After 1492, diseases such as smallpox and measles arrived in the Americas on European ships. Why did these diseases spread so quickly and cause so many deaths in Indigenous communities?

What is the name for the movement of plants, animals, people, and diseases between Europe, Africa, and the Americas that began after 1492?

A smallpox epidemic struck the city of Tenochtitlan in 1520, months before Spanish soldiers and their allies attacked it in 1521. What effect did the epidemic have on the fighting?

In the 1520s a smallpox epidemic swept the Inca Empire before Spanish soldiers reached it, killing the ruler and his chosen heir. What happened in the empire afterward?

Epidemics killed many of the Indigenous people whom Spanish and Portuguese colonizers had forced to work in mines and on plantations. How did those colonizers replace that forced labor?

Historians call the 1520 smallpox outbreak in central Mexico an epidemic. What does the word epidemic mean?

Diseases brought by Europeans often reached Indigenous towns through trade and travel before any European had ever visited those towns.

An epidemic swept Indigenous villages along the New England coast between 1616 and 1619, after European ships had visited. In 1620, what did the Pilgrims find at the Patuxet village site?

Epidemics killed many elders in Indigenous communities. Why was the loss of elders especially damaging to those communities?

What happened to the number of Indigenous people living in the Americas during the century after 1492?

European colonists in the 1500s caught smallpox far less often than the Indigenous peoples they met. What best explains that difference?

Enslaved Africans and Indigenous people forced into labor in the colonies did not simply accept their treatment. Refusing to work, running away, and organizing revolts were common actions they took against forced labor. What word describes these actions?

Epidemics after 1492 caused enormous losses for Indigenous nations across the Americas. Did those nations disappear completely, or do many of them continue today with their own governments and communities?

A Spanish priest in Mexico in the 1550s wrote that whole villages had too few healthy people left to harvest their fields. What does his account show about the epidemic's effect on those villages?

What happened to many Native American communities after Europeans arrived in the Americas?

Smallpox passed from person to person in Indigenous towns after 1492. How did it most often spread from a sick person to others?

True or False: Disease was one major reason Native American populations declined after European contact.

How did disease weaken some Native American societies besides causing deaths?

Which disease is often linked to major epidemics among Native Americans after European contact?

True or False: Diseases from Africa, such as malaria and yellow fever, also reached the Americas during the Columbian Exchange.