of the sun (high-sun rains) (Acosta wrote respeclable works on astronomy, a nav­ Spain, which generated re/Jciones topogf3ficas us lose sight of the fundamental fact that the 1962, 2.7), contrary to the opposite argument igation guide to the Atlantic Ocean, and a re­ for another 636 communities (Nader 1990). In rc/acioncs, like other efforts of Velasco as the of Aristotle. He not only reaffirmed Columbus gional geography of the New Werle.I (see addition to these diversified and substantial ini­ first government geographer, were designed to and G6mara to the effect that the torrid zone above); he also became a national authority on tiatives in government geography and policy, facilitate imperial administration and policy at was quite habitable, but explained that equato­ the spelling and pronunciation of the Castilian Ovando and Velasco seem to have provided both the meso- and macrosca!es. In Madrid, by rial climates were moderated by relatively short language. Velasco probably received a rudi­ indirect support for the ethnographic research the 1570s, more complex modes of geograph­ days and abundant rainfall, especially where mentary education from the parish priest in of Duran, Tovar, and SahagUn in Mexico. ical understanding had begun to supersede complemented by coastal breezes (Acosta Vinuesa, and then began to work as a young The degree to which the Renaissance spirit maps as a tool of government. 1962, 2.10-11). He conceptualized the system­ government clerk in Madrid. By 1565 it appears of rationalization pervaded this effort can be Velasco's influence on sixteenth-century atic decrease of temperature with elevation in that he was an assistant, possibly responsible judged by Velasco's thirty-eight questions (with scientific observation thus was enormous. Not tropical mountains (Acosta 1962, 2.12) and thus for legal work at the Council of the Indies. The tvvelve more for coastal locations) (see Cline only did he play a catalytic role in government, anticipated the montane ecozonation of Hum­ proverbial self-made man, Velasco had no rank 1972, 234-37). Question 4, for example, re­ but he also challenged others to follow similar boldt. in his status-conscious society nor the oppor­ quested information as to whether land was norms. Indeed, Antonio de Ciudad Real (1976), Uut his major contribution rests in his expo· tunity to travel. plain or rough, open or forested; with many or a Franciscan friar traveling through Mexico in sition of a scientific and ontological framework His profound influence on Spanish geo­ few strean·1s or springs, and abundant or 1584-89 as secretary to a visiting insper.:tor, for the New World. The first half of his book graphical planning and policy was exerted in­ deficient waters; fertile or lacking in pastures; seems to have modeled his account on parts focuses on the natural world, and there he directly, through the authority of his patron, abundant or sterile in crops and sustenance. of this questionnaire, noting the environments makes tvvo basic points (O'Gorman, in Acosta Juan de Ovando y Godoy, the distinguished Site and location of each town was to be he traversed, land use around each town, and 1962, xliii-xlvli): (1) How the Americas form an jurist and statesman. Appointed to revamp the specified; was the site high or low, level or crops grown in the various monasteries. Simi­ integral part of the universe, in relation to the Council of the Indies in 1569-71, Ovando fo­ sloping (question 10)? Other questions asked larly, requests for land deeds in Mexico in­ global distribution of seas and continents, and cused his reforms on improving geographical about distance to the nearest mountains; the creasingly incorporated environmental infor­ the habitable realm; (2) How the Americas are understanding and developing a coherent nature of adjacent rivers and their sources; mation, so much so that the land-grant formed of the same four physical elements body of legislation (Cline 19n; Gonzalez, in lakes or springs serving the town; volcanoes, documents can be used to reconstruct the veg­ (earth, water, air, fire) and the same natural L6pez de Velasco 1971, v-xxxvi). Velasco im­ caves, or other notable natural phenomena in etation of the sixteenth century (Butzer and orders (~ineral, vegetal, animal) as the other plemented this effort and was appointed cos­ the vicinily; native trees common to the district Butzer forthcoming). Yet Velasco was indebted continents. The second half of his work, on the mographer and chronicler to the Council to and their potential economic use:; wild animals to the earlier efforts of Fernando Col6n: in human world, is similarly structured according that end. After Ovando's death, Velasco was and birds; information on mineral resources, many ways he merely implemented the initia­ to two arguments (O'Gorman, in Acosta 1962): removed from a position of influence in 1577 mines, or quarries; and, for coastal locations, tives of Col6n's llincrario, a concept that finally (1) That the New World peoples are an integral as the policies of church and state shifted. data on shore topography, offshore reefs, bore rich fruit sixty years later. 1s part of the supernatural world as well as of Ovando apparently served as a "front" for tides, and storms. These biophysical questions humankind, that is, spiritLJal, physical, feeling, Vdasco's prer.ocious initiatives, which in­ were complemented by requests for informa­ and rational creatures; (2) 1 hat the New World cluded: (1) reorganization and codification of tion on crops, soils, livestock, town plans, and A Scientific Framework: Acosta peoples have their own history (in part (lf

pattern of ocean currents in the North Atlantic, shares with Erasmus is his frequent use of satire ested in exploring the possibilities of historical References and later served as Chief Pilot in the Casa de to criticize Spaniards in general and churchmen geographical research in the region. Contrataci6n of Sevilla (Becker 1917, 81, 90-91). in particular. The Spanish Erasmian movement, 15. The link between Velasco and Co!6n appears to That institution in Sevilla was the key European especially as represented by Juan Luis Vives be the noted cartographer Alonso de Santa Cruz Square brackets give dates of original publication or center of navigational science from 1508 onwards (1492-1540), may, however, be pertinent, with its (1505-67), who was appointed cosmographer to manuscript termination. {Broe 1980, 194-96). For insights into its curricu­ emphasis on inductive argument. the Casa de Contratad6n in Sevilla 1536 (see Acosta, Joseph de. 1962 (1590). Historia natural y lum for ship pilots, see Lamb (in Medi_na 1972). 11. Ideal scientific procedure, according to Hum­ Carriazo 1951). He worked in Sevilla until 1564, moral de las lndias. Ed., with commentary by 8. An early appreciation of Columbus's observa­ boldt (1845--47, I, 65-70) proceeds from accurate when he moved to Madrid at the king's request. Edmundo O'Gorman. Mexico City: Fonda de tions is given by Humboldt (1845-47, I, 2%-97, observation and description to· understanding, Although there is no documentation to prove the Cultura Econ6mica. facsimile ed. with Engli~h 335; It, 55-57, 277, 299-304, 325; JV, 233,250,253, via analogy and inductio11, a view worth remem· point, Ovando's reliance on Velasco after 15(,') commentary and anthology by Barbc1ra C. 261), who lauds his poetic descriptions, and in­ bering in a time when empirical and inductive offers a pl.lu!>ib!e scenario that Vcl.i~co had al­ Beddal. Valcnci.i: Hi,panlae Scienti.i, Albatros terprets his observations on botany, wind pat­ research are denigrated by some social scientists. ready acquired astronomic and geographic expe­ terns, and magnetic declination; but at times, I In praising Oviedo's "incredible virtuosity in rience while working for Santa Cruz in Madrid. Ediciones, 1977. suspect, he reads too much into the statements botany," J. D. Sauer (1976, n. 16) states that he In 1572, Santa Cruz's great map collection was Acuiia, Rene de, ed. 1984-88. Relacion~s of Columbus. for a humanistic evaluation, see "was far ahead of his only mode!, Pliny, in accu­ transferred from his old residence in Sevilla into geogrMicas de/ Siglo XVI, 10 vol. Mexico City: Gerbi (1'JBS, chap. 2), who also emphasizes the racy and originality.~ Also in regard lo accuracy, the possession of Velasco, as the new royal cos­ lnstituto de lnvestigaciones Antropol0gicas, Uni­ GetHMll navigator's feeling for nature, as well as Ferrando (1957) emphasizes that Ovicdo's data on mographer. In his Libro de las longitudes {com· versidad Nacional AultSnoma de M!.'ixir:o. his fo1 u~ 011 difft>rt•mcs or affinities bt!lwcen the lhe Pacific Ocean wt.:re cxtrac led with great care pktcd en. 15S7), 5an1.1 Cruz notes !hat he Ailly, Pierred'. 19•11! [1-1101. Imago Mundi by Petru, biota of !he Indies and the Oki World. It is sur­ from trustworthy sources, providing a realistic pl.inned to write a geography, whilP in his /s/,1rio Ailfi,KuS. Trans. Fdwi11 F. Ki·cvcr. Wilmingtrm, prising to read in Sale (1990, 102) that Columbus's picture of exactly what was known to Europeans genera/ {completed ca. 1560), he implies !hat he NC: linprint. language is "opaque and lifeless"; I can only was working on a Genera/ geografia e historia about 'its coastlines and islands c. 1550. There Alvarez L6pe:z, Enrique. 1957. La historia natural en infer that Sale did not sample the evocative orig­ were no imaginary islands on Oviedo's mental (Carriazo 1951, clxv). Velasco would have been inal language, in favor of a "flat" English transla­ map. aware of these plans and have had access to Fernandez de Oviedo. Revista de lndias 17:541- tion. Sale (1990, 101} laments the absence of an 12. That Oviedo did not know the work of Aristotle, whatever notes that had been compiled, al­ 601. exultant description of "old-growth tropical for­ Theophrastus, or Dioscorides on plants (Butzer though no such materials are separately invento· Arija Riv:ues, Emilio. 1972. Geograf/a de Espana II: est" from the Bahamas, a curious gaffe for a forthcoming [bl), nor the late Medieval herbal ried for Santa Cruz's estate (see Carriazo 1951). Historia de la geograf/a espanola. Madrid: Es­ profossed ecologist, both in view of the subcll­ literature, is readily explained by the fact that Although Velasco's geography would not h,1ve pasa-Calpe. max woodlands of these low, hurricane-lashed these were only used in the medical curriculum been possible without Santa Cruz's maps, there Arribas Arram:, Filemon. 1965. Pafeograf[a docu­ islands and of their considerable indigenous of the time (Alvarez 1957). He was also unaware is no reason to doubt that his scientific organiza­ mental hispfinica. 2 vol. Valladolid: Universidad population in 1492. When Sale (1990, 101) further of the agricultural treatise of Gabriel Alonso de tion was his own. In 1556 or 1557 Santa Cruz de Valladolid. faults C()lun1bus for not writing ab()ut melodious Herrera (1970), published in 1513. Far more ortho­ pn!parcd a set of ins!ructions for explorers in !he Baker, J. N. L. 1963. T/Jc history of gcogr,1phy. bird songs with due excitement, I can only con­ dox as a botanist was Francisco HernJndez, Philip N1.:w World, consisting of seventeen points o~­ clude that Sale did not read the journal carefully ll's personal physician, who was sent to the New (Jimenez 1965, 2Tl.-77; Carriazo 1951, clxix­ ford: Oxford University Press. after the entry for October 28 (a scant ten of his World to collect medicinal plants (Goodman dxxiii), evidently a direct antecedent to the ques­ Ballesteros Gaibrois, Manuel. 1957. Fernandez tie for1y reforcnccs are subsequent to that date). 1988, 234-37). tie spent six years (1571-77) collect­ tionnaire of Ovando and Velasco, in terms of Oviedo, etn61ogo. Revista de lndias 17:445-67. Only a superficial reader or an ideologue could ing, drawing, and describing thousands of spe­ inventorying environmen(al features and ethno· Barreiros, Gaspar. 1952 (1542). Corograffa de algu­ conclude that Columbus ~cares little about the cies on Hispaniola and Cuba, and especially in graphic data. Item three instructs the responsible nos lugares. In Viajes de extranjeros por Espana features of nature" (Sale 1990, 102). Mexico (Somolinos 1960--84), but died shortly officials to clarify the situation of new lands, uif y Portugal, ed. J. Garcia Mercadal, vol. 1, pp. 9. There is some ambiguity in Fernando Col6n after his return. L6pez Pinero (1991) shows that they are mountainous or level, or if they are 945-1046. (1908-15, 1) about the initial entry that the Itiner­ Fern.1.ndez's illustrations were probably drawn by swampy or full of lakes, or if they are unhealthy Beazley, Charles R., and Prestage, Edgar. '1896--98. ary was ubegun~ August 3, 1517, as to whether indigenous artists. for the natives or for foreigners" (Jimenez 1965, The chronicle of the discovery and conquest of this meant the project or the writing (see De la 13. To make his case, Las Casas (1967) gleaned an 274). Items twelve and sixteen inquire whether Rosa 1906 vs. Porisot and Drain 1966). Since Fer­ endless litany of bestial customs from the Classi­ the native peoples have learned men and books, Guinea. London: Hakluyt Society, reprinted New nando had only returned from Rome in October cal authors and early church fathers, to show that suggesting that indigenous histories be obtained York: B. Franklin, n.d. 1516 and was in Spain without interruption until Old World peoples were more depraved than in order to translate them into Spanish (Jimenez Beck, Hanno. 1973. Geographie: Europiiische En­ late in 1519 (when he began his peregrinations those of the New World. But all too many of his 1965, 276)-a remarkable perspective not found twicklung in Texten und Er/fiuterungen. Frei­ throughout western Europe in search of books Old World comparative "data" are no more than in Velasco's questionnaire. These instructions of burg: Karl Alber. (see Arranz, in F. Col6n 1984, 31-37]), his major ethnocentric hearsay about foreign peoples or Santa Cruz, much like the ordenanzas for town Becker, Jer6nimo. 1917. Los estudios geogrMicos role in this effort appears to date from 1517-19. practitioners of other religions. For a more sym­ planning, form part of a chain of ideas, as can he en Espana. Madrid: Real Socierlad de Geografia. 10. O'Gorrnan (1q46) believes thal Ovicdo's conver­ seen from the instruction of Viceroy Mendoza, pathetic presentation of this complex personality, Benevolo, Leonardo. 19110. The history of the city. sion lo sdcncc began with his trip lo the court see Friede anJ Keen ('1971). In 1cgard to ritual given in M(•xico City in 15]8 to fray M,ircos for Cambridge, MA: Ml I l'rcss. of Charles Vin Brussels (15.16-17), where he de­ cannibalism in the New World, it is appropriate his exploration of Cibola; he was i11structcd to livered a formal complaint against the injustices to cite Phillips and Phillips (1992, 295, n. 22): "To make observations on the people as we!! as of Borah, Woodrow, and Cook, Sherburne F. 1%0. of Pedrarias Davita, Panama's notorious gover­ deny that cannibalism existed, one needs to as­ "the di mate of the land; the trees and plants and The population of Central Mexico in 1548: An nor. In Belgium, Oviedo was exposed to Erasm­ sume that a wide range of European commenta­ domesticated and wild animals they have; the analysis of the Suma de Visitas de Pueblos. lbero­ ian thought, if not seminars by Erasmus (c. 1466- tors simply made up the stories, an interpretation nature of the land, if it is rough (aspera) or flat Ameri-cana 43. Berkeley: University of California 1536) himself, who taught at Louvain from that defies reason, logic, and the available evi­ (Ilana); the rivers, if they are- large or small ... " Press. 1517-21. This Renaissance philosopher, a close dence." ( Jimenez 1965, 20). Perhaps Mendoza even influ­ Broe, Numa. 1980. La geographie de la Renaissance friend of Thomas More, emphasized a humanis­ 14. There is an extensive literature on urban planning enced the scope of the Suma de Visitas in 1547 (1420-1620). Paris: Bib!iotheque Nationale, tic rather than a dogmatic Christianity, based on in Colonial Latin America, and several of the (see above). 11 is interesting that Santa Cruz uses Comite des travaux historiques et scientifiques the New rather than Old Testament. According above references help identify larger collections monte and montuosa not for woodland/wooded, to O'Gorman (1946), Oviedo began to see the of papers, mostly in English. A wealth of trans­ as in prevailing Spanish usage, but like F. Col6n, (Section Geographie, 9). European enterprise in the New World as a prov· lated documents related to the Spanish colonial for mountain/mountainous-a tantalizing hint for Buisseret, David. 1992. Spain maps her "New idential mission that it was his vocation to de­ enterprise, including many of the ordinances or a possible connection with Col6n, who would World." Encounters: A Quincentenary Review 8: scribe. I have trouble discerning a utopian thread decrees cited here, can be found in Parl)' and have known Santa Cruz, as a fellow Sevillano 14-19. in Oviedo's history, and the only obvious trait he Keith (1984), a treasure trove for students inter- with shared interests. Bustos, Gerardo. 1988. Libra de /as descripciones: 562 Butzer From Columbus to Acosta 563

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