Columbian Exchange: A Big Synthesis or A Narrow Topic? Part Four

Virginia Dejohn Anderson, Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004)

Marcy Norton, Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008)

Comparing with Anderson, Norton just wants to further understand the Columbia exchange in the Atlantic world. Norton’s purpose is to beyond the limits of “biological determinism” and “cultural constructivism.” In her book, a central theme is syncretism, which means “an amalgamation of beliefs and practices emerging from different cultural traditions, defined why and how tobacco and chocolate arrived in Europe, as well as how and why they endured in America.”[1] To support her arguments, she explores how this kind of syncretism greatly influenced the reception and spreading of tobacco and chocolate in Europe, as well as the functions of them were changed as history went on. While for Anderson, assuming “livestock deserve a place in the narrative of American history,” she reexamines how Native Americans were different from colonial Americans in domesticating animals and attempts to beyond historical canons in writing early American history.[2] Comparing with Anderson, Norton is not so ambitious, which makes her book not so provocative. Interpreting the Columbia exchange from the perspective of her syncretism, Norton gives us a good example in exploring Columbia exchange.  

       Since Crosby’s Ecological Imperialism was published in 1972, Columbia exchange becomes a good topic for historians to explore the communications of diseases, animals and plants between the old world and the new world. Following him, the themes and topics of Columbia exchange are greatly explored by historians, which greatly help us to understand world history since the 15^th century in a new way. Both Norton and Anderson’s books are a response to Crosby’s Columbia exchange, although they respond to it totally differently. Norton wants to fill the gap of the Columbia exchange by integrating tobacco and chocolate into this kind of Atlantic exchange, while Anderson attempts to revise it and make a grand synthesis. Crosby’s Ecological Imperialism is a classic, however, in the future it will be challenged again and again. Whether its canonic position could be challenged or not, we do not know. But it is undeniable a fact that the Columbia exchange is still in need of further exploration, whatever it is on a big topic or a special product.    

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[1] Marcy Norton, Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008), 7, 9-10.

[2] Anderson, ibid, 11.

Columbian Exchange: A Big Synthesis or A Narrow Topic? Part Three

Virginia Dejohn Anderson, Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004)

Marcy Norton, Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008)

 

 

Rather than examine animals and its effect on both colonizers and colonists, Norton prefers to choose two products, namely tobacco and chocolate and attempts to compare how Spanish were totally different from Native Americans in treating and understanding them. According to her, before the Spanish expansion in Mesoamerica, tobacco and chocolate were sacred products there. She points out, “tobacco and chocolate worked in the service of defining and articulating social relationships, so they connected, mediated, and explicated the relationship between humanity and divinity.”[1] To support her statement, Norton explains that “the reconstruction of a Mexica merchant’s celebration illustrates with splendid precision the way that formalized rites imputed social and sacred qualities to tobacco and chocolate, and the way, reciprocally, the sensory experience created by tobacco and chocolate contributed to the concretization of an abstract understanding of the universe, as it did to a social ethos that emphasized caste stratification, kin solidarity, and gender differentiation.”[2] After the Columbia exchange, tobacco and chocolate were transmitted to the old world. However, unlike the people who lived in the new world who thought them were sacred, Europeans in the old world treated them as secular products.

However, since Nicolas Monardes, a well-established physician and prosperous trader of transatlantic commodities in Seville, who published his book — Segunda parte del libro, de las cosas que traen de nuestras Indias occidentales que sirven al uso de la medicina Do se trata del tabaco, y de la sassafras (The second part of the book of the things brought from our Occidental Indies, which are used as medicine: in which Tobacco and Sassafras are discussed) in 1571, tobacco was gradually imported to the old world from the New world. In helping Europeans to recognize the importance of tobacco was useful as medicine, as the first humanist-trained university doctor to systematically consider American material medica, a dramatic reversal of the hostility humanist-inclined botanists and physicians had shown to New World substances until that point, Nicolas Monardes played a significant role in spreading tobacco in Europe.[3] Just as Monardes imported Amerindian knowledge about tobacco into European idiom, so did Hernandez for chocolate. Then in the 17^th and 18^th century, as chocolate and tobacco were spread in the old world, they were commercialized across the Atlantic world. Unlike those Mesoamericans who treated tobacco and chocolate as sacred products which were endowed divinity, Spanish and other Europeans in the old world treated them as secular products. 

Following Crosby and Diamonds, both Norton and Anderson contribute a lot to the historical studies of the Columbia exchange. However, their purposes are totally different. Anderson is an ambitious historian and attempts to challenge traditional cannons in interpreting early American history, while Norton just wants to follow Crosby and fill the gap of the Columbia exchange by choosing chocolate and tobacco as case studies. Paying more attention to the cultural difference between Native American and European colonists in North America, to some degree, Anderson could help us to understand early American history in a new way. In reinterpreting early American history, Anderson attempts to make a new historical synthesis to challenge traditional historical writings of early American history. She thinks the Pequot War, the King Philip’s War and other wars, as well as the American westward were all caused by this cultural difference and they need to be reinterpreted. It is so provocative that, I think, her statements are not so convincing. Of course, we have to admit that Native Americans and colonial Americans were totally different in treating animals, livestock and husbandry. However, we still have to admit that the significance of nation, religion, economy and other factors which have been explored by historians are still helpful for us to understand early American history.

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[1] Norton, ibid, 30.

[2] Norton, ibid, 20.

[3] Norton, ibid, 110.

 

Columbia Exchange: A Big Synthesis or A Narrow Topic? Part Two

Columbian Exchange: A Big Synthesis or A Narrow Topic?

Virginia Dejohn Anderson, Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004)

Marcy Norton, Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008)

Like Crosby, both Anderson and Norton focus on the colonial encounters, although Anderson pays more attention to how colonial Americans colonized in North America and Norton mainly discusses Spain and its colonies in the New World. Focusing on the cultural conflict between Native Americans and the colonial Americans on domesticating animals, Anderson talks about how colonial Americans were different from Native Americans in understanding animals, property and husbandry. In the town of Duxbury, Massachusetts, Anderson finds a granite monument, in which these words were engraved:

Site of nook gate. Here a palisade was erected across the nook in 1634. This palisade was a high fence to prevent cattle from straying and probably to keep the Indians out.[1]

Anderson assumes the differences of domesticating animals between Native Americans and colonial Americans, as well as their understanding of property were the core for understanding early American history. In Anderson’s opinion, colonial Americans in the 17^th century wanted to construct their own fence to keep “the Indians out” and prevent “cattle from straying.” While for Native Americans, they were accustomed to stray their cattle and did not like to set fence to protect their own ownerships. The English were interested in domesticating animals, while Native Americans preferred to hunt. For colonial Americans, taming a wild animal could help them to have their ownership of the animals. While for Native Americans, they actually did not have consciousness to ownership and property. Due to these cultural differences on treating livestock and animals, as well as their understanding of ownership, Native Americans and colonial Americans were in conflict with each other on settling with animals, which finally caused the King Philip’s War, the Pequot War and Native Americans were finally forced to the far west. For Anderson, she assumes the history of colonization of Europeans in North America was the history of Native Americans who were forced to the west due to their cultural differences.     

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[1] Virginia Dejohn Anderson, Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 2.

Columbia Exchange: A Big Synthesis or A Narrow Topic?

Columbia Exchange: A Big Synthesis or A Narrow Topic?

Virginia Dejohn Anderson, Creatures of Empire: How Domestic Animals Transformed Early America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004)

Marcy Norton, Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures: A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008)

The Columbian exchange proposed by Alfred Crosby is always a hot topic, which greatly attracts the attention of historians. There is no doubt that both Alfred Crosby and Jared Diamonds are pioneers of doing their researches on this topic.[1] However, their works are so general that more historical studies on specific animals and products are still in need of further exploration. Following them, Virginia Anderson, an early American historian, examines how significant of the domestic animals were in shaping the relationships between native Americans and colonial Americans in early America period, which greatly revised the historical writing of early American history. Meanwhile, Marcy Norton, a historian who is very interested in the cultural history of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Europe and its American colonies, traces how tobacco and chocolate were spread and consumed in the old world after the Columbia exchange. In this paper, rather than discuss their woks separately, I am going to compare these two books and evaluate their contribution to the historical studies on the Columbia exchange.

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[1] Alfred Crosby, The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Greenwood Press, 1972) ; Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (New York: W. W. Norton Company, 1997).

Sign in at Netflix with Your Own Netflix Account

Sign in at Netflix with Your Own Netflix Account

To have online services at Netflix, you’d better have your own account at Netflix. Once you pay a visit to its official website, then you can create your own Netflix account easily. If you are a new user, you’d better provide your personal information, such as email address, password and so on.

Once your request is authorized, then you can login in and have your free services at Netflix. However, common sense tells us that you should firstly confirm your personal information via your email address you submitted to Netflix. Then you can sign in with the password and account.
How Did I Register My Netflix Account?

I still remember the first time how I registered my own Netflix account. At that time I was not a member but I would like to have my own Netflix account. When I paid a visit to its office website, I just followed its instructions and started my FREE Trial. It was so good that I finally made my own decision to purchase a valid account and pay monthly bill for its services with my own credit card. Once my request was submitted, it took me directly to a page from which I had to enter my email address and password. Later, it told me that if I could enroll, then I only need to pay for $4.99 for a month. I did it without hesitation, then I could access to various movies, which greatly surprised me. Since that I could watch movies on my PC. It was so good that I highly appreciate its help to me.





Activate Your Netflix Wii and Movies

Some people like to have online services from Netflix. It is an undeniable fact! However, it is never easy for internet users to access to their services, especiall on Netflix Wii and movies. In order to have your own Netflix Wii and movie services, you’d better activate your Netflix Wii and movie services. Once your request is approved, then you can easily to do what you like with your own Netflix account. If you want to have one hour service, you just need to purchase one hour service with your own credit card. If you want to have more hours services, you need to add more hours services with your credit card. Whatever service you want to choose, you are going to enjoy yourself.

In a word, it is very necessary for you to activate your Netflix account. Once your account is valid, then you are going to have your online movie services and your live will be more comfortable with the help of Netflix.

Netflix Free Trial and Watch Online Movies at Netflix

Netflix Free Trial and Watch Online Movies at Netflix

Netflix and DVD Rental Services

Netflix.com is the official website of netflix, a very popular online movie website, from which internet users could watch online movies easily. Moreover, Netflix also provides DVD rental services, from which you can rental the newest DVDs. It may take a few days for you to accept your DVDs. After all, it depends on the method how you want your DVDs should be delieved. If you pay the delivery services fees, then you are going to receive your Netflix DVDs as soon as possible. However, if you order them with standard delivery, you have to wait for a couple of days to receive them. There are several methods of delivering DVDs to you. You can accept them either by UPS, by mail or by other methods. Once you get them, then you can watch your movies you have booked as soon as possible.

At present, there are more than 100,000 DVD items Netflix could provide to its internet users, once you find the best one, you can easily book it. However, if you want to take a look at the movie, you are also have an opportunity to watch it through the free trial option, which is free to any users.

Costco Membership Certificate: 20% Bank of America Add It Up cash back

Costco Membership Certificate: 20% Bank of America Add It Up cash back  

I like to purchase grocery items at Costco, because it provides me so many options. Meanwhile, it offers me cheapest price, with which I can greatly enjoy my shopping at Costco. However, Americans know that you have to have a Costco membership card, otherwise, you can not have these advantages and benefits. Usually, it costs customers to pay at least 100 dollars or 75dollars to open their membership card at Costco. It is so bad that most of Americans do not like to spend so much money in opening a membership card at Costco. However, with the help of Bank of America add it up program, Americans can save money and get cash back.


So how to get cash back from opening a Costco membership card? Will it be easy? In fact, it is very, very easy, just like shopping an item at Amazon. When you visit the official website of the Bank of America add it up program, click the retailer shop there and find Costco.

Following the link and opening a Costco Membership Card, then you are going to have your cash back soon. Comparing those who open their own membership card at Costco and have to spend 100 dollars without cash back, if you can register your own account at Bank of America add it up program, you can get 20% cash back. It is so good a news that I did not know it before. However, I would like to share it with you. If you are interested in it, please pay a visit to its official website for more detail information.

Register Your Bank of America Add It Up Program Account

Register Your Bank of America Add It Up Program Account

To get cash back through Bank of America add it up program, you’d better register your own Bank of America add it up account. To be eligible, you should have your Bank of America credit or debit card. Here is the procedure for your registration of Bank of America Add It Up Program Account：



Bank of America credit or debit card
Bank of America Online Banking Account
Register and activate your Bank of America Add It Up program account       

            
Register
It is easy for customers to apply for their Bank of America Add It Up account. To register it, you’d better pay a visit to the official website of Bank of America and sign in with your online banking account, whatever your credit card or debit card. Then it will automatically turn you to the page of Bank of America Add It Up program, what you should do next is to login with your bank of America Online Banking ID and complete the forms for your registration.

Shop
Registration is just the first step. To get cash back, you have to make purchases through Bank of America Add It Up program. When you visit the homepage of the Bank of America Add It Up
Program, especially its online shopping mall, please choose your favorite items there and make a deal with the sellers through Bank of America Add It Up program with your debit card or credit card. 

Earn Cash Back
Once you make a deal with the help of Bank of America Add It Up program, then you can get your cash back. The more your spend on the products, the more cash back you are going to get. For those who are worry about the registration fees, it is a good news for you that Bank of America will not charge you for opening a new account. It is totally free.

Bank of America Add It Up Program

Bank of America Add It Up Program

As one of the most popular bank in the United States, Bank of America is promoting its add it up program, with which customers could get cash back and save money when they make purchases at Bank of America add it up retail shop. So far as I know, the cash back rate is between 1% and 30%. Whether you can get high cash back, it depends on your shopping items, as well as your amounts of purchasing. Once you register your online banking account for Bank of America Add It Up program, then you are going to have up to 20% cash back on top of retailers' discounts, as well as Bank of America credit or debit card rewards.

I have successfully got some cash back since I make purchases at Bank of America online shopping mall. In this article, in order to share my experiences of getting cash back, I would like to introduce Bank of America add it up program. If you are looking for a way to save money, I hope this article is helpful for you.