European Invasion of Indian North America, 1513–1765

European Invasion of Indian North America, 1513–1765

Indian North America was peopled in 1500 by some five hundred societies who fully used the continent—which their ancestors had inhabited for about 25,000 years—to sustain themselves by hunting and gathering, slash and burn migratory farming, or, especially in the south, by settled agriculture. There is much debate about the total population of that continent, with serious estimates ranging from one to eighteen million people, but there is some consensus that individual societies or confederacies very seldom contained more than 30,000 people.

European Invasion

By far the worst war for all American Indian people after 1500 was the war against alien diseases that invaded more stealthily, quickly, and pervasively than the accompanying Europeans. The human intruders did not arrive or multiply fast enough to match the devastation of Indian North America, and the total population of the continent continued to decline until at least 1700. Natural immunities to new diseases take generations to develop and interaction between migrating peoples from three continents initially proved deadly, and particularly so for American Indians. Endemic malaria plagued European immigrants to the southeast, but "virgin land" infections of smallpox, measles, influenza, cholera, and yellow fever could kill the majority in an American Indian society.

Read the rest of this Article with our European Invasion of Indian North America, 1513–1765 Access Pass.