European colonizers killed so many Native Americans that it changed the global climate, researchers

[malaise]

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/01/world/european-colonization-climate-change-trnd/index.html
<snip>

When Europeans arrived in the Americas, they caused so much death and disease that it changed the global climate, a new study finds.

European settlers killed 56 million indigenous people over about 100 years in South, Central and North America, causing large swaths of farmland to be abandoned and reforested, researchers at University College London, or UCL, estimate. The increase in trees and vegetation across an area the size of France resulted in a massive decrease in carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, according to the study.
Carbon levels changed enough to cool the Earth by 1610, researchers found. Columbus arrived in 1492,
"CO2 and climate had been relatively stable until this point," said UCL Geography Professor Mark Maslin, one of the study's co-authors. "So, this is the first major change we see in the Earth's greenhouse gases."
Before this study, some scientists had argued the temperature change in the 1600s, called the Little Ice Age, was caused only by natural forces.

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And they call us the savages - ah well.

[4139]

1. Disease ridden illegal immegrants...

Wiki: “Numerous diseases were brought to North America, including smallpox, bubonic plague, chickenpox, cholera, the common cold, diphtheria, influenza, malaria, measles, scarlet fever, sexually transmitted diseases, typhoid, typhus, tuberculosis, pertussis (whooping cough),[2][3][4] etc. ”

[malaise]

2. Someone should show The Con

all those diseases

[MicaelS]

3. Not wait a minute ..

It wasn't all one way, we got syphilis in return.

[ProudLib72]

4. Definitely K & R!

56 million!

[Bradshaw3]

5. K&R

Estimates now are that there were about 100 million indigenous people at the time of Columbus' arrival, with that population total down to about 10 million in the next two centuries. Yes, most of those killed were due to disease (sometimes purposely as with giving Indians blankets the whites knew were infected) but genocide was also responsible for thousands if not millions. Shortly after conquering Hispaniola, the Spaniards started building gallows to deal with the natives who balked at slave labor.

[Submariner]

9. I read an article awhile back that stated that the conquering Europeans

sent messages back to Europe that said the Aztecs were being very resistant to converting to Catholicism. So the Conquistadors got permission from, of all places, the Vatican (I don't know which Pope) to kill every Aztec (Natives) that refused to be converted.

[LuvNewcastle]

10. A lot of people don't know that the Spanish Inquisition

came to the New World. Many natives were burned and hanged by the Catholic church.

[Bradshaw3]

14. Yes, the book 1492 included this

It reported that the priests who accompanied the Conquistadors intially sent back glowing reports about the natives. Then, as ther Spanish began forcing them into hard labor like mining and other servile positions they began to rebel. Then the descriptions of the Indians changed, painting them in a bad light of course. Then they started having public hangings. As I remember, these papers weren't discovered until the 1970s, in some Catholic archives.

[Drahthaardogs]

15. They were also horrified at the thirst for human sacrifice

Montezuma is said to have sacrificed over 25,000 during his inaguration.

So they were so appalled by the natives propensity for human sacrifice, they killed them...

This makes sense to people somehow

[maxsolomon]

6. "Killed" by imported diseases, mainly.

"European settlers killed 56 million indigenous people over about 100 years" is a generalization. They didn't literally kill the indigenous population with their bare hands.

Not that there wasn't centuries of deliberate, violent slaughter, but importing disease wasn't a conscious plan through the early period of colonization (yes, Smallpox Blankets at the siege of Fort Pitt, I've heard). It was more a byproduct of any contact whatsoever.

I'm not defending Colonization. I'm saying Europeans didn't really understand infectious disease well in the 1500s. This cycle happened everywhere in the Americas, up to and including Malaria in the PNW in the early 1800s that wiped out >2/3 of the native population. The Oregon Trail led to a recently-emptied agrarian paradise.

[Drahthaardogs]

16. Smallpox blankets is bullshit

Smallpox is not spread by fomates except under rare circumstances.

[maxsolomon]

20. It is a widely accepted story - my millenial daughter countered with it yesterday

when we first heard this story and I objected to the characterization of "killed".

yes, i'm a quibbler, but the numbers lost to disease far exceed those of deliberate genocides.

as to the wanton slaughter of beaver and buffalo, don't get me started.

[Drahthaardogs]

22. It's accepted but it's still bullshit

Just like " they used every part of the bison and wasted nothing". Yes, they used every part of the bison but not every part of EVERY bison. They did not have three ponies walking around carrying bison horn sheaths. They had no concept of waste and often only took the prime cuts off of the bison

[mainer]

7. Douglas Preston has fascinating chapter on this in "LOST CITY OF THE MONKEY GOD"

The reason native Americans were so much more susceptible to diseases than Europeans? They didn't live for centuries with their animals, as Europeans did. Many fatal infectious diseases (like smallpox, flu, etc.) were zoonoses -- coming from animals -- and Europeans had centuries to learn to adapt to these diseases because they lived in such close proximity with their cattle, pigs, and chickens. Native Americans, however, did not share living quarters with domesticated animals, so didn't have the same centuries to adapt.

And so they were fatally susceptible to them.

[ancianita]

8. For 300 years they destroyed North America's and Earth's lungs -- its forests.

[harumph]

11. Actually, they killed the native americans causing farmland to revert to forests - which

caused an overall decrease is CO2. Of course, OTOH, the Spanish pretty much destroyed the
live oak forests in Spain to build their armada...

[csziggy]

12. Actually many of the forests grew after the Native Americans died off

In many parts of the Americas the indigenous population used fire to clear areas for crops. Once 90% of that population was gone forests took over both in North and South America. In many cases there were simply not enough of the native population left to do the clearing or the survivors lost the knowledge and skills to do the work.

By the time the European settlers reached many areas that had been previously cleared the forests had taken over, sometimes they had been growing for a hundred years or more. Even now archeologists are just now locating traces of native settlements in South American as the rain forests are being cleared.

The concept of the noble savages living in harmony with nature is a myth that was created by people who did not understand the real history of the Americas.

[GulfCoast66]

18. The native Americans deforested with a vengeance when it helped them.

When Desoto lead his hundreds of men all across the southern US he encountered large native populations living in lots of cleared areas.

When Europeans next ventured into those areas it was almost all forest with just a remnant population of Native Americans remaining.

Native Americans were just as willing to radically alter the natural landscape to improve the lives of their people as Europeans were. They are people after all. It is what we do.

And germ theory was still 350 year in the future.

There are uncounted examples where Europeans intentionally slaughtered the natives. And those are and remain indefensible.

But transmission of disease was just a horrible accident of nature. Along the lines of the Black Death first hitting Europe. The Europeans understood it no more than the natives.

It is doubtful that Europeans could have successfully conquered all the Americas if not for the diseases they brought. The natives were Smart, brave, numerous and would have quickly gained military skills necessary to repel them.

[ancianita]

23. sigh...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_the_United_States

[shanny]

13. yep. Our success on this continent and elsewhere was more about

plundering the recently-vacated Garden of Eden as opposed to the triumph of godliness and the Puritan work ethic. But hey, everybody loves a good foundation myth, amirite?

[akraven]

17. And damn near wiped out Alaska Natives.

AND our whales, seals, fur seals, wolves, moose, caribou, ptarmigan.

[Dawson Leery]

19. The Gentiles of Europe were of the most violent humans to ever exist.

Just look at how many wars were fought in Europe.

[maxsolomon]

21. Read much about the Fertile Crescent?

There are depictions of cartloads of male genitals paraded through the streets after victorious campaigns.

Violence is a human constant. War is a human constant. Every culture, everywhere.

Europeans have no monopoly on slaughter, slavery, or bigotry.