OTL history question: the epidemics of smallpox and other diseases in the New World

How fast did the epidemics of smallpox and other diseases spread once the Europeans reached the New World? Did they pretty much spread throughout the New World on their own due to contacts between native cultures, or did the population density or natural barriers prevent them from reaching certain regions until Europeans had settled those regions?

Hypothetically, let's say a group of Europeans arrives in Eastern Canada some time in the early part of the second millenium. No Europeans arrive for about 400 years. How far have their diseases spread?
 
Well for one thing you need a reservoir of the disease. If the disease sweeps through the populace for a few years then doesn't reoccur for a few hundred, any immunity is going to be degraded because a bunch of weaklings (relative to the disease) have had a chance to reproduce. Also some viruses can change make up rather quickly. If a virus exists on both sides of the Atlantic with minimal contact, it's possible that when contact picks up again that each virus will be a little different, like say influenza A and C (or various A subtypes might be more on point). Then everyone could be screwed.

Second we do know it traveled along native trade routes even if there were no Europeans but that was not always the case. There were natural barriers to the disease as well so that natives could end up being slaughtered in waves.
 
I have heard that building the transcontinental railroads unleashed some, and there are those tribes in the Amazon that were unaffected, so I think it varied.
 
Would the Costa Rican mountains be a sufficient natural barrier to delay the spread of smallpox, at least for a time?
 
I've been wondering about something like this.

Specifically, I was wondering if the Norse could have exposed indigenous North Americans to smallpox and other diseases around the same time they reached Vinland IOTL.
 
No. The first smallpox epidemy covered the distance between Mexico and Cuzco in 5 freaking years.
What would be a suitable natural barrier then? Could the Mexican desert be one?

EDIT: If the smallpox epidemic was far earlier; before the Inca Empire and Aztec Triple Alliance existed, could the Costa Rican mountains be a natural barrier, though? Or really anything that would have smallpox devastate Mesoamerica but not South America, at least for a time?
 
What would be a suitable natural barrier then? Could the Mexican desert be one?

EDIT: If the smallpox epidemic was far earlier; before the Inca Empire and Aztec Triple Alliance existed, could the Costa Rican mountains be a natural barrier, though? Or really anything that would have smallpox devastate Mesoamerica but not South America, at least for a time?

The answer to your second question is yes, kind of. You get rid of the Incan empire and you get rid of the vast network it created. The disease will still spread but not like it did OTL.
 
The answer to your second question is yes, kind of. You get rid of the Incan empire and you get rid of the vast network it created. The disease will still spread but not like it did OTL.
What I'm trying to do is have smallpox spread throughout North America after Vinland is settled. It takes until about 1450 for it to make it past the Mexican desert, it devastates Mesoamerica like it did North America, and then it gets stopped at the Costa Rican mountains until 1460, devastating South America once it makes its way through.
 
What I'm trying to do is have smallpox spread throughout North America after Vinland is settled. It takes until about 1450 for it to make it past the Mexican desert, it devastates Mesoamerica like it did North America, and then it gets stopped at the Costa Rican mountains until 1460, devastating South America once it makes its way through.


I'm sorry, but they wouldn't be safe. By 1300 we see Columbian and Panamanian style metallurgy apearing in West Mexico. While contact might be minimal Small Pox will still spread across Costa Rica, albiet at a much slower pace. By 1470 the Incan Empire already has expanded to southern Ecuador and though the road network was not be a impressive as it was by the time they were exposed OTL and the Empire has yet to expand into Chile and much of Bolivia it will still devistate South America, but the damage will be more limited.
 
Anyone else have thoughts on how, in a Vinland scenario, I can devastate North America with smallpox but delay it in South America?
 
I really don't have any ideas. In all times, ancient and modern, it's extremely hard to stop the spread of disease. There's no effective method except quarantine or really good medical care (which they wouldn't have access to), and quarantine is notoriously difficult to enforce.
 
It depended on the Native states. It spread quite rapidly in the more urbanized North and South American regions but rather more slowly and diffusely in the more loosely-affiliated parts of North and South America. A lot of the deaths were due less to disease and more to being worked to death as slaves.
 
Top