What Happened to the Native Population After 1492 free essay sample

A â€Å"virgin soil† epidemic can be described as the introduction of several diseases into a population who has no knowledge or immunity against them. An example that comes to mind when thinking of this â€Å"virgin soil† concept is the devastating loses the Native Americans of South and Central America suffered after contact with European explorers. Unknowingly at the time, these explorers carried with them such diseases as small pox, malaria, measles, and yellow fever just to name a few. For the Native Americans, who have had no contact with these diseases are practically defenseless, which allowed it to spread so quickly. Without a strong enough immune system, these outbreaks killed hundreds of thousands if not millions of Native Americans, far worse than what weapons and starvation could accomplish. One example involves the legendary Native American woman named Pocahontas. She married English explorer/settler John Rolfe who returned with her to show that the natives of America could be tamed. We will write a custom essay sample on What Happened to the Native Population After 1492? or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Within the first year of being in England, Pocahontas contracted a case of small pox and eventually died. As time passed on these â€Å"virgin soil† epidemics spread from South and Central America into the lands of what we know now as the Continental United States. The same diseases that crushed civilizations as the Incas and Mayans almost 200 years before decimated such Native American tribes as the Cherokee, Huron, and Iroquois. More than half of some tribe’s populations were reduced by these new plagues that killed with great speed and efficiency. Even today, new diseases are created or evolve into epidemics that modern technology and medicine cannot stop. As science allows us to repel common diseases, even completely cure them; new plagues are always a threat to the human race. Such diseases as Avian Flu, the Ebola Virus, and the biggest killer AIDS have claimed the lives of uncountable humans. They have not reached the death toll like the Bubonic Plague of the middle ages, which killed over one third of the human race at the time, but are showing no signs of slowing down. An example of how much a disease like AIDS has spread is the statistic of more than 25 percent of Africa’s entire population is infected with H. I. V. and/or AIDS. With facts as that, it is not hard to imagine the quick spread of a very contagious and extremely deadly â€Å"virgin soil† epidemic to appear in a community. The community response would probably happen in four parts. The first of the four parts is the warnings, followed by the second step or phase, which is blame. Parts three and four would be a great panic and finally how we would turn the tide. Each of the four parts will described individually to give the full sense of the human response to a â€Å"virgin soil† epidemic. Part one of the human response would be either local or federal government issuing warnings, informing the people that a new virus has be identified and begun to spread throughout the initial area. They would explain the symptoms, how it is contracted and what you should do if you or someone you know should become infected. Slowly but surely there would be more and more reports of the growing disease on the news and in newspapers. C. D. C. officials would issue an official statement declaring that they don’t know what this disease is, where it came from or what vaccines will work. Rumors would begin to grow throughout the community that this is out of control, it is spread to other regions of the world and of course there is no cure. Fear would begin to creep into the minds of every member of the community even if they have not seen the true effects of the disease. That fear will generate something far worse then what is actually the truth is and will mask how fast this epidemic is truly spreading. This new disease will become the talk on everyone’s mind and leads into the second step of the human response. Step two, as said earlier, is the blame by the government and the common people of the community. As the fear grew and grew about this uncontrollable disease, the first thing people would want to establish is who created it and how it got introduced here. Theories of chemical weapons or a scientific accident would come around as false claims. The claims would probably be first presented by the C. D. C. in hopes to unite the remaining people to donate money in hopes for finding a cure. With an identified common enemy, the government would have greater support in trying to contain this new plague. As time went on, and the disease continued to spread, stories and claims would begin to be exaggerated by fear. There would be so many â€Å"well I heard†¦Ã¢â‚¬  type stories that people would forget where the original blame was placed. With all these rumors, stories, and pointed fingers, the third step would set into motion. The great panic, some would call it, is an excellent description of the next step in the community’s response. With the death toll rising and no cure in sight, mass hysteria would grip the population. People would respond in different ways, some would board up their houses and lock themselves from the outside, infected world. Others would leave, simply pack up all the personal effects they could carry and drive off to a place that has not been touched by the disease. Enormous traffic jams would form, frightened people would begin to argue and fight, some abandoning their vehicles to escape the disease on foot. Rioters who are trying to stock up on essentials they may need for their trip or their home fortress would raid grocery stores and several other places. The government would then step in and quarantine the entire area in hopes to control the spread of this disease. Armed guards in body suits would prevent anyone leaving, closing roads, destroying bridges and even firing on people who did not back away from the perimeter. In this great panic the disease would spread to truly uncontrollable levels, people would escape the quarantine, carrying the disease to other places without really knowing it or simply in denial. Religious fanatics would begin claiming this is an act of God, this is his punishment for being sinful and that there is no point in trying to stop it. Hospitals would be pushed far beyond their limits, becoming breeding grounds even hives for the disease to grow and spread more. This mass panic would not last very long for several reasons and those reasons are the fourth step, turning the tide. With the several quarantined zones tearing themselves apart, the great panic would not last for very long. The government would have several options that they would choose from if a cure were not discovered. The number of people in the zones would begin to decrease as the infection spread and killed everyone it came into contact with. The military personnel would begin to tighten the quarantine zones as the population began to decrease. Scientists would be working around the clock in hopes of finding the cure for this disease, taking samples from both infected and non-infected. They would be given a deadline to find a cure and if that did not happen, then the military would exterminate the disease and everyone who carried it. The deaths of some will save the lives of others and hopefully destroy all traces of this unknown disease. The only known deposits of the disease would be in highly contained labs with full teams of doctors and scientists working to find a cure for this outbreak, in case it ever comes again. The reactions of a present day community would be different from the possible reactions of the native peoples of the sixteenth century New World. The natives would have most likely looked to their Gods for reasons of this punishment. There would not of been a great panic or organized quarantine, since they did not have the mass communications we have of today. The extent of their hysteria would have probably been mass prayer, sacrifices or fasting. They probably remained in their lands, hoping the disease would die off or not affect them but with that false hope, the numbers of dead became almost countless and forever ravaged these once great civilizations, leaving some extinct. While the disease spread, there was very little hope for finding a cure and all of their spiritual and medicinal attempts would fail against this â€Å"virgin soil† epidemic. The natives just remained as this wave of death swept away their society forever. In conclusion, the fears of â€Å"virgin soil† epidemics are as strong now as they were five hundred years ago. The idea that a powerful disease can cripple an entire community with ease is one that scares almost everyone. As technology continues to advance, scientists hope to discover, cure, and eradicated diseases before they get the chance to attack a population of people. Organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control are constantly working to erase all forms of disease from the world. Their goal is to not only defeat the existing diseases but develop a way to strength the human immune system to the point that we will be unaffected by any form of disease.