History

Between the time of the unfortunate arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492 and around 1600, an estimated 90% of the indigenous populations in the Americas had perished. That means approximately 50 million people were killed due to the new pathogens the white Europeans brought, like measles, influenza, and smallpox.

It has been documented that the pre-Columbian population of the Americas was approximately 60 million people. The newcomers brought the house fly, gypsy moth, cockroaches, bed bugs, and other harmful insects. They also brought measles, smallpox, diphtheria, cholera, influenza, chicken pox, typhus, scarlet fever, and many other diseases… which were not here on the continent before their arrival. In fact, the epidemic effect was far more lethal than the outright and purposeful killings. An estimated 50 million indigenous human beings perished!

This death toll represented around 10% of the entire Earth’s population at that time. We are talking about as many people as the modern-day populations of New York City, Beijing, London, Paris, and Tokyo combined!

This all began for the white Europeans as an adventure for gold and riches in the New World. Then in the 19th Century, when a few people started questioning the theft of native lands and riches, it continued under the cruel guise of a construct they devised known as Manifest Destiny as the US Government doubled down with the Indian Relocation Act other policies of theft and persecution. They basically said that it was inevitable that the entire continent would be theirs, and they were going to make it happen by any means necessary… and they did.