The Jesuit Missionaries and Disease in Native American Society

In the article “1491” by Charles Mann , Mann also talks about the most devastating impact from the contact between Europeans and Americans came from the spread of biological agents like smallpox, smallpox had the most effect on the Americas’ native populations there population could of been destroyed stated in the article that “Dobyns estimated that in the first 130 years of contact about 95 percent of the people in the Americas died—the worst demographic calamity in recorded history.” This shows just how serious smallpox was on people considering that they had no immunity to these diseases and because of this it was able to cause a major loss of population and of the people who lived they were still heavily affected by it. Mann also states “It is well known that Native Americans had no experience with many European diseases and were therefore immunologically unprepared—"virgin soil," in

This article focused on depopulation via smallpox. “Within just a few generations, the continents of the Americas were virtually emptied of their native inhabitants – some academics estimate that approximately 20 million people may have died in the years following the European invasion – up to 95% of the population of the Americas.” The article goes on to describe the transmission process of smallpox, incubation period, and symptoms of the disease. It then discusses the fact that diseases such as smallpox, influenza and measles were a product of the European society, specifically livestock farming and close interaction with domesticated livestock. Though smallpox outbreaks would occur in Europe, killing major portions of the population, some would survive and build immunities which they genetically passed to the next generations. Because the Native Americans had no exposure to smallpox and no genetic immunities, exposure to this virus was deadly all across the continent. “More victims of colonization were killed by Eurasian germs, than by either the gun or the sword, making germs the deadliest agent of conquest.”

From David Jones’ point of view, it is important to note that these epidemics were just some of the causes of population decline during European contact. Poverty, environmental stress, massacres, dislocation, malnutrition, and destruction of traditional subsistence patterns also changed the composition of many Native American groups. Eventually, these changes caused substantial depopulation and cultural change. Jones agrees that disease carried a decisive role; however, he argues that it is not the key factor in their depopulation. “Many factors contributed to American Indian susceptibility to Old World diseases, including lack of childhood exposure, malnutrition, and the social chaos generated by European colonization” (Jones 34).

The Native American’s were the first known settlers in North America, ten thousand years before Columbus came to the continent. Their origins completely unclear, anthropologists believe there were three to five million Native Americans in North America in the year 1492 (Hoxie and Iverson, 1997). As early as the Revolutionary War in 1775, European settlers started taking note of the Native Americans. Unfortunately, the Native American population plunged significantly in the first decades after their first contact with Europeans. Native Americans were now unprotected and exposed to deadly diseases like smallpox, influenza, and measles which did not previously exist in their society (North American Natives, 2016).

Primarily, one of the impacts that came about from the European colonization on Native Americans was the proliferation of disease. In Europe, people commonly lived in filth and bacteria because they didn’t pay much attention to the importance of proper hygiene. However, in the Americas, people were isolated from the rest of the world and weren’t surrounded by the rubbish that Europeans had incorporated in their livelihood. Also, because the Native Americans were somewhat advanced in medical technology, they didn’t have to worry too much about people dying from treacherous diseases. It states, “ By contrast, the people of the Americas had spent thousand of years in biological isolation. By the time Columbus had arrived,

When the European travelers came to America they brought over may diseases including small pox, influenza, measles, and Scarlett fever. The Native Americans had never been exposed to these diseases before consequently they did not have antibodies to fight of these diseases which meant that many people would die from the exposure to the various diseases. The introduction of these diseases created a high death toll in the Native American population, killing more than half of the original population.

Many Native American’s died due to diseases, but the one who survived obtained many great things from the Columbian Exchange. The number of indians before the diseases of the New World killed most of the native population is disputed (Document 3). Though, it is known that a great fraction of them did die, but it was not from labor (Document 6). It is actually from diseases such as Measles and Smallpox. Since Indians had no immunity against these diseases they spread quickly, often devastating populations before conquistadors got to the villages (Document 7). The explorers unintendedly spread these silent killers throughout the New World because they were naive to the idea of contagion and cleanliness.

As a result, the diseases that were transferred from Europe decreased a large amount of native Americans’ populations..

“The Indian population fell from between fifteen and twenty million when the first man arrived.” Dinesh D’Souza, author of “The Crimes of Christopher Columbus,” explains the decline of the Indian population. “European enslavement of Indians and the Spanish forced labor system extracted a heavy toll in lives...” Another contributing factor to the downfall was the disease brought by the Europeans. “...the vast majority of Indian casualties occurred not as a result of hard labor but because of diseases that the Europeans transmitted to the Indians.” Smallpox and measles became great

The way of life significantly changed for the Native Americans after Europeans imposed the Columbian exchange into the New World. Along with the exchange of livestock and plants came unprecedented and unintentional deadly diseases that, in turn, practically wiped out the Native American population as a whole (textbook, 19). The decimation of the population occurred at alarming rates, which affected the trade of products between countries. The natives were not massacred by the popular belief of guns and knives, but 95% of the indigenous population was killed by exposure to European disease, like smallpox and the sheer epidemic of it (PBS). The Columbian Exchange brought on by the Europeans was to blame for the countless fatalities of Native Americans. The exchange was altered because of diseases that reshaped the Columbian Exchange as a whole, meaning infecting and spreading illness from livestock, crops growing without a means of processing or distribution, and an economical instability regarding wealth and lifestyle in other parts of the world. This began when the natives were incapable to work due to the crippling ailments that onset in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. For all of these reasons, the Columbian Exchange was made more difficult in exchanging goods from the New World to Europe, South America and Africa.

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.

The diseases that the European explorers brought over, and the effect they had on the Native Americans, were by far the worst parts of the Columbian Exchange. While some people may believe that war and mistreatment of the Natives were what caused 80-95% of them to perish, the actual cause was diseases like measles and small pox. According to Dinesh D’Souza, before the Europeans arrived, there was between 15 and 20 million Indians, but 150 years later, there was only a small amount left. In “The Crimes of Christopher Columbus”, D’Souza adds that since the Indians hadn’t seen those types of diseases before, they had not yet developed any resistance or immunity to them. The purpose of that statement is to explain why so many Indians were affected

As the Spaniards arrived in America, Europeans immediately contracted syphilis from the Indians. Meanwhile, “The Europeans, for their part, gave the Indians measles and smallpox.” (Document B). Chaos arose and population declined, killing off many Native Americans. The outrageous, smallpox outbreak stuck all around Latin America. According to Alfred Crosby, the author of “The Columbian Exchange”, “…the communicability of smallpox and the other eruptive fevers…that any Indian who received the news of the Spaniards could also have easily received the infection.” (Document C). Similarly to the bubonic plague in the old world, the smallpox and measles were the “black death” in the new

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

Pathogens such as small pox decimated Native American populations who had no immunity to Old World diseases. Combined with forced by the Spanish and disruption of native environments, these diseases reduced the native population to about one tenth of its former standings, hence rendering priory self-sufficient communities almost extinct. (Therefore trampling years of natives’ progress)