Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Agriculture and War
In his discussion of the Maya Collapse, Jared Diamond makes an interesting and insightful connection between agriculture, war and the cohesiveness and success of a society.
Corn, the dominant crop of the Maya, has a lower protein content than the Old World stapes of wheat and barley. The Maya also had fewer domestic animals to eat and no large ones like oxen, cows, horses or donkeys to use for power, transport and plowing. They depended on a narrower range of crops than did Andean farmers. Thus, the modest productivity of Maya agriculture, and their lack of draft animals, severely limited the duration and distance possible for their military campaigns.
“We are accustomed to thinking of military success as determined by quality of weaponry, rather than by food supply. But a clear example of how improvements in food supply may decisively increase military success comes from the history of Maori New Zealand. The Maori are the Polynesian people first to settle New Zealand. Traditionally, they fought frequent fierce wars against each other, but only against closely neighboring tribes. Those wars were limited by the modest productivity of their agriculture, whose staple crop was sweet potatoes. It was not possible to grow enough sweet potatoes to feed an army in the field for a long time or on distant marches.
In 1815 Europeans arrived with guns and potatoes. The result was a 15 year period of Maori history from 1818 – 1833, when Maori tribes that had acquired potatoes and guns from the English sent armies on raids to attack tribes hundreds of miles away that had not yet acquired potatoes and guns.
In the same way, “Maya armies and bureaucracies remained small and unable to mount lengthy campaigns over long distances. Even much later, in 1848, when the Maya revolted against their Mexican overlords and a Maya army seemed to be on the verge of victory, the army had to break off fighting and go home to harvest another crop of corn.”
Corn, the dominant crop of the Maya, has a lower protein content than the Old World stapes of wheat and barley. The Maya also had fewer domestic animals to eat and no large ones like oxen, cows, horses or donkeys to use for power, transport and plowing. They depended on a narrower range of crops than did Andean farmers. Thus, the modest productivity of Maya agriculture, and their lack of draft animals, severely limited the duration and distance possible for their military campaigns.
“We are accustomed to thinking of military success as determined by quality of weaponry, rather than by food supply. But a clear example of how improvements in food supply may decisively increase military success comes from the history of Maori New Zealand. The Maori are the Polynesian people first to settle New Zealand. Traditionally, they fought frequent fierce wars against each other, but only against closely neighboring tribes. Those wars were limited by the modest productivity of their agriculture, whose staple crop was sweet potatoes. It was not possible to grow enough sweet potatoes to feed an army in the field for a long time or on distant marches.
In 1815 Europeans arrived with guns and potatoes. The result was a 15 year period of Maori history from 1818 – 1833, when Maori tribes that had acquired potatoes and guns from the English sent armies on raids to attack tribes hundreds of miles away that had not yet acquired potatoes and guns.
In the same way, “Maya armies and bureaucracies remained small and unable to mount lengthy campaigns over long distances. Even much later, in 1848, when the Maya revolted against their Mexican overlords and a Maya army seemed to be on the verge of victory, the army had to break off fighting and go home to harvest another crop of corn.”
