Salmonella devastated native Mexican populations, not smallpox
Posted On: Mar 19th, 2017 at 14:50
Mexico
It is well known that diseases nearly wiped out the native American populations of central and south America after the arrival of the Spanish, but what those diseases actually were has been the subject of much debate. Smallpox has been considered the most likely culprit, but now new evidence from two studies shows that a deadly form of salmonella caused a massive epidemic in the Aztec culture, that may have killed 80% of the entire Mexican population.
It is also something that needs to be looked at regarding the “collapse” of the Maya culture. The continuous rhetoric of climate change as the cause of the Maya collapse I am not in favour of, as you well know. Certainly salmonella or smallpox would not be the culprits since they were brought over by the Spanish in the 1500s, and the classic Maya collapse occurred 600 years earlier, but it is something that needs to taken into consideration – that pestilence, war, or anything else brought about the collapse of the Maya. Also, since the collapse was only occurring with the Maya culture, we have to question the theory of climate change as other cultures do not seem to have been affected.
The population of Mexico in the 1500s was estimated to be around twenty-five million, but after the epidemic and war with the Spanish, that population was reduced to as little as just one million, the majority of those deaths attributable to the epidemic. Salmonella poisoning would not have been a pleasant way to die.
