In 1523 Giovanni da Verrazzano set sail on a quest to explore the West on behalf of France. The voyage was plagued with various issues as he searched for a passage to the Pacific Ocean and Asia. As Verrazzano sailed up the East coast of the Americas to finally rest at what today is known as Newport, Rhode Island he observed many signs of Native American’s inhabiting the coastline (Staff, 2012). Around the time Verrazzano was traveling up the East coast Native American populations were estimated to be between 2 million and 18 million strong. While there is a huge variance in this estimation, there is little doubt that the Americas were well populated by then (Calloway, 2012). As the first Europeans arrived in the Americas they brought
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There is at least 93 confirmed pandemics and epidemics from the 16th through the 20th century. The Europeans were under the impression God was on their side and that he was the reason behind Native Americans dying in such large numbers. Some Native Americans however believed that God had abandoned them, or that smallpox was a personification of the “bad spirit”, and witchcraft was the cause of all the disease and they confirmed these belief as their healers were helpless in curing the outbreaks (Halverson, 2016) . Many Native Americans searched for various outlets to cure their disease, the only problem was the cure “antibiotics” had not been invented yet. Since the Native Americans were spread out, many of the diseases where carried from trading post to trading post by French and various fur traders. The Oregon Trail also acted as a main line for spreading of these diseases, of course there was generally no malicious intent of spreading these diseases. Although, there are documented cases where Europeans deliberately infected Native Americans with the smallpox virus. In 1763, British general named Jeffrey Amherst reportedly gave blankets infected with smallpox to nearby natives (Halverson,
There is at least 93 confirmed pandemics and epidemics from the 16th through the 20th century. The Europeans were under the impression God was on their side and that he was the reason behind Native Americans dying in such large numbers. Some Native Americans however believed that God had abandoned them, or that smallpox was a personification of the “bad spirit”, and witchcraft was the cause of all the disease and they confirmed these belief as their healers were helpless in curing the outbreaks (Halverson, 2016) . Many Native Americans searched for various outlets to cure their disease, the only problem was the cure “antibiotics” had not been invented yet. Since the Native Americans were spread out, many of the diseases where carried from trading post to trading post by French and various fur traders. The Oregon Trail also acted as a main line for spreading of these diseases, of course there was generally no malicious intent of spreading these diseases. Although, there are documented cases where Europeans deliberately infected Native Americans with the smallpox virus. In 1763, British general named Jeffrey Amherst reportedly gave blankets infected with smallpox to nearby natives (Halverson,