Читать книгу Modern Epidemics - Salvador Macip - Страница 27

History has also changed thanks to the premature disappearance of some important figures. For example, Ramses V died of smallpox in 1157 BCE just before his 30th birthday. The leader Pericles, who was eminent enough to have given his name to a whole century of Greek culture, died in the Athens epidemic of 430 BCE. The death of Alexander the Great from an unknown infection in 323 BCE at the age of 33 brought about the fall of his great empire. King Alfonso XI of Castile died in a Black Death epidemic when fighting against Arabs in Gibraltar. Smallpox, which largely wiped out the English Stuart dynasty, also claimed as victims other European monarchs, among them Louis I of Spain, Louis XV of France and Peter II, Tsar of Russia.

In the 120 years after Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas, about 90 per cent of the indigenous populations died, more because of infection than war. For example, fifty years after Hernan Cortés landed in Mexico, the population had fallen from 30 million to 3 million. Cortés’s victory in the siege of Tenochtitlan in 1521 was possible after only seventy-five days because a smallpox epidemic devastated the city. Apart from his superior arms, the victory of Francisco Pizarro over the Inca empire in 1531 is also thought to have been due to smallpox. This is also why just over 160 men were able to defeat Atahualpa’s army of more than 80,000 soldiers, much to the surprise of both sides.

This difference of immunity between Europe and America, not only defined the future of the continent but also led to the enslavement of whole peoples. The victorious Europeans soon realized that they didn’t have a big enough workforce available, so they resorted to ‘importing’ slaves. Nearly 20 million people from West Africa were abducted and borne off to the New World. So, the whole history of black culture in the Americas began because of deadly epidemics set off by the European conquistadors. This traffic also meant that still other diseases like yellow fever were introduced into the Americas.