Essay On Native American Disease

The population of Native American was estimated to be between 30-100 million people. The Eurasian continent included many domesticated animals, large animals, such as cows, horses’ oxen; Etc. The Americas, by contrast lacked these large domesticable animals and concomitant diseases. These animals offered a lot of great benefits, but also transmitted all types of diseases to the farmers. In the 14th century The Black Plague devastated their population, which killed 90 percent of their people. The devastating disease only went in one direction from Eurasia to the Americas. Columbus arrival in 1492 suddenly collided with 12,000 years of American isolation from Eurasian. The European were not affected by the disease as much as the Native American because they had a robust immune system due to the fact that they have been the caretakers of domesticated animals for thousands of years, and had somewhat grown immune to the common diseases that accompanied the domestication. Natives American on the other hand had very limited exposure to the spread of the diseases, so it was easy for the to catch these types of diseases.

The first factors that caused diseases such as typhoid, smallpox, tuberculosis, and measles to be more present in North America before European contact
and killed a majority of the Natives that contracted them would be travel and exchange. It is difficult to determine whether the Natives had no immunity to the diseases, which is a common assumption, because there are no pure DNA samples from the time to test for the biological theories of genetic sameness or compromised immunity. Cultural changes after European contact can also contribute to the spread of disease. The introduction of domesticating animals allowed for diseases to mutate and be transmitted to humans, the trade also allowed more person-to-person contact than previously seen. Groups of people and animals moved around a lot in Europe and had interactions particularly through war and trade, resulting in the spread of disease across continents and eventually, some level of immunity for the survivors.

Second, Europeans lived in more densely populated areas than Native Americans.
When so many humans live together in relatively close quarters, particularly with lack of good, or any, sewage systems, disease spreads quickly with the general population continually getting exposed to numerous bacterium. The Europeans’ bodies had to adapt to dealing with many of those diseases, and for those who survived, their immune systems thrived as a result. All of these things resulted in Europeans being regularly exposed to many more viruses than Native Americans were. The Europeans’ immune systems simply developed to ward off the worst of some of the nastier diseases that disabled entire Native American
populations.

That same immunity protected them from diseases that Native Americans might have given them, or at least made it so the new diseases that they encountered were not as deadly. That being said, it should be noted that the diseases they had brought to the Americas also commonly killed off Europeans. It’s just that over time those who were more susceptible to these diseases died off and the survivors’ immune systems had developed to the point where the general public wasn’t typically being wiped out at rates anywhere close to the rate the Americas were getting wiped out, though the numbers were often still extreme according to today's definitive.

The spanish conquest started in February 1519 and ended in August 13, 1521. With the discovery of the new world, Spain grew new agriculture such as corn, potatoes,tomatoes,etc, which raised their economy greatly. They had also created a new trade route to help increase their economy grow,due to the gold and silver they could receive. A lot of people hated the Aztecs and forced slavery on them because they conquered most local tribes. Some people would say that they were hated for the right reasons, and some would say the opposite. They were mostly hated because the Aztecs would take 20-40 hundred thousand people each year and sacrifice them because of their devotion to their Gods .Although they were hated, they were respected for having a thorough society because murder, theft etc, were punished by death. Before the Spanish came and conquered them, they were at the height of their glory

The diseases that had killed the natives caused labor shortage. the food being served to families were not safe. People started committed suicides because they did not feel like there was any reasons for them to live anymore, they felt as though it is better for them to be dead than living a life full of pain and suffering. Parents committed infanticide ( The crime of killing a child within a year of birth) because they did not want their children living in this terrible world, they did not want to have a child in this world knowing there is no way they will be able to protect them. And for others many of them had become alcoholics. Natives were brutally enslaved and worked hard till they died.