Enviromental World History

Uprising, Climate, and Disease

Agenda

• Medium writing assignment

• Lecture

• Discussion: Ross introduction

• HW: Watch “Thursday, October 17 Lecture” posted to Blackboard Course Units Week 8

• HW: medium writing assignment due Oct 31st at 11:59 pm

Due Date

Thursday, October 31, 201911:59 PM

Points Possible

40

1.How would you rank revolution, colonization, and industrialization in

importance for understanding our modern world when you consider

our current relationship with the environment? [40 pts]

2.Uses specific examples from lectures in weeks 7, 8, 9, & 10 [15 pts]

3.Uses specific examples from McNeill's Intro, and Marks chapters 4 and 5 [15

pts]

4.Take into consideration not only our current social, economic, and political

structures but also our relationship with the environment [10 pts]

5.You can cite lectures (Mevissen, Meiji Japan) and book material (McNeill 3) or

(Marks 110), etc

Background to Revolution

• 1500-1800: trade united world

• Power disparity between large and small states increases  fewer states exist

• Challenges to authority – in thought and belief

• Some areas specialize in goods production (in colonies, this was coerced)

• Increased speed and expansion of communications

Ecological Transformation in Colonies • Sugarcane needs good soil, lots of sunlight, fuel (timber), and

labor

• Caribbean islands: lots of fuel but few people • Populations soared with slavery

• Transformation: • trees cleared for fuel and cropland: many local plants/animals went

extinct

• Soils eroded or depleted

• Eroded soils created marshes  mosquitos flourished

• Large populations + favorable conditions also suited mosquitos

Questions for video

• Who are the main powers in Latin America? What other powers have colonies in the New World?

• If we fast forward 100 years from 1750 to 1850, how do things look? What is different?

• What happens from 1807-1830?

• What does “creole” mean in context of Latin Revolutions?

• Name two countries that gain independence thanks to Bolivar.

• After Diderot publishes the Encyclopedia in France, who borrows heavily from his political ideas?

• In this context of Enlightenment and American Independence, what else influences revolts in Latin America?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6lIgVSvizk

Latin American

Revolutions

(1810-1825)

American

Revolution

(1775-83)

French Revolution

(1789-99)

Haitian

Revolution

(1793-1804)

The Colonial World Ready for Independence

•Europe slowly lost control of New World colonies

•Fighting for liberty/freedom

•Aided by disease and the climate

American Revolution

•Americans fighting political liberties

• Same ethnicity as Europeans

• Differential immunity: colonists accustomed to malaria and yellow fever, Brits were not • most Brits immune to smallpox (colonists weren’t)

Decisive siege of Yorktown/Cornwallis (Sept 1781) Anopheles quadrimaculatus (mosquito carrying malaria)

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-

PputhGHu0Io/WQskEsMwkNI/AAAAAAAAgNk/Qjd1lVGou5EddyUJ1K6hX2Ic5C1k4C5hACL

cB/s1600/sugar-america.jpg

Haitian Revolution

• St. Domingue 90% slaves, and 10% white middle classes, land owners, freed slaves, and mixed-race persons

• sugar + coffee = $$

• Millions depended on it for livelihood in France

• Super brutal

• French Rev. + uprisings = French initially left

• Brits tried to occupy

• Toussaint L’ouverture (ex- slave) led revolt against British

• Worked with French and Spanish

• kept Brits where disease spread fastest

• 1793-98: Brits’ occupation = loss of 15,000 men (60-65% of total population) to yellow fever

• 1802-3:When French tried to re-control, lost 50,000-55,000 (80-85% of troops) to yellow fever

https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/shipinteriorembed.jpg?quality=

90&strip=all&strip=all

Consequences of Colonial Wars • In the end, Europeans lost 180,000 troops in Caribbean

• Brits recruited ‘locals’ (mostly ex-slaves) to man garrisons

• 1807: end of slave trade, British black soldiers liberated

• French sold Louisiana

• lost interest in French Empire in Western Hemisphere

Ross, Introduction

1.What is the modern-day issue that the introduction’s first paragraph outlines? Starting in the second paragraph,

what is driving this process? According to that paragraph, who is purchasing the land?

2.Why does Ross say that this process is a study in “ecological imperialism”? Explain with political economy and

political ecology.

3.What is the “concern of the following pages”? What is the point Ross is going to explore?

4.Why was European imperialism such a huge feature of global environmental history?

5.On the top of page 4, does Ross think that this is just a story of exploitation and destruction? Why or why not?

Ecology and Imperial History

6.Rather than considering colonialism a “social project with ecological consequences,” how does Ross want to

visualize it?

7.What are the four inter-related themes that caused New Imperialism in the late 19th century?

8.Pages 6-7: What is the scale of this book? Will the author be focusing on one empire or many? Do we know the

time period he is studying? Why?

9.What did contemporaries believe about the new age of empire-building? What was the reality?

Empire, Industry and the Global Environment

10.What are the two opposing narratives between Europeans and subalterns about colonialism and what new ideas

attempt to correct these two perspectives?

11.How does Ross characterize the Biological Old Regime? What are examples he uses to describe this?

12. How did empires affect trade or globalization?

Coverage, Themes, Organization

13.What areas is Ross studying? Which areas is he not studying and why?

14.Starting on page 19, what are the book’s three main parts, structures, and arguments?

HW: Watch “Thursday, October 17

Lecture” posted to Blackboard

Course UnitsWeek 8

HW: medium writing assignment due

Oct 31st at 11:59 pm