The Depopulation Of Native Americans: Colin Calloway V. David S. Jones

The Depopulation of Native Americans
(Colin Calloway v. David S. Jones)
Issue #2

Karen Lee @01234920
History 170
Professor Seiling
M/W-9:05 A.M.
March 4, 2015

Was disease a key factor in the depopulation of Native Americans in the Americas? In “Taking Sides,” issue 2, Colin G. Calloway argues that key factor of the depopulation was through the epidemic diseases contact from Europeans. In contrast, David S. Jones controvert that there were other factors at work that explains the drastic loss of life among the American Indians. Calloway discloses that when the “Columbian Exchange” occurred, Europeans brought in new pathogens into the “new world” and American Indian’s immunity and natural and spiritual remedies were inadequate
in providing defense mechanism against the diseases. Jones recognizes that the European diseases demolished the Indians but other factors such as poverty, malnutrition, environmental stress, dislocation, and social disparity all aggravated the conditions within which infectious diseases could spread in greater dimensions.
Colin G.
Calloway, from “New Worlds for All: Indians, Europeans and the Remaking of Early America”, supports the theory that disease was the key factor in the depopulation of the America. The reciprocal trade with the Europeans and Indians also known as “Columbian Exchange,” introduced horses and other farm animals, human beings, plants and materials, disastrous diseases and ideas. From the moment Europeans set foot in America, hundreds and thousands of Indian people did not have a chance to build up an immunity resistance to epidemics of smallpox, diphtheria, measles, bubonic and pneumonic plague, cholera, influenza, typhus, dysentery and yellow fever (25). Indians neither knew what it was nor how to cure it, leaving them
defenseless. Bioarchaeological studies affirm the evidence of malnutrition and anemia resulting from dietary stress, high levels of fetal and neonatal death and infant mortality, parasitic intestinal infections, dental problems, respiratory infections, spina bifida, osteomyelitis, nonpulmonary tuberculosis and syphilis (25). Calloway states, “The Indian doctors possessed a sophisticated knowledge of the healing power of plants that they shared with the Europeans, but these curatives were insufficient in providing protections against the variety of new diseases introduced into the Americas by European explorers and settlers”(24). As a result, it wiped out indigenous tribes like a wildfire.
The arrival of imported diseases affected the Native groups differently, depending on the region of their lives.
Smallpox, a deadly and quick airborne disease, infected Indians who came in contact with Europeans and contaminated the disease on to more distant neighbors before they even made contact with the Europeans themselves. They cut down economic productivity, causing hunger and famine, which made it more vulnerable to other diseases. Also, the falling birthrates, escalating warfare and alcoholism contributed to the outbreak leaving Indian America into a graveyard (29). Indian population was somewhere between 5 million to 10 million in 1492, but the population had fallen to around 600,000 (31). Indians wanted to retain the natural and traditional medicine remedies that were both herbal and spiritual but the disease spread to quickly abolishing the
population. David S. Jones, “Virgin Soils Revisited,” recognizes the destruction of American Indian population that followed European arrival in the Americas had declined by 95 percent because of encounter of epidemics (33); however, he argues that the environmental contributions played a big role of depopulation. Jones emphasizes the importance of the biological, social, political and economic interchange between Native Americans and Europeans. Indians suffered from malnutrition and the disruption of the colonization made them more vulnerable.
Drought, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, deforestation and other environmental events reflected a combination of crop and mining failures and economic collapse. Winter was brutally cold and it was impossible for crops to grow causing mental stress and poverty. Any factor that causes mental or physical stress such as the displacement, warfare, drought destruction of crops, soil depletion, overwork, slavery, malnutrition, social and economic chaos can be defenseless to diseases (38). Social disruptions that followed colonization were an important aspect of depopulation. The enslavement of Indians weakened the Indian societies and spread pathogens among them. American Indians were accustomed to living in one particular type of environment before the Europeans brought their plants, animals and germs that the Europeans were already adapted to and increased in population while American Indians population decreased.
After assessing both arguments, it appears that each side somewhat agrees to the other debate and the depopulation were through the contact of Europeans. If it weren’t for the Europeans and Native Americans alliance, the massacre would have never occurred, but because it did, the effects of the encounters were disastrous and an unfortunate event. The reciprocal trade was an open door for parasites and other deadly epidemics to contaminate the Indians with low immunity to the outside world. When the Indians were quickly annihilated, it was difficult for them to bounce back and the economic, social and physical disruptions all weakened and aggravated the conditions the Natives that caused the infectious disease spread in greater dimensions.