American Plague

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From: "Kelly Parks" <visvivalaw@h...>
Date: Sat Jan 24, 2004 3:02 pm
Subject: American Plague




I need some help with a story idea. Let's say around 1600 a new disease appears. It starts in the North American colonies and is carried by ship back to Europe. This is a "Black Death" level event and about 1/3rd of Europe dies off. It's common knowledge among the survivors that the plague came from America so even as Europe recovers there is strong incentive not to resume trade with the colonies. The surviving settlers in North America are pariahs for centuries after the event. The colonies thus have de facto independence long before they wanted it. The trade in tobacco, etc. is cut off.

Would this allow for the survival of various Native American cultures (like the Missisipian civilzation) and for enough technology transfer from trade with surviving colonist to "level the playing field"?

Hmmmm. Maybe the disease exists because (unlike in OTL) the Missisipians had domesticated a herd animal (goats?), so "goat pox" was already common in their population and most native americans had immunity but the Europeans had none. I'm trying to stay in step with Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel."

--Let's say around 1600 ---

For there to be any real numbers in the
colonies wouldnt this need to be 1700 or at least 1650?

The problem with this is that you can't simply invent a disease (unless you put it in the ABS forum) and as far as I know their simply wasn't a disease in the Americas that could do that much damage. To have this happen you would need somthing to increase the native population by a few million and have them begin to form population centers with close contact to many animeals.

American Plagues happened?

There was a very high death rate in the American colonies in the middle and south. New York, New England, and Canada escaped most of the dieoff, but the Chesapeake was lethal. For all we know the diseases that the American Indians had (besides Syphilis and Trichinosis) did spread to Europe and the colonies. Death rates died down dramatically after the Europeans had been in contact with America long enough.
America Plague might have killed only twenty percent of the European children and older people, as distinct from the massive kill rates that swept through America from Smallpox, Measles, Chickenpox, etc. Also, it was a slower and less epidemic disease. Perhaps it was carried by Indians and when it hit Europeans they were either killed or immunised, but did not become carriers. Maybe the genetic adaptation for carriers wasn't there.
Typhus has carriers that aren't killed but do carry the disease and when they are bitten by a louse the disease is transmitted. Individuals are the reservoir for the disease. Typhoid works the same way, which is why we had Typhoid Mary. This is a field that needs someone more knowledgable than me.

Ebola ?

What about if ebola was somehow transported to America by African slaves at some point in 1650-1700 ? IIRC there was 1 theory around that the Black Death wasn't Bubonic Plague at all, but in fact ebola, since some scientists argued the former disease couldn't have travelled as fast as is reputed to have been the case with the hist epidemic.