However, it is estimated that at high as 95% of pre-Columbian Native Americans were in fact killed off by disease, WHY? Because Europeans introduced new diseases to which the Native Americans hadn’t developed an immunity....
So germs are a two way street,,,why didn’t Europeans die from Indian germs in large numbers? Am I missing something? 95% seems inordinately high....
King Phillips War, which took place later in the century, was as much about inland tribes moving in to claim land from the seriously weakened coastal tribes as it was about driving out whites. It was a very nasty war, by the way, with unspeakable atrocities committed by all sides.
Origin is believed to be from European fisherman who had spent part of a summer camping along the shore and drying their catch for preservation on the voyage back to Europe.
As for the two way street theory on diseases, remember that Europeans had lived through many of the same diseases just a few centuries before and those which survived had developed immunities.
Europeans had been exposed to the plague, smallpox, anthrax, etc. that spread rather easily in places where large numbers of people live close together and where domestic animals are raised. Indian tribes probably did not interact with each other that much to spread diseases. The plague was spread by fleas, and I’m not sure if the new world had much of a problem with fleas until the white man showed up.