Populations and introduced diseases?

Question

It is often taught in school and other places that the Europeans (Spaniards as the main example)  brought diseases to the new world, and that these diseases (smallpox as the most common example, but also others including various STDs) did far more damage than these Europeans ever could have to the native populations.  

I find it odd though, that it was such a one sided relationship, that there is never any mention of the reverse effect.  One would think that two population groups in relatively perfect isolation for thousands of years would develop immunities/resistances to much different types of pathogens.  Therefore once coming in contact with one another, they would have a relatively equal effect in terms of devastation on each other.  But at least from what I've learned from history classes this is not the case, and it seems from what is taught in schools that only the native populations were effected by introduced diseases, and that the European settlers never experienced any ill-effects.

I've heard of Montezuma's Revenge, but that seems more of like a symptom than a disease (maybe I'm wrong). But even If Montezuma's Revenge is a disease, it's still fairly localized, and doesn't come close to the devastation that the native populations felt during the initial couple hundred years of European colonization. 

So, theoretically, I assume that when two isolated populations come in contact with one another they will equally share the burden of the other's diseases. Thus, my questions are: Are there example of diseases that affected Europeans, but not so much (if at all) the Natives? If so, why would such diseases or epidemics be so little known? Is it a case of the victors writing History?

Josh · Accepted Answer

There are a couple reasons why it happened the way it did. 

Disease spread more easily in Europe at the time so more people were carriers for those diseases. In many tribal societies if a person becomes ill they are immediately isolated from the rest of the group to prevent the spread of the illness. As a result there is less communal immunity to disease but there is also less spread of disease.

Another reason is many of the largest societies (the Inca are the primary example) were at the tail end of major warring when the Europeans reached them. Their population numbers were diminished already upon contact. The Europeans knew they had a huge population but because they weren't able to communicate with them they weren't aware of the war, it wasn't until relatively recently we found out about this, before the discovery disease was cited as the primary factor and it's hard to change standardized text books.

Then you have the fact that the Spanish in particularly were absolutely brutal to the indigenous populations. They were known for coming in to a city and saying if you didn't convert to Christianity you would be killed and your wife and children would become slaves. They of course said this in Spanish with no translation so pretty much everyone was killed. Many of the "uncontacted" tribes in South America right now are the remnants of some of these earlier groups who have combined over the past few hundred years and live in isolation.

So, to some extent it is because the victors write the history but it is also fairly complex in other ways.

Populations and introduced diseases?

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