The Great Dying

The Great Dying Ch 15.

It is perplexing to think that thriving societies with populations “estimated  at some 10 to 20 million declined to about 1 million by 1650”.  This decline due in large part to the diseases brought to the America’s by the Europeans; described by some scholars as “the greatest tragedy in the history of the human species" and to this day, seen by many natives as the last robbing of their  dignity (p407).

In an interview with Cesar Leon, a dear friend of mine who grew up in Southern California and is one of the many federally recognized Indigenous People of Mexico, tells me his own accounts of the horror stories of 16^th and 17^th Centuries' great dying.  Cesar was candid enough to share some of the stories that have been passed down to him. Stories that have been passed down from generation to generation and that to this day do not fail to both, inflict continuous pain in those who know all too well about them and depict a very dark time in our history, to those of us who learn about them and hurt for them. Cesar  tells stories of life and of death on past and modern reservations. Not all personal accounts, but accounts of family members who suffer from poverty, alcoholism and lack of a future and lack of opportunities. Generations continue to be ravaged by the European brutality of centuries past.
In 17^th Century North America, the arrival of the Christians brought with them an epidemic of small pox which killed 9/10s of the population. This sweeping of their people did not begin to alleviate, nor did the population begin to grow again until the 19^th century: well over 200 years later.

The truly disturbing fact about all this was not the incessant epidemic sweeping the Americas, nor was it the rapid decline in population or overall mass suffering.  As horrid a part of history this all represents, what is truly disturbing is the European attitude to this mass dying and the very commentary it represents on the human condition; many rejoiced at this suffering and mass dying, going as far as calling it God’s work. God’s work in the sweeping of these people that were somewhat inferior to their own; their own with an inflated sense of superiority as they held their blood soak cloaks and as they walked around in their stiff slops.
Still there were those who came from Europe with more noble intentions- a search for adventure and a calling to help- or at least one can hope.