Was Disease the Key Factor to the Depopulation of Native Americans in the Americas?

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

Though warfare and attacks on entire villages took a definite toll on the populations of Native Americans, disease was by far the biggest killer. We’ve all heard the stories of smallpox infected blankets being given to the Native Americans, and other such atrocities, but I was simply dumbfounded at the actual numbers of dead due to Old World diseases being introduced to the New World, North America. While it has been somewhat difficult for scholars to determine the exact count of Indians who died from disease, they have fairly accurate estimates.

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).

However, the Native Americans didn’t just use these resources they garnered solely for food - they used the resources in several aspects of their lives, specifically for health. The Native Americans were dependant on the use of plants and other resources found in nature to use for curatives. Historians often attest that these curatives were far superior to the ones that Europeans used, and thus the span of life for Native Americans was often longer than that of the European people (The People). However, upon Native American and European contact, the Europeans introduced new, foreign diseases that were deadly because the Native Americans had never been exposed to these diseases, and thus did not have natural immunities to them. This was the same for other infectious diseases introduced to the Europeans, namely syphilis. Although, the amount of Europeans affected by syphilis was not even near the amount of Native Americans killed by some of the European diseases brought over in the Columbian exchange. Bartolomé de Las Casas commented on the epidemic of European viruses that killed thousands of Native Americans: “Who of those in

When the colonists came to America, they classified the Native Americans as complete brutal savages. But was that a correct assumption? The Native Americans lived a life that was a complete opposite from the way that the Europeans were accustomed to. The Native Americans believed that the land was shared by everyone and not one person could own it. The Native Americans also had a polytheistic religion which completely went against the beliefs of the colonists. The colonists viewed the Native Americans as savages and barbarians because their ways of living were different.

It is estimated that 60% to 90% of Native American tribes had died from new diseases brought from the Columbian Exchange from the Europeans. Numerous diseases such as the infamous smallpox were introduced to the Native Americans and were degrading to the population as the Europeans grew a type of immunity from the diseases unlike the Native Americans. Conflict between the Spanish and the Native Americans brought war which encourages diseases to spread through hand to hand combat. Cultures and tribes were on the brink of extinction, as European expansionism and imperialism succeeded in claiming land that was formerly the Native Americans. The mass genocide and epidemic of various diseases towards the Native Americans reach to new heights due to the Columbian Exchange as Europeans militants strived for land and gold at the cost of the Native American’s

The Columbian Exchange had a major effect on people residing in the United States. Disease was the number one cause of death amongst the other tragedies that came with the Columbian Exchange such as violence, culture, trade, and people that had followed Columbus. Many Native Americans died from diseases that were brought from Europe. The Europeans who had brought the diseases over did not seem to have done it intentionally. The Europeans were just in search of the New World. Native Americans lived free from the terrible diseases that destroyed populations in Asia, Europe, and Africa. Therefore, when Europeans came to America no one knew how to treat the diseases or how to handle them. Native Americans lacked the ability to fight off bacteria

The European conquest of the new world was most commonly attributed to the superiority of the Europeans in all the facets of their confrontation. They had the superior weaponry, and were thought to have a superior intellect. After all, they were just bringing "civilization" to the new world, right? It sounds nice when you are learning about Columbus in grade school, but the traditional story is pretty far from the truth. The truth is that the Europeans, when they discovered this was a brand new world and not the spice islands, sought to rape the land for its gold and natural resources and enslave the Amerindians (native Americans), who were regarded to

Native Americans have been affected by disease and health concerns throughout their history, but a major turning point in Native American disease presence was with the arrival of Europeans. During this period European settlers brought many different technologies and lifestyles with them, but one of the most harmful

In the 1500s, the Conquistadors came to the new world from Europe. After the Conquistadors came and conquered the new world many Native Americans fell ill with the diseases brought from Europe. After the Europeans entered the new world an estimated 15 to 20 million Native Americans died (doc 5). A majority of these deaths were due to the introduction of smallpox from Europe to the new world (doc 5). This is because the majority of the Native American population did not have the immunity to these diseases as the

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

The greatest adversary to the natives in the Americas was not the swords or guns of the invaders. It was the devastation brought by deadly diseases infecting an unsuspecting population that had no immunity to such diseases.

An enormous number of Native Americans passed on from European diseases, particularly smallpox, to which they had no

And death is something that ran rampant through the native population. The Indians were not able to combat these new afflictions because they were new to their systems. Small pox, whooping cough, chicken pox, scarlet fever, influenza and many more had long been around in Europe and the colonists had developed resistance to most of them. (Crosby, 198)