A notable interaction between European settlers and indigenous peoples throughout history is spreading diseases native people have no immunity to. Why was the spread of indigenous diseases to European settlers much less widespread/well known?

Question

A notable interaction between European settlers and indigenous peoples throughout history is spreading diseases native people have no immunity to. Why was the spread of indigenous diseases to European settlers much less widespread/well known?

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Answer 1

Indigenous populations didn’t generally have many diseases to infect settlers with, because the americas had very little in terms of domesticable animals; many of the diseases that cause things like plague are zoonotic, that is, they are transmitted from animals to humans.

In Europe, people were in contact with animals *far* more than people in the Americas, which both resulted in smaller cities (and thus, lower population density, making it harder to spread disease) and less contact with animals, leading to less zoonotic diseases.

Therefore, the Europeans weren’t infect with American plagues because there simply *weren’t* any to speak of.