The lost epidemic: Why didn't the Europeans who conquered the ?Americas get sick
In 1492, Europeans arrived in the Americas (or the two American continents, depending on which classification you prefer) for the first time, except for the arrival of the Vikings previously, and with this great discovery, which happened in an unplanned manner, Europe quickly moved into its golden age and turned into a group of giant empires that ruled most of regions of the world at one time, because this sudden wealth and rapid growth did not come with peace and diplomacy, but with bloody wars and extermination that were among the largest in history against the Native Americans who were mistakenly called “Red Indians”.
What most people know - or at least think - is that the European occupation of the Americas was the reason for the decline and relative disappearance of the indigenous population even, but despite all the blood that was present and even with the giant technical superiority and the availability of firearms; The main cause of the death of the vast majority of the indigenous population was not wars directly, but was more like a biological war that wiped out the indigenous population and left them up for grabs in front of the white man.
Why did the indigenous people of the Americas die
The European conquest left many Native Americans dead no doubt, but the primary killer was diseases and epidemics carried from the Old World.
When Columbus arrived in the “New World” in 1492, there were many indigenous people, as estimates indicate a number ranging from 10 to 100 million people, with most estimates considering 50 million as the number closest to reality. This number may not seem like much today, but for the fifteenth century it was very large as the whole of Europe was inhabited by only 90 million people, but by the seventeenth century the number [i.e. the 50 million] had fallen sharply with more than 90% dying. Indigenous people, and these deaths were caused by the new conquerors, but not by their swords... Rather, by microscopic organisms that could not be seen with the naked eye and were unknown until very recently: bacteria and viruses.
What caused these deaths was not any bacteria or viruses, but rather a small group of them known to be epidemic and very transmissible in addition to being very fast killers that kill most of their victims within weeks of their infection, and the reason that they were very fast killers in this case is that they are completely new diseases. Back then for the New World, and the natives had no immunity against it, these epidemics included smallpox, measles, whooping cough, tuberculosis, mumps, cholera and of course: the plague.
These epidemics claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands and millions in the ancient world all the time, but for the new world they were new diseases that they did not have any prior immunity against, and because of their very rapid spread, they killed them and reduced their numbers so that their resistance to the European invasion became completely impossible. Had he been killed by the plagues, he would have been greatly affected by them at least.
?Why didn't the opposite happen
For centuries, the ancient world suffered from successive epidemics that killed many people, but at the same time raised immunity, but for the Americas, things were different.
Understanding the cause of the death of the indigenous population due to the diseases of the European invaders is very understandable due to their lack of immunity, but why did it not happen in both directions and the Europeans contracted the New World epidemics and perhaps transferred them to the Old Continent to wreak death in ?the Old World
The matter here does not come because of the lack of diseases, for example, because the new world had its own variety of diseases, of course, but it did not have “epidemics”, and the difference between normal diseases and epidemics is very large and very important for the matter here.
Ordinary diseases, such as colds, for example, or multiple infections, or even hepatitis C, are diseases that appear to be designed for humans. Killing the patient is not the goal, but it is a very bad mistake, like someone burning down their house. For the bacteria that cause the usual diseases, we like their home in that we provide them with nourishment because they are parasitic on us, and we also help them multiply and spread, but epidemics are another story.
With regard to epidemics, their presence in humans is nothing more than a very bad mistake (from their point of view and from our point of view as well). Epidemics transmit very quickly, but they kill very quickly as well, so for humans throughout most of their lives before civilizations, epidemics were not even possible because they would infect An individual within a small group infects everyone around him, and they almost all die within a short time, and thus the disease dies with them and ends completely, and here comes perhaps the basic criterion for the emergence of epidemics: civilization and rapid movement.
Of course, civility is not enough, but there are several basic factors that we will mention here:
1. Modern Civilization:
Throughout history, humans lived in the form of small groups to a large extent, and it did not begin to change until a few millennia ago with the emergence of villages and then small cities that were inhabited by only a few hundred people, all the way to major cities inhabited by hundreds of thousands of people in very crowded circles, and with an increase in Overcrowding There is another thing that is rapidly decreasing: general hygiene, as large numbers of people concentrated in narrow spaces mean a lot of waste and even human waste in large quantities that make the transmission of diseases and epidemics much faster, and most importantly, they provide these diseases with a large number of those who carry them, meaning that they last longer.
As we mentioned above, small human groups are not suitable for dangerous, rapidly spreading epidemics. A group of tens or even hundreds is not sufficient to spread the disease. Rather, most of the members of the group will die quickly from a disease such as plague or cholera, leaving several people immune to the disease and not sufficient to spread it among others, especially since Small communities are usually isolated, albeit in a small way, from others, unlike cities that enter and exit thousands all the time and witness tens and hundreds of births every day, giving new potential victims of epidemics.
It is not enough here, of course, although the indigenous people of the Americas were less civilized than their counterparts in Europe and Asia, they owned many cities (mostly in South and Central America) and some of them were very large even as they had effective means of communication and were not completely isolated from Otherwise, European epidemics would not have spread there in the first place, and here comes the role of the second part of the puzzle. With the importance of cities in epidemics, the most important piece is perhaps animals, and here what is meant is domesticated animals, not wild ones.
2. Domesticated animals:
The Middle Ages witnessed the gradual expansion of cities and the concentration of animals in a large way, in addition to overcrowding, which made diseases a fertile environment.
As for today, the two American continents have all the domesticated animals that come to mind, whether it is the chickens that are raised in the billions every year or the cows and sheep that exist in the tens of millions in addition to other farm animals such as pigs, horses, etc., but things were not always like this for this vast geographical area, For most of the time that humans inhabited them, the two continents did not possess any of the important animals such as cows, sheep, pigs, or even chickens and horses that came for the first time with the European invaders.
It may occur to you that the stereotype of the indigenous people was as fierce warriors with war paints on their faces and distinctive costumes riding their horses and fighting other tribes or cities, but this image is completely wrong, as their movements, wars, and so on were carried out on foot primarily with the absence of animals, so the nature of the two American continents It meant that the natives drew the losing ticket in the animal domestication lottery.
Of course, the two continents were not completely devoid of animals, but rather they had a great diversity in the life that existed there, but the types of those animals were a major factor, as between them the indigenous people only owned the llama in South America, which although it is better than nothing it is not easy to restrict And grazing and abundant meat such as cows, sheep and chickens, and of course it is not fast and strong enough to carry people like horses.
The other herbivores available to the Americans were deer, which are almost impossible to catch and even if captured, they can easily escape, or the American buffalo , which is like a tank on hooves capable of sweeping everything in front of it.
?Why didn't the Native Americans have domesticated animals
A llama is generally a good animal, but it is not comparable to horses, cows, chickens, or sheep even in terms of its benefits.
The Native Americans were really no different from other humans, and the lack of pets did not come from lack of trying, laziness, or inability, but simply because the animals available to them were not really suitable for domestication. The matter here depends on several criteria to make animals domesticate, and the matter starts from being herbivores or vegetarians in general, and ends with “family values” and the structures of these animal groups.
Of course, it is not possible to domesticate any kind of animal, but some of them are capable of domestication after some effort, while others are not capable of that, no matter how hard the attempts are made. Sufficient to lead the entire herd and domesticate it, but the relatives of horses: the zebras found in Africa and almost genetically identical do not have that hierarchy and live in large herds without any concern for any hierarchy, which makes them bad animals to be domesticated, and this is what prevented humans from leaving Africa to Eurasia on donkeys brutality rather than going out on foot.
On the other hand, the important factor is the ability to genetically manipulate, because the animals we know today were not always like this, but rather we made them so by mating them according to our desire and keeping only the most suitable individuals for our needs. So that they turn from wild and destructive wild boars to peaceful and static farm pigs, but elephants, for example, can never be applied to them, and if they try, it must be done over many human generations, while keeping records in an inappropriate way for ancient humans.
In sum, Eurasia and Africa were fortunate with the animals they had access to, nothing more.
3. The role of domesticated animals in spreading diseases:
The vast majority of major diseases and epidemics come to us first from animals, and their concentrated presence and intensive human interaction with them makes the chance of new disease strains spreading greater.
In fact, a large percentage of epidemics come to us from animals. Whooping cough came from pigs, and the common cold came from pigs and birds in its modern epidemic forms, and cows alone are responsible for several deadly diseases such as measles, tuberculosis, and of course smallpox. For these animals, these diseases are not a big problem and they can live with them. A disease that slightly weakens a cow kills us completely as humans, and this is considered contrary to the interest of the disease itself, but it happens.
The transmission of diseases from animals to humans is not an easy matter, as the possibility is very small and appears to be non-existent even in theory, so generations of herders live with animals without contracting their diseases, but cities here change the equation significantly so that the large concentration of animals in cities (before the industrial revolution and the current development Cities) and the huge number of people in it made it an excellent place to concentrate the possibility of disease transmission to humans, and despite this small possibility, every time a disease was able to transmit, it led to a major epidemic, even in our modern world with cases such as bird flu, swine flu, and SARS.
For the Americas, the cities were generally fewer and smaller, and the animals were almost non-existent, so that most of the meat comes from hunting, not from domesticated animals, so the possibility of an American plague or smallpox was very unlikely, and this is what made the Native Americans die from diseases of the Europeans, while the Europeans remained largely intact. They did not transmit epidemics that would destroy their fellow tribesmen in the ancient world.
?Could things have happened the other way around
What if we imagine things the opposite of what they were, two Americas with cows, sheep, horses, chickens, etc., and Africa and Eurasia with non-domesticable animals and some llamas only.
This change makes all the possible difference, as domesticated animals were essential to the emergence of ancient civilizations and the emergence of civilization before the industrial revolutions, so if things were the other way around, the Americas would have been much more prosperous than the ancient world in this time line of ours, and with epidemics in the Americas rather than Eurasia and Africa, the great death would have been It will come in the opposite direction to what the current world has witnessed, and the colonization of the Americas, as happened in our world, would probably have been impossible.
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