Earth system impacts of the European arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492

Science Direct ^ | 1 March 2019 | Alexander Kocha and Chris Brierley

[fieldmarshaldj]

*Whitey is evil ping*

[mjp]

So, in the area of the United States, the whites didn’t steal huge amounts of land from the Indians. The whites colonized mostly empty land.

[Openurmind]

North of the Rio Grand was absolutely nothing compared to the population of Mexico, Central America and South America at the time. It’s fairly accurate.

[ronnie raygun]

Evil white explorers that killed off the innocent head chopping sacrificial hordes, Apocalypso sez it all

[Openurmind]

Something important in this is the term “the Americas”. This includes all of the new world from the Arctic to Antarctica. The Inca civilization alone was estimated to have a population of 10 million in 1527. I would venture to say that this is probably half of the prior population before diseases took their toll before 1527.

[Openurmind]

You do realize that as “advanced” as our “civilization” is right now we still have people “living in caves and tepees, and picking lice off our friends” but now we call them Tarps and cardboard boxes instead of Caves and Tepees. And we still count on our fingers...

[Jack Hammer]

Clearly I was talking about the universal standard, not small pockets of regressed retards.

Sorry I have to explain it to you.

[pierrem15]

Columbus, Cortes and Pizarro caused the Little Ice Age. Who knew? /s

[Mrs. Don-o]

Scanning the original article, the authors are talking about 90% reduction in the overall human population of the Western Hemisphere caused, not by the "white man," but by epidemic viral and bacterial infections.

These began with the first European contact. But many of these diseases spread so fast, they wiped out indigenous populations years before the white people actually set foot on lands thousand of miles from the initial points of contact.

That is, 90% of the indigenous populations died between 1492 and 1600.

Keep in mind that the Mayflower landed in Provincetown Harbor in late 1620: well after most of the local tribal settlements had already been rendered ghost towns by disease.

So this is not blaming"the United States" nor even "white males." It's blaming Variola major, Variola minor,and Yersinia pestis and other bacterial and viral pathogens.

Some of these diseases also caused mass die-outs in 14th century Europe, in some areas killing 40% - 90% of the human population there as well.

Some of these pathogens killed more people in Europe in 1918-1920 than were killed in combat in the First World War.

Genocide means a deliberate, malicious practice or policy aimed at the destruction of an entire people. The unintended 16th century epidemic die-off of Western Hemisphere people was a biological tragedy, not genocide.

[Badboo]

Only in the beginning. Vast areas of New England had been depopulated by disease even before the pilgrims arrived. It was proof to them that God’s plan was to make the land available to them.

Elsewhere, Indians were thriving, well for a while longer.

[Openurmind]

And in your haste to brand all the indigenous as ignorant cave dwelling savages you completely missed the whole point of the article. In your kneejerk comment based on keywords you missed the premise they are putting forth altogether. They are saying that the indigenous were clearing way too much forest and harming the environment. TRUE.

So they are claiming that this reduction of the ignorant savage population was actually GOOD for the environment. It actually supports your prejudices that they should have and needed to be destroyed anyways and you didn’t even catch it. The article had nothing at all related to your initial comment.

And if you think these ignorant savages only lived in cave and tepees and grunted at each other you are the one who is lacking in historical facts. They had highly advanced civilizations, organized governments, and extensive trade networks that were successful for 10 thousand years.

In the meantime our “civilized” and “universal standard” culture has all but destroyed it’s self in only a thousand years. In no way can we claim intellectual superiority.

[nicollo]

The “deforestation” was a “human impact” as the Indians had slash/burned the entire North American East Coast forest by the time of Columbus.

This deforestation by natives was an early contributor to the Little Ice Age in Europe (which started 1300-1400s but hit maximum by 1500/1600s).

[Jack Hammer]

You very obviously misunderstood my port.

Try it again.

[Gumdrop]

Well then, have they tackled the project of evaluating the CO2 content of air before and after the Black Plague in 1348?

Next, have they calculated the effect on CO2 in the air before and after the Thirty Years’ War [1618-1648]