The Unending Frontier by John Richards describes the stages of the Spanish colonization of the Americas during the fifteenth century. This particular topic is new to me, but I am starting to see a trend of how disease and plague spread through the trade and search of particular valuable goods. The settlers traveled to the Americas because of their rich gold and silver, human labor, timber, fertile land. This makes me wonder if there are other possible ways that disease can be spread. Through research, we discovered that the covid 19 virus was potentially linked to a live animal market which eventually allowed the pathogen to spread from person to person. The idea that an entire population could be wiped out so rapidly is terrifying and that most had no clue how this disease even came about.
Also when Richards mentioned that each ship sailing from Seville conveyed that various types of cargo that soon lead to a rapid spread. Examples included domesticated animals, rats and insects, and unwanted weeds were included. And like we discussed in last class also new microorganisms, traveled with these voyagers on animals, and insects. I found it interesting that their voyage was considered a quarantine but these pathogens were just so new to this environment that still did not prevent their transmission but was just more impactful to this new land. This was like a "culture shock" to the Americas because this was not something that was found in their current biome.