WI/AHC: Native Americans discover variolation?

Variolation doesn't seem to be that hard of a concept to grasp - it may have emerged in the Old World four times or more, after all. So what if a Native American society had discovered variolation soon after first contact with smallpox? How much would it matter in the long term, taking into account the myriad other diseases?
 
Its those "myriad other diseases" that are the problem. Makes it really hard to figure out. In fact, given the Amerindian relative lack of immunity, variolation itself might prove fatal in enough cases that it isn't widely adopted.
 
this may be a silly question, but....
the common perception is that the native americans had been isolated so long that they lacked immunity from old world diseases. during that same time, the old world was isolated from the Americas. why weren't there new world diseases that would wipe out the Europeans, who would have no immunity? I've heard syphilis being one such possibility, but not really much else. why didn't the lack of immunity go both ways? was the new world simply lucky that it didn't develop disease?
 
this may be a silly question, but....
the common perception is that the native americans had been isolated so long that they lacked immunity from old world diseases. during that same time, the old world was isolated from the Americas. why weren't there new world diseases that would wipe out the Europeans, who would have no immunity? I've heard syphilis being one such possibility, but not really much else. why didn't the lack of immunity go both ways? was the new world simply lucky that it didn't develop disease?
The Old World was larger and more interconnected, so it got more diseases and they spread better, plus it had more varieties of domestic animals for disease to cross over from

Also hard to bring back a really lethal disease by ship as killing enough people would mean the ship cannot be controlled. Likewise exploration parties exposed to such a disease would die before they made it back. Plus I would imagine some diseases were wiped out when their hosts died of European diseases
 
this may be a silly question, but....
the common perception is that the native americans had been isolated so long that they lacked immunity from old world diseases. during that same time, the old world was isolated from the Americas. why weren't there new world diseases that would wipe out the Europeans, who would have no immunity? I've heard syphilis being one such possibility, but not really much else. why didn't the lack of immunity go both ways? was the new world simply lucky that it didn't develop disease?
Old World diseases had that effect already. Malaria and smallpox were major killers of both natives and Europeans. The Jamestown colonists became so sick they couldn't even bury their dead, and from a population of 500, only 60 survived from 1609-1610.
 
this may be a silly question, but....
the common perception is that the native americans had been isolated so long that they lacked immunity from old world diseases. during that same time, the old world was isolated from the Americas. why weren't there new world diseases that would wipe out the Europeans, who would have no immunity? I've heard syphilis being one such possibility, but not really much else. why didn't the lack of immunity go both ways? was the new world simply lucky that it didn't develop disease?
The germs part of Guns, Germs, and Steel. The Europe was densely populated and agricultural; people got diseases from livestock and they spread throughout the population quickly, giving them immunity.
 
The germs part of Guns, Germs, and Steel. The Europe was densely populated and agricultural; people got diseases from livestock and they spread throughout the population quickly, giving them immunity.
...Which is why smallpox continued to kill countless numbers of Europeans even into the late nineteenth century, right?
 

Skallagrim

Banned
this may be a silly question, but....
the common perception is that the native americans had been isolated so long that they lacked immunity from old world diseases. during that same time, the old world was isolated from the Americas. why weren't there new world diseases that would wipe out the Europeans, who would have no immunity? I've heard syphilis being one such possibility, but not really much else. why didn't the lack of immunity go both ways? was the new world simply lucky that it didn't develop disease?

In addition to what others have already mentioned, another factor lies in biology. Namely in the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) of Native American individuals. There are countless MHC types, and a foreign element that gets past some will not get past others. Most human populations contain many MHC types, yet Native Americans are very homogenous in this regard. Francis L. Black (of Yale) compared native South Americans to Sub-Saharan Africans on this count: whereas one out of three native South Americans have similar MHC types, it is one in 200 for the Sub-Saharan Africans. As far as disease goes, this factor evidently has major consequences when it comes to the deadliness of epidemics.

(This factor should not be underestimated, and also reveals why even diseases that were very dangerous to Europeans - like the smallpox mentioned by @Tripledot - were even more dangerous and detrimental to the Native Americans.)
 
...Which is why smallpox continued to kill countless numbers of Europeans even into the late nineteenth century, right?
It more like instead of 9/10 survival of native it was 5/10 for European. It was still a very lethal disease but after generation that were killed the surviver spreads their genes and insured the newer had a higher chance of resistance.
 
Well we know African Ladinos came with other Spaniards. Some were slaves and some escaped or revolted, they had cattle and we know inoculation was of common practice amongst West Africans and it was that knowledge that helped Europeans in the US.

Onesimus was a “pretty Intelligent Fellow,” it had become clear to him. When asked if he’d ever had smallpox, Onesimus answered “Yes and No,” explaining that he had been inoculated with a small amount of smallpox, which had left him immune to the disease. Fascinated, Mather asked for details, which Onesimus provided, and showed him his scar. We can almost hear Onesimus speaking in Mather’s accounts, for Mather took the unusual step of writing out his words with the African accent included—the key phrase was, “People take Juice of Small-Pox; and Cutty-skin, and Putt in a Drop.”

Excited, he investigated among other Africans in Boston and realized that it was a widespread practice; indeed, a slave could be expected to fetch a higher price with a scar on his arm, indicating that he was immune.
So basically any Spanish presence formed in the US with an African and cattle could theoretically create the conditions to radically alter the course of immunization of indigenous people.
 
I'd recommend San Miguel de Gualdape (after the first North American Slave rebellion) be the starting point, that can give it time to spread along the east coast before the English arrive en masse.
 
...Which is why smallpox continued to kill countless numbers of Europeans even into the late nineteenth century, right?

Which is the point. Eurasian diseases could afford to be inefficient because they always had a shot at more hosts, North American diseases that aspired to such lethality died out. It was not that all settlers were immune to the disease they brought with them, just that enough were.
 
If this happened, you've see a survival of the fittest case as the variolated group rapidly expanded their territory into areas depopulated by smallpox, which would in turn affects the groups around them and shake things up big time.

I've also thought a way for this to happen is to have Chinese or Japanese colonisation of the New World, and have the natives seize a doctor (skilled in traditional Chinese medicine) in a raid, and have them apply variolation to an outbreak of smallpox, which if things went right (enough people survived who otherwise wouldn't) would allow variolation to spread. The Pacific Northwest, where Asian colonisation is likely to begin, has societies of the complexity that this might work.

I'd recommend San Miguel de Gualdape (after the first North American Slave rebellion) be the starting point, that can give it time to spread along the east coast before the English arrive en masse.

As noted, this would take some luck, since variolation would be more risky amongst American Indians than other peoples and something which is probably lethal is unlikely to catch on. But if it becomes a cultural practice, then you'd see what I described above. Unvariolated groups are pushed out or assimilated (or just killed from disease), variolated groups survive (with losses). It would be interesting to see how Europeans can settle North America in these conditions.

That's not even to mention how far this practice might spread. Could more Western Amerindian groups rebuild more effectively? Stronger Puebloans? An effective successor of the Mississippians? Pacific Northwest coalesces into states capable of fighting off Europeans, or at the very least, can become a native-ruled state once freed of colonialism?
 
If this happened, you've see a survival of the fittest case as the variolated group rapidly expanded their territory into areas depopulated by smallpox, which would in turn affects the groups around them and shake things up big time.

I've also thought a way for this to happen is to have Chinese or Japanese colonisation of the New World, and have the natives seize a doctor (skilled in traditional Chinese medicine) in a raid, and have them apply variolation to an outbreak of smallpox, which if things went right (enough people survived who otherwise wouldn't) would allow variolation to spread. The Pacific Northwest, where Asian colonisation is likely to begin, has societies of the complexity that this might work.



As noted, this would take some luck, since variolation would be more risky amongst American Indians than other peoples and something which is probably lethal is unlikely to catch on. But if it becomes a cultural practice, then you'd see what I described above. Unvariolated groups are pushed out or assimilated (or just killed from disease), variolated groups survive (with losses). It would be interesting to see how Europeans can settle North America in these conditions.

That's not even to mention how far this practice might spread. Could more Western Amerindian groups rebuild more effectively? Stronger Puebloans? An effective successor of the Mississippians? Pacific Northwest coalesces into states capable of fighting off Europeans, or at the very least, can become a native-ruled state once freed of colonialism?
This is unlikely though, like Sealion levels(well maybe less, given Sealion was impossible virtually). I´m not sure we ever had in history such luck streak.
 
this may be a silly question, but....
the common perception is that the native americans had been isolated so long that they lacked immunity from old world diseases. during that same time, the old world was isolated from the Americas. why weren't there new world diseases that would wipe out the Europeans, who would have no immunity? I've heard syphilis being one such possibility, but not really much else. why didn't the lack of immunity go both ways? was the new world simply lucky that it didn't develop disease?
The Europeans did suffer from syphillus, which originally was introduced from Mexico.
 
This is unlikely though, like Sealion levels(well maybe less, given Sealion was impossible virtually). I´m not sure we ever had in history such luck streak.

What do you mean by that? I'm not denying that variolation is a pretty ridiculous "discovery", since American Indians would still have high mortality rates to variolation compared to Europeans, Asians, or Africans. Just if you get the "streak" of a few noteworthy people in one village surviving the variolation process, and then decrees that variolation should happen, at least as an incorporation into Amerindian medicine, then Amerindian peoples that do that will defeat Amerindian groups that don't. And it's a potential scenario on either the West Coast or East Coast if foreign groups colonise. The American Indians could be highly adaptive, given their quick uptake to European animals and technology in many cases, so if they gain variolation from some group, get that string of luck, then why not? At that point, you have my scenario, where the groups who fail to adapt are pushed out, assimilated, or killed.

Yes, it's definitely luck, but I think there's many scenarios in history which are pure luck.
 
Its those "myriad other diseases" that are the problem. Makes it really hard to figure out. In fact, given the Amerindian relative lack of immunity, variolation itself might prove fatal in enough cases that it isn't widely adopted.
It's not quite what people play it up to be.

(another link)

this may be a silly question, but....
the common perception is that the native americans had been isolated so long that they lacked immunity from old world diseases. during that same time, the old world was isolated from the Americas. why weren't there new world diseases that would wipe out the Europeans, who would have no immunity? I've heard syphilis being one such possibility, but not really much else. why didn't the lack of immunity go both ways? was the new world simply lucky that it didn't develop disease?
There were/are; look at the parent of the link I sent MrMandias and also this post and this post, also by /u/anthropology_nerd which elaborates a bit more.
 
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Smallpox was probably first introduced to the New World in the 1500s. Like many diseases (eg: Yellow Fever) smallpox is worse when you get it as an adult than as a child. This was an entirely new disease to the Native Americans and when it hit a population was particularly devastating. Realistically speaking to come up with variolation you need to have several waves of disease come through your locality and see that those who had it and survived don't get sick, and that children, adolescents who get it do better. At that point you can come to the conclusion that getting it young is much safer and confers immunity. The problem in the Americas is that when smallpox hit the numbers of survivors in a given village was often so small that that group dispersed perhaps to be absorbed by others. Traditions were oral, not written so if the chain is broken information is lost. Basically the conditions that could allow for a Native American to have the light bulb appear over their head simply weren't there. Even if one group/tribe had come up with this, and you also have to realize that the crusts from lesions convey the disease, it is unlikely this information would spread very far. yes there was long distance trade, but...
 
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