00:00When Europeans arrived in North America, they did not bring only weapons and settlers.
00:09They brought something far more devastating and that is disease.
00:18Long before the United States existed, epidemics reshaped Native American societies and permanently
00:27altered the balance of power across the continent.
00:35For thousands of years, Native American nations had lived largely isolated from Europe, Asia and Africa.
00:45As a result, they had no immunity to disease such as smallpox, measles and influenza.
00:55When these illnesses arrived with European traders and settlers in the 1600s, the effects were catastrophic.
01:05Entire communities were stuck within months.
01:08Villages lost elders, leaders and skilled hunters at the same time.
01:14Social structures collapsed as knowledge passed down through generations, disappeared almost overnight.
01:22In many regions, population declined by more than half before sustained conflict even began.
01:32These epidemics spread faster than the European settlement itself.
01:38Trade networks carried disease deep into the interior, reaching tribes that had never seen a European face.
01:46By the time colonists moved inland, they often encountered lands that appeared empty.
01:55No realizing they had once been densely populated.
02:02The demographic collapse reshaped power in North America.
02:07Native nations weakened by disease struggled to defend territory or resist land encroachment.
02:15The European colonies, once fragile and dependent, now faced far less resistance than earlier generations had.
02:28Disease also changed diplomacy.
02:31Tribes affected at different times experienced shifting alliances.
02:36Some sought European protection, while others tried to isolate themselves completely.
02:44The political landscape became unstable, making long-term resistance more difficult.
02:52Importantly, this collapse was not intentional biological warfare in most cases.
03:00Disease spread as an unintended consequence of contact.
03:05However, its effects were real and irreversible.
03:11Epidemics cleared the path for colonial expansion long before formal conquest occurred.
03:17By the time the American colonies began pushing towards independence, native America had already been transformed.
03:29The United States did not rise in a vacuum.
03:33It emerged in a land profoundly altered by disease, demographic collapse, and social disruption.
03:40This silent reshaping is essential to understanding how America was built.
03:48Not just through war and treaties, but through forces no one at the time fully understood.
03:56deadline of war and treaties must be experienced in addition to a few years of war,
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