FYS G114 Reality and the Americas McCarthy 10/4/07
Student Responses to Student Responses to Individually Selected/Read 1491 Sections
Rex Galecia talks about how disease from the Europeans infected and killed off the Indian population in the New World. I believe this because Mann talks about how Indians have fewer HLA types than the people from Europe.Mann and Rex talk about how disease spread and kills 1 out 10 people. Rex goes into explaining how Indians had fewer HLA that's why they were so vulnerable to the diseases. Rex brings out a good point that "Europeans had T-Cells that target micro organisms and the Indians had T-Cells that targeted parasites making the Indians more vulnerable to diseases." Rex uses the example to show that one girl infected with measles passed it to 150 people and 17 of them die because of her.
-Kristina Holuneko
I wanted to comment on Andrew I’s summary of “The Rise and Fall of the America Bottom, because the term, preeminent will assist me in describing the Indians in my paper and how they excelled in life. It also helps me to describe how Pratt was impressed by the contact and communication between native tribes. She saw how some tribe that had no system of writing were able to communicate through art.
-Lauren Nogueira
I chose the comments done by Drew i can relate this to my essay because it talks about a incredibly large Mayan city which connects to my writing about how the Indians were truely thickly settlrd.
-Matt Muolo
Nina’s response to her section in 1491 “Not enough for Yankee Stadium” deals with pigs and the pigs spreading diseases to the Indians, is interesting to me because my section also dealt with diseases. Mann used biology to explain how the Indians were susceptible to the diseases brought by the Europeans, but Nina’s section tells of how the diseases spread throughout the Indian population. DeSoto brought pigs to the New World, these pigs carried Europeans diseases, and when the pigs were released into the forest, the forest animals that came into contact with the pigs contracted the diseases, and then the Indians killed the animals for food and so got the disease also. A small thing like bringing pigs set off a chain reaction that killed so many people.
-Rex Galecia
“The Rise and Fall of the Americas Bottom” Pages 291-300 by Andrew is similar to what I read from pages 273 to 276 based on the “Entering the Water”. Andrew points out the term preeminent, “it means supreme and distinguished which is what Cahokia is repeatedly referred as”. The term cosmopolitan is the term I used when relating to the short life story of Cak Tok Ich’aak, who was King of Mutal, known as a Maya World. He was full of wealth and so much possession and attention that his greatness is seen through the lines when a bit of description is given of how the Maya World became great and probably populous until tragedy struck. The terms is a similarity I found interesting and then from there Andrew describes why such term is important and how that shows the reality of the part of history that can be unknown, until we finally have a chance to read it.
-Natasha Lozada
I would like to respond to Nina:
Her section focus on, “Not Enough for Yankee Stadium” on pages 107 to 112 in the book 1491 by Charles C. Mann. As I read what the section is about, thanks to my classmate description, I do have my concern on if I agree with Mann ideas too. First of all, because I mean surely as how he said, “Could a few pigs truly wreak this much destruction?” (110 Charles C. Mann) I’m not a genius in science, but as far as I know if a pig is infected and it infection can be transmitted to other animals there is a lot of possibilities that the decease get to humans. Just think about it, how much humans depend on the nutrients from animals and other living things. So, the infection could actually be passed on and when a person is infected is easily to be passed on to another person. Another example is when an epidemic is attacking a population, the doctors immediately try to found a solution before other people get infected and spread the virus. And this is also explain a little in 1941 when Nina quoted, “But the worst thing he did, some researchers say, was entirely without malice-he brought pigs” (107 Charles C. Mann). This was what was said of De Soto by Charles Hudson an anthropologist. So, I disagree with Mann’s response towards the anthropologist discovery.
-Lizbeth Ruiz
I choose Nina's piece to possibly introduce additional information to my paper. "They say it was probably the worst thing he could have done other that kill, rape, and enslave the Native Americans. “But the worst thing he did, some researchers say, was entirely without malice-he brought pigs” (107 Charles C. Mann). I would choose this piece to include in my paper- because I wrote about the Spanish and how they were refered to as animals. I didnt include it in my draft, but this is what I wrote about in my Mann blogger section. They were refereed to as "gawking like yokels", which made them seem inferior and they were compared to animals.
-Vereniset Betances
The reason why I picked Rex’s response to 1491 “The Genetics of Vulnerability” is because it relates to my reading from “Not Enough for Yankee Stadium”. They have a lot in common. They both talk a lot about diseases and how many Native Americans were killed by them. In my reading they talked about diseases and how they pass from animals to humans no matter if it was a Native American, Frenchmen or even a Spaniard. As for Rex’s reading the diseases that were talked about were passed on from human to human. As for those who infected people realized that it was only the Native Americans that were being infected. This was because Native Americans were much more venerable. “It is because of the Indians less varied types of HLA’s that they were killed off by the diseases, and in order for them to have varied HLA’s they would have had to intermarry with the Europeans”. (Rex’s Response from “The Genetics of Vulnerability” 1491) It seems as if Mann’s explanations for why so many Native Americans died was all blamed on diseases. This seems as if they were just excuses because in “Not Enough for Yankee Stadium” he even admits that he doesn’t have enough proof to support his disease theory. “but there is yet not solid proof that a single Indian in them died of a pig transmitted disease”. (110 Charles C. Mann) It would be interesting to see if Rex had hard evidence to support whether these diseases killed a lot of Native Americans.
-Nina Conteh
After reading what Dan had to say, I can say I do agree with him. First off, he discusses how Mann makes it seem like he is telling a story as if he were there. This works because it keeps us, the reader interested and helps us imagine what exactly Mann is trying to get across. Dan also talks about how in depth Mann goes on whatever it is he is telling. He will first give an overview of what he is talking about and then talk about how, when, and why it was used. This will help immensely with my paper because I did not even notice that Mann does this for everything he talks about. Us the reader just expect for every author to do this that it is sometimes not noticed. This right there will give me more details to add to my paper by including some of the interesting facts and ways he talks about any given topic. In Dan’s case, he talked about mounds and gave us everything on mounds. Again, including the reader to also make it seem like the reader is there.
-Andrew Otovic