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Most American cultures were wiped out largely by smallpox, measles and other Eurasian diseases before the Spanish got around to most places.
by ncmncm 5y ago
Most American cultures were wiped out largely by smallpox, measles and other Eurasian diseases before the Spanish got around to most places.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y agoI'd be careful with language like this. My impression is that "they were wiped out by smallpox" is the sort of thing that infuriates native Americans, because it is implies that their cultures were destroyed, a claim they very much dispute. Yes, populations were massively reduced by european diseases, but in most cases (all? I don't know) it did not wipe out the cultures. It have a dramatic impact on them, and did set the stage, of course, for the subsequently arriving colonialists to attempt to continue the process in person (with varying degrees of success).
- ncmncm 5y agoCertainly all the cultures that were wiped out are not here to object; and those that weren't weren't. But many even of them might have been, after. We have no record of them, so cannot count them. Those still around to object are subject, necessarily, to survivorship bias, and rather more starkly than is usual.