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Health issues among native americans
Health issues among native americans
Smallpox history research paper
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Health issues among native americans
Health issues among native americans
Smallpox history research paper
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The Columbian Exchange was the movement of people, animals, goods, plants, diseases, and microorganism that occurred in the sixteenth century. The effects of The Columbian Exchange on early American society were extensive. One of the most devastating effects was the spreading of disease that killed around ninety percent of the Native American population. When Europeans came to the New World they brought with them diseases such as, “smallpox, measles, typhus, and cholera”(document one). The native’s immune systems were not prepared to fight theses diseases and this lead to a catastrophic amount of fatalities.
People who were native to the Americas did not have strong enough immune systems to easily overcome the new European diseases, so there was mass death and suffering. For example, smallpox was spread to the Americas. In the Florentine Codex, smallpox was described to be an incredibly miserable and indomitable disease. “The disease brought great desolation: a great many died of it. They could no longer walk about, but lay in their dwellings and sleeping places, no longer able to move…
Almost every single person from the New World, whether a slave or not, was seriously impacted by the spread of diseases. Furthermore,
The Exchange also brought new diseases to both hemispheres, though the effects were greatest in the Americas. Smallpox from the Old World wiped out millions of the Native American population to mere fractions of their original
Penn experienced this he lost a third of his passengers to smallpox, it had been spreading quickly. Especially in Europe, and it came with the Europeans that came to Pennsylvania. A big issue with smallpox was that the native Americans were really sensitive to it, so most of them got really sick and
Another similarity between Smallpox and the black death is that they both advanced important movements. Smallpox is credited with being the cause of the rise of the American abolition movement. White people living in the slave ports feared for their own health, which brought the notion of the movement itself. The Black Death is credited with being the cause of the Reformation. Due to people like William the One-day Priest, the church was thought to be corrupt.
The most deadly disease was smallpox, commonly being misdiagnosed with other diseases. They had an effect on the world then and still have an effect on our world
With them came smallpox, measles, chicken pox, influenza, and many other diseases. “Before the arrival of Columbus, Native American disease wasn’t dominant in the land. Due to the lack of exposure of disease in their younger years, Native Americans were vulnerable to the European diseases that would come with the Columbian Exchange. The diseases would soon destroy many societies of the ancient Aztec, Maya, and Inca. Through many estimates it is foreseen that alien diseases caused over 50% deaths of the Native American population.
In fact, “Native Americans died in appalling numbers, in many cases up to 90 percent of the population.” The diseases were at its worst in the Aztec and Inca Empires since the people lived close together. However, in the old world, disease related deaths were not nearly as prevalent as in the Americas. The reason for this difference is that the Native Americans had no domesticated animals (except llamas), which resulted in no acquired immunities to old world diseases.
According to Tech Insider, “Of the estimated 250,000 natives in Hispaniola, Columbus' first stop in the Americas in 1492, new infectious diseases wiped out a staggering 236,000 indigenous people by 1517 — nearly 95% of their population.” The Native Americans weren’t used to these diseases, so they had little to no immunity. Because they had no immunity to these new diseases, the Indians were dying very quickly. Some of these diseases were the measles, influenza, scarlet fever, and smallpox. Smallpox was especially devastating to the Native American population, and it killed many Indians.
One of the biggest summer nuisance would be the mosquito, but more specifically the Ades aegypti mosquito. The Aedes aegypti is the vector for yellow fever and the cause of the numerous deaths. In her book The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, The Epidemic the Shaped Our History, Molly Caldwell Crosby presents the idea that the mosquito is not just the only reason an epidemic occurred in the 18th century. This story accounts for the disease that broke out across the world and nearly destroyed almost all of North America’s population, which some believe could have been avoided by simple quarantine analysis and sanitary methods.
While Smallpox caused a disruption of faith upon the natives, the plague caused a disruption of faith upon the Catholics. During the time of smallpox, the natives were dying in incredibly large numbers and none of their medicine men could save them. This undeniably changed their spirituality. They were convinced that the European’s God was better, since the Europeans were not dying, and they began to attend Catholic churches. Quite the opposite during the plague, the Catholics were the ones questioning their faith this time around.
The European conquerors had built up an immunity to certain diseases that were common in Europe. Some of the diseases that decimated the Indian population included the following: smallpox, measles, influenza, typhus, and the bubonic plague. Centuries of living near livestock had basically inoculated the European settlers against these diseases. However the Indians were not used to such diseases, resulting in a dramatic decline in the Native American population. According to Diamond, smallpox was a major role in the domination of the Americas by the Europeans.
As the Europeans found native along the coasts of the New World, they found them easily malleable and able to be used, so they enslaved them and those who fought back were wiped out. Europeans, as well as the Africans, had built up a resistance to many diseases such as smallpox and were therefore not really affected as much by the diseases if they became sick. However, the Native Americans had not had contact with the disease and it quickly spread rapidly and slowly helped the Spanish rid themselves of the natives so they could take control of the land. Geoffrey Cowley offers insight on just how profound the effect of smallpox was when he writes, “ ...When the newcomers arrived carrying mumps, measles, whooping cough, smallpox, cholera, gonorrhea and yellow fever, the Indians were immunologically
Among the many things spread and shared in the Columbian Exchange, the trading of diseases is perhaps the most significant. The natives of the Americas had never experienced the serious diseases that European explorers carried over to the New World. From smallpox to influenza and malaria to cholera, Native American populations were drastically decreased due to their poor immunity. Between the numerous amounts of European diseases, though, measles was the most remarkable in that its effects were both widespread and enduring. Measles, also known as rubeola, is a respiratory infection caused by the measles virus.