Colonization with Native Americans

Alright I know this sounds utterly ASB, but I'm using this for a TL. I was reading how the cure for small pox (cowpox) could occur naturally in any of the Bovids. Right now some claim to have proven that an American Bison has a virus similar to cowpox, and as such can act as an innoculation. Now Bison at one time lived everywhere from Southern Mexico to Canada to almost the Atlantic ocean.

So for whatever reason when the Spanish make contact and for whatever reason someone links "Contact with sick Bison= Not getting sick." The disease spreads around but instead of 90-95% (?) of the Native American population dying off its more like 30-50%, so smallpox is pretty much handled.

Now going on this (and no arguing with the semi-fact even though it hasn't be proven outside of a single lab) how does the colonization of the New World go?
 
There were quite a few other diseases that caused big casualties to, but smallpox was the major one. So not as dramatic a decrease as you thought, but still big. Interesting idea.

This will give more of an advantage to the plains indians then in OTL (perhaps there will be a native state there in this TL?) but it will be better most societies west of the Appalachians and east of the Rockies. I imagine that the tribes we know very little of in the ohio area might survive better.
 

HueyLong

Banned
The only problem is that they do not get a lot of contact with the bison. They didn't kill a lot of them to live, and not all of them were involved with the killing.
 
there might be more incentive for Great Britain to enforce its No Settlement Beyond the Appalachians rule, because of a greater native population beyond the mountains, which could lead to the creation of one or more native states in the plains (Sioux, Apache, another), and many other effects too. It is a very interesting idea, and one I plan to use in my AAR.
 
The only problem is that they do not get a lot of contact with the bison. They didn't kill a lot of them to live, and not all of them were involved with the killing.

Alright, but let's say smallpox effects a tribe, and someone notes that those who hunt the bison are not sick. A disease can be transmitted rather quickly, and one would assume the sick one would not make it away from the hunters as fast. So total utter fluke someone links sick bison= no human smallpox. That is the best i can come up with, without magically creating indepth medical practices for the Native Americans.
 
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