(Document A) Since there was a short supply of fresh water, many colonists died of dehydration. Additionally, the document stated that waste in early Jamestown tended to cluster instead of flush away. These mishaps caused disease which eventually led to death. Another hardship the colonists had to endure was their exposure to new deadly diseases. Nearly 70 out of the 110 original colonists lost their lives by
One of the main ideas of this article was to open the read’s eyes to how many hardships the natives had to face starting with the rapid destruction of their population. “Alien microbes killed vast numbers of natives, sometimes before the victims had seen a white of black face.”(pg. 4). The disease that spread through the New World had wiped out many Native Americans, especially targeting the old and the young. The population of the natives was lowered to an amount they left them without enough people to sustains their lifestyles, they didn’t have enough people to hunt, gather, and farm, and they didn’t have the elders to keep their traditions and values alive.
John Smith said, "...one amongst the rest did kill his wife, powdered [i.e., salted] her, and had eaten part of her." ( The starving time pg.2) This shows that the colonists were so daspreat for food that they did anything to obtain it. Not only did the colonists spend most of their time looking for gold but they also had little agricultural experiance. To make things worse, the land of which they setteled on was swampy and desease infested. John Smith said, "The colonists, a group with little agricultural experience and weighted with gentry, instead found a swampy and disease-ridden site."
According to Kraut, “The elderly who carried in their heads ancient histories, cures and crafts were often wiped out quickly, taking with them generations of a tribe’s collective understanding of the world and itself” (Kraut 17). It made them lose their expertise: hunting and gathering. Few Native Americans who survived the genocidal disaster had to naturally assimilate into the European culture to survive or fight to the death against the white invaders. Besides, their society fell into ruin. Shamans, conjurers, medicine men, or anyone who had claimed special power lost respect and authority because their traditional therapies were not effective in curing the infectious diseases.
In 1605-1612, the colonists experienced the longest drought (Doc B). Because of the lack of rain, they weren’t able to grow crops (Doc B). The seasons also caused diseases to spread (Doc E). The occupations of the colonists contributed to the colonist dying. They brought gentlemen, rich men that didn’t work with their hands, and they wanted other people to build their houses and hunt for their food (Doc C).
By 1350 there were some quite serious public health problems in towns, where the lack of fresh water and drainage was a problem which caused the water to be contaminated by other sources and was not healthy to drink. The government were not willing to donate funds to fixing this problem because they did not think it was their job to improve public health, but sometimes they passed laws requiring people to keep the streets clean especially in times when disease was common however these laws were difficult to enforce. Therefore, the Romans’ progress was not maintained. Meanwhile, animal excrement was common in the street and butchers slaughtered their animals and threw the remains on the streets which lead to disease and germs causing people to get sick. All this suggests that during the middle ages there was no progress in public health and that the standard of public health had gone backwards especially in the towns and cities.
There were a lot a deaths and diseases that spread among the neighboring Indian tribes that sent a lot of them to an early grave including Captain Gosnold the Projector of the Enterprise. Planter John Rolfe and Captain John Smith mapped the area and intimidated Indians getting food that kept settlers from starving. This ended the mad scramble for gold as well as forced the men to build defenses and plant Indian corn. The economy of the Virginia Colony depended on farming as the main source of money. Due to the climate the colony wasn’t able to produce other crops necessary for survival.
Along with these new crops and animals, Christopher Columbus brought diseases with him that the natives were not immune to. This resulted in many dying from these illnesses. The Natives, which had been an isolated population for centuries lacked immunity to the sicknesses and subsequently suffered the consequences of Columbus’ visit. Fevers, smallpox, and measles were proved to be deadly and wiped out tribes at a time. In return, the Europeans fell to the New World disease of syphilis.
Hunter Harper Paper 1 Indians and disease Collin G. Calloway says it is true that disease was a key factor in the depopulation of native Americans in America. Calloway reveals that the European invasion was a great factor of epidemics. The disease they fought were smallpox, diphtheria, measles, bubonic, and pneumonic plaque, cholera, influenza, typhus, dysentery, and yellow fever. The native Americans had a tough time fighting theses diseases due to lack of knowledge of cures. These cures were mostly attempted by plant or herb remedies and often failed to provide protection for the Indian population.
The results show that Easter Island’s ecosystem was unusually fragile, and as a consequence of their actions, in the long-term, decline and collapse was bound to happen. This is the same manner we are going slowly with our natural resources. After using up all of their resources the settlers tried to grow crops for food but only to fail, they even ran out of wood to build canoes to leave the island. So they reverted to the caves for shelter feeding on the animals until they were also extinct. The want to live an abundant lifestyle is not needed but wanted by all.