BIO 245X
7/12/18
Noah Delaney-Manuel
Artifact 4: Smallpox
In the world of disease, smallpox ranks as one of the most unique diseases that humans have ever come across in our time here on earth. Not only is this a very contagious virus, but it also can be a very deadly one. In the 20thcentury alone, smallpox killed 300 million people worldwide. Despite the factor of wealth that accommodates many of the diseases we as people face, smallpox had no boundaries as to who could become infected with the disease. Its range was unlimited and included people like peasants and even kings.
With the exploration of the world, came the exchange of many goods with trade with different regions of the world. In the case of the Native Americans, they did not receive such a good return for their trade of the goods. When Columbus arrived in the America’s, he saw an opportunity to spread his nation into the new and prosperous lands which were then only occupied by the natives. In the colonizers eyes, the natives would be an easy culture to take over because they did not have the firepower to hold back the waves of troops with guns that would soon befall them. But the biggest ally for the colonizers was not guns, instead it was disease. Since many of the diseases that the Europeans brought from Europe had never been in the Americas, many natives were killed by these diseases. The colonizers used this to their advantage and gave the Natives blankets infested with smallpox which would help reduce their numbers. This exchange is one of the first known documentations of biological warfare.
This also contributed to the slave trade of the Africans in the Americas. Since many of the Native population had either been killed off or died from smallpox, there was now a new demand for workers. Not only were the Africans in greater number and considered to be stronger than the Natives, but they had an edge over the Natives that they would never have; immunity to European disease. None of the Europeans would buy slaves who would soon die off because of a disease which they are already immune to. So, they found a new supply of slaves in the African population, making the Africans a top commodity in the trade world. Even in our own Revolutionary war, people immune to smallpox were needed and desired. During the war, Washington suspected that the British might attempt to uses smallpox as a weapon against his troops. He then proceeded to inoculate his troops for the smallpox virus so that it could not be used as a weapon against them.
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Noah Delaney-Manuel