Essay On American Indians Disease

Before the Americas were made up of Canada, the United States, Mexico, and numerous Central and South American countries, American Indians were the rulers of this enormous landmass. As Europeans conquered western lands, the lives and cultures of the people native to the West suffered a massive shock. Disease, involuntary religious conversion, and theft riddled the peoples of the Americas, forever changing their lifestyles.

It is certain that the original inhabitants of the Americas faced many obstacles as a result of European exploration and settlement; one of the more devastating of these was the spread of foreign diseases. Because the American Indians could not possibly have developed immunity to these illnesses prior to their introductions, monstrous decreases in the native population took place. As European invaders continued to enter the New World, they spread to its people viruses such as smallpox, typhus, influenza, diphtheria, and measles—all of which are particularly fatal to those who have never had contact with them. These epidemics effectively eradicated 10-20 million natives. Entire tribes and islands became completely devoid of human life due to the numerous outbreaks of foreign illness.

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In the 1760’s, the French attempted to hand over Indian land to the British. To the Indians’ dismay, their property was being settled by Englishmen; ultimately, this led to war. Unfortunately, the trend of stealing land from the American Indians continued into the 1900’s. In 1887, and the following 47 years, the Dawes Act was active in the United States government, dividing the land of reservations into fractions assigned to individual Indians. Once the land had been distributed among the American Indians, the remaining land was open for white Americans to obtain. Because of this act, the Indians lost approximately 67% of their