When the Christians were exhausted from
war, God saw fit to send the Indians smallpox.
- FRANCISCO DE AGUILAR
When the Europeans arrived in the Americas, they carries guns, swords, and the most deadly weapon of all-pestilence. Europe was racked with "epidemic outbreaks of plague and smallpox, along with routine attacks of measles, influenza, diphtheria, typhus, typhoid fever, and more" that "frequently swept European cities and towns clean of 10 to 20 percent of their populations in a single stroke. . . . Again and again, as with its companion diseases, the pestilence they called the Black Death returned" (Stannard 57). Although many died, Europeans had been building immunity to these diseases for centuries, unlike the natives they encountered in the Americas.
The ancestors of the people Columbus and his men encountered had arrived in the Americas relatively disease-free. Some scholars believe that when they crossed the Beringia land bridge from Asia, they were so far north that the diseases were frozen to death, so the migrating groups passed through a natural decontamination chamber. Others say the diseases may not have evolved yet, depending on how long ago the first Americans arrived. This is not to say that the Americas were completely free of disease. Syphilis, for one, appeared in Europe in 1498 after contact with the Americas, but the American diseases were few and none were mass killers (Wright 14). Therefore, when the Europeans arrived, the natives had no immunity, no protection against the pestilence that the Europeans carried.
The conquest of the Americas would not have been possible without the aid the conquerors received from the spread of disease. The millions (estimates range from 3 to 8 million) of natives that lived on the Caribbean islands in 1492 were completely wiped out by 1530, killed off by violence and disease (Stannard x). And Hispaniola was only the beginning. As the Spanish conquistadors began to move inland, they encountered the great empires of South America. Cortés and his army were awestruck by Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital that was larger than imperial Rome, when they arrived in 1519 (Beck 26). Bernal Diaz, then a young soldier, documented their arrival:
When we saw all those cities and villages built in the water, and other great towns on dry land, and the straight and level causeway leading to Mexico, we were astounded. Those great towns and cues [pyramids] and buildings rising from the water, all made of stone, seemed like an enchanted vision from the tale of Amadis. Indeed, some of our soldiers asked whether it was not a dream. (Wright 26)
Vastly outnumbered by the Aztecs, Cortés and his men only succeeded in toppling this great city with the aid of some enemy tribes of the Aztecs and a smallpox epidemic:
It is now clear that the Old World plagues killed at least half the population of the Aztec, Maya, and Inca civilizations shortly before their overthrow. The sheer loss of people was devastating enough (Europe reeled for a century after the Black Death, which was less severe), but disease was also a political assassination squad, removing kings, generals, and seasoned advisors at the very time they were needed most. (Stannard 14)
In his book, The Columbian Exchange, Alfred Crosby says, "Had there been no epidemic. . . . Cortés might have ended his life spread-eagled beneath the obsidian blade of a priest of Huitzilopochtli [Aztec God]" (Wright 44). Many textbooks cite the superior weapons of the Europeans as the sole reason that the conquistadors were able to defeat the Aztecs. Living in the Americas even throws in some Aztec cowardice in its account: "Aztec weapons were no match for those of the white men. The Aztecs turned and ran. . . " (50).
Disease was the most effective weapon for the conquistadors, often raging ahead of them to wipe out Indian populations before the conquistadors even arrived:
And in the wake of the plague they had introduced, the Spanish soldiers followed, seeking gold from the natives, or information as to where to find it. They were troubled by the illness, and numbers of them died from it. But unlike the island natives the European invaders and their forbearers had lived with epidemic pestilence for ages. Their lungs were damaged from it, their faces scarred with pocks, but accumulation of disease exposure allowed them to weather much. So they carried infections with them everywhere they went-burdensome, but rarely fatal, except to the natives that they met. (Stannard 69)
The Incas, one of the wealthiest and largest empires anywhere, was swept by epidemic diseases before Pizarro's first trek into the region and "as elsewhere the soldiers and settlers who followed wreaked terrible havoc and destruction themselves" (Stannard 87). Most countries that fell victim to colonization by Europeans, such as India and parts of Africa, eventually saw their invaders leave. The Americas were the exception, because disease so devastated the native populations, they could not stop the invasion and turn away the invaders.
As crucial as the disease factor is to the formation of early America, there is little mention of it in textbooks. America! America!-one of the few books to accurately portray Columbus' interaction with the Indians, give detailed accounts of Spanish cruelty against Indians, and explain the devastating impact of colonization for the Indians-mentions disease only once or twice in passing, as in the following excerpt:
The Indians were just too trusting. The Spanish soldiers were far better armed and wore more protective armor than did the Indians. In addition, many Indians died from new diseases brought over by the Europeans. (74)
America: Yesterday and Today and The American Nation mention disease as the last of four reasons why Cortés was able to defeat the Aztecs. The United States: Its History and Neighbors mentions disease twice, and as in the above examples, only briefly. America: The People and the Dream does not cite disease as a reason Pizarro was able to conquer the great Inca empire:
At the time the Spanish arrived in Peru, the Inca empire had been greatly weakened by civil war. When Pizarro and his soldiers met the Inca emperor, Atahualpa, they attacked the Indians with canons and guns. . . . After two more years of fighting, Pizarro took control of the Inca empire and built a new capital in Peru-Lima, "the city of Kings." (49)
Most of the older textbooks do not mention disease at all. Of all the textbooks, A More Perfect Union is the only textbook to give pestilence acceptable coverage:
A great, invisible death walked among the Indians of the Americas after the European came to stay. For many centuries, Europeans had been building up immunity to typhoid, diphtheria, smallpox, and other plagues. But Indians had lived untouched by these diseases, until the European settlers brought the germs to the New World. With no immunity against the silent killers, many Indians died of such mild diseases as influenza and the common cold.
By far, the deadliest of the diseases Europeans brought to the Americas was smallpox. Spanish conquistadors spread smallpox throughout Central and South America. The results were devastating. During the century after Columbus arrived in the New World, the Indian population of Central America and Mexico dropped from more than 25 million to just one million people. Although warfare and enslavement caused some of these deaths, many more were the result of disease.
Smallpox also nearly wiped out the Indians of North America. Everywhere it touched the disease killed Indians by the thousands. It is said to have slain over half the population of North America. When the time came to defend their lands against the spread of European invaders, many Indian societies found themselves so weakened in numbers by various plagues that they were unable to defend themselves in war. (28)
The importance of covering pestilence adequately
lies in the perception students have of Native Americans. Some
historians have ignored the role of disease and implied that the
natives were conquered because they were backward and weak. Even
if the authors do not say this, a student could walk away with
that perception because the real reason, disease, is not presented.
It has already been demonstrated that other reasons-enslavement,
violence, and murder-are typically absent from the textbooks as
well. To exclude all of these factors, especially disease since
it was the most devastating, is to diminish the character and
strength of native peoples. It is important that students know
the extent of the assault Native Americans endured so that, instead
of concluding that they were weak, students can appreciate the
strength that Native Americans possessed to have endured the onslaught.
Students would then understand better how extraordinary it is
that Native American cultures have survived, and even flourished.