What was the microbial exchange, and what was its effect on the Native American population?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

A. Microbial exchange
1. colonization of the New World provoked the worst recorded
demographic disaster in history
2. smallpox, in a virulent form, fatal to the immune systems of
populations that had never encountered the disease, was the most
effective killer
3. some pestilence was unclassifiable in terms of current diseases,
because the organisms responsible have evolved unrecognizably since
that time
4. the diseases colonization brought were new
B. Effects on the Native American population
1. Indian population of Hispaniola, where New World colonization began,
was virtually wiped out
2. densely settled and highly exposed regions of Mesoamerica and the
Andes, Indian populations typically fell by 90 percent before they
began to recover
3. North America bred equally devastating diseases
a. every attempted European settlement infected the Native
Americans
b. Chesapeake Indians disappeared by the end of the seventeenth
century
c. numbers of the Huron in Canada collapsed dramatically after
contact with Europeans
d. by the end of the seventeenth century, the Native American
population in regions Europeans penetrated had fallen—
according to rival estimates—by between 60 and 90 percent