WI: Black Death introduced to the Americas?

rcduggan

Inspired by this thread. Everyone here knows, or should know what the Black Death was. A very deadly pandemic that killed millions and destroyed Europe. Time is short so I won't go into detail. Wiki it if you need to.

So here's an idea: somehow, maybe through Greenland or the Vivaldi brothers (someone did a TL about them a while ago) or through another means, the Black Death is introduced to the Americas. Let's assume the fleas survive in order to spread the plague. How would this change the Americas?
 
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Doctor What

I assuming that you mean prior to 1492 and along the East Coast?

Very little, I would imagine.

Considering that the bulk of the indigenous population up until the Mississippi Valley were predominantly hunter-gatherers or just beginning to adopt an agricultural lifestyle, you run into a numbers game -- does the disease infect enough people to spread through the entire population? I think the answer is no.

The diseases brought by the europeans did the damage they did because there were many waves of europeans spreading multiple waves of diseases on a variety of different vectors. Here --we have one small wave of europeans spreading one wave of disease-- and a flea based one at that. It will take decades, if not longer, for the fleas to spread enough to become a significant threat in the animal population of just one area.

Of course -- this all assumes one wave of europeans in just one location. Things might go differently if you change the starting factors.
 

8Deer

Actually, the Missisispi Valley was home to the Mississippian culture, which was the most densely populated area north of the Rio Grande. Still nothing compared to the cities of Europe, obviously. So if the disease hit north of this area (which it probably would) there would still be some infection but nothing compared to the epidemics of European diseases after 1492.

If somehow the disease hit in Mesoamerica, then there would be huge effects, probably similar to the smallpox epidemics of OTL.
 

Bill Cameron

Banned
Doctor What said:
I assuming that you mean prior to 1492 and along the East Coast? Very little, I would imagine.
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Dr. What,

"Very Little"? I agree with you use of that phrase, but not in the way you think. If the bubonic plague was somehow introduced in the Americas around the same time it eavaged Eurasia there would be very little difference in the effect that the Columbian Exchange slate-wipers had in the OTL. NAtive Americans would die in windrows.

Considering that the bulk of the indigenous population up until the Mississippi Valley were predominantly hunter-gatherers or just beginning to adopt an agricultural lifestyle...
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Sorry but no. The Mississippi watershed hosted thousands of settled, agricultural communities at the time. The various Spanish groups who explored the region in the early 1500s that would become the US southeast and "upper" South reported months of travelling through farming villages within sight of each other. Unfortunately. along with themsleves and their horses, those same explorers also drove herds of cattle and swine along with their expeditions. Some of those animals escaped and nature took it's course.

The diseases introduced by the Spaniards in the 1500s introduced that the French who explored the same region in the 1600s found empty villages and survivors who lived as you described.

If the plague arrives earlier, the Columbian Holocaust simply arrives earlie. There's no real change.


Have fun,
Bill
 

catboy637

Large loss of Native Americans. Some tribes are wiped out due to it, perhaps very influntael ones in history, such as the Cherokee. This could cause problems for the settlers, possibly slowing colonization.
 

8Deer

Considering that the bulk of the indigenous population up until the Mississippi Valley were predominantly hunter-gatherers or just beginning to adopt an agricultural lifestyle, you run into a numbers game -- does the disease infect enough people to spread through the entire population? I think the answer is no.
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Hmm, after some Googling, it seems that Cahokia (Illinois) was home to about 20,000 people. So it seems likely that they could be severly affected by the plague...
 

Doctor What

Bill Cameron said:
Sorry but no. The Mississippi watershed hosted thousands of settled, agricultural communities at the time.
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I'm aware of that --hence the term 'up until the Mississippi Valley' that I used.

As I pointed out in the first sentence -- I'm assuming that it starts on the east coast. Getting from the east Coast to the Mississippi Valley is going to be tricky and essentially a numbers games. I don't see how it can spread fast enough in the animal population fast enough to get there.

Once it gets to the Mississippi Valley, though....
 

Highlander

Banned
rcduggan said:
The most deadly pandemic in history
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Actually it's not, but I'll roll with this anyway.

If we go with your suggestion for the Vivaldis, it would depend on how many waves come over. Maybe, with this much influence early on, they can put up a better fight? I wonder how they would react to the aforementioned Mississippian culture . . .
 

Seryozha1987

One of the big problems the Indigenous Americans faced when colonialisation really started was that they had 0% immunity to European diseases. One of the only reasons Europeans had immunities was because of....dum dum dum! The Plague in the first place. Those who contracted the plague and survived it found themselves immune to a host of other diseases, much as researchers are discovering that people who contract malaria and survive become resistant to many types of cancer, and their children do as well (this is fairly recent research, mind you, so the latter half of that sentence should be taken with a grain of salt. Not enough time to do generational studies, but people who live in areas afflicted by malaria show a much lower tendency towards developing cancer than those in...say...Yukon).

So let's just say, for the sake of the TL, that the plague sweeps through the Americas. It decimates their populations, surely, but suddenly their body finds out how to produce antibodies. A hundred years later the Spanish arrive and, even though these other diseases are largely foreign to the Americas, the fact that the Natives are now all descended from stock that faced the Black Plague and lived means that they are like the Europeans that suddenly found themselves stronger in the face of other diseases.

Many natives would still die, but the French would probably have encountered some nice villages along the Mississippi instead of empty wasteland.
 

False Dmitri

Seryozha, I was going to incorporate that very idea into a Viking TL of mine. I had been having second thoughts, though, and am thrilled that it might see some use after all. I think an early Black Death could be just what the Native Americans needed to survive much more intact.

If the germs came at the height of Mississippian civilization, the trade network extended far in every direction - up to the Great Lakes. If there's some way to get Plague carriers into the Great Lakes basin, it's quite plausible that the fleas & germs could travel down to the population centers of the Mississippi basin.
 

El Vizconde

I think what's really interesting is the possibilities this opens up for the Mesoamerican cultures, who would be devastated by the plague since the Acolhua Valley was heavily and densely populated, with several major cities surrounding Lake Texcoco. Depending on what year you set this, the Aztec Empire is still nascent or not yet the ultimate power of the valley (they only overthrew the Tepanecs around 1325 by our best estimates, IIRC). A plague that size probably causes the downfall of most, if not all, major urban governments, so the Aztec Empire (and other states like Texcoco, Tacuba, Chola, Huexotzingo and Tlaxcala) as we know it never comes to exist.

OTOH, the survivors would now no longer be quite so vulnerable to European-introduced diseases. Assuming they don't utterly abandon urbanization (honestly it's a possibility considering Native American psychology that they'd decide the cities were cursed and never try to resettle), the Spaniards might find a much tougher opponent in whatever state succeeds the valley--the siege of Tenochtitlan was a much closer battle than is generally assumed (if the Aztecs had successfully attacked Cortez's gunboats, which they got close to doing, he would have been up shit creek with no way through Tenochtitlan's walls). Without half their warriors lying sick, the Indians could drive off the first Spanish expedition (not that this makes their ultimate independence likely....)

If colonization comes far later and is a much more difficult affair, and add an Indian population that isn't going to dwindle so extremely, you could end up with a Central and North America more like Africa today.
 

Faeelin

Banned
Doctor What said:
I'm aware of that --hence the term 'up until the Mississippi Valley' that I used.

As I pointed out in the first sentence -- I'm assuming that it starts on the east coast. Getting from the east Coast to the Mississippi Valley is going to be tricky and essentially a numbers games. I don't see how it can spread fast enough in the animal population fast enough to get there.

Once it gets to the Mississippi Valley, though....
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Hrm.

On the other hand, the disease establishes itself in rodent populations in much of the world; Manchuria and Mongolia, for instance.
 

Hendryk

Banned
Faeelin said:
On the other hand, the disease establishes itself in rodent populations in much of the world; Manchuria and Mongolia, for instance.
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Does anyone know whether it could, should it spread beyond the Mississippi, become endemic among prairie dogs? In Mongolia, marmots are one of the main vectors of the germ.
 

Faeelin

Banned
Doctor What said:
Ah--but how long will that take?
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It's a good question, that's unclear. But given that it's become endogenous to parts of the American Southwest, as the result of a few isolated outbreaks, it can happen quickly. On the other hand, the fact that it isn't endemic across the entire planet suggests it has limits.
 

Doctor What

Faeelin said:
It's a good question, that's unclear. But given that it's become endogenous to parts of the American Southwest, as the result of a few isolated outbreaks, it can happen quickly. On the other hand, the fact that it isn't endemic across the entire planet suggests it has limits.
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Hmmmm....

Seems like just the right set of circumstances are needed....
 

8Deer

Would Native populations really be able to recover this quickly though? How fast did the population of Europe recover?
 

SuttlersWagon

Ok. it got there how? And secondly, it was going where? The natives were not all bunched up like the Europeans. Thy sent traders out yes, but generally these were men that knew folk-lore and had a good command of the hand sign language, and if there was a chance a village or people came down with this plauge, they were not going travelling... If this is a result of colonization, the colony gets close to wipedout and any villages dealing with them are 90% erradicated. After that, European to Native disease trade off goes per usuall. Also what intrigued me about the post this came from, If the Natives get all the nasty stuff that goes through them inOTL now, how much more formidable does that make them when Europeans come over in force and they are immune? Because after the black death is done with Europe, ain't no one coming for awhile...
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Likely this will sabotage Spanish-style colonisation of America, there're few native to take control over, and likely urbanisation and complex states will disappear from America for centuries and complex agriculture will likely be replaced many places by hunter-garthering with a population lose of 90-95 % in most agricultural native cultures (together with Smallpox and the low genetic variantion we likely see entire areas of America complete wiped free of human life). A few areas will likely get better out of it, like the Andeans which lacked much of the complex infrastructure which made a fast spread of diseases possible (later on), but we likely not see any states more complex than a few unified villages there either.
 
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