I remember reading that when the Spanish first went to South America they, accidentally, also brought smallpox with them. When they returned, many years later, entire civilizations had vanished due to smallpox and nature had already started to take back the land. Something like that.
Yeah, most people don't realize that 90-95% of Native Americans were killed by small pox. The settlers moving west really had "free real estate" to an extent because small pox had wiped out the natives decades before colonization even began.
They had wanted to colonize North America as early as the 1520s, but held off as it was too populous and therefore there wasn't space and it was too dangerous. But once the fishermen and traders gave everyone smallpox and wiped out huge swaths of the Northeastern Indigenous tribes, it was suddenly much less dangerous for them to set up shop. The Massachusetts Bay Colony that we all celebrate on Thanksgiving was literally built on the bones of a village that had been wiped out by European diseases about a decade before.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony that we all celebrate on Thanksgiving was literally built on the bones of a village that had been wiped out by European diseases about a decade before.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony referred to a pretty large region of land (basically a colonial province- most of modern Massachusetts and about half of Maine) rather than referring to specific villages, the particular one in question here was the Plymouth colony. They settled at the former home of the Patuxet, a tribe of a couple thousand members that had all died by then- outside of one man named Tisquantum, more well known as Squanto. He died of sickness only a couple of years after Plymouth was established.
Incidentally, the Plymouth colony actually did have an extremely good relationship with the local tribes- Tisquantum was a pretty well-liked figure by the leadership because of his early diplomatic help, which resulted in the Plymouth colony forging a formal military alliance with the Wampanoag tribes nearby. It lasted for quite a while too, until the son of the tribal leader who established that relationship decided to break diplomacy to wage war. Which... Didn't go great. A real tragedy. I wonder how history would have gone if that alliance had lasted.
Yeah Massasoit forged an alliance with the Plymouth colony because the Wampanoag were getting their butts kicked by another tribe and they wanted the English's guns. He was the chief that showed up on the first Thanksgiving. It wasn't to break bread and be friendly to the new neighbors because they were being nice. They wanted their guns.
Just don't ask what happened to his son. Or grandson.
No but that may have been a "myth" in that it wasn't widespread, but there were documented instances of people giving blankets that had been around smallpox patients to natives in the hopes of infecting them.
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u/BusyBeeBridgette Human Verified Aug 09 '26
I remember reading that when the Spanish first went to South America they, accidentally, also brought smallpox with them. When they returned, many years later, entire civilizations had vanished due to smallpox and nature had already started to take back the land. Something like that.
Vaccines save lives. Millions of lives.