European's Greatest Weapon: Biological Warfare

For a longtime, I have known that the Europeans were responsible for bringing disease to the Americas. What I did not know, was the staggering numbers associated with their arrival.

I never really thought of it as biological warfare until I read a section of the reading that quotes Governor Bradford of Plymouth colony. In regards to the massive dying of the native american indians he said it was "the hand of God at work, sweeping away great multitudes of the natives...that he might make room for us." [Ways of the World, Chapter 13, Pgs -623-624]

We often associate empires with their brut force and military power. In the case of the Americas, the Europeans were able to conquer through biological warfare. This definitely gave them the upper hand and played a large part in their takeover of the Americas.

I found a great timeline on http://www.kporterfield.com/aicttw/articles/disease.html. It provides a helpful chronological timeline of disease brought by the Europeans.

1493	Columbus lands for the second time on the island of Hispaniola bringing livestock in order to start a colony there. Influenza, probably from germs carried by the livestock, sweeps through the native people, killing many of them. Modern researchers believe that American Indian traders carried the disease to Florida and throughout the Caribbean.
1507–1519	Two waves of smallpox kill from a third to a half of the American Indians in what are now Cuba, Haiti (Hispaniola), and Puerto Rico. Canoe traders carry the disease to the Yucatan Peninsula of what is now Mexico, where it kills many Maya.
1519–1520	Smallpox reaches what is now Guatemala. An American Indian who survived, recorded: “Great was the stench of the dead. After our fathers and grand fathers succumbed, half of the people fled the fields. The dogs and the vultures devoured the bodies.”
1520	By now about three million Arawak people in the Caribbean have died from European diseases.
1520	Smallpox enters what is now Mexico at the port of Veracruz on the ship of Panfilo de Narvaez on April 23. It quickly spreads to Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital. A citizen of Tenochtitlan later wrote: “A great many died from the plague, and many others died of hunger. They could not get up to search for food, and everyone else was too sick to care for them, so they starved to death in their beds.”
1521	Smallpox spreads south through Mesoamerica and South America.
1527–1530	Smallpox arrives in the Inca Empire. The ruler Huayna Capac dies from it. As many as 200,000 Inca people are killed by the disease.
1531–1533	A measles epidemic sweeps through Sonora, Mexico, south of what is now Arizona. It is believed to have spread northward.
1539	The Spanish explorer DeSoto travels through the Southeast. It is believed diseases spread by his party and the animals that they brought with them for food eventually killed about 75 percent of the American Indians in the Southeast.
1540	Coronado explores the Southwest. Diseased livestock that his company brings with them carry germs that transmit disease to American Indians.
1545–1548	An epidemic that is believed to have been pneumonic plague and bubonic plague (black death) or typhus covers Mesoamerica killing thousands of Indian people.
1555	The Portuguese bring the first smallpox germs to Brazil. Large numbers of Native people die.
1559	An influenza epidemic kills many Indian people in Mesoamerica and the Caribbean.
1560	Another wave or smallpox kills so many Native people in Brazil that the Portuguese can no longer rely on Indian slaves to cut sugar cane. They import slaves from Africa.
1566–1567	Two million South American Indians die from typhoid fever.
1576	Thyphoid fever kills thousands of American Indians in Mexico.
1585	English settlers on what is now Roanoke Island in Virginia spread diseases and many Indian people living nearby die.
1592–1596	The Seneca Indians in what is now central New York state suffer from an epidemic of measles.
1607	Half of the Timucuan people of what is now Florida have died from European diseases spread from the Caribbean.
1613	Missionaries report Bubonic plague kills half of the Christian Indian people in Florida.
1617-1619	A disease that is thought to be smallpox sweeps through what is now the Massachusettes Bay. Nine out of ten die. The disease is thought to have been brought by a fishing crew or the crew of Thomas Hunt’s slaving expedition in 1615. Because they are so few in number, the Indian people cannot stop the Mayflower from landing in 1620.
1619	By now 90 percent to 95 percent of the Mesoamerican Indians alive in 1519 have been killed by European diseases. The bubonic plague that began in Florida has spread to New England
1630	A small pox epidemic strikes the Huron of Ontario.
1630–1635	English settlers carry germs that set off another wave of smallpox and possibly that kill many of the remaining Indian people of what is by now called New England. Smallpox spreads westward to the tribes living near what are now the Great Lakes. Over 10,000 Huron die.
1634	Dutch traders introduce smallpox to what is now Connecticut. Ninety-five percent of the American Indians living along what is now the Connecticut River die. The epidemic moves north to what is now Canada.
1635–1640	Nearly half of the Huron people of what is now Canada die from European diseases brought by fur traders and missionaries.
1637	A disease believed to be scarlet fever kills new England Indians and spreads west to the Great Lakes region.
1647	Indians of the Northeast die from an influenza epidemic.
1649	A smallpox epidemic kills Indian people in New England.
1658	A measles epidemic kills New England Indians.
1662	More than a thousand Iroquois people die from smallpox in central New York state.
1669	Another wave of smallpox sweeps through New England and then the Great Lakes killing many Indian people.
1675	Another influenza epidemic kills many Indians of the Northeast.
1687	The Indian people of New England suffer a smallpox epidemic again.
1690	Malaria reaches the southeastern part of North America. Many Indians begin to die from it.
1692	Indians of the Northeast are hit by another measles epidemic.
1713–1715	A measles epidemic kills Indian people of New England and the Great Lakes.
1715–1721	A smallpox epidemic covers from what is now Texas to New England.
1717–1737	Malaria strikes the Miami people of what is now Illinois.
1729–1733	A smallpox epidemic stretches from what is now Texas to the Hudson Bay.
1735–1736	A diptheria epidemic kills New England Indians.
1738	Smallpox kills half of the Cherokee Indians of the Southeast.
1743	Russian fur traders spread diseases to the Aleut people of what is now southwestern Alaska. By 1800, 80 percent of the Aleut people will have died from these diseases.
1746	Typhoid fever spreads along the mouth of the St. Lawrence River killing many MicMac in Nova Scotia.
1750–1752	A wave of smallpox stretches from what is now Texas to the Great Lakes.
1753	The Cherokee suffer another smallpox epidemic.
1755–1756	Repeated epidemics of smalpox spread across the North American continent.
1761	Influenza spreads across the North American continent.
1768–1770	People of the Southwest begin dying from a measles epidemic.
1775–1783	A smallpox epidemic sweeps across the North American continent. It extends from Mexico to Canada.
1776–1778	Measles sweeps across North America from Texas to the Hudson Bay.
1777	A European respiratory illness, possibly influenza, kills many California Indians living in missions.
1780–1800	Measles and smallpox epidemics sweep across the Southern Plains, Texas and northern Mexico.
1781	The Blackfeet of what is now Montana experience an epidemic of smallpox.
1782–1783	Smallpox sweeps across the Plateau region.
1785-1787	A smallpox epidemic kills Indians of the Artic and subarctic in what are now Alaska and Canada.
1788	Pueblo people die from a smallpox epidemic.
1797	A smallpox epidemic strikes central Mexico.
1802	Smallpox kills two out of three Omaha Indians living in what is now Nebraska.Many Indians in California die during epidemics of pneumonia and diptheria.
1815–1816	Smallpox epidemics strike the Plains and Pueblo Indians
1829–1833	A disease that is believed to be either malaria or smallpox kills about 150,000 American Indians. The germs were carried by a ship that had traveled from Chile and docked in what is now Oregon.
1831–1834	Smallpox epidemics afflict Plains Indians and those living in the great Lakes.
1832–1835	At least half of the American Indian people living on the Lower Chinook river in the Northwest die from smallpox.
1837	American Indians living near what is now the Missouri River in what is now South Dakota begin dying from smallpox. From there the disease spreads to what are now North Dakota, Montana and Saskatchewan. The epidemic kills so many Mandan people that only 150 remain. Over 17,000 die.
1836–1840	Smallpox has spread from Alaska to the Southwest.
1840	Non-Indian whalers spread diseases, including diptheria, to the Inuit people of the eastern Arctic.
1843–1846	Smallpox affects the Aleut people of the Arctic and the Indians of the Southwest
1847	Measles strike the Cayuse Indians of the Pacific Northwest. Hundreds die from this disease believed to have been introduced by missionaries.
1848–1850	Smallpox epidemics strike Plains and Plateau Indians.
1849	Gold Rush miners infected with cholera spread it to Plains Indian people.
1854–1857	A major smallpox epidemic affects the Plains tribes.
1860–1867	A smallpox epidemic affects Indigenous people across the North American continent.
1869–1870	Smallpox strikes Northern Plains Indian people of Saskatchewan.
1876–1878	Another wave of smallpox kills Native people from St. Lawrence river to the Northwest coast.
1890	The Inuvialuit people of the Western Arctic began dying from European diseases brought by whalers. Over a ten year period nine out of ten people die and villages are abandoned.
1896—1899	Plains tribes, California tribes and Southwest tribes experience another smallpox epidemic.
1918–1919	Tens of thousands of American Indians die of Influenza in Arizona, New Mexico, and the Rocky Mountain states. Because the U.S. Government is focusing on the war effort, little is done to stop the epidemic among Indian people.