Chapter 13 - Political Transformations (Empires & Encounters)
The Great Dying:
Like I mentioned in my last blog post, there are many things that happened during The Early Modern Era, but that we don't usually think of when we think of that period in history. The Great Dying is one of those events that we know happened, but we don't talk about much. It's truly sad that it isn't talked about more because it had a HUGE impact on Native American societies. There are many different factors that contributed to this event happening. For one "the lack of most domesticated animals meant the absence of acquired immunities to Old World diseases such as smallpox, measles, typhus, influenza, malaria, and later, yellow fever." The last thing anyone thought would be the huge impact it would have on Native Americans because they had never been exposed to all the things they were suddenly being bombarded with. When Native American people came into contact with the European and African diseases, they died in appalling numbers, in many cases losing up to 90% of the population. The number of people who died is insane, and heart breaking honestly because I'm sure Native American's were in complete shock when all this started to happen. Not only was their land being taken from them but their people were dying at a rapid speed and they probably had no idea why these things were happening and/or how to stop it.
This chapter really just shows how all of these horrible things that were going around in the world were being "masked" and other things like the beginning of modernization were emphasized and hiding the events that truly happened.
Like I mentioned in my last blog post, there are many things that happened during The Early Modern Era, but that we don't usually think of when we think of that period in history. The Great Dying is one of those events that we know happened, but we don't talk about much. It's truly sad that it isn't talked about more because it had a HUGE impact on Native American societies. There are many different factors that contributed to this event happening. For one "the lack of most domesticated animals meant the absence of acquired immunities to Old World diseases such as smallpox, measles, typhus, influenza, malaria, and later, yellow fever." The last thing anyone thought would be the huge impact it would have on Native Americans because they had never been exposed to all the things they were suddenly being bombarded with. When Native American people came into contact with the European and African diseases, they died in appalling numbers, in many cases losing up to 90% of the population. The number of people who died is insane, and heart breaking honestly because I'm sure Native American's were in complete shock when all this started to happen. Not only was their land being taken from them but their people were dying at a rapid speed and they probably had no idea why these things were happening and/or how to stop it.
This chapter really just shows how all of these horrible things that were going around in the world were being "masked" and other things like the beginning of modernization were emphasized and hiding the events that truly happened.
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