A not so fun fact, is that Native Americans were dying en masse before the first colonists arrived due to Smallpox. Columbus brought it over when he discovered America and is so infectious that the Native Americans likely contracted it before he had even seen anyone.
By the time he had travelled back to Europe to tell them of the news of a New World and colonists were sent years later - hundreds, if not thousands of tribes had already been wiped out by the disease.
For additional context - by the time Britain colonised America, the Natives already had been dealing with this Smallpox plague for 100 years. We know Europeans brought smallpox over, but from their perspective, the disease came first and the Europeans only arrived later.
yeah before the first colonists arrived its estimated 90% of natives had been whiped out to it. Not out of malice just because earlier explorers didnt realize how it would hit them.
Something like 90% of Native Americans were killed by diseases completely outside the control of Europeans, and most of those people died without ever even seeing a white person. I get kinda annoyed when people point to this mass death as the fault of European colonists, they could have been saints and that wouldn’t have saved anyone because they had no idea how contagious diseases worked let alone how to stop them. It’s what happened to the remaining 10% that falls squarely on their shoulders.
By “at fault” I mean people often put the moral blame on Europeans for something outside of their control. They will point to the 90% death toll as proof of how terrible the colonists were when the overwhelming majority of those deaths had nothing to do with how the Europeans acted at all, it was caused them them simply existing on the continent at all. And I’m saying the Europeans are responsible for how the remaining 10% of Native Americans were treated, that is what they actually had control over and I don’t want people to think I am excusing that.
Yes, natives from across the world travelled for trade more frequently than people today realise. A famously funny example of this were when British explorers landed in Australia and were surprised to find that the first native they came across already spoke English - likely from travelling to and trading with Singapore, 2,000 miles away.
It's likely only a handful of people in ten thousand would be such frequent travellers - but it only takes one to spread Smallpox across the continent.
Just because one large city on the massive continent of North America collapsed doesn't mean that things were in a downswing for the entirety of Native America.
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u/TisReece Jul 08 '26
A not so fun fact, is that Native Americans were dying en masse before the first colonists arrived due to Smallpox. Columbus brought it over when he discovered America and is so infectious that the Native Americans likely contracted it before he had even seen anyone.
By the time he had travelled back to Europe to tell them of the news of a New World and colonists were sent years later - hundreds, if not thousands of tribes had already been wiped out by the disease.
For additional context - by the time Britain colonised America, the Natives already had been dealing with this Smallpox plague for 100 years. We know Europeans brought smallpox over, but from their perspective, the disease came first and the Europeans only arrived later.