Native_American_disease_and_epidemics | TriviaQuestions.online

⭐ In the context of Native Americans in the United States, the most significant initial factor contributing to the precipitous decline in population following 1492 is considered to be…

The arrival of Europeans brought diseases to which Native Americans had no immunity, leading to widespread epidemics and a substantial reduction in population numbers, far exceeding losses from warfare or enslavement in the initial period of contact.

⭐ Core Definition: Native American disease and epidemics

The history of Native American disease and epidemics is fundamentally composed of two elements: indigenous diseases and those brought by settlers to the Americas from the Old World (Africa, Asia, and Europe), which transmitted far beyond the initial points of contact, such as trade networks, warfare, and enslavement. The contacts during European colonization of the Americas were blamed as the catalyst for the huge spread of Old World plagues that decimated the indigenous population.

Epidemics of smallpox, typhus, influenza, diphtheria and measles swept the Americas subsequent to European contact, killing between 10 million and 100 million people, up to 95% of the indigenous population of the Americas.

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👉 Native American disease and epidemics in the context of Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans (also called American Indians, First Americans, or Indigenous Americans) are the Indigenous peoples of the United States, particularly of the lower 48 states and Alaska. They may also include any Americans whose origins lie in any of the indigenous peoples of North or South America. The United States Census Bureau publishes data about "American Indians and Alaska Natives", whom it defines as anyone "having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America ... and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment". The census does not, however, enumerate "Native Americans" as such, noting that the latter term can encompass a broader set of groups, e.g. Native Hawaiians, which it tabulates separately.

The European colonization of the Americas from 1492 resulted in a precipitous decline in the size of the Native American population because of newly introduced diseases, including weaponized diseases and biological warfare by colonizers, wars, ethnic cleansing, and enslavement. Numerous scholars have classified elements of the colonization process as comprising genocide against Native Americans. As part of a policy of settler colonialism, European settlers continued to wage war and perpetrated massacres against Native American peoples, removed them from their ancestral lands, and subjected them to one-sided government treaties and discriminatory government policies. Into the 20th century, these policies focused on forced assimilation.

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