1491-What made the Settlement of America Possible

[packman]

A lengthy, but fascinating article of what allowed the relative ease of the settlement of the Americas.

A bit from it:

"the colonists came to Plymouth, a month later, they set up shop in another deserted Indian village. All through the coastal forest the Indians had "died on heapes, as they lay in their houses," the English trader Thomas Morton noted. "And the bones and skulls upon the severall places of their habitations made such a spectacle" that to Morton the Massachusetts woods seemed to be "a new found Golgotha"—the hill of executions in Roman Jerusalem."

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2002/03/1491/302445/

Basically it states that disease paved the way for the colonist providing them with footpaths into the interior, cleared land and little opposition.

[Scootaloo]

1. I heartily reccomend Mann's books, 1491 and 1493

Both are absolutely fascinating.

Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel" is a good companion to them as well.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. agreed

great recommendations.

[emsimon33]

2. Thank for the posting

Very interesting!

[jberryhill]

3. Europeans had been living with cattle, goats, pigs, and chickens for a long time

There was no way for Europeans to know that their mere presence in the New World would clear out a good deal of the native population due to the many pathogens they had been sharing with their livestock for generations.