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The Impact of Disease and Conquest on Pre-Columbian American Societies

This exploration delves into the medical challenges faced by pre-conquest American inhabitants, highlighting the experiences of hunter-gatherers and sedentary groups. Diseases stemmed from zoonoses and other factors, resulting in low adult lifespans and high mortality rates in settled areas. The arrival of Europeans marked a period of virgin soil epidemics, severely decimating populations through diseases like smallpox and measles. The interplay of military conquest and cultural disruption further exacerbated the impact, leading to irrevocable changes in the demographic landscape of the Americas.

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The Impact of Disease and Conquest on Pre-Columbian American Societies

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  1. Introduction

  2. Pre-conquest (or invasion, infection, pestilence) medicine 13000 ybp American habitation Hunter gatherers and pastoralists: zoonoses, animal parasites, violence, accidents, famines, exposure Sedentary groups: infectious reservoirs sanitation problems, crowdedness Dysentery, upper respiratory disease, tb, but not malaria, yellow fever, measles, smallpox Yet, esp. in sedentary settings, low lifespans: among adults > under 35

  3. Conquest and virgin soil epidemics • The usual picture: • Unsettled America, the great wilderness • Conquest by military, technical, cultural superiority • Not empty, emptying decimation • Hispaniola population, 1492: 60K-1 million, 1517, 10-18K: flu, from the animals of the portmanteau biota (Crosby)

  4. Variable responses to VSE • Small pox, then measles and childhood diseases, later yellow fever • Strongest in SW, Spanish deadly settlement • NE epidemics of 1616,1619 70-90% mortality; NY, 1633-1650, 87% mortality • Views of conquerors and conquered. • Why no equilibrium? • Genetic predisposition • Social destruction/enslavement • Cultural upheaval

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