# 1491, Charles C. Mann



## UberCree (2 Jan 2006)

Have any of you historian types read this book?  I would be interested to see what you have to say about it in reference to Canadian history and if it would be a valid addition to a high school curriculum.




Friday, August 12, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 AM

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/books/2002435158_mann14.html

Book Review

"1491": Discovering what Americas were like before Columbus

By Bruce Ramsey

Special to The Seattle Times


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Charles C. Mann



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"1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus"
by Charles C. Mann
Knopf, 465 pp., $30

If the Native-American graveyard discovered at Port Angeles is evidence of a deadly epidemic, as archaeologists now suspect, it would be one of many. According to Charles Mann's "1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus," epidemics decimated the Indians of North and South America far more thoroughly than previously thought.

When the white pioneers moved west, they saw a land, thick with bison, deer and elk, and thin with humans. The emptiness, Mann writes, was a consequence of the smallpox virus.

In 1539, Hernando de Soto began a four-year trek through the American South, going from present-day Florida to Tennessee to Texas. He reported a land thick with Indians who farmed corn. In the 1600s, much of the same area was visited by the French explorer La Salle, who reported vast herds of bison but almost no people. The land had been ethnically cleansed — by smallpox.

Few people and many deer are what Francis Drake saw in California in the late 1500s. European diseases, says Mann, had arrived before most Europeans.

Mann is a science writer for Science and The Atlantic Monthly. His book is a popularization of much of the anthropology of the past 35 years. Part of it is science travelogue: He begins his book by visiting large man-made mounds in northeastern Bolivia. He travels to Incan digs in Peru and Chile, Mayan ruins in the jungles of Yucatan, and a man-made hill east of St. Louis called Monks Mound that marked a town of at least 15,000 corn farmers. He ends his account at the mouth of the Amazon, where he says there was once an Indian city of as many as 100,000.

This is not ancient-astronaut stuff. It may not be completely true — it will be a miracle if everything believed today is believed 50 years hence — but it is no doubt more accurate than the version today's adults learned in high school.

The book has several main themes. One is that the population of Indians was larger, and their societies more accomplished, than was earlier believed. (Mann mostly calls them "Indian" because in most of the Americas that's what they call themselves. "Native American," he says, is exclusively a U.S. term.)

The Indians surpassed the Europeans in some respects. The Incas' cotton clothes were more comfortable than the Spaniards' woollens and linens. In 1519, when Hernán Cortés' men reached Tenochtitlán — now Mexico City — Mann says they "gawped like yokels" at a city larger and more splendid than Paris.

The Indians met by the Pilgrims bathed regularly and noted that the Pilgrims did not; the Indians also let their kids play, while the Pilgrims put 7-year-olds to work. Not to quarrel with any of these statements, but in his eagerness to correct the idea that the Europeans were superior in all things, the author gives them credit in almost none.

  


He does this even in the matter of the wheel, which the American civilizations knew for a thousand years and apparently used only for toys. He discounts this by saying that Europe struggled with an inefficient plow for 2,000 years before inventing a better one.

Another theme of "1491" is that it is not true that the Indians lived on the land without touching it. In the Amazon they used "slash and smolder" to clear land around planted trees and build up jungle soil. In much of North America, Indians managed the land with fire. They also pushed back the hordes of bison, deer and passenger pigeons to protect their cornfields. The wilderness seen by John Muir and other 19th-century romantics was actually wilder and more forested than the America of 1491, Mann says.

Mann does not present his thesis as an argument for unrestrained development. It is an argument, though, for human management of natural lands and against what he calls the "ecological nihilism" of insisting that forests be wholly untouched.

He concludes:

"Native Americans ran the continent as they saw fit. Modern nations must do the same. If they want to return as much of the landscape as possible to its state in 1491, they will have to create the world's largest gardens."

Bruce Ramsey is an editorial writer for The Seattle Times


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## 3rd Herd (2 Jan 2006)

From reading the above extract and having taught secondary social studies my opinion is that Mann's book is more suited at the post secondary level. As a matter of act most of the above information is already covered in Pre -Confederation courses at this level. Next several west coast tribes were wiped out in inter tribal warfare. I believe the Coast Salish of today are a case in point. Recent DNA testing of those who claim to be coast Salish( don't quote on this, it has been a while) have different DNA from that recovered from burial sites. Next there are several arguments that the arrival of syphilis in North America pre dates 1491 and this was a major epidemic not small pox. It is also well know that land has a certain carrying capcity and once that is exceeded populations decline, this is particularly true for the current Mexico city area prior to the arrival of the conquistadors. Additionally several native groups were practising democracy while Europe was still under the Devinne right of kings. Here in BC the text we use for this time frame is actually quite good as it was put together by BC teachers. Next classroom/teaching time is limited and you can't get to everything so you pick and choose which means a good "survey" book is worth it's weight in gold.  Next given the current trend of mainstreaming it is more profitiable to remember the adage "KISS or  keep it simple -stupid" .As for living with the land Jane Jacobs has several excellent articles/books on the subject.
my two cents


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## UberCree (5 Jan 2006)

I remember I was in Aldershot in fall of 1995, trying to get into nightclubs that had signs posted reading "No military allowed" wearing a high and tight and practicing juijitsu (freshly taught to our unit by the Gracie brothers) in the streets... but that is all a different story to be told only after consumption of Guiness....  On the evening news one day was coverage of Bono returning from a tour of the U.S. and Canada.  After getting off the plain, the first thing he said with a sigh of relief was "It is nice to be back in a place that has history."

I know Bono is a dumb ass, but way too many Canadians and Americans believe that our history begins at contact with Eurpoeans.  In my community, on the land that I sit as I write this, we have lived for at least 2,500 years.  Some would argue we lived here before the last ice age, moved south ahead of it, then back up after it ~ over 30,000 years.  My ancestors were / are burried all around the area, have decomposed and become worm food, plant food, then animal food and back to human food.   If you believe in genetic memory the land I am living on physically carries the memories of our ancestors.  They are part of me.
Most of us, Native people included, are ignorant of the fact that our North American history was just as glorious, temultuous, exciting and horrible as Eupope or the middle east.  

I am not up to speed on what is being taught everywhere in high school history and social studies classes, but I do know that I did not learn anything about Canadian / NA history in my formal education.  I also know that currently there exists WAY too much misinformation, take for example the Syncrude gallery of Aboriginal People in Edmonton.  First thing you encounter when entering the museum display is a huge display of the Beiring Straight Theory (BS theory).  A theory which has been proven false (many references available).  The rest of the exhibit is loaded with Eupoean interpretations of contact.  Interesting, but weak in my opinion.
Canada lacks a truly defined identity in large part because we fail to acknowledge our Indigenous roots.  We fail to acknowledge that the Indigenous peoples of Canada influenced the development of Canada significantly, through 'soft power' if you will, through warfare and through intermixing, assimilation and acculturation.  Until we understand this history we will continue to suffer from an identity crisis.


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## DG-41 (5 Jan 2006)

I have that book, read it, and it is fantastic.

It makes a good companion to "Guns, Germs, and Steel"

DG


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## 3rd Herd (5 Jan 2006)

pêyak "I am not up to speed on what is being taught everywhere in high school history and social studies classes, but I do know that I did not learn anything about Canadian / NA history in my formal education."  

nîso then why are you even suggesting the book may be good at the secondary level? Obviously in your formal education you were not taught a cardinal rule "Do you Homework first" Next  the wise man FORMAL education never ends an answer allways leads to a question and the circle continues.

nisto is a huge display of the Beiring Straight Theory (BS theory). spelling error
 A theory which has been proven false (many references available).  then several archaeologist from several universities digging in the Yukon are wrong. Despite their finding having passed rigorous jury panels. Mind you they having being examining these digs for only about twenty years.

nêwo If you believe in genetic memory... I certainly do which is why there speciecs of bears for example amongst others whose DNA does not match North American bears but does match Euro-Siberian. Again a fact jurried and proven by several universities.

niyânan I also know that currently there exists WAY too much misinformation Histroy is perspective based on evidence weighed by panels of experts, yes new discoveries change old opinions which is again "do you home work one book does not make you an expert.

 nikotwâsik different story to be told only after consumption of Guiness....  interesting statement being so on the band wagon I would have figure you for a cedar brew fan. Aboriginal groups have been brewing it for years. Found it's way east through the well developed trading systems same as horses from the south.

têpakohp as for "Guns Germs and Steel " I agree that is a great book, just over the head of all but the most dedicated Gr 12 honors class.

okiskinwahamâkêw


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## a_majoor (5 Jan 2006)

I am not a fan or Jared Diamond, and find he uses a very limited set of examples to support his theories. Rapu Naui (modern day Easter Island) makes a compelling story of ecological collapse, but there are many examples of new cultures with new ideas which literally renewed the land (Egypt under the Ptolemies, using ancient Greek science and more importantly ancient Greek social and political organizations increased crop yields far beyond anything possible under the Old or New Dynasties), or were able to make use of previously unexploited resources. 

Cortes mined local volcanoes for sulphur to make gunpowder, yet the Aztecs and many previous civilizations had lived there for thousands of years and never tapped that particular resource. Oil has been known since ancient times, yet only acquired value in the 19th and 20th century with the rise of industrial civilization. The 21rst century might well belong to the nation which exploits moon dust, since the surface of the Moon traps Helium3, a potential fuel for nuclear fusion energy....

Some authors I would reccomend are Victor Davis Hanson (culture and its effect on history), Robert D Kaplan (geography and its effect on history), and Samuel Huntington (culture _is_ history).


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## UberCree (6 Jan 2006)

3rd Herd said:
			
		

> nîso then why are you even suggesting the book may be good at the secondary level? Obviously in your formal education you were not taught a cardinal rule "Do you Homework first" Next  the wise man FORMAL education never ends an answer allways leads to a question and the circle continues.



Thats why I am asking questions here bro!  If I didn't want to do my homework I would simply take the book reviews at face value and ask the community education board of directors to add the book to the curriculum.  I work at a band controlled school, we are not bound by provincial restrictions.  Obviously you did not understand the INTENT of my post.  I am asking questions, looking for insight from members of this board on the book and its value.  

As for the bering straight THEORY, I will not for a second preach that another theory has been fully accepted in its place and that there is not disagreements about its validity.  The most detailed analysis of the physical evidence I have encountered is in a book called "Bones: Discovering the First Americans" by Elaine Dewar.
http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679310657/qid%3D1136559965/701-3254662-5793100

You better go tell the guys digging up north to get with the times bro!  ;D Sure people and animals crossed the bering straight, but now archeologists are saying they also came from polynesian areas, from the east, etc. etc. in different waves over thousands and thousands of years.  Just because I did not 'formally' learn about my history doesn not mean I am ignorant and do not want to learn more.  That is exactly why I posted.

Here's some links about rethinking the bering straight theory.  I tried to find respectable ones.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/11/1106_031106_firstamericans.html
http://www.si.edu/resource/faq/nmnh/origin.htm
http://www.washington.edu/burkemuseum/kman/ancientpeoples.htm


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## DG-41 (6 Jan 2006)

Have you read the book?

It seems to me that a good start point for determining if it belongs on a curriculum would be to read it....

Note that it's pretty thick, and while it is not written in uber-scholarly language, it's not a *light* read either....

(added a little later)



> I work at a band controlled school, we are not bound by provincial restrictions.



Speaking as someone who had the complete _Lord of the Rings_ read to him in Grade 2 at public school, I think exposing students to more challenging material is never a bad thing; kids are often much brighter than we give them credit for, and a life without challenges I think does them a disservice. So while the level of the language in the book may be more college level than high school level, I don't see that as a _de factio_ disqualification of the book as potential classroom material.

Furthermore, I don't see the book as serving any particular agenda. The author is very scientific, and when he discusses facts that are in dispute, he provides the voice of both dissenting opinions (even when he supports a particular side). That in of itself is a good example for students to read. It's good to see that adults and experts can disagree and still be polite about it.

As far as the central points/themes of the book go, they are (from memory)

1) America appears to have been settled far earlier than had been first expected, in multiple waves from multiple root cultures, although there is still some dispute to exactly when and from where. Little hay is made of this; the author's main point is that America has been inhabited for a long time by *someone* (and where they came from doesn't mean much in the context of his book).

2) The population of the Americas prior to Columbus was much, much larger than previously accepted. Rather than isolated bands of hunter-gatherers living in perfect harmony with nature, Native Americans were fully realized, sophisticated, "modern" societies. In particular, the Native American hand on the environment was much firmer than is often portrayed; it seems that *all* of the Americas were being "cultivated" in some form or another; that there was no really "pristine" land to be had in the Americas.

3) Because of differences in the environment, particularly geopgraphy and the number of plants and animals availible for domestication, Native American technology, society, and biology evolved in several different directions from that of Eurasia. In some ways (particularly textiles, and arguably, government) they were superior to Eurasians. In other ways (no prime mover pack animals, the almost complete lack of the wheel) they were inferior. But overall, they were completely adapted to their environment and were in no way "primative"

4) Because of an accident of biology, (again related to a lack of livestock to act as disease vectors) Native Americans were particularly vulnerable to Eurasian diseases, especially (but sadly, not limited to) smallpox. When exposed to it, smallpox swept both continents wreaking death in numbers never before (or since) seen in human history. Smallpox basically depopulated the Americas in the interval between Columbus first showing up, and the major influx of European explorers. The roving bands of hunter-gathers we identify with being Native Americans were the survivors of mass immunulogical catastrophe, not truly representative of Native American ways of life prior to smallpox showing up.

5) I is the author's opinion that, while there was no shortage of bad behavior towards Indians by Eurasians, that this genocide was biolgically unavoidable; that even if every single Eurasian who had set foot on American soil had been a perfect saint, that the genocide would still have occured. The Indians were simply too vulnerable, and smallpox too viralent and deadly and ubiquitous.

There were some suprises in this book - the sheer scale of the amount of death, in such a short period of time, is simply STAGGERING. It's frankly horrifying; even more so because it wasn't anybody's fault - it simply was. It was also interesting to see that there is evidence that some of the tree-hugger's sacred cows (the supposed pristine nature of the Amazon rainforest, the supposedly hyper-elightened harmony with nature of the Indians) may be completely untrue. But overall, I found it a fair and balanced book that attempted to present scientific fact, rather than serve anybody's personal agenda.

It touches on and amplifies much of the content of _Guns, Germs, and Steel_ but I found it an easier and more entertaining read. The two books complement each other very well (and 1491 cites GGaS as a source)

I wouldn't object to seeing it on anybody's reading list - although I would stress that you should read it yourself before making any reccomendations as to its suitability as teaching material.
  
DG


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## UberCree (6 Jan 2006)

I ordered it from amazon last week and am impatiently awaiting its arrival.


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## 3rd Herd (6 Jan 2006)

DG 41
as I stated in my first response you do not have time in a provincial secondary school curriculum for a book of this depth. Example in grade nine social studies you have to cover 150 years of history in of both Canada and Europe plus a unit or two on both world and Canadian geography Yes assigning it as a paper for a grade 12 honors class could be done. BUT given recent changes in the system ie Provincial Exams your freedom as a teacher has been greatly curtailled. There is very little time to cover anything but material required for the exam, a significant change from five years ago. Lesson plans I used five years ago I hardly use now again- no time. The other option which many of us do is to use excerpts of interesting material such as this either for class discussion or an "over the weekend home work assignment". Sadly social studies has taken a back seat to the other academic disciplines. 

With the students who wish to examine topics of interest in greater detail that can be accomplished by bonus assignments also I try and either set aside the first bit a class or run a pro con debate to cover this sort of material. Controversial material teachers always keep an eye out for such as Darwin, the land bridge debate, small pox as a weapon it gets the students to think. Uber Cree having taught in two band controlled schools that was one of the most enjoyable perks"not being controlled by provincial restrictions" you could freelance allot more. In fact most of my formal lessons in that arena were more experiential learning based than formal academic, the students retain knowledge better and when it comes to testing you are not just getting results based on which student has the best memory

Again as stated in my first response is a good survey book is worth it's weight in gold we use Pathways in grade nine. Besides the traditional white Anglo history it does have an excellent set of units on aboriginal histroy. Next there are a huge number of web sites which contain lesson plans and as a teacher I both upload and download, it is one way of staying current especially in remote locations. Lastly if you have been following the posts in some of the other forums there is a bit of a battle going on with"ninja snipers" In this respect it was not my intention to hammer you but to answer your question is the book suitable for secondary curriculum.
ki'htwa'm ka-wa'p(a)mit(i)n


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## UberCree (7 Jan 2006)

What is wrong with Ninja snipers ???
 ;D
Your feedback hasa been very valuable.

Thank you all.


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## UberCree (17 Apr 2006)

Finally received and finished the book.  It is an excellent read and very thought provoking, however it is not written at a level that would be appropriate for high school students, unless they were IB types.

The most interesting aspect of the book is that in contract to Guns, Germs and Steel, Mann argues that man created his environment, he was NOT a product of it.  Agency I suppose.


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