The Age Of Exploration: Hardships Of Native Americans

Hardships of native Americans

Have you ever thought of the hardships of native Americans? Well if you have you would know they are harsh and they had many hardships. On September 30, 1492 the first voyage sat place and this started the hardships of the native Americans. There are a lot of negative hardships in the Age of exploration.

To start off there were many weaponry Failures of the native Americans. The first thing was (DOC.3) they used arrows and shields that proved ineffective against the spanish. The second thing was that their weapons were not powerful and useful because they were not made of metal. As it says on page 808 “In the Americas, they introduced guns and steel” and the native Americans didn't have these. Aeon.co states

To start off the population went down because the people raiding would kill them or capture them. As it says on page 637 “Cortes and his men came back, though, with many native peoples. It shows on (DOC.4) that the population went down per year since the Spanish attack. The video on study.com says “As a result, up to 95% of the indigenous population in the Americas died”.

This shows population decrease was a major factor in native American hardships. The last hardship was the diseases. One of the major diseases for native Americans was smallpox. (DOC.3) The disease lasted about 60 days and it was 60 days of horror according to the people. The main 2 ways people died during the Spanish attack was hunger and smallpox. On page 801 it says that francis drake wanted to steal from the natives and with lack of supply diseases would multiply. For my reasoning Ncpedia.org says “Native peoples of America had no immunity to the diseases that European explorers and colonists brought with them. Diseases such as smallpox, influenza, measles, and even chicken pox proved fatal to American Indians. Europeans were used to these diseases”. This shows diseases were a crucial hardship for the