Why were European diseases devastating to the peoples of America?

Question

Just keep it short and sweet.

Answer 1

Tens of thousands of years living in a land without such diseases left the native Americans with virtually no resistance to them. Smallpox was only the most noted of the diseases that killed so many.

Answer 2

Native Americans did not have the immunity against it.

European disease spread like wildfire through Native American population because they had never experienced diseases mostly extremely infectious diseases like smallpox.

It decimated Native American populations in Central and South America due to the Spanish

It decimated populations in North America due to the English, French and Spanish.

Prior to the age of exploration Native American populations were estimated to be roughly the present day population of California.

Practically no traceable generation today remains of the East coast Native American populations. Either their civilizations and generations died during European contact or the remaining moved further west to make room in the burgeoning East Coast. Either they died of conflict from plains indians or starvation or assimilated into the western indian tribes.

Answer 3

Very Short Version.....No natural built-in immunity to European Diseases.

Answer 4

They had no natural bodily defense against these diseases. Europeans had had centuries to develop natural resistance to germs that the Native Americans had never had contact with.

Just like a computer virus - if people have been infected with the virus before, chances are you can get a "immunization" (patch) for your Antivirus software to defend against it.

But if you are the first of so many thousands to catch the new virus, your computer has no form of protection, antivirus software or not.

Answer 5

Because their immune systems had no defence against these new diseases and they died in large numbers where most Europeans would have recovered.