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I believe disease was a key factor if not the primary factor in the depopulation of Native Americans in the Americas. Throughout time, there has always been inequality during the evolution of humanity. Over the course of evolution, different cultures as well as races have progressed more rapidly and at a stronger rate than others have. The depopulation of Native Americans happened because Europeans had better and more efficient supplies as well as immunities to the diseases that they brought over with them. While the Europeans were traveling to the New World, they often brought domesticated animals with them for sources of food and livestock. When animals and humans are living in close quarters together, it is very likely for exposure to germs to occur. New diseases were brought over by foreigners looking for fame and gold that killed off many of the natives in the new lands. The natives did not stand a chance against these new threats because of a lack of knowledge and supplies to cure themselves. Once the Europeans established diseases as they made land in the New World, their journey had only become easier as their competition were being wiped out from the rapid spread. Microbes from Europe introduced new diseases and produced devastating epidemics that swept through the native populations (Nichols 2008). The result from the diseases brought over, such as smallpox, was a demographic catastrophe that killed millions of people, weakened existing societies, and greatly aided the Spanish and Portuguese in their rapid and devastating conquest of the existing American empires (Brinkley 2014). Interaction took place with the arrival of whites and foreigners. The first and perhaps most profound result of this exchange was the imp... ... middle of paper ... ...ails are lost to history, and the cultural changes are immeasurable (Snipp 1989). The rapid spread of new disease took the lives of millions. Native Americans stood no chance, as they had no treatment or ways to fight these diseases. Works Cited Brinkley, Alan. The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History Of The America People. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2014 Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999. Nichols, L. Roger. The American Indian: Past and Present. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University, 2008. Snipp, C. Matthew. American Indians: The First of this Land. Russell Sage Foundation, 1989. Thornton, Russell. American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University, 1987.
Guns, Germs, and Steel was published by Jared Diamond in 1977. Diamond is a UCLA professor and a scientist and his book has received remarkable response all around the world, in fact the book has won Pulitzer Prize and was New York’s bestseller. Despite, being highly regarded, the book is known as one of the most controversial books of its time. A lot of critics have accused this book, but the critic who stood out the most was William H. McNeill. McNeill is a historian and I agree with his criticism of the book and its conclusion.
Some consequences of the exchange are the spread of disease to the Native people and settlers, the destruction of the Native population, and the disappearance of the Natives custom’s, beliefs, and way of life. Columbus’s arrival to the Americas, land that had already been established by the Natives, resulted in a spread of fatal diseases. Disagreement between the Europeans and the Natives and the enslavement of Native people helped to wipe out the population. Document 5 illustrates the fighting that occurred between the Natives and Europeans.
In the New World, domestic animals were not common and therefore most meat was hunted and scavenged for, whereas in the Old World domestic animals such as cows, horses, pigs, etc. were very commonplace in villages of the same stature as those in the Americas thus living styles were different with different habits. In addition, the epidemiological imbalance came from the amount of diseases deriving from the old world and its domestic animals compared to the diseases found in the Americas. Overall, the old world, Europe, had many more diseases which transmitted easily. Also, Mann calls the disease imbalance the most important fact in world history because when these diseases were transmitted to the Americas, it dictated the first 150 years of Native American life as so many were
Human mobility, in terms of European transcontinental exploration and colonization, began to truly flourish after the 1400s. This travel, inspired by financial motives and justified by religious goals, resulted in the European dominance and decimation of countless cultures in both the Americas and Eurasia. While at first glance it seems as though this dominance was achieved through mainly military means - European militias, like Spanish conquistadors, rolling over native tribes with their technologically advanced weapons - the reality is significantly more complex. The Europeans, most likely unknowingly, employed another, equally deadly weapon during their exploits. With their travel, they brought with them the infectious diseases of their homelands, exposing the defenseless natives to foreign malady that their bodies had no hope of developing immunities against. Because of the nature of disease and their limited knowledge about its modes of infection, the Europeans were able to dispense highly contagious and mortal illnesses while limiting their contraction of any native ones to the new territories. In short, they were able to kill without being killed. In this way, the travel of disease in conjunction with the travel of humans in a search for exotic commodities was able to limit or even halt the development of some cultures while allowing others to flourish at exponential rates.
In conclusion Native Americans were lead close to extinction after the discovery of the New World. They suffered damages from diseases and injuries the europeans brought. They had to relocate their tribes only to fulfill european demands. As well as to change their belief for the ones the europeans brought with them in order to survive and avoid the risk of extinction.
...Lord, 4). To put this in perspective, “The 150 years after Columbus’s arrival brought a toll on human life in this [the Western] hemisphere comparable to all of the world’s losses in World War II,” (Lord, 4). In his book, Plagues and Peoples, William McNeill attributes this population reduction with the old world diseases that “swept across the hemisphere far faster than the Europeans that brought them,” (Lord, 1).
“As European adventurers traversed the world in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries they initiated the “Columbian Exchange” of plants, animals, and diseases.”(P. 26). The Columbian Exchange refers to a period of exchanges between the New and Old Worlds. The exchange of plants, animals, diseases and more modernized technology, beginning after Columbus landing in the Americas in 1492. It lasted through the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Domesticated animals such as cattle, horses, sheep and pigs were introduced to the Americas. The Americas introduced to Europe many new crops such as potatoes, beans, squash, and maize. In time Native people learned to raise European livestock and European and Africans planted American crops. This was the positive effect of the encounter and it was largely responsible for the doubling of the world’s population in the next three hundred years. There were also many negative effects to the “Columbian Exchange” A major consequence was the spread of disease in the New World. Diseases carried by Europeans and Africans devastated the population of the Americas. As Europeans traveled through the Americas epidemics came with them. Typhus, diphtheria, malaria, influenza, cholera, and smallpox killed many of the native people. One example was
Europeans brought diseases to the Americas, such as smallpox and measles. The original descendants did not bring the diseases because they traveled through the cold and they had no domesticated animals. Many of these diseases were caused by domesticated animals. At the time people that lived in Afro-Eurasia had developed immunities to these diseases. Native Americans did not have these immunities that’s why possibly 90% of the first Americans died between 1492 and 1650.
The European influences to the Native Americans were Europeans carried the new diseases to the Indians. “Europeans were used to these diseases, but Indian people had no resistance to them. Sometimes the illnesses spread through direct contact with colonists. Other times, they were transmitted as Indians traded with one another. The result of this contact with European germs was horrible. Sometimes whole villages perished in a short time” (Kincheloe). Slave trade was another influence to American Indians. Europeans soon realized that they could provide commercial goods such as tools and weapons to some American Indian tribes that would bring them other Indians captured in tribal wars, and these captured Indians were bought and sold as slaves. Therefore, “slavery led to warfare among tribes and too much hardship. Many tribes had to move to escape the slave trade, which destroyed some tribes completely. In time, the practice of enslaving Native peoples ended. However, it had greatly affected American Indians of the South and the Southwest” (Kinchloe). Lastly, Europeans change Native America and African’ roots. Native Americans
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 that this report will address are based on documents located within chapter five of the textbook Major Problems in Atlantic History edited by Alison F. Games and Adam Rothman. The documents are Two Governors Describe the New England Smallpox Epidemic, 1633-1634, and Indians Respond to Epidemics in New France, 1637, 1640. The questions addressed in this report include: How did the Europeans interpret the disease among the native population, and how did they respond to it? How did the Native Americans respond to European intervention in fighting off the disease? Were the Europeans aware that they had brought this disease with them to the “New World”? The European view of the epidemics against the Indigenous peoples were seen as acts of God trying to purge the world of “unchristian” peoples. The Europeans were only acting as they were instructed to by their authority, the Catholic Church. All European action was heavily regulated by the church, and thus is reflected in their treatment of the sick N...
The extraordinary good health of the natives prior to the coming of the Europeans would become a key ingredient in their disastrous undoing. The greatest cause of disease in America was epidemic diseases imported from Europe. Epidemic diseases killed with added virulence in the " virgin soil" populations of the Americas. The great plague that arose in the Old World never emerged on their own among the western hemisphere and did not spread across oceans until Columbus' discovery.
The introduction of Old World diseases was a substantial catalyst in the building of American colonial societies. Diseases such as smallpox devastated the native people’s populations. According to one estimate, within the span of the 16th century, the native population of central Mexico was reduced to about 700,000 from at least 13 million. (The Earth and Its Peoples, 475) Other regions were similarly affected by the disease and others such as measles, typhus, influenza, and malaria. These diseases, in effect, cleared the way for European settlers, although, in a somewhat gruesome fashion.
The original New England Natives first felt the effects of Smallpox and other diseases during the first decade of the sixteenth century. This was shortly after John Cabot explored the coast in 1498. By 1504, constant fishing trips were being made by the French and Portuguese, which started the spread of disease. However, It wasn’t until the outbreak of 1616 and 1617, when huge numbers of natives were killed. Diseases like chicken Pox, cholera, the plague, tuberculosis, and many others were introduced to New England for the first time. For the most part, Europeans had become immune to these diseases over the years. The natives, on the other hand, were completely vulnerable.¹
Native Americans never came in contact with diseases that developed in the Old World because they were separated from Asia, Africa, and Europe when ocean levels rose following the end of the last Ice Age. Diseases like smallpox, measles, pneumonia, influenza, and malaria were unknown to the Native Americans until the Europeans brought these diseases over time to them. This triggered the largest population decline in all recorded history. Fifty percent of the Native American population had died of disease within twenty years. Soon after, Native Americans began to question their religion and doubted the ability of shamen to heal. This was the first step towards the destruction of Native cultures. The Native Americans had never experienced anything like these deadly diseases before and they came to believe that Europeans had the power to kill or give life.
In this case, diseases were unknowingly exchanged with commodities causing harm to both parties. An epidemic of syphilis swept across Europe, while smallpox and measles wiped out masses of Native Americans. Disease was the leading cause in Native American deaths during the European colonization, killing off around 90% of the population. It was far deadlier than any musket or cannon. With most of the indigenous population crippled by disease, Europeans were able to easily conquer them and acquire new territories to expand westward. The second largest factor contributing to the conquest of the west was the difference between a musket and an arrow. The biggest difference between them was that an untrained gunman would be far more effective than an untrained bowman. Muskets could be mass produced and put into the hands of anyone and they could wield it with general ease. Within a century of Columbus 's arrival, Native Americans had almost gone