AHC : Native Americans Immune to Europeans

[sloreck]

Part of the problem with major epidemics is the severe social disruption. The "Black Death" is credited with finishing off the feudal system. With roughly 1/3 of the population dying competition for labor was such that the enforcement of keeping serfs tied to the land was defunct - those landowners who survived would be willing to ignore the fact that the laborers who showed up really "belonged" to the knight a couple of castles over. Similarly towns were much more open about asking no questions if someone showed up. This is, naturally an oversimplification but still valid. In the New World the high death tolls shattered existing societies, and the survivors struggled simply to maintain a lifestyle that kept them fed. The point being that the remaining locals were far too disorganized to resist in ways their (reduced) numbers could allow. Resistance was much less effective than it could have been.

It is unclear what death percentage is needed to have this sort of crash of society, it seems obvious this number varies depending on the society whether nomadic, pastoral, urban etc. The example of the Black Death seems to show severe disruption at 30%. For this scenario if the Native Americans are going to be significantly better off versus the Europeans the following needs to happen: you need to somehow maintain decent herd immunity against the diseases that will be imported after major contact, the interval between the first contact/epidemics needs to be long enough so that you get both population rebound and reestablishment of societal order, and on second contact the inevitable epidemics are substantially smaller than OTL.

 

[KarneeKarnay]

It is unclear what death percentage is needed to have this sort of crash of society, it seems obvious this number varies depending on the society whether nomadic, pastoral, urban etc. The example of the Black Death seems to show severe disruption at 30%. For this scenario if the Native Americans are going to be significantly better off versus the Europeans the following needs to happen: you need to somehow maintain decent herd immunity against the diseases that will be imported after major contact, the interval between the first contact/epidemics needs to be long enough so that you get both population rebound and reestablishment of societal order, and on second contact the inevitable epidemics are substantially smaller than OTL.

Part of the problem is spread. These no guarantee that the initial outbreak in North America, would make it all the way to South America by the time of the second outbreak. You'd see a stronger defense from those who survived the initial outbreak, but due to how much time it would take to travel, due to dispersed populations, there's no guarantee that it would have any meaningful effect. Part of the reason OTL was so awful, because Europeans spread it to so many places, so quickly. The Black Plague had the advantage of having routes to travel throughout the world. Even in ancient eras, there was trade between China and Europe. We've no real proof that there was sustained trade between North and South.

 

[Mark E.]

A Norse migration in the 11th and 12th centuries will be much more gradual. There won’t be any canons or gunpowder yet, so the technologies would not be as forceful as they were for the Spanish. By 1300, what is now the eastern US and Canada will feel some impact of European contact, and if disease/immunity takes 100 years to spread instead of five, a smaller proportion of the Americans would be affected during a given decade. But if southern European maritime technology evolves faster with the knowledge of a new continent, migration might happen right at the time of the black plague.

 

[Lusitania]

The issue is that there was a native trade network that existed in the Americas and in addition tribal rivalries would see tribes that have been weakened by disease becoming venerable to attacks from other tribes, who in turn now get exposed to disease themselves. which then starts the cycle all over again. This is also very similar to iOTL. The more sophisticated the tribe the harder the crash.

On a the issue with Norse settlement, for them to have a significant impact over the eastern seaboard then contact would need to be sustained over 100 years. News of plenty of land would attract new settlers and news would reach rest of Europe eventually 50 years approximately. This would spur interest from other countries and people be they in the northern or even southern Europe even maybe North Africa since European control would not exist yet. Therefore this would spur development of faster, larger and stronger ships and eventually lead to more European contact.

It is not feasible to think that Norse would have Europe to themselves for 100 years. There would be a gradual early European intervention in Americas and while Europeans would not dominate technological the way they did in iOTL during the 16th century, the contact would still lead to settlements and at very least trade posts which is all that was needed to introduce disease.

 

[sloreck]

For smallpox and measles, you need direct person to person contact - although smallpox crusts can be infectious (the "smallpox blanket meme"). For malaria and yellow fever you need someone with the disease to be bitten by a mosquito of the correct species for transmission, for yellow fever you can have monkeys acting as a reservoir. For plague you can have the disease entirely murine, that is sustained endemically in a rodent population. For diseases like plague and yellow fever where there are animal hosts, you can get spread via animal-animal spread (via fleas, mosquitoes, etc). There are several limits to this, which are basically geographic/climatic. For plague, if there are geographic features like water barriers or deserts that separate populations of susceptible rodents, unless and until humans intervene the far side of the divide even though occupied by rodents and fleas will remain disease free. Likewise cold temperature and altitude will separate both mosquitoes and monkeys acting as a barrier for disease transmission.

OTL the presence of Europeans caused trade patterns that helped the spread of disease - the movement of Native Americans to Albany (a major Dutch trading center for the fur trade) from quite a distance helped spread disease. A group bringing furs would acquire a disease in Albany, and then along the route (usually river system/lake system) home with trade goods they would cause a linear disease outbreak. This would, of course, spread further.

There were extensive trade systems throughout North America in to Central America, and extensive trade systems in South America. It appears there was no significant interconnection due to the terrain/environment in the Isthmus of Panama area. Another question is even where there are trade routes, those with water connections/canoes like in the eastern half of the continent especially Northeast and Southern Canada in to the Great Lakes (canoes) allow fast enough travel so that somebody who becomes ill at one end may survive to pass this on down the line however when trade is carried out at a walking pace this is less likely.

 

[Richard V]

Part of the problem is spread. These no guarantee that the initial outbreak in North America, would make it all the way to South America by the time of the second outbreak. You'd see a stronger defense from those who survived the initial outbreak, but due to how much time it would take to travel, due to dispersed populations, there's no guarantee that it would have any meaningful effect. Part of the reason OTL was so awful, because Europeans spread it to so many places, so quickly. The Black Plague had the advantage of having routes to travel throughout the world. Even in ancient eras, there was trade between China and Europe. We've no real proof that there was sustained trade between North and South.

The Incas got smallpox because the Spanairds took control of Panama. The disease was transmitted by existing native trade routes not directly by Europeans.

 

[Gloss]

I wonder the long term effects of Malaria on a persisting native society, I imagine a lot of the Mississippi valley and humid regions are going to deal with important mortality rates, probably a shift away from the Mexico valley is going to happen given the disease.