How would an advanced civilization deal with a mass disease epidemic?

I was thinking what if instead of being at roughly the bronze age level at best when encountering Europeans for the first time, you had an american civilization roughly on par with the Europe of the 16th century?

Seeing as disease was responsible for probably 90% of the deaths of the indigenous Americans would a more advanced native society have made much difference against European conquests?
 
If they aren't conquered by Europeans then they'll have a much reduced death rate, since the stress of European conquest with its resulting violence post-conquest increased the death toll immensely. But even without European conquest, they'll still probably have 60-70% death rate meaning even very resilient civilisations like the Inca will feel the stress, not to mention they'll still have to deal with Europeans in some form.

I don't see how a few more centuries of "development" will make a very big difference, especially if they're still getting conquered by Europeans.
 
Probably the biggest factor with disease was how it secured Spanish conquests by allowing new waves of settlers to seize lands devastated by mass death. A portion of that 90+% population loss was from survivors being pushed off prime farm land. Imagine if invaders took your house and savings and made your family homeless. Generations later there will be fewer of you.

In terms of the conquest itself I think the role of disease is exaggerated. Columbus conquered Hispaniola before disease depopulated the island. Cortez got his men to agree to make a second try at the Aztec capital after fleeing in defeat, without any of them knowing smallpox was ravaging their enemy. They knew their naval siege plans would likely succeed, without or without disease.

What allowed European conquest was their outstanding tactical superiority, both in weapons and unconventional tactics, which so impressed the natives that they allied with the conquistadors against their age old enemies. Both sides had something to gain in the alliance. The same was true in Plymouth where the Wampanoag saw the English as a resource against other tribes.

If the native Americans were at the same level of technology they would have little use for a few hundred foreigners. The Europeans wouldn’t be able to conquer anything but they could set up trading outposts and perhaps settle small areas where there is a power vaccum. There would be a smaller loss of population, but this would recover in time.
 
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I was thinking what if instead of being at roughly the bronze age level at best when encountering Europeans for the first time, you had an american civilization roughly on par with the Europe of the 16th century?

Seeing as disease was responsible for probably 90% of the deaths of the indigenous Americans would a more advanced native society have made much difference against European conquests?

Natives needed two things to develop some immunity to plagues, that would allow them to survive when European diseases hit them:
large cities and domesticated animals
If you have both for prolonged time, you'll develop general immunity to diseases, since concentrated city population will be regularly hit by diseases that jumped from animals, culling those with weak immunity.
Most natives had neither. Aztecs had cities, but they had little to no domestic animals. So they didn't develop any immunity.
 
Probably the biggest factor with disease was how it secured Spanish conquests by allowing new waves of settlers to seize lands devastated by mass death. A portion of that 90+% population loss was from survivors being pushed off prime farm land. Imagine if invaders took your house and savings and made your family homeless. Generations later there will be fewer of you.

In terms of the conquest itself I think the role of disease is exaggerated. Columbus conquered Hispaniola before disease depopulated the island. Cortez got his men to agree to make a second try at the Aztec capital after fleeing in defeat, without any of them knowing smallpox was ravaging their enemy. They knew their naval siege plans would likely succeed, without or without disease.

What allowed European conquest was their outstanding tactical superiority, both in weapons and unconventional tactics, which so impressed the natives that they allied with the conquistadors against their age old enemies. Both sides had something to gain in the alliance. The same was true in Plymouth where the Wampanoag saw the English as a resource against other tribes.

If the native Americans were at the same level of technology they would have little use for a few hundred foreigners. The Europeans wouldn’t be able to conquer anything but they could set up trading outposts and perhaps settle small areas where there is a power vaccum. There would be a smaller loss of population, but this would recover in time.

Well in both of those cases, disease spread faster than the movement of conquistadors. This allowed the disease to reach lands and depopulate them before they had ever seen a European.
 

Deleted member 97083

Well in both of those cases, disease spread faster than the movement of conquistadors. This allowed the disease to reach lands and depopulate them before they had ever seen a European.
Well, that's true for some regions, but not for others. In the Aztec Empire, smallpox didn't arrive until 1520, in the midst of Cortez's conquest. However, there were regions like Panama and the Inca Empire that did see disease epidemics before Europeans arrived.
 
If they aren't conquered by Europeans then they'll have a much reduced death rate, since the stress of European conquest with its resulting violence post-conquest increased the death toll immensely.

I dunno about that -- weren't there native groups which were basically wiped out by disease before they had any meaningful interaction with the Europeans? I'm thinking of groups like the Mississippi River Civilisation, or the parts of today's northern-eastern USA where the first colonists found loads of uninhabited villages whose people had been completely wiped out by plague.
 

trajen777

Banned
Good books would be
1. Justinian flea -- the first outbreak of plague
2. The Silk road - the collapse of the mongol empire (really interesting how the empire was held together by trade and elite ownership across the entire empire really minimizing inter group warfare -- the plague breakdown of trade created the breakup)
3. Guns germs steel -- traces the collapse of population based upon any sick Europeans and the waves of disease (so if you survived pox you might then get hit by influenza and if u survive this you then get hit by plague and if yo u survive this you get hit by xxxx ) so the population collapse was quick. In addition the native trade routes spread disease very rapidly into areas no or never penetrated by Europeans
4. The city of the monkey god -- excellent book by Preston who was involved in exploration of Houndurus and a city never visited by the the Spanish but destroyed by euro disease.

The basics are that people in close proximity to animals have disease jump (swine flu / bird flu) between species, it devastates the population till some type of immunity is built up after multi generations of devastation ( Athens during Pericles, Marcus Aur. (measles ), Justinian Plague, Black death, 1918 flu ). So unless their is exposure to these diseases then a population not exposed to them would be devastated. So a 1600 native population would still be devastated. What you might see is their level of highly concentrated population and exposure of animal's in their own area would / could lead to counter devastating disease brought back to Europe. Again it was the wave of diseases that hit the Americas (Plague, small pox, measles, influenza, etc etc ).

A scary and non PC comment by a researcher in the "city of the monkey god book" is without the inner breeding between the Euro conquerors and the native population you might have seen an almost complete kill off of the native population.
 
I dunno about that -- weren't there native groups which were basically wiped out by disease before they had any meaningful interaction with the Europeans? I'm thinking of groups like the Mississippi River Civilisation, or the parts of today's northern-eastern USA where the first colonists found loads of uninhabited villages whose people had been completely wiped out by plague.

The southwest Mississippians disappeared after Hernando de Soto cut a bloody path through the area and let loose farm destroying and fast breeding pigs. Disease spread in the aftermath.

In the northeast the early English settlers found many depopulated villages, but by that time Europeans have been trading and raiding for decades. Squanto for example was an Indian who spoke fluent English and taught colonists to plant corn using fish as fertilizer. He had been abducted by Europeans and lived in England and France before hitching a ride back home, only to find his tribe dead from disease. All of this happened before the Plymouth settlement. There is some evidence Squanto actually learned to plant crop using fish while he was in France.

There were indeed cases where disease preceeded Europeans, notibly the Incas where depopulation led to a succession crisis and civil war just before the arrival of Francisco Pizarro.
 
I'm going to post the same thing I've posted in a number of other threads about Native American disease deaths.

The amount of death due to disease is certainly related to a lack of biological resistance due to no deomestic animals, lack of exposure to the same disease in the past, etc. However, this is not the only factor which lead to high death rates. For example, the death rate due to the Black Death in Europe (which people also lacked biological resistance to) was high, but not nearly as high as the post-Columbian epidemics in North America. There are a number of reasons for this:

1. All the epidemics struck at once rather than one at a time. Technological level of the Native peoples won't really impact this, although sustained trade and contact before conquest is attempted could lessen this effect. A higher tech level of Native Americans could lead to them being seen as trading partners rather than potential targets for conquest and conversion.

2. The epidemics were followed (or preceded) by wars of conquest meaning that lifestyles were already being disrupted. An increase in the Natives' tech level would DEFINITELY affect this one, as Natives with gunpowder and steel could mount much better military resistance to the Europeans.

3. The pre-Columbian Native Americans lacked "cultural resistance" to disease. Cultural resistance is a collection of cultural practices which create a more disease-resistant population. They include things like practices of quarantining (leper colonies, etc.), high birthrates to overcome childhood mortality due to disease (the Native Americans had much lower birthrates than contemporary Europeans), political traditions of calling for solidarity in times of disease (some Native Americans responded to disease by waging "Mourning Wars" on their nieghbours), etc. This sort of "cultural resistance" usually evolves slowly in cultures exposed to repeated epidemics. If you want to avoid massive die-offs due to post-Columbian epidemics, you have to increase cultural resistance to disease, and I'm not sure how reasonable it is to do so without introducing some indigenous epidemic diseases to give an incentive to make a cultural change. Increasing material technology on its own won't do anything about this.
 

trajen777

Banned
Well stated -- i would add to this that if a population lost
I'm going to post the same thing I've posted in a number of other threads about Native American disease deaths.

The amount of death due to disease is certainly related to a lack of biological resistance due to no deomestic animals, lack of exposure to the same disease in the past, etc. However, this is not the only factor which lead to high death rates. For example, the death rate due to the Black Death in Europe (which people also lacked biological resistance to) was high, but not nearly as high as the post-Columbian epidemics in North America. There are a number of reasons for this:

1. All the epidemics struck at once rather than one at a time. Technological level of the Native peoples won't really impact this, although sustained trade and contact before conquest is attempted could lessen this effect. A higher tech level of Native Americans could lead to them being seen as trading partners rather than potential targets for conquest and conversion.

2. The epidemics were followed (or preceded) by wars of conquest meaning that lifestyles were already being disrupted. An increase in the Natives' tech level would DEFINITELY affect this one, as Natives with gunpowder and steel could mount much better military resistance to the Europeans.

3. The pre-Columbian Native Americans lacked "cultural resistance" to disease. Cultural resistance is a collection of cultural practices which create a more disease-resistant population. They include things like practices of quarantining (leper colonies, etc.), high birthrates to overcome childhood mortality due to disease (the Native Americans had much lower birthrates than contemporary Europeans), political traditions of calling for solidarity in times of disease (some Native Americans responded to disease by waging "Mourning Wars" on their nieghbours), etc. This sort of "cultural resistance" usually evolves slowly in cultures exposed to repeated epidemics. If you want to avoid massive die-offs due to post-Columbian epidemics, you have to increase cultural resistance to disease, and I'm not sure how reasonable it is to do so without introducing some indigenous epidemic diseases to give an incentive to make a cultural change. Increasing material technology on its own won't do anything about this.


I would add to this that if a population lost 25% - 75% of its population their was no distinguishing between priests, doctors (actually this would be even higher), kings or peasants. The only advantage is those at the top might have better food and have a stronger system to protect them. However this type of devastation would disrupt trade, agriculture, and in general civilization. As seen in remote areas of central America never penetrated by the Spanish many cities stopped functioning and the citizens just abandoned the civilization and walked off into the jungle to form small backwards villages.
 
1. All the epidemics struck at once rather than one at a time. Technological level of the Native peoples won't really impact this, although sustained trade and contact before conquest is attempted could lessen this effect. A higher tech level of Native Americans could lead to them being seen as trading partners rather than potential targets for conquest and conversion.

Mostly true, but not all epidemics struck at once. Typhoid for example spread a half century post conquest after enough settlers arrived to contaminate the rivers. So a much more effective resistance against invasion would increase the amount of time between epidemics.
 
Mostly true, but not all epidemics struck at once. Typhoid for example spread a half century post conquest after enough settlers arrived to contaminate the rivers. So a much more effective resistance against invasion would increase the amount of time between epidemics.

You need a pool of carriers to keep reinfecting; unfortunately, that is also how any kind of resistance evolves. Even if one of the many many many Old World diseases passes by in the 1500s, it will still be landing on virgin populations every time after that for centuries. The disease vector is a hell of a thing.
 

trajen777

Banned
I think a very interesting side note would be if you had a 1600 type of civilization in the New World evolve. Crowded cities (spread disease) and many more domesticated animals then you would have many more diseases AND they would be different then in the Old World. Would you have a counter devastation of Europe. Or at the very least it woudl result in a massive kill off of the invaders. In this situation you would have a devastated Aztec nation of maybe 20 - 33% of its population but not enough Spanish to attack the capital. Or more likely their would not be enough Spanish surviving in the Caribbean islands, for colonies to develop. In this situation you might have a much greater survival rate of the native population.

So lets say initial ships arrive in the islands. Columbus crew (as an aside to this it is interesting that in Columbus log he remarks how amazing it is that the entire crew is very healthy). A very high percentage of his crew dies from unknown disease. And future ships arrive and end up with a similar death rate, or bring back the diseases to Europe. In this case you basically stop / slow down the new world conquest. You might minimize or delay various infections to reach further into the interior of the Americas (really depends on the advanced trade routes)
 
I think a very interesting side note would be if you had a 1600 type of civilization in the New World evolve. Crowded cities (spread disease) and many more domesticated animals then you would have many more diseases AND they would be different then in the Old World.

There were a number of New World species who went extinct due to climate changes and human activity in the Americas.

Perhaps some of them could avoid their fates by less predation and environmental damage, eventually being domesticated and becoming beasts of burden, though this may border ASB.
 

trajen777

Banned
There were a number of New World species who went extinct due to climate changes and human activity in the Americas.

Perhaps some of them could avoid their fates by less predation and environmental damage, eventually being domesticated and becoming beasts of burden, though this may border ASB.

There were several animals that were becoming domesticated .. Ie turkies, llamas, bison (?), but you would need some to survive, from extension. Their are tapirs and some evidence of visiting and perhaps like they did in hawaii and other islands bring chickens and pigs
 
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