Why Did 70,000,000 Europeans Emigrate from 1820-1920
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Transformation of Agriculture
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European Population Explosion |
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In the 1700’s 80% of western Europe’s population, with the exception of Holland’s, were involved in agriculture. Agricultural methods had remained the same for centuries. Landowners, nobility and the clergy, controlled the economy, the land and the peasants and serfs that went with the land. Crop rotation in the form of fallow fields restrained output as well as the practice of communal meadows for hay and pastures for livestock. from "A History of Western Society by McKay, Hill and Butler"
In the 1800‘s land began to be permanently marked off for families. Landowners moved beyond subsistence to market oriented agriculture to increase their wealth. Once fallow fields were utilized for crop production and fodder to keep livestock alive longer throughout winters increasing fertilizer for improved crop production. The increasing demands for greater productivity took a toll on the peasants and serfs especially when the market required specific crops such as wheat and flax. Droughts and crop failures took devastating tolls in the form of famines and plagues. Even the introduced Native American potato that better insured the survival of peasant families through the winter was vulnerable as the notorious Irish Famine proved. Although the Irish peasant grew tons of wheat for his landlord, he and his family had to subsist on a patch of potatoes for the winter. The increasing stress led to peasant and serf uprisings that resulted in the promise of freedom. After “freedom," the imposed taxes on the “freed” peasants’ land holdings, enacted to offset losses to wealthy landowners, insured true freedom remained elusive. |
 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3987379/figure/F1
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In IIIn In In In In In Europe: the modern demographic transition started to take place in the middle of the 18th century. Until then, years of extremely high death rates were quite frequent. Extremely high crisis mortality could be the consequence of epidemic diseases or failed harvests and famine, or a combination of both. As a consequence of better hygiene and a better transportation infrastructure (for one, the canals and roads constructed by Austria in the 18th century), amongst other reasons, crisis mortality became less and less frequent. Later on in the 19th century, child survival began to improve. Vaccination against smallpox for example led to an eradication of the disease, with the last European smallpox pandemic dating from 1871. This way, not only the years of crisis mortality became less frequent, but also the average death rate decreased, from an average 30 deaths per 1000 inhabitants in the beginning of the 19th century to around 15 deaths per 1000 citizens by the beginning of the 20th century. In the meantime, the birth rate however stayed at its previous, high level of 30-35 births per 1000 inhabitants. The death rate went down but the birth rate still didn’t: this caused a large growth in population. It was only near the end of the nineteenth century (a bit earlier in some countries, later in others) that married couples in large numbers started to reduce their number of children. By the middle of the 20th century, the middle class ideal of a two children household had gained enormous popularity and influence. The reaction by the Church, for example in the encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968), came much too late to bring this evolution to a halt. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3987379/ |
Near Extermination of the Indigenous Population of two Continents
76,000,000 lives
Photo from the 1870s of a pile of American bison skulls waiting to be ground for fertilizer.
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Massacre at Wounded Knee of Lakota Sioux 1891
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Appropriation of Indigenous Land, Resources and Crops
Treaties between the federal government and Native Nations rest at the heart of American history, yet most Americans know little about them. In Nation to Nation, thirty-one essays and interviews from the country’s foremost scholars of Native history and law explore the significance of the diplomacy, promises, and betrayals involved in two hundred years of treaty making between the United States and Native Nations, as one side sought to own the riches of North America and the other struggled to hold on to its homelands and ways of life. http://nmai.si.edu/store/books-and-products/#4003
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http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=175727004
Monoculture versus Polyculture
Since A.D. 1492 the world has increased its population 4-5 times and doubled between 1650-1850. Many scholars have proposed a variety of causal factors, but the increase and improvement of the food supply is clearly the most important factor in population explosions since the beginning of the Columbian Exchange. It is also clear that the addition of Native American food plants is the most significant change for that world food supply. http://www2.palomar.edu/users/scrouthamel/maize.htm Table I: Average crop yields of English farms in the 18th century Average Yield per Acre Energy Value of Crop . Bushels Kilograms Megajoules Acres of land Wheat 23 650 8,900 1.70 Barley 32 820 11,400 1.40 Oats 38 690 9,300 1.60 Potatoes 427 10,900 31,900 .50 Notes : Data are from 18th century England, recorded in Young's (1771, p. 20) The Farmer's Tour through the East of England Volume 4; reproduced in Davidson et al . (1975). The history of the potato provides a grim warning of the need to maintain genetic diversity in our staple food crops. In the 19th century, Ireland was heavily reliant on only a few varieties of potato, and those types contained no resistance to the devastating disease known as late blight. When late blight destroyed the 1845-1846 potato crop, widespread famine followed. An estimated one million people starved to death and more than a million were forced to migrate abroad. To combat pests and diseases, increase yields, and sustain production on marginal lands, today's potato-based agricultural systems need a continuous supply of new varieties. That requires access to the entire potato gene pool. But potato biodiversity is under threat: ancient varieties cultivated by Andean peoples for millennia have been lost to diseases, climate change and social upheaval. http://www.fao.org/potato-2008/en/potato/biodiversity.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/04/the-worlds-most-popular-banana-could-go-extinct/?utm_term=.50900186844f |
The End of the Napoleonic Wars From Wind and Water to Steam and Coal
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_Waterloo_1815.PNG
The Napoleonic Wars changed the landscape of war, politics and national borders....
Warfare, which was previously treated as more of a sport between kings, increased dramatically in scope. Previously, armies of 30,000 were considered large, but by the end of these wars around 1815, armies of 500,000 had been fielded, and more than 3 million Frenchmen had been involved in the war. At Leipzig alone, nearly 150,000 men were killed or wounded. https://www.reference.com/history/impact-napoleonic-wars-c55be3b3d62f37d8# |
http://www.eoht.info/page/Miner%E2%80%99s+friend
A physical comparison between a 1600 hand pump, previously used to remove water from flooded mines, and the mechanical Savery engine (aka Miner's friend) able to remove water from far greater depths, effortlessly.
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