European Disease
The Effect of European Diseases on Native Americans
What effect did European illnesses and diseases have on Native Americans?
Description of the Diseases and their effect on the Natives
European diseases wiped out much of the Native American population. To be precise, in the native american death tolls, 80-90 percent of the population were killed off by European diseases. Entire tribes were killed off by the handful. They died from various diseases including Influenza, Measles, the Mumps, Smallpox, and the Bubonic Plague. One of the most deadly diseases was smallpox. Smallpox was a disease that appeared on the skin in the form of a rash that looked like pimples. These rashes would spread over time and get very irritated. When a pimple got too big it would burst naturally leaving a scar where it had been. The main part about the disease though, is what happens internally. While the infected was getting rashes on the outside, he would be going through a huge fever, somewhat like pneumonia, and like pneumonia, it was very easy to die from it.
No one really knows why the native americans died so fast from these diseases, but lots of people have inferences on what they think happened. Some say it was because the native americans were not used or prepared for the diseases brought by the europeans, and some say that it was because the didn't have enough domesticated animals to get these diseases from. The fact is that because the europeans came, bringing all those disease from Europe, millions of Native Americans died.
The dying of all the native americans was greatly significant. Millions of people just vanished all because other people wanted to explore and conquer more land. The event that occured made way for many europeans being able to move to america and settle in the places where the natives had previously lived.
Primary Source (Earlyamerica)
This website tells us about the native americans and these terrible diseases, why they died off so quickly, and how they could have gotten them.
Secondary Source (Worldbookonline)
This website gave a general description on what the diseases were and what the europeans had to do with the spreading of them oversease.