You mean the people that mostly died of new diseases such as the cold, which is spread through something as simple and innocent as a sneeze?
It sucks not having the antibodies for something that for those that do is a 10 day disease at most and survive, because in that case it's deadly. What would had happened if they had the antibodies? Not having it cost the lives of 95% of them, which is basically every indian that died. Germs weren't discovered until well into the 1800's and viruses wasn't discovered until practically the 20th century.
Greg H. asks: Diseases from Europe wiped out most of the Indians, so why didn’t the Europeans also get wiped out by diseases from America? While estimates vary, approximately 20-50 million people are believed to have lived in the Americas shortly before Europeans arrived. Around 95% of them were...
www.todayifoundout.com
Anyway, a simple DNA study of the Americas would clearly show that not only is more indian DNA found among the Spanish countries (almost all of it in the Caribbean is found in just three places: Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic in terms of actual DNA in the mixes and on the amount of mitochondrial DNA inherited by everybody). In the continent indians are more numerous in Spanish countries and indian DNA is present mixed in most of the population.
Compare that to say the USA, just to name one country, where indian DNA is virtually non-existent in the average person and the few that consider themselves as "indians" (or the politically correct term is "Native American") more often than not have a DNA that is mostly something else. Now, why is that the case even along the eastern seaboard, where the USA was born and the English found indians everywhere they went? It's a big mystery.
How can a "genocide" be created when most people die from diseases that no one knew was the culprit at the time, the workforce at that? It makes no sense at all. Kill the workforce and create a crisis to solve because that makes sense. Then indian DNA is most present in countries where supposedly an indian genocide took place, but when you focus in countries with English, French, Danish, Dutch, etc origins the indian DNA is virtually non-existent and indian mitochondrial DNA hardly exist in the population. Based on what is often said by descendants of them, you would think the opposite should be true but it isn't.
The Spanish have a name for the practice of demonizing them in their endevours in the Americas, initially meant to justify the encroaching of English, French, etc into Spanish territory. It's called "La Leyenda Negra" (The Black Legend), a collection of myths about the Spanish especially in peoples with a protestant tradition. Several studies have been conducted in the USA that basically show a consistent anti-Spanish attitude since colonial times in that country born from England. It later was included into the anti-Mexican attitude, but Mexico was Spain and the largest Spanish neighbor of the USA for a long time. Don't bother too much the English to the north (notice the mostly smooth looking border between the US and Canada), but focus taking the power from the Spanish/Mexicans with the encroaching of places such as California or Texas, and then outright war against the Spanish/Mexican neighbors. At the end of the day, most of the west of the USA was from their neighbor first Spain and then Mexico. Don't encroach much on the English/Canadians, but it was up for grabs on the Spanish/Mexicans.
Another look is Florida. The Seminole indian and other tribes were no issue during the 300 years of Spanish rule. As soon as the English/Americans descend from the north and took over, suddenly Florida wasn't too big for everybody. The forced emigration of indians, the mass killing and annihilation of them had begun. 300 years of Spanish rule and they were peacefully left alone and even Mestizos (Spanish-indian mix) was accepted in Spanish towns such as St Agustine. Then came the Americans and all of them, even the Mestizos, were a "problem". To this day much of Florida is a wilderness, so not being big enough for the indians and the English/Americans wasn't trully an issue. Indian DNA is virtually non-existent in the modern Floridian population. What an interesting fact. Most of it probably belongs to Latinos, who have their origin mostly in Spanish American countries such as Mexico, Nicaragua, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic or Spanish American territories such as Puerto Rico. If Florida would had remained in Spaish hands and then become one more Spanish American country, it's almost a guarantee that the average person would have not just indian DNA mixed in, but at greater levels than further north where the English/Americans ruled.
