“The death rates among Indians during the Peruvian, Mexican and North American epidemics are far closer to what we expect out of hanta than out of smallpox.”
Can you provide some reputable references for the inforation you are putting forward about Hemorrhagic virues (in this case one of the Hanta viruses). It sounds like an interesting read. Seriously, I would like to read about this in that it is a topic I deal with professionally. I want to be up-to-date if new/credible information is available.
BTW - I think you will find that in naive populations (meaning never before exposed) that Smallpox is more virulent (stronger sypmtoms and more readily spread) with higher mortalities than the 30% currently listed in medical texts based upon what was last seen before the viruse was eradicated in 1980. Plus, there are reports of hemorrhaghic symptoms in some cases of smallpox. A virulent strain of smallpox (Variola Major) going though a naive population in the Americas could produce epidemics much worse than those seen in Europe and the East where it raged for centuries. Oh, recent DNA studies of remains of “plague” victims in Europe have confirmed it was indeed Yersina pestis (plague) as always thought.
I was wondering if the evidence for Hanta you discuss was based upon doing genetic studies of human remains from these periods of disease in question? That would be more convincing proof and would rewrite history.
Just do a google search for INDIANS HANTA UNITED STATES ~ that ought to give you several thousand references with some recent studies of how it spreads.
The general idea is that since it's a virus carried by a rodent vector (including little ground squirrels) that it will happen during rodent population peaks. Those, in turn, are always related to the return of rainfall after a period of drought.
In the South West this was directly related to the appearance of a heavy mast of pinon nuts (much beloved by rodents).
Regarding other diseases, there were other diseases. One of the other diseases was INFLUENZA. You combine a shot of that stuff with hanta and maybe some variola, you might have one of those 97% death cocktails. That could explain what happened to the Mandan Indians (who Lewis and Clark met on the Way West but who'd disappeared from the face of the Earth by the time he came back East).
There, I just shifted the burden from the Europeans to the Chinese who raise ducks and pigs together!
Frankly, most of the popular knowledge of how the Indians died out was a result of English anti-Spanish propaganda. They didn't really get along for the longest time you know. At the same time no matter how many people Spain could send to the Americas they could barely hang on themselves since the diseases here were killing them like flies in a DDT fog. Later on the English got to experience the same sort of thing ~ this East Coast is just one big malaria swamp ~ and that wasn't brought under control until they built covered sewers in the nascent urban areas.