When did people figure out that the tropics were a death trap for settlers from temperate lands?

[raharris1973]

When did Europeans and North Americans figure out that the tropics were a death trap for settlers from temperate lands, due to the high prevalence of tropical disease and extra vulnerability of people who didn't have multi-generational exposure and childhood exposure to such diseases?

Apparently the French were still clueless as late as the 1760s because they tried some major white settler colonialism (that failed) in Guiana in that era.

When Liberia was set up, I don't think people realized the toll tropical disease would take on blacks born in, or even who just grew up in North America. So that's cluelessness as late as the 1820s.

By the 1880s, steamships and quinine were enough to support navigation, and blunt tropical disease enough to allow European conquest of the African interior, and eventually, larger settlement, but even when white settlement happened, they were never the laboring classes.

So did people in Europe and North America basically have naive thoughts they could massively settle the jungle for almost as long as it was a deathtrap, only figuring out it was incredibly stupid, a decade or two before quinine, anti-malarial, and anti-mosquito measures slowly began to make settling jungles and savannas actually less deadly for temperate zone peoples?

 

[raharris1973]

Anybody have a more refined idea of the timelines of advances of awareness?

 

[WolfBear]

Not sure if it's directly relevant here, but few people have historically chosen to settle in the Brazilian tropics. Might a fear of a hostile environmental climate have had something to do with this?

Maps that compare the population density and/or population in various…

archived 12 Sep 2022 21:37:20 UTC

archive.ph

 

[Buba]

My guess would be 1485 or so - when settling the island of Sao Tome - in same manner as Madeira and Azores - failed.

 

[WolfBear]

My guess would be 1485 or so - when settling the island of Sao Tome - in same manner as Madeira and Azores - failed.

Interesting that they tried to settle it in the first half of the second millennium!

 

[Simonbob]

I would have thought a major element being the understanding of germs, enough to start seeing why it might be a problem.

It wasn't fully accepted until 1880. So, before that, they wouldn't have been sure why there was a problem. So, there would have been a "It just wasn't done right, last time!" sort of mindset.

 

[Simonbob]

You, know I was thinking about this, and I realised something.


They never did. They just worked out what the problem was, fixed that, and moved where they wanted.

 

[stevep]

I would have thought a major element being the understanding of germs, enough to start seeing why it might be a problem.

It wasn't fully accepted until 1880. So, before that, they wouldn't have been sure why there was a problem. So, there would have been a "It just wasn't done right, last time!" sort of mindset.

Well they knew there was definitely a problem, despite not knowing why. For instance malaria getting its name because they thought the illness was because of 'bad air'. However for a long while the tropical parts of Africa were known as the 'White man's graveyard' and people only went there because either the chance of great wealth was thought worth the risk or they had no choice. Similarly with European traders in India and SE Asia as well as parts of the ME, Latin America, S China etc.

I remember reading a report from the anti-slavery patrols by the RN in the mid 19thC where an officer on one of the ships decided to disprove the 'mad' idea that the fevers were caused by some sort of infectious disease by toasting his fellow officers with a cup of vomit from another man already sick with fever! Surprising enough he survived.

 

[TheRomanSlayer]

The tropical nature of the Philippines is the main reason why very few Europeans had settled in there, and Chinese migrants had been the majority of the immigrants that settled there during Spanish colonial times.

 

[Robovski]

The Miasma theory was still prevalent until the later 19th century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasma_theory so yeah, I don't think they every really cracked the nut of how Europeans weren't suited for tropical environs, they just brute forced their way through it or failed, like the Scottish colony at Panama (and countless others).

 

[Agent23]

A bunch of pretty enticing bits of real estate were IIRC in the tropics, so the various European and other colonial powers had a lot of incentive to try and get a foothold.
For instance the Sugar Islands of the Caribbean were worth more in revenue from that crop and its byproducts than was the whole of the 13 North American colonies IIRC.
Sugar, molasses and rum,spices, coffee, rubber even cotton and rice revenues were pretty huge reasons why the European powers wanted to get a foothold in places like the Caribbean and the Spice islands were major targets.

I mean, people back then were already braving salt and ore and coal mines with limited understanding of how to make them safer and reduce the negative health effects, and even now we have huge mineral and energy extraction orations in shitty places where we have below 30 Celsius cold(That should be -60 for you Murikanski).
So even if someone had proven scientifically that those places are bad for Europeans, well, you'd still see Europeans trying to go there to make money, or because they were sent by the Kings or the Honorable Companies of the Old Continent.

 

[strunkenwhite]

shitty places where we have below 30 Celsius cold(That should be -60 for you Murikanski).

-40°F is -40°C, so -30°C is definitely not -60°F. Or did I misunderstand you?

 

[Agent23]

-40°F is -40°C, so -30°C is definitely not -60°F. Or did I misunderstand you?

Google "coldest village on the planet" then convert into weird Murika units.

 

[strunkenwhite]

Google "coldest village on the planet" then convert into weird Murika units.

If you ask "how far is this from -40?" and then double it, you won't be far off.

 

[Agent23]

If you ask "how far is this from -40?" and then double it, you won't be far off.

Yes, and even in such awful climates people live because either population pressure or monetary incentive has forced them to live there, sometimes temporarily, sometimes for generations, although there is something to be said about stubbornness in the latter case.

Your point is?

 

[strunkenwhite]

Your point is?

I believe I understand now. You forgot to add 30 when applying the rule of thumb "double the celsius temperature, then add +30". It's a good rule of thumb.

 

[Agent23]

I believe I understand now. You forgot to add 30 when applying the rule of thumb "double the celsius temperature, then add +30". It's a good rule of thumb.

No, my rule is "I don't give a shirt about farenheit" or whatever you are using.

 

[Buba]

No, my rule is "I don't give a shirt about farenheit" or whatever you are using.

I understand inches and feet, I understand 20 shillings and 240 pence (and 960 farthings) to a Pound, even acres and square miles (0,4 ha and 2,5 km2) but fahrenheit, Troy Ounces and acre-feet make grey matter dribble out of me ears ...

 

[Agent23]

I understand inches and feet, I understand 20 shillings and 240 pence (and 960 farthings) to a Pound, even acres and square miles (0,4 ha and 2,5 km2) but fahrenheit, Troy Ounces and acre-feet make grey matter dribble out of me ears ...

Fart-ings.

Do the Loicense obsessed people have a standardized fart they measure stuff by?

 

[Buba]

Do the Loicense obsessed people have a standardized fart they measure stuff by?

LOL!
It is not that you pay two poops and three farts for something.
Here farth=fourth, i.e. one fourth of a Penny.
Think "cvertnik" or something like that in a Slavic language.
What are the four parts of the Shire in Middle Earth called in your tongue? They are "farthings" in English. Of course, there is a fifth territorial unit, but that is only to be expected of the British. After all, a hundredweight has one hundred AND twelve pounds in it ...
BTW - one third of the County of Yorkshire is a Riding, I kid you not.