1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. 2005. 563p. ISBN 9781400032051.

History books have taught us that when the first Europeans arrived in the New World in 1492, the land was lush, the game plenty, the living easy, and the inhabitants few and far between. New England colonists found several abandoned settlements where they could readily farm the land. In Central America, consquitadors found powerful kingdoms but were able to bring them down quickly with guns, steel, and horses, a story that repeated itself in South America. 

But what did the Americas look like in 1491, before Columbus crossed the Atlantic? In this book, Mann draws on archeological evidence, oral histories, and written reports sent by the first Europeans to build a better picture of the lives of Americans prior to colonization. Previous theories of the crossing of the Bering sea all at once have been debunked, with archeological evidence indicating that people lived in South America more than 16,000 years ago. The idea that the first residents were living in harmony with their environment is at best a simplification, as all humans shaped their environment to fit the way they lived. The Amazonian jungle, for example, is not a place where plants grew randomly, but was rather developed and harvested by its residents for thousands of year, spreading fruits and building groves, mounds, and fish traps that would provide food year-round.

Fabled cities such as Tenochtitlan featured running water, something European cities no longer had. Cities were an order of magnitude order larger than their European counterpart. Rich artwork and massive stone structures still dot the landscape in Mexico, hinting at wealthy and culturally advanced societies. And in North America, the Iroquois confederacy developed the first truly democratic form of government, with women in charge of naming clan leaders and holding title to property. Men could wage war, but only after a council had unanimously declared it so, and women possessed veto power. Susan Anthony and Alice Paul were inspired from their constitution to demand the vote for women. 

The world we have been taught existed when Columbus arrived is thus filled with errors, hearsay, and a European perspective that underplayed the role that the first Americans played in shaping the Americas and its history.