Topic > The Vanishing of the Natives at Our Feet

Natives were one of the first peoples to actively gather and live in harmony as a civilization. They have done so for thousands of years, however, this way of life has been put in jeopardy since Columbus decided to colonize North America in 1492. In 158 years the total population dropped dramatically from over 112 million Native Americans living peacefully until to 1492, to less than 6 million in 1650. This is not only due to the brutal way in which Columbus and his men removed the natives from their land, but also to the fact that they were dirty pirates carriers of many Eurasian diseases that did not/barely harmed the conquistadors but were deadly to the natives. Why? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay At the beginning of the invasion of Christopher Columbus and his European fleet an estimated 18 million natives lived just north of Mexico. Before the arrival of Europeans, native Indians were surprisingly free from disease. The likelihood of anyone dying from a disease was slim. When Christopher Columbus, colonists and explorers began to realize that the consequences were disastrous for the natives, the number of victims rose to 80-90% and whole crowds of people died from simple diseases such as: “bubonic plague, chickenpox, pneumonic plague , cholera, diphtheria, influenza, measles, scarlet fever, smallpox, typhoid, tuberculosis and whooping cough.” The most harmful disease brought by Columbus and his conquerors was smallpox. The natives called this disease the running face disease. Their immune systems were not ready for such a brutal attack, the only diseases they would have to face would be those caused by animals. This had been going on for so many years that the immune system was more than ready to deal with these diseases. However, no one was ready for the death and destruction that the conquistadors brought to the new world. If we travel forward in time a few hundred years and compare the lifestyle of the natives and the way people in America lived, we see great changes in both cases. ends with the arrival of the settlers. Not everyone was good, the natives still have a matriarchal society, women played an important role in the society as they had most of the central roles of political leadership and control of property. However there is no “one size fits all” answer, some native colonies were peaceful others warlike, however, one thing that was the same for all colonies was the living conditions. They were great, yet food was everywhere, health was back to where it was before the Europeans arrived, and populations were growing abundantly. When we look at one of the largest cities in the world, founded in 1624 (New York) and compare it to the life of these natives, we see that the living conditions of the average citizen I quickly come to the conclusion that I would much rather have been a native of 19th century America. This is because in 1845 the potato famine began in Ireland. The Potato Famine at the time caused mass starvation across the UK. This forced thousands of Irish men, women and children to move to countries where the potato famine had no effect, so many Irish men (men, women and children) decided to move to the new world and the biggest city and the biggest decision logic to follow. the American dream was to move to New York City. However, when they arrived and saw that living spaces were limited and that it was almost impossible to enter the world of work, many immigrants, especially Italians, turned to a life of crime. However, if we look at the negative aspects of living as.