Why didn’t settlers die of disease?

Question

We often hear indigenous peoples died from disease introduced by European settlers in North and South America. If indigenous peoples there were susceptible to eradication by unfamiliar disease why is the same not true of disease and death to settlers? Or is it true but more easily overcome?

In: Biology

Answer 1

There are very few animals native to the Americas suitable for domestication, so Native Americans lived around animals (most frequently, cattle) considerably less than Europeans did. This gave far less of a chance for a disease to cross species animals -> humans, and hence a lesser chance of a now human disease forming and spreading around a population – so, no reverse infection for the settlers, whilst Native Americans had no immunity to European diseases.