in the Americas

The Columbian Exchange: Sheep, Cattle, and Colonial Growth in the Americas

INTRODUCTION The Columbian exchange refers to the widespread transfer of flora and fauna, precious metals, people, diseases, commodities, technologies, and ideas between the Americas (New World) and Africa and Europe (Old World) beginning in the late fifteenth century. European settlers in the Americas participated in the Columbian exchange by transporting goods from the Old World that they used to establish farms and support their families. Studies of the global transfer of plants, animals, and people often privilege the first arrivals, with less attention paid to later arrivals. The impact of biological transfers should be regarded over a long period rather than as singular or short-term events.1 For example, the development of the Wardian case2 (a type of terrarium) allowed settlers to move live plants (such as the coffee plant) across the Atlantic that would have a significant impact on agriculture in the Americas.3 Increased agricultural productivity came at the cost of increased ecological vulnerability; simply put, the effects of the Columbian exchange were not isolated to the portions of the world directly participating in this exchange.4

An examination of animals that were part of the Columbian exchange reveals the complicated impact that the cores and peripheries of the Atlantic world had on each other. Many of the early domestic animals of the Americas were first transported to Hispaniola, where Spanish colonists tended to them; they subsequently spread to the rest of the Americas through both trade networks and by escaping from existing flocks and becoming feral.5 Domesticated farm animals were not transported to the Americas without consequence, as they too had to adapt to their new environments.6 These case studies of cattle and sheep, two animals that were part of the Columbian exchange, demonstrate both the merging of cultures as well as the long term impact of the colonial experiment in the Americas.

1920 marks a watershed moment in American history, as the United States transitioned for the first time to having a majority of individuals living in urban rather than rural areas.7 This shift into what has been dubbed by some writers as the “age of agricultural ignorance”8 is the culmination of hundreds of years of the Columbian exchange, as goods, people, and ideas moved around the Atlantic world. The “wilderness” Europeans encountered in the Americas was not true wilderness; Indigenous peoples maintained and changed their landscapes to suit their needs.9 Settlers then found themselves in a unique situation in which they attempted to apply Old World techniques to farming and living in the New World. The movement of animals reflects this. Despite the settlers’ resistence to change their traditional farming practices, both Indigenous and settler societies needed to explore “the tradeable potential of many organic products and their place within the sphere of competition, emulation, negotiation, performance and communication.”10 The people of the Atlantic world can be regarded as gardeners: they managed their own lives within a specific vision or time restraint and made no pretence about altering anything. Rather, settlers functioned as ecological craftspeople, using the tools and knowledge at their disposal at the time to manipulate their environment.

CATTLE

Cattle ranching quickly became a popular venture in the Americas, offering settlers wealth and food stability. As one of the more popular animals of the Columbian exchange, the cattle trade came to dominate the Atlantic coast of the Americas for both personal use and economic leverage.

In the spring and early summer of 1733, the first settlers of the new colony of Georgia were gifted several cattle by their neighbours north of Savannah to help them through the difficult first year. Unfortunately, the animals quickly ran off into the woods. There the escaped cattle found large numbers of feral cattle which had already successfully colonized the region when the settlers arrived, surviving on wild grasses and pond water.11 Wild Carolina “black cattle” and domesticated Spanish cattle had adapted successfully to the environment of southeastern North America. They were durable, with horns for protection against predators, and had the ability to multiply quickly, merging to form a new hybrid variety of cattle.12 William Cronon, an environmental historian, contends that cattle were “integral elements in a complex system of environmental and cultural relationships.”13 New methods of cattle farming had to be implemented for this type of terrain, a practice aided by changing social environments.

As with all farming practices, both animal and farmer were tasked with adapting to the new landscape. Georgia cattle could survive relatively well through the winters. The savannah grasses were tender enough to supply feed in the late fall/early spring, and in the heart of winter Spanish moss provided sufficient nourishment.14 By 1739, the Georgia cattle herd had grown to “one thousand head or more,” but colonists failed to contain them adequately, leading to large losses as cattle consistently joined feral herds in the forests.15 The settlers tried again to keep a large herd, this time with the help of African handlers, skilled in rounding up the herd each evening and returning it to the village.16 Many of these handlers were from Senegambia, and they were sought after as ranch hands due to their experience herding cattle on open plains. Evidence suggests that the lasso and the saddle horn were inventions of African cattle handlers.17 The growth of Georgia’s plantation economy also saw a rise in the number of cattle for both labour and food supply, and by the late 1760s colonists were distinguishing between cattle that were “ranging freely,” “tame,” and “gentle.”18

By the 1770s, the colony of Georgia was not only feeding its population through cattle farming, but, like its neighbour South Carolina, was exporting barrels of beef (over a thousand barrels in 1772), as well as live cattle to the West Indies and other destinations.19 In 1772, over fifty thousand pounds of tanned hides were recorded in the Savannah customs Cattle and Agricultural Laborer in Pasture. 1953. house.20 During this Habersham County, Georgia, Wikimedia Commons. time, when surplus production was easily achieved, the colonists had little incentive to breed their cattle for specific attributes, as was happening in the Caribbean. Combined with parasitic blood diseases (babesiosis and anaplasmosis), which often killed purebred cattle imported from northern Europe, these factors discouraged southern livestock producers from undertaking breeding programs to improve their herds.21

Livestock became an important measure of personal property in the emergent Atlantic economy, especially for those colonists who did not have a large allotment of land or slaves. Livestock could also be purchased, sold, or willed to another party. As of 1755, cattle owners in Georgia were required to register their brands in a Book of Marks and Brands in Savannah, making it easier to determine the legal repercussions of damage to farmland by escaped cattle, and by 1759 “Toll Masters” were implemented by another statute to regulate cattle transactions.22 Further statues aimed to regulate false branding convictions, butchering and

hide businesses, and basic livestock handling rules for slaves.23 Cattle were able to provide a stable economy for the burgeoning colonies, providing not only non-liquid assets for colonists, but a consistent export economy bringing wealth back to the colony and colonists.

Toppan, Carpenter, Casilear et al. Georgia 10 dollars 1854. 1854. Bank of Milledgeville, Georgia, Wikimedia Commons. When diseases are under control, a cattle herd can double in four to six years.24 This is the case of cattle history on Prince Edward Island (PEI), where live cattle became the main agricultural export in the first decades after PEI became part of the British Empire. Part of the British Empire due to the terms of the Treaty of Paris in 1763. Indigenous peoples were forced off the land, and the island was primarily taken over by European agriculturalists.25 Existing forest was transformed into pasture by strategic burning to clear land, and a few cattle were brought to the island. In the first decades of British settlement on the island, cattle were turned loose to fend for themselves.26 Although the loss of these cattle to black bears was “very considerable,” cattle numbers continued to grow due to their access to grazing opportunities.27 Samuel Holland, a British survey-general of the northern district of North America encouraged settlers to continue their cattle endeavors, writing “great quantities of cattle may be raised” on the island, and that PEI was “one of the finest grass countries I have met with.”28 In part this was due to the large swaths of marsh hay that grew around the island, leading to an instant monopolization of cattle feed which did not need to be imported.29

PEI settlers did find an export economy and shipped live cattle by boat from a local port to St. Johns, Newfoundland. This led to a growth in cattle acting as economic leverage on the island, as cattle became exchangeable for goods such as tobacco, cloth, sugar, buttons, and nails.30 Tenants working on farms and freeholders of small means could raise a few cattle for themselves in order to pay rent, settle debts, or grow hay and grasses to sell to cattle owners for the purpose of fattening their livestock before shipment to Newfoundland, where fatter cattle fetched a higher price.31 The scale of exports fluctuated, between a low of 114 cattle in 1809, and a high of 932 cattle in 1815.32 These exports were significant, as cattle were bred and shipped within one North American colony to another. This isolated local colonists from transatlantic shipments of barrelled beef and provided a great step towards colonial selfsufficiency.

Cattle in Yards on a Farm at Virginia. C. 1925. The History Trust of South Australia, Wikimedia Commons. At the height of PEI’s cattle operations, the island’s population grew from around seven thousand in 1800 to just under fifty thousand in 1841.33 These new settlers drove the island’s primary export away from beef cattle, as they desired other livestock that could enhance farming plots and provide milk, such as pigs, sheep, and milking cows.34 Infrastructure and new farm animals began to damage cattle hay plots around the island. With such a large growth in population, the colony’s agriculture and focus shifted to potatoes, which ultimately became more economical to feed the colony’s expanded population.35 Ultimately, the cattle

industry that had contributed to PEI’s economic development in the late eighteenth century declined as frontier conditions gave way to settler societies.

Cattle were a significant contribution to the Columbian exchange the American colonies. Since they were transported across the Atlantic, cattle have undergone a genetic split from their European ancestors making them relatively immune to a recent outbreak of BSE (mad cow disease) in 1980.36 In the Americas, cattle have flourished and remain an integral part of farm life and agricultural production.

SHEEP

The sheep is a versatile animal, offering wool, meat, and milk. Selective breeding for woolly sheep began around 6000 BC, with efforts to produce a white-fleeced sheep beginning around 3000 BC in Mesopotamia. By the Bronze Age sheep similar to contemporary species were widespread throughout Western Asia where they had been introduced through trade networks to North Africa and Europe.37 Due to the cooler, damp climate of northern Europe, the wool trade flourished there during the Middle Ages. The wool trade was also important in southern Europe and the Spanish developed specialty breeds like the Merino.38 When they began travelling to the Americas, the Spanish brought along woolly sheep. This history was recorded in an 1887 edition of the Scientific American:

at the time Spaniards first visited South America there were no animals in the country which exactly corresponded to the sheep of Europe, but they found in Peru, and in the regions of the Andes, several species of animals to which they gave the name of native sheep Carneros de le tierra but which the aborigines called the llama the alpaca, the guanaco and the vicuna.39

The llama and the alpaca, native to the Americas and domesticated prior to Spanish arrival, were “said to be so resigned to their state of domesticity that they are scarcely able to take care of themselves or live in a wild state.”40 The sheep transported by the Spanish were not as easily domesticated. European sheep took advantage of their new landscape and often fled to the wilderness, becoming feral and adapting to mountainous terrain. Those sheep that were successfully contained seemed unable to breed. Unbeknownst to Spanish colonists, sheep are very sensitive to heat, humidity, and changes in their familiar surroundings, leading male sheep to become sterile for around one year after transport from temperate to warmer climates.41 The stress on the animal’s nervous system often resulted in poor fertility for the rest of its life.42 The combination of these events resulted in a sheep population that did not grow until the late sixteenth century.

Frank P. Bennett, Sheep breeding and wool growing in Virginia. 1894, Wikimedia Commons.

English settlers also transported sheep to the early American colonies where they experienced greater success due to the cooler climate. Woolen garments provided adequate warmth in cold rain and weather, and wool-bearing sheep offered a relatively sustainable resource. Similarly, ewes could be milked, and rams provided meat, all of which made the sheep desirable for colonial settlement. In 1651, Edward Johnson noted in Wonder-Working Providence of Sion’s Savior that at least fifteen percent of all domestic animals in the New England colony were sheep.43 Sheep in New England and other British colonies spread rapidly. Although not every family in New England personally owned sheep, all of them owned at least some wool clothing, if not raw wool for personal use. Cloth, cloth furnishings, and wool clothing accounted for a large proportion of a household’s wealth.44 Over time, the economic assets of the region became directly influenced by the manufacture of woolens. Sheep and sheep products became a crucial contributor to colonial life and economic growth.

John Wrightson, Sheep, breeds, and management. 1893, Wikimedia Commons.

Development of the Hampshire Down, 1792-1879. From Bowie, G. G. S. “New Sheep for Old-Changes in Sheep Farming in Hampshire, 1792- 1879.” The Agricultural History Review 35, no. 1 (1987): 19, Fair use.

Sheep are relatively low maintenance and generally provide a high return. They have less of an impact on pasture lands than other herding animals; their small hooves and lighter body weight minimize damage to sod, especially in damp spring weather.45 Similarly, sheep can also draw nutrients from late season grasses for longer periods than larger foragers such as cows or horses. Following the model often employed in England, Massachusetts colonists provided common lands for sheep grazing from March through November.46The importance of sheep as an economic asset to Massachusetts is evident in the 1645 General Court proclamation:

all ye towns in general and every one in particular within the jurisdiction, seriously to weigh the premises and accordingly that you will carefully endeavor the preservation and increase of such sheep as ye already have, as also to procure more…those such as have an opportunity to write to their friends in England…and advise them to bring as many sheep as conveniently they can [are encouraged to do so].47

In 1645, the average cost of a yearling was forty shillings (roughly $443 in 2022 dollars)48; this decreased to five shillings (roughly $5 in 2022 dollars) by 1660.49 Sheep increasingly became more affordable and dependable as an agricultural commodity, a highly appealing prospect for poor farmers. A farmer could develop his wealth in livestock with the small purchase of one ewe. Once this ewe was impregnated, gestation was five months, less than half the gestation for cows, and a ewe is likely to produce two offspring.50 Lambs reach sexual maturity in as little as five to six months and are capable of breeding in their first year of life. Theoretically one’s flock could reproduce rapidly each year.51 Aside from numerical increase, farmers could sell wool, as the average wool yield from a single sheep at this time was four pounds per year,52 offering an alternative income and domestic production of woollen products. Sheep production expanded, serving the needs of citizens and building the foundation of a highly profitable industry, problematic for the British government who had grown comfortable exporting of woolen products to the colonies.

by Samuel G. Heiskell, Wikimedia Commons. Lloyd Branson, Sheep Shearing Scene. 1921 reproduction

Colonists also used sheep to repair ‘poor land’: when flocked on smaller areas, they easily consumed weed, brambles, and ‘mangy grasses.’53 The high nitrogen content in their manure also revitalized the soil on lands that had been over farmed. This was documented by Sarah Knight in 1704 in Fairfield Connecticut: “they have an abundance of sheep whose very dung brings them great gain…they let out their sheep at so much as they agree upon for a night; the highest bidder always carries them, and they [the sheep] will sufficiently dung a large quantity of land before morning.”54

Spring lambing was a great “social leveler” of colonial society, as both men and women worked equally to ensure the health and wellness of their herds. Women were heavily involved in the lambing process, tasked with caring for the pregnant ewes, which were separated and observed until labour in a “barth” built near the family home.55 Once lambs were born, women also milked the sheep, mixing sheep milk with cow milk for drinking, or to create a rich butter or cheese.56 Once lambs were weaned, all the sheep could be returned to their usual pasture.

Sheep provided benefits that impacted every level of colonial society in the Americas, providing colonists with clothing, food, and improved quality of life. Successful sheep husbandry in the early American colonies such as Connecticut and Massachusetts is a testament to the impact of the Columbian exchange on the peripheries of empire in the Atlantic world.

CONCLUSION

The Columbian exchange brought changes to the natural landscape of the New World. Case studies of cattle and sheep, two “Old World” animals that were transported to the Americas, reveals that they transformed the lives of settlers as much as they altered their new habitat. Once they were successfully established in the Americas, these animals contributed to the survival of colonists and, eventually, to the independence of communities on the periphery from the metropoles that had encouraged their settlement. For settlers in the early Atlantic world, the frontier required daily adaptation. These settlers could not have imagined the long-term impact of introducing new animals to a foreign landscape, and it remains essential that modern historians consider this reality.

Janina Ritzen Pulfer

MAIH (History stream)