Marie Arana: Hello and a very warm welcome to National Book Festival Presents, brought to you by the Library of Congress. My name is Marie Arana, I'm an author, and I'm also the literary director of the Library of Congress. Much of my own writing has been about the history and the people of Latin America. And the purpose of this conversation is to share a little bit of that history and  talk about how it compares with -- and connects to, the pandemic that we're living through right now right here in April 2020. So, many of us are at home, working at home, living at home, and sheltering in place, as science takes on the COVID-19 virus. I'm so fortunate to have a truly skilled and knowledgeable colleague joining me today, a scholar who wears many hats spanning history, science, linguistics, archaeology, and geography. John Hessler is the director of the Kislak Collection at the Library of Congress and a specialist on early America. He is the author of a book recently co-published by the Library of Congress called, Collecting for a New World. John is also a distinguished curator in the library's Geography and Map Division, and an expert in mapping, in general. Now how does mapping fit in with all of this? Well, he is an advisor to a number of leading edge institutions in this country as they attempt to track the spread of COVID-19 and understand how it moves through populations and time. John, welcome.

>> John Hessler: Thanks, Marie, great to be here.

>> Marie Arana: Thank you for joining me. Let's -- let's start with history. The first recorded pandemic in the history of this hemisphere was actually the smallpox pandemic that came on the ships of the conquistadors, the Spaniards, and in the 1500s, and tore through the indigenous population of the Americas in that early part of that century. What had been Europe's experience with smallpox before that?

>> John Hessler: This is a really complex and interesting question. There have been a number of scholars in recent years who have actually gone back and looked at some of the death records from France and Italy that actually seem to track with the mortality rates and what the effect of -- of smallpox was on the European populations, this is well before the conquest in the Middle Ages, and -- and sort of into the early modern period. And what they found is that, even though the mortality rate of the disease is fairly high, so 20 to 30% for the variola virus, which is the virus we're really talking about that causes smallpox, there didn't seem to be any large scale epidemics, it seems to be very localized. It seems 20 to 30% of the people died, the rest of the people may have gotten the disease, and recovered, and developed some kind of immunity to it. The smallpox is a very interesting virus, it -- it -- it has a lot in common with -- with COVID-19, but there's -- there is a lot that is very different. It has lots of different animal hosts, it's related to things like cowpox, and monkeypox, and a whole series of other -- other diseases, other viruses. The question -- the real evolutionary question for the -- the smallpox virus is, why is it only -- is one of those viruses that is only found in humans? But as far as the European experience beforehand, there were people who died, it was an important disease, but there don't seem to have been any large scale pandemics.

>> Marie Arana: Had -- had Europeans -- including the Spanish, of course, had they become immune to it by 1492 and Columbus's expedition first arrived in Hispaniola?

>> John Hessler: Well, that's an interesting question. You know, the -- the -- the virus, itself, has a -- a peculiar history, as far as that goes. Modern science has kind of started to -- to look at the sort of genomics of the smallpox of that period. And there have been some really interesting discoveries in recent years, there's a particular child mummy from Vilnius who died in -- between 1643 and 1665 that we've actually looked at very closely and sequenced some of the genome and -- and looked at some of the diseases that -- that were in the -- the -- the fleshy surviving parts of that particular child mummy. And what has been found is that the smallpox that is in that particular mummy has very, very, very much in common with the modern strains, things like its gene degradation timing, and all that kind of stuff have shown that really, this is a particularly virulent strain of smallpox that seems to have actually come into existence at the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th century, kind of just in time for its importation into new world. So, there was some immunity, obviously, with a 20% 30% mortality rate. Many people recovered and there definitely was immunity by the time -- by the time they arrived in -- in the Americas, but -- but there was still plenty of Europeans dying of smallpox.

>> Marie Arana: John, we know from early historians -- early chronicles -- how -- how devastating this particular variety of smallpox was to the native population. Some historians say that 90% of all indigenous deaths, which were considerable in those years of the conquests, were attributable to smallpox. Could you tell us a bit more about that?

>> John Hessler: Yeah, this is really interesting and the point of scholarly discussion. Some of those sources that we have Motolinia for example, is a -- a chronicler -- Spanish chronicler, he arrived in New Spain in 1524. He wrote a -- basically, a diary or a memoir, which wasn't actually published until 1903, it was in manuscript until then. And he really talks about the -- the actual mortality rate. He keeps talking in terms of 50%. But some of the other sources we have, like Sahagun in the Florentine codex, and people like [Hernan] Cortes, himself, really talk in larger terms. I mean Cortes writes about the -- bodies piled up in the streets and the odor being so bad that he can't actually stand walking through the streets. So, we're not really sure what the mortality rate was, but it was certainly -- certainly very high, and -- and much, much higher than the 20, 30% that we'd be talking about in -- in Europe at the time. The -- the interesting thing is there's a -- a peculiar timeframe we're dealing with here, and it's really from April 1520 about January 1521 seems to be when the smallpox was really introduced. There's a very early source Vasquez de Ayllon who basically talks about and -- and he writes a letter back to Charles V in -- in August of 1520, and this is the first mention we have of smallpox in the new world from a -- a Spanish source. And it basically says that he was very surprised when he arrived in Cozumel, that there were very few indigenous peoples there, and he attributed -- attributes they had been dying smallpox. He then heads off to Veracruz and finds there that immediately upon the arrival of [Panfilo de] Narvaez's expedition -- or Narvaez's flotilla that the native peoples began dying with smallpox fairly rapidly. So -- so it was a fairly rapid thing, but we don't really know that number, but it was very, very high.

>> Marie Arana: What fascinates me is how quickly, as you say, it moved through that population. In my own research for my book at the Library of Congress, my book, Silver Sword and Stone, there -- it -- it is clear from the chronicles that we know that there was trade up and down the coast of Latin America. And we know that the tribes were communicating with each other, either to trade or because they were at war, or for some reason or another. But in fact, the -- the -- the smallpox epidemic reached the coast of Peru, where -- what is now Peru and Ecuador, and affected actually the -- the Inca Emperor, Huayna Capac, died of smallpox, before [Francisco] Pizarro even arrived. So, before the conquistadors even arrived, there was this -- this quick communication.

>> John Hessler: Yeah. Well, there are some really interesting actual -- there's some very interesting sources like the Annals of the Cakchiquels, who -- this is a Maya source. But this Annals -- this -- the -- the earliest manuscript we have of it dates is from 17th century, but it relates a number of epidemics. And the first one it talks about seems to describe smallpox and it actually is before the arrival of the conquistadors, it's just a few months before that they arrived, but -- but we don't really know what's happening with the native populations moving from the islands. The -- the one really important thing that Cortes does tell us though, he does say that the death that's occurring on the mainland is exactly the same that he saw on the islands, and so he -- he definitely relates the two. There, of course, is the story of -- of the -- the introduction of the -- of smallpox, the possibility being -- that it was done by an Ethiopian slave, a slave who had been with one of the expeditions is the one who actually introduced it. What's interesting about that is we only have really one source and the rest of the sources kind of copied from that source. But it shows an important aspect of the way the Spanish were thinking of this disease that they actually had a theory of the disease. They actually had an idea that it had to be transmitted by people who didn't have immunity and that something new was going on here. So, they actually were kind of theorizing it, even just historians who are chronicling this, and in just the early -- the earliest periods of contact. But they -- they were thinking about it.

>> Marie Arana: So, you work at the Library of Congress, John, and you have -- you're the -- the director of this fantastic collection, the Kislak Collection, which is a permanent exhibit at the library. And it's a collection of all kinds of artifacts, and textiles, and -- and objects of jade, and all sorts of things, and -- and maps even. And can you tie this to those artifacts. And what do those chronicles, and maps, and things, objects, actually, do they educate us in any way about the pandemic or how disease spread?

>> John Hessler: Well, what's interesting about them is -- is obviously, there's some very important sources. Some of the -- the actual Nahua [Aztec] sources, themselves, there's some extremely important ones, the -- the Florentine codex, which was put together by Sahagun, has images actually, engravings that show the indigenous peoples with smallpox. We see things like this in the Codex e Cruz, which is the earliest image from 1550s, the earliest image we see of actual smallpox in the indigenous populations. And we have other things, for instance, the -- the -- at the library, most importantly, we have things like codices, like the codex Quetzalecatzin, which show us botanical information. We have copies things like the work of [Francisco] Hernandez who was a physician, who was in New Spain on an expedition in the -- in the 1550s and 1570s, basically chronicling plants and indigenous medicine. He chronicled over 3,000 plants. He also did autopsies on the indigenous peoples who had died of smallpox and he was an amazing source. So, a lot of these sources, a lot of these -- these sources really give us some insight into the indigenous mind, into what was going on in their world, and how they pictured their world, they give us a lot of insight into how they reacted to it. We've gotten -- we've talked about the Spanish and how the Spanish are reacted to, and how Cortez is talking about it, but how are they reacting to it? What are they thinking of? And -- you know, like all populations like this, they have their own medicine, they have their own ways of thinking about it. As I said, the codex Quetzalecatzin gives us lots of it -- the botanical information, but we also have -- have actual sources, which tell us about attempts at -- at -- at plants that they're using. There's a -- something called the sand tomato, which is a climbing vine, of which the roots are prepared, and used as a something to help fever in smallpox. Hernandez basically tells us the -- the Nahua [name for this, and -- and various other uses for it. He also tells us that if in fact it doesn't work, that the only way to actually help with curing smallpox is burn the gallbladder of a -- of a hummingbird. So, there's this mix in the indigenous world of how they're reacting to disease, both from the sort of spiritual side, from the attempting to control their world through ritual, but there's also a very detailed and -- and -- and extremely complex ethnobotany, and medicinal, and pharmacopia sources that they're -- they're trying to use. And any collections, the historical collections that are at the library and -- and in other libraries around the world are really important to -- to looking at this, to actually not only look at the science of the epidemics, but -- but what would -- what was the human cost? What's the human reaction? And we see that here today, I mean even -- even the maps that are being generated now, we have all kinds of scientific maps that people are generating, but we also have people doing drawings of their lockdown maps, and things like that, trying to -- you know, perceive their way, what -- what --and how they're feeling in this time.

>> Marie Arana: Right. Now, of course, know when a novel virus appears, no medicine is equipped to deal with it. But how sophisticated exactly were these -- these tremendously highly developed pre-Columbian empires, how sophisticated was their medicine?

>> John Hessler: Their medicine is very sophisticated. From an ethnobotanical perspective, I mean the plants they used, and some of the other things that they used in order to develop medicines, it's still something we don't really understand that well. There are some really important manuscripts, one called the Badiianus manuscript, which really gets deep into Nahua ethnobotany and Nahua medicines. A lot of those medicines today are – important- we see that they have analgesic properties, or they have certain properties like- anesthetic properties. And -- you know, there is a movement, and there has been a movement for many years, to -- to look to ethnobotany and some of these traditional treatments for what's going on today to help cancer treatments and things like that. So, it was very sophisticated. We're -- we're not really sure exactly how it develops because -- when you're living in a place where there's 50,000 different plants and you kind of zoom in on two or three that are going to have certain analgesic properties, how you get there is an interesting question. What is the empirical way that -- that indigenous peoples developed this? so-- when the Spanish arrived, there -- there was quite -- a very healthy medicinal, and -- and way of -- of looking at disease and looking at treatment, besides the ritualistic aspects.

>> Marie Arana: So, John, the question of ancient knowledge and medical sophistication actually brings us to the question of, how does all this tie to the present day? What can history tell us about what's going on right now and what we're going through right now? What do we really know with any certainty about the patterns of disease in the early Americas, and what does that history really teach us about the viral spread of the COVID today?

>> John Hessler: Well, I think one of the interesting things is -- is specifically, one can begin to look for the way of patterns of -- of -- of viral transmission. Obviously, we don't have maps from the earliest period of the Americas, but we do have sort of these ideas of how the virus spread. We have letters, we have kind the kind knowledge that -- that's through written sources. We also look back into history, the -- the people who have looked back into the records of -- of the European transmission and we can begin to get a sense, even without the science, of -- of what's kind of going on. Okay, we've got something that we see in -- in Europe that isn't really causing a large pandemic, isn't really causing epidemic, there are people dying. And then we see that the -- those -- those death records aren't really telling us that the disease had -- had serious global implications for -- for Europe during the period. And then we see all -- this -- this incidental textual knowledge that's coming through, but it's telling us that people are dying in the Americas. There's these ideas that -- from the early Spanish chroniclers, and some of the -- the Nahua sources of -- of how the disease is being transmitted. So, they kind of give us at least a sense of -- of the way it's moving in a kind of the timeframe. When we started looking at it from a more scientific perspective, however, especially today we -- we have a lot more scientific tools to look at it. So, in the case of smallpox -- you know, the -- the archaeological evidence that has been unearthed in Vilnius combined with -- with ancient DNA, and -- and the technology we have today, gives us a real sense of -- of -- of how those historical sources are correct or incorrect, however it may be. But they -- but they kind of give us a package, describingthe way that these things actually occurred, like the way these things spread. Other sources,  as we get into epidemics that -- that have -- have occurred throughout the history of the exploration of the Americas, like diaries and things like that, we -- we get a real sense of how some of this spreads, but obviously, it's, of course, not as good as what we have today, what we -- what we're looking at and how we're trying to map and figure out the spread of COVID-19 and where COVID-19 came from.

>> Marie Arana: Right. So -- so studying and analyzing former diseases, like the great influenza of 1918, or I -- HIV/AIDS, or SARS can actually predict patterns of infection and transmission. You've spent a great part of your career, John, in the study of maps and -- and the scholarship of mapping. And you're now working with a number of world organizations mapping COVID-19 and the possibility that it was originally transmitted from an animal host. So, I realize this is ongoing work and there is much just study that's still to be done, but tell us what exactly mapping has told us about COVID-19 so far?

>> John Hessler: Well, what's interesting about this is we're in a situation now where -- because we have a worldwide pandemic, and we have laboratories all over the world that are capable of sequencing DNA, we're getting a really good sense of what the overall genetic structure and what the genome of -- of COVID-19 is. Now COVID-19 is an interesting -- it's part of the -- a larger group of -- of -- of coronaviruses, corona, meaning crown in Latin and that really is because it -- it looks like a crown, and it has these spikes coming out of it, which are these glycoproteins. And -- and it's part of a -- a larger family of viruses, which, for the most part, find their hosts in Rhinolophus bats, this is a -- a -- a genus of bats, horseshoe bats, for the most part. And what we've really found is -- is the -- the sequence of the amino acids-- of COVID-19, which is actually SARS COVID-2, the original name of it; 96% of that -- that genome is actually found in the version that's found in this particular bat, the – actually the affinius species. So, people believe that it actually came from a bat, making the cross over to human beings. And what the mechanism of that crossover is not really well understood. But what it's allowed us to do is that it's allowed us to -- and as time goes on, and has cases spread around the world, and the genome is sequenced, we can develop what's called the phylogenetic tree. And that phylogenetic tree is made up of a couple of things, it basically shows where the test was done, in other words, a person in -- in New York, or Seattle, or -- or Wuhan, or somewhere in Europe is tested, and so we have a location. We also have a time, so we have got a location at a time, and we've got the actual genome. And -- and what we're trying to do -- what we're actually trying to map is the mutations through time and through space. And so, in the case of COVID-19, we can look at the figures like that on screen, and you see the -- the phylogeny of the actual virus through time. And we can look at some of the really important moments here. You can see the rise of it and Wuhan, and the purple that you see is all the transmission through China. When we start looking at the -- the colors in the tree, you can see that there are reds, and those reds are really the -- the transmission to North America, and to the United States. And we'll see there's two groups, there is one up at the top and one at the bottom. And what's interesting and what the mapping can actually tell us, for example, is the fact that the -- the part that came to Seattle -- the initial Seattle and in Illinois are actually from China, so those are -- they have mutations that -- that are very much like the Chinese virus. But the one that's up at the top is really from Europe it has the mutations that that come from a European strain. So, we can sort of see, and get an idea, and a very detailed idea, like we could never before, this is really new technology, and we're really mapping this pandemic in a way that we've never really done before and -- and the details that we can get. Now all of it is -- in this sense -- theoretical, these phylogenetic trees are kind of built by very complex computer algorithms, and mathematics, looking at the mutations of the virus as it goes along. But there's a sort of historical metaphor because the -- the phylogenetic trees that you see before you are -- are like I said, they're based on these mutations, which are kind of like errors that are accumulating in the virus. And these trees are very much like the way that an medieval historian would look at a manuscript as they kind of look at mistakes in the manuscript as it moves through time, and space, and can kind of get a sense that there is -- the initial manuscript, and here's how it changed. And it went to this place and because this error happens to be in a manuscript that came from Germany, and it's also in a manuscript that is in England that you could say that they -- came from the same place, they've got the same error, so the error is transmitted through -- through time and space. And to a certain extent, that's really what we're doing here with the viral mapping. There's a lot of data being put out. There are some really amazing organizations, like GISAID, who are basically making this data -- all of the sequenced data and all of this geospatial data available in real time and so there are people all over the world who are able to work on this project.

>> Marie Arana: So, John, those links are really remarkable, they're so -- they're so interesting. But let's take a moment very briefly to talk about the book you've written, co-published with the publishing office at the Library of Congress, it's called, Collecting for a New World. And it describes the rich trove of pre-Columbian artifacts that the library holds. What role does a library -- any library, or any archive have in the ongoing business of mapping and understanding COVID-19? Can you make those connections for us?

>> John Hessler: Well, I think you definitely can. I mean every archive, every library -- collects for a reason. And when -- when we're talking about the pre-Columbian collections of the Americas at the Library of Congress, and -- and -- the contact period collections, Kislak Collection and several other collections like the Ginsberg collection, they kind of straddle the line between contact period material and pre-Columbian material. And when we look at that material, as a whole, it really is giving us a snapshot of -- of -- of really some important moments in -- in -- in the history of the world. When we think about what it must have been for Europeans to arrive in the Americas, what it must have been for the indigenous peoples to have -- the -- the Europeans arrive, it was like no other historical moment that either group had probably faced. And so, collecting that material really gives us an insight, not only into the sort of broader political histories, and big events, but kind of into how the real lives of those people reacted, how artisans looked at it, how -- what might be contemplated by people, like Hernandez, the scientists of the day, the natural historians of the day, and it -- it -- it builds up a picture of a moment in time and I think we're in a situation now, which is really no different. When we're talking about the COVID-19, we obviously have mobilized a huge amount of scientific, and geospatial, and -- and -- and biological research to try and fight what is a profound historical moment for the world, but it's something that we've really never seen before, certainly in any of our lifetimes, and in the lifetimes of several generations before us. And -- you know, the -- the closest thing in any recent time is, of course, the 1918 flu pandemic. But -- but I think collecting in this period has the same role. You know, we are going to, of course, collect the maps and the data that -- that talk about how scientists are actively trying to map the genome, how people are -- are actually trying to fight the disease, those are the -- the really obvious things. But we also, as a library, and the -- and the Library of Congress is -- is one of the great institutions in the world for doing this, collect the cultural moment, collect the -- the photographs, collect people's thoughts, collect people's drawings, collect how it is that they fought through this moment in time. There's been some great mapping on the web, and several news organizations have picked it up, called Lock Down maps, where people are drawing the maps of their neighborhood and how they're perceiving them now. And these are not just geospatial maps, they have all sorts of cultural information, for instance, this is closed, this is open, this is where my dog likes to -- to walk, this is where I used to get a treat for my dog, but the shop is no longer open. And so -- you know, libraries, like the Library of Congress, these institutions have the responsibility, and -- and -- and the library is one of those great places that take that responsibility seriously, both -- both from the scientific side, and -- and -- and from the cultural side. And-- they have a huge part to play, not perhaps at the very moment, but certainly, as we get through this, and begin looking back at what happened to us.

>> Marie Arana: Yeah, it's a really an extraordinary testament to the sort of the memory bank that an institution like this can be, a great cultural institution that actually can tell us something about what has gone before. I mean epidemics will come and go, pandemics will come and go, and it -- it really is so enlightening to see how they can connect for us. We have some questions that came in from some tweets, John, that I want you to take some from around the country. Here's one from Cleveland, Ohio. My -- hi, my name is Caroline, I'm a historian of European history, and my question is, how will historians be able to write objectively about this pandemic of 2019 2020 without the political nature and controversies over COVID-19 revisionism?

>> John Hessler: Well, that's a tough question. I think historians face that same problem with almost any event that they are trying to write about that has importance to people's lives. Obviously, any of us who've been informed of what's going on right now see that these -- there's a differential effect in how COVID-19 is affecting various different populations. There's a demographic effect, there's a geography effect, there's a race effect, and in that sense, it's no different than any other historical event. And -- and I think historians will -- will take their perspectives, they will probably, in the end, have more evidence for an earth shattering event like this than they've -- they've had for a lot of events. And I think historians will simply get down to the business of doing their work. Objectivity, that's an open question, whether -- whether history, in itself, no matter how it's written is completely objective is an open question. But I think historians will get down to -- to doing the hard work of -- of writing about what happened, and -- and the mistakes that were made, the -- the great things that were done. In any world shaking event, there are -- there are the heroes and the villains, and I think that's why we look to historians, and that's why historians look to places like the Library of Congress. We collect all the evidence we can and throw it out there for them to interpret.

>> Marie Arana: Thank you. And here's -- here's a question from Monterey, California. What did the transmission of diseases look like in California at the time of the Portola expedition, Serra landing and 1770s -- 1770? Was it immediate? Did that first group of explorers bring in disease with them or did it come with later waves of Europeans?

>> John Hessler: That's an interesting question. I -- I think there's a couple of answers to that. I do believe that, in fact, they did bring the disease with them. There are two particular indigenous groups, the Chumash and the Tongva, who were really affected by both measles and smallpox that were brought in by that expedition. There's an amazing diary called, The Crespi Diaries, which give a -- a really -- a sort of day by day almost interpretation of the two years that that expedition -- I think it was two years, it might have been a little bit longer, was traveling in the region. And -- and the earliest part of that is narrated very, very well in these diary -- diaries. And it really actually even talks about some of the indigenous perspectives, and so it's a -- it's a really great resource. But those two -- two groups were infected nearly immediately on the arrival of-- of the expedition, so -- so it was a -- it was -- I think it was a fairly immediate effect. And -- you know, one of the -- the things that hasn't been real -- really well studied, obviously, smallpox is something that attracts -- you know, historians of the contact period, and flu pan -- the flu pandemic of 1918 has been very, very well-researched, there have been some great books written on it. But some of these smaller contacts and some of the -- the effects that it had on these more local indigenous groups, as you mentioned, Marie, all the way going down into Peru, have not been really written about in -- in a -- in a really detailed way, and it's -- it's -- it's somewhat of a good moment right now, historically, now that we're in the -- involved in something like COVID-19 to kind of look at -- you know, how -- what kind of sources can we -- we bring? How can we look at this, both looking at the sources that we have from the period, and -- and then using -- you know, modern genomic research and ancient DNA to kind of -- to kind of enlighten really how this -- how disease moved during these -- these periods.

>> Marie Arana: John, thank you so much for this conversation. There are very few people who can range from history -- pre-Columbian history to the COVID-19 right this very minute at this time, mapping it, and -- and chasing it down, and seeing where it's going, and how it's going, so we're very grateful to you. Thank you for joining us here at the National Book Festival Presents, all the best.

>> John Hessler: Thank you for having me. Everybody, stay safe.

>> Marie Arana: Exactly. Thank you so much.

>> John Hessler: Bye-bye.