How did remote places in Asia and Africa not succumb to the same wave of disease and death that the Native Americans did?

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I’m not saying they weren’t affected at all, but something like 90% of Native Americans were wiped out while places like Japan and deep parts of the African interior didn’t suffer nearly as hard, even though they previously had basically no contact with Europe.

In: 1583

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Japan had a more enclosed approach to trading than, let’s say, china. And even in both cases, trading had been happening for centuries. In the case of Africa, Iberian cultures were in contact for a long time (eg. Morocco and Spain), and the history of great ancient civilizations was also intertwined (eg. Greece and Egypt).

In the case of America, contact between the two continents was (arguably) never achieved before (or at least in a very long time, if we consider people like Leif Erikson). This made them way more vulnerable to illnesses from the old world. Eurasia and Africa are almost a big unified mass, but America is way further away.

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