The earliest Spanish explorers reported large population centers along the Amazon. European diseases probably did wipe them out. The survivors fled to the jungles and their societies never recovered.
The diseases were focused by the herding of the native populations into Catholic Missions at the points of Spanish swords. Mission tourists in California, for example, mostly don't realize that they are visiting mass grave sites of hundreds, and often thousands, of natives. They simply had no resistence to the European diseases - they dropped like flies.
The diseases were focused by the herding of the native populations into Catholic Missions at the points of Spanish swords. Mission tourists in California, for example, mostly don't realize that they are visiting mass grave sites of hundreds, and often thousands, of natives. They simply had no resistence to the European diseases - they dropped like flies.