Essay On Native American Disease

Disease was the silent killer and the main reason for Native American depopulation in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. Some diseases that were the most contagious and deadly were smallpox, malaria, yellow fever, and syphilis. These diseases, mainly smallpox, contributed to vast Native American depopulation and what was known as “virgin soil epidemics” (Virgin Soil Epidemics). This phrase means that the Native Americans are the virgin soil and that they have no prior exposure to the new diseases that were brought to them by Europeans. Since the Native Americans had never been exposed to these diseases, their immune system was literally unable to put up a fight to the disease, thus causing a huge epidemic. Families and their communities died

Native American and indigenous populations ranging from South to North America had previously thrived for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Before European expansion into the Americas, Natives had never experienced such devastating diseases. European contact with Natives in the “New World” was one of the largest transformative events in history. All cultures and civilizations encounter diseases naturally, but European diseases were extremely deadly causing vast depopulation throughout all tribes. According to a PBS series titled “Guns, Germs, and Steel”, European diseases killed “some 90 percent of the Native American population between the time Columbus showed up and the Mayflower landed” (American History Myths). Natives did not stand a chance to Spanish diseases that were being introduced to them. They died in such big numbers that the diseases basically killed off an entire race of people. Genocidal diseases like smallpox and measles wiped out a future for Native Americans that could have changed American history. These diseases in themselves altered American history in that it very easily allowed the