While the Columbian Exchange brought about a comparatively balanced exchange of food products, livestock, culture and ideas between the Old World and the New, the exchange of disease was far from even. The newly arrived Europeans were to bring with them a frightening array of communicable diseases against which the native inhabitants of the New World possessed no natural immunity. These diseases were to devastate the indigenous population, spreading rapidly throughout what is now known as Latin America.
Old World Diseases Brought to Latin America
The Columbian Exchange unleashed a variety of diseases upon the native inhabitants of Latin America. The first wave of Spanish sailors brought with them a host of European diseases, while African slaves would later carry tropical diseases directly from Africa to the Americas. The list of diseases inflicted upon the New World is generally considered to comprise the following:
- amoebic dysentery
- bubonic plague
- chicken pox
- cholera
- common cold
- diphtheria
- influenza
- leprosy
- malaria
- measles
- mumps
- scarlet fever
- smallpox
- typhoid
- typhus
- whooping cough
- yaws
- yellow fever
There is still some debate regarding the diseases brought to Latin America during the Columbian Exchange and those that may have already been present. Tuberculosis was once believed to have been brought from the Old World, but skeletal remains found in South America have since provided evidence of tuberculosis before the Spanish arrival.
Historian Joseph Patrick Byrne highlights the possibility that a weak strain of malaria may have been present in Latin America before the Columbian Exchange. He also points to a 1946 investigation by physiologist Sherburne Cook in which Cook claims that the Aztecs may have experienced a potential typhus epidemic long before 1492. However, as Byrne states, “there is no way to link the condition to a modern disease typology with reasonable certainty”.
Columbian Exchange – Disease & Population Decline in Latin America
Influenza, typhus, measles, mumps, malaria, yellow fever and, in particular, smallpox all had a devastating effect upon the native population of Latin America. With smallpox at the forefront, Latin America’s native population declined rapidly after the arrival of the Spanish. According to historian Robert B. Kent, “native populations probably declined about 90 percent during the first century after contact”.
Direct acts of warfare, subjugation and maltreatment by the Spanish certainly contributed to this catastrophic death toll. However, disease was now the most fearsome killer in the New World. Smallpox alone is believed to have claimed the lives of anywhere between 20 to 80 percent of the population, the higher figure perhaps reflecting the cumulative effect of a number of different Old World diseases.
Columbian Exchange Diseases – New World to Old World
Syphilis is the only disease that may have found its way from the New World to the Old. This exchange, however, is far from certain. Outbreaks of syphilis occurred in European port cities during the mid 1500s, leading some scholars to believe that the disease had been brought to Europe by men returning from the New World.
Evidence exists of syphilis in Latin America prior to 1492. The disease could have been transferred to the Old World as a result of sexual contact between European men and native women. However, the evidence is largely speculative and the issue remains unresolved.
Sources:
Alfred W. Crosby – The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492, Greenwood Publishing, 2003, ISBN 0275980928.
Joseph Patrick Byrne – Encyclopedia of Pestilence, Pandemics, and Plagues, Greenwood Publishing, 2008, ISBN 978-0313-341021
Robert B. Kent – Latin America: Regions and People, Guilford Press, 2006, ISBN 1572309091.
John Michael Francis – Iberia and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History, ABC-CLIO, 2006, ISBN 1851094210.
Ethne Barnes – Diseases and Human Evolution, University of New Mexico Press, 2005, ISBN 0826330665.
Tony Dunnell - Tony Dunnell is a freelance writer and a specialist in South American travel. He has two Peru blogs, howtoperu.com and tarapotolife.com
