History portrays America disease free why?

Question

Why does history portray America before it was called America as if it was entirely disease free before Europeans came and not mention any diseases indiginous to America as if when Europeans first arrived their would be a passage of diseases between Americans and Europeans It if often stated that non immunity to small pox was a contributer to deaths but Europeans had no immunity either did they as many diseases which existed in Europe decimated Europeans they would do for both wouldn't they Did the Europena ever bring The Plague to American in 1500's if so this would not be sufficientt explanation for all deaths would it

history records low density population but is this accurate history keeps saying there were not mant people in America but was this ever true as large populations in Europe could be supported by rich farmland so could the farmlands Europeans took over. So what if someone came to Europe and said it was sparsely populated and denied that that anyone lived in large cities then said Europeans had no immunity to other diseases and that accounted for deaths not other factors like genocide. does disease really explain all the deaths and was it true that there were not many people in North America or South America both are very large how could there not. No one says Africa was or is sparsely populated or Asia so why North America

Answer 1

Native Americans were generally cleaner, and led healthier lifestyles. They were not subject to pollution, and actually Europeans brought certain animals that were not native to America, like disease ridden rodents over on boats. Europeans gained some immunites to things such as small pox over generations. There are still certain groups of Europeans that have certain immunities from having suffered from certain diseases generations ago.

Answer 2

There was a lot of diseases from Europe, naturally because they lived in close association with other people in cities and even animals, so there were more diseases, America I'm sure had diseases although not as severe or as many as Europe, I think syphilis came from America, thats the only one I remember reading, I think the reason was that as far as diseases go in the Columbian exchange the Europeans contributed way more, and Europeans did have some kind of built up immunity because they had lived with these diseases for generations so they were less prone to getting certain illnesses, but the Native Americans had no immunity whatsoever so the population was decimated because of disease alone, I forget the what the estimated percentage of the indigenous people died from imported diseases but it was astronomical.

Answer 3

actually if you read american pageant it says does mention that the natives had syphilis which is how it was introduced to th europeans (but it still doesn't equal to the amount of damage dealt to the natives of the "new world")

anyways, you have to remember that those people were there for a long long time. the natives lived in their homeland for thousands and thousands of years without any other contact (with one exception, but it doesn't really count) so by then they already had an immunity to the disease that already "ravaged" america. so by the time the europeans came it was an introduction to new diseases.

you were making the assumption that the europeans themselves were totally immune and that all of the natives had no chance of survival. that's where genetic variety comes in, some had stronger immune systems compared to others, that doesn't mean that they didn't get sick, they could have gotten sick but then got better and built an immunity. the europeans settlers themselves didn't really have a happy-go-lucky colony in the beginning.

in the beginning the settlers themselves were dying off (that's why jamestown was almost a failure) there was water contamination, malaria, poor hygiene, disease, lack of organization, starvation, cannibalism, etc. but then the europeans had to deal with the diseases for a much longer period of time than the natives.

so don't always go for two-way oriented answers where things are either yes or no. especially in history. because in history there are always a million factors to take in.

Answer 4

Well The Old World is the natural area for humanity to be settled and the diseases affecting humans there were much more resiliant plus The Old World was much more heavily populated with large urban areas and vast trade routes which allowed diseases to spread and sustain themselves better. The Native Americans had not built up any immunities to these old world diseases so when they were introduced to them by the early European explorers the diseases quickly spread and devastated the Indians wherever the Europeans made contact.I havn't heard any specifics about any diseases being brought from the new world back over to Europe....and I have never heard anything about "The Plague" being brought to the native americans

Answer 5

Actually no, it is fairly standard to find American diseases discussed in history books (usually under the Columbian Exchange). Syphilis, for example, is sometimes thought to have originated in the Americas.

However, one the reasons that disease in America is not mentioned much is because, technically speaking, large parts of the Americas were in the "prehistoric" period before Europeans came; that is, large portions of the Americas had no written language (hence, no documentation on which to base a history). With no written records, we don't really know what sort of diseases the Americas had and thus don't know what diseases might have been brought to Europe.

Additionally, dense populations are usually required in order to have numerous diseases; the Americas weren't densely populated so they had comparatively few diseases (or so we think) to transmit. Europeans, however, had been exposed to hordes of diseases and thus has wonderful immune systems.

Answer 6

They don't portray Indians as if they were disease free. Pick up your history book, look in the index for Yellow Fever, it should be there at least once in conjunction with the construction of the Panama Canal.

The trouble you're having is with the word immunity, the Europeans had a greater resistence to dying from the measles and small pox from generations of being exposed to the disease. So why they have a greater immunity, they aren't immune.

Answer 7

Well I would not say disease free, all continents has its diseases. But mostly, the Europeans brought lost of new viruses and bacterial infections with them for America was quite isolated before and the organisms and people already had immunity for the indigenous diseases (well better resistance) The new viruses was unknown by the immune systems thus they where totally venerable to small pox. Anyway the bubonic plague is transmitted by fleas, living on rats, thus it couldn’t have made a big impression there, for there where no big rat populations.
It is the same with Africa; Europeans brought TB to Africa. The people in Africa have no immunity to this disease and thus they are (supposed to be) inoculated against TB. It is the biggest killer of man, besides malaria and people themselves. One would think AIDS is but AIDS only attack (degrade) the human’s immunity system but you actually die of secondary infections, in this case TB, for it is the least known to the immunity system.

Answer 8

The Americas weren't entirely disease free, but mostly weak diseases existed. Stronger diseases developed in Europe, giving the Europeans a much stronger immune system to fight off the weaker infections of the Americas.

Answer 9

Actually, those Europeans who survived were carriers of diseases that did not bother them all that much but which killed off American native peoples. Plague was not carried to America because plague is a disease of crowded conditions and if the people on the ships had it, they would die before reaching America and America was not crowded.
The disease that rarely gets mentioned is that syphilis was apparently an American disease that was taken back to Europe. Of course, if you mention that in history class, you have to explain about illicit sex and how syphilis gets transmitted - embarrassing what!
A little more punctuation in your question would be nice.

Answer 10

I am sure there must have been some diseases in the native populations everywhere prior to the arrival of Europeans; however, Europeans came from cultures where people lived in crowded and filthy conditions, which native populations in the New World did not.

Because of the conditions in which they lived, Europeans were exposed from birth to many endemic diseases; some had natural immunities passed to them from their mothers, who may have survived the particular disease, or who may have descended from families who had developed stronger immunities, or, they may have had mild forms of the disease themselves as children and developed their own immunities.

In Europe people had been exposed for generations to diseases like smallpox, influenza, measles, chicken pox, even plague, which, virulent as it was, did not infect nor kill everyone. Many people, even if they contracted a disease, survived it; just as Elizabeth I survived smallpox.

But when populations which had never been exposed to a disease were first exposed to it, they had no generational immunity to protect them by avoiding infection nor from succumbing to the effects. One reads of many documented examples of native peoples being decimated by diseases brought to them by Europeans, but I haven't ever read of a European colony experiencing an epidemic of some disease brought to them by exposure to native peoples. For this reason the people of the New World seemed relatively disease free.