Why didn’t settlers die of disease?

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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?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

A lot of them did die. Infant mortality in particular was astonishingly high. But plenty of people died of disease. Indigenous people were more susceptible because they had never been exposed to any of the “Old World” diseases, but they weren’t the only ones who suffered from them.

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