All language subtitles for America Before Columbus - They came by Sea Full History Documentary - Part 2

[narrator] A man has a crazy idea.

He'll sail west to reach the east.

A queen makes it possible.

Christopher Columbus
and his band of desperados

set sail in 1492.

Aiming for India, they find a new world.

A vast continent
of a hundred million people

and ancient civilizations.

This is the untold story
of what the invaders found here

and how they conquered the Americas
with European animals,

plants and diseases.

Land!

[narrator] It is October the 12, 1492,
when Columbus sights land.

[man as Columbus] I saw neither sheep
nor goats nor any other beast.

All the trees were as different
from ours as day from night,

and so the herbage, the rocks,
and all things.

[narrator] Three Spanish ships sail west
for three months in search of India.

Then, finally, they arrive.

Eighty-seven men, among them
conquistadors, pig farmers, murderers.

But this is not Asia.
It is an island in the Caribbean.

They have no idea that they
have come to a New World.

The air is hot, the water is warm.

They have survived the voyage
and have found land for the Spanish crown

and in the name of God.

They are exhausted: tired but thankful.

What land is this?

Where are the ports, the cities,
the ships and traders they expected?

The natives have seen many people
arrive from the sea.

Other tribes, but no one like this.

[speaking Arawak]

They will both soon discover
that this is just the beginning.

Columbus and his men stay
for three months in the Bahamas

and have no idea that they are
on the edge of two great continents...

about ten times as large as Europe.

From the tropical seas...

to the arid deserts.

It is vast.

There is space.

With room for every possible landscape.

Stretching from the northernmost almost
to the southernmost points of the globe.

They will find animals and plants
they have never seen before:

bison on the prairie...

great herds of antelope and caribou
in the mountains of the north.

They look as though they are living
in pristine, untouched countryside.

[birds squawking]

But this is a managed land...

by the inhabitants of America.

In 1491, America is home
to a hundred million people...

with civilizations
as varied as its landscapes.

Not only hunters and gatherers,

but fishermen and farmers,
kings, soldiers and slaves.

But the civilizations
are separate from each other.

There are no books, no wheels
to help them communicate.

They know nothing of each other.

Northern tribes have never met
the cultures in the canyons.

And these have never seen the huge
settlements along the Amazon.

And all of them know nothing of Europe.

It is Isabella, queen of Spain,
who made Columbus's voyage possible.

[knock on door]

It is the year 1493, and for seven months
she has been waiting for news.

Upon his return he delivers
a report to the queen.

[parrot squawks]

In a few pages, Columbus describes
the paradise he has found in her name.

Land to conquer,
converts for Christianity,

riches to exploit.

And gold.

In Europe no news stays local for long.

Traders, armies and pilgrims carry news
across the continent in weeks.

Columbus's letter is translated, copied,
and becomes a bestseller.

Now many Europeans are aching
for their share of the treasures.

A few months later, in Spain,

men are moving towards the ports
of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

Men who have no land and no work.

They cross the barren Spanish regions
that offer nothing to live off.

Desperados with nothing to lose.

Men in need of a job.

And the queen needs them.

Anyone can come along.

Anyone can be a conquistador.

Even a pig farmer can win glory
and riches in faraway lands.

[birds calling]

In 1493, 17 ships arrive in the New World,

on an island in the Caribbean Sea,
carrying 1,200 Spaniards.

Columbus's second voyage
begins a stampede

of Spanish exploration and conquest.

Some will go south, some to the Andes,
some along the Mississippi.

It is the conquest of the Americas.

Driven by greed, carrying weapons,

and with one animal
that does not exist on this continent.

With the horse, the Spanish
are able to annihilate whole empires

in just a few decades.

[soldiers shouting]

Within 40 years,
the Inca in the Andes fall to Pizarro.

And the Aztecs in Central America
to Cortez.

Where, in 1491,

there were towns and cities inhabited
by millions of people,

the Spaniards leave only ruins.

And no one to manage the land.

Spanish explorers invade the Americas
and bring with them the horse.

First brought to the Caribbean islands,

these animals reproduce and spread
in the New World as fast as the wind.

Horses have not been seen here
since the Ice Age.

Now they're back.

It's as though the landscape
has been waiting for them.

Once ashore, a few horses run wild,

and a new breed evolves,
which soon takes over North America:

the mustang.

Within 200 years,
they have reached the Central Plains

and the Rocky Mountains.

At the end of the 18th century,
the mustang makes it as far as Canada.

A hundred and fifty years later,

there may be seven million wild horses
in North America.

For the nomadic tribes
like the Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Sioux,

and Comanche in the Central Plains,
these wild horses are a blessing.

What they used to do on foot --
fighting, hunting, traveling --

they can now do on the backs
of wild horses from Europe.

It transforms their lives.

This Old World animal becomes
a symbol of their native culture.

Although the horse once
came from across the Atlantic,

it is now an image of nomadic America.

As soon as the conquistadors have control
of South and Central America,

one of them heads north.

Hernando de Soto travels from Florida,
up the Mississippi River,

looking for gold.

The Spaniards leave death in their wake,

and something else
they bring along to keep them alive.

[pig squealing]

As they journey through unknown jungles,
the pigs help them survive.

They are the perfect source of food.

They don't take up
much space in the boats.

They look after themselves and they eat
everything they can in this new continent.

They're prolific little beasts.

A healthy sow can give birth
to ten piglets.

The conquistadors leave
some behind as they go,

creating an ever-growing food supply
for those who come after them.

The pigs are the key to their survival.

But to Native Americans, they are a curse.

In North America, natives
do not fence their fields,

and their staple crop of corn
is irresistible.

It seems the Indians have no idea
how to fight this plague of pigs.

Soon European swine are eating
the seeds and young shoots.

[pig snorting]

Only a few generations after running wild,

the animal becomes
very different from the typical farm pig.

It grows tusks
and gets bigger and aggressive.

What began with a few pigs

becomes a daily nightmare
for the Native Americans.

As well as the horse,

Columbus had brought eight pigs
to America on his second voyage.

Within 20 years, there are 30,000 pigs
on the island of Cuba alone.

They multiply, conquering the Andes,
the Amazon, and North America.

But the Spaniard, his horse and his pig,

would never have been so successful
in the conquest of the New World...

without a hidden passenger.

It is when the Old and New Worlds touch
that the American Indian

meets his worst enemy,
a "very black dose" for the continent.

A Spanish missionary reports...

[man as missionary] An epidemic broke out,
a sickness of pustules.

Large bumps spread on people,
some were entirely covered.

On the face, the head, the chest.

They lay in their dwellings
and sleeping places,

no longer able to move or stir.

The pustules caused great desolation.

Very many people died of them
and many starved to death.

No one took care of others any longer.

[narrator] Deadly diseases
contaminate the entire continent.

"For the natives," writes a chronicler,

"they are near all dead of the smallpox.

So the Lord hath cleared our title
to what we possess."

To this day, scientists are still working
to identify these diseases,

to trace their paths and count the dead.

[Isenberg] Smallpox was
accidentally introduced to the Americas

in the 16th century.

The smallpox virus is very hardy.

In blankets that are used
by smallpox victims,

the scabs can live for weeks,
carrying the virus,

and smallpox can also pass
from host to host

onboard a transatlantic vessel
until it reaches the Americas.

And of course once smallpox
reached the Americas,

it was introduced to millions
of new hosts, human hosts,

who had no acquired immunities
to these diseases.

And so smallpox, together
with measles and influenza,

had a devastating impact
on Native American populations.

No one knows exactly
what the mortality was.

Conservative estimates are about 50%.

It was probably closer
to 90% or even higher.

[narrator] Through trade
between native peoples,

diseases spread
throughout the whole continent.

Many natives die of foreign diseases
without ever seeing a European.

Microbes move faster than
the conquistadors who brought them.

Some 50 years after Columbus
discovered the Americas,

conquistadors and explorers
find neither towns nor people.

No one stands in their way.

Most of the people are dead.

And nature reclaims the land.

Everything that they now find
is pure wilderness,

a Garden of Eden, without humans.

[animals screeching]

"A thousand different kinds of birds
and beasts of the forest,

which have never been known,
neither in shape nor name,

and whereof there is no mention made,
neither among the Latins nor Greeks,

nor any other nations of the world,"

reports a Spanish missionary.

[honking]

"It may be God hath made
a new creation of beast."

Explorers send exotic plants and animals,

evidence of God's second creation,
on the ships back to Spain.

[parrot whistles]

[speaking Spanish]

Corn, chilli and pumpkins,
domesticated in the New World,

unknown in Europe.

Tomatoes and potatoes.

But there is an unwelcome passenger
on board.

An unintentional gift from the natives.

It will lead to death in Europe.

It will spread in the brothels
in the ports and cities of the Old World.

It will be painful.

It drives its victims mad.

And it can take a long, long time to kill.

This is the French pox,
or the Spanish sickness: syphilis.

[thunder crashing]

Europeans believe that syphilis
is a punishment for their sins.

They have no idea it comes from America,

where more and more of them
are desperate to go.

And in the 17th century,

a new wave of people head
to the New World: the settlers.

England has defeated Spain
to become the new European superpower.

The English crown sets out
to claim its share.

In 1607, the British found a colony
on the east coast of North America,

in what is now Virginia.

They name it Jamestown, after their king.

This will become their New World.

Their job is to make money

for the British trading companies
that sent them here.

The land they seize seems to be
the perfect place to exploit.

Forests and rivers, coasts and lakes,
owned by no one.

But not all Native Americans have
succumbed to European diseases.

And this land is neither empty
nor uninhabited.

It is the land of the Powhatan.

Fifteen thousand people
living in small communities.

Around 200 villages on the coast
and along rivers,

in large houses surrounded
by cleared forests

and mixed fields of squash,
beans and corn.

These are farmers and hunters.

There is no gold,
no silver that settlers dream of.

Just the land and its people.

[speaking Algonquian]

[giggling]

[speaking Algonquian]

[giggling]

[narrator] For a while, the settlers
and the natives lead separate lives.

[twig snaps]

This land is rich with resources
that Europe lacks.

In the long run, resources that are
far more valuable than gold and silver.

And there's more than enough for everyone.

Europeans wanted to travel west,
to the great empires of Asia.

Instead the New World they found
amazed them with its natural abundance.

The first settlers
in North America left Europe.

They sailed from estuaries
that were brown and muddy

with sediment washed off the land.

They were polluted with refuse,

and so this was what they had
grown up with, they were familiar with it.

When they discovered the New World,
they sailed into estuaries

that were crystal-clear water.

You could see all the way down
to the bottom.

You could see the vegetation
on the bottom of the estuary.

You could see fish in abundance,
and they discovered

almost miraculous, unbelievable quantities
of fish in these estuaries and rivers.

One particular kind of fish
which very much impressed settlers

was the river herring, or alewife
as it's otherwise called.

And seasonally these
would ascend the rivers

to spawn from the sea
in their millions.

For example, in the Potomac River
near Washington, DC,

during the 18th century, something
like 750 million alewife were caught

just from that one river in one year.

It was a remarkable abundance

and people described the rivers
as having more fish than water.

[narrator] Whole shoals are caught
in the settlers' nets.

In the 17th century, hundreds of thousands
of tons of cod are shipped every year

from North America to England,
France, Portugal, and Spain.

Fishing boats sink under the weight
of their catches and the colonies thrive.

It takes settlers
only 200 years to achieve

what had taken a thousand years
in Europe: overfishing.

Overfishing can impact on populations
in many ways,

and one thing that it does
over a period of generations

is to change the way that an animal
reproduces and how fast it grows.

So fishing tends to remove the biggest,
oldest individuals from a population

and by doing this, it changes
the selective pressures on the population

so that fish begin to grow more slowly.

They reach reproductive maturity
at a smaller size and earlier in life,

and these things all reduce
the productivity of a population.

So over time, fisheries become
less good at supplying the protein

that we like them to do.

[narrator] Fish are salted, packed
and sent home for money.

Along with them,
the settlers send another resource

that the Old World is desperate for.

[man as settler] There are trees
as far as the eye can see,

such that a squirrel starting off
at the Atlantic coast

need never touch the ground
till he got to the Mississippi.

[narrator] This is so different
from the Europe they left behind.

They have finally found a replacement for
something that is disappearing at home.

An infinite, accessible source
of the raw material of the age.

The forests must fall
if the settlers are to succeed.

From now on the trees are doomed.

[Radkau speaking German]

[interpreter] When the first settlers
arrived in the New World,

they found forests of a kind
they had never seen in Europe,

endless forests with huge trees.

Penetrating into the heart of the land
became a war against the forest.

The axe was the Yankee emblem.

At the same time, forests were
the great resource the land had to offer.

You could make plenty
of money exporting timber.

In Europe, wood had become expensive.

And so the greatest forest destruction
in history now took place.

[narrator] "The clearing of forests that
seem to belong to no one and cost nothing

goes so far that today many areas
along the east coast

and many of the Atlantic islands
are completely bald.

[man as settler] An incredible amount
of wood

is really squandered
in this country for fuel.

[narrator] Day and night, all winter,
for nearly half a year in all rooms,

a fire is kept going,"
said one European visitor.

"The resources in this
vast continent seem to be inexhaustible."

But in time, fish stocks
will dwindle in the Americas, too.

Europeans change America by cutting down
the forests and depleting the seas.

They create this New World
in the image of the one they left.

But they haven't just taken away.

They change this continent even more
by what they bring with them.

They leave their homes
in search of their own land,

something most could never dream of
in Europe at that time.

They come in search of religious freedom,
in search of a better life.

They believe they are responsible
for their own success and happiness.

For the first time,
women settlers come too,

and they bring a whole way
of life with them.

They bring animals and plants that
are all new to the American continent.

[sheep bleating]

[squawking]

Livestock and grains from Europe
will transform the New World

and make of it a true New England.

With the newly imported plough,

they will leave not
one piece of land untilled.

[horse whinnies]

Domesticated livestock and metal tools,
never seen on this continent.

An environmental revolution takes place.

In no time, their European wheat
is growing in this foreign soil.

Wheat, barley, oats and rye
are brought to America.

But in the process, some less welcome
guests hitch a ride.

[Isenberg] Europeans introduced crops
such as wheat to the Americas,

but in the bags of seed that they
brought with them to the Americas,

they also brought along seeds for weeds:
dandelions, other kinds of weeds,

and these are everywhere
in the Americas now.

[narrator] From the most
insignificant weed

to the continent's greatest mammal,

nothing is untouched.

America's native flora and fauna
will be displaced.

Where the bison once reigned,
cattle will soon take over.

To the settlers' delight,

their livestock multiplies more quickly
here than it did in Europe.

In a few hundred years, European cows
eat away the American grass

and trample the soil,

depositing their excrement
and distributing the seeds of the weeds.

[horses whinnying]

The invasion of European animals
changes the American landscape forever.

Horses, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens,
and huge herds of cattle

take over North and South America.

The cattle alone double in numbers
every 15 months...

and feed the settlers.

The settlers defend themselves
inside sturdy forts.

But there are no shortages of any kind.

Meat has become the cheapest food
in the Americas.

They are the best-fed people in the world.

Very interesting knives.
You have something a little better?

[woman] We have this.

Boys, you're gonna want a shot of rum.
This is fresh rum from...

[narrator] Hides are in great demand,
in America as well as in Europe.

And the fur of the wild animals they shoot
brings in a steady export income.

Some, like the beaver,
are hunted almost to extinction.

Settlers are not forced to adapt
to the landscape.

They domesticate and dominate it.

"All trees were cut down and turned
into pasture and gardens

where all kinds of vegetables
and root crops that we know in England

grow in profusion."

They replace the trees they cut down
with their own trees.

The Europeans bring peaches,
pears, and plums.

They bring figs, olives and bananas.

Their trees will flourish.

They never know how lucky they are.

Because the settlers brought bees
with them, for their honey.

The native American bee
pollinates only a few species,

but European honeybees
can live almost everywhere

and will pollinate any plant in sight.

Gardens will turn into plantations,
for consumption at home and abroad.

Apples will one day be
a major industry in North America.

With a yearly harvest
of five million metric tons,

it will lead worldwide exports,
all beginning with European seedlings.

This is biological imperialism
in full swing.

Europe's fruits and vegetables
have conquered the New World.

But it is also an exchange.

It is the Columbian Exchange.

European kitchens may not see native meat
from America, bison or llama.

But New World vegetables
will make a big impact.

The plant with
the greatest impact on Europe

needs a couple of centuries
to take root in its culture.

"This tuber is insipid and mealy.

It cannot be classed among
the agreeable foodstuffs.

But it furnishes abundant
and rather wholesome nutrition

to men who are content to be nourished.

It is justly regarded as flatulent,

but what are winds to the vigorous organs
of peasants and labourers?"

wrote Diderot in his Encyclopaedia
in the 18th century.

First introduced into Spain,
potatoes slowly spread to Italy

and to northern and eastern Europe.

By 1600, the potato has conquered Austria,
Holland, France, Switzerland,

England, and Germany.

Frederick the Great himself
urges its cultivation in Prussia.

But it is the Irish who adopt the potato
with open arms.

They have a limited food supply
and grain grown here

has often been destroyed
or burnt as the result of war.

But the potato, safely underground,
survives these hardships.

In a hundred years,
the Irish population more than doubles.

And towns like Berlin
grow into great cities.

By 1700, there is an unprecedented
population explosion in Europe...

thanks to a plant from the faraway Andes.

Yet only one animal from the New World
sets foot in Europe.

[turkey gobbling]

The turkey.

Domesticated by the Aztecs in Mexico,
it enriches the European diet.

[Isenberg] So, why was
the Columbian Exchange so one-sided?

Why did it go primarily in one direction,
from Europe to America,

with the exception of things
like potatoes and potato blight?

Why was Europe not overtaken
by American plants and animals?

It's difficult to say why
something did not happen,

but you have to remember
that the ecological invasion

was a cooperative enterprise,

disease and plants
and animals working together,

and Europe remained densely populated.

It didn't have diseases
depopulate its people.

And so you didn't have niches
open up for livestock to graze,

and then weeds to take over the areas that
livestock had overgrazed and trampled.

So without that critical part,
it worked in one direction primarily.

[narrator] The European elite want more
than just potatoes from the New World.

They want luxury products.

Sugar and tobacco meet the requirements
of the upper class.

The first British settlers quickly acquire
a taste for American tobacco

and export large shipments to Europe.

To satisfy such high demand,
settlers build immense plantations.

Growing sugar becomes a business
on the same scale as tobacco.

The new monocultures
cover entire landscapes.

For this sole purpose, some ten million
Africans are transported to America,

enslaved to cultivate luxury items
for Americans and Europeans.

[Isenberg] Because of the rapid
depopulation of the Americas

owing to disease,

Europeans faced a shortage of labour
in their effort to exploit the resources

in the New World,
particularly to exploit the soil.

So the Europeans, first the Portuguese
and then the Dutch,

and then eventually the English,
imported slaves from West Africa

to cultivate sugar in the Caribbean
and Brazil, tobacco in Virginia,

rice in South Carolina,
and by the 19th century

in mainland North America, cotton.

It's no exaggeration to say that
these cash commodities

produced by slave labour were essential
to the export economies of the Americas.

[narrator] By the 18th century,

the metamorphosis of much of America
is almost complete.

New Spain and New England
are fully established.

Nature has been transformed
and is in the hands of man.

Now pioneers are heading west.

There is still empty land
in that direction.

They will complete
what was begun in the East.

In the creation of the New World,

perhaps 90% of
the Native American people died.

The people who took their place came
from all over Europe, as conquistadors...

settlers...

colonists...

and pioneers.

And they came from Africa as slaves.

But it was the transfer of animals
and plants from Europe to the Americas

that really made the creation
of the New World possible.

In today's chrome and steel cities,
we sometimes seem so cut off from nature

that it may be difficult to believe
the Columbian Exchange ever happened.

[car horn honks]

But in the final analysis, the skyscrapers
and the melting pot of the races

owe their existence not only to humans,
but also to the natural world.

[Isenberg] People came to the Americas
for many reasons.

Some came to make money,
some came for religious freedom,

some came involuntarily as slaves,

but those populations took hold
in the Americas

because of the accident of ecology.

Because of the microbes, the plants,
the animals that they brought with them

that gave them an advantage
over the people who were already here.

And the legacy of the Columbian Exchange
is also still largely biological,

and that legacy will continue
into the future.

[narrator] It all began 500 years ago.

Columbus had a vision.

And three ships set out
in a quest for India...

and found the New World.