In writing about “A Passion for Tomatoes,” Arthur Allen gets into some editorializing.
The tomato … is a product of what is known as the Columbian exchange, that unequal sharing of genetic material following the conquest of the New World. The Old World got tomatoes, potatoes, chocolate, squash, corn and peppers. The new one got coffee, sugar cane and cotton—and the African slaves to cultivate them—as well as smallpox, measles and other previously unknown contagious diseases that devastated the native population.
Several counterpoints.
1. Some Indian tribes had slavery.
2. Indians also got the horse, cow, sheep, goat and hog, which, if you count ranching as well as farming, transformed New World agriculture just as much as the other way around.
3. The New World (though Indians rarely grew it) also got wheat, which thrives on the American plains. And, it got melons and a variety of other fruits.
4. While the New World got the worst of contagious diseases, the tentative consensus is that it sent syphilis, if not in as virulent a form as today, to the Old World.
So, Mr. Allen, try to be a little less one-sided, next time.
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