Were the endemic diseases just less severe?
In: Other
This question is based on a common misunderstanding of the history of American colonialism. Let’s break it down:
1. Death by disease alone: the popular understanding of colonial history proposes that upon European arrival, native Americans with no suitable antibodies died in droves to epidemics. This is a half-truth, in a similar vain as saying that most people in Nazi concentration camps died of disease, the reality is, while there were cases in which natives were uniquely susceptible and would suffer epidemics even before direct contact with Europeans due to livestock, these weren’t the main drivers of mortality. The main reason native Americans were dying off were the conditions imposed upon them when Europeans waged genocidal wars against them. A noteworthy example is the smallpox epidemic during the siege of Tenochtitlán, in which the Spanish and their allies cut off the clean water supply to the city. Smallpox was bad, sure, but the lack of water made what would have otherwise been a “regular” epidemic into a catastrophic mortality event. For further reading: https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/s/1HuNUeHmrM
2. The diseases that caused mortality were European: this may come as a surprise, given how often we hear about smallpox and other diseases, but this isn’t necessarily the case. The two biggest epidemics in New Spain for example, were the result of cocoliztli, an as of yet not fully identified disease that we don’t know the origin of, although there has been wvidence supporting a Native American origin.
3. Europeans weren’t getting sick: this is a case of survivorship bias. Europeans who went to the Americas would die in droves. You don’t hear about them because they, well, died. Even Thanksgiving is partially about how tough it was for colonists to survive. Further reading: https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/s/RZdHZcKjk6
Latest Answers