Practice question · True or false
The majority of epidemic deaths in the Americas occurred after sustained European settlement, as a direct consequence of military campaigns.
Hints
- Pathogens travelled faster than the people who carried them.
- They moved along existing indigenous networks ahead of any settlement.
Show the answer
False
Why
Disease ran ahead of the conquerors along indigenous trade networks, a large share of the dead never saw a European. Estimates run to 50–90% mortality within a century and a half, a scale that makes every battle of the conquest a rounding error.
Practise Big History and Environmental History
The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History I is free to start.
More questions on Big History and Environmental History
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- Why did Eurasian populations carry epidemic diseases that American populations did not?
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- What is the central criticism of environmentally determinist accounts such as _Guns, Germs, and Steel_?