Why did the Great Dying of the Americas happen?

Also known as Great Dying

Shows causes on the record, then each account's causes side by side.

Not a single settled cause.

2 links · 3 accounts · 1492–1650

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A connection is not evidence of wrongdoing.

Each account

A to Z, none ranked above another.

Named in 3 of the 3 accounts recorded here: War, enslavement and famine after 1492

Named in 2 of the 3 accounts recorded here: Old World diseases in the Americas

According to Alexander Koch

Old World diseases in the Americas led to Scholarship & press 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Measles virus split from the cattle virus rinderpest: Furuse and colleagues date it around the 11th to 12th centuries, Dux and colleagues in 2020 as early as the sixth century BCE. When smallpox emerged in humans is disputed (Duggan and colleagues). Koch and colleagues say most of these diseases came from domesticated farm animals in Europe; that does not fit every disease on their list, and the studies on measles do not mention Europe. Yellow fever and malaria came from Africa, later (Bryant; Yalcindag).
War, enslavement and famine after 1492 led to Scholarship & press 1 2 8 9
Paul Kelton, quoted by HISTORY, says British forces cut down corn and burned homes, turning people into refugees, which left them far more vulnerable to disease than infected blankets did. Jones also holds that disease must have the dominant role; his point is about what the "no immunity" story can hide.

According to David S. Jones

Old World diseases in the Americas led to Scholarship & press 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Measles virus split from the cattle virus rinderpest: Furuse and colleagues date it around the 11th to 12th centuries, Dux and colleagues in 2020 as early as the sixth century BCE. When smallpox emerged in humans is disputed (Duggan and colleagues). Koch and colleagues say most of these diseases came from domesticated farm animals in Europe; that does not fit every disease on their list, and the studies on measles do not mention Europe. Yellow fever and malaria came from Africa, later (Bryant; Yalcindag).
War, enslavement and famine after 1492 led to Scholarship & press 1 2 8 9
Paul Kelton, quoted by HISTORY, says British forces cut down corn and burned homes, turning people into refugees, which left them far more vulnerable to disease than infected blankets did. Jones also holds that disease must have the dominant role; his point is about what the "no immunity" story can hide.

According to Jeffrey Ostler

War, enslavement and famine after 1492 led to Scholarship & press 1 2 8 9
Paul Kelton, quoted by HISTORY, says British forces cut down corn and burned homes, turning people into refugees, which left them far more vulnerable to disease than infected blankets did. Jones also holds that disease must have the dominant role; his point is about what the "no immunity" story can hide.

Proof 9 sources

Earth system impacts of the European arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492, Quaternary Science Reviews, 2019. Scholarship & press
Such diseases included smallpox, measles, influenza, the bubonic plague, and later malaria, diphtheria, typhus and cholera.
Most of these diseases originated from domesticated farm animals from Europe to which Native Americans had no prior exposure
However, despite this there is no evidence for a causal relationship between genetic differences and the increased severity of the impacts of diseases
these epidemics were introduced by European settlers and African slaves and were passed on to an indigenous population that had not been previously exposed to these pathogens
societal breakdown following ongoing war, slavery and famine due to shortage of healthy labor force likely increased the potency of epidemics in the Americas
Virgin Soils Revisited, The William and Mary Quarterly, 2003. Scholarship & press
All have concluded that infectious diseases, introduced by Europeans and Africans, played a decisive role.
theories of immunological determinism in the American context also have “instrumentality,” deflecting attention away from moral and political questions.
Origin of measles virus: divergence from rinderpest virus between the 11th and 12th centuries, Virology Journal, 2010. Scholarship & press
Our results indicate that divergence of MeV from RPV occurred around the 11th to 12th centuries.
Measles virus and rinderpest virus divergence dated to the sixth century BCE, Science, 2020. Scholarship & press
Our analyses show that the measles virus potentially arose as early as the sixth century BCE, possibly coinciding with the rise of large cities.
17th Century Variola Virus Reveals the Recent History of Smallpox, Current Biology, 2016. Scholarship & press
the timescale of emergence of the causative agent, variola virus (VARV), and how it evolved in the context of increasingly widespread immunization, have proven controversial
Out of Africa: A Molecular Perspective on the Introduction of Yellow Fever Virus into the Americas, PLoS Pathogens, 2007. Scholarship & press
We estimate that the currently circulating strains of YFV arose in Africa within the last 1,500 years and emerged in the Americas following the slave trade approximately 300–400 years ago.
Multiple independent introductions of Plasmodium falciparum in South America, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012. Scholarship & press
Our estimates of divergence time between the South American populations and their likely sources favor a likely introduction from Africa during the transatlantic slave trade.
Genocide and American Indian History, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History, 2 Mar 2015. Scholarship & press Archived copy
War, for example, can result in displacement, impoverishment, and social stress, thus increasing vulnerability to pathogens.
When smallpox broke out in Virginia in 1696 it spread rapidly along networks of human contact that had been shaped by violence, deracination, and deprivation, destroying Indian communities from the Carolinas to the Gulf Coast and up the Mississippi River to Illinois.
Did Colonists Give Infected Blankets to Native Americans as Biological Warfare?, HISTORY, 15 Nov 2018. Scholarship & press
it would kill women and children, not just warriors

How this answer is built

Lines on the record come first: sourced links that no one presents as their own account, each with its strongest source. Then every account recorded here gets its own column, A to Z, none ranked above another. A column quotes only that account's own words and shows the strength of its own sources. Disputed lines are listed apart, with the reason, and lines still being verified come last. Neither is counted. Withdrawn lines are never shown.

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