Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
Virgin Soils Revisited
Author(s): David S. Jones
Source: The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 60, No. 4 (Oct., 2003), pp. 703-742
Published by: Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
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VirginSoils Revisited
David S. Jones
HE decimationof AmericanIndianpopulationsthatfollowed
European arrivalin the Americaswas one of the most shocking
demographiceventsof the last millennium.Indian populations
declinedby as much as 95 percentin the firstcenturyafterthe arrivalof
ChristopherColumbus, promptingone historianto conclude that"early
Americawas a catastrophe-a horrorstory,not an epic."' This collapse
establishedthe foundationforthe subsequentsocial and politicaldevelopmentsof Americanhistory.Since the earliestencountersof colonization, colonistsand theirdescendantshave struggledto explainhow and
whydepopulationoccurred.They have debatedthe roleof race,politics,
and even genocide. All have concluded that infectiousdiseases, introduced by Europeans and Africans,played a decisive role. American
Indians sufferedterriblemortalityfromsmallpox,measles,tuberculosis,
and many other diseases. Their susceptibilityled to AmericanIndian
declineeven as Europeanpopulationsthrived.
Discussions of the epidemiological vulnerability of American
Indians rose to prominencewith the work of William McNeill and
AlfredW. Crosbyin the1970s. Both arguedthatthe depopulationof the
Americaswas the inevitableresultof contact between disease-experienced Old World populations and the "virgin"populations of the
Americas.As Crosby definedthem in 1976, "Virginsoil epidemicsare
thosein whichthepopulationsat riskhave had no previouscontactwith
the diseases that strikethemand are thereforeimmunologicallyalmost
David Jonesis a memberof the Departmentof Psychiatry,
McLean Hospital
and the Massachusetts
GeneralHospital.This articleevolvedout of conversations
withAllan Brandt,ArthurKleinman,and JohnCoatsworth.
The authoralso benefited fromadvice fromWarwick Anderson,David Barnes, ConeveryBolton,
ElizabethCaronna,JoyceChaplin,Ward Churchill,AlfredCrosby,Ray Fisman,
JeremyGreene,Nick King, Marc Lipsitch,ChristopherSellers,Keith Wailoo,
Deborah Weinstein,membersof the Historyof Medicine WorkingGroup at
Harvard University,fellowsand facultyof the Divisions of Immunologyand
InfectiousDisease at Children'sHospital,Boston,and manyinsightful
anonymous
reviewers.
The researchwas supportedin partbya grantfromtheMedicalScientist
NationalInstitutes
ofHealth.
TrainingProgram,
1 JohnM. Murrin,"Beneficiariesof Catastrophe:The EnglishColonies in
America,"in Eric Foner,ed., The New AmericanHistory,rev. ed. (Philadelphia,
1997),4.
WilliamandMaryQuarterly,
3d Series,VolumeLX, Number4, October2003
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704
WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY
defenseless."His theoryprovideda powerfulexplanationfor the outcomes of encounterbetweenEuropeansand indigenousgroups,not just
in theAmericasbut throughouttheworld.Since Crosby'sanalysisof vircountless
gin soil epidemicsappearedin the Williamand MaryQuarterly,
writershave cited his definition and attributed the devastation of
American Indian populations to their immunologic inadequacy. As
argued in JaredDiamond's Pulitzer Prize-winningGuns, Germs,and
Steel,"The main killerswere Old World germsto which Indians had
never been exposed, and against which they thereforehad neither
immunenor geneticresistance."Such assertions,which apply the intuitive appeal of natural selection to the demographic historyof the
Americas,dominateacademicand populardiscussionsof depopulation.2
Even as Crosby'smodel of virginsoil epidemicsremainsa central
of theAmericas,it has been misunderstood
themeof the historiography
and misrepresented.
Crosbyactuallydownplayedthe "geneticweakness
and
instead
hypothesis"
emphasized the many environmentalfactors
that mighthave contributedto AmericanIndian susceptibilityto Old
and
Worlddiseases,includinglack of childhoodexposure,malnutrition,
the social chaos generatedby Europeancolonization.3Subsequenthistorians,however,have oftenreducedthe complexityof Crosby'smodel to
vague claims thatAmericanIndians had "no immunity"to the new epidemics. These claims obscure crucial distinctionsbetween different
mechanisms that might have leftAmerican Indians vulnerable. Did
AmericanIndians lack specificgenesthatmade Europeansand Africans,
aftergenerationsof naturalselection,more resistantto smallpox and
tuberculosis?Did theylack antibodiesthat theirEurasian counterparts
acquired duringchildhood exposureto endemic infections?Were their
immune systemscompromisedby the malnutrition,exhaustion,and
stresscreatedby European colonization?These different
explanations,
have verydifferent
blurredwithinsimpleclaimsof no immunity,
implications for our understandingof what was responsiblefor this demographiccatastrophe.
It is now possible to revisitthe theoryof virginsoil epidemicsand
reassessthe many possible causes of AmericanIndian susceptibilityto
and
Europeanpathogens.4The confusioncan be untangledby surveying
2 Crosby,"VirginSoil
Epidemicsas a Factorin theAboriginalDepopulationin
America,"Williamand Mary Quarterly,
3d Ser., 33 (1976), 289; Diamond, Guns,
and Steel:TheFatesofHumanSocieties
Germs,
(New York,1997),211-12.
3 Crosby,"VirginSoil Epidemics,"292.
the assumptionthat
4 For a challengeof anotheraspectof virginsoil theory,
new epidemicscaused Indian culturesand religionsto witheras quicklyas Indian
bodies,see Paul Kelton,"Avoidingthe SmallpoxSpirits:Colonial Epidemicsand
IndianSurvival,"
Southeastern
Ethnohistory,
50o(Fall 2oo3).
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VIRGINSOILS REVISITED
705
diverseresearchabout Indian depopulation.A reviewof
resynthesizing
the literatureof colonization shows the prevalenceof simplisticassertions of no immunityand their possible ideological appeals. It also
demonstratesthe importanceof definingthe specificclaims contained
withinthe theoryof virginsoil epidemicsand evaluatingeach of them
separately.Recent immunological researchhas clarifiedthe different
mechanismsthat can compromisehuman immunity.Parallelwork by
archaeologists,and historianshas elucidated
biological anthropologists,
the details of the mortalityof specific Indian populations. Taken
together,thisworksuggeststhatalthoughIndians'lack of priorexposure
mighthave left them vulnerableto European pathogens,the specific
contribution of such genetic or developmental factors is probably
unknowable.In contrast,the analysesclearlyshow thatthe fatesof individual populations depended on contingentfactorsof theirphysical,
It could well be that the
economic,social, and politicalenvironments.
American
their
unusual severity,
were
Indians,
epidemicsamong
despite
caused by the same forcesof poverty,social stress,and environmental
that cause epidemicsin all othertimesand places. These
vulnerability
new understandings
of the mechanismsof depopulationrequirehistorians to be extremely
carefulin theirwritingabout AmericanIndian epidemics. If they attribute depopulation to irresistible genetic and
microbialforces,theyriskbeinginterpreted
as supportingracialtheories
of historicaldevelopment.Instead,theymust acknowledgethe ways in
which multiple factors,especially social forces and human agency,
shaped theepidemicsof encounterand colonization.
Even a cursorysurveyof the literatureon encounterand colonization revealscountlessclaims that AmericanIndians died because they
lacked immunityto Old World pathogens.The "epidemiologically
pristine"Indianswere"immunologically
With "no immunity,"
they
na'ive.'"5
were "biologically defenseless."6As a result,they fell victim to "the
5 WilliamA. Starna,"The BiologicalEncounter:Disease and the Ideological
Domain," AmericanIndian Quarterly,16 (1992), 513;ArthurE. Spiess and Bruce D.
Spiess, "New England Pandemic of 1616-1622: Cause and Archaeological
Man in theNortheast,
34 (1987),77.
Implication,"
6 David E. Stannard,"Diseaseand Infertility:
A New Look at theDemographic
Collapse of Native Populations in the Wake of WesternContact,"Journalof
AmericanStudies,24 (1990), 329, 346. Scores of similar accounts exist. Here is a par-
tial listingsince 1990: Colin G. Calloway,New Worlds
forAll: Indians,Europeans,
and theRemaking
i997), 33;Paul H. Carlson,ThePlains
ofEarlyAmerica(Baltimore,
Indians(College Station,Tex., 1998),8; JamesH. Cassedy,Medicinein America:A
ShortHistory(Baltimore,I991), 5; A. D. Cliff,P. Haggett,and M. R. SmallmanRaynor,"Island Populations: The Virgin Soil Question," in Island Epidemics
Medical Tradition:
8oo
(Oxford,2000), I2o; LawrenceI. Conradet al., The Western
B.C.-A.D. I8oo (Cambridge, 1995), 225-26,
474, 486; Noble David Cook and W.
GeorgeLovell,eds., "Secret
Judgments
ofGod"-Old WorldDiseasein ColonialSpanish
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WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY
706
knowndemographic
in thehistory
of theworld."7
greatest
catastrophe
other
and
had
"almost
universal
Spaniards
Europeans,meanwhile,
to
the
diseases
that
devastated
American
Such
immunity"
populations.8
assertionsof AmericanIndian immunological
inadequacyappearin
booksandarticles
devotedto Indianpopulation
in histories
that
history,
in passing,and in surveys
discussdepopulation
or otherworksintended
forgeneralaudiences.Theseassertions
ofno immunity
leavereadersto
whether
from
the
arose
fromlack
susceptibility
guess
genetichandicaps,
of exposureto diseasesas children,
or fromdetrimental
effects
of colonization.Writers
who ignorethesecrucialdistinctions
the
dodge
questionofhistorical
responsibility.
Somewriters
betweeninherited
and acquiredimmunity,
distinguish
discountthe
onlyto suggestthatIndianslackedboth.9Otherwriters
America(Norman,Okla., 1991),xv; FrancisJennings,
TheFounders
How
ofAmerica:
in It, and CreatedGreatClassicalCivilizations;
IndiansDiscovered
theLand,Pioneered
How TheyWerePlungedintoa DarkAgebyInvasionand Conquest,
and How TheyAre
Reviving(New York, I993), 383; Charles C. Mann, "1491," AtlanticMonthly (Mar.
43; AdrienneMayor, "The Nessus Shirt in the New World: Smallpox
Blanketsin Historyand Legend,"JournalofAmericanFolklore,
io8 (Winter1995),
58; Murrin,"Beneficiariesof Catastrophe,"7; Linda A. Newson, "Old World
Epidemicsin EarlyColonialEcuador,"in Cook and Lovell,eds., "Secret
of
Judgments
God," 88; Gregory H. Nobles, AmericanFrontiers:Cultural Encountersand
2002),
ContinentalConquest(New York, 1997), 41; Mary Beth Norton et al., A People and a
Nation:A Historyof theUnitedStates,briefed., vol. A: To 1877, 4th ed. (Boston,
ofa
1996),18;JohnSteckley,
"Developinga Theoryof Smallpox:HuronPerceptions
New Disease," ArchNotes,90 (Jan.-Feb. 1990), 17; Ian K. Steele, Warpaths:Invasions
of North America (New York, 1994), 22; Rebecca Storey, Life and Death in the
A ModernPaleodemographic
AncientCityof Teotihuacan:
(Tuscaloosa,Ala.,
Synthesis
1992),43; Ronald Takaki, "The Tempestin the Wilderness:The Racializationof
Savagery," Journal of American History, 79 (1992), 907; Alan Taylor, American
Colonies (New York, 2001), 42; Patrick Tierney, Darkness in El Dorado: How
Scientists
and Journalists
DevastatedtheAmazon(New York,2000), 56; Daniel H.
and Slavesin a Frontier
Usner,Jr.,Indians,Settlers,
ExchangeEconomy:The Lower
MississippiValleybefore178? (Chapel Hill, 1992), 16; RichardWhite, "Western
History,"in Foner,ed., NewAmerican
History,
2zo8;EdwinWilliamson,ThePenguin
Historyof Latin America (New York, 1992), 13, 84-85; and Ronald Wright, Stolen
Continents:TheAmericasThroughIndian EyesSince 1492 (Boston, 1992), 13-14.
7 Murrin,"Beneficiaries
ofCatastrophe,"
7.
8 Crosby,The Columbian
Exchange:
Biologicaland CulturalConsequences
of 492
Conn., 1972),57. See also WilliamH. McNeill,Plaguesand Peoples(New
(Westport,
York,1977),184; Neal Salisbury,"The Indians'Old World:NativeAmericansand
theComingofEuropeans,"WMQ,3d Ser.,53(1996),458; and David S. Landes,The
Wealthand Poverty
ofNations:WhySomeAreSo Richand SomeSo Poor(New York,
1998), 169.
9 Jerry
Contacts
and Exchanges
H. Bentley,Old WorldEncounters:
Cross-Cultural
Times(New York,1993), 183;RobertBoyd,TheComingoftheSpiritof
in Pre-Modern
Diseasesand PopulationDeclineamongNorthwest
Pestilence:Introduced
Infectious
Coast Indians, 1774-i874 (Seattle, 1999), 17; White, The Middle Ground: Indians,
Empires,and Republicsin the GreatLakes Region,165o-8175(Cambridge, 1991), 41.
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VIRGINSOILS REVISITED
707
and insteademphasizethevulnerability
contribution
of geneticfactors
fromlackofpriorexposure.
WilliamCronon,forinstance,
thatresulted
notesthat"whattheIndianslackedwas notso muchgeneticprotection
thismayhavebeena partialfactor-asthe
fromEurasian
disease-though
historical
as a populationto maintainacquiredimmunities
experience
fromgeneration
to generation."'0
also acknowledge
that
Manyhistorians
thesocialchaosof encounter(suchas famine,overcrowding,
warfare,
Indiansvulnerable.
how
Colin Callowaydescribes
stress)leftAmerican
"cut
down
economic
epidemics
productivity,
generating
hungerand
whichrendered
thosewhosurvived
one diseasemorevulnerable
famine,
to affliction
withfalling
birthrates,
bythenext.New diseasescombined
and
social
to
turn
Indian
warfare,
alcoholism,
escalating
upheaval
general
Americaintoa graveyard.""
Amidthisjumbledmixof explanations
of
AmericanIndiandemise,fewprovidesubstantial
evidenceto backup
whatare essentially
intuitive
assertions
aboutIndianimmunity.
Even
to
fewer
evaluate
the
relative
contributions
of
different
factors.
attempt
All too oftenthisambiguity
producesstarkemphasison powerful
and inevitableforcesof naturalselection.In such explanations,
the
absenceofnaturalselection
in
serious
America
by
pathogens precontact
leftthe"genetically-virgin"
American
Indiansvulnerable
to Old World
after
environmental
of Indian
causes
pathogens.Crosby,
emphasizing
later
described
how
of
thousands
of
disease
depopulation,
years
exposure
in Eurasiahad createdan Old World"superman"
with"an impressive
assortment
of geneticand acquiredadaptationsto diseasesanciently
endemicto Old Worldcivilizations."
Accordingto FrancisJennings,
American
Indiansneverhada chance:"Ifthereis anytruthto biological
distinctions
betweenthegreatracialstocksof mankind,
theEuropeans'
capacityto resistcertaindiseasesmade themsuperior,in the pure
Darwiniansense,to the Indians who succumbed."RichardWhite
10 Cronon,
Changesin theLand: Indians, Colonists,and theEcologyof New
in
England(New York, 1983),85. See also JamesAxtell,Beyond1492: Encounters
Colonial North America (New York, 1992), 105; Elizabeth A. Fenn, Pox Americana:
The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 (New York, 2001), 23, 27; Karen Ordahl
Kupperman,Indiansand English:Facing Offin EarlyAmerica(Ithaca, 2000), 34;
Indian
McNeill,Plaguesand Peoples,3-4, 8, 184-85;and RussellThornton,American
Holocaustand Survival:A Population
Since1492 (Norman,Okla., 1987),47.
History
11Calloway,New Worlds All, 37. See also Cook, Bornto Die: Diseaseand
for
New World Conquest,1492-i650 (Cambridge, 1998), 166-67; Cronon, Changesin the
Land, 88; Newson, "Highland-LowlandContrastsin the Impact of Old World
Diseases in EarlyColonial Ecuador,"Social Scienceand Medicine,36
(I993), 1194;
Stannard,"Disease and Infertility,"
341,346-47, 349; Taylor,AmericanColonies,
38-39; Michael K. Trimble,"The 1837-1838Smallpox Epidemic on the Upper
Missouri,"in Douglas W. Owsleyand RichardL. Jantz,eds., SkeletalBiologyin the
GreatPlains:Migration,
D. C., 1994),
Health,and Subsistence,
Warfare,
(Washington,
82-87; and White,MiddleGround,
41.
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WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY
708
agrees: New World populations "had not been selected over time for
resistanceto such diseases."12Similar claims of inevitabilityappear
throughoutthe historical literature.Diseases "careened unchecked
throughthe 'virginsoil' populations."13Europeanand Africanmicrobes
"acquiredan inevitablemomentumthat quicklymade human motivation all but irrelevant."14
AmericanIndianswere"doomedto die."'15
One finalcase demonstratesthe pervasivenatureof such immunoJaredDiamond's Guns,Germs,and Steel.Diamond
logical determinism:
to
answer
a
deceptively simple question: "Why did history
sought
on different
continents?"How did Europeanscome to
unfolddifferently
assertdominion over the rest of the world? Diamond knew that this
quest would take him acrosstreacherousground:"In case thisquestion
immediatelymakes you shudderat the thoughtthat you are about to
read a racisttreatise,you aren't:as you will see, the answersto the quesat all."16This turnsout not
tion don't involvehuman racialdifferences
to be thecase.
Diamond asks his readersto join him in turningback the clock to
11,oo000 B. C. Nothing then could have predicted European success.
continents"proratesof developmenton different
However,"different
duced "technologicaland politicalinequalities"by A. D. 1500. Diamond
ratesto one simple fact:while the dominant
attributesthese different
the domiof
geographicaxes Africaand the Americasrun north-south,
axes
turnedthe fornant axis of Eurasia runseast-west."Aroundthose
tunes of history."The east-westorientation of Eurasia allowed the
disseminationof crops, animals,and technologiesof food production.
The whole continentbecame one giant pool of genetic and cultural
sharing.Latitudinal gradientsand geographicobstacles blocked such
exchangein theAmericas.The morerapiddevelopmentof surplusfood
productionin Eurasia fueledcraftspecialists,technologies,bureaucracies,standingarmies,fleets,exploration,and conquest.The densesettlements and domesticatedanimals of Eurasian agriculturealso exposed
people to animal microbesand facilitatedthe emergenceof epidemic
diseases.The initialcost of those infectionsproduceda lastingbenefit:
12
J. S. Cummins, "Pox and Paranoia in Renaissance Europe," HistoryToday,38
TheBiologicalExpansionofEurope,
(Aug. 1988), 28; Crosby,EcologicalImperialism:
9oo-9roo (Cambridge, 1986), 34; Jennings, The Invasion of America: Indians,
Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (Chapel Hill, I975), 22; White, Middle
Ground,41.
13Axtell,TheInvasionWithin:TheContest
in ColonialNorthAmerica
ofCultures
(New York, 1985), 96. See also Mayor, "Nessus Shirt," 74-75ni9, and Steele,
84.
Warpaths,
14Murrin, "Beneficiariesof
Catastrophe," 5.
15 In both
Calloway, New WorldsforAll, 33, and White, Middle Ground,41.
16Diamond, Guns, Germs,and Steel,9.
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VIRGIN SOILS REVISITED
709
"Those humansthenevolvedsubstantialresistanceto the new diseases."
Americans, who never became "one huge breeding ground for
microbes,"did not. The resultof European arrivalin the Americaswas
predestined:"When such partlyimmunepeople came into contactwith
others who had had no previous exposures to the germs,epidemics
resultedin which up to 99 percentof the previouslyunexposedpopulationwas killed."17
Accordingto Diamond, all of historythusfollowedfromgeography.
Time and timeagain he emphasizesthatrace had nothingto do withit:
coursesfordifferent
"Historyfolloweddifferent
peoples because of difnot because of biologicaldifferferencesamong peoples' environments,
ences among peoples themselves."18The many blurbs that adorn
editionsof Guns,Germs,and Steelsimilarlyhighlightthe antiracistcontribution of Diamond's work. Paul Ehrlich believes that "the book
demolishesthe groundsfor racist theoriesof history."Crosby agrees:
Diamond "has done us all a greatfavorby supplyinga rock-solidalternativeto the racistanswer."Publishedreviewsof Guns,Germs,and Steel
followthese leads.19Yet despite this praise,the book asserteda theory
grounded in supposed racial differencesbetween Americans and
Europeans.20Though Diamond acknowledgesthatall groupsof humans
similarin II,000 B. c., he arguedthat
mighthave been immunologically
A.
D.
were
different
1500. When Spanish conquistador
very
by
they
Ibid.,16,92, 191, 212. See also Taylor, AmericanColonies,30-31, 41-42.
18 Diamond, Guns, Germs,and Steel,25.
17
19 Ibid., back cover of 1997 edition (Ehrlich), leading page of 1999 edition
(Crosby). Of more than 4o reviews of Guns, Germs,and Steel examined, nearly all
praised Diamond forproviding an alternativeto racist theoriesof world history.For
representativeexamples, see Sharon Begley, "Location, Location . . . A Real-Estate
View of History's Winners and Losers," Newsweek,129 (June I6, 1997), 47; Thomas
M. Disch, "A Crescendo of Inductive Logic," New Leader, 80 (Mar. 10, 1997),
19-20; "Geographical Determinism," The Economist,344 (July 19, 1997), R4-R5;
review of Guns, Germs,and Steel, in New Yorker,73 (Mar. 31, 1997), Ioi; and Colin
Renfrew, "Human Destinies and Ultimate Causes," Nature, 386 (Mar. 27, 1997),
339-40.
20 Other critical reviewshave not addressed this point. For examples, see James
M. Blaut, "Environmentalismand Eurocentrism,"GeographicalReview,89 (July1999),
391-408 (focused on geographicdeterminism);Brian Ferguson,reviewof Guns, Germs,
and Steel,AmericanAnthropologist,
IoI (Dec. 1999), 900-or (Diamond ignoresculture,
society,politics); and McNeill, "HistoryUpside Down," New YorkReviewofBooks,44
(May 15, 1997), 48-50. Three reviewersactuallycriticizeDiamond fordownplayingthe
importance of racial differences:Laurence Hurst, "Sex, War and the Pox," New
Scientist,155 (Aug. 30, 1997), 40-41; Mark Ridley, "The Uselessness of Zebras," TLS:
The TimesLiterarySupplement,Nov. 14, 1997, 6; and J. Philippe Rushton, review of
Guns, Germsand Steel in Population and Environment,21 (Sept. 1999), 99-107. Only
two reviewscomment on Diamond's implicitlyracial arguments,and neitherrecognizes their pervasivepresence: Bruce Mazlish, "Big Questions? Big History?"History
and Theory,38 (May 1999), 232-48, and Steve Sailer, "Why Nations Conquer,"
National Review,49 (May 19, 1997), 51-52.
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WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY
710
PizarrometIncaemperor
at Cajamarcain 1532,the
Francisco
Atahuallpa
immunesystems
hadgenetically
different
peoplewhomeachrepresented
withdifferent
One hadimmunity
to certain
diseases,the
susceptibilities.
in II,000 B.
otherdid not.Whathadbeencontingent
factsofgeography
factsofbiologybyA. D. 1500.The different
c. had becomeinternalized
in origin,had
historiesof Eurasiansand Americans,environmental
becomeembeddedin theirimmunesystems.21
of
Diamond,likeso manyotherswhohaveignoredthecomplexities
in
of
of
favor
the
determinism,
depopulation
elegance immunological
The abilityofa racialtheory
ofdisscarceoutcryfromcritics.
provoked
ease susceptibility
to slipunnoticed
intoDiamond'sexplicitly
antiracist
ofhistory
hintsat howdeeplyembeddedsuchtheories
arein the
theory
of
stories
we tellaboutpost-Columbian
America.22
Whyhaveassertions
no immunity
beenpropagated
so uncritically?
Theyhavemanypossible
sourcesofappeal.
One explanation
havean unassailmaybe thatscientific
arguments
able cachetin historical
that
forces
historians
to downplayor
writing
factors.
The
other
of
theory immunological
vulnerability
ignore
applies
the intuitive
of naturalselectionto a challenging
historical
authority
problemand efficiently
explainsa decisiveepisodein humanhistory.23
Its explanatory
seems
likejust anotherof themanyaccomplishpower
mentsof twentieth-century
Afterall, nearlyeveryweek
biomedicine.
anotherteamof scientistsannouncesthattheyhave identifiedyet
21
Jenningsmade a similarargumentin Invasion ofAmerica,22.
22 The term "race" requires clarification. Careful writers,
including McNeill,
Diamond, and (but not always) Crosby, avoid the politically charged term by discussing specific historically and geographically defined populations. American
Indians at the time of contact, for instance, were a distinct group compared to
Europeans and Africans. It is possible to discuss virgin soil epidemics without ever
mentioningrace. However, many authors (especially in popular forums)discuss race
and racial differenceas though theywere real and self-evidentcategories. This position has gained support from genetic analyses of human populations that show a
"general agreement" between popularly and geneticallydefined human subpopulations: Noah A. Rosenberg et al., "Genetic Structure of Human Populations,"
Science, 298 (Dec. 20o,2002), 2381-85. Such work has re-energized controversies
about the relevance of race as a salient category in medical science: Richard S.
Cooper, Jay S. Kaufman, and Ryk Ward, "Race and Genomics," New England
JournalofMedicine, 348 (Mar. 20o,2003), 1166-70; Esteban Gonzilez Burchardet al.,
"The Importance of Race and Ethnic Background in Biomedical Research and
Clinical Practice," ibid., 1170-75. Casual use of race, however,introduces unneeded
political baggage into debates about human health and disease, confusingan already
complicated picture. I avoid race, racial, or racist as much as possible except where
those termsare introduced by my sources.
23 For a similar argument, see Francis J. Brooks, "Revising the Conquest of
Mexico: Smallpox, Sources, and Populations," JournalofInterdisciplinary
History,24
(Summer 1993), 9-10.
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VIRGINSOILS REVISITED
7II
anothergenethatincreasesa person'sriskfora specificdisease.But
cachetcannotexplaineverything.
1976article,as wellas subseCrosby's
of depopulation,
all describethe
quentresearchin the anthropology
offactors,
to depopuladiversity
biologicaland social,thatcontributed
tion.Moreover,
are suspiciousof scientific
claimsof
manyhistorians
and
most
are
enamored
of
and
authority,
complexity contingency.
Deference
to scientific
does notaccountfortheappealof
explanations
in historical
"noimmunity"
writing.
No immunity
couldhaveappealedto historians
forhistoriographical reasons:it undermined
theories
ofacademichistory
in the
dominant
to
the
of
Eric
Fernand
Braudel,
Hobsbawm,
analyses
I96os. According
and manyothers,economicdeterminism
ruled humanaffairs.In
historicalforces.
response,historiansin the 1970ssoughtalternative
othersfounddisease,especially
theravSome foundtheenvironment,
of
nonimmune
Epidemicsappealed
populations.
ages epidemicsamong
to McNeillforexactly
thesamereasonthattheyrepelledearlierhistoriof humanintention,"
ans: diseases,"independent
"spoiledtheweb of
their
artsoughtto make
and explanation
which
through
interpretation
this
humanexperience
Following lead, recenthistorians
intelligible."
as an alternative
to traditional
world
haveturnedto epidemichistory
histories
dominatedby Euroamericans.
Disease,seemingto act "indenot onlyscouredindigenouspopulations,
pendentof humanagency,"
to colonizing
resistance
armiesand exacteda
butalsoprovided
powerful
hightollfromcolonizers.24
andotherhistorians
Atthesametime,McNeill,Crosby,
utilizedvirginsoil theoryto turnthisappealon itshead.If,at firstglimpse,epirestored
demicsseemedto defyhistorical
causation,thenno immunity
causationand meaning.The depopulation
of theAmericas
was no random event.Instead,the epidemicsoccurredbecauseof specificand
historical
forces:different
diseasesand resistances
had
understandable
When
and
Americans
evolvedin long-isolated
Europeans
populations.
in a contingent
cametogether,
butinevitable
encounter,
widespread
epidemicswerethe logicaloutcome.Theoriesof no immunity
allowed
Diamondand theothersto fitepidemics
intograndnarratives
ofhistoricalevolution.
can be explainedbythe
Perhapstheidea thatIndiandepopulation
tookhold becauseit servedan ideological
Indians'lack of immunity
24 McNeill, Plagues and Peoples, 196. For
epidemics as an alternative to
Euroamerican agency, see Terence Ranger, "To Fiji with Measles," London Reviewof
Books, 21 (Feb. 4, 1999), 30. For similar argumentsby environmentalhistorians,see
Donald Worster, "Transformations of the Earth: Toward an Agroecological
Perspective in History," JAH, 76 (1990), Io88, oo90. For political debates within
environmental history, see the discussions by Worster, Crosby, White, Carolyn
Merchant, Cronon, and Stephen J. Pyne in JAH, 76 (1990), IO87-II47.
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712
WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY
purpose.White physiciansin South Africa,forinstance,used virginsoil
theoryto explain the prevalenceof tuberculosisamong Africanmine
workers.Randall Packardhas arguedthat "virginsoil theoryappearsto
thanforits basis in hishave been acceptedmoreforits instrumentality
torical fact." By blaming the disease on biological inadequacies of
Africans,the theory"provideddefendersof the status quo in South
Africawith a means of deflectingattentionfromthe appallingconditionsunderwhichAfricanslivedand worked."25Historiansdo not share
the politicsof the South Africanphysiciansor use virginsoil theoriesas
a justificationforeitherEuroamericanhegemonyor currentdisparities
in healthstatusbetweenAmericanIndians and the generalpopulation.
Instead,the theoriesare used to explain an eventlong since past. But
since this historicevent,the depopulation of the Americas,had such
profoundimplicationsand retainspolitical currency,it should not be
in theAmerican
surprisingthattheoriesof immunologicaldeterminism
context also have "instrumentality,"
attention
away from
deflecting
moraland politicalquestions.
For example, many authorswho promoteclaims of no immunity
of AmericanIndians.Yet despite
castigateEuropeansfortheirtreatment
the broadercritiquesin which these claims are embedded,theoriesof
immunologicaldeterminismcan still assuage Euroamericanguilt over
AmericanIndian depopulation,whetherin the consciousmotivesof historiansor in the semiconsciousdesiresof theirreaders.Despite the five
hundredyearsthatseparateus fromColumbus,manystillfeelthe shock
of the Columbian encounter.The power of this guilt transformed
the
potentialcelebrationof the Columbian Quincentenaryinto a moment
of mourning and self-doubt.26No immunityhelps by representing
depopulation as the inescapable product of historical-immunological
forcesthathad been brewingformillennia.Contact betweenthe populations was inevitable, if not by Columbus then by someone else.
Epidemicscould not have been prevented.No one shouldbe blamed.As
Thomas Sowell describesit, "theunwittingspreadof diseasesis morally
neutral."Such effortsto turndepopulationinto a blamelesseventhave
provokedfierceoutcriesfromcritics.David Stannardargues that "by
forthe
focusingalmostentirelyon disease,by displacingresponsibility
authors
mass killingonto an armyof invadingmicrobes,contemporary
increasinglyhave createdthe impressionthat the eradicationof those
tensof millionsof people was inadvertent."27
25
Packard, WhitePlague, Black Labor: Tuberculosisand the Political Economyof
Health and Disease in SouthAfrica(Berkeley,1989), 32.
26 Rozanne Dunbar Ortiz, "Aboriginal People and
Imperialism in the Western
Hemisphere," MonthlyReview,44 (Sept. 1992), 1-2.
27 Sowell, Conquest and Cultures:An InternationalHistory(New York, 1998),
327; Stannard, American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World
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VIRGINSOILS REVISITED
713
can also be
againshowingremarkable
flexibility,
Virginsoil theory,
for
usedto mitigate
either
guiltbyshifting
responsibility depopulation
such as
onto,or awayfrom,theAmericanIndians.Some historians,
listbehavioral
factors
thatincreased
theIndians'vulnerability
to
Crosby,
of
from
citingeverything ignorance contagionto
Europeanpathogens,
and suicide.If themortality
sweatbaths,fatalism,
causedbyvirginsoil
to
thenEuropeans
can
be
traced
unwise
Indian
behaviors,
epidemics
are
But
the
alsohas appeal
their
less
descendants)
(and
theory
culpable.
determinism
hasbeenusedas an
foran oppositereason.Immunological
argumentagainst supposed failuresof AmericanIndian culture.
Cortesand
Historians
had longcreditedtheeasyconquestsbyHernain
Pizarroto superiorEuropeanmilitary
and
technology,
strategy, leaderIn
and
such
traditional
histories,
ignorant gullibleAztecsand Incas
ship.
histothepowerofepidemics,
neverstooda chance.Butbyemphasizing
rianscan makean oppositeclaim.The Aztecsand Incas,bothpowerful
had
wouldhavebeenformidable
adversaries
and sophisticated
societies,
As Karen
bytheirresistible
powerofsmallpox.
theynotbeendevastated
Kupperman
argues,"It was reallyEuropeandiseasesand not superior
whichdefeated
theIndiansin theearlyyears."But
Europeantechnology
Indianculno immunity
to divertblamefromAmerican
byemphasizing
theorists
transfer
thesewell-meaning
turesand institutions,
responsibilIndianbodies.28
itytoAmerican
withfamiliar
determinism
also resonate
Theoriesof immunological
Whilehistorical
writers
endorsetheseolder
narratives.
do notexplicitly
thevirginsoilstoriestheytellunintentionally
perpetuate
powermyths,
tell
a
of
infiltrated
and
fulnarrative
First,
they
story purity
patterns.
American
Indians
as
a
Theyportray
destroyed
by corruption.
pristine
populationruinedby diseasedEuropeans.Indians'ancestors,so the
storygoes,survivedthearcticwastesof theBeringSea and Canadian
not by fire,butby ice. Whentheysettled
tundra.Theywerepurified,
were
theAmericas,
a
disease-free
they
population
movingintoan Edenic
This
of their
which
allowed
the
paradise.
purity,
nondevelopment
immunesystems,left them vulnerableto the diseases of urban
and tropical
Africans.
theyweredoomed,theywere
Europeans
Although
thefactthatEuropeans
at leastdoomedbypurity.
had been
Meanwhile,
so diseasedforso longbecametheirgreatest
sourceofstrength.29
(New York, 1992), xii. However, Stannard himselfcited Hawaiians' nonimmunityas
a contributing
factorto theirdeclinein the I9th century.Stannard,"Disease and
Infertility,"3z5-5o.
28 Crosby,"VirginSoil Epidemics,"296-99; Kupperman,SettlingWiththe
Indians:TheMeetingofEnglishand Indian Culturesin America,z58o-r64o(Totowa,
N. J., I980), 5. See also Crosby, Columbian Exchange,48-53, and Diamond, Guns,
Germs,and Steel,210-11.
29 For an example, see Taylor, AmericanColonies,41-42.
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714
WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY
of a purifying
Second,the narrative
journeypresentsAmerican
as theproductoftheirpriortriumph
Indianvulnerability
overadversity.
Theirmigration
theAmericas
was a remarkable
fromAsia throughout
Similar
costlyconsequence.
accomplishment,
thoughwithan eventually
narrativesof susceptibilityaftersurvivingadversityare common.
thedangerous
ofthemalarialtropwhosurvived
environment
Africans,
of slaves,who surwere
left
with
sickle
cell
anemia.
Descendants
ics,
vived the rigorsof the Middle Passage, were leftvulnerableto
hypertension.30
Third, the theoryutilizes narrativesof virginity.Some early
colonistsand historians
Americaas a "virgin
land,or wilderportrayed
ness,inhabitedby nonpeoplecalled savages,"ripeforsettlement
by
Europeans.RecognitionthatAmericahad been fullof people, the
AmericanIndians,forcedtheabandonment
of thismyth.Others,initiallyimpressed
bythehealthand skillsoftheIndians,onlycameto see
theIndiansas weakandvulnerable
afterobserving
theirsusceptibility
to
Europeandiseases.Virginsoil theorycombinestheseoldernarratives,
a virgin,
vacantlandwitha landfilledwithvirgin,
vulnerable
replacing
AmericanIndiansas weak,defenseless,
people.It presents
susceptible,
female.It presentsEuropeansas aggressive,
strong,resilient,male.
Indians
were
before
the
of Europeanpathogens.
thrust
helpless
Virgin
Theirbodiesprovidedfertilesoils forthe growthof Europeanseeds.
Thesegendered
thatAmerican
soilsproparallelarguments
arguments
videdfertile
fieldsforEuropeancropsand animalsand thatAmerican
environmentsserved as fertilelands fortransplantedEuropean
societies.31
of most
Finally,
despitetheexplicitmoraland politicalsympathies
ofimmunological
havestriking
moderntheories
determinism
historians,
similarities
to Puritantheoriesof providence.
Colonialrecordscontain
of AmericanIndian
abundantevidenceforprovidential
interpretation
30For a discussionof howAfricanAmericansin theI96os and 1970sreformusee
latedsicklecell anemiaas proofof theirfitnessto theirancestralenvironment,
KeithWailoo, Dyingin theCityof theBlues:SickleCellAnemiaand thePoliticsof
Raceand Health(Chapel Hill, zooi), ro6,114-18,144-47,182-89. For hypertension
of
and the slavetrade,see ThomasW. Wilsonand ClarenceE. Grim,"Biohistory
Slavery and Blood Pressure Differences in Blacks Today: A Hypothesis,"
see Philip D.
17 (Jan. 1991,supplement),1-122. For a refutation,
Hypertension,
Curtin,"The SlaveryHypothesisforHypertension
amongAfricanAmericans:The
HistoricalEvidence,"American
JournalofPublicHealth,82 (1992), I681-86.
31Jennings,
InvasionofAmerica,15. For changingEuropeanattitudestoward
theBody,and Scienceon
Indians,see JoyceE. Chaplin,SubjectMatter:Technology,
theAnglo-AmericanFrontier,
i5oo-I676(Cambridge,Mass., zooi). For the fertile
and
receptionof Europeanplantsand animals,see Crosby,EcologicalImperialism,
ElinorG. K. Melville,A PlagueofSheep:Environmental
Consequences
oftheConquest
ofMexico(Cambridge,1994).
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VIRGIN
SOILSREVISITED
715
epidemics, from John Smith ("it seemes God hath provided this
Country for our Nation, destroyingthe natives by the plague") to
Cotton Mather ("the woods were almost cleared of those pernicious
creatures,to make room fora bettergrowth").Historiansoftenemphasize this one aspect of Puritanresponses,portrayingtheologicalreacto Indian suffering.32
The implicationis
tions as perverseindifference
that we would have respondedwith less judgmentand more compassion. But assertionsthatIndians had no immunityto European disease
resemblePuritan providentialism,replacingtheologywith molecular
biology. Puritansargued that Indian corruption(paganism) leftthem
vulnerableto the wrathof God, manifestedthroughepidemics.Virgin
soil theoristsarguethatIndian purity(immunologicalnaivetd)leftthem
vulnerableto contact with Europeans, again manifestedthroughepidemics. The implicationsare similar.Both assertthat the outcomewas
inevitableand unstoppable.Both emphasizethe inherentinferiority
of
observers
of
for
the
and
of
victims,absolving
mortality
responsibility
to
intervene.
responsibility
Althoughmost of the mortalityoccurredhundredsof yearsago, it
remains a relevantevent: Euroamericansare the beneficiariesof the
deaths of tens of millionsof AmericanIndians; Africanswere enslaved
and broughtto the Americasto providelabor as Indians died. Virgin
soil theoryattemptsto isolate the presentfromthe horrorsof the past
by describingAmericanIndian depopulationas the productof a unique
moment.But by ignoringthe social factorsthatcreimmuno-historical
ated diseaseduringthe Columbian encounter,the theorymakesit easier
to ignorethosesame factorswheretheyoperatetoday.33
The theoryof virginsoil epidemics,with its multifacetedappeal,
emergedgraduallyovercenturiesof observationofAmericanIndian epi32 Smith,Advertisements
PlantersofNew England,orAny
fortheUnexperienced
Where(1631),in PhilipL. Barbour,ed., The Complete
Works
of CaptainJohnSmith
ChristiAmericana;
(1580-163I), 3 vols. (Chapel Hill, 1986), 3:275; Mather, Magnalia
or, The EcclesiasticalHistoryofNew-England (1732), 2 vols. (Hartford,1853),1:51. For
historians'fetishforPuritans'providential
responses,see Calloway,ed., Dawnland
in Northern
Encounters:
Indiansand Europeans
NewEngland(Hanover,N. H., 1991),
in theLand,126; Kupperman,Settling
withtheIndians,6; and
12; Cronon,Changes
AldenT. Vaughan,NewEnglandFrontier:
Puritansand Indians,I62o0-675 (Norman,
Okla., 1995;orig.pub. 1965),104. I discussthe role of such providential
explanationsin Puritansocietyin Rationalizing
Epidemics:
Meaningsand UsesofAmerican
sincei6oo (Cambridge,Mass.,forthcoming).
IndianMortality
33 This is trueforall cases in whichsocial factors
in health
generatedisparities
status,as wellas thespecificcase of thefewremaining
"virginsoil" populations.As
late as 1998,expertsestimatedthat55 groupsof isolatedSouthAmericanIndians
had yetto encounterEuropeans,Africans,
and theirpathogens;MagdalenaHurtado
of InfectiousDiseasesamongSouthAmericanIndians:A
et al., "The Epidemiology
Call forGuidelines forEthical Research," CurrentAnthropology,
42 (2001), 425-32.
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WILLIAM AND MARYQUARTERLY
716
of thedemographic
demics.Recognition
alwaysgenerated
catastrophe
at
Bartolome
de Las Casas blamedSpanishmurattempts explanation.
der and mayhem:
theSpaniardsbehaved"likeravening
beasts,killing,
and destroying
the nativepeoples."34
terrorizing,
afflicting,
torturing,
"The handof God fell
ThomasMortoncrediteddivineintervention:
heavilyuponthem.... theplaceis madeso muchthemorefitt,forthe
EnglishNationto inhabitin, and erectin it Templesto theGloryof
God." Frenchand Spanishobservers,
lessbrazenin theirunderstanding
of God's providence,attributedthe mortalityto "secret,but ever
ofGod." Disease,sucha powerful
adorable,judgments
presence
during
colonization,dominatedtheirexplanations.Morton,forinstance,
believedthatthehandof God did itsworkby meansof "thePlague."
Someearlycolonistssuspected
thatEuropeanswerethesourceofthese
diseases.HierosmeLalemantobservedthatwhereJesuitmissionaries
"weremostwelcome,wherewe baptizedmostpeople,thereit was in
factwheretheydiedthemost."35
Butmostblamedthemortality
on its
victims.Edward Winslow traced "manifolddiseases" among the
Massachusetto their"livingin swampsand otherdesertplaces."36
Moravianmissionary
JohnHeckewelder
emphasizedthe "viciousand
dissolutelife"producedby alcohol.37
Physician
O. M. Chapmancited
of
the
of
Sioux
was "themeasureof
laws
mortality
hygiene:
disregard
theirtransgressions."38
Behavioralexplanationsbecameincreasingly
implausiblein the
As thedemographic
nineteenth
and twentieth
centuries.
collapseconobservers
tinuedand American
Indiansseemeddestinedforextinction,
the
have
been
so fatal.
to
idea
that
misbehavior
could
began question
34 Las Casas, The Devastation of the Indies: A BriefAccount(1552), trans. Herma
Briffault(Baltimore, 1992), 29.
35 Morton,New EnglishCanaan (1632), in PeterForce,ed., Tractsand Other
and Progress
to theOrigin,Settlement,
of theColoniesof
Papers,RelatingPrincipally
North America ...
(1836-1847), 4 vols. (New York, 1947), 2:18-19; Lalemant,
"RelationofWhatOccurredin theMissionof theHurons"(1640), in ReubenGold
Travelsand Explorations
and AlliedDocuments:
Thwaites,ed., TheJesuitRelations
of
the JesuitMissionaries in New France, 610o-I79p, 73 vols. (Cleveland, 1896-1901),
19:93. Both Lalement and Pedro de Lidvano (c. 1577), dean of the Cathedral of
Guatemala,used the phrase"secret,but everadorable,judgementsof God." De
Lilvano, quoted in Lovell, "Disease and Depopulation in Early Colonial
Guatemala,"in Cook and Lovell,eds., "Secret
ofGod,"77.
Judgments
36 Winslow,GoodNewesfromNew England(1624), in AlexanderYoung,ed.,
Chroniclesof the PilgrimFathersof the Colonyof Plymouth,from 1602 to 1625, zd ed.
(Boston, 1844), 346.
37Heckewelder,
Manners,and Customs
History,
oftheIndianNationsWhoOnce
InhabitedPennsylvaniaand theNeighbouringStates(1819), (Philadelphia, 1876), 221.
38 Chapman,physicianreport,in "Reportof AgentforYanktonAgency,"in
Annual Reportsof the Department of the Interiorfor ... .
(Washington, D. C., 1905), 342.
4. Indian Affairs..
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VIRGIN SOILS REVISITED
717
Seeking a new mechanismto explain the magnitudeof the depopulafoundtheirsolutionin
tion, historians,physicians,and anthropologists
to disease. Observersof public healthin
theoriesof racial susceptibility
to explain patthe late nineteenthcenturyturnedto racial differences
ternsof disease,such as whyJewsresistedtuberculosis,Chinese immigrants sufferedfromplague, and AfricanAmericans had syphilis.39
AmericanIndians providedabundantmaterialforsuch theorizing.A. B.
Holder observedof the Crow: "Their resistanceto disease is much less
than thatof the civilizedraces,I have seen the evidenceat the bedside,
in watchingthemyield and die fromdiseases that I feltsure any stout
whiteman had easilythrownoff."Commissionerof IndianAffairs
W. A.
Jonesnoted that since the Indians had only recentlybeen exposed to
measles and pneumonia, they had "not yet acquired any immunity."
Woods Hutchinsonfoundthattheyprovided"a highlysusceptiblehost"
fortuberculosis.40
Throughout the twentiethcentury,historiansincreasinglyrecognized thatindigenouspopulationsin theAmericasand aroundthe globe
suffereddramaticsusceptibility
to European diseases. In 1909, Herbert
Williamsdescribedhow "manytimesnew epidemicdiseasesfromEurope
have spread over America and have been very fatal to the Indians."
PhysicianGeorge Bushnellfoundstrikingparallelsbetweenthe fatesof
Indiansand other"racesnearly'virgin'so faras tuberculosis
is concerned."
Sherburne
the
Cook
could
assert
that
of aboriginal
By 1937,
vulnerability
worldwide
was
"a
matter
of
populations
generalknowledge."41Postwar
39Allan M. Brandt,"Racismand Research:The Case of theTuskegeeSyphilis
8 (Dec. 1978),21-29;Alan M. Kraut,SilentTravelers:
Study,"HastingsCenterReport,
Menace"(Baltimore,1994),78-96, 136-65;Nancy
Germs,Genes,and the"Immigrant
Krieger, "Shades of Difference:Theoretical Underpinnings of the Medical
Controversyon Black/WhiteDifferencesin the United States, 1830-1870,"
International
JournalofHealthServices,17 (1987), 259-78; Charles E. Rosenberg,
"The BitterFruit:Heredity,Disease, and Social Thoughtin Nineteenth-Century
inAmerican
8 (1974),189-235.
America,"Perspectives
History,
40 Holder, "Paperson Diseases
amongIndians,"MedicalRecord,42 (Aug. 13,
of IndianAffairs,"
in AnnualReports
1892), 178; Jones,"Reportof theCommissioner
of the Departmentof the Interiorfor ... 1904, 36; Hutchinson, "Varieties of
TuberculosisAccordingto Race and Social Condition,"NationalAssociation
forthe
Transactions
Studyand Prevention
of Tuberculosis:
of theAnnualMeeting,3 (I907),
199.
41 Williams,"The Epidemicof the Indiansof New England,1616-1620, with
Remarkson NativeAmericanInfections,"
20 (1909),
JohnsHopkinsHospitalBulletin,
WithEspecialReference
to
340; Bushnell,A Studyin theEpidemiology
of Tuberculosis,
Tuberculosis
of the Tropicsand of theNegroRace (New York,1920), 35; Cook, The
Extentand Significance
ofDisease amongtheIndiansof Baja California,1697-1773
(Berkeley,1937),1. At about this time,medicalauthoritiesin South Africawere
the local Africansas virginpopulations;Packard,WhitePlague,Black
identifying
Labor,4, 22-23.
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718
WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY
authors followed this lead. Henry Dobyns, for instance, described
AmericanIndians as "a virginpopulationof susceptibleindividualslackAidan Cockburngave historians'theoriesthe authoring immunities."42
of
ity evolutionarybiology,arguingthat AmericanIndian decimation
was "thetypicalreactionof a 'herd' to a pathogennot previouslyexperienced."43
The assumption that natural selection had left Europeans with
inheritedresistanceto manydiseases,and AmericanIndians withoutit,
was eminentlyplausible.In the 195osand I96os, evolutionarybiologists
and populationgeneticistsmodeled the differential
survivalof individuals whose genes conferred benefits in specific environments. As
Cockburn described,"Infectionwith a pathogen reduces the survival
capacityof the host,and all otherfactorsbeing equal, the host withthe
most resistanceis the one most likely to survive.If this resistanceis
inherited,then naturalselectioncan be expectedto produce a population moreand moreresistantto the prevalentpathogens."44
The protective benefitof sickle cell traitagainstmalaria became a centerpieceof
the burgeoningfieldof evolutionary
genetics.45
Such theories found logical application in the fate of American
Indians. Centuriesof smallpox,measles,and plague seemed certainto
have selected European populations that carried resistance genes.
American Indians, who lived without epidemics, would have lacked
these protections. Their unprecedented mortality,fromAztecs to
Alaskans, seemed to prove the theory.Bruce Triggercould describe
AmericanIndian depopulationas a "crueland fantasticexampleof natural selection."However,initialstudiesof virginsoil populationsfound
that theirimmunesystemsworkednormally.In 1968, geneticistJames
Neel studied the firstoutbreakof measles among isolated Yanomami
populations in Venezuela and Brazil. Although mortalityrates were
to measles.46
high,he foundno evidenceof innateIndian susceptibility
42 Dobyns, "An Outline of Andean
Epidemic History to 1720," Bulletin of the
HistoryofMedicine, 37 (1963), 494. For similar claims, see C. H. Haring, The Spanish
Empire in America (New York, 1947), 43, and John Duffy, "Smallpox and the
Indians in the American Colonies," Bulletin of the HistoryofMedicine, 25 (July-Aug.
1951),327.
43 Cockburn, "The Evolution of Infectious Diseases," in Cockburn, ed.,
InfectiousDiseases: TheirEvolutionand Eradication (Springfield,Ill., 1967), 90.
44 Ibid., 1o4. McNeill echoed this: see Plagues and Peoples,272n3.
45This connection served many agendas, fromthe desire of molecular biologists
and population geneticiststo make contributionsto medicine, to the needs of the
growingblack identitymovement;Wailoo, Dying in the Cityof theBlues, Io6, 114-18,
144-47, 182-89.
46 Trigger, "Comments," on Dobyns, "Estimating Aboriginal American
Population: An Appraisal of Techniques with a New Hemispheric Estimate,"
CurrentAnthropology,7 (Oct. 1966), 440; Neel et al., "Notes on the Effects of
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VIRGINSOILS REVISITED
719
The discrepancybetweenthe intuitiveappeal of naturalselectionand
studiesof virginpopulationslefthistoriansin a difficult
the preliminary
These
tensionsappear clearlyin Crosby's1976 article,which
position.
articulated the modern form of the theoryof virgin soil epidemics.
Crosby's opening assertion that lack of prior exposure leftAmerican
almostdefenseless"and the Darwiniantone of
Indians "immunologically
his otherworkjarredwith the article'sconcludingemphasison environmental causes of Indian susceptibility: "The scientific community
inclinestowardsthe view thatNativeAmericanshave no special susceptibilityto Old World diseases that cannot be attributedto environmental
influences, and probably never did have."47 Furthermore,although
Crosbycould list a wide rangeof factorsthatmighthave contributedto
no immunity,he could not substantiatehis intuitiveclaims or evaluate
factors.As a result,Crosby'swork
the relativecontributionof different
has been cited as both proofof immunologicalweaknessand as evidence
againstit.48
Since 1976, however,historians,archaeologists,biologicalanthropologists,and medical scientistshave generateda vast amount of relevant
new data. It is now possibleforhistoriansto update the popular,if confused,virginsoil theoryand producea morepreciseand powerfulmodel
of AmericanIndian depopulation. This effortmust begin by disentancomponents.As definedby Crosby,virginsoil
glingthe theory'sdifferent
makes
four
basic
claims.
The firstthree are descriptive:many
theory
AmericanIndians died, theydied of Europeandiseases,and theyhad not
been previouslyexposed to those diseases. The last is an argumentof
cause and effect:virginityleft them vulnerable. Each claim must be
assessedindividually.
Much of the difficulty
thathistorianshave had with explanationsof
arises
from
the
depopulation
unprecedentedmagnitudeof the event.The
earliestrecordsof colonizationshow thatmassivemortality
beganquickly
Measlesand MeaslesVaccinein a Virgin-SoilPopulationof SouthAmerican
Indians," AmericanJournal of Epidemiology,91 (1970), 418-29. For debates about
Neel's role in these epidemics,see Tierney,Darknessin El Dorado, 53-82, and
on Tierney'sDarknessin El Dorado," Current
42 (Apr.
"Perspectives
Anthropology,
2001), 265-76.
on depopulation,
47Crosby,"VirginSoil Epidemics,"
291.In otherwritings
thelackofimmunity
without
socialfacCrosbyemphasized
discussing
contributing
tors:Columbian
Them,and Give
39,52,57; "'God . . . WouldDestroy
Exchange,
Their Country to Another People ... ,"' AmericanHeritage,29 (Oct./Nov. 1978), 39.
48Crosby
as theauthority
on immunological
determinism:
Fenn,PoxAmericana,
IndiansandEnglish,
"Indians'Old World,"458;
25-26; Kupperman,
34; Salisbury,
208.Crosbyas theauthority
on socialdisruption:
White,"Western
Axtell,
History,"
Matter,
Beyond
Keepers
oftheGame:
1492,237;Chaplin,Subject
158;CalvinMartin,
Indian-Animal
and theFur Trade(Berkeley,
1978),49-50.
Relationships
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WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY
720
Indians.The ArawakofSantoDomingoborethefirst
amongAmerican
with
their
fromas manyas 3,770,000in 1496
assault,
population
falling
to 125 in 1570.49 Everynewencounter
newepidemics.Disease
brought
Indian
trade
routes
and
moved
evenmorequickly
spreadalongexisting
thanthe conquistadors.
to
Mexico
introduced
by Cortes,
Smallpox,
reachedthe Incan empirebeforePizarro.This processcontinuedfor
centuries.In the seventeenth
century,
epidemicsfollowedthe French
intoNew Franceand theEnglishintoNew England.As settlers
moved
America
in
acrossNorth
theeighteenth
and nineteenth
tribe
centuries,
aftertribeexperienced
contact
outbreaks.
Hawaiians,sparedextensive
untilthenineteenth
sawtheirpopulation
declinefrompossibly
century,
as the1940sand I96os,
8oo,ooo in 1778to 40,000 in I885.As recently
newdiseasesto previously
and newmissionaries
newhighways
brought
isolatedtribesfrom
AlaskatoAmazonia.50
to
Colonists,stunnedby thedecimation
theyobserved,
attempted
Daniel Gookininterviewed
estimatethe magnitudeof the mortality.
that90 percenthad died.Cotton
Massachuset
and estimated
surviving
. . . carriedawaynota
Matherassertedthatthe"prodigious
pestilence
of twenty)
but ninepartsof ten,(yea,'tissaid, nineteen
tenth,
among
efforts
to
measure
Indian
them."51
Systematic
populations
beganin the
of Indian
An 1877 reportto the Commissioner
nineteenth
century.
were
whether
or
not
American
Indians
Affairs
to
determine
struggled
In the193os,A. L. Kroebercompiledestimates
doomedto extinction.52
at thetimeof firstcontactwithEuropeans.He
of Indianpopulations
calculateda totalpopulationof 8.4 millionforthewestern
hemisphere,
withonly 900,000 livingin NorthAmerica.AfterWorldWar II,
WoodrowBorah,Sherburne
Cook, and HenryDobynsrevisitedthis
decline
that
Kroeber
estimate.
Theyargued
ignoredthedisease-induced
and theirconbetweenEuropeanarrivalin theAmericas
thatoccurred
thislossat over95 percent,
tactwitheachtribe.Estimating
Dobynsproin Colonial
49 Cook, BorntoDie, 22-23; Newson,"IndianPopulationPatterns
Research
Review,20 (1985),46. Taylorprovidesa
SpanishAmerica,"LatinAmerican
lower,but still severe,estimateof initialpopulationand subsequentmortality,
3oo,ooo; Taylor, AmericanColonies,38.
50 Stannard,"Disease and Infertility,"
325-50 (Hawaii); McNeill, Plaguesand
Peoples,171 (Alaska); Neel et al., "Notes on the Effectsof Measles," 418-29
(Amazonia).
51Gookin,HistoricalCollections
oftheIndiansin New England;of TheirSeveral
Manners,Religionand Government,
Nations,Numbers,Customs,
beforetheEnglish
Planted There (c. 168o) (Leicester, Mass., 1970; orig. pub. 1792), 9-12; Mather,
Americana,
1:51.
MagnaliaChristi
52S. N. Clark,"AretheIndiansDyingOut? Preliminary
Observations
Relating
to Indian Civilizationand Education," in AnnualReportof the Commissioner
of
D. C.,
to theSecretary
IndianAffairs
oftheInterior
fortheYear1877(Washington,
1877), 487-520.
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VIRGINSOILS REVISITED
721
and 18
populationof 112millionforthehemisphere
poseda precontact
and
Efforts
millionforNorthAmerica.53
byarchaeologists paleopathologiststo resolvethisdebatehave onlynarrowedthe rangeforNorth
existwith
Americato between2 and 12million,and enormous
problems
of hemispheric
Withestimates
all of theestimates.
populationranging
of totalmortality
between8 and 112million,estimates
rangebetween7
and ioo million.Die-offratios(pre-vs. postcontact
population)range
themortality
was
theexactnumbers,
between2:i and 5o:I.54Whatever
andoverwhelming.
unprecedented
theroleof epidemics,
aboutthepace of mortality,
and
Ambiguities
ofepidemics
further
cloudtheissue.The bulkofthemortaltheidentity
ityoccurredin the firstcenturyaftersustainedcontact(thesixteenth
to nineteenth
centuryin Centraland SouthAmerica;the seventeenth
centuriesin NorthAmericaand the Pacificislands). Though catafroma subcouldhaveresulted
90 or even95 percent
mortality
strophic,
tle imbalancein birthsand deathsthatled to a 2-3 percentannual
While thismighthavehappenedin someareas,otherareas
decline.55
how thepopuladramaticcollapse.Las Casas described
clearlysuffered
tionof SantoDomingoplummeted
afterSpanisharrival.
precipitously
JohnSmith,who sailedtheNew Englandcoastin 1614,foundit "well
inhabited
witha goodly,
andwellproportioned
people."Fiveyears
strong
not long
later,ThomasDermerfoundonly"someantientPlantations,
sincepopulousnowutterly
void."56Similaraccountsofrapidand severe
53The disparateestimatesreflectdifferent
assumptionsabout the natureof
AmericanIndian life.Low estimatesassumethatprecontact
disease,unsophisticated
socialarrangements,
and limitedexploitation
of ecologicalpotentialkeptpopulations
low. High estimatesassumelittleprecontactdisease,limitedwarfare,
highfertility,
and fullutilizationof the ecologicalpotentialof Americanenvironments;
European
epidemics wiped out 95% of these populations beforeEuropean censuses. See
Evidence
MichaelH. Crawford,TheOriginsofNativeAmericans:
fom Anthropological
Genetics(Cambridge, 1998), 33-39; Dobyns, "EstimatingAboriginalAmerican
Population," 395-416; Dobyns, TheirNumberBecomeThinned:NativeAmerican
PopulationDynamicsin EasternNorthAmerica(Knoxville,1983); David Henige,
Numbers
fromNowhere:TheAmericanIndian ContactPopulationDebate (Norman,
Okla., 1998); Ann F. Ramenofsky,Vectors
ofDeath: TheArchaeology
ofEuropean
Contact (Albuquerque, 1987), 1-21; and Douglas H. Ubelaker, "Patterns of
Demographic Change in the Americas," Human Biology,64 (June 1992), 361-79.
54 Newson, "Indian Population Patterns," 41-74; Stannard, "Disease and
and DemographicEvidence
325-26; Dean R. Snow, "Microchronology
Infertility,"
NorthAmericanIndianPopulations,"Science,
Relatingto theSize of Pre-Columbian
268 (16 June 1995), 16oI-o4; Taylor, AmericanColonies,40.
55For a populationof initialsizePOand a growthrateof r, the populationat
timet can be calculatedsimply:P=PoertTo findtherateneededto produce90% loss
theequationand solveforr to geta rateof 2.3%.
over1oo years,rearrange
56 Las Casas, Devastationof theIndies, 29-31; Smith,A
DescriptionofNew
England ...
(1616), in Barbour, ed., Complete Worksof Captain John Smith, I:330;
Dermerto SamuelPurchas,1619,in Purchas,ed., Hakluytus
orPurchasHis
Posthumus,
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722
WILLIAM AND MARYQUARTERLY
mortalityemergedtime and time again, fromthe "destroying
angel" of
in
that
converted
the
North
interior
"into
American
deso1837
smallpox
late and boundless cemeteries,"to epidemics of measles, whooping
cough, and meningitis in Alaska in 1942 and I943.57
Though epidemicsdid bringrapiddecimationto manygroups,they
did not monopolize the mortality.Europeans and Americans killed
countlessAmericanIndians throughwar, starvation,neglect,and even
hunting.Some commentatorshave accused Columbus of introducing
four centuries of genocide.58 However, with account after account
describingappallingepidemicsfromQuebec to Peru,it is impossiblenot
to assigna dominantrole to infectiousdiseases.In some cases, diseases
struckpopulations weakened by the chaos of colonization. In others,
theyspread by trade or with isolated missionaries,wreakinghavoc on
seeminglyintactIndian groups.As Diamond argues,"Their destruction
was accomplishedlargelyby germsalone."59
Because of the importanceof theseepidemics,physiciansand historians have long struggledto diagnose each epidemic. Colonists often
identified the outbreaks as fevers, plague, or smallpox. Modern
researchershave exhaustivelyreviewedthese descriptionsto establish
specificdiagnoses,withvaryingsuccess.60Whateverthe exactpathogens,
manyof the diseasesarrivedin the Americaswith the Europeans(or, as
has recentlybeen suggested,withthe Chinese): AmericanIndians,from
the Huron to the Maya, claimed to have had little disease before
Some historianshave used theseclaims and selected
European arrival.61
(1625), 20 vols. (Glasgow,1906), 19:129. Emptyvillagesdid not necessarily
Pilgrimes
meandead Indians:theymighthavewithdrawn
fromthecoastas partof theirnorin responseto the epidemics,or in responseto the threat
mal seasonalmigrations,
posedbyEuropeans.
57 Quoted in H. EvansLloyd,preface
to Maximilian,PrinceofWied, Travelsin
theInterior
Travels,
ofNorthAmerica,in ReubenGold Thwaites,ed., EarlyWestern
1748-1846,32 vols. (Cleveland,1904-1906),22:33.For Alaska,see McNeill,Plagues
and Peoples,I8I.
58For genocide,see Thornton,American
IndianHolocaustand Survival;Ortiz,
American
Holocaust;and Ward
Peopleand Imperialism,"
"Aboriginal
I-I3; Stannard,
Churchill,IndiansAre Us?Cultureand Genocidein NativeNorthAmerica(Toronto,
1994),11-63.For huntingIndians,see Lee Miller,ed., FromtheHeart:Voicesofthe
Indian(New York,1995),306.
American
59 Diamond,Guns,Germs,
and Steel,373-74.See also Calloway,New Worlds
for
All, 33; Dobyns, "EstimatingAboriginalAmerican Population," 413-14; and
McNeill,Plaguesand Peoples,18o-81.
60 For these debates, see Timothy L. Bratton,"The Identityof the New
EnglandIndian Epidemicof 1616-19," BulletinoftheHistoryofMedicine,62 (Fall
1988),351-83;Spiess and Spiess,"New EnglandPandemic,"71-83; and Williams,
"EpidemicoftheIndiansofNew England,"340-4961 For Mayanclaims,see theaccountof ChilamBalamof Chumayel,quotedin
36. For Huron claims,see Paul le Jeune,"Relationof
Crosby,ColumbianExchange,
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VIRGINSOILS REVISITED
723
evidenceto assertthatAmericanIndianslivedin a
paleopathological
"diseasefreeparadise."62This paradisemayeven have been of the
Indians'making.JamesShreevearguesthatAmericanIndiansdoomed
themselves
whentheyhuntedthelargemammalsof NorthAmericato
"Ifthosefirst
extinction:
NativeAmericans
hadbeenlessadepthunters,
theirdescendants
have
been
able
to
domesticate
theindigenous
might
American
horseand camel,providing
themwithan invisiblearsenalof
microbesof theirown whenColumbusmadehis firstfateful
landing
thousands
ofyearslater."63
Thesenotionshavebeenweakenedbycarefulanalyses
ofskeletalremains
thathavedocumented
theexistence
ofa
hostof diseasesbeforeEuropeanarrival.However,AmericanIndians
beforeColumbusdo seem to have been sparedfromthe ravagesof
smallpox,measles,influenza,bubonic plague, diphtheria,typhus,
These newdischolera,scarletfever,
whoopingcough,and malaria.64
easescausedconsiderable
mortality.
overthesubtleties
ofthepace,role,anddiagDespitedisagreements
nosis of the epidemics,consensushas long existedthatAmerican
Indianssuffered
severemortality
fromepidemics
causedbynewlyintroduced Europeanpathogens.In thislimitedsense,AmericanIndians
werea virginsoil. Controversy
of causeand
beginswiththearguments
effect.
Did virginity
makeIndiansvulnerable?
Did centuries
ofisolation
fromEurasianpathogens
leavethemwithill-equipped
immunesystems?
assertthatlackofexposure
leftAmerican
Indianswithout
Manywriters
or both.These claimsmerit
geneticprotections,
acquiredimmunities,
careful
scrutiny.
The exceeding
ofthehumanimmunesystem
a
complexity
provides
obstacle
to
historians
who
want
to
understand
American
daunting
What Occurredin New Francein the Year 1637,"(1638) in Thwaites,ed., Jesuit
thattheChinesebeatthe Europeansto America
Relations,
II:193. For thepossibility
and broughtdiseaseswiththem,see GavinMenzies,1421:TheYearChinaDiscovered
America(New York, 2003), 114,412, and Crawford,OriginsofNativeAmericans,88.
62 Ortiz, "AboriginalPeople and
Imperialism,"2. For similarclaims, see
McNeill,Plaguesand Peoples,176; Martin,Keepers
oftheGame,48-49; and Cronon,
in theLand,85.
Changes
63Shreeve,"Dominanceand Submission,"New YorkTimesBookReview,June
in theLand,85; Storey,Life
15, 1997, 13. For theArcticpassage,see Cronon,Changes
and Death in theAncientCityof Teotihuacan,
42-43; and Taylor,AmericanColonies,
41. For a discussionand critiqueof the theory,see Crawford,OriginsofNative
Americans,
51-52.For the role of animalsand cities,see Cronon, Changesin the
and Steel,213;McNeill,Plaguesand Peoples,178;
Land, 85; Diamond, Guns,Germs,
Taylor,AmericanColonies,41; and Williams,"Epidemicof the Indians of New
England," 241.
64 HowardS. Russell,IndianNew
(Hanover,N.
EnglandBeforetheMayflower
H., 1980), 35, 104-o5; Stannard, AmericanHolocaust, 53; Taylor, American Colonies,
of DemographicChange,"364.
41; Ubelaker,"Patterns
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724
WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY
It is easierto remainabovethemolecular
Indiansusceptibility.
frayand
In theyearssinceMcNeilland
makesimpleclaimsof no immunity.
in
of diseaseand immunity
theimportance
Crosbybeganemphasizing
havefacedperhaps
humans(and theirimmunesystems)
humanhistory,
the gravestchallengeyet:HIV and AIDS. The epidemichas fueled
of theimmune
and function
intothestructure
research
unprecedented
can
that
crucial
has
which
helpresolvethe
insights
produced
system,
of American
discussions
earlier
have
confounded
that
uncertainties
Indiandepopulation.
Humantissues,seen froma microbe'sperspective,
providea rich
fertile
Evenin health,humanssupporta
ofnutrients.
ecosystem
variety
morebacteriathan
witha typicalpersonharboring
of microorganisms,
can maketheirhome
humancells.Fourbroadclassesofmicroorganisms
whichplaya seriesofusefulroles(suchas in
in humantissues.Bacteria,
fromstrepthroatand pneumoniato
causemanyinfections,
digestion),
Virusesrangefromthenuisanceof
and tuberculosis.
cholera,anthrax,
and HIV. Viral
ofpolio,smallpox,
thecommoncold to thedevastation
of death
causes
infectious
the
remain
and
diarrhea
leading
pneumonia
canalso
and
for
dandruff
worldwide.
infections,
yeast
Fungi,responsible
The lastgroup,lumped
infections.
and systemic
causeseverepulmonary
organisms
togetheras parasites,includethe single-and multi-celled
In
formalaria,giardia,and countlessotherinfestations.65
responsible
humanbodieswouldbe
immunesystems,
the absenceof functioning
withmicroorganisms.
overrun
animalsdevelopedelaboratesystems
In responseto thischallenge,
thatkeepmostpartsof thebodysterile
and protection
of surveillance
muscles,bones,and blood),and the
(suchas thebrain,liver,kidneys,
otherpartsofthebodycolonizedbuthealthy
(skin,lungs,mouth,stomline
surfaces
other
The
skin
and
ach,intestines).66
body
providethefirst
normal
and
with
ofdefense, secretions,
barriers,
microorgancolonizing
thebody.
fromentering
ismsthatusuallyprevent
pathogens
dangerous
immune
face
an
the
Once inside
systemcombody,microorganisms
immune
cellular
The
and
chemicals.
system
posedof specializedcells
makeantibodies;T-lymphocytes
includeslymphocytes
(B-lymphocytes
65Writerssometimesconfusethesegroups,forexamplediscussingthe "smallAmerican
Holocaust,
77.
pox bacillus."See Stannard,
66 TheNew
EnglandJournal
ofMedicinepublisheda seriesof reviewarticleson
readers:PeterJ.Delves
butmotivated,
thatareaccessibleto nonexpert,
immunology
and Ivan M. Roitt,"The ImmuneSystem:Firstof Two Parts,"N. Eng.J. Medicine,
343 (July6, 2ooo), 37-49; Delves and Roitt,"The ImmuneSystem:Secondof Two
Parts,"ibid., 343 (July13,zooo), 108-17; RuslanMedzhitovand CharlesJaneway,
Jr.,"Innate Immunity,"ibid., 343 (Aug. 3, 2000), 338-44; Rolf M. Zinkernagel,
and Autoimmune
"MaternalAntibodies,ChildhoodInfections,
Diseases,"ibid.,345
(Nov. I, 2001), 1331-35.
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VIRGINSOILS REVISITED
725
and can kill microbesdirectly)
and phagoorganizeimmuneresponses
as
and
thatcan
such
(cells,
monocytes, macrophages,
cytes
neutrophils,
and
microbes
or
infected
The
humoral
immune
cells).
sysingest destroy
can be separatedfrom
tem,so namedbecauseits chemicalcomponents
the cellularimmunesystem,includesantibodies(whichrecognizeand
labelinvading
microbes),
(whichmodulateimmuneresponses),
cytokines
modulateresponses,
and
and complement
microbes,
(whichcan identify
killmicrobes
directly).
in manyways.Each humancell produces
The components
interact
and ingestsothersfromitsenvironand
specificproteins carbohydrates
arebrokendownintosmallpieces,bound
ment.Someofthesemolecules
to structures
knownas themajorhistocompatibility
complex(MHC), and
ofthecell,a processknownas antigen
on theoutersurface
thendisplayed
travelthroughout
thebody
and macrophages
Lymphocytes
presentation.
If
detect
and evaluatethepresented
they
foreign
antigens,
antigens. they
or by
or cytokines,
can respondbyproliferating,
antibodies
by releasing
of theimmunesystem
themicrobedirectly.
Somecomponents
attacking
and removing
intracellular
(virusesand
pathogens
specializein detecting
in dealingwithextrawhileothercomponents
certainbacteria),
specialize
andmostotherbacteria).
cellular
(parasites
pathogens
selffromnonImmunefunction
hingeson theabilityto distinguish
A bodyneedsan immunesystem
thatleavesnormal,healthy
cells
self.67
and killspathogenic
and
bacteria,parasites,
intact,but thatrecognizes
as wellas cellsthathavebeeninvadedbyvirusesor intracellular
viruses,
is madebytwodifferThe distinction
between
selfand non-self
bacteria.
the"innate"and the"adaptive"
whichcharacterize
comentmechanisms,
of
immune
Innate
labeled
the
(sometimes
"natural")
system.
ponents
is basedon theabilityof phagocytes,
naturalkillercells,and
immunity
to
a
small
set
of
of proteins,
antigens(fragments
complement recognize
bacteria
or
nucleic
or other
acids)
carbohydrates,
producedonly by
of
bacterial
cell
walls
and spe(for
microorganisms example,components
cificformsof bacterialDNA and RNA). This system
quicklyrecognizes
of whethertheyhavebeen
and respondsto manypathogensregardless
before.The adaptive(oftenconfusingly
labeled"acquired")
encountered
to respondto
immunesystem,in contrast,is not preprogrammed
a
of
random
Instead,
geneticrearrangements,
through process
pathogens.
67 Althoughimmunologists
treatthe distinctionof selfversusnon-selfas selfhistorical
and philosophicaldevelopment.
See
evident,thisconcepthas an interesting
AlfredI. Tauberand ScottH. Podolsky,"FrankMacfarlaneBurnetand theImmune
Self,"JournaloftheHistory
27 (1994), 531-73.Confusionbetweenselfand
ofBiology,
non-selfand an unbalancedimmunesystemcontribute
to allergiesand autoimmune
disease.See StuartE. Turvey,"AtopicDiseases of Childhood,"CurrentOpinionin
Pediatrics,
13(Oct. 2001), 487-95.
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726
WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY
eachlymphocyte
a different
or antigenreceptor.
An
antibody
generates
individual's
millionsof lymphocytes
an
diversity
generate extraordinary
ofantibodies
and receptors
thatrecognize
antinearlyeveryconceivable
self
and
but
a
immune
learns
non-self,
healthy
system
gen(both
quickly
This system
to ignoreselfantigens).
responds
slowlyto initialinfection
with a specificpathogen.On subsequentencounters,however,it
reinrespondsmuchmorerapidly,
potentially
symptomatic
preventing
fection.
The technicaldistinctions
betweeninnateand adaptiveimmunity
correlatelooselywiththe populardistinctions
between"genetic"and
At somelevel,bothcomponents
aregenetic.The
"acquired"immunity.
thatgenerate
theantibodies
ofadaptiveimmunity
areencoded
processes
in our genes.However,
thespecificantibodies
producedby individuals
arenotsubjectto naturalselection:
thefulldivereverypersongenerates
thespecificantibodies
at
sityof antibodies;
producedby an individual
of thatindividual's
anymomentare purelya function
priorexposures;
and thespecific
antibodies
thatareactiveagainstrelevant
are
pathogens
fromone generation
notpassedgenetically
to thenext(thoughtransient
is passedfrommotherto childacrosstheplacenta
antibodyprotection
andin breastmilk).In contrast,
thecomponents
ofinnateimmunity
are
to
natural
selection.
An
individual
whose
innate
subject
preprogrammed
to local pathogenshas a survival
receptors
respondmorepowerfully
Overtime,innateimmunity
can evolveand achievea better
advantage.
fitwiththelocalburdenofinfectious
diseases.Othercomponents
ofthe
immunesystemalso evolve.Different
MHC moleculeshavedifferent
affinities
formicrobialantigens,
howwell theseantigensare
affecting
to
innate
and
in othermoleVariations
presented
adaptivereceptors.
or
cules expressedby macrophages,
other
tissuescan
lymphocytes,
to
infection.
Each
of
forms
of
these
heritable
difchangesusceptibility
ferenceprovidessubstrate
fornaturalselection.Meanwhile,microbes
undergoa parallelprocessof naturalselectionto evadetheseevolving
defenses.68
This emerging
modelof immunefunction
has manyimplications
for understandingAmericanIndian susceptibilityto European
The frequently
statedclaimsofno immunity,
as wellas occapathogens.
sionalcomparisons
ofAmerican
Indiansto peoplewithAIDS or other
ofpersons
haveno substance.69
Withtheexception
immunodeficiencies,
bornwithraregeneticimmunediseases,all humanscan mounta power68 Medzhitov and
Janeway,"Innate Immunity,"338-39.
69 For
comparisons of American Indians and Hawaiians to people with AIDS or
other immunodeficiencies, see Hurtado et al., "Epidemiology of Infectious
Diseases," 429; Stannard, "Disease and Infertility,"339; and Tierney, Darknessin El
Dorado, 56.
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VIRGINSOILS REVISITED
727
ful defenseagainstviruses,bacteria,fungi,and parasites.No one is
whomakeclaimsofno immuandauthors
defenseless,
immunologically
not
mean
them
this
do
Instead,theypresumably
nityprobably
literally.
meanthatIndians'lackof priorexposureto Old Worldpathogens
left
themwithdeficient
to
Several
immunity
compared Europeans.
possible
forms
ofdeficient
Indians
immunity
mighthaveexisted.First,American
that
have
lacked
resistance
to spespecificgenes
might
gaveEuropeans
cificdiseases.Second,theymighthavehad generalimmunodeficiencies
thatleftthemvulnerable
to a rangeof infections.
Third,theirgenetic
to adaptablepathogens.
homogeneity
mighthaveleftthemvulnerable
oftheirstateofinnateimmunity,
Fourth,
theymighthaveiniregardless
to Old Worlddiseases.Fifth,
theymight
tiallylackedadaptiveimmunity
fromsynergistic
of simultaneous
havesuffered
effects
infections.
Each
different
mechanism
ofimpaired
mustbe assessedseparately.
immunity
has been
Knowledgeof the linksbetweengeneticsand immunity
in the yearssince scientistsrecognizedthe connection
transformed
betweenmalariaand sicklecell disease.Geneticists
havecontinuedto
of isolatedhumanpopulations.
New techstudytheimmuneresponses
of
molecular
and
have
identified
a rangeof
niques
biology epidemiology
mechanisms
that
mediate
to
infectious
Such
diseases.
responses
genetic
versions
studieshaveshownhowdifferent
ofa gene(eachknownas an
and MHC moleculesthatthey
allele) and the receptors,
cytokines,
encodecan makea hostmoreor less vulnerableto infection.Many
gene-diseaseconnectionshave been proposed.70Sickle cell trait,
thalassemia
(anotherinherited
anemia),G6PD deficiency
(an enzyme
involvedin glucosemetabolism),and specificMHC alleles protect
and Asiansagainstmalaria.The Tay-Sachs
Africans,
Mediterraneans,
which
a
causes
diseasein chilmutation,
rapidly
progressive
neurological
drenwho possesstwo copiesof the gene,grantedprotection
against
to Ashkenazicarriers
of a singlecopy.Cysticfibrosis
tuberculosis
protectednorthern
Europeansagainstcholera.SpecificMHC alleleshave
beenassociatedwithinfection
B, hepatitis
C, dengue,and
byhepatitis
in a macrophage
HIV. A recently
discovered
mutation
confers
receptor
to
who
protection
againstHIV Europeans possessit.71Smallpoxlefttan70 For overviews,
see Diamond, Guns,Germs,
and Steel,2ox, and AdrianV. S.
Hill, "The Immunogeneticsof Human InfectiousDiseases," Annual Reviewof
Immunology,I6 (1998), 593-617.
71
SarahA. Tishkoff
et al., "HaplotypeDiversity
and LinkageDisequilibrium
at
Human G6PD: RecentOriginof AllelesThat ConferMalarialResistance,"
Science,
293 (July20, 2oo00),455-62; D. M. Rodman and S. Zamudio, "The Cystic Fibrosis
36 (Nov.
Heterozygote-Advantagein SurvivingCholera?"Medical Hypotheses,
1991), 253-58; Mary Carrington et al., "HLA and HIV-I: Heterozygote Advantage
and B*35-Cw*o4 Disadvantage," Science, 283 (Mar. 12, 1999), 1748-52; Hill,
"Immunogenetics and Genomics," Lancet, 357 (June 23, 2001), 2037-41; J. Claiborne
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WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY
728
talizingcluesaboutitsimpacton humangeneticsbeforeitseradication
in the 1970s.A studyof childrenin India foundthatseveresmallpox
ranrateof 52 percent-wasnot distributed
mortality-acase-fatality
whohad typeA bloodhad seventimestherisk
domly.Instead,children
of contracting
smallpoxand twicetheriskofdyingfromsmallpoxthan
withotherbloodtypes.Suchevidenceconvinced
Diamondthat
children
is
infectious
diseasesshapedhumangeneticevolution:
"Naturalselection
buta grimly
Dozensof
nota theoretical
reality."72
postulate,
continuing
to infecwithresistance
or susceptibility
geneshavenowbeenassociated
tiousdiseases.
Tuberculosishas been studiedmostcarefully.
Specificgenesthat
the
of
and
behavior
modify
appearrelevant
lymphocytes macrophages
theprogression
whileothersinfluence
forresistance
to initialinfection,
In mousemodels,a singlemutation
in one geneunderof thedisease.73
to infection
with
and increases
minesmacrophage
function
susceptibility
the bacteria that cause tuberculosis.74Human variants of this
theriskofactivetubercumacrophage
genehavebeenshownto increase
influence
the
other
losis.75
Many
impactoftuberculosis,
genes
including
D receptor.76
ThesegeneticdifMHC alleles,cytokines,
and thevitamin
forthedescribed
racialdifferences
ferences
providepossiblemechanisms
in susceptibility
to tuberculosis.77
forthestudyof American
Aspectsof thisworkcould be relevant
the
Yanomamihas suggested
of
Indiansusceptibility.
study
Continuing
The diseasestruckthemwith
thattheyarea virginsoilfortuberculosis.
a
an unusually
"indicating
highattackrateand withatypicalsymptoms,
of
immune
their
to
disease."
Detailed
studies
high susceptibility
leavingtheir
responsesshowedthattheyhad weakcellularimmunity,
Researchers
concluded
to handlethebug."
"immune
system
ill-equipped
how "the
thatthe "immunologically
naive"Yanomamidemonstrated
Stephenset al., "Datingthe Originof the CCRS-A32AIDS-ResistanceAlleleby the
62 (June1998),
Coalescenceof Haplotypes,"American
JournalofHuman Genetics,
1507-15.
72 Diamond, "A Pox upon Our Genes," Natural History,99 (Feb. 1990), 30.
73 ChristianG. Meyer,JiirgenMay, and Klaus Stark,"Human Leukocyte
Antigens in Tuberculosis and Leprosy," Trendsin Microbiology,6 (Apr. 1998), 153.
74
Rima McLeod et al., "Immunogeneticsin the Analysisof Resistanceto
75
RichardBellamyet al., "Variationsin the NRAMPi Gene and Susceptibility
IntracellularPathogens," CurrentOpinion in Immunology,
7 (1995), 544-46.
to Tuberculosis in West Africans,"N. Eng. J. Medicine, 338 (Mar. 5, 1998), 640-44.
76 These are reviewedin Marc Lipsitchand AlexandraO. Sousa, "Historical
161 (Aug.
Intensityof NaturalSelectionforResistanceto Tuberculosis,"Genetics,
2002), 1599-1607.
77 For one claim of racial differencein tuberculosis susceptibility,see William
W. Stead et al., "Racial Differencesin Susceptibilityto Infection by Mycobacterium
tuberculosis,"
N. Eng.J.Medicine,322(Feb. 15,1990),422-27.
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VIRGINSOILS REVISITED
729
humanimmunesystem
to M. tuberculosis
firstresponded
eonsago."78A
an
in
of
American
Indian
Canada
a
found specific
study
family
genotype
associatedwiththe macrophage
risk
genethatincreasedtuberculosis
Suchworkprovides
evidencethatAmerican
Indians
tenfold.79
suggestive
It provides
possessed.
mighthavelackedprotective
genesthatEuropeans
an initial foundationforthe conclusionsof manyhistoriansthat
AmericanIndianswerevulnerablebecausetheirisolationfromOld
Worldplagueshad "prevented
ofresistant
naturalselection
survivors
and
theirdescendants."80
human
However,claimsof naturalselectionproducingresistant
populationshave manylimitations.Despite the assumptionsabout
to
susceptibility
indigenouspopulationsworldwidehavingparticular
scientists
havenotdocumented
Eurasianpathogens,
any"racialsusceptibility"to smallpoxor chickenpox.The socialand economicdisruptions
thataccompaniednew diseaseshave confoundedanalysesof initial
One fundamental
responsesto measlesand tuberculosis.81
questionis
whether
thesediseaseshaveexistedlongenoughto allownaturalselecin specific
differences
resistance
tionto producesignificant
populations'
to different
diseases.Manydiseases,includingmeasles,influenza,
and
with
the
cities.
and
measles
first
likelydid
smallpox,
emerged
Smallpox
A. D. Plaguefirst
not reachEuropeuntilthe secondor thirdcentury
struckEuropein themid-fourteenth
Could resistant
Eurasians
century.
in
time
to
have
a
have evolvedby the sixteenth
century,
competitive
Indians?Thisseemsunlikely.82
advantage
againstAmerican
78Sousa et al., "An Epidemicof Tuberculosiswitha High Rate of Tuberculin
Unexposedto Tuberculosis,theYanomami
Anergyamonga PopulationPreviously
Indiansof theBrazilianAmazon,"Proceedings
94
oftheNationalAcademy
ofSciences,
(Nov. 25, 1997), 13227 ("high susceptibility"), 13231 ("immunologically naive");
KathleenFackelmann,"TuberculosisOutbreak:An AncientKillerStrikesa New
Population," Science News, I53 (Jan. 31, 1998), 73 ("first responded"), 75 ("ill-
equipped").
79 Celia M. T. Greenwoodet al., "Linkageof Tuberculosisto Chromosome
2q35 Loci, IncludingNRAMPi,in a LargeAboriginalCanadian Family,"American
JournalofHuman Genetics,67 (Aug. 2000), 405-14.
80Jennings,FoundersofAmerica,130.
81 No "racial susceptibility":
AbramS. Benenson,"Smallpox,"in AlfredS.
and Control,
Evans,ed., ViralInfections
3d ed. (New York,
ofHumans:Epidemiology
ZosterVirus,"in Evans,ed., Viral
1989),642; ThomasH. Weller,"Varicella-Herpes
FrancisBlack,"Measles,"ibid., 459; Masahiro
669. Social confounding:
Infections,
LawrenceJ. Schneiderman,
and ElizabethBarrett-Connor,
"Racial
Kushigemachi,
Differencesin Susceptibilityto Tuberculosis:Risk of Disease afterInfection,"
Disease,37 (1984),853-60.
JournalofChronic
82 In the 1970osFrancisBlack estimatedthatacute epidemicdiseases,which
sizes,had onlybeenpresentfor200
requirehumanpopulationsof certainthreshold
generations,too shorta timeforsignificantnaturalselection:Black, "Infectious
Diseases in Primitive Societies," Science, 187 (Feb. 14, 1975), 515-I8. For recent
refinements
of thisestimate,
see Lipsitchand Sousa, "HistoricalIntensity
of Natural
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730
WILLIAM AND MARYQUARTERLY
The selectiveadvanalso erodeunderscrutiny.
Specifichypotheses
of cysticfibrosis
since
againstcholeraseemsfar-fetched
tageof carriers
choleradid notappearin Europeuntil1832.83
researchers
have
Although
linkedseveralgenesto tuberculosis
theyexplainonlya
susceptibility,
smallamountoftheapparent
and theirclinicalrelegeneticcomponent
Whendatado notturnout as expected,
scienvanceremainsunclear.84
tistshave turnedto post hoc explanationsto supporttheirfaithin
in a receptor
naturalselection.One groupidentified
variations
usedby
to enterredbloodcells.Peopledeficient
in thisreceptor
malariaparasites
be resistant
to malaria.The oppositeturnedout to be
should,in theory,
true.The researchers
had to concludethat"unidentified
selectionprestheprevalence
ofthiscostlydeficiency.85
sures"explained
ofAmerican
Indiansusceptibility
runintosimilardiffiExplanations
culties.Diamond'sdiscussion
oftypeA bloodandsmallpox
susceptibility
has littlerelevance
forAmericanIndians,who are nearlyall type0.86
FrancisBlackhasfoundthattheYanomami
andothervirImmunologist
tribes
of
the
Amazon
mount
normal
immune
valley
responses
gin
against
measles,as wellas againstvaccinesformeasles,mumps,rubella,polio,
His teamconcluded
and bacterialmeningitis.
yellowfever,
pneumonia,
that"deficiency
at the immunogenetic
loci we haveexaminedcannot
explainthe poor survivalof New Worldpeople."87Althoughother
researchers
havefoundthattheYanomami
did mountatypicalresponses
to tuberculosis,
thehighburden
theyadmitthatthiscouldsimplyreflect
of parasiticinfections
thatactivates
amongtheYanomami,something
humoralimmunity
at theexpenseofcellularimmunity.88
have
Physicians
Chad Garner,and Montgomery
Selection,"1599-1607;Paul Schliekelman,
Slatkin,
"NaturalSelectionand Resistanceto HIV: A GenotypeThat LowersSusceptibility
to
HIV ExtendsSurvivalat a Time of Peak Fertility,"Nature,411 (May 31, 2oo0),
545-46; Stephenset al., "Dating the Origin,"I513;and Tishkoffet al., "Haplotype
455-62.
Diversity,"
83 Cysticfibrosisheterozygotes
mayhave had protectionagainstnon-cholera
whichlikelydid existin Europe.See SherifE. Gabriel,response
diarrheas,
secretory
to Paul Fontelo,"Protection
AgainstCholera,"Science,267 (Jan.27, 1995),440.
84 Bellamy,"IdentifyingGenetic SusceptibilityFactorsforTuberculosisin
Africans:A CombinedApproachUsing a Candidate Gene Studyand a GenomeWide Screen,"ClinicalScience,98 (2ooo), 245-50; Greenwoodet al., "Linkageof
Tuberculosis,"
406, 414.
85TimothyJ. Aitmanet al., "Malaria Susceptibilityand CD36 Mutation,"
Nature, 405 (June29, 2000), IOI5-I6.
86Diamond,"A Pox upon Our Genes,"26-30.
87 Black, Gerald Schiffman,and JanardanP. Pandey,"HLA, Gm, and Km
Polymorphismsand Immunity to Infectious Diseases in South Amerinds,"
12 (1995), 214. See also Black, "An
Experimentaland Clinical Immunogenetics,
Explanationof High Death RatesamongNew WorldPeoplesWhenin Contactwith
Old WorldDiseases,"Perspectives
in Biology
andMedicine,37 (Winter1994), 294-95.
88 Hurtado et al., "Epidemiologyof InfectiousDiseases," 426; Sousa et al.,
13231.
"EpidemicofTuberculosis,"
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VIRGINSOILS REVISITED
731
long observedthatAmericanIndians and Alaskannativeshave highsusceptibilityto certainbacteria,especiallyHaemophilusand Streptococcus.
Yet despiteextensivestudyit remainsunclearto whatextentthesedifferences reflectgeneticvulnerabilitiesor social conditionssuch as malnuEven if
trition,overcrowding,and exposure to recurrentinfections.89
it
tuberculosisresistancegenesproverelevantnow, will be difficult,
perhaps impossible,to connectthemto specificoutbreaksof tuberculosisin
thenineteenthor twentiethcenturies.
A second potentialmechanismis thatAmericanIndian evolution
amid the (alleged) relativehealthof Americaenabled the persistenceof
inheritedimmune deficienciesthat left Indians vulnerable to a wide
rangeof infections.The Navajos and JicarillaApaches,forinstance,have
an increasedincidence of a serious inheritedimmunodeficiency.
This
disease leaves its victimsvulnerableto viral,bacterial,and fungalinfections;mostdie withinthe firstyearsof lifeunlesstheyreceiveaggressive
While such immunedeficiencieshave been described
medicaltreatment.
some
among
groups,theyare not widespreadamongAmericanIndians.
It is also unclear whethersuch inherited immune deficiencies contributedto demographiccollapse,or resultedfromrandomgeneticfluctuationsamongtheensuingremnantpopulations.90
The thirdpotentialmechanismof inheritedvulnerability
arisesfrom
American
Indians
have
been
known
to be
long
genetic homogeneity.
for
blood.
has
found
remarkably
Subsequentstudy
homogeneous typeO
similarlylimitedvariabilityfor a seriesof different
genes, especiallya
limiteddiversityof MHC molecules.91FrancisBlack suggeststhat this
lack of geneticdiversity
leftNew World populationsmoresusceptibleto
certaininfections.Measles, forinstance,can adapt itselfto the immune
systemof its host. If its nexthosthas a similarimmunesystem(thatis, a
similarassortmentof MHC molecules),thenthe infectionwill be more
virulent.When facedwith a populationof geneticallysimilarindividuals, measles"can adapt to each populationas a whole and cause unusual
damage." Based on thistheory,Black arguesthat"limitedgeneticdiversity,not 'bad genes' may be the fatalchinkin the immunologicalarmor
of theNew Worldpeople."92Recentstudieshave also foundthatlimited
89JohnB. Robbinsand RachelSchneerson,
theHaemophilus
"Evaluating
InfluenzaeType b ConjugateVaccine PRP-D," N. Eng.J. Medicine,323 (Nov.
Iy,
1990), 1415-16.
P. Erickson,
"Southwestern
Athabaskan
90Robert
(NavajoandApache)Genetic
Diseases," Geneticsin Medicine, I (May-June1999), I51-57.
91Crawford,
he notedthatnew
88-148.However,
ofNativeAmericans,
Origins
DNA markers
haveshownmorediversity
thanprevious
estimates.
92 Black, "Why Did They Die?" Science, 258 (Dec.
ii, 1992), 1739-40; Black,
ofHighDeathRates,"301("canadapt");Blacketal.,"HLA,Gm,and
"Explanation
KmPolymorphisms,"
Thistheory
hasbeenpicked
215 ("limited
diversity").
genetic
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732
WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY
of MHC moleculescan leaveindividuals
moresusceptible
to
diversity
otherinfections,
B.93Whilesuchtheories
includingHIV and hepatitis
areplausibleand supported
evidence,
byspecific
theyremainonlyspeculationabout the impactof measles,smallpox,and tuberculosis
on
American
Indians.
The fourthmechanismof no immunitydistinguishesbetween
In some cases, mostfamiliarly
innateand adaptiveimmunity.
with
chickenpoxbutalsowithsmallpox
andmeasles,theprotection
provided
of theadaptiveimmunesystem
reinfection
after
byantibodies
prevents
an initialepisode.In earlymodernEurope,wheretheseviruseswere
mostpeoplewereexposedas infants
and children.
Sincemany
endemic,
aremilderin children,
viralinfections
sinceinfants
receivesomeprotectionfrommaternal
and sinceparentscouldprovidenursing
antibodies,
thesechildhoodinfections
and developed
care,mostchildrensurvived
In
where
the
diseases
were
not
terendemic,
adaptiveimmunity. settings
riblemortality
couldensue.Iceland,forinstance,
too
small
a
supported
to
allow
to
an
as
endemic
infection.
When
population
smallpox persist
itwasintroduced
in 1707 aftera longabsence,it killed36 percent
ofthe
in
out
of
a
population(18,ooo
roughly50,000)
singleyear.Similarly
occurredwhensmallpoxwas introduced
intermittently
highmortality
intoBostonandotherBritish
coloniesduringtheeighteenth
century.94
AmericanIndianpopulationseasilycould haveexperienced
severe
of
of
because
their
initial
lack
The
epidemics
adaptiveimmunity. entire
of
Indian
and
population
villages,
young old,wouldhavebeenvulnerable to thefirst
of
or otherinfections.
Few
measles,
appearance smallpox,
been
have
to
tend
healthyenough providenursingcare,
peoplemight
the crops,or maintainessentialsubsistence
activities.95
Manyof these
infections
also causemoreseveremortality
in adultsthanin children.
This would have been especiallydamagingsince theseadultswere
forcrucialsocialroles.96
Each of thesefactors,
theresultof
responsible
up by some historians: Fenn, Pox Americana, 26-27, 141;Robert McCaa, "Spanish
and NahuatlViewson Smallpoxand DemographicCatastrophein Mexico,"Journal
History,25 (1995), 419-20.
ofInterdisciplinary
93 Carrington et al., "HLA and HIV-I," 1748-52; Hill, "Defence by Diversity,"
Nature, 398 (Apr. 22, 1999), 668-69.
"MaternalAntibodies,"
94Benenson,"Smallpox,"634; Zinkernagel,
1331.
95Crosby,"VirginSoil Epidemics,"293-96.
96 Some historians
have arguedthatinfluenzaand otherepidemicssingleout
vulnerablesocietiesof theirmost
youngadultsforthe highestmortality,
stripping
curves:
productiveindividuals.In fact,most infectionshave U-shaped mortality
low in school-agedchildrenand adolescents,
thenincreasing
steadily
highin infants,
withage: Benenson,"Smallpox,"641;AnneA. Gershon,"MeaslesVirus(Rubeola),"
in GeraldL. Mandell,JohnE. Bennett,and RaphaelDolin, eds.,Mandell,Douglas,
and Bennett's Principles and Practice of InfectiousDiseases, 5th ed. (Philadelphia,
2ooo), 1801-09; Weller, "Varicella-Herpes Zoster Virus," 668.
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VIRGIN SOILS REVISITED
733
absent adaptiveimmunity,could have produced high mortalityregardless ofAmericanIndian innateimmunity.
The magnitudeof this effectdepends on two crucial factors.First,
which diseaseswere trulynew to AmericanIndians?Smallpox,measles,
and influenzalikelydid arrivein theAmericaswithEuropeans.Analysis
of AmericanIndian skeletalremains,however,has shownthatmanydiseases existed in pre-Columbian America, including tuberculosisand
pneumonia, and possiblyherpes,chickenpox, and otherviruses.97As
one review concludes, "The concept of a pristine,disease-free,preColumbian New World environmentis no longer credible."98As a
result,the breadthof AmericanIndian adaptive immunevulnerability
remainsunclear.Second, the notion of trulyprotectiveimmunityonly
applies to a small numberof viralinfections.Influenza,which shiftsits
antigensovertime,can reinfectindividualsevenin endemicareas.Other
can
viruses,such as those that cause common colds or gastroenteritis,
infectthe same individualover and over again. Most bacterialdiseases,
meanwhile,generatelittle or no protectiveimmunity:individualscan
sufferendless recurrencesof skin infectionsor pneumonia. Although
thesediseases,especiallyviralpneumoniaand diarrhea,are less visiblein
the historicrecordthan smallpox and measles, theymighthave been
dominantcauses of mortalityforwhich adaptive immunitymightnot
have been relevant.99
When Europeans
The last mechanismdepends on disease synergy.
arrived,theybroughtmanynew diseasesto the Americas.Epidemicsof
97 Many authorslist tuberculosis,
treponematosis,
pneumonia(streptococcus),
salmonella,leishmaniasis,
staphylococcus,
typhoid,shigellosis,
Chagas'disease,toxotapeworm,whipworm,pinplasmosis,amebiasis,giardiasis,tinea,blastomycosis,
and hookworm.See SuzanneAustinAlchon,NativeSociety
and
worm,roundworm,
Diseasein ColonialEcuador(Cambridge,1991), 20o-24; Boyd,ComingoftheSpiritof
Pestilence,
I5; and Starna,"BiologicalEncounter,"512.These diseaseswerefoundin
someplaces;theywerenotlikelyendemiceverywhere.
98ArthurC. Aufderheide,
"Summaryon Disease beforeand afterContact,"in
in theAmericas,
JohnW. Verano and Ubelaker, eds., Disease and Demography
D. C., 1992), I65. For otherrebuttals
of thedisease-free
paradise,see
(Washington,
Calloway,New Worlds
forAll,25; ClarkSpencerLarsen,"In theWakeof Columbus:
Native Population Biology in the PostcontactAmericas," Yearbookof Physical
37 (I994), 109, II4; Ubelaker, "Patternsof Demographic Change," 372;
Anthropology,
or manyof theotheressaysin Veranoand Ubelaker,eds.,Diseaseand Demography.
99For theimpactofcommonbacterialpathogenson a disease-experienced
popof
ulation,see Walsh McDermott,withDavid E. Rogers,"Social Ramifications
Control of Microbial Disease," JohnsHopkins Medical Journal, I5i (1982), 305. In
deaths.
1990,viralpneumoniaand diarrhearemainedtheleadingcausesofinfectious
See Christopher
J.L. Murrayand Alan D. Lopez,eds., TheGlobalBurdenofDisease:
A Comprehensive
Assessment
and Disability
and Risk
fom Diseases,Injuries,
ofMortality
Factors in Ip99 and Projectedto 2020 (Cambridge, Mass., 1996), 176. It is tempting,
butimpossible,
to extrapolate
thisprevalence
backto pre-contact
America.
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734
WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY
and influenza
oftencirculated
measles,smallpox,
simultaneously
among
American
Indians.Whennewdiseasesreacheda village,notonlycould
fallsickat thesametime,buteverypersoncouldsuffer
from
everyone
severalinfections.
As was well demonstrated
withthe influenzapandemicof 1918,co-infection
withmultiplepathogens
(in thatcase,viral
andbacterial
canhavesynergistic
effects
on mortality.
Some
pneumonia)
diseasesalso cause immunesuppression.Measles,forinstance,supand leavesitsvictims
morevulnerable
to other
pressescellularimmunity
could
diseases,especially
tuberculosis.100
epidemics
Although
synergistic
havecontributed
to American
the
the
of
depopulation, magnitude
synunknown.
ergyremains
Takenas a whole,recentimmunological
research
offers
manyclues
aboutthestateof Indianimmunity.
AmericanIndianscould certainly
mount immuneresponsesto European pathogens.Perhapstheir
leftthemwithout
protective
genes,makingthemincrementally
"naivete"
their
leftthemvulnerable
to adaptable
susceptible.
Perhaps
homogeneity
Research
about
these
the
continues
on
questions
pathogens.
cutting
edge
of immunology.
It is possiblethatdefinitive
evidenceof demographiresistance
callysignificant
geneswillemerge.The historical
experiment,
has
run
its
course.
mixed
however,
EuropeanandAmerican
populations
foroverfivehundredyearsbeforescientistscould studythemadeforfurther
on firstcontactpopularesearch
quately.The opportunity
tionsremainsremote.As a result,the stateof virginimmunity
will
foreverremaincontested.This leavesthe literature
on geneticsand
butunsatisfying.101
Geneticarguments
ofpopulaimmunity
promising,
tion-widevulnerability
musttherefore
be made withgreatcaution.
Otherimmunological
mechanisms
remainplausible,but problematic.
Initiallack of adaptiveimmunity
likelyleftAmericanIndiansocieties
to certainpathogens,
vulnerable
but certainly
not to all of them,and
forthedomidoes not seemto havebeenrelevant
adaptiveimmunity
in developing
nantcausesofmortality
societies.
100 EricT.
Sandberg,MarkW. Kline,and WilliamT. Shearer,"The Secondary
in E. RichardStiehm,ed., Immunologic
Disordersin Infants
Immunodeficiencies,"
and Children, 4th ed. (Philadelphia, 1996), 553-60oi; Christopher L. Karp et al.,
"Mechanismof Suppressionof Cell-MediatedImmunity
byMeaslesVirus,"Science,
273 (July12, 1996), 228-31.
101The phenomenaof obesitydemonstrate
theimpactof socialfactorsevenon
diseasesthathavestronggeneticcomponents.
Studieshaveshownthat50o%to 90%
to genetics.But theexpression
ofgenetic
of thevarianceofobesitycan be attributed
of obesity,
tendenciesdependson socialcontext:faminewill preventtheexpression
regardlessof genetic predilection. Similarly,the prevalence of obesity in the United
States has increased rapidlyover recentdecades, in the absence of significantgenetic
change; Gregory S. Barsh, I. Sadaf Farooqi, and Stephen O'Rahilly, "Genetics of
Body-Weight Regulation," Nature, 404 (Apr. 6, 2000), 644-51.
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VIRGIN SOILS REVISITED
735
the mechanismsof adaptiveimmunity,
Furthermore,
along with the
of
simultaneous
and
successive
infections,
impact
synergistic
emphasizethe
of
the
disease
not
and
the
environment,
importance
only
populationitself,
in shapinga population'ssusceptibility
to infection.Other featuresof the
definedbroadly,also have profoundeffects
on immunity.
A
environment,
and
all
environments
intersocial,
economic,
population'sphysical,
political
act to createpatternsofvulnerability,
of itsgeneticsubstrate.
regardless
Such vulnerabilitieshave long been recognized.Even as observers
began assertingracial argumentsof disease susceptibilityin the nineteenthcentury,theysaw that a wide rangeof social factorscreatedsusceptibilityto epidemic disease. Afterstudyingan outbreakof measles
among the indigenouspopulationsof Fiji in 1875,W. Squire concluded,
"We need invokeno special susceptibility
of race or peculiarityof constiHe blamed social conditions,espetutionto explainthe greatmortality."
cially "want of nourishmentand care." In I909, anthropologistAles
Hrdlicka reached a similar conclusion about American Indians:
"Doubtless much of what now appearsto be greaterracial susceptibility
is a resultof otherconditions."SherburneCook came to believethatdisease amongstindigenouspopulationsworldwide"actedessentiallyas the
outletthroughwhichmanyotherfactorsfoundexpression."102
Malnutrition
demonstration
providesthe mostobvious,and prevalent,
of the linksbetweensocial conditions,environmental
conditions,and disease. In additionto causingdeficiency
diseases,such as ricketsand pellagra,
malnutrition
increasessusceptibility
to infection.Some vitamindeficiencies
cause skinbreakdown,
erodingthe firstbarrierof defenseagainstinfection.
Protein deficiencies impair both cellular and humoral responses.
Malnutritionduringinfancyand childhood has particularlydevastating
effects
on subsequentimmunefunction.Certaindiseaseshavemorespecific
connectionsto nutrition.Malnutrition,especiallyvitaminA deficiency,
increasesmortality
frommeasles.Malnourishedchildrenare morelikelyto
die fromchickenpox. Such interactions
create"a viciouscircle.Each episode
of infection
increasestheneed forcaloriesand proteinand at thesametime
causes anorexia;both of theseaggravatethe nutritional
deficiency,
making
the patienteven moresusceptibleto infection."Understanding
theserela"is the most common
tionships,scientistshave realizedthatmalnutrition
in theworld."103
causeofsecondary
immunodeficiency
102
Squire,"Reportsof Societies:The EpidemiologicalSociety,"Medical Times
and Gazette,I (1877),324; Hrdlirka,Tuberculosis
amongCertainIndian Tribesofthe
UnitedStates(Washington,D. C., 1909), 3I; Cook, "The Significance
of Disease in
the Extinctionof the New EnglandIndians,"Human Biology,
45 (Sept. 1973),5o6.
See also AugustHirsch,Handbookof Geographical
and HistoricalPathology,
trans.
CharlesCreighton(London,1883-1886),
167.
103Sandberg,Kline,and Shearer,"Secondary
Immunodeficiencies,"
565.See also
Black, "Measles," 451; Gershon, "Measles Virus (Rubeola)," I805; and Weller,
ZosterVirus,"674.
"Varicella-Herpes
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736
WILLIAM AND MARYQUARTERLY
Historians
havethoroughly
theimpactofmalnutrition
documented
haveclearimportance
on diseasesusceptibility.104
Suchconnections
for
AmericanIndians,who facedbothdiseaseand socialdisorder
following
As Cronondescribes,
bydisease
Europeancolonization.
villagesdisrupted
and social breakdown"oftenmissedkeyphasesin theirannualsubsistence
cycles-the corn planting,say,or the fallhunt-and so wereweakened
when the next infectionarrived."'05This would have been particularly
damagingforthemanypopulationsthatekedout onlya precarioussubsistence beforeEuropean arrival.Althoughsome writershave described
AmericanIndians livingin bountifulharmonywith theirenvironment,
and physicalanthropologists
have shownthatmanygroups
archaeologists
were terribly
malnourished.The accomplishments
of the Mayan civilizationmighthavebeen undoneby climatechange,cropfailures,
and famine.
and
violence
made
Mesoamerican
cities
as
unhealthDisease,malnutrition,
fulas theirmedievalEuropeancounterparts,
withlifeexpectancies
of 21 to
The
Arikaras
life
as
low
had
as
26 years.
13.2years.Careful
expectancies
skeletal
has
found
of
remains
evidence
of
nutritional
defistudy
widespread
ciencies,withhealthconditionsworseningin theyearsbeforecontactwith
Europeans.106 Baseline malnutrition,
especiallyin the large agricultural
societiesin Mexico and theAndes,leftAmericanIndiansvulnerable-at
the outset-to Europeandiseases.107When the conditionsof colonization disruptedsubsistence,thesituationonlygrewworse.
Malnutritionmaybe the mostobviousfactor,but it was onlyone of
historianshave shownhow physicalenvironments
many.Environmental
104For an overview,see RobertDirks,"Famineand Disease," in KennethF.
Kiple, ed., The CambridgeWorldHistoryof Human Disease (Cambridge,1993),
157-63.For a specificexample(tuberculosis
duringthesiegeof Paris),see David S.
in Nineteenth-Century
France
Barnes,TheMakingofa Social Disease: Tuberculosis
(Berkeley,1995), 6-9. Malnutritionremainsthe major riskfactorformortality
worldwide,accountingfor11.7% of the attributablerisk (comparedto 6% for
tobacco,5.8% forhypertension,
5.3% forsanitationand hygiene,and 1.5% foralcohol). See Murrayand Lopez, GlobalBurdenofDisease,311.
in theLand, 88. See also Chaplin,SubjectMatter,158,and
105 Cronon,Changes
White,"WesternHistory,"2o8.
American
Historical
106JohnH. Coatsworth,
Review,ioi (1996),1-12
"Welfare,"
53(Arikara);Larsen,"In
(generaldiscussion);Crawford,
OriginsofNativeAmericans,
theWake of Columbus,"109-54 (worsening
health);Storey,Lifeand Death in the
AncientCityof Teotihuacan,
253-66 (cities);Ann L. W. Stodderet al., "Cultural
and BiologicalStressin theAmericanSouthwest,"
in RichardH. Steckel
Longevity
and JeromeC. Rose, eds., The BackboneofHistory:Health and Nutritionin the
Western
Hemisphere
(Cambridge,2002), 481-505 (ill-health).
107Steckeland Rose, "Patternsof Health in the WesternHemisphere,"in
Steckeland Rose, eds., BackboneofHistory,563-79. While agriculturalsocieties
(e.g., Mexico, Andes) experiencedpoor health,ruralareas (e.g., coastal Georgia,
Brazil) did better.Societieswitha pre-contactlife expectancyof 40 yearscould
moreeasilyabsorbnew pathogensthansocietieswitha lifeexpectancy
of 20 years;
S. RyanJohansson
and Owsley,"WelfareHistoryon theGreatPlains:Mortality
and
SkeletalHealth,1650to 1900,"in Steckeland Rose,eds.,Backbone
556.
ofHistory,
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VIRGINSOILS REVISITED
737
can leave populationssusceptibleto disease. Lowland Ecuadorians,weakened by endemic parasitesand intestinaldiseases,were more vulnerable
to European infectionsthan theirhighlandcompatriots.AfterSpanish
arrivalin Mexico, a "plague of sheep" destroyedMexican agricultural
lands and leftMexicans susceptibleto famineand disease. Colonization
introduceda host of damagingchangesin New England. Deforestation
led to wider temperatureswings and more severe flooding. Livestock
overranIndian crops and requiredpasturesand fences,leading to frequent conflictand widespread seizure of Indian land. Europeans also
introducedpests,includingblights,insects,and rats.All of thesechanges
fueled rapid soil erosion and underminedthe subsistenceof surviving
Indian populations. More dramaticenvironmentaleventsalso wreaked
havoc. Drought,earthquakes,and volcanic eruptionsunderminedresistance to disease in Ecuador in the 169Os.A devastatinghurricanestruck
Fiji in 1875, exacerbatingthe measles outbreakthere.As one observer
commented,"Certainlyforthe last 16 yearstherehas been experienced
no such weather,and nothingcould be more fatal to a diseased Fijian
thanexposureto it."108
Historiansand anthropologists
have also documentedmanycases in
which the variedoutcomesof specificpopulationsdepended on specific
social environments.The Lamanai Mayas, heavily colonized by the
thanthe moreisolatedTipu Mayas.
Spanishregime,had highermortality
While much of Peru sufferedseverely,
the regionof Huamanga lost only
20o percentof its populationbetween1532 and I570, the resultof "a high
birthrate,the relativeimmunityof remotehigh-altitude
areas to disease,
shrewd politics, and good luck." The Pueblos sufferedwhen "the
endemic problemsof droughtand faminewere superimposedupon the
economic disruptioncaused by the Spanish drain on food and labor."
Severe outbreaksof smallpox and erysipelasin Peru fromi8oo to
ISo5
reflecteda combinationof drought,crop failures,famines,miningfailures, and economic collapse. The introductionof specific epidemics
reflectedspecifichistoricalevents.Dauril Alden and JosephMiller traced
outbreaksof smallpoxfromWest Africandroughts,throughthe middle
passage of the slave trade, to Brazil. Measles raced down the political
hierarchyin Fiji in 1875as a seriesof conferencescarriednews of a treaty
with the Britishempire,along with the virus,fromthe royalfamilyto
regionaland local leadersthroughoutthe island.109Local variabilityand
108 Newson, "Highland-Lowland Contrasts," 1191-94 (Ecuador); Melville, Plague
ofSheep(Mexico); Cronon, Changesin theLand, 107-56 (New England);Alchon,
NativeSocietyand Diseasein ColonialEcuador;"OccasionalCorrespondent"
to The
Times,Apr. 23, 1875,quoted in Cliff,Haggett,and Smallman-Raynor,"Island
Populations,"163(Fiji).
109Larsen,"In theWake of Columbus,"137(Maya); SteveJ.Stern,Peru'sIndian
Peoplesand theChallengeofSpanishConquest:Huamangato 1640,zd ed. (Madison,
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WILLIAM AND MARYQUARTERLY
738
contingencyled Linda Newson to conclude that "levelsof decline and
and chardemographictrendswere influencedby the size, distribution,
social
acterof populations,especiallytheirsettlement
patterns,
organizaEven in the late twentiethcentury,
tion, and levels of subsistence."110
specificsocial factorsleftisolated indigenouspopulationsvulnerableto
European pathogens.Magdalena Hurtado,who has witnessedfirst-contact epidemicsin South America,emphasizesthe adverseconsequences
and poor accessto healthcare.""111
of "sedentism,poverty,
Studies of North Americantribesin the nineteenthand twentieth
centurieshave found similarlocal variability.GeographerJodyDecker
showshow a singleepidemicamong the northernPlains tribeshad dis"evenforcontiguousNative groups,"dependingon "popparateeffects,
ulation densities,transmissionrates, immunity,subsistencepatterns,
seasonalityand geographiclocation."Droughtand famineleftthe Hopis
particularlysusceptibleto an epidemic in 1780. The Mandans suffered
severelyfromsmallpoxin 1837:faminesince the previouswinterhad left
them malnourished,and cold, rainyweatherconfined them to their
crowded lodges. When smallpox struck,theyhad both high levels of
exposureand low levelsof resistance.As Clyde Dollar concludes,"It is
no wonder the death rate reached such tragicallyhigh levels." Once
NorthAmericantribescame under the care of the federalgovernments
frommalnutrition
in the United Statesand Canada, theyoftensuffered
and poor sanitation.Mary-EllenKelm, who has studiedthe fatesof the
Indians of BritishColumbia, concludesthat"poorAboriginalhealthwas
not inevitable"; instead, it was the product of specific government
policies.112
1993),44 (Huamanga);Stodderand Debra L. Martin,"Health and Disease in the
Southwestbeforeand afterSpanishContact,"in Veranoand Ubelaker,eds.,Disease
and Demography,
63 (Pueblo); EnriqueTandeter,"Crisisin UpperPeru,I800-1805,"
Historical
Review,71 (I99I), 40-51;Aldenand Miller,"Unwanted
HispanicAmerican
Cargoes: The Originsand Disseminationof Smallpoxvia the Slave Trade from
Africato Brazil, c. 156O-I830,"in Kiple, ed., TheAfricanExchange:Towarda
ofBlackPeople(Durham,N. C., 1987),35-109; Cliff,Haggett,and
BiologicalHistory
"IslandPopulations,"148-56(Fiji).
Smallman-Raynor,
110Newson, "Highland-LowlandContrasts,"1194. See also Newson, "The
of
DemographicCollapseofNativePeoplesof theAmericas,1492-1650,"Proceedings
81(1993),247-88.
theBritish
Academy,
111Hurtadoet al., "Epidemiology
of InfectiousDiseases,"428. See also Marcos
Cueto, The ReturnofEpidemics:Healthand Societyin Peru duringthe Twentieth
Vt., z001).
Century
(Burlington,
112Decker,"Depopulationof theNorthernPlainsNatives,"SocialScienceand
162, 187; Dollar, "The High Plains
Medicine,33 (1991), 383; Fenn,Pox Americana,
8 (Jan.1977), 29;
HistoricalQuarterly,
Smallpox Epidemic of 1837-38,"Western
Healthand Healingin BritishColumbia,1goo-5o
Bodies:Aboriginal
Kelm,Colonizing
(Vancouver,1998), 177. See also MaureenK. Lux, MedicineThat Walks:Disease,
Medicine,and CanadianPlainsNativePeople,188o-1940(Toronto,2001).
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VIRGINSOILS REVISITED
739
Comparativestudies have particularpower for demonstratingthe
local specificity of depopulation. Stephen Kunitz has shown that
Hawaiians sufferedmore severelythan Samoans, a consequenceof differentpatternsof land seizureby colonizingEuropeans.The Navajo did
betterthanthe neighboringHopi because theirpastorallifestyle
adapted
more easily to the challenges imposed by American settlers.In these
cases similar indigenous populations encounteredsimilar colonizers,
with very differentoutcomes: "The kind of colonial contact that
occurredwas of enormousimportance."Kunitz'scases demonstratethat
"diseasesrarelyact as independentforcesbut insteadare shaped by the
contextsin whichtheyoccur."113
different
Parallelingthis work,some historianshave begun to provideintegratedanalysesof the manyfactorsthatshaped demographicoutcomes.
Any factorthatcauses mentalor physicalstress-displacement,warfare,
of crops,soil depletion,overwork,
malnutrislavery,
drought,destruction
to disease.114
tion,social and economicchaos-can increasesusceptibility
factorsalso decreasefertility,
These same social and environmental
prefrom
its
The magnitudeof mora
venting population
replacing losses.115
tality depended on characteristics of precontact American Indian
nutritionalstatus)and on the
populations(size, density,social structure,
of
colonization
(frequencyand magnitudeof contact,
patterns European
invasivenessof the European colonial regime).As anthropologistClark
SpencerLarsenargues,scholarsmust"moveawayfrommonocausalexplanationsof population change to reach a broad-basedunderstandingof
declineand extinctionof NativeAmericangroupsafter1492.))''116
The finalevidenceof the influenceof social and physicalenvironments on disease susceptibilitycomes fromtheir ability to generate
remarkablemortalityamong even the supposedlydisease-experienced
Old World populations.Karen Kuppermanhas documentedthe synergy
where8o
of malnutrition,
deficiencydiseases,and despairat Jamestown,
percentof the colonistsdied between1607 and 1625. Smallpoxmortality,
Kunitz,Diseaseand Social Diversity:TheEuropeanImpacton theHealthof
Non-Europeans(New York, 1994), 5, 73. See also Crawford,Originsof Native
113
Americans,41-49.
114Cook, "Interracial
Warfareand PopulationDeclineamongtheNew England
Indians," Ethnohistory,
20 (Winter 1973), 1-24; McCaa, "Spanish and Nahuatl Views,"
429; Newson,"Indian PopulationPatterns,"47-65; Snow and Kim M. Lanphear,
"EuropeanContactand Indian Depopulationin the Northeast:The Timingof the
First Epidemics," Ethnohistory,
35 (Winter 1988), 17; Trimble, "1837-I838 Smallpox
ofDemographic
Epidemic,"82; Ubelaker,"Patterns
Change,"364-69.
115 Stannard, "Disease and Infertility,"325-50;
Ubelaker, "Patterns of
DemographicChange,"364.
116Larsenet al., "PopulationDecline and Extinction
in La Florida,"in Verano
and Ubelaker,eds., Diseaseand Demography,
35. See also Larsen,"In the Wake of
Columbus," 124.
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740
WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY
nearly40 percentamongUnionsoldiersduringtheCivilWar,reflected
and notinherent
lackofinnateor adaptiveimmunity.
livingconditions
soldiers
infected
with
whichexceeded2o permeasles,
Mortality
among
centduringtheUnitedStatesCivilWar,reached40 percent
duringthe
of
Paris
in
the
Franco-Prussian
War.117
and
social
Poverty
siege
disruptioncontinueto shapethedistribution
ofdisease,generating
enormous
withtuberculosis,
HIV, andall otherdiseases.
globaldisparities
Is it possibleto quantify
thevariability,
therelative
to delineate
contribution
ofpotential
social
and
environmental,
developmental,
genetic,
variables?
Detailedstudieshavedocumented
"considerable
variregional
in
American
Indian
to
ability"
responses Europeanarrival.118
Many
AmericanIndian groupsdeclinedfora centuryand thenbegan to
recover.
Some,suchas thenativesof theBahamas,declinedto extinction.Others,suchas theNavajo,experienced
steadypopulationgrowth
afterEuropean arrival.More precisedata exist forselect groups.
Newson,forinstance,has compileddata aboutdie-off
ratios,theproWhiledie-off
ratios
portionof thosewho died to thosewho survived.
wereas highas 58:I alongthePeruvian
coast,theywerelower(3.4:I) in
In Mexicotheyvariedbetween47.8:I and 6.6:I,
thePeruvian
highlands.
on elevation.
againdepending
Theyrangedfrom5.1:1in Chiapasto 24:1
in Hondurasand 40:I in Nicaragua."9Mortality
ratesfromEuropean
diseasesamongSouthPacificislanders
and 25
rangedbetween3 percent
forinfluenza.120
Such
percentformeasles,and 2.5percentto 25 percent
variability
amongrelatively
homogeneouspopulations,withdie-off
ratiosdiffering
mostlikelyreflects
thecontinbyan orderofmagnitude,
of
social
variables.
most
of
But
these
numbers
are,
gency
admittedly,
a 4:I die-off
enormous:
ratioindicates
that75 percentdied.Whydid so
suffer
suchhighbaselinemortality?
Does thisreflect
a
manypopulations
sharedgeneticvulnerability,
whosefinalintensity
was shapedby social
Or does it reflect
variables?
a sharedsocialexperience,
of pre-existing
nutritional
stressexacerbated
of
the
chaos
encounter
and
by widespread
Bothpositions
colonization?
aredefensible.
The variability
ofoutcomesreflected
in thedifferent
fatesofdifferent Indian populations provides powerfulevidence against the
of mortality.
It undermines
inevitability
popularclaims,made most
that
American
Indianssuffered
universal
influentially
byHenryDobyns,
117 Kupperman, "Apathy and Death in Early Jamestown," JAH, 66 (1979),
24-40; Crosby, "Virgin Soil Epidemics," 292-93 (smallpox); Squire, "Reports of
Societies," 324 (measles).
118 Ubelaker and Verano, "Conclusion," in Verano and Ubelaker, eds., Disease
and Demography,281.
119Newson, "Indian Population Patterns,"42-44120Cliff,Haggett, and
Smallman-Raynor,"Island Populations," 147.
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VIRGINSOILS REVISITED
741
mortalityfrominfectiousdiseases.121Noble David Cook, for instance,
argues that the vulnerabilitywas so generalthat Indians died equally
was
whateverthe colonial context,"no matterwhichEuropean territory
involved,regardlessof the location of the region.It seemedto make no
what typeof colonial regimewas created."122
Such assertions,
difference
which reduce the depopulation of the Americas to an inevitable
encounterbetween powerfuldiseases and vulnerablepeoples, do not
match the contingencyof the archaeological and historical records.
These, instead,tella storyof populationsmade vulnerable.
in Americanand EuropeandisOne could arguethatthedifferences
ease environments,
the nutritionalstatusof precontactAmericans,and
the disruptionsof colonization created conditions in which disease
could only thrive.Only a time travelerequipped with a supplyof vaccines could have altered the demographicoutcomes.123But it is also
possible that outcomes might have been different.Suppose Chinese
explorers,if theydid reach the Americas,had introducedEurasiandiseases in the 1420s, leaving American populations two generationsto
recoverbeforefacingEuropean colonization. Suppose smallpox struck
TenochtitlanafterCortds'sinitialretreatand not duringhis subsequent
siege of the city.An epidemic then mighthave been bettertolerated
than duringthe siege. Or suppose thatthe epidemicsof 1616-1617and
bountiful
1633-1634struckNew England tribesduringthe nutritionally
summersand not duringthe starvingtimesof winter(or perhapsit was
because of those starvingtimesthat the epidemicstended to appear in
winters).The historicrecordof epidemic afterepidemic suggeststhat
highmortalitymusthave been a likelyconsequenceof encounter.But it
does not mean that mortalitywas the inevitable result of inherent
immunologicalvulnerability.
Consider an analogous case, the global distributionof HIV/AIDS.
Fromthe earliestyearsof the epidemic,HIV has exhibitedstrikingdisparitiesin morbidityand mortality.Its prevalencevariesbetweensubSaharan Africa and developed countries and between different
populations within developed countries. Few scientistsor historians
would argue that these disparitiesbetweenAfricanand Europeans or
between urban minorities and suburban whites exist because the
afflictedpopulationshave no immunityto HIV. Instead,the social contingencyof HIV on a local and global scale has long been recognized.124
121Compare Dobyns, TheirNumberBecomeThinned,13-16, to a critique,
Aldenand Miller,"UnwantedCargoes,"37.
122Cook, Born to Die, 5.
123This storyof sciencefictionhas been told in Orson ScottCard, Pastwatch:
TheRedemption
Columbus
(New York,1996).
ofChristopher
124
ed.,
Jonesand Allan M. Brandt,"AIDS, Historical,"in JoshuaLederberg,
EncyclopediaofMicrobiology,2d ed., vol. I. (San Diego,
2000),
104-I5, esp. 114.
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742
WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY
We shouldbe justas cautiousbeforeasserting
thatno immunity
led to
thedevastation
oftheAmerican
Indians.
Historiansand medicalscientistsneed to reassesstheircasual
modelsof depopulation.The historic
deploymentof deterministic
recorddemonstrates
thatwe cannotunderstand
theimpactofEuropean
diseaseson theAmericas
on Indians'lackof immumerely
byfocusing
American
Indianpoptruethatepidemics
devastated
nity.It is certainly
ulations. It is also likely that genetic mechanismsof disease
of American
susceptibilityexist: theyinfluencethe susceptibility
Indians-and everyoneelse-to infectiousdisease.What remainsin
doubtis the relativecontributions
of social,cultural,environmental,
and geneticforces.Evenwhenimmunologists
demonstrate
thata wide
of genescontribute
to susceptibility
to infectious
disease,it will
variety
likelyremainunknownhow thesefactors
playedout amongAmerican
Indiansin pastcenturies.
data,
meanwhile,
provideconDemographic
evidence
of
the
of
social
on human
vincing
strongimpact
contingency
disease.This uncertainty
leavesthe door open forthe debatesto be
shapedbyideology.125
in theirwidespread
severity,
Although
unprecedented
virginsoilepidemicsmayhavearisenfromnothingmoreuniquethanthe familiar
forcesof poverty,
environmental
and
malnutrition,
stress,dislocation,
social disparitythatcause epidemicsamongall otherpopulations.
Whenever
historians
describe
thedepopulation
oftheAmericas
thatfollowedEuropeanarrival,theyshouldacknowledge
thecomplexity,
the
and
the
of
the
need
to
subtlety,
contingency
process.They
replace
withheterogehomogeneousand ambiguousclaimsof no immunity
neousanalysesthatsituatethemortality
of the epidemicsin specific
social and environmental
contexts.Only thencan theyovercomethe
determinism
widespread
publicand academicappealof immunologic
and do justiceto thecrucialeventsoftheencounter
between
Europeans
andAmericans.
125
is shapedby awarenessof how social factorsdetermine
My own perspective
contemporary
patternsof disease,by skepticismof the relevanceof increasingly
detailedgeneticinformation,
and byconcernthatobservers
oftenseekto blamevictimsto avoidresponsibility
fordisparities
in healthstatus.
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