European Contact with Indigenous Peoples:
When Europeans began arriving on the shores of the Americas, the epidemic diseases they brought with them set off one of the largest depopulations in human history. Prior to European arrival, diseases such as smallpox, measles and yellow fever did not exist in these regions of the world. Having never been exposed to these illnesses, Indigenous peoples did not have the antibodies needed to ward off infection. Using Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the Americas in 1492 as a starting point, Indigenous populations were drastically reduced by epidemic disease over the course of the next 400 years, as Europeans continued to explore new territory and came into contact with different communities. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.c...
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