Indigenous peoples of the Americas Smallpox killed from one third to half of the native population of Hispaniola in 1518. By killing the Incan ruler Huayna Capac, smallpox caused the Inca Civil War of 1529–1532. Smallpox was only the first epidemic. Typhus (probably) in 1546, influenza and smallpox together in 1558, smallpox again in 1589, diphtheria in 1614, measles in 1618—all ravaged the remains of Inca culture. Smallpox killed millions of native inhabitants of Mexico. Unintentionally introduced at Veracruz with the arrival of Pánfilo de Narváez on April 23, 1520, smallpox ravaged Mexico in the 1520s, possibly killing over 150,000 in Tenochtitlán (the heartland of
Influx of disease in the Caribbean almost assured the likelihood that people in these areas would be exposed to the diseases. While the Africans were genetically protected, the Europeans were not. Many Europeans living in the new lands would contract the diseases and die. The resistance of Africans to these diseases, which allowed them to survive and work in infested areas where Europeans couldn't, ironically increased their usefulness there and caused increased slave trade. The introduction of these two diseases into the Caribbean changed the ethnic makeup of the area, and decimating the indigenous population. Influx of disease in the Caribbean The Atlantic slave trade brought