WI a pre-Columbian contact with America transmits Eurasian diseases there?

Thande

Donor
I think this has been briefly considered on a couple of AH sites but I thought I'd toss it out anyway...

What if one of the pre-Columbian European contacts with America had managed to transmit European diseases to the New World?

Of course many such contacts are debatable, so we'll stick to the nigh-confirmed Norse and the moderately plausible Irish before them.
 
Well, it depends on when exactly and how much. Generally the earlier the worse it is when contact is fully established. This is because with more time, eventually both hemispheres will develop their own variants which will then horribly sweep across the opposite hemisphere when contact is fully established. Australia will however get the worst since it will get both.

If it's too late for that (which is rather probable) you'll get way stronger Native Americans versus Eurasians; without having 80% of their population killed off it's likely the Americas will be much more like Africa, with smaller colonies and territories.
 

Stephen

Banned
Well the POD is rather vague you could go many directions with it.

Brendan the Navigator brings a boatload of sick people with him believing there salvation lies in the West. These diseases depopulate the American continent so that several centuries the Norse find Vinland with only a few scatered bands of dozen people each. So the almost all the Greenlanders and alot of Icelanders and Scandinavians migrate to these fertile lands on mass.
 
This could very well kill off thousands of Indians who lived around Canada and the US eastern seaboard, but I doubt that it would spread much further than that. The New World simply did not have trade routes comparable to the Old World, and trade routes are perfect vectors to spread infectious diseases. So local trade/contacts will spread the new plagues, but I think there will be an absolute limit to how far it will spread.

Furthermore, it is uncertain that the early spread of European diseases would select for resistance to those diseases. Especially in the far northern areas of Canada, entire tribes could just cease to exist, and new ones would take their place (lacking the antibodies to resist the diseases). The few survivors would be absorbed into the new tribes, and barely leave a mark on the gene pool.

So by the time 1492 rolls around the Inuit, and maybe the Algonquin, Huron and Iroquois have somewhat greater resistance to European diseases, but certainly not the major nations like the Aztecs, Mayas and Incas. Ceteris paribus, not much effect on the initial colonization of the new world as far as the Spanish are concerned. The English and French may have to deal with somewhat higher Indian populations for a while.
 
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This could very well kill off thousands of Indians who lived around Canada and the US eastern seaboard, but I doubt that it would spread much further than that. The New World simply did not have trade routes comparable to the Old World, and trade routes are perfect vectors to spread infectious diseases. So local trade/contacts will spread the new plagues, but I think there will be an absolute limit to how far it will spread.

Furthermore, it is uncertain that the early spread of European diseases would select for resistance to those diseases. Especially in the far northern areas of Canada, entire tribes could just cease to exist, and new ones would take their place (lacking the antibodies to resist the diseases). The few survivors would be absorbed into the new tribes, and barely leave a mark on the gene pool.

So by the time 1492 rolls around the Inuit, and maybe the Algonquin, Huron and Iroquois have somewhat greater resistance to European diseases, but certainly not the major nations like the Aztecs, Mayas and Incas. Ceteris paribus, not much effect on the initial colonization of the new world as far as the Spanish are concerned. The English and French may have to deal with somewhat higher Indian populations for a while.
This is incorrect. We don't quite how far the diseases spread exactly, but many historians now believe that there was significant penetration without Europeans along native trade routes.
 
This could very well kill off thousands of Indians who lived around Canada and the US eastern seaboard, but I doubt that it would spread much further than that. The New World simply did not have trade routes comparable to the Old World, and trade routes are perfect vectors to spread infectious diseases. So local trade/contacts will spread the new plagues, but I think there will be an absolute limit to how far it will spread.

Furthermore, it is uncertain that the early spread of European diseases would select for resistance to those diseases. Especially in the far northern areas of Canada, entire tribes could just cease to exist, and new ones would take their place (lacking the antibodies to resist the diseases). The few survivors would be absorbed into the new tribes, and barely leave a mark on the gene pool.

So by the time 1492 rolls around the Inuit, and maybe the Algonquin, Huron and Iroquois have somewhat greater resistance to European diseases, but certainly not the major nations like the Aztecs, Mayas and Incas. Ceteris paribus, not much effect on the initial colonization of the new world as far as the Spanish are concerned. The English and French may have to deal with somewhat higher Indian populations for a while.
Trade was very continent spanning at the time, they've found obsidian in Ontario that had to have come from Yellowstone for instance.
 
This is incorrect. We don't quite how far the diseases spread exactly, but many historians now believe that there was significant penetration without Europeans along native trade routes.

Yeah, and a they found A SINGLE NORSE COIN in Maine, which is the only evidence that the "Skraelings" traded at all with the other Indian tribes. Not exactly evidence of a thriving North American trade network c. 1000 AD.

I don't dispute that there was Indian trade, I am arguing that the Indians that the Vikings encountered were relatively isolated from the rest of North America by reason of geography.
 
Yeah, and a they found A SINGLE NORSE COIN in Maine, which is the only evidence that the "Skraelings" traded at all with the other Indian tribes. Not exactly evidence of a thriving North American trade network c. 1000 AD.

I don't dispute that there was Indian trade, I am arguing that the Indians that the Vikings encountered were relatively isolated from the rest of North America by reason of geography.

Yeah because everything that they traded was found and norse coins were such a in demeand commodity in North America. Seriously the fact that they found one shows the area was quite well connected trade wise.;)
 
I think this has been briefly considered on a couple of AH sites but I thought I'd toss it out anyway...

What if one of the pre-Columbian European contacts with America had managed to transmit European diseases to the New World?

Of course many such contacts are debatable, so we'll stick to the nigh-confirmed Norse and the moderately plausible Irish before them.

This is one of the many PoDs for my Shared Worlds project... In it, I assume (very generally since it's for a game setting) that it will spread to the four corners of the Americas and reap a fearful toll, but when Europeans show up centuries later there isn't a huge fallout. Some new diseases will occur, sure, but again it won't be nearly so bad.

But yes, it very much depends on how much and where, and then how far it travels inside the Americas...
 
Yeah, and a they found A SINGLE NORSE COIN in Maine, which is the only evidence that the "Skraelings" traded at all with the other Indian tribes. Not exactly evidence of a thriving North American trade network c. 1000 AD.

The chances of finding even one Norse coin from that long ago, when you take into acount how brief the contact between the Norse and the Indians, is pretty slim. I'd say that's good evidence FOR a thriving trade network in North America.

As for the OP, once the diseases reach the Mississippi Basin, a lot of people are going to die. The disease will probably spread to the Southwest/Pueblo area, since there was a lot of trade between the Pueblos, the interior and the California coast IIRC.

Whether the plagues can reach Mesoamerica or not depend on how regular trade was between them and the Mississippians was. Obviously some things, like corn, where traded between the two so there must have been at least some contact...
 
It depends

1) Without continued contact there is a highly likelihood the diseases will burn out, and the native populations will be just as screwed the next time around.
2) The deathtoll leading to a collapse of trade routes and urbanisation would also help compartmentalise and kill of the disease.
3) Without continued contact the Eurasian and American strains of some diseases would diverge, leading to no long term immunity for either side.
4) The immune system genetic diversity that leads to improved Eurasian and Africa survival rates in response to novel communicable diseases is not something that the Americans can just pick up - they've been through too many genetic bottlenecks, and a few hundred years is only ten generations or so.
5) The various diseases took fast and large human movement across the oceans to really take off, any small and short term contact is going to be missing a whole bunch of pathogens just by random sampling, especially the mos virulent diseases with short incumbation spans.

Unless the contact continues, the Indians are going to be equally fucked whenever a later exchange occurs.

Also people a estimating very high rates of population "bounceback" for the Americans, which I don't think is justified. The Agricultural polities had relatively low per-worker productivity (so having lots of free land won't help) and non-agricultural polities will find it an even more difficult propositon. Even with something highly favourable like 0.75% per annum growth it'll be three centuries to recover from a 90% population loss.
 
It depends...

Yes, very much so. The type of disease and how it is spread is probably the biggest factor to consider, as I'll explain below.

1) Without continued contact there is a highly likelihood the diseases will burn out, and the native populations will be just as screwed the next time around.

Yes. As always has to be repeated in the threads on this oft-repeated topic, smallpox introduced by the Norse does not lead to a smallpox resistant Aztec empire.

The infection needs to be constantly repeated for the immune system diversity seen in Old World populations to develop. Constantly repeated much like this topic is. :rolleyes:

2) The deathtoll leading to a collapse of trade routes and urbanisation would also help compartmentalise and kill of the disease.

Sort of. It depends on the disease and how it it transmitted. An influenza epidemic will burn out within relatively small populations in relatively small geographical regions. On the other hand, something like smallpox can keep chugging across "gaps" other disease cannot bridge.

For example, researchers in the 20th Century showed that a smallpox epidemic which began in Boston in 1775 slowly crossed a North America which was relatively empty when compared to pre-1492 population levels only to be re-encountered in the 1790s by US fur traders arriving in the Pacific Northwest by ship. It may have taken a quarter century, but the pox stilled crossed a relatively empty continent.

3) Without continued contact the Eurasian and American strains of some diseases would diverge, leading to no long term immunity for either side.

Yes. A Colombian Exchange could go both ways.

4) The immune system genetic diversity that leads to improved Eurasian and Africa survival rates in response to novel communicable diseases is not something that the Americans can just pick up...

Agreed.

5) The various diseases took fast and large human movement across the oceans to really take off, any small and short term contact is going to be missing a whole bunch of pathogens just by random sampling, especially the mos virulent diseases with short incumbation spans.

Not exactly. New England was essentially depopulated over a decade before the Pilgrims arrived and that through very intermittent contact with a handful of European ships. Elsewhere, the Mississippi/Ohio valley and US southeast was essentially depopulated thanks to a single European exploratory mission. Where de Soto had reported native villages within sight of each other, French explorers over a century later found a land which was basically empty.

Unless the contact continues, the Indians are going to be equally fucked whenever a later exchange occurs.

Agreed.

Also people a estimating very high rates of population "bounceback" for the Americans, which I don't think is justified.

Again, agreed. We see nothing of the sort in the historical record, look at the de Soto example above. The Spanish moved through the region once between 1539 - 1541 noting a high population density and unwittingly spreading diseases. Later, in the 1670s, when French explorers from the north began entering the region, they found a land which was essentially empty. The numerous villages the Spanish had seen were gone forever and no perceptible bounce back had occurred in the 130 years before the French arrived.
 
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Again, agreed. We nothing of the sort in the historical record, look at the de Soto example above. The Spanish moved through the region once between 1539 - 1541 noting a high population density and unwittingly spreading diseases. Later, in the 1670s, when French explorers from the north began entering the region, they found a land which was essentially empty. The numerous villages the Spanish had seen were gone forever and no perceptible bounce back had occurred in the 130 years before the French arrived.

I have read that some have suggested that can be blamed on the way the disease broke down the corn-based agricultural system and once humpty was broken people just went into a nomadic lifestyle.
 
I have read that some have suggested that can be blamed on the way the disease broke down the corn-based agricultural system and once humpty was broken people just went into a nomadic lifestyle.

Which suggests, as Nugax correctly pointed out, that the idea of an automatic and substantial population "bounce back" is not generally supported by history.

As often as this topic arises, the mistaken ideas that an "early" arrival of an Old World "slate wiper" will A) provide Amerind populations with continued resistance and B) Amerind populations will routinely rebound robustly and rapidly occur as just as often.
 
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Sure, an earlier transfer would not stop the megadeath, but I think from my point of view, an earlier exposure to some of the diseases and a familarity with mass die-off might possibly give some of the central or southern American civilisations a slightly better chance of mounting a long term resistence to settlement, like in South/South East and East Asia or much of Africa.

So if a pre Columbian transfer means that when sustain contact begins that some of the states or civilisations are able to maintain some sort of continuity so any later conquest of these states may still result in a largely indigenous colony, with large elements of cultural practice remaining.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
There are theories that Irish and Basque fishermen had had contact with America before Columbus. So the Norse might not be the only sources where diseases can spread from.

However these diseases would create a lot of butterflies, many succesful American tribes and empires would perish and other rise instead. Best case scenario: they would be resistant to old world diseases. Worst case scanrios: due to mutations in the diseases both in the old- and the new world, the natives would still die like flies after contact with the European colonizers.
 
I have read that some have suggested that can be blamed on the way the disease broke down the corn-based agricultural system and once humpty was broken people just went into a nomadic lifestyle.
It's rather terribly unclear. It really depends on what you think the state of the Mississippian peoples were at the time. DeSoto may have completely destroyed them with disease; or he may have simply dealt a sort of final blow to a declining people. It's unclear. Plus, it's not like the whole enterprise was destroyed; it's likely the "Five Civilized Tribes" of the Southeast were created out of refugees from the Mississippian collapse to the west.

I agree with most of what's been posted: without a lot of contact, there won't be the disease poll neccesary to protect Native Americans from diseases; so if only one plague happens it's likely just to severely mess up the devlopment of Native civilizations.
 
There's a couple of problems with this.

1) the Norse didn't travel from continental Europe to Vinland, but rather from Iceland to Vinland. Most of the nasty continental diseases were NOT endemic in Iceland, as it had too small a population. Thus, it's tough to get Iceland to serve a source for those diseases.

2) Let's suppose (by whatever means), smallpox gets introduced to North America early and becomes endemic. That still leaves the locals totally vulnerable to measles, Plague, etc. To get the entire package over would be tough.

3) the long travel times of early voyages means that you've got reasonable quarantine. Anyone who was coming down with the disease at the start of the voyage is likely either dead or healthy by the end. OTOH, this is not a total barrier a) people can be infected halfway over, b) you could have a lucky fast crossing, c) some diseases can be carried in animal, and d) e.g. measles has assymptomatic carriers, who IIRC can serve as a reservoir for some time without getting sick (?or getting better?)

In reference to 3c, note that De Soto's expedition herded pigs with it, and there is some reason to believe that that was part of the effectiveness of the spread of disease.



On the other side. The population of Mesoamerica was large enough and connected enough to serve as a breeding ground for almost all these diseases. (Measles, IIRC, needs 5M people in regular contact.)

Thus, once the diseases got that far (if they did, which I think they might well), they would likely become established there. I agree that the northeast woodlands cultures and probably the Mississippians would be hit by regular hammer blows of epidemics every generation, and it would take a long time for them to recover (losing your elders every generation can kill a society), whereas in Mesoamerica, there would be a regular high death-toll and loss of knowledge won't be so severe (losing 10% of your elders every 3 years is a lot easier on a society than losing all of them every 30).

I think after, say 400 years, Mesoamerica would be almost as strong and populated as OTL, and much better able to resist. Whereas much of the eastern seaboard would have some (but not nearly as much) advantage in resisting immigration.
 
(Snip the part of the post I agree with, which is actually most of it).

As noted, I agree on most of this post. However, there is one section I disagree rather strongly on.

Elsewhere, the Mississippi/Ohio valley and US southeast was essentially depopulated thanks to a single European exploratory mission. Where de Soto had reported native villages within sight of each other, French explorers over a century later found a land which was basically empty.
(snip)
Again, agreed. We see nothing of the sort in the historical record, look at the de Soto example above. The Spanish moved through the region once between 1539 - 1541 noting a high population density and unwittingly spreading diseases. Later, in the 1670s, when French explorers from the north began entering the region, they found a land which was essentially empty. The numerous villages the Spanish had seen were gone forever and no perceptible bounce back had occurred in the 130 years before the French arrived.

Um, very much no, for a lot of reasons.

(1) The Spanish went through or attempted to settle on the coasts in the Southeast multiple times.

(a) Before DeSoto, there was an expedition by Narvaez that fell apart. There was also a rather large Spanish attempt to settle on the coast of South Carolina or northern Georgia in the mid-1520s.
(b) After DeSoto, there were several expeditions.

- DeLuna attempted to settle the Southeast in 1559 with a large expedition that included several DeSoto expedition survivors. They found some of the same towns DeSoto saw, but the towns were considerably smaller than they remembered them. Whether that was due to actual shrinkage or memories playing tricks on these guys is not determined.

- French Huguenots attempted to settle northern Florida in the 1560s.

-The Spanish killed them and then, to make sure they didn't try again, the Spanish founded St. Augustine. As part of that effort they attempted to set up a string of forts in the interior of the Southeast. The forts ultimately failed, but there are some interesting accounts of the interior tribes. See Juan Pardo expeditions.

- The Spanish did, of course, successfully establish mission colonies in Florida itself, starting in the 1560s and running continuously until the British and allied Indians pretty much wiped them out in the early 1700s. For quite a while those missions extended into Georgia. You don't hear much about Florida tribes like the Timucua, and the Appalachee, mainly because they were nearly wiped out by a series of epidemics that spread from Spanish settlers and finished off by British-led slave raids. Did those epidemics stop at the boundary of the Spanish colonies? Be very surprising if they did.

Other Europeans got to the interior Southeast after the Spanish and before the French did:

- Before the French reached the interior southeast, there had been colonists in Virginia, etc for close to a hundred years. There are records of numerous epidemics near those colonies. There is little evidence one way or the other as to how far those epidemics reached inland, but what there is points to an ongoing series of population reductions, not a single blow that the Indians never recovered from.

- Before the French reached the interior southeast, the British had been trading into the area from Virginia for somewhere between 25 and 50 years. We know that the trading expeditions occurred but have little to no record of what they saw or if they spread diseases.

- Before the French reached the interior southeast, the British in South Carolina had been instigating slave raids by various Indian groups on one another for years or decades, depending on when you say the French had solid contact. Thousands of Indians were enslaved either in South Carolina or sent to the West Indies. Some recent scholarship is claiming that the Indian groups that survived into the mid-1700s (Creeks, Cherokee, Choctaw, etc) were mostly formed around groups that saw which way the wind was blowing and became slave raiders rather than slaves or of formerly separate people who banded together to resist slave raids.

3) While the population of the interior southeast was almost undoubtedly lower at the time of the French explorations than the DeSoto ones, there were still a lot of Indians there and they were still largely agricultural. Creeks, Cherokee, Choctaw and to a lesser extent Natchez and Catawba, among others, were fair-sized groups of people.

The Natchez in particular still had institutions (The Great Sun and the nobility) appropriate for a much larger and more settled people, which probably means that conditions that would support a nobility (much larger populations) persisted there until not long before the French arrived. The social structure the French saw would have collapsed within a few generations given the size of the populations the French saw.

The French also saw signs of recent disease in their wanderings. For example, the Quapaw had recently had a smallpox epidemic that killed almost all of their women.

Bottom line: The depopulation of the interior Southeast was NOT due solely to DeSoto, probably extended over most of the 150+ year interval between DeSoto and LaSalle, and still left a lot of Indians with a pretty sophisticated culture.
 
Um, very much no, for a lot of reasons.


Read the posts I was responding to and then read my post again.

Better yet, I'll save you the trouble...

Several posters opined that transmission of the various diseases which gutted Amerind populations always required close prolonged contact with European explorers, that the Amerind population would automatically experience a substantial bounce back, and that the arrival of diseases was somehow a single event instead of a constant one.

All those ideas are incorrect.

With regards to the need for close prolonged contact, I pointed to the northeastern US which experience a great deal of depopulation from a relative handful of contact with European ships along the coast.

With regards to the substantial population bounce back, I pointed to the results of the de Soto expedition and the populations which had over a century to "recover" but did not.

With regards to the "single event" fallacy, I wrote about the 1775 Boston smallpox epidemic which took over 25 years to reach the Pacific Northwest.

The fate of the Ohio and Mississippi valley cultures neatly illustrates all the points I was making. A relatively brief contact started the epidemics rolling, continued contact with Europeans remote from the region resulted in new waves of diseases appearing, and there was no substantial population bounce back for reasons which included that constant reinfection.
 
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