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Virgin Soil Epidemics and
Demographic Collapse in Latin
America
Virgin Land/Virgin Soil?
• Virgin Soil: Initial outbreak of a disease
previously unknown or absent from a
particular area for many generations
• Precolumbian Diseases: syphilis & other
trepanomas, tuberculosis, arthritis,
(American) murine typhus, other enteric
diseases probable
Biology and Epidemics
•
•
•
•
Etiology
Morbidity
Mortality
Environmental Factors (temperate vs.
tropical, seasons)
• Ecological Systems (including human
populations)
Epistemology and Epidemics
• Epistemological explanations central in determining human behavior
• Social Behavior in face of epidemics informed by epistemological
concepts of Life, Death, Dying, the Hereafter and the “Here Before”
• Epistemological Understandings Inform Human Behavior when
facing epidemics
–
–
–
–
Prevention
Healing: Medicine and Prayer
Quality of Social Welfare and Health Care Delivery
Quarantine and/or Flight
Hispaniola
• Population and Epidemics
– 1491: 230,0000 or 1,500,000
– 1650: <2000 Taino, +/- 5000 Spaniards
• Material World: Conuco Agriculture
– 1491: Conuco Agriculture (Yuca & Batata)
– 1650 Gold Mining & Sugar Plantation
• Social & Political
– 1491: Cacigazcos & caciques
– 1650: Forced Migration and Reducciones, Famine
• Epistemology
– 1491: Cemie, Cohoba, and Conucos
– 1650: Despair, abortions, suicide
Las Casas’ Hyperbole?
• “There came over them so much illness, death
and misery, from which infinite numbers of
fathers and mothers and children sadly died. So
that with the killings of the wards and the
starvation and sicknesses that came because of
them, and the hardships and oppressions that
afterward took place, and miseries… that
according to what was believed there did not
remain a third part of the multitudes of people
that were on this island from the year of 1494
until that of 1496.”-Las Casas
Mexico & Tenotchtitlan
•
Population and Epidemics
– 1491: 10,000,000-12,000,000
– 1520-21 Noche Triste
– 1650: 1, 300,000
•
Material World:
– 1491 Maize, Beans, regional specialization
– 1650 Silver Mining, Farming (wheat) & Domestic Animals, Cattle husbandry
•
Social & Political
– 1491: Aztec Empire with occupied client-state tributaries and dependent tribes
– 1650: Reducciones, Labor rotations, forced migrations to mines in northwest,
tribute diverted to export
•
Epistemology
– 1491: Five Directions,Ages (Duality at 5th Cardinal Direction)
– 1650: Temples Destroyed & replaced with Cathedrals, Nahuatl Royalty subject
to Spanish authorities
Inca Empire
•
Population and Epidemics
– 1491: 37,500,500 (H); 3,300,000 (L)
– 1527 : Huayna Capac succeeded by Atahualpa in Quito, who threatens Inca
Emperor Huascar. 1650: 1, 300,300
•
Material World: Verticality (Mountains, Valleys, Plains)
– 1491 Potato, Quinoa, guinea pigs
– 1600 Exports from Mines of Potosí to Ports of Lima
•
Social & Political
– 1491: Inca Redistributive System linked by labor rotations, ayllus, mitmaes
(colonists) and mita
– 1600: Forced migrations to mines in northwest, Production diverted to export
•
Epistemology
– 1491: Viracocha; Inca as Sun God,
– 1527: Huascar murdered, followed by Atahualpa, and Sun God vanquished
– 1650: Viceroy Toledo in 1572 imposes new colonial order and puts end to neoInca State
Execution of Atahualpa
“The earth refused to devour the Inca’s body
– rocks trembled– tears made torrents, the
Sun was obscured – the Moon ill.”
Guayna Capac, Inca:Cay curitacho micunqui?" (Do you eat this gold?)
-- Candia, Spaniard: Este oro comemos." (We eat this gold.)
Demographic Collapse
Estimated Precolumbian Indigenous Population
1492
Area
c. Caribbean
"High Counter"
(Dobyns)
1650
"Low Counter"
(Rosenblatt)
Nadir (Lowest)
553,750
230,000
22,150
a.Mexican Civilization
30,000,000
12,000,000
1,500,000
b.Central America
10,800,000
4,800,000
540,000
d, Andean Civilization
37,500,000
3,300,000
1,500,000
e. Other
Total
9,000,000
450,000
78,300,000
13,400,000
96%
74%
3,540,000
Population
Population New Spain/Mexico 1700-2000
100,000
90,000
80,000
70,000
60,000
50,000
40,000
30,000
20,000
10,000
0
Series1
1700
1800
1900
1950
2000
2,100
5800
13610
15790
98880
Years
Population
Population (Other Latin America) 1700-2000
500,000
450,000
400,000
350,000
300,000
250,000
200,000
150,000
100,000
50,000
0
0
1700
1800
1900
1950
2000
0
6808
45960
139300
408340
Year
Historical Epidemiology: What Can We Learn?
• Ecological Systems: Human populations are integral to ecological
systems, environmental transformation, and Epidemic Disease
• eg. Relation between shift from Rubber tapping to cattle ranching in Brazilian
Amazon and spread of Chagas Disease
• Economy and Epidemics
• Trade & trading networks (ships and boats, paths and roads)
– Introduction of new plants and animals
• Markets
– Disruption in circulation and flow of goods
– Introduction of new products
• Source of prosperity/livelihood
– Agriculture, husbandry, hunting, fishing & gathering, mining, industry
• Social Conditions and Epidemics
• Settlement Patterns (Fixed, Migratory)
• Migrations (rural –urban or urban-rural)
• Social Standing and Relative Prosperity
• Politics and Epidemics
• Occupation vs. Colonization
• Redistributive vs. hierarchical
Denial and Political Will
• Investment in Prevention and Threats to World Economy
– Re-emergence of malaria, dengue, and other tropical diseases
in part due to weakened vaccination rates in health sector
reforms privileging privatization over social medicine
• Outbreak of polio in D.R. 1999 (due to breakdown in vaccination
program from inadequate allocation of resources)
• Emergence of Multi-drug resistant TB in Caribbean introduced in NY
in 1990s (due to lack of treatment/medication)
• HIV/AIDS in Haiti
Looking Ahead: Infectious Disease and
Disease Prevention
• “High” counters vs. “Low” counters in
Predicting Epidemics
• spread of AIDS world wide
• Cholera in Peru 1991
• Re-emergence of MDR TB, Malaria, Dengue, and
IPD
• Health Care Inequities: Global and Local
• Cholera in Colombia (1991) Urban vs. Rural
Indians
• HIV/AIDS in Haiti
Million
Estimated number of people living with HIV
in Latin America and Caribbean, 1986–2005
Number
of people
living
with HIV
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
1985
1990
1995
Year
2000
2005
Epistemology in Epidemic
Prevention
o Effective Intervention and/or Prevention
o Requires Specific Knowledge of Local
Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices (KAP)
o Requires understanding of core
epistemological concepts about life, death,
dying, the hereafter, and the “here before”
o Requires Expertise from Area Studies
(knowledge of language, culture, history,
religion, politics, economic…..)
•
•
“Research and surveillance can map the
global movement and evolution of microbes and
guide interventions. Integration of knowledge
and skills from many disciplines – the social,
biological, and physical sciences – is needed.
The focus should be system analysis and the
ecosystem, rather than a disease, microbe, or
host.” - M.E. Wilson, MD, EID 1:2 (April-June,
1995)
Epistemology and Epidemics
• Disease: medically defined physiological
dysfunction
• Illness: Individual Perception about
disease
• Sickness: Social role of affected individual