Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Great Dying of the Americas

Starting point is 00:00:00 When Europeans arrived in the new world in 1492, it was the beginning of a series of events that was the biggest change in humanity since the discovery of agriculture. The magnitude of those changes wasn't even known at the time or even for several centuries thereafter. It has only been recently that researchers have discovered the magnitude of what happened. Learn more about the great dying of the Americas on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? throughline is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night and how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR.

Starting point is 00:01:00 While I've read many articles on this subject, researching it was probably much more difficult than it should have been. Despite it being, as we'll see, one of the most significant events in human history, It really doesn't have a name. Other tragedies such as the Holocaust or the Holodomor have names that have been given to them that we can refer to, but so far, not this. I've gone with the Great Dying, just because it's been used by several other sources, even though it isn't a universal way to refer to it yet. Before I get into what happened and why, we first have to establish what was happening in the Americas in 1491, before Europeans arrived. For the most part, the old world consisting of Europe, Asia, and Africa, was separated from the New World of North and

Starting point is 00:01:50 South America. I'll be using the phrases New World and Western Hemisphere synonymously, even though they aren't perfectly the same things. The biggest wave of humans arrived in the Americas about 20,000 years ago, based on current best estimates, but there was probably a steady flow of people over the Bering Land Bridge up until the end of the last ice age. That means for the last 11,000 years, up until about 500 years ago, the peoples of the Western Hemisphere and the Eastern Hemisphere had no contact with each other and took very different paths of social and technical development. For the purposes of this episode, this resulted in a host of diseases that arose in the old world, often arising from the domestication of animals. These diseases

Starting point is 00:02:32 included bubonic plague, chickenpox, measles, cholera, typhus, malaria, yellow fever, scarlet fever, influenza, diphtheria, whooping cough, dengue fever, anthrax, botulism, and of course, smallpox. That means, and I'm making a very broad generalization here, the people in the old world had as a group much greater exposure and immunity to these diseases. They certainly weren't totally immune and these illnesses still caused a great deal of death, but there was collectively much more immunity built up. The other relevant thing about the old world was its population. The population of the Americas before European contact has been very difficult to ascertain, and academic estimates have been all over the place. There is literally more than an order of magnitude difference between the highest and lowest estimates.

Starting point is 00:03:23 Estimating the population of the Americas is very difficult to do. You had large centralized civilizations like the Aztecs, but at the same time you had nomadic people living in the north, and also tribes living in the deep Amazon. initial estimates of the population of the new world were very low. These estimates were due to several things. The first of which was the inability of Europeans to believe that the native people of the Americas could have supported a large population. They also had little knowledge of how people actually lived, and a low estimate served as a justification for what ended up happening.

Starting point is 00:03:55 Some of the very first, non-scientific estimates put the entire population of the Western Hemisphere at around 1 million people. Later researchers took a more systematic attempt at estimating populations and had higher estimates. As more archaeological discoveries were made, a clear picture developed of how pre-Columbian Americans lived. Many assumptions regarding how densely populated regions were changed. One area in particular where human settlements were found that were totally unexpected was in the middle of the Amazon. In just the last few years, enormous circular enclosures were found in the southern part of the Amazon River and rainforest. These enclosures were anywhere from 100 to a thousand feet in diameter and usually located on small hilltops.

Starting point is 00:04:39 There were thousands of these enclosures scattered over a 6.7 million square kilometer area of rainforest. And it wasn't just in the Amazon. More information has been found regarding how people lived everywhere from the Great Plains to Patagonia. They often were much more sophisticated in how they managed the land they lived in than anyone ever thought. One of the techniques that was used was the controlled use. use of fire. In the rainforest, regular controlled burns would clear land for agriculture. In the plains or forests, this would allow for new growth, which was preferred food for game animals. The controlled burns created better hunting grounds. The image of nomadic hunters constantly moving

Starting point is 00:05:17 in search of game isn't totally true. They actually controlled their landscape to improve grazing land. The cumulative result of all these discoveries was a substantial increase in the estimates of the pre-Columbian population of the Americas. Population estimates are still that. There are still a substantial range of estimates which go from 8 million people to 112 million people. However, the consensus estimate is now that there were probably around 55 to 60 million people in the Western Hemisphere before the arrival of Europeans. Some of the journal entries from the very first European explorers provide corroboration for higher population estimates. Giovanni de Verrazano was one of the first Europeans to explore the eastern seaboard of North America in the very very,

Starting point is 00:06:01 early 16th century. He reported seeing many settlements all along the coast in inland rivers, with frequent fires and smoke emanating from the many villages. However, this was a full century before the first English settlement in Jamestown, Virginia. When the settlers showed up a hundred years later, they found a very different environment. There weren't villages located within sight of each other all along the coast. So what happened? What changed? What happened from the landing of Columbus to about the year 1600 was probably the largest loss of life in human history. All of those diseases which had spread in the old world were now unleashed upon the new world. None of the 50 to 60 million people who inhabited the Americas had any immunity to any of these

Starting point is 00:06:48 diseases. And they weren't just hit with a disease. This wasn't just a pandemic. They were pretty much hit by all the diseases. This wasn't a case where there was a patient zero that began the spread of the diseases. Many of these communities were rather isolated from one another, so it wasn't like a modern pandemic. This was a constant spread throughout the 16th century as Europeans spread throughout North and South America. To be certain, there were many horrible things which contributed to the deaths during this period. The Spanish enslaved many natives, there were wars, massacres, and other atrocities that occurred during this time. And I don't want to downpillard the significance of those events, and many of them will be worthy of future dedicated episodes,

Starting point is 00:07:30 but they all paled in comparison to the deaths from diseases. Many, if not most of the victims from disease during this period, never saw a European or even knew that they existed. How many people died? Estimates are that by the year 1600, the native population of the Americas had decreased by 90%. The total number of deaths over this period may have been as high, as 50 to 100 million people. This comprised a full 10% of the population of the earth.

Starting point is 00:08:03 For an example, before the arrival of Cortez in Mexico, it had a population of 20 to 30 million people. It was the most densely populated part of the new world. Within 50 years of his arrival, the population of Mexico was down to 1 to 3 million people. To put this into perspective, even during the Black Death, mortality rates were only 30 to 50%. The drop in population in the Americas was so great that it is believed to have affected the climate. Depopulating of the Americas led to increased forest growth, which resulted in a decrease of CO2, and probably contributed to the little ice age which began in the 16th century. The diseases had a cascading effect.

Starting point is 00:08:43 Fewer people meant fewer people to work fields, grow crops, and hunt game. This resulted in famines that went along with the plagues. While many of the things inflicted on native populations by Europeans were intentional, including cases of purposely spreading smallpox. Most of the disease was spread inadvertently. No one in the 16th century had a scientific understanding of germs and disease. The Europeans who arrived certainly saw diseases wipe out villages and cities. However, no one really put together what was happening on a global level.

Starting point is 00:09:14 Many Europeans who showed up in the 17th and 18th centuries found a land that had already been depopulated. They assume that what they had come across was the way it had always been. The enormous herds of bison that were found in North America were probably not the norm. The number of bison probably increased dramatically after the native populations died out. Even while many of the 16th century numbers are in doubt, they are consistent with the 19th century numbers for the tribes which made contact with Europeans later on. The Haida people in the Pacific Northwest were one of the last North American tribes to make contact with Europeans. And they also lost 90% of their population, again with small people. pox being the biggest killer.

Starting point is 00:09:56 Sadly, to a certain extent, much of this was unavoidable. Because of the way the two hemispheres developed, whenever they met, whatever the circumstances, it was probably going to result in a massive pandemic, just because the new world hadn't built up any of the disease immunities of the old world. If instead of Europeans it had been the Chinese Admiral Zhang He and his treasure fleet that had arrived in the Americas first, things might have unfolded differently, but the end result would probably have been similar. It is only now, 500 years after it took place, that we are really starting to understand just how massive the great dying of the Americas

Starting point is 00:10:33 actually was. Since the dawn of humanity, there has not been a war, plague, or famine that we know of, which has been responsible for the loss of more lives. Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast. The executive producer is Darcy Adams. The associate producers are Thorpe Thompson and Peter Bennett. Today's review comes from listener AOSC2 over at Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write, great bite-sized episodes. Hey, Gary, discover this podcast recently, and I love it. I learn a lot about so many different topics in a short amount of time. Keep up the good work. Thanks, AOSC. I'm happy to personally welcome you to the show. As you've recently discovered it, you'll have a lot of back episodes to listen to before you're in the completionist club.

Starting point is 00:11:21 Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you two can have it read on the show.

Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Great Dying of the Americas

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.