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this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2025
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Columbus' contact resulted in a 92% loss of population in North, Central, and South America. Mexico City area only just re-reached its pre-contact population estimate in the 1960s.
"1491" is a good read.
The sheer amount of people, knowledge, and culture lost in the Americas due to European invasion and their treatment of the native peoples makes me so sad.
Then Cortez finished the job when he explored from Florida to Texas. He also introduced wild hogs to the continent, which introduced trichinella parasites to native fauna. Truly one of the most ecologically destructive events in the past thousand years.
follow it up with "Guns, Germs, and Steel"
That is historically not accurate.
The weird part about that is that Columbus was the third expedition to the American continent from the European continent.
First was a single Irish/Celtic(?) monk in the 800s. Second was Leif Erikson and his crew of "Vikings" in the 1100-1200s. Neither one of those caused widespread disease in the Americas, despite the fact that the monk made it as far as The Great Lakes, and Leif Erickson's expedition was cut quite short with them engaging in battle with the first natives they saw, resulting in the death of Leif Erikson as well as a few of his companions.
Who was the monk?
Brendan the navigator, 6th c., but the story about "Saint Brendan's island" is not proven to be about America AFAIK. Or true. It's a legend about a blessed island that may be a religious myth.
There's a ton of legends of sailors finding a vanishing island, an island of plenty, the island of apples, that various theories have attached to the Canaries or Azores and such IINM. Saint Brendan is just one among those, so it's hard to assume it's fact.
Also, Leif Erikson was in year 1000. And there is a strong suspicion that diseases did play a big role and made it a shitshow.