Rather, he says, the land was full of people, developed into complex cultures and polities. But what came before Europeans in the “New World” of North and South America? What was already here when they arrived? Was there much more than a few human sacrificing Aztecs (in South and Central America) and nomadic tribes in North America?
The children’s nursery rhyme reminds us that “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” Just this last week we’ve celebrated Thanksgiving and the mythologized first meal shared by “Pilgrims” and Native Americans in the early years of Captain John Smith’s Plymouth Colony in the 1620s. Mann’s “1491,” and I have had a hard time putting it down since. Recently, though, I found reason to pick up Charles C. I’ll be the first to admit that my interests in the historical have generally been Eurocentric, especially the Roman Republic and Empire.
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