Epidemics of virgin soil - ones that the local inhabitants had not yet encountered - wiped out most of the native populations in America. The lack of local labor made it necessary to import slaves. This established the supremacy of Europe. Is it possible that if the natives had survived, the distribution of power would have been different?
Matthew Ward, Senior Lecturer in History, University of Dundee. Translation: Avi Blizovsky
The corona virus epidemic has been compared to the spread of many epidemics in the past, incl the great plague that paralyzed London and the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918. However, the most significant historical episode of the epidemics is hardly mentioned. The modern world as we know it would not exist without it The plagues that swept America in the 16th and 17th centuries. These plagues created the modern world.
Following the voyages of Christopher Columbus, Europeans came to America in increasing numbers. They brought with them a variety of viruses, such as smallpox, influenza, measles, mumps, and chickenpox, to which the Indians had neither prior exposure nor immunity. Historians call the plagues resulting from this "virgin land plagues".
The corona virus has demonstrated the extent of the impact of an epidemic on a vulnerable population. Similarly, these virgin soil plagues quickly swept through Native American communities. The companies were shocked. Everyone fell ill at once: there was no one to care for the sick and no one to plant or harvest crops.
The impact of the plagues was widespread. They removed the people who could have resisted the European expansion. Studies now show that the population in America was large and numbered perhaps even 100 million people before the arrival of the Europeans. In many areas, within a hundred years of exposure to these diseases, they died 95% of the population.
We are well aware of the Aztec and Inca empires, but similar, if less complex, societies existed elsewhere. When Hernando de Soto explored what is now the southeastern United States in the 40s, he found the local population living in large towns, which could allow for armies of thousands of people. When English explorers entered the region at the end of the following century, they found only a few scattered tribes.
For many years historians have questioned the validity of De Soto's travel accounts. With Archeology has verified this Many of the accounts his people told. These societies were destroyed by virgin soil plagues, although their direct contact with the Europeans was limited.
Hernando de Soto. Wikishare
These plagues not only killed the people, but also destroyed the culture and morale. Most Native American societies were not educated - they did not have a written language. As a result, when all the elders of the tribe died at the same time, most of the culture and knowledge of the community also disappeared. This loss fed cycles of despair that undermined Native American resistance and provided justification for European expansion.
manifest destiny
How many East Asian observers see it as a failure of Western governments to control the corona virus as evidence of the weakness and fragility of Western democracy. Similarly, in the 16th century, Europeans saw the plagues of the virgin soil as proof of their moral and biological superiority. They were evidence that God intended the Europeans to take over America.
When the Pilgrims arrived in New England in the 20s they found a local population already decimated by disease. Along the coast were abandoned villages that provided perfect settlement sites. It was as if God had blessed the pilgrims' mission.
The plagues themselves helped justify colonialism - it was God's will, after all. They allowed the European Americans to adapt the native lands to their needs while absolving themselves of any guilt, and showed that their empire arose by virtue of divine destiny.
We don't yet know how widespread the long-term social and economic effects of the coronavirus will be, but these virgin soil plagues have had unexpected consequences. Many of the early European adventurers expected Native Americans to be the labor force to work their fields. When they began to produce basic and profitable crops such as sugar, coffee and tobacco, the demand for labor became intense. With no native population to exploit, Europeans turned to Africa to provide them with this labor force.
Transoceanic slave trade
The slave trade had long existed in various forms, but its scale in the 17th and 18th centuries, the methods used, and the justifications provided, were unprecedented. The absolute ownership of people, slavery justified by notions of racial superiority was, in many ways, the result of these virgin land plagues.
While the field of "alternative history" can be difficult and dangerous, it is clear that if these virgin soil plagues had not swept America, the modern world would have developed in a very different way. The American nations did not exist in their current form - no less.
The obvious racism and sense of European superiority that emerged in the 18th century and has troubled the world ever since, would not have developed in the same way. We might also consider whether, without the profits from America's natural wealth, Europe would have become so dominant in the world.
Without virgin soil plagues, the world would be very different. It remains to be seen how much the corona virus will also change today's world.
For an article in The Conversation
More of the topic in Hayadan:
One response
Apparently, regarding North America, it is not certain that the result would have been different because there were no city centers with a power reminiscent of the Aztecs, Maya, etc.
But regarding Central and South America where cities and a strong culture were established
The reality today was probably very different, we accept countries with a different culture,
Another thing to remember is that the Andeans didn't exactly love each other
These were tribes that fought many times with each other in their opinion
The rival tribe at the time was much worse than the Europeans so that in many cases they cooperated with the Europeans against the rival tribe which was probably more common than cooperation between them against the Europeans,
And the last thing is the description of the Europeans as if they suddenly developed some kind of ideology of supremacy... perhaps it is more correct that they are a continuation of a period of supremacy and slavery that existed for most of humanity throughout history. The technological advantage is that it allowed the Europeans to take over the world, but they were not essentially different from the other nations.
who even look at how, for example, Britain looked inside the country
There, too, everything was based on classes, with a large percentage of the population
is in the status of servants, you can see photo files on YouTube where you can see what crazy poverty existed there, children thrown in the street barefoot, torn clothes, boys and girls working hard in factories in coal mines, the image that is fixed today of the rich European does not exactly reflect the reality of most Europeans a few hundred years ago years