Dbq Cultural Diffusion

The natives of the America's were isolated from the people of the old world for thousands of years and were not immune to these diseases. (Doc 4). Says, “a great plague broke out here in Tenochtitlan… striking everywhere in the city and killing a vast number of our people.” These diseases took a toll on the population of the new world's

Europeans traded goods like tobacco and guns for millions of African slaves. These slaves were brought to America in order to farm and build infrastructure. A large percent of slaves didn't even make it to the American mainland; conditions aboard the ships were so cruel that many died. Even if they made it to America their children would also be forced into slavery and forced to work for the rest of their lives. Many of these slaves were brought to West Indian Islands and were used to produce and grow crops such as sugar and tobacco. The income generated from this production went into increasing the size of the American and European

There is data to suggest that around the beginning of the 16th Century, there were approximately 18 million Native Americans living in North America. By 1900 the population of the Indigenous peoples had declined to about 250,000. The common belief has been that this rapid decrease in population has been due to the disease that Europeans brought with them when they migrated to the “new world”. Historian Alfred W. Crosby writes that “it is highly probable that the greatest killer was epidemic disease, especially as manifested in virgin soil epidemics.” Many reports and essays focus on disease as the main killer of the Indigenous population, but few often look at how the European and Indigenous population responded to disease. The questions

The diseases the Europeans brought with them affected the indigenous negatively because it killed a large portion of the population in a painful way. The Natives had very little diseases before the Europeans invaded their land. Unlike people in the Old World, the Natives did not farm cattle or pigs and did not live near the animals they did have. They never had the opportunity to develop immunities to diseases that the cattle and Europeans carried when they came upon their shores. The diseases spread quickly and attacked the indigenous in gruesome ways. Smallpox caused sores to erupt on their skins that were so painful that an Aztec account states that “[the sick] could only lie on their beds like corpses” (Document 4). The pain would not

By 1492 there was 2 to 5 million Natives in America, because of exposure to new diseases, especially smallpox, influenza, and measles. The Native American's immune systems could not fight these diseases because they had never been exposed to them before, leading to the widespread deaths of almost all Natives living in this time.

One of the most important negative effects the Columbian Exchange had on the Natives lives was the introduction of many diseases to the New World. The Europeans brought diseases including smallpox, measles, influenza, and malaria with them. These diseases had a major impact on the Natives lives, killing up to 90% of the people in the New World. Medicines and vaccinations had not come to the New World yet, so no one was aware of how to cure these diseases. The Columbian Exchange had both positive and negative effects on the Natives; however, the Europeans also experienced benefits and

During the Columbian Exchange, Europeans brought a large variety of unknown diseases to North America, such as small pox, mumps, typhus, chicken pox, measles, and influenza. Europeans developed immunity to these diseases after constant exposure to them, Native Americans, however, were susceptible to them. As a result, European contact with Native Americans resulted in the death of millions of indigenous people. Eventually, the once prosperous American Indian societies became depopulated within a small period of time.

When the English, French, and Spanish explorers came to North America, they brought terrible changes to American Indian tribes particularly in the way of new diseases. Native peoples of America had no immunity to fight the diseases that European explorers and colonists brought with them. Diseases such as measles, smallpox, influenza and chicken pox were deadly to American Indians. The Europeans were used to these diseases. They had antibodies that built up over the centuries to ward off these diseases, but the American Indians had no resistance to them at all. Sometimes the illnesses spread through direct contact with colonists. Other times, they were

Smallpox was endemic in the Old World, which means that the overwhelming majority of Europeans were exposed to the virus in childhood” (Resendez 15). The infections presented in the Americas by the Europeans were swarm infections: that is, people who have once gotten the illness and survived end up immune to the disease. The early Europeans knew that sicknesses were obliterating the Native American people group. Many of the English pioneers saw the infections as confirmation of God's arrangement for them to settle the territory. Numerous Europeans, both Spanish and English, see the overwhelming infections as confirmation of God's anger coordinated toward the Indians and proof of the corrupt existence of the Indians. Since Native Americans were heathens the worst sin of all, it was normal that God ought to demolish them with such a disease. “Since both causes of death, disease and famine, were so common throughout Europe, many historians find it difficult or impossible to distinguish between those who died of disease and those who merely starved to death” (Stannard 58). Nourishment deficiencies and soaring costs were an unavoidable truth for as much as a century prior to the plague. Wheat, oats, hay, and

The people in Europe had evolved to obtain immune systems that would fight off the illnesses. The New World had not been exposed to these advanced diseases, so the Native Americans fell weak to these modern diseases. In the article, “Christopher Columbus: Hero or Villain?”, the author states, “He and his crew brought awful diseases, such as smallpox, to which the men and women of the New World had no defenses and millions died” (Minster 1). Columbus brought numerous diseases to the New World and wiped out a good majority of the Native American population. Christopher Columbus established a trade that swapped goods, crops, animals, and diseases. The Columbian Exchange had brought many epidemics to the Americas (“Cultures Make Contact” 33). Although, Columbus and his crew originally brought over some illnesses, but as people began to trade, diseases began to spread to the Native Americans. The Columbian Exchange instituted a trade of diseases, including the most commonly spread: smallpox, measles, and

Many major epidemics originated from diseases of domesticated animals: measles, influenza, typhus, and bubonic plague (Diamond, 1997). Centuries of living near livestock had basically inoculated European settlers against these diseases. Only those Europeans who could survive a plague outbreak were able to pass on their genes, leading to successive generations being less susceptible to the illnesses. According to Diamond, smallpox was a major player in the European invasion of the New World. Native Americans, however, did not have cattle, only llamas. They had never been exposed to smallpox. It decimated their populations. Historians estimate perhaps 95% of pre-Columbus Native Americans were killed by European diseases (Diamond, 1997). Because these epidemics spread in advance of the Europeans themselves, it made it that much easier for the European invaders to defeat the dwindling survivors.

As Geoffrey Cowley said, “the native population fell from roughly 30 million in 1519 to 3 million in 1568.” (Doc. 6) This appalling number of lives lost, are because an indifference between the Spaniards and Natives. When the Spaniards arrived, they brought many disease which the Natives have never encountered. Not only was it the 15th Century, but the Natives were already set back from the rest of the world and did not have the technology or medicine to aid them with the disease they contracted from the Spaniards. Geoffrey Cowley states, “When the newcomers arrived carrying mumps, measles, whooping cough, smallpox, cholera, gonorrhea and yellow fever, the indians were immunologically defenseless.” (Doc. 6) The lack of resources the Natives had caused them to be helpless against all of these diseases

During this time, the Americas had been isolated from the rest of the world and away from all its unknown diseases. When the discovery of the New World led to Europeans coming to dominate the Americas, the Native Americans did not stand a chance against the many diseases the Europeans brought. Diseases such as malaria, smallpox, and yellow fever were brought to the Americas and in turn started to decline the population of the Native Americans. The Europeans had the advantage where they were able to wipe out the natives with their diseases and take over the

When the European travellers came to the New World the natives were healthy and living well, but that soon changed. Prior to the Europeans coming to the Americas, the natives were heavily isolated, so they had very little contact with the outside world. Due to this fact, disease was rarely an epidemic, it was more endemic, or native and less lethal disease. So, when the europeans arrived the natives mortality rate from disease increased. This is due to the natives immune system not being adapted to the pathogens that the europeans brought over. Some disease that the europeans brought are Smallpox and Syphilis. After the diseases arrived in

Thousands years prior to crossing paths with the Europeans, the Native Americans had invented creative cultures. They found ways to use plants for multiple purposes including medications, food and dyes. They established a way to domesticate animals to suit their needs. They built cities, produced monuments and even developed a working political order. Native Americans were able to not only adapt to the changing environmental conditions, but they did it in a way that worked in their favor every time. They only began struggling to preserve their cultures when the Europeans became a factor in it. The Europeans brought along deadly illnesses such as Measles, mumps, whooping cough. The Native Americans became very susceptible to these illnesses