The Conquistadors Catch a Virus and Bring it to Europe

Point of Divergence ... The invasion of the Americas by the Conquistadors was not only savage in terms of warfare, but in terms of what illnesses they brought with them. Smallpox was one of the major factors in what brought down the Native population. Cortes in particularly was one of the most bloodthirsty and savage, bringing down the Aztec Empire in one swoop and killing Montezuma.

What if the invasion of the Aztec Empire progressed as it did in history but for one crucial difference? Lets say on the return trip to Spain, one of the soldiers on the ship gets sick and eventually dies. The physician on board is at a loss to say what caused it. Pretty soon, the entire ship's crew, save for a few select men, are laid up sick. Upon returning to Spain, Cortes, who has somehow manged to remain healthy, reports to his sovereign. The sick crew meanwhile is taken to a local hospital. As the crew members die one by one, the physicians are horrified to realize this is a disease they have never seen before. And it is spreading. Fast. What might this disease be, how fast does it spread, and what happens to Europe?
 
Wow, that is one interesting plotline. I vaguely recall an interesting twist I read ages ago in an book called The Years of Rice and Salt. One of the stories deals with the Black plague leaving Europe so underpopulated that the invading non Europeans took over and changed the World's History from then on. Another fav of mine is Robert Silververgs Roma Eterna, I loved that book so much I carried it to work daily. Now is in my digital library
 
If it’s a Black Death-style plague, it weakens Europe for about 50-100 years and then hits the rest of Eurasia ten to twenty years later. Once Europe recovers (maybe even before it’s recovered fully) it will not have the OTL overpopulation that spurred on settler states and many colonial ventures. However, some colonization of the Americas will still happen—the technological disparity is too massive and the economic motivation is still there.

IMO it would be much more like African colonization; trading posts with the Native nations and limited settlement.
 

trajen777

Banned
Syphilis wasn't so lethal and it is unsure if syphilis is from Americas all.

Actually syphillis when it first reached Europe was extremely deadly. As time went on it became less damaging and deadly. A good read on this was a review of the french campaign in italy. Mose epidemiologists now believe their is a very high probability it came from the Americas
 
Actually syphillis when it first reached Europe was extremely deadly. As time went on it became less damaging and deadly. A good read on this was a review of the french campaign in italy. Mose epidemiologists now believe their is a very high probability it came from the Americas
Wasn't part of its deadliness due to its official cure (quicksilver happens) and its course still slow enough to allow for year-long survival (as long as opportunistic infections didn't get the infected before that) ?
 

trajen777

Banned
Wasn't part of its deadliness due to its official cure (quicksilver happens) and its course still slow enough to allow for year-long survival (as long as opportunistic infections didn't get the infected before that) ?

The cure was worse then the disease later in the Syphilis outbreak, (and did not work besides that ) however in the 1500's it was much more virulent for some reason and in the 1600's and later became less destructive (mutation ??). However, just like black death some people self cured, but in the early days it was very devastating. Unlike the black death or Ebola, which kills its victim quickly think of this being more of a HIV type of disease :

It affects between 700,000 and 1.6 million pregnancies a year, resulting in spontaneous abortions, stillbirths, and congenital syphilis. During 2010, it caused about 113,000 deaths, down from 202,000 in 1990. In sub-Saharan Africa, syphilis contributes to approximately 20% of perinatal deaths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syphilis

Increased rates among heterosexuals have occurred in China and Russia since the 1990s. Syphilis increases the risk of HIV transmission by two to five times and co-infection is common (30–60% in a number of urban centers). Untreated it has a mortality of 8% to 58% with a greater death rate in males. John Hopkins comm diseases 2017 May ..

From what i have read (my kids an Epidemiologist at a major hospital and gets to study scary diseases) --- in the 1500's mortality was in the 75 - 85 % --- with no real cure till 1943, however the arsenic cures helped some -- mercury ??
 

trajen777

Banned
However i think what you are saying is what would happen if the Conq. brought back a black death type of virus. The thing that destroyed the population of the Americas was the overlapping series of diseases. SO for example - Flu, Black death, measles, small pox, etc that came in wave after wave. SO for survivors of measles then got the flu and then small pox so then few survivors of each disease was a smaller and smaller group. A good book that goes into a good review of this is "the city of the monkey god" by Preston. He goes into the jungle to review the discovery of the unknown city. They go into depth about the waves of diseases (dates etc) that swept civilizations that never came into contact with the Spanish.

So to have a counter devastating European disease situation you really need multi diseases.
 
The cure was worse then the disease later in the Syphilis outbreak, (and did not work besides that ) however in the 1500's it was much more virulent for some reason and in the 1600's and later became less destructive (mutation ??). However, just like black death some people self cured, but in the early days it was very devastating. Unlike the black death or Ebola, which kills its victim quickly think of this being more of a HIV type of disease :

It affects between 700,000 and 1.6 million pregnancies a year, resulting in spontaneous abortions, stillbirths, and congenital syphilis. During 2010, it caused about 113,000 deaths, down from 202,000 in 1990. In sub-Saharan Africa, syphilis contributes to approximately 20% of perinatal deaths. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syphilis

Increased rates among heterosexuals have occurred in China and Russia since the 1990s. Syphilis increases the risk of HIV transmission by two to five times and co-infection is common (30–60% in a number of urban centers). Untreated it has a mortality of 8% to 58% with a greater death rate in males. John Hopkins comm diseases 2017 May ..

From what i have read (my kids an Epidemiologist at a major hospital and gets to study scary diseases) --- in the 1500's mortality was in the 75 - 85 % --- with no real cure till 1943, however the arsenic cures helped some -- mercury ??

Diseases in general evolve to be less lethal over time. A disease which kills its host can't spread so any mutation which leads to the host living longer gets passed on. This happened with syphillus between the 1500s and today.

The really lethal diseases today (HIV/AIDS, Ebola, etc.) are all ones that recently made the leap to humans from other animals and thus juat haven't had time to evolve to be less lethal.
 
A good book that goes into a good review of this is "the city of the monkey god" by Preston. He goes into the jungle to review the discovery of the unknown city. They go into depth about the waves of diseases (dates etc) that swept civilizations that never came into contact with the Spanish.
and bizarrely enough, Preston and several of the team came down with leishmaniasis, a native disease carried by sand fleas...
 
A lot would depend on the disease's method of spreading. Europeans had already to a degree developed quarantines, I think Venice first made it policy for incoming ships with signs of disease during the Black Death (?). Although the conquistadors had been in Mesoamerica for quite a while before returning. If the symptoms only started showing on their return journey, it may be near impossible to properly identify the carriers for a quarantine.

However note that European colonization was not driven by overpopulation. It was driven by the desire for trade. Even when the colonization countries started settler colonies, they were at first focused on resources. Gold and silver, furs, tobacco and sugar later, etc. Europe wouldn't recover its pre-Black Plague numbers till several hundred years after this, so Europe isn't at some 'bursting point' that is forcing them to settle new lands. Europe is bleeding precious metals to the east, they want to bypass the Ottoman Empire in trade with the east, and improving sailing technology is opening the opportunity that long distance naval trade is becoming possible. So unless this New World disease is virulent and deadly enough to all but destroy Europe's international trade and/or organized European society, some degree of colonization will happen. Even if it is merely the exploration and trade based methods used by Portugal during its move to round Africa and reach India. More coastal forts manned by several dozen men and traders trading with the natives.
 
Hmm, well the disease would have to have come from one of the few cities that existed in the Americas, let's say Tenochtitlan. What animal did it come from? Given that there were very few domesticated animals in the Americas, there's really only one option: dogs. Or at least, something that hitched a ride on dogs.
 
The death rate for smallpox in a population where it has been around a long time as around 30-35%, in a naive population ("virgin soil epidemic") it was much higher. In Europe, the transportation from place to place is both more extensive and faster than in the New World so it will spread quite rapidly. How effective quarantines will be depends on how contagious the disease is, how long between infection and symptoms, and how it is spread. Is it from sexual contact, blood/fluids, airborne droplets, via an insect or other intermediary. Viruses can spread all of these ways and sometimes in more than one way.

The Black Death wiped out roughly 1/3 of the European population and caused massive social disruption, although not total breakdown (there were exceptions but not generally). If the death rate gets higher you get societal collapse, a lot depends on the society. Less modern societies are more resilient as there is less specialization, if you lose experts who maintain key bits there is a cascade of problems, if a small percentage of the population feeds the rest, things will get bad quickly. In 1500, unlike in the book, you don't have a group waiting to pick up the pieces close by. Depending if the disease gets to India, or China, or Japan would result in one of those societies being able to fill the gap, or not.
 
Syphilis wasn't so lethal and it is unsure if syphilis is from Americas all.

The European strain seems to be dead by the 800s, no longer being mentioned in the medical texts (or at least something transmitted by contact with the same symptoms seems to disappear around that time). It came back after the Spanish colonization of the Americas. I don't think that's a coincidence...
 
If it’s a Black Death-style plague, it weakens Europe for about 50-100 years and then hits the rest of Eurasia ten to twenty years later. Once Europe recovers (maybe even before it’s recovered fully) it will not have the OTL overpopulation that spurred on settler states and many colonial ventures. However, some colonization of the Americas will still happen—the technological disparity is too massive and the economic motivation is still there.

IMO it would be much more like African colonization; trading posts with the Native nations and limited settlement.

It all depends on timing though. The news of the conquistadors and such would spread across the tribes and such within a decade maybe alongside with what they left behind, such as knowledge or horses or such.

If it was a big enough foothold, horses would be properly within the Americas alongside maybe goats and with Europe busy sorting itself out, gives the Americas plenty of time to organize
 
It all depends on timing though. The news of the conquistadors and such would spread across the tribes and such within a decade maybe alongside with what they left behind, such as knowledge or horses or such.

If it was a big enough foothold, horses would be properly within the Americas alongside maybe goats and with Europe busy sorting itself out, gives the Americas plenty of time to organize

Yeah, I do think America’s got a better chance in this scenario—more like 18th century natives versus 16th century Europeans, maybe. That’s why IMO colonization would involve more protectorates and exploitation than outright settlement, at least in regions like Mesoamerica.
 
Yeah, I do think America’s got a better chance in this scenario—more like 18th century natives versus 16th century Europeans, maybe. That’s why IMO colonization would involve more protectorates and exploitation than outright settlement, at least in regions like Mesoamerica.

Though I’m wondering what other livestock could fare better in the Americas besides Europe, especially if Africa could gain from this
 
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