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Why Were The Europeans Able To Conquer The Americas

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The Europeans were able to conquer the Americas because even though it was by “accident,” they were still more prepared for what was to come. Jared Diamond calls the European “accidental conquerors.” Diamond calls his theory geographical luck and concludes that the only way the Europeans were able to dominate the Americas was because of the way the ocean patterns happened to flow. The geographical wind patterns caused the ships to sail towards the Incas and the Aztecs and when the Europeans arrived they tried to conquer the Aztecs and Incas, they succeed for a number of reasons. One reason that they were able to conquer the Americas was because of their technological advances. The Europeans had the advancement of guns, horses, and navigation. The mastery of gunpowder technology was crucial for the European conquests. Gunpowder weapons allowed small numbers of Europeans to conqueror and win wars in far away lands. With guns, European conquerors were able to kill their enemies and be within …show more content…

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. It is estimated that approximately 95% of pre-Columbus Native Americans were killed by European diseases. Since the outbreak of the diseases spread because of the European colonization, it made conquering the Americas much easier. Health was definitely the most detrimental obstacle that the Native Americans had to face as a result of the European

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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…

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They forced the Native Americans to convert religions, brought disease, and took away their homes and families. One of the worst things that happened to the natives was disease. Smallpox had spread to the Native Americans and their immune system wasn't used to it. PubMed says, ¨Native American populations were exposed to new infectious diseases, diseases for which they lacked immunity.¨(Katherine B 2002)

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For centuries after Columbus first landed in the New World, the arrival of European settlers impacted the lives of American Indians so immensely that their presence forever altered the landscape of the New World. The Europeans brought with them deadly germs and diseases—malaria, smallpox, and yellow fever—from which American Indians had no natural immunities, that decimated Indian populations. Additionally, they embarked on an aggressive quest for land—an encounter that led to many American Indian populations either being destroyed, dissolved or forced further and further west off of their ancestral lands. In response to such aggression, American Indians had limited choices: resist, submit, flee, or in rare cases, assimilate. The choices they

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436 Words | 2 Pages

Another disease that the Europeans brought over was smallpox(). Smallpox lasted 60 days and many people died(Doc. 2). Many people died because everybody had it so there was nobody to care for them(Doc. 2). That is another reason why the population plummeted.

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Europeans brought diseases such as cholera, malaria, measles, mumps, smallpox, typhoid, and yellow fever to name a few. The only known disease that the Natives probably had was syphilis. Although the Europeans inadvertently shared their diseases they did share other

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When the Europeans stormed into the New World. They brought diseases with them that the Natives were foreign to. They were rarely sick however when the Europeans came diseases rapidly spread. Diseases such as smallpox, influenza, typhus, measles, malaria, diphtheria, and whooping cough. A very common disease that the Africans and Natives got at the time was smallpox.

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The Spanish conquest of the Americas The Spanish conquest of the Americas was used with tactics. Cortes with five hundred and eight soldiers defeated the entire Aztec empire. Through disease which would be the smallpox that Cortes and his men were immune to and did not affect them like it did to the Aztecs. The weapons that the Spanish had were more advanced.

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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.

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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.

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(Gunderman,15). Smallpox killed soldiers and rendered them incapable of fighting, which made it very easy for Cortez to take over the Aztecs. Smallpox was such a great weapon for the Conquistadors because you could not see it and it did not affect the Conquistadors. Germs were able to take over the natives because there was no technology that treated smallpox, and its ability to quickly cause death, which left the remaining natives vulnerable to guns and steel because of the absence of the majority of the

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In contrast, the Spanish were able to conquer the Aztecs and Incas much quicker. Some of this was due to help they received from other groups of Natives and the situations that were present in these societies when the Spanish arrived. Most of this was due to the debilitating effects European diseases had on Native Americans. Another difference between the two groups’ interactions is the different ways the Africans and Native Americans reacted to the Europeans’ presence. Since the Americas had been isolated from the rest of the world before 1492, they did not know how to react to the arrival of the Europeans and were frightened by how different they were.

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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

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When the Europeans came over, they brought diseases and wars which caused the Native American populations have a sharp decline. This happened because the diseases were killing off millions of Natives while wars between the Native Americans and Europeans cause more Natives to be killed because the weapons that the Europeans had were more advanced than the Native American weapons. This allowed for Europeans to come to the Americas and colonize without much issue because of the lack of Native Americans that were trying to stop

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603 Words | 3 Pages

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.

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1513 Words | 7 Pages

The Colonisation of Latin America had a major negative impact on these indigenous people as the arrival in Latin America collided with 12,000 years of isolation from Eurasia which imposed many diseases on the natives. The natives were unable to fight of these diseases as they did not have the immune system for these types of sickness nor the appropriate medicine so many of them died as a result. These diseases included small pox, measles and influenza, bubonic plagues, cholera and tropical

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