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Why did Native Americans die of European diseases while Europeans didn't have serious diseases from the New World?

I read that most Native American victims of colonization in the new world died of European diseases and not by battles. But why didn't European people catch some deadly disease from Native Americans?
Was it because of better European immunity?
Was it because Europe had better experience handling diseases?
Or what factors played major roles in this historical exchange of bacterias and viruses?

two sheds
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CsBalazsHungary
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    Related: http://biology.stackexchange.com/q/20731/975. – TRiG Feb 25 '15 at 18:41
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    Europeans did catch very serious deceases in the New World. In particular in West India. Yellow fever is one such decease. – Alex Feb 25 '15 at 20:38
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    It is still disputed whether syphilis was brought to Europe from America or the other way around. But a terrible epidemic of syphilis stroke Europe in XVI century, immediately after the discover of America. – Alex Feb 25 '15 at 20:42
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    @Alex: Yellow fever is probably from Africa – two sheds Feb 25 '15 at 20:45
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    Nevertheless yellow fever was a major killer of Europeans in the West India, as historical records show. – Alex Feb 25 '15 at 20:47
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    @Alex: Right, but they didn't catch yellow fever from the Native Americans (like OP asked). They caught yellow fever from the African slaves they brought to the New World. – two sheds Feb 25 '15 at 20:55
  • OK, perhaps Yellow fever is not the best example. Syphilis probably is. (See the "History" part in the Wikipedia article on Syphilis). – Alex Feb 25 '15 at 22:14
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    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Exchange – Matthew Peters Feb 26 '15 at 15:05
  • The population density was too low for the viruses and bacteria to evolve into many new diseases. Sick Americans were naturally quarantined by the low population density, so the diseases did not spread too far, and the viruses and bacteria did not evolve too much. – Jeno Csupor Feb 23 '20 at 23:36
  • CGP Grey on youtube has a great explanation for this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEYh5WACqEk – franklin Dec 29 '21 at 17:18

9 Answers9

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Europeans were introduced to at least one important disease from the Americas (syphilis), but far more Old World pathogens were introduced to the Americas than vice versa. There are several reasons for this imbalance.

  1. European agriculturalists lived in closer proximity to disease vectors than did most Native Americans. A number of important diseases started with pigs, fowl, and so on before making the leap to humans. The Americas had fewer large mammals than did Eurasia, and so there were fewer candidates for domestication. Accordingly, American agricultural communities picked up fewer diseases than did Eurasian agricultural communities.

  2. Europeans were part of a much larger human community than the Native Americans. Europeans had already been exposed to Chinese pathogens from at least the 6th century AD. The high volume of trade in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean over the next millennium meant that Eurasia was, from the perspective of many pathogens, a single community. Diseases like the plague could travel from Asia to Europe more easily than a pathogen could travel up and down the Americas. This is in part because the East-West axis had more similar climatic conditions than the North-South axis. Eurasian trade also involved sailing vessels, which carried rodents. Rodents were some of the nastiest disease vectors, and plagues often originated in port towns because of these stowaways. For all of these reasons, 15th-century Europeans (and their ancestors) had experienced a wider variety of germs than had their American counterparts.

  3. Population densities were much greater in Eurasia, and there were more Eurasian cities than American cities. Cities were unhealthy places where diseases could remain "endemic" in the human or rodent population. By some estimates, a disease like measles can only be sustained in cities with a population over 500,000. In the Americas, only Tenochtitlan approached this. American pathogens might die out due to lack of "reservoirs." For example, there was at least one plague of American origins that killed from 7-17 million Mexicans in the 16th century. After killing 80% of the native population, the disease simply disappeared. We actually have very little idea what this disease was, or if it could appear again.

  4. The long history of epidemics, plus the presence of disease reservoirs in European urban communities, did mean that natural selection on disease resistance was a larger factor in Europe than in the Americas. Europeans had better immunity to most communicable pathogens than Americans (see @MasonWheeler's excellent answer), which also made them "better" disease vectors.

Of course, Eurasia was not the only Old World disease reservoir: African pathogens like that responsible for yellow fever were able to establish themselves in the American tropics. In these cases, it was the African slaves who had acquired resistance to the disease. While Europeans may have suffered from African pathogens along with the native Americans, these still go into the ledgers as Old World diseases, and they just make the imbalance of the Columbian Exchange all the worse.

All of this can be read about in more detail in Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. Also, read the comment thread here, where @Himarm and @Odysseus in particular make some good points pushing back against my answer.

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two sheds
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    Good, valid points. For 3rd: population density suggest that if somebody from the New World goes home with some horrible disease would spread it way easier. Actually this factor would worsen the European situation. – CsBalazsHungary Feb 25 '15 at 14:03
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    I meant to say that European density is a reason why there were more pathogens in Europe, and why Europeans had a greater resistance. So if an American caught a really bad pathogen, it might tear through his village--but then having killed everyone, the pathogen would die out. So the greater American population would not have developed any immunity; it just lost a village. Does that fit with your comment? – two sheds Feb 25 '15 at 14:07
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    Which logic applied in the same way only negatively when the Europeans came to the Indian sub-continent. Most of them were so sick much of the time. – Rajib Feb 25 '15 at 14:09
  • @twosheds On one hand it works like you say, but if there is some new disease (like there was black death) bigger density of population greatly helps spreading the disease. – CsBalazsHungary Feb 25 '15 at 14:12
  • @Rajib - Yes, and much worse so in Africa. That's why there are very few non-indigenous people in tropical Africa today, as compared to the Americas (particularly the temperate areas). – T.E.D. Feb 25 '15 at 14:12
  • @CsBalazsHungary: Precisely. And by the 15th century, the European population had gone through a thousand years of very severe die-offs due to the plague. So if you were a 15th century European, your ancestors probably had good disease resistance. – two sheds Feb 25 '15 at 14:14
  • @Rajib: As far as I know, South Asians had good resistance to European diseases though. Temperate diseases could go into India, but tropical diseases couldn't get out. Does that sound right? If it's too complex, I can just ask it as a question. – two sheds Feb 25 '15 at 14:23
  • Is it because the Europeans have been coming to South Asia since the time of the Greeks? Although not in so large numbers. But Arab, Persian, Central Asian, - I think it was a pretty much mixed gene pool present in the region. And yes- you don't get the malaria vector in Norway. – Rajib Feb 25 '15 at 14:26
  • @twosheds that is true, I mean I understand why did native americans caught the most horrible diseases and even those which europeans were already immune. I was wondering on the very assymetrical impact of the exchanged diseases. The best example is the already mentioned Black Death in the medieval Europe which was imported from Asia. Syphilis would be good example which you mentioned but as wiki claims scientist still argue on it's origin. – CsBalazsHungary Feb 25 '15 at 14:29
  • @CsBalazsHungary: I see. I'd summarize points 1 and 2 as "There were fewer viable pathogen candidates in the Americas" and point 3 as "Even viable pathogens had a harder time establishing themselves in the Americas." And that's why there weren't many diseases to be carried back to Europe. But you are correct, if there had been more really nasty novel diseases in the American population, then European population density would have caused them to spread really quickly across the continent. – two sheds Feb 25 '15 at 14:38
  • I found a good list on this wiki page, the interesting part is that Europeans brought 16 diseases on the list to americas while they took only 4 to the old world. I think its' ratio is pretty much equals the 3 to 1 continent numbers which were accessible by regions (Asia, Africa, Europe vs America) – CsBalazsHungary Feb 25 '15 at 14:44
  • So far your answer worths a +1 for me, I will wait if somebody brings up something else. – CsBalazsHungary Feb 25 '15 at 14:45
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    @CsBalazsHungary: Interesting list, good find. I hadn't heard of them, but it turns out that Bejel and Pinta are both forms of syphilis! And Chagas only recently spread. So I guess it really was only syphilis that was brought back to Europe. – two sheds Feb 25 '15 at 14:51
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    The biggest thing, is the relation to animals over every other factor, The native americans had Lamas, thats about it, and they lived far outside of urban areas, they had no cows, pigs, horses, sheep, goats, some fowl. europe, china, the middle east all had very close contact with some or all of these animals for thousands of years, this is the single factor that increased disease resistance for europeans over the native americans, The native Americans also lived in very large metropolitan areas, with fairly dense populations, throughout all of central-south america. from fully populated – Himarm Feb 25 '15 at 15:06
  • to decimated in a mater of 100 years, the majority of the cities the Spanish and Portuguese encountered in their conquests where already empty or held skeleton populations. we have estimates of the native american populations between between 50-100 million, its estimated that 90% of the population died to diseases, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas thats between 40-90 million people died in about 100-200 years from exposure to Europeans. – Himarm Feb 25 '15 at 15:07
  • its speculated that the reason the north american indians were so fragmented and in such smaller numbers were because there was intensive trade between south, central, north american tribes and the diseases from the Spanish in central america had already killed off 90% of the north american indians by the time the British/others settled in north america.so to wrap up, i agree with point 1 but not 2, or 3, since the indians were living in dense urban settings, which resulted in their mass ... extinction. – Himarm Feb 25 '15 at 15:14
  • @Himarm: I agree that domestic animals are a bigger factor than urban density. But Eurasia did regularly experience larger urban agglomerations over its history than the Americas: Rome, Constantinople, Baghdad, etc. at their peaks were huge compared to even high estimates for Tenochtitlan's population. – two sheds Feb 25 '15 at 15:17
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    @Himarm: And point 2 is less about population density than the total population of Eurasia versus the Americas. Because of trade networks, diseases in China could reach Europe. And I agree--we do often underestimate the American population--but still, there's no way it begins to compare to China or India's populations – two sheds Feb 25 '15 at 15:23
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    +1 for mentioning Guns, Germs, and Steel; this very question was a significant part of the opening chapters – jhocking Feb 25 '15 at 19:23
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    @Himarm You are not considering the climate variations that came into play just before the Europeans came, these lead to reduced food production in the Americas, mostly through drought. Famine caused by these droughts would decrease disease immunity and lead to death in the population. While the European diseases are often taunted as being mass killers, which they were, there are other factors that produced the massive deaths in the native american population, such as climate variations and land infertility. Source: 1491 : New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, by Charles C. Mann – BOB Feb 26 '15 at 15:37
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    This answer buys wholeheartedly into the myth that the early Americas were sparsely populated and separated into isolated tribes. The assumption flies in the face of a whole host of evidence. Artifacts across the country show a thriving trade network was in place for long periods before Columbus. Firsthand accounts from the late 1400s/early 1500s described a densely populated continent. – Odysseus Feb 26 '15 at 22:29
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    @Odysseus: I've read plenty of work that supports the higher estimates for the population of Americas and what's more, I believe them. But even with the higher estimates, American population densities just don't compare to Europe, India, or Asia. I know there was long-distance trade in the Americas, but again, it was not as intense as in Eurasia. My answer really doesn't imply any denigration of the American civilizations. – two sheds Feb 26 '15 at 22:34
  • The answer to this question can be explained by one factor: A mass extinction of domesticatable animals roughly 13K years ago led to a near total absence of zoonotic diseases, which in turn led to the people of the Americas having no cultural or biological defenses against them when they arrived. The Americas were so susceptible to disease because of a dense and interconnected population, not in spite of them. Revising the answer to one that fits with the historical evidence and deals with the logical inconsistencies in points 2 and 3 would earn an upvote. – Odysseus Feb 26 '15 at 22:35
  • @twosheds - My main issue is that your argument, as it currently exists, rests on a lot of assumptions not supported by evidence. "American population densities just don't compare to Europe, India, or Asia." and "not as intense as in Eurasia." can certainly have truth to them but since so much relies on those numbers there needs to be more there... – Odysseus Feb 26 '15 at 22:41
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    @twosheds ...In some estimates N America would be in the same ballpark as the population of Europe. For long periods of time trade between Asia and Europe simply didn't exist. The Silk Road was a byproduct of Mongol rule, not a persistent phenomenon. In both cases it's hard to say by exactly how much they were different, and it's possible they weren't as far off as we assume. The problem is that so much of the evidence in the Americas was either not researched or has been destroyed. In light of that I think the answer should focus what we do know rather than speculative numbers. – Odysseus Feb 26 '15 at 22:43
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    @Odysseus: There were always trade networks linking Europe and China, though not always through the Silk Road. The link was from the Italians to the Arabs through the Indian Ocean. With sailing vessels, the quantity of trade is going to be much larger than it was in the Americas. Janet Abu Lughod has a good book on the medieval world system that addresses this. – two sheds Feb 26 '15 at 22:46
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    @Odysseus: Largest estimates I've seen for an American city are around 300,000. Largest in North American around 30,000. Many old world cities hit a million around their peaks, and cities in the 30,000 range weren't particularly notable. – two sheds Feb 26 '15 at 22:47
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    @Odysseus: And even if N America is in the ballpark of Europe's total population, my point is that Europe had been exposed to pathogens from the much larger population of Asia. I know that people tend to overestimate Europe's size in that era, but Asia's population is undeniably enormous. – two sheds Feb 26 '15 at 22:49
  • @twosheds I agree, there's nothing equivalent to the Mediterranean in the Americas and trade there would be of a different character. But as it applies to disease I'm not sure there's a substantive enough difference to say it answers the original question. Items from S America made their way up to the Great Lakes and by all indications trade was a consistent force over the centuries. In both cases the flow of goods should reflect a flow of disease as well so I don't think that answers the original question. – Odysseus Feb 26 '15 at 22:50
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    @Odysseus: Well, intensity and mode of trade matter, since the diseases were often carried by rodents onboard ships. People make less good vectors, since they sicken and then don't undertake long journeys. So the fact that American up to the Great Lakes was less likely to be bulk trade (neither ships nor caravans) means that it's less good for communicating pathogens. – two sheds Feb 26 '15 at 22:53
  • @Odysseus: Btw, it's cool if we disagree, and you should feel free to write your own answer if you think mine merits a response. I only wanted to convince you that I didn't write this from the perspective of 19th century historiographical ideas of noble savages living in the forest primeval :) – two sheds Feb 26 '15 at 22:56
  • @twosheds The population point is valid. The issue that I think still remains is why did the Americas produce one disease and Europe produced dozens. Even with reductions in trade and populations it fails in my mind to account for that shortfall. I would offer for your consideration the theories that look at the Americas lack of large land mammals and domesticatable creatures to explain that. – Odysseus Feb 26 '15 at 22:56
  • @Odysseus: Agreed, that's what I meant to communicate in point 1. Looking back I see that I didn't elaborate on the reason why Americans didn't live "in proximity to disease vectors." I will certainly add that. – two sheds Feb 26 '15 at 22:58
  • @twosheds That's fair, I am particularly sensitive on that issue because I feel that perpetuating the idea that the Americas were 1000+ years behind Europe and Asia is inaccurate at best and offensive at worst. Your points are well made though I wouldn't mind seeing some of that in the answer as well. – Odysseus Feb 26 '15 at 22:59
  • @twosheds Finally thank you for the discourse. While I would normally write an answer yours is going to be the reference on this topic for the foreseeable future and I appreciate your willingness to take things into consideration. – Odysseus Feb 26 '15 at 23:11
  • @Odysseus: Thanks for the conversation, it's what I like about this site. I'm working on updating some things now, though it probably won't be the final update. – two sheds Feb 26 '15 at 23:14
  • related Question to this answer: Jared Diamonds - Guns, Germs and Steel – CsBalazsHungary Feb 27 '15 at 10:52
  • just looked up your answer today, it is good. However, if I may nitpick I may suggest you consider reordering it a bit. As someone familiar with biology & evolution i could understand your bullet points, but I feel the cause & effect isn't as clear. I may start with a larger points that 1) Europeans had more diseases living within their population due to trade and animals and thus more to spread and 2) Europeans had stronger immune systems evolved due to increased epidemics putting stronger pressure on immune system, then elaborate those key points with your great details. – dsollen Feb 02 '16 at 19:40
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    I would also add to the whole debate on population and it's affect on disease that diseases spread from Asia to Europe much easier then from NA to SA. Mostly because the enviroment didn't vary as much. diseases evolved for equator probably won't survive or spread well in northern America for example, where as diseases could spread massive distances from E/W and still end up in a climate they are adapted for. Ship-focused trade would spread disease faster, and no doubt large pack animals used in land-trade would also allow them to transfer disease better as well. – dsollen Feb 02 '16 at 19:44
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    Were Europeans really that immune? More than 50% of children died in infancy in Europe in those days. Only the survivors got to emigrate, though. – RedSonja Jul 10 '17 at 11:46
  • @RedSonja and the survivors were resistant to the diseases that they were exposed to when their siblings and friends were on their deathbeds. Even if the European gene pool did evolve stronger immune systems over the course of a few centuries, or some genetic resistance to certain pathogens, that effect was surely so small as to be dwarfed by the short term effects of exposure to the specific pathogens on individuals' immune systems. – phoog Apr 27 '22 at 22:32
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Several good answers have already been suggested, but there are a few very important points that are worth mentioning: Native Americans were badly unprepared for the emergence of epidemic disease among their populations, both genetically and culturally.

According to this article from 2002, there was a major genetic component to it: far less immune system biodiversity among Native Americans than Old Worlders.

Indigenous biochemistry may also have played a role. The immune system constantly scans the body for molecules that it can recognize as foreign—molecules belonging to an invading virus, for instance. No one's immune system can identify all foreign presences. Roughly speaking, an individual's set of defensive tools is known as his MHC type. Because many bacteria and viruses mutate easily, they usually attack in the form of several slightly different strains. Pathogens win when MHC types miss some of the strains and the immune system is not stimulated to act. Most human groups contain many MHC types; a strain that slips by one person's defenses will be nailed by the defenses of the next. But, according to Francis L. Black, an epidemiologist at Yale University, Indians are characterized by unusually homogenous MHC types. One out of three South American Indians have similar MHC types; among Africans the corresponding figure is one in 200. The cause is a matter for Darwinian speculation, the effects less so.

It also points out that, when serious disease struck, Europeans knew how to handle it and Native Americans did not, which just made it worse for them:

Having little experience with epidemic diseases, Indians had no knowledge of how to combat them. In contrast, Europeans were well versed in the brutal logic of quarantine. They boarded up houses in which plague appeared and fled to the countryside. In Indian New England, Neal Salisbury, a historian at Smith College, wrote in Manitou and Providence (1982), family and friends gathered with the shaman at the sufferer's bedside to wait out the illness—a practice that "could only have served to spread the disease more rapidly."

Mason Wheeler
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    Nice article. I'm surprised that they say that the cause is a matter for speculation. I thought American Indians just had lower genetic diversity in general, due to the population bottleneck at the time of migration to the Americas. But I know next to nothing about genetics, so that could be an oversimplification. – two sheds Feb 25 '15 at 17:52
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    +1 it answers one of my subquestions "Was it because Europe had better experience handling diseases?" – CsBalazsHungary Feb 26 '15 at 09:14
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    They were not any better at handling disease anymore than the native Americans... they were better at preventitive measures. True serums and vaccines did not exist until about the beginning of the 1900's, when medical knowledge and tech exploded expotentially. – Epiphany Feb 26 '15 at 17:19
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    @Epiphany: And those "preventative measures" are a form of handling disease, on a societal scale if not a personal one. – Mason Wheeler Feb 26 '15 at 17:59
  • @Mason. I guess this is interpretive, as for me 'preventitive' means taking the steps needed to prevent having to 'handle', and 'handling' as being involved in a situation that has already occured. Tomaytos, Tomaatos.. The only real handling was that they were smart enough to envoke quarantine of the infected, realizing this would in turn stop the spread of the disease. – Epiphany Feb 26 '15 at 18:16
  • The second point I agree would be quit relevant, but I'm curious about significance. Europeans still didn't understand important details about diseases, so I'm curious how significant their knowledge of quarantine and other disease management was when they still had false beliefs about disease as well. No doubt it did help, possible a good bit, I'm just wondering how much. I'm also curious now how much European knowledge about diseases they brought spread to Native American's, if at all, to help them combat the disease. – dsollen Feb 02 '16 at 19:49
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    @dsollen European cultural understanding of the idea of quarantine actually dates back thousands of years; you can find the basic principles laid out in the Law of Moses. And they didn't need to understand all the "important details" or have a scientifically accurate Germ Theory to understand that contagion--the spread of disease from an infected person to a healthy person--exists, and that preventing contact with an infected person is thus a good way to prevent healthy people from contracting the disease. – Mason Wheeler Feb 02 '16 at 20:02
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Certainly some diseases are of New World origin.

The Old World had more diseases and more deadly diseases simply because the population was much greater and in certain place more concentrated.

It is likely that more New World natives were killed by disease than by violence. However, this is just as true in the Old World: many more have died of disease than by war.

It is reasonable to assume Old World inhabitants have more developed immune systems, being in a more disease-intensive place, however as far as I know this is unproven. It is difficult to measure the "quality" of an immune system. Certainly, some people are more resistant to illness and others tend to be sickly, but the reasons for this are unclear.

There is a significant environmental aspect to illness. Tropical regions, for example, harbor many more diseases than temperate regions. Serious contagious illnesses are usually transported by a vector of some kind, so interaction with the vector may be more important than immune response.

albert
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Tyler Durden
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    there is almost universal acceptance that the Europeans increased immunity came from living with domesticated animals, as there were no domesticated animals in the entirety of north/south american, but the lamas that the inca's had, and they were kept far from urban areas, not milked, and lived in small groups. NA/SA also had no pigs, cows, horses, as all of these animals were from the old world, so the native Americans didn't have any animals to domesticate. – Himarm Feb 25 '15 at 16:40
  • @Himarm I have never heard this idea. Why would living with animals increase a population's disease resistance? – Tyler Durden Feb 25 '15 at 16:43
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    @TylerDurden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowpox, for example. – Digital Trauma Feb 25 '15 at 17:12
  • @DigitalTrauma The article you linked does not prove (or even claim) that living with animals will increase a human population's disease resistance. – Tyler Durden Feb 25 '15 at 17:27
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    @TylerDurden "His patients who had contracted and recovered from the similar but milder cowpox (mainly milkmaids), seemed to be immune not only to further cases of cowpox, but also to smallpox". Perhaps not a bulletproof, scientific proof, but the implication is that the milkmaids (who presumably have more contact with animals than the general population) are in fact not only immune to cowpox, but also to the much more dangerous smallpox. – Digital Trauma Feb 25 '15 at 18:16
  • @DigitalTrauma Inferring from this single instance of a supposed innoculation-by-animal, that keeping animals will make a human population generally more immune resistant is not rational. Innoculations and the quality of an immune system are two different things. Innoculations activate the immune system, they do not make it better. – Tyler Durden Feb 25 '15 at 18:24
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    @TylerDurden it's a bit the other way around - living with animals means that you get more diseases, as many of the historical and current epidemic diseases are of an animal origin. This means that if community A lives with animals and community B doesn't; then community A will have a bunch of diseases that they have adapted to but that are deadly to B, but community B won't have produced as much of those "biological weapons" – Peteris Feb 25 '15 at 19:51
  • @Peteris I guess I would want to see scientific study of this theory, as the idea seems completely incorrect. Most common illnesses, especially viral illnesses, are species specific. – Tyler Durden Feb 25 '15 at 20:02
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    @TylerDurden even the old Guns, Germs and Steel discusses it in detail; but many diseases that are species-specific now have originated in animals. Off the top of my head, plague, HIV, smallpox, flu and ebola have all mutated from animal diseases. Perhaps to be more clear - I'm not neccessarily saying that a family living with animals will get more disease infections in short term; I meant that a civilization that lives with animals will in long term see more new types of diseases originating from those animals. Swine flu can originate only if you have many pigs in contact with people. – Peteris Feb 25 '15 at 20:06
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    You didn't necessarily have to live with the animals, as rats were responsible for more dispersion of disease than any domestic animals, and often found their way onto the ships bound for the New World. Their are even modern-day cases, such as the hanta virus outbreak in New Mexico awhile back that was attributed to rodents. – Epiphany Feb 26 '15 at 17:14
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    @Peteris "community A will have a bunch of diseases that they have adapted to": it's not necessarily a question of community adaptation; it can also be a matter of individual exposure. If there's an endemic disease that all children are exposed to, the ones who don't die from it -- in other words, all adults -- will be immune. – phoog Apr 27 '22 at 23:04
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I'd say the syphilis was was quite a deadly illness contacted from the Native Americans. They were immune to it (wonder if they still are…).

Although it is not 100 % historically proved that the syphilis originated from the New World, it started spreading like crazy after its discovery.

o0'.
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Stefany
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If you get sick and bring your disease to the place you are going (for instance, because you were on a long and exhausting journey), you are going to be ill at your destination. You may have carried the germ for a long time, since you are used to it, and it will only strike if/when you are weakened.

If you get sick at your destination, it is not likely that you are allowed on board for the voyage back.

The only way a disease is going to make it back to your origin, is if it incubates longer than the time it takes you to board the ship and sail home, or if it incubates long enough to cause an infection spreading in the ship, but not wipe out the ships population.

Looking at the duration of the Atlantic voyage, this may pose serious constraints on the last scenario. More people are likely to get sick in the destination country. If only one party is traveling, this skews chances. Native Americans did not travel to Europe as far as I know.

Of course, travel over land is not isolated in the way a ship is and will have far fewer constraints.

Peter Mortensen
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Mark
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    The problem with this is lack of knowledge back in those times, and also I would note that many diseases are not very visible in the first days, so it is easy to imagine that a sick person travels on a boat and his situation gets way worse during the travel and passes the disease to the fellow sailors on route. – CsBalazsHungary Feb 26 '15 at 12:02
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    This does not take into account carriers, that do not get sick themselves, yet are highly contagious without showing symptoms. They would fly right under the radar. – Epiphany Feb 26 '15 at 17:07
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    Interesting set of opinions, but I think we need some sources to evaluate this hypothesis. – MCW Feb 27 '15 at 15:22
  • they did actually, consider Pocahontas for one, who is buried in the UK – bigbadmouse Oct 04 '19 at 07:37
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Native Americans (and indigenous islanders) did not have many diseases on their side to use against the Europeans. Plagues spread quickly between people. Secondly, if you get a plague, either you die or you become immune. If you survive, you will never get it again, because now your body knows how to kill it. However, you can still carry the plague, and you can spread it to other people, but it can't hurt you.

The reason is that the New World didn't have plagues! But why didn't the New World get plagues?

Plagues prosper when you have a civilization/city which does a bad job of separating sewage from drinking water. This can help spread the plague, which helps evolve it fast. This makes deadly plagues. One such city which had bad water management was London. This made Cholera, one of the deadly diseases which haunted the Native Americans.

Cholera, and many other plagues, cannot survive in an isolated area. It will simply infect everyone, and then die because it does not have any more hosts available! The remaining living people will be immune, so the disease will die off. So, plagues need cities and highly connected trade routes to survive. China and India were great for plagues to live, because they had extremely high populations for most of history. In cities throughout Eurasia, people migrated, people were born, it was crowded, and that meant that the plague could spread indefinitely and prosper.

So, since the New World had less cities (and less population), it had less plagues. The New World could not ever be as advanced as the Old World (before Europeans) because they did not have the animals that we depend on. Pigs, horses, cows, elephants, and dogs were vital to the rise of humans, and they were not there in the New World. That meant that the New World had less cities, less population, less achievements, and less diseases.

However, the New World still had connections, and cities such as Tenochtitlan. The reason that there was no diseases coming from Native American cities is because the germs that cause the plagues don't want to kill you. Just like how the common cold lives in you and keep you alive, plagues want to keep you alive so it can live in you. The reason it kills you is because it thinks you are another animal, like, a cow. A germ in a cow, that does not kill it, accidentally traveled to a human. It does the stuff it does to a cow, and you die. Now it spreads to other humans. Now, lots of humans are dying and you have a plague.

This means that to have a plague, you must have as much contact with animals as possible. In the Old World, where farmers tended for cows and pigs, while warriors rode horses and elephants, there was a much higher chance of accidentally getting a disease from the animal that in the New World, where there was not as much contact between animals and humans.

This is what happened with the coronavirus, when a human came in contact with a bat disease. For a bat, COVID-19 will be easy to beat, just like the human cold. However, for humans, it can kill you.

So, the short answer? There were more animals to domesticate, so there were diseases hopping from animal to human. These diseases prospered in crowded, well traveled cities, and high human populations made more diseases. Also, bad water management and sanitation helped diseases spread. America did not have domesticatable animals (other than the llama) and less cities and less population, so there were naturally less diseases.

That said, there were some diseases that spread from America to Afro-Eurasia. Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease that is believed to have originated from the Americas. However, most of the diseases did come from Eurasia.

There is one missing piece to this answer. The Vikings did come to the Americas far before Columbus, and it is likely that the [Mali Empire (Abubakari) also made it.] [1] There is a small chance that China (Zheng He) also made it to the Americas before Columbus.(2) So why didn't the natives get the plague from these early travelers and be immune to the Spanish? The reason is that, when the explorer landed on the coastal tribe, he would have spread the disease to them. However, the plague could not have spread to any other tribe due to lack of contact, and due to isolation. That one tribe would have died out, and the 5% that survived would be immune. This is kind of like social distancing. However, the disease would die out because it would have no one else to infect. That is why most of the Americas were vulnerable.

Check out this source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEYh5WACqEk

Hope this answers your question.

(1) http://moorishharem.com/the-battle-for-the-americas-mansa-abubakari-ii-181-years-before-columbus/, https://www.csu.edu/dosa/AAMRC/news1.htm , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIUJtxPiCWE.

(2) https://www.1843magazine.com/travel/cartophilia/did-china-discover-america

  • Kudo's for a very well written answer. Always nice to see a new(ish) user clearly cover a complex topic. I can't upvote without sources, but I can appreciate clear writing. – MCW Jun 03 '20 at 17:17
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    Nice answer! However, I think your claims on Zheng He and the Malians visiting the Americas should also be sourced. I'm not sure if the video is meant to act as a catch-all source here? – gktscrk Jun 03 '20 at 17:40
  • No, I added sources for Abubakari and Zheng He, I'll create another question about it and add the link here. –  Jun 03 '20 at 17:55
  • Is there a way to just make an argument on this site, get feedback and cite it in my answers? –  Jun 03 '20 at 17:56
  • Please don't include raw links to youTube. At least include the title of the video so we can make some determination if we want to click on the link or not (your answer will be stronger if you include some indication of what qualifies to video/creator as a valid source such as credentials or institution as well). There is good stuff on youTube, but a lot of junk as well. – justCal Jun 16 '20 at 15:22
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One of the biggest considerations, although hypothetical and not talked about, is simply the water. A great number of diseases and plauges during this era were due to waterborne pathogens. Europeans rarely drank plain water during the period, and you were more likely to find them drinking beer, wine, and mead just for this reason. It was commonly diluted into their water supplies as well, because the alcohol killed of the majority of the pathogens.

This is quite contrary to the newly explored western worlds natives at the time, who relied on the purity of their water. In short, it could be quite possible that Europeans introduced pathogens into their water supply that they had not had time to develop immunities to. This seems quite more plausable than other scenarios speculated about this subject. Early biological warfare.

Epiphany
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    "because the alcohol killed of the majority of the pathogens". No- mixing alcohol in water will not protect you from water-borne pathogens. – Rajib Feb 26 '15 at 11:54
  • @Rajib. First,I am merely relaying what historians have observed and agreed upon, and you come at me like I personally told them to put the alcohol in the water! Second, you are wrong, as alcohol kills the majority of bacterial threats to the water, as it keeps them from using the water as an ideal medium in which to reproduce, especially in the tropics, where both humidity and temperature also make for ideal conditions for accelerated growth. – Epiphany Feb 26 '15 at 15:39
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    No- I'm not coming at you at all. It's just that scientifically that's not correct. But if you can cite the links to the historians who observed alcohol protects from pathogens, do add the links. BTW, drinking beer as a substitute is not the same thing as adding alcohol to water. – Rajib Feb 26 '15 at 15:43
  • @Rajib... Yes, you are coming at me, or you would not be treating me like I was an idiot! Do you think that I think drinking beer was a substitute? Did I say that anywhere? And as far as citing, go watch the many docs on the era on the History Channel, as these practices during the period are common knowledge, not some revelation. So go be nasty to someone else. – Epiphany Feb 26 '15 at 15:50
  • @Rajib... Here is your first source for cite right here on this fourm... Historical use of alcohol as a source of clean water http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/8034/historical-use-of-alcohol-as-a-source-of-clean-water – Epiphany Feb 26 '15 at 16:00
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    Please take a look around History Stack Exchange. We comment to elicit better answers. There are no personal friends/foes. I mentioned because you said "more likely to find them drinking beer". Links to sites and resources are also the norm here. Please note that when you provide the links I will upvote your answer. I don't judge your intelligence at all, and I'm not being nasty. Cheers. – Rajib Feb 26 '15 at 16:05
  • The link you provided says "boiling water or turning it into alcohol"- not adding alcohol to water. If that worked, we would all be adding alcohol to water here. But the norm is to use halogen tablets/chlorine for killing the bugs. – Rajib Feb 26 '15 at 16:07
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    @Rajib. I just gave you a full page on this topic right here on HSE. Is that not enough of a verification on cited information? And I was relaying what historians have agreed upon when I said 'likely to find them drinking beer', as I was not the one that did the historical research that produced that determination. Personally, I think they drank merely because they liked to get drunk, if you want to know what I personally think. – Epiphany Feb 26 '15 at 16:12
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    Let us continue this discussion in chat. – Rajib Feb 26 '15 at 16:13
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Question:
Why did Native Americans die from European diseases while Europeans didn't catch serious diseases from the New World?

This question is covered in depth by Jared Diamond's excellent Pulitzer Prize winning book Guns Germs and Steel which describes broadly why European powers which came in contact with indigenous non Eurasian peoples around the world were so militarily sucessful. (North American Indians, Central America Aztecs, South American Inca's, Pacific Islands, South Africa are examples given in the book).

A big part of the European advantage over non Eurasian continent populations was their stronger germs. According to the book 95% of native populations were killed by European diseases (small pox, measles, plague(black death)) prior to colinization. Daimond attributes these "stronger European germs" to several factors.

  • Europe's dense Populations, facilitated transfer and resistance to germs.
  • The availability of large domesticated animals (horses, oxen, cattle ) living in close proximity to their population. Most other (no such large domesticated animals existed in the America's or Australian) continents did not have native large domesticated animals. (possible exception was Lama, but it's use was issolated.
  • Eurasia is the longest continent, thus a greater land mass in a similar climate where germs incubate. Also similar climate also facilitates trade, immigration which move germs. Diamond makes the case that continents which are longer lattitudinal (North South) don't provide the same opprotunity for germ exchange.

These were the European advantages.

He mentions the tropical diseases (mainly malaria) that limited European penetration into Africa as an exception. Endemic infectious diseases were also barriers to European colonisation of Southeast Asia and New Guinea.

  • FWIW: Diamond called them Eurasign advantages. I read the book when it came out - that particular usage really struck me, but he did explain why he framed it that way. (Which you allude to in your answer, shape of the Eurasian land mass) – KorvinStarmast Jun 16 '20 at 16:51
  • @KorvinStarmast It's been some years now since I read the book too. But as I remember the entire book was sparked from a conversation between Diamond and a native in Papua New Guinea. The conversation was why Britain was so militarily successful even though their Island nation geographic size was smaller than Papa New Guinea. Britain had spread out and colonized an empire which reached around the world. The book was diamond's answer. Guns Germs and Steel. This answer concentrated on the germs. –  Jun 16 '20 at 19:19
  • @KorvinStarmast length of the land, but also Eurasia was the only continent which domesticated large mammals. The only continent with suitable large mammals to domesticate. –  Jun 16 '20 at 19:21
  • the question began as "why do they have all of the cargo" where cargo meant 'neat goods we can't make here' roughly and that took Diamond on a long meditation and synthesis. Your point on disease I think captures his thesis pretty well. It's just that "Eurasian migration and closeness to animals was his answer, though for the New world "European" for "Eurasian" is probably close enough. Anyway, nice summary of a big and somewhat complicated book. – KorvinStarmast Jun 16 '20 at 19:22
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I've read that Africa contains populations of bacteria that have been co-evolving with our ancestors for tens of millions of years and are able to survive all of Homo Sapiens' immune systems' defenses as well as those of other primates. Most of these are harmless, but they form a reservoir of human-adapted germs from which new desease strains can come. Other regions including the Americas don't have any comparable source of new diseases that can infect humans.

Sorry, I don't have the source for this. If true, it would explain why few or no major human diseases have their origins in the Americas, which I believe was the original question.

user2084572
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    This would certainly benefit from some supporting documentation references as it seems to be a flimsy theory without. – KillingTime Sep 28 '18 at 06:00
  • Completely irrelevant because there have been human populations in the New World for only 12,000 (best guess) to 40,000 (upper limit) years. All previous evolution is shared on the Eurasian & African continents. – Pieter Geerkens Jun 03 '20 at 21:58
  • Plagues and Peoples is a book worth reading on this topic. It may or may not support your point, but it does go into some detail about the unique character of some of the pathogens from sub Saharan Africa. . – KorvinStarmast Jun 16 '20 at 16:52