The Organisms of History

The three most significant organisms of world history are a bacterium that devastated the known world, a plant that divided the world into two sides, and an animal that expanded empires.

Yersinia pestis
Yersinia pestis is a bacillus that lives inside the digestive tract of fleas. The infected fleas were transported by rodents from Central Asia to the Far East and the Middle East via the Silk Road in the early 1340s. The Black Death reached Europe in 1347 and killed more than 20 million Europeans by 1353. The plague recurred several times from the 14^th to the 17^th century with weaker intensity. The Europeans thought that nutmeg seeds could guard them from the plague because the fleas avoided the scent of the spice. The demand and price of the spice from the Far East increased. This benefited the Venetian merchants who monopolized the spice trade in the Mediterranean. This also benefited the Arab traders who used to get the spice from Southeast Asia where they introduced their religion and their political system headed by a Sultan.

Myristica fragrans
Nutmeg is a tree that used to grow only in one island of the Spice Islands or the Moluccas. The Arab traders were buying nutmeg seeds from the islanders and selling them to the merchants of Venice. The Iberians planned to access the Spice Islands by searching for new trade routes to the Orient. The race to control the spice trade led to the division of the world into two sailing zones: East and West. Pope Alexander VI authored the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 that marked a line along the Atlantic Ocean. The East of the line was for the Portuguese and the West for the Spaniards. But the partition was not so perfect such that a portion of land (coast of present-day Brazil) in the Western hemisphere went to the Portuguese. Moreover, Spain claimed the Philippines in the East. So the Iberians ended up sharing both hemispheres like the way they share their peninsula. The Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama sailed from Lisbon to the southern tip of Africa, crossed the Indian Ocean and landed in India in 1498. Ferdinand Magellan, another Portuguese explorer sailing under the Spanish flag, sailed from Seville to the southern part of South America, crossed the Pacific Ocean and landed in the Philippines in 1521. The Portuguese and the Spaniards built their empires in the Old and New World. The Portuguese reached the Moluccas in 1511 and started sending nutmeg and other spices to Europe, thereby breaking the Arab monopoly of the nutmeg trade. The Spanish navigator Andres de Urdaneta discovered a return route from the Philippines to Mexico in 1565. This discovery opened the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade that lasted for 250 years. The Spaniards loaded the ships not only with spices but also with porcelain, ivory, silk and other items from China and other regions of Asia. Those commodities were sold in the Americas and in Europe.

In 1621, the Dutch occupied the Spice Islands and controlled the production of nutmeg for 150 years. The spice was so important to the Dutch that in 1667 they gave Manhattan Island (formerly called New Amsterdam) to the British in exchange for Run Island, a small island with nutmeg trees. In 1810, the British captured the Spice Islands, smuggled nutmeg seedlings and planted them in their tropical territories. The islands were given back to the Dutch in 1814 but their monopoly of the nutmeg trade was already broken by the British.

Equus ferus caballus
The horses originated in Central Asia and were tamed and used by the Proto-Indo-Europeans around 4000 BC to spread to Europe and to the Indian subcontinent. The Indo-European languages are now spoken by almost half of the world population and understood by the other half. The horses were later utilized as vehicles of conquest by the Persians, Greeks, Romans and Mongols. The Persian Empire encompassed Turkey and Egypt in the west to the Indus Valley in the east with an area of roughly 3 million square miles. The Greek Empire with an area of around 2 million square miles included much of the former Persian Empire. The Roman Empire encircled the Mediterranean Sea and it had an area of about 2 million square miles. The Mongol Empire covered barely 13 million square miles from China to Eastern Europe. The empires of the Old World were expansive because of the horse. In the horseless New World, the Inca Empire had an area of 770,000 square miles and the Aztec Empire had an area of only 80,000 square miles. When the Spaniards brought horses to the Americas, they were able to build an empire with an area of more than 7 million square miles. The horses indeed strengthened the cross and the sword (la cruz y la espada) of the Spaniards in their conquest and colonization of the New World.

The Black Death increased the demand for nutmeg seeds in Europe. Christopher Columbus intended to reach the Spice Islands in the East by sailing west but discovered a land between the two ends of Eurasia. Vasco da Gama reached India by sailing around the southern end of Africa. Ferdinand Magellan reached the Philippines by navigating the strait at the southern part of South America. The Iberians found new routes to Asia and brought Oriental goods to Europe. The other Europeans also wanted some portion of the riches of the East. The Europeans dominated the world for several centuries. They introduced horses to locations where there was none. However, they were the first people to use horseless carriages but still imagined a horse pulling their vehicle by expressing the output of the engine in terms of horsepower.

The Author: Andy Salatan is a descendant of Chinese survivors who fled the invading horse-riding Mongols and of indigenous Pacific Islanders who were ruled by Sultans but later succumbed to the cross and the sword of the Spaniards who brought horses to the Philippines.