black death reading

Population PerilsThis edition of Bill of Rights in Action examines issuesrelated to population perils. Our first article looks atthe bubonic plague that devastated Europe in the 14thcentury, killing one-third to one-half of the population.The second article explores the Irish Potato Famine,which killed more than 1 million and caused another mil-lion to immigrate to the U.S. The last article examinesthe controversy over whether overpopulation presents amajor world problem.WorldHistory: The Black Death:ACatastrophe inMedieval EuropeU.S. History: The Potato Famine and IrishImmigration toAmericaCurrent Issue: The Debate OverWorld Population:WasMalthus Right?Guest writer Lucy Eisenberg, Esq., contributed thearticle on the Potato Famine. Our longtime contributorCarltonMartz wrote the other articles.

2010, Constitutional Rights Foundation, Los Angeles. All Constitutional Rights Foundation materials and publications, including Bill of Rights in Action, are protected by copyright. However, we hereby grant toall recipients a license to reproduce all material contained herein for distribution to students, other school site personnel, and district administrators. (ISSN: 1534-9799)

BILLOFRIGHTSINACTIONWINTER 2010 VOLUME 26 NUMBER 2

The Black Death: ACatastrophe in MedievalEuropeMillions of people in Europe perishedin the plague that struck in the mid-1300s.Later called the Black Death, this plagueupended feudal society and hastenedmajor changes inWestern Civilization.

Since the last Ice Age, a certain flea haslived off the blood of rodents, especiallythe black rat, in Central Asia. The black ratflea is also the primary host of the deadlyplague bacteria, Yersina pestis (named afterAlexandreYersin who discovered it in 1894).

A flea infected with Y. pestis passes it on to ablack rat by biting it. When the rat dies, the

flea jumps to another rat. Normally,enough rats have genetic resistanceto Y. pestis to prevent a mass die-off.

Sometimes, however, a change inclimate or other conditions mayweaken the rat population, and infected fleas killoff more rats than usual. If the fleas cannot findrats, they find different warm-blooded animals tobite, such as other rodents, cows, horses, cats, andhumans.

When an infected flea bites a person, it literallyvomits the Y. pestis bacteria into the wound. Thebacteria migrate to the lymph glands and block thebodys attempt to destroy them by attacking theimmune system.

There are several forms of the plague. The mostcommon is the bubonic plague. Its main symptomis the swelling of lymph glands, called buboes,in the groin, armpits, or neck. Victims experience ahigh fever, and they often bleed under the skin,causing visible dark patches. This discoloring ofthe skin gave the name Black Death to theplague that struck Europe in the mid-1300s.

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Images of devastation and death haunted European art for centuries following the BlackDeath. This is Triumph of Death by the Flemish painter Pieter Brueghel (c. 15251569).(Wikimedia Commons)

C O N S T I T U T I O N A L R I G H T S F O U N D A T I O N

WORLD

HISTORY

The bubonic plague does not pass directly from personto person. Usually, a rat flea carrying Y. pestismust bitea person to cause the infection. Bubonic plague victimsduring the medieval epidemic had only a 5050 chanceof surviving.

A second form of plague is pneumonic, in which thebacteria attack the lungs. The most common symptom iscoughing and spitting up blood. The pneumonic formmay develop in the late stages of bubonic plague asbacteria invade the lungs.Unlike bubonic plague, the pneumonic form is highlycontagious. Someone can catch this form of the plagueby breathing in bacteria that a sick individual hascoughed or sneezed into the air. Few survived this formof the plague during the Black Death.

The Path of the Black DeathSometime around 1300, the climate began to get hotterand drier in Central Asia. Millions of black rats left theirhome territories in search of food.Many found food in thecamps of Mongol nomadic herders who lived on the vastplains of theAsian interior. TheBlackDeath began here.CentralAsia was the core of the Mongol Empire. By thelate 1200s, the Mongols had taken China, overrunRussia, and conquered Muslim lands from Afghanistanto Baghdad.As Mongol armies moved about the empirewith their supply wagons of grain and other food, theyattracted rats and the fleas infected with the plague.By the 1330s, merchant caravans were passing rightthrough plague-infested Central Asia. Once the plaguereached Chinas ports, stowaway plague rats and fleastraveled by ship to India andArabia.Genoa was one of Italys greatest trading powers in theeastern Mediterranean. It had established a center forthe Asian caravan trade at the Black Sea port of Caffa.In 1346, a dispute between the local Mongol khan andthe Genoese led to a minor war. During the siege ofCaffa, the plague struck the Mongol soldiers. When theGenoese sailed home, their ships carried hundreds ofrats and infected fleas in their food supplies below deck.When the ships reached Constantinople (now Istanbul),a major trading port on the doorstep of Europe, many ofthose aboard were sick or dead of the plague. Officialsat Constantinople prohibited the sick Genoese fromentering the city. But this did not stop rats and fleas fromleaving the ships and infecting the harbor rats.From Constantinople, trading vessels, carrying plaguerats and fleas, spread the disease to easternMediterranean

countries like Egypt and Syria. Within two years, theplague had spread throughout the entire Muslim empirefromArabia across NorthAfrica to Granada in southernSpain. Perhaps one-third of the Muslim people died.The path of the Black Death through Europe was evenmore catastrophic.

The Black Death in EuropeThe plague was not a new disease to Europe.Periodically, it broke out of its home among the rodentsof Central Asia to bring death to Europeans. But it hadbeen 800 years since the last major plague epidemic hadstruck Europe. Thus, the people had little natural immu-nity to the Y. pestis bacteria.Most people in Europe lived in small villages close tograin fields. Their cramped houses composed of sticks,mud, and straw roofs made it easy for rats to invade andbuilt nests. In crowded European towns, rats feasted onwaste from outdoor slaughterhouses and garbagedumped into the streets.Sicily was the first place in Europe to suffer the plagueepidemic. Italian traders brought the disease inrat-infested ships from Constantinople in October 1347.Soon entire families were dying.Ships then took the plague to Italys major trading portsof Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. Venice was probablyEuropes largest and richest city with a population ofabout 150,000. It was also the first to adopt publichealth laws to block the plague. Even so, Venice lost 60percent of its people to the Black Death.By 1348, the plague had reached the interior of Italy,including Florence, which lost half its population. TheItalian writer Giovanni Boccaccio witnessed and wroteabout the plague in his book, TheDecameron. In his intro-duction, Boccaccio described the sometimes-shockingway people in Florence behaved during the plague:

Tedious were it to recount, how citizen avoidedcitizen, how among neighbors was scarce foundany that showed fellow-feeling for another, howkinsfolk held aloof, and never met . . . nay, whatis more, and scarcely to be believed, fathers andmothers were found to abandon their own children,untended, unvisited, to their fate, as if they had beenstrangers.

From Italy, the plague spread throughout Europe. Itheaded west to Christian Spain and surged north intoFrance. The plague advanced town by town. Itreached the many ports of England, which lost half itspopulation in 18months.

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In 134849, the Black Death swept into CentralEurope and Scandinavia, even as far west asGreenland. But the Y. pestis bacteria possibly mutat-ed to a weaker strain since the death rate dropped asthe plague spread into Eastern Europe and Russia.

In 1352, the plague reached Moscow, only a fewhundred miles from Caffa, the first city struck by theepidemic. Thus, the Black Death completed a greatcircle, wiping out from one-third to one-half ofmedieval Europes total population.

The Response of Religion and MedicineIn Christian Europe, the Roman Catholic Churchexplained the plague as Gods punishing the sins ofthe people. The church called for people to pray, andit organized religious marches, pleading to God tostop the pestilence.

Few university medical schools existed in Europe.The physicians of these schools had mastered themedical writings of the ancient Greeks. But these aca-demic doctors never treated patients. Lesser-trainedsurgeons and other healers used various practical skillsand remedies to treat the sick.

The prevailing theory of keeping healthy was for thebody to maintain the proper balance of fluids, calledhumors. Breathing any foul air or vapors from deadbodies, polluted water, or even gases released by earth-quakes could unbalance the humors.

At the plagues peak in France, the medical faculty of theUniversity of Paris wrote a report on how the diseasebegan. The report declared that the alignment of planetsdrew up evil vapors from the earth, which were spreadby wild and southerlywinds.When breathed in, sowentthe report, foul air penetrates to the heart and corrupts thesubstance of the spirit that is in it.

The European physicians had lots of advice on how toavoid the plague: Flee as the plague approaches. Avoid exercise and bathing. Burn incense and carry flowers. Smell strong odors as from a latrine to overcome the

plague vapors.

Wear religious medals and papers with magic wordslike Abracadabra.

European doctors recommended treatments such asdrinking a potion of ground chicken bones, cutting openand burning the buboes, and even swallowing the pus of

the buboes. Another popular treatment was bleedingpatients to remove the bad humor.

As in Christian Europe, Muslims believed that Godswill caused the plague. But Muslim religious scholarstaught that the plague was a martyrdom and mercyfrom God, assuring the believers place in paradise. Fornon-believers, it was a punishment.

SomeMuslim doctors cautioned against trying to preventor treat a disease sent byGod. Others adoptedmany of thesame preventive measures and treatments for the plagueused by the Europeans. These Muslim doctors alsodepended on thewritings of the ancientGreeks.Pogroms and the FlagellantsIn 1348, a rumor claimed that Jews were responsible forthe plague as an attempt to kill Christians and dominatethe world. The rumor spread quickly, supported by awidely distributed report of the trial of Jews who sup-posedly had poisoned wells in Switzerland. Swiss offi-cials claimed the charges were true since many Jewshave been submitted to torture and confessed.

The rumor set off a wave of pogroms (violence) againstJews. Christians attacked them in their communities,burned their homes, sent them down the Rhine River inwine barrels, and murdered them with clubs and axes.In perhaps the worst case, the people of Strasbourglocked up and burned 900 Jews alive.

In October 1349, Pope Clement VI issued a religiousorder to stop the violence against the Jews. He said thatJews did not cause the plague, but rather it was theresult of an angry God striking at the Christian people

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This illustration of people infected with the bubonic plague was in aGerman Bible published in 1411. (Wikimedia Commons)

for their sins. He also accused some of those leadingthe pogroms of hoping to escape debts that they owedto Jewish moneylenders.

As the hysteria quieted down, some Christians turnedtheir anger at the Catholic Church, which seemed help-less to stop the Black Death. In fact, many local priestseither died of the plague or abandoned their parisheswhen it struck. The churchs failure led to thousands ofpeople joining the Flagellant Movement.

Bands of several hundred Christian men marched andsang hymns from town to town in a ritual of repentancefor their sins. They wore hooded white cloaks with ared Christian cross.

When they arrived at a towns main church, theystripped to the waist, formed a moving circle, andchanted prayers. As they did this, they beat themselveswith a whip, consisting of a stick with three leatherstraps, each with a piece of sharp metal knotted at theend. Periodically, the bleeding flagellants (personswho whip themselves) would fall down and lay on theground in the shape of a cross. Crowds gathered towatch the spectacle. A master of the flagellants finallyread a Heavenly Letter, calling for all to repent theirsins and plead with God to end the terrible plague.

The Flagellant Movement was a direct challenge to theauthority of the Catholic Church. Pope Clement VIcondemned it as a form of heresy (against churchbeliefs) in 1349. By the following year, as the plaguefaded in Western Europe, the Flagellant Movementdisappeared.

After the Black DeathBefore the Black Death in Europe, the population hadgrown to about 7580 million people. Farm produc-tion barely met the needs of most people to subsist(survive day to day), causing widespread poverty.When wheat and other crops failed, malnutrition andfamine brought widespread suffering.The Black Death greatly reduced the population ofEurope. The total number of deaths is estimated atbetween 25 and 40 million people. With fewer people,the land could produce a surplus of food for the muchlower population.For a short period, food prices rose because of theshortage of farm labor. But the food supply soonexceeded the demand due to fewer consumers, causinglower prices. With so many free tenant farmers, laborers, and crafts-men killed off, those who survived began to demand

lower farmland rents, higher wages, and higher pricesfor their handmade goods. Serfs, also reduced in largenumbers, demanded reductions of feudal duties theyowed to their manor lords. Most manor lords were forced to give in to thedemands of their serfs, free tenants, and laborers. Intowns, craftsmen demanded higher prices for theirgoods. All these changes drastically cut the income ofthe land-owning lords. As the lords suffered an economic decline, the lowerclasses enjoyed a higher standard of living. ThroughoutEurope, the noble elite complained that workers weregreedy, lazy, and refused to work on a long-term basis.As one nobleman put it, Servants are now masters andmasters are servants.The nobles attempted to pass laws to put the lowerclasses back in their place. The Statute of Laborers,passed by the English Parliament in 1351, made it acrime for workers to accept wages higher than whatthey had received before the plague. Noblemen also complained about the high prices andthe fine clothes commoners were now able to buy.More laws attempted to set prices and regulate whatdifferent social classes could wear. Some serfs, free tenants, laborers, and craftsmenresisted the attempts by the feudal lords to undercuttheir better living conditions. Serfs ran away, refusedto be servants, and even sued their lords. The EnglishPeasants Revolt of 1381 erupted after Parliament, forthe first time, imposed a tax on the lower classes.Similar revolts took place throughout Europe.Less severe plagues revisited Europe regularly for 100years after the Black Death. This kept the populationunusually low and economic conditions unusuallyfavorable to those who barely had enough to eat beforethe plague.

Long-Term ChangesThe Black Death hastened long-term changes inEurope. The shortage of workers spurred new labor-saving inventions such as Gutenbergs printing press.Higher incomes for more people stimulated thedemand for foreign imports, which led to the explo-ration of long-distance trade routes. Feudal society changed. Kings gained power overland-owning barons. The Catholic Church lost some ofits authority, setting the stage for the ProtestantReformation. Serfdom disappeared in most of WesternEurope by the mid-1400s.



For Discussion1. Why do you think the Black Death spread so fast

and was so severe?2. Why do you think Jewish pogroms and the

Flagellant Movement arose during the Black Deathin Europe?

3. The Black Death was a catastrophe for medievalEurope, killing almost half the population. What othereffects did it have on Europe, positive and negative?

For Further ReadingAberth, John. The Black Death, The Great Mortality of1348-1350, A Brief History with Documents. Boston:Bedford/St. Martins, 2005.

Kelly, John. The Great Mortality: An Intimate Historyof the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of AllTime. New York: Harper Perennial, 2005.

Medicine in Europe became more open to scientificobservation and evidence. Hospitals turned into placesfor treatment instead of merely places for people to die.Cities grew more aware of the importance of sanita-tion, garbage collection, and public health measuressuch as food inspection.

Plague epidemics ended in Europe by 1800. They disap-peared entirely in the world by 1900 after AlexandreYersins discovery of Y. pestis and the flea-rat connec-tion. His discovery led to the extermination of rats onships and in ports and the discovery of anti-plague drugs.

Y. pestis still exists today, but in fleas living mainlyamong rodents like squirrels in isolated wildernessareas. Fewer than 200 now die of the plague worldwideeach year, mainly due to lack of treatment.

A C T I V I T YRanking CatastrophesUnfortunately, the modern world is not free from potential catastrophes. In fact, popular literature, movies, and themedia often focus on possible disasters. Questions arise about these disasters: What are the odds they mighthappen? Can we do anything to prevent them? How much, in terms of resources and money, should we devote toguarding against them? In this activity, students will evaluate the catastrophes listed below. Form small groups. Each group should do thefollowing:1. Read and discuss each possible catastrophe. Consider each in terms of its potential loss of life, potential impact on

the world economy, potential impact on the environment, probability of happening, and possibility of doinganything about it.

2. Rank the catastrophes from 1 to 5. The number 1 is the potential catastrophe you believe is the most pressingand should have the most resources devoted to guarding against it. Number 5 is the least important.

3. Prepare to defend your groups ranking with reasoned arguments. Possible Catastrophes

a. Flu pandemic. In 1918, a flu pandemic killed 50 million people worldwide. It was highly contagious, and the virushad mutated into a much different flu virus so people did not have immunity. Two other flu pandemics occurred inthe 20th century, and another, the swine flu, is currently underway. In these pandemics, the virus was not as lethalas in 1918, but a future strain could be.

b. Tsunamis.Tsunamis are large ocean waves caused by earthquakes, volcano eruptions, or other explosions. They candevastate coastal areas. In 2004, an Indian Ocean tsunami killed more than 200,000 people.

c. Climate change.Global warming causes more violent weather, rising sea levels, bigger wildfires, more animal andplant extinctions, interruptions in food production, and possible epidemics of certain diseases.

d. Asteroid/comet impact with earth.About 65 million years ago, an impact collision created a crater 110 milesin diameter near the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. This changed the climate and probably led to the extinctionof the dinosaurs.

e. Nuclear terrorism. Terrorists may have difficulty obtaining and detonating a nuclear bomb, so the maindanger probably lies in terrorists obtaining radioactive material and detonating a conventional bomb to spreadthe material to poison a citys population.

The Potato Famine and IrishImmigration to AmericaBetween 1845 and 1855 more than 1.5 millionadults and children left Ireland to seek refuge inAmerica. Most were desperately poor, and manywere suffering from starvation and disease. Theyleft because disease had devastated Irelands pota-to crops, leaving millions without food. The PotatoFamine killed more than 1 million people in fiveyears and generated great bitterness and anger atthe British for providing too little help to their Irishsubjects. The immigrants who reached Americasettled in Boston, New York, and other cities wherethey lived in difficult conditions. But most man-aged to survive, and their descendants havebecome a vibrant part of American culture.

Even before the famine, Ireland was a country ofextreme poverty. A Frenchman named Gustave deBeaumont traveled the country in the 1830s and wroteabout his travels. He compared the conditions of theIrish to those of the Indian in his forest and the Negroin chains. . . . In all countries, . . . paupers may be dis-covered, but an entire nation of paupers is what wasnever seen until it was shown in Ireland.

In most of Ireland, housing conditions were terrible. Acensus report in 1841 found that nearly half the fami-lies in rural areas lived in windowless mud cabins,most with no furniture other than a stool. Pigs sleptwith their owners and heaps of manure lay by the

doors. Boys and girls married young, with nomoney and almost no possessions. Theywould build a mud hut, and move in with nomore than a pot and a stool. When asked whythey married so young, the Bishop of Raphoe(a town in Ireland) replied: They cannot beworse off than they are and . . . they may helpeach other.

A major cause of Irish poverty was that moreand more people were competing for land.Ireland was not industrialized. The few indus-tries that had been established were failing.The fisheries were undeveloped, and somefishermen could not even buy enough salt topreserve their catch. And there was no agricul-tural industry. Most of the large and produc-tive farms were owned by English Protestantgentry who collected rents and lived abroad.Many owners visited their property only once

or twice in their lifetime. Their property was managedby middlemen, who split up the farms into smaller andsmaller sections to increase the rents. The farmsbecame too small to require hired labor. By 1835,three quarters of Irish laborers had no regular employ-ment of any kind. With no employment available, theonly way that a laborer could live and support a familywas to get a patch of land and grow potatoes.

Potatoes were unique in many ways. Large numbers ofthem could be grown on small plots of land. An acreand a half could provide a family of six with enoughfood for a year. Potatoes were nutritious and easy tocook, and they could be fed to pigs and cattle and fowl.And families did not need a plough to grow potatoes.All they needed was a spade, and they could growpotatoes in wet ground and on mountain sides whereno other kinds of plants could be cultivated.

More than half of the Irish people depended on thepotato as the main part of their diet, and almost 40 per-cent had a diet consisting almost entirely of potatoes,with some milk or fish as the only other source ofnourishment. Potatoes could not be stored for morethan a year. If the potato crop failed, there was nothingto replace it. In the years before 1845, many commit-tees and commissions had issued reports on the stateof Ireland, and all predicted disaster.


US

HISTORY

An illustration of famine victims drawn for the IllustratedLondon News in 1847. The artist was Irishman James Mahony(18101879). (Wikipedia)

The Blight StrikesIn the summer of 1845, the potato crop appeared to beflourishing. But when the main crop was harvested inOctober, there were signs of disease. Within a few daysafter they were dug up, the potatoes began to rot. Scientificcommissions were set up to investigate the problem andrecommend ways to prevent the decay. Farmers were toldto try drying the potatoes in ovens or to treat them withlime and salt or with chlorine gas. But nothing worked. Nomatter what they tried, the potatoes became diseased: sixmonths provisions a mass of rottenness.

In November, a scientific commission reported thatone half of the actual potato crop of Ireland is eitherdestroyed or remains in a state unfit for the food ofman. By early spring of 1846, panic began to spread asfood supplies disappeared. People ate anything theycould find, including the leaves and bark of trees andeven grass. Lord Montaeagle reported to the House ofLords in March, people were eating food from whichso putrid and offensive an effluvia issued that in con-suming it they were obliged to leave the doors and win-dows of their cabins open, and illnesses, includingfever from eating diseased potatoes, were beginningto spread.

The blight did not go away. In 1846, the whole potatocrop was wiped out. In 1847, a shortage of seeds led tofewer crops, as only about a quarter of the land wasplanted compared to the year before. The crop flour-ished, but not enough food was produced, and thefamine continued. By this time, the mass emigrationabroad had begun. The flight to America and Canadacontinued in 1848 when the blight struck again. In1849, the famine was officially at an end, but sufferingcontinued throughout Ireland.

The Famine Takes Its TollMore than 1 million people died between 1846 and1851 as a result of the Potato Famine. Many of thesedied from starvation. Many more died from diseasesthat preyed on people weakened by loss of food. By1847, the scourges of famine fever, dysentery, anddiarrhea began to wreak havoc. People streamed intotowns, begging for food and crowding the workhousesand soup kitchens. The beggars and vagrants who tookto the roads were infected with lice, which transmitboth typhus and relapsing fever. Once fever tookhold, people became more susceptible to other infec-tions including dysentery.

Little, if any, medical care was available for the sick.Many of those who tried to help died too. In one

province, 48 medical men died of fever, and manyclergymen died as well.

Nowhere to TurnMany Irish believe that the British government shouldhave done more to help Ireland during the famine.Ireland had become part of Great Britain in 1801, andthe British Parliament, sitting in London, knew aboutthe horrors being suffered. But while the potato cropfailed and most Irish were starving, many wealthy land-lords who owned large farms had large crops of oatsand grain that they were exporting to England.Meanwhile, the poor in Ireland could not afford to buyfood and were starving. Many believe that large num-bers of lives would have been saved if the British hadbanned those exports and kept the crops in Ireland.

But stopping food exports was not acceptable to theWhig Party, which had taken control of the BritishParliament in 1846. The Whigs believed in laissezfaire economics. (Laissez-faire is a French wordmeaning let do or let it alone.) Laissez-faireeconomists believe that the state shouldnt get involvedin transactions between private parties. Instead, thegovernment should interfere as little as possible in theeconomy. Because of their belief in laissez-faire eco-nomics, members of the Whig government refused tostop landlords from exporting oats and grain while thepoor were starving. The Whig Party also shut downfood depots that had been set up and stocked withIndian corn.

The British government did take some steps to help thepoor. Before the famine, in 1838, the government hadpassed a Poor Law Act. It established 130 workhousesfor the poor around the country, funded by taxes col-lected from local landlords and farmers.

Conditions in the workhouses were grim. Familieslived in crowded and miserable conditions, and menwere forced to work 10 hours a day cutting stone. Manypeople avoided workhouses if they could because mov-ing in meant almost certain illness and likely death.

The government also established a public-works pro-gram. The program was supposed to be run by local com-mittees that would employ laborers to build railroads andother public-works projects. The British governmentadvanced money for the projects, but the local committeemembers had to sign a contract promising to repay theBritish government in two years (plus interest).

The projects were too few to support the hundreds ofthousands of desperate families that needed help. Most

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of the workersincluding women and children whowere put to work building stone roadswere malnour-ished and weakened by fever, and many fainted ordropped dead as they worked.

In early 1847, about 700,000 Irish worked on projects, butdid not earn enough money to eat. Between March andJune of 1847, the government shut down the public-worksprojects. In their place, Parliament passed the SoupKitchen Act in January 1847. The Soup Kitchen Act wasintended to provide free food in soup kitchens sponsoredby local relief committees and by charity.

Free food was desperately needed. In July 1847, almost 3million people were lining up to get a vile soup or astirabout porridge consisting of Indian corn meal andrice. For most of the poor, this was the only food they hadeach day, and many were still dying of starvation. BySeptember 1947, the local relief committees that operatedthe soup kitchens were almost bankrupt, and the govern-ment shut down the soup kitchens after only six months.With no more soup kitchens to feed starving people, littlehope was left.

Leaving for AmericaDriven by panic and desperation, a flood of emigrantsleft Ireland in 1847. Many left dressed in rags with notenough food to last the 40-day journey across theAtlantic and not enough money to buy food sold onboard. Some went to Great Britain and to Australia, butmost intended to go to America. Because fares on theCanadian ships were cheaper, many emigrants went byway of Canada and walked across the border into Maineand then south through New England.

The emigrants traveled on Canadian timber ships,which carried lumber from Canada to Europe and wouldotherwise have returned empty. The shipowners werehappy to carry human ballast, but their ships were notequipped for passenger travel. The conditions on thetimber ships were horrible. One philanthropist, namedStephen de Vere, traveled as a steerage passenger in thespring of 1847 and described the suffering he saw:

Hundreds of poor people, men, women and childrenof all ages, from the driveling idiot of ninety tothe babe just born, huddled together without air,wallowing in filth and breathing a fetid atmosphere,sick in body, dispirited in heart . . . dying withoutvoice of spiritual consolation, and buried in the deepwithout the rites of the church.

The Canadian ships became known as coffin shipsbecause so many emigrants died during passage or afterthey reached land and were put into quarantine. One

expert has calculated that almost 30 percent of the100,000 immigrants to Canada in 1847 died on the shipsor during quarantine, and another 10,000 died on theirway to the United States. Others who could afford thefare traveled directly to New York on American shipswhere conditions were much better. Some were alreadysuffering from fever and were kept in quarantine onStaten Island. But the vast majority of immigrants whocame between 1845 and 1855 did survive the journey.

No Irish Need ApplyAlmost all of the Irish who immigrated to America werepoor peasants from rural counties. Most were illiterate,and many spoke only Irish and could not understandEnglish. And although they had lived off the land in theirhome country, the immigrants did not have the skills need-ed for large-scale farming in the American West. Instead,they settled in Boston, New York, and other cities on theEast Coast. The men took whatever jobs they could findloading ships at the docks, sweeping streets, cleaning sta-bles. The women took jobs as servants to the rich orworking in textile factories. Most stayed in slum tene-ments near the ports where they arrived and lived in base-ments and attics with no water, sanitation, or daylight.Many children took to begging, and men often spent whatlittle money they had on alcohol.

The Irish immigrants were not well-liked and oftentreated badly. The large number of new arrivals strainedthe cities resources. (The 37,000 Irish immigrants whoarrived in Boston in 1847 increased the citys populationby more than 30 percent.) Many unskilled workersfeared being put out of work by Irish immigrants willingto work for less than the going rate.

The Irish also faced religious prejudice as almost allof them were Catholic. With the large number of Irishimmigrants flooding into the cities, Catholicism came

A family waves goodbyeto loved-ones emigratingfrom Ireland. The illustra-tion is from a 19th centurybook on Irish history.(Wikimedia Commons)

close to being the largest single Christian denomination inthe country. Many Protestants feared that the Irish wereunder the power of the Pope and could never be truly patri-otic Americans. The press described Irish immigrants asaliens who were mindlessly loyal to their Catholic lead-ers. As anti-Irish and anti-Catholic sentiment grew, news-paper advertisements for jobs and housing routinely endedwith the statement: No Irish need apply.

Because of discrimination, the Irish-Catholic immi-grants tended to stay together in small communitiesorghettos. They sought refuge in religion and began todonate to their local parishes to build schools andchurches. But by 1860, with the advent of the Civil War,Americas attention shifted to the issue of slavery, anddiscrimination against the Irish began to decline. TheKnow-Nothing Party, which was founded in the 1850s toprevent Irish immigration, split up and lost all of its sup-port. Large numbers of Irish Catholics who had enlistedin the Union Army and fought bravely at the battles ofAntietam and Gettysburg came back from the war andfound that things were beginning to change.

From the Ghetto to the White HouseAs America became more industrialized after the CivilWar, Irish laborers found new, and better-paid, work.Many worked building railroads and in factories andmines. They helped organize trade unions and led strikesfor shorter hours and better pay. And many becameinvolved in local political machines and began to play arole in city and state politics. The political machines, likeTammany Hall in New York, were associated with theDemocratic Party and ran many of the big cities. Inreturn for their political support, the Tammany Hallbosses helped immigrants through the naturalizationprocess and even provided necessities like food and coalin time of emergency. The Irish Catholics ran TammanyHall for years and helped many poor immigrant groups,including Poles, Italians, and Jews, as well as their own.

The Irish rose out of the ghetto not only because of politics,but also because of education. As the families of Irishimmigrants became more prosperous, they were able tosend their children to Catholic parochial schools run by thelocal parishes. After graduation from high school, manywent on to college and then into careers in medicine, law,and business. By 1900, only 15 percent of Irish-Americanmen were still unskilled workers. By the 1920s, the Irishhad spread into all spheres of American life. And in 1960,John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the great-grandson of a famineimmigrant, was elected president of the United States.

* * *

Abraham Lincoln once said: I happen temporarily tooccupy this big White House. I am living witness thatany one of your children may look to come here as myfathers child has. The election of John FitzgeraldKennedy as president in 1960 showed that the IrishCatholics had been assimilated into American cultureand had left the misery of the Potato Famine behindthem. Waves of other immigrants, fleeing poverty andpersecution, have followed in their footsteps and slowlyfound acceptance, and success, in America.

For Discussion

1. Before the famine, what was life like in Ireland?

2. What caused the famine? What factors made it worse?

3. In 1997, then-British Prime Minister Tony Blairissued the first apology by the British governmentfor the famine: Those who governed in London atthe time failed their people. Do you think theBritish government was at fault? Explain.

4. What problems did the Irish face in America? Whatfactors helped them overcome these problems? Whichdo you think was the most important factor? Why?

5. How similar do you think is the experience oftodays immigrants to the U.S. to that of the Irishimmigrants? Explain.

Bill of Rights in Action (26:2) 2010, Constitutional Rights Foundation 9

A C T I V I T Y

ImmigrationIn this activity, students will role play an Irish familyand decide whether or not to immigrate to the UnitedStates. Form small groups. Each group should:

1. Imagine you are an Irish family during the PotatoFamine deciding whether to immigrate toAmerica.

2. Using information from the article, discuss the con-ditions in Ireland, the dangers of the voyage, and theconditions of Irish immigrants in America.

3. Weighing the conditions and dangers, decidewhether or not you would immigrate to America.

4. Be prepared to report your decision and reasonsfor it.

www.crf-usa.org


The Debate Over WorldPopulation: Was MalthusRight?In 1798, English economist Thomas RobertMalthus wrote an essay predicting that if humansdid not check their fast-growing numbers, massstarvation would result. A debate over Malthusgloomy outlook ignited during his lifetime and isstill going on today.

The debate over the limits of human populationgrowth began with Greek and other ancientthinkers. In A.D. 210, Tertullian, an early Christianscholar, wrote:

Our teeming population is the strongest evidenceour numbers are burdensome to the world, whichcan hardly support us from its natural elements. . . .In every deed, pestilence and famine and warshave to be regarded as a remedy for nations as themeans of pruning the luxuriance [large numbers]of the human race.

At the time of the American and French revolutions inthe late 1700s, some English and French writers pre-dicted unending improvement for humankind. WilliamGodwin, an English philosopher, wrote about a bounti-ful earth capable of supporting the growing humanpopulation indefinitely.

Not everyone agreed with this optimistic visionof the future. Thomas Robert Malthus, a profes-sor of economics in England, held a much morepessimistic view.

Malthus Principle of PopulationIn 1798, Malthus wroteAn Essay on the Principleof Population, as It Affects the FutureImprovement of Society. Malthus began with twofixed laws of our nature. First, men and womencannot exist without food. Second, the passionbetween the sexes drives them to reproduce.

He explained that, if unchecked, people breedgeometrically (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, etc.). But, he con-tinued, the production of food can only increasearithmetically (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.). The naturalinequality of the two powers of population and of[food] production in the earth, he declared,form the great difficulty that to me appears insur-mountable [impossible to overcome].

Malthus concluded: I see no way by which mancan escape from the weight of this law. In other

words, if people keep reproducing in an uncontrolledgeometric manner, they will eventually be unable to pro-duce enough food for themselves. The future, Malthusargued, pointed not to endless improvement for humani-ty, but to famine and starvation.

Malthus claimed that, if unchecked, the population of anation or even the world would double every 25 years.He got this idea from Benjamin Franklin, who had esti-mated that 1 million American colonists, living in anabundant and healthy environment, would double to 2million in 25 years.

Malthus applied this doubling rule to Britain, with apopulation he estimated at 7 million. He calculatedthat in 25 years Britains population would reach 14million, but food production would keep up. In another25 years, the population would redouble to 28 million.Food production, however, increasing at the slowerarithmetic rate, would only feed 21 million. Malthusrecognized that his doubling rule would only apply insituations of continuous uncontrolled childbirth.

Malthus noted that the English poor added to their ownmisery when they married early and had too manychildren during good times. These children grew up tocreate an oversupply of workers and a drop in wages.Meanwhile, the population increase caused by theirlarge numbers stressed food production and causedhigher prices. The result, said Malthus, was hunger anda rise in child mortality (death).

Malthus argued that these conditions forced the poor tomarry later and have fewer children, which brought the

Thomas Robert Malthus (17661834), an English economist,believed that unchecked population growth would lead to famineand starvation. (Wikimedia Commons)

CCURRENT

ISSUES


population and food supply back into balance. But assoon as things got better, the poor produced greater num-bers of children again, and the whole cycle started again.

Malthus contended that the only way to avoid massstarvation in the future was to check population growthto keep it equal to food production. He declared, Thesuperior power of population cannot be checked with-out producing misery and vice. By misery and vice,he meant starvation, plagues, war, contraception, abor-tion, and the killing of infants, none of which he want-ed to see happen.

Was there nothing other than misery and vice to con-trol population? In his book-length 1803 revision,Malthus called for moral restraint, which includedchastity until marriage, delayed marriage, and havingfewer children (he had five).

Malthus did not believe moral restraint would work,especially among the poor. Even so, he supported a pub-lic tax-supported primary school system to lift the lowerclasses out of poverty and irresponsible breeding andinto middle class self-control and responsibility.

But Malthus vehemently opposed giving governmentrelief, such as food and shelter, to the impoverished.Making the poor comfortable, he argued, only encour-aged them to have bigger families, which increasedtheir numbers and continued their misery.

Malthus DebunkedAfter Malthus first published his essay in 1798, a stormof criticism erupted. The optimists called his vision ofunavoidable mass starvation a doctrine of despair.Others condemned his call for abolishing Englands PoorLaws, which provided relief for the starving homeless.The historian Thomas Carlyle dubbed Malthus new sub-ject of economics the dismal science.

Malthus and others who came to his defense, likeeconomist David Ricardo, became the pessimists inthe debate over the future of humanity. Over time,however, Malthus became slightly more hopeful aboutthe future. He admitted the possibility of gradual andprogressive improvement in human society. When hedied in 1834, the population of the world stood atabout 1 billion people.

Ironically, during Malthus lifetime, England was radi-cally changing. The Industrial Revolution and the useof machinery in agriculture greatly multiplied whateach factory and farm worker could produce.

Malthus did not foresee the possibility of openingup vast new tracks of land for cultivation by

steam-powered farm machines. Now, fewer farmerscould produce more food than ever before. Thus,Malthus arithmetic increase in food productionseemed far too limited.

Later on, something unexpected happened as theIndustrial Revolution modernized Europe. No longerneeded for agricultural labor, people moved to industrialcities. Here they discovered less need for large familiesthan on the farm where children helped with planting,harvests, and other chores. Also, since health conditionsimproved, child mortality declined. People discoveredthey did not have to have large families to compensatefor some of their children dying young. By 1900, in many parts of Europe, the fertility rate (aver-age number of children born per woman) began to godown. This meant smaller families. This check onpopulation growth was one Malthus never imagined.Demographers, who study population trends, havediscovered other reasons why families get smallerwhen a society modernizes. As poor women from farmregions become better educated, they tend to seekwork outside the home, delay marriage, and havefewer children when they do marry. In countries that have undergone modernization, mar-ried women often choose to have a job and a family,but with only one or two children. Many parents alsochoose between having a large family that may causefinancial struggle or a having a small family that mayallow a more comfortable lifestyle.Thus, as a nation industrializes and its people become bet-ter educated, the fertility rate seems to drop, which meanssmaller families and a slowing of population growth.Economists call this the demographic transition. By the 20th century, improvements in agriculture hadsped up food production and the demographic transi-tion had slowed down population growth. The olddebate between the optimists and the pessimistsappeared to be over. The optimists had won, andMalthus Principle of Population seemed dead.

The Return of the PessimistsAfter World War II, the worlds population accelerat-ed. It took more than 100 years for the population togrow from 1 billion in Malthuss time to 2.5 billion1950, an increase of 1.5 billion. It only took 25 years,however, to add another 1.5 billion between 1950 and1975. This occurred mainly because death rates fromdisease fell sharply in many nations due to betterhealth care.



The increasing world population alarmed someenvironmentalists, who declared that since theearths resources were limited, population had tobe controlled or even reduced. Of course, this wasthe basic argument made by Malthus and hisfellow pessimists over a century earlier.

Fears of an overpopulated planet became a hot topicwhen Paul and Ann Ehrlich published ThePopulation Bomb in 1968. The battle to feed allhumanity is over, the Ehrlichs pronounced. In the1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of peoplewill starve to death in spite of any crash programsembarked upon now.

Population numbers continued to zoom upward,doubling in 40 years from 3 billion in 1960 to 6.1billion in 2000. In its mid-range estimate, theUnited Nations projects the world population toreach 8 billion by 2025 and 9.1 billion by 2050 at apace of 7880 million people per year. Some predictthat if population numbers do not taper off in the sec-ond half of the 21st century, the worlds populationmay reach 1112 billion by 2100.

The driving force behind this mounting population isthe high fertility of women in poor developing coun-tries, such as Pakistan currently at 4.0 children perwoman and Uganda with 5.9. (The world average is2.5 children per woman.) Moreover, many people inthese poor countries are young and have not reachedchild-bearing age.

In 1968, Paul and Ann Ehrlich, along with other popu-lation pessimists, argued that the worlds populationwas outracing the food production. In the 1970s, how-ever, biologists developed new high-yield strains ofwheat, rice, and other food crops that dramaticallyboosted harvests, much like steam-powered farmmachinery did over a century ago. Many agriculturalexperts called this the Green Revolution.

Thus, food production again kept up with populationgrowth. But this came at a cost. The new high-yieldseeds required chemical fertilizer and pesticides, tooexpensive for many farmers in poor countries. Also,the Green Revolution crops depleted soil faster, andthe fertilizers and pesticides polluted waterways.

The Green Revolution may have prevented the mass-starvation predicted in The Population Bomb, but thepessimists point to local and regional famines that stillkill millions of people today when droughts, floods,and pests destroy crops. In addition, climate change

may intensify these threats. In 2010, an unprecedenteddrought and wildfires destroyed much of the wheatcrop in Russia, a major world grain exporter.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)estimates that 20 percent of the people in poor devel-oping countries are chronically undernourished. TheFAO also states that food production must increase by70 percent to feed adequately the 9 billion peopleexpected to inhabit the planet by 2050. The pessimistsdoubt that science has enough time to find and cross-breed genes from wild plants to develop new high-yield food crops.

Today, the population pessimists emphasize the envi-ronmental damage and depletion of natural resourcescaused by an overpopulated planet. They point toeroded and exhausted farmland, pollution, shrinkingforests, and declining non-renewable energy like oil.Currently, Egypt and neighboring African countrieswith some of the highest fertility rates in the world arebattling over how much water from the Nile eachshould get for irrigated farming.

The pessimists argue that the demographic transi-tion takes a long time to develop. In many countries,cultural and religious traditions stand in the way, espe-cially blocking any changes in the role of women.

Even as the fertility rate drops in countries goingthrough the demographic transition, the pessimistscontend, the resulting smaller but wealthier familiestypically consume more of the earths resources. Theyhave richer diets and live in bigger houses. Imagineevery Chinese adult in a country of 1.3 billion peopleowning and driving a car.

People jam onto a train in Bangladesh, a poor Asian country that hassuffered famines and natural disasters. (Wikimedia Commons/Mikael655)


How many people can the earth support? Recentresearchers have tied their estimates to some level ofwell-being for the earths inhabitants, including suchthings as diet, shelter, possession of manufactured goods,etc. Most of these estimates put the earths carryingcapacity at between 4 and 16 billion people.

About 40 years after Paul and Ann Ehrlich published thePopulation Bomb, the worlds population has nearly dou-bled again. The pessimists call for stepped up U.N. andnational programs to bring down the fertility rate in poordeveloping countries. Men and women, say the pes-simists, need instruction on family planning, delayedmarriage, and the economic advantages of smallerfamilies as well as easy access to contraceptives.

The Optimists Strike BackTodays population optimists point out that while thetotal number of people in the world is still going up, theyearly rate of population growth has been decliningsharply, except in poor developing countries. The opti-mists expect the worlds population to peak at about 9billion in 2050 and then gradually go down.Optimists say that the decrease in the world fertilityrate has been even more dramatic: 4.9 children perwoman in 1950 to 2.5 in 2010. Fertility rates havedropped the fastest in developed countries likeGermany and Japan.The optimists predict that by 2050 a majority of countries,including many poor developing ones, will be at or underthe 2.1 fertility replacement level. This level occurs whenparents, on average, have just enough children to replacethemselves. (The .1 is a statistical adjustment to accountfor girls who die before childbearing age.)The optimists argue that if we have a population prob-lem in the future, it will be because fertility rates aretoo low in many nations. Developed countries likeGermany and Japan already have fertility rates belowthe replacement level. They are facing the challenges

of a decreasing and older population, labor shortages,and a shrinking economy. One solution for countrieswith negative population growth would be to encour-age more young immigrants, who can increase theworkforce and pay taxes to support the aging nativepopulation.

Unlike most other developed countries, the UnitedStates is on track to have a steadily rising populationthrough 2050 even though its fertility rate has beenbelow the replacement level since the 1970s.Demographers say the U.S.s population will risebecause of continuing immigration. The widespread famines and mass-starvation predictedin The Population Bomb never happened. The opti-mists say the world now produces more food on lessland than ever before. Still, large areas of land suitablefor farming have yet to be cleared for cultivation. The optimists point to the Green Revolution, whichboosted world food production 250 percent. As a result,food prices have gone down, calories per person are up,and malnourishment is more the result of stalledeconomic development and wars. In the meantime, lifeexpectancy around the world has steadily climbed. As for threats to the environment and depletion ofresources, the optimists like to quote economist JulianSimon who wrote The Ultimate Resource in 1981:

Human beings are not just more mouths to feed,but are productive and inventive minds that helpfind creative solutions to mans problems, thusleaving us better off over the long-run.

There is no reason, according to the optimists, whyinventive scientists and others cannot develop newnutritious food crops, discover energy alternatives, oruse technology to heal the environment.The optimists have long objected to the aggressivepopulation control policies of the pessimists as unnec-essarily invading the lives of people, especially poor


World Population 19502050

Year World Developing Countries Europe United States

1950 2.5 billion 1.71 billion 547 million 158 million



2050 9.1 billion 7.87 billion 691 million 404 millionSource: Adapted from United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision Population Database. URL: http://esa.un.org/UNPP


women. For decades after World War II, the U.N. andmany nations adopted policies that encouraged the useof contraceptives, voluntary sterilization, and abortionto reduce fertility in regions of high population growth.

The most extreme population control measure wasChinas one-child policy. This successfully reducedChinas fertility to below the replacement level. TheChinese tradition of favoring boys over girls, however,led to an upsurge of abortions among some women tosecure a male as their single child. This has caused animbalance of males in Chinas population.

The optimists call for an end to what they call the waron fertility. They are convinced that economic devel-opment and education, especially of women, in the highfertility developing countries will speed the demo-graphic transition. This will naturally reduce the fertil-ity rate and slow population growth to enable a balancebetween numbers of people and the carrying capacityof the earth.

For Discussion1. What was Malthus Population Principle? How did

the Industrial Revolution appear to debunk it?

2. Pakistan with a current fertility rate of 4.0 is ontrack to see its population nearly double in the next40 years. If this country had a choice between build-ing dams to irrigate more farmland or increaseinvestment in family planning to sharply reduce thefertility rate, which would you recommend? Why?

3. Make lists of the ways to control population growthsuggested by Malthus, todays pessimists, andtodays optimists. Pick what you think is the bestsuggestion from each list and explain why.

For Further ReadingAppleman, Philip, ed. An Essay on the Principle ofPopulation. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2004.

Newbold, K. Bruce. Population Geography, Tools andIssues. Lantham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010.

A C T I V I T Y

Is There an Overpopulation Problem?Divide the class into three groups to debate thisquestion. One group will take the position of thepopulation pessimists, one group will take theposition of the population optimists, and the thirdgroup will act as a panel of judges to decide theoutcome of the debate.1. The pessimists and optimists should first discuss

among themselves what their answer to thedebate question is based on the information pro-vided in the article. Then, each side shouldresearch facts and arguments from the article tosupport its position.

2. The panel of judges should prepare questions toask each side during the debate.

3. The debaters for each side should share research-ing, presenting their case, and answeringquestions from the judges and the opposite side.

4. After each side has finished presenting andanswering questions, the panel of judges willmeet openly before the debating groups and dis-cuss the debate question. Panel members willconclude their discussion with a vote to decidethe winner of the debate.

World Fertility Rates 19502050(average number of children per woman)

Replacement Level=2.1

Year Range World Developing Countries Europe United States

195055 4.92 6.00 2.65 3.45

200005 2.67 2.89 1.43 2.04

201015 2.49 2.62 1.53 2.02

204550 2.02 2.05 1.80 1.85

Source: Adapted from United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision Population Database. URL: http://esa.un.org/UNPP

The Development of Law Series Linked to world history standardsGrades 912

One of our most popular texts returns in a new editionOf Codes & Crowns is fully revised and updated. And it now has a companion vol-ume, Of Democrats & Dictators, which begins where Codes leaves off. The two volumes trace the development of law from ancientMesopotamia to modern times. Each volume features lessons with: short, high-interest readings; discussion questions to facilitate under-standing; and interactive activities to foster critical thinking.

Each volume has an extensive teachers guide containing more than 20 lesson plans. The plans include focus activities, discussion questionswith suggested answers, step-by-step instructions for interactive activities, and debriefing questions and suggestions.

Web Links: Our web site has links to additional resources for each unit.

Volume One: Of Codes & Crowns (3rd Ed.)From the Ancient World to the Renaissance

Unit 1: Hammurabis Treasureexplores one of the first-known writ-ten codes of laws, the Code of Hammurabi.

Unit 2: Blood Feudhighlights one of themajor problems with an eye for an eye,the never-ending blood feud.

Unit 3: Jewish Law looks at one of thefoundations of the Western legal tradition.

Unit 4: Roman Lawexamines the mostinfluential and sophisticated legal system ofthe ancient world.

Unit 5: Islamic Law analyzes the Sharia,the system of law based on the Koran andthe Sunna.

Unit 6: Merry Old England looks at different legal processes inmedieval England.

Unit 7: The Magna Carta tells the story of King Johns battleswith the church and his barons and how his battles led to himsigning the Magna Carta.

Unit 8: The Trial of Galileo tells the story of Galileo, the greatest sci-entist of his time, and his conflict with the Catholic Church.

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Unit 6: War Crimes focuses on the development of rules of war, theNuremberg trials following World War II, and the International CriminalCourt.

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