Beyond Germs. Examination of the 'virgin soil' theory focusing geographical, ethnological and demografic causes

Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject History - America, grade: A+, Johns Hopkins University, course: The Rise and Fall of Empires, language: English, abstract: In this paper, I will examine both the theory of 'virgin soil' epidemics, as well as those that complicate it. In doing so I will look at a broad range of scholarship spanning multiple geographical sites, numerous Amerindian tribes, as well as various colonial powers - England, France, and Spain. Although a concentration of attention will be placed on the Spanish conquests, the aim is to extract a generalized 'macro view' of the germ-centered narrative of European conquest, rather than to examine any one battle, tribe or oppressor. As a result of my investigation, I will dissent from the growing popularity of the theory of 'germ-dominated colonization' and offer a broader, more complex, understanding of how widespread depopulation of America's aboriginals, and the ensuing European hegemony, might have more realistically unfolded. Ultimately, the reason behind the success of European colonialism is likely not to be the neat dramatic stuff of a 'major PBS television special' but rather, in Livi-Bacci's words, 'The unsettling normality of conquest'.

Michael Ernest Sweet is an award-winning Canadian educator, writer, and photographer.