Fine except for the expected bias

[smascrns]

Nice column but it displays the usual anti-Portuguese bias prevalent in Renaissance and Modern Age historiography. I mean, your timeline of the history of plants fails to mention what was prehaps the greatest period of human-induced plant spreading around the world: The outcome of Portuguese navigations. (And yet the Spanish and Dutch are well mentionned in the timeline. Go get it.)

Want some examples? Here they go:

XV century, introduction of sugar cane to the Madeira Island. For several decades it become the greatest exporter of sugar to Europe.

Spread of American plants to Africa and Asia including cashews (a major crop in India and East Africa today), chillies (afterwards a basic staple of South and South East Asian food), avocados, peanuts, pineapples, sweet potatoes, guavas, cassavas or mandioc, maize, papaya.

Spread of Asian plants to other parts: Banana, peppers, sugar cane, tea, coconut, mangoes, ginger.

Spread of African plants to other parts: Oil palm, yams.

A Portuguese, Garcia da Orta, wrote the first systematic treatise on plants from around the world, the Coloquio dos SImples e das Drogas.

You mentionned about spices the advantages of a monopoly in their trade. Well, the Dutch took the idea to its ultimate consequences on what concerns cloves. From the XVII century they had both the monopoly of trade and production (at the time concentrated in the Banda islands). What they did was to limit production way bellow demand by destroying most production fields... and the natives that cultivated them. Next they sold the stuff at exhorbitant prices.

Just some tidbits of history.

[Jennifer]

Nice column but it displays the usual anti-Portuguese bias prevalent in Renaissance and Modern Age historiography. I mean, your timeline of the history of plants fails to mention what was prehaps the greatest period of human-induced plant spreading around the world: The outcome of Portuguese navigations. (And yet the Spanish and Dutch are well mentionned in the timeline. Go get it.)

Want some examples? Here they go:

XV century, introduction of sugar cane to the Madeira Island. For several decades it become the greatest exporter of sugar to Europe.

Spread of American plants to Africa and Asia including cashews (a major crop in India and East Africa today), chillies (afterwards a basic staple of South and South East Asian food), avocados, peanuts, pineapples, sweet potatoes, guavas, cassavas or mandioc, maize, papaya.

Spread of Asian plants to other parts: Banana, peppers, sugar cane, tea, coconut, mangoes, ginger.

Spread of African plants to other parts: Oil palm, yams.

A Portuguese, Garcia da Orta, wrote the first systematic treatise on plants from around the world, the Coloquio dos SImples e das Drogas.

You mentionned about spices the advantages of a monopoly in their trade. Well, the Dutch took the idea to its ultimate consequences on what concerns cloves. From the XVII century they had both the monopoly of trade and production (at the time concentrated in the Banda islands). What they did was to limit production way bellow demand by destroying most production fields... and the natives that cultivated them. Next they sold the stuff at exhorbitant prices.

Just some tidbits of history.

Right. It's not like I purposely left out the transfer of plants from one place to the other. The way I see it I've got a ton of articles to come up with. These first three articles were to be the beginning, an overview for gamers to use when setting up their worlds.

A large portion of the sword and sorcery, hack n' slash adventures take place in a world similar to the Old World. Most people who are running around a continent fighting ghouls and demons are going to be into long-distance travel across water. Therefore I had to figure out how to separate the articles.

There is no doubt that the travels to and from the New World are important to the world et al. But long-distance sea travel and discovering new varieties are very much their own article. In order to apply it to gamers it's going to have to be its own article.

Y'see, as Shannon put it, and he's right, everything I right has to apply to gamers. I added the Concord grape thing because I wanted to heads-up the GM that they just don't exist. But I tried to be as brief as possible about the discoveries of the Portuguese and others because I couldn't apply all of it to gaming other than "certain things aren't available, unless you want to push a few anachronisms."

Later on, I'm going to cover the sea trade with plants, probably in the same article that I describe the Silk Road a little more in detail. There're a ton more things that can be added to most of these articles, but these first few covered so many that I could only touch on a few.

I apologize for not mentioning the Portuguese specifically. Trying to apply everything to gaming means I have to be as broad as possible, and a lot of good real history is going to be skipped in order to make room for lists, descriptions of character hooks, and GM assistance.

However, fear not. after talking with Shannon, it looks like I'll be putting together a detailed book on the importance of plants when creating game settings and everything that I've skipped will be put back in with a gusto.

In fact, I'm beginning to believe that a series designed to help GMs create more-detailed settings, including climate, animals, monsters, plants, and ritual religions and magics may be in the works from Firewater Productions. Most gamers I know use books on fiction and fantasy world-building, but a set of manuals on doing it designed for gamers may be marketable.

Stay tuned. Everything mentioned here that I am missing will be remembered and re-inserted as another article or gamer material for the books.

[smascrns]

Right. It's not like I purposely left out the transfer of plants from one place to the other.

You mentionned the Spanish and the Dutch, then... But I'll not get back at it, I just hope you understand I had to protect my turf.

There is no doubt that the travels to and from the New World are important to the world et al. But long-distance sea travel and discovering new varieties are very much their own article. In order to apply it to gamers it's going to have to be its own article.
I look forward to it.

In fact, I'm beginning to believe that a series designed to help GMs create more-detailed settings, including climate, animals, monsters, plants, and ritual religions and magics may be in the works from Firewater Productions. Most gamers I know use books on fiction and fantasy world-building, but a set of manuals on doing it designed for gamers may be marketable.
I hope you do it. In terms of historigraphical reference, there's always the much maligned "Guns, Germs and Steel" as a source of inspiration...

You are tooching at one of the hardest issues in terms of game-world design, one of the least understood and one that is usually poorly done. Many game worlds (specially fantasy and sci-fi game worlds) have pages and pages of history detailing tens of thousands of years before the game present and most of it is just useless data from the perspective of the characters (I'm referring to past ages, dead gods and empires, wipped out races and civilizations and so many similar things). On the other hand, the type of information you want to toy with also requires a very long term description but it has direct impact on the setting's present... but that importance needs to be well explained. Go forward with it.

[Jennifer]

You mentionned the Spanish and the Dutch, then... But I'll not get back at it, I just hope you understand I had to protect my turf.

I apologize sincerely. And I will promise you that in a discussion of "finding and determining the value of new and fun plants in new worlds," the Portuguese will not be forgotten. :)

[Jennifer]

Just wanted you to know that in my compendium for using plants in RPG settings I went back and added this in the chronology:

1419 The Portuguese begin to explore the oceans under Prince Henry the Navigator. The Portuguese will introduce coriander, pepper, ginger, curry, saffron and paprika in Europe. Thanks to the expansion of their overseas empire, they will also actually be the first Europeans to dock in the Mollucas, in China, in Japan, and in Ethiopia. They will bring back with them many other exotic products up to then unknown to Europe, such as rice and tea from the Orient, coffee and peanuts from Africa, and, of course, pineapples, peppers, tomatoes and potatoes from the New World.