The Effects of European Epidemics on the Indians

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at the effect on the Native Americans and on their lifestyles by the diseases bought over from Europe by the first settlers. It discusses how it was not war that wiped out the Native Americans, but diseases such as smallpox, measles, malaria, and influenza. Native Americans had no resistance to these diseases and entire tribes were soon decimated by fast-spreading epidemics. As a result, much of the diverse Native American culture has disappeared.

From the Paper:

"It is estimated that some 400,000 Native Americans lived in America by 1600. With the arrival of English and Dutch people, this number was dramatically reduced as a result of new diseases, such as plague, smallpox, chickenpox, mumps, measles and influenza. (Bailey, 1969) Between 1616 and 1619, the Native American people were nearly wiped out as a result of a mysterious plague, most likely either bubonic or pneumonic, which was contracted from Europeans sailing along the coast of Maine. "

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