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> Epidemic disease also didn't spread in advance of European contact. The demographic shattering diseases that led to those (fairly questionable) population los
by throwup238 2y ago
> Epidemic disease also didn't spread in advance of European contact. The demographic shattering diseases that led to those (fairly questionable) population loss figures happened after sustained European contact.
Yup, the biggest killer - smallpox - was probably introduced by Pánfilo de Narváez‘s expedition to arrest Cortez’ while he was already well into his campaign to conquer the Aztecs, decades after Columbus. Europe and North Africa were experiencing their own sporadic outbreaks at the time and it’s likely that a slave named Francisco Eguia brought it over Several of the indigenous people in the Caribbean were already wiped out because of the awful conditions of their enslavement by this point.
- bboygravity 2y agoDIdn't Columbus essentially wipe out natives on the Carribean Islands though through a kind of forced labour (mining) genocide (with the "help" of disease)? And Cortez wasn't exactly a passive visitor either? Sure the diseases might've helped speed things up, but both of them seemed to be on a pretty intense and efficient pillaging, killing and raping spree. Where Cortez even went to great lengths to not only wipe out the natives but actually also destroy any trace of their largest city.
- krapp 2y agoThe crazy thing about Columbus (well, one of many) is that Spain explicitly forbade him to take slaves in the Caribbean, they wanted the natives Christianized and the land colonized. Columbus just did it anyway, and shipped over boatloads of slaves they didn't even want.