Globalization and disease Spanish soldiers introduced smallpox by contact with natives of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan. A devastating epidemic broke out among the indigenous people, killing thousands. In 1617, smallpox reached Massachusetts, probably brought by earlier explorers to Nova Scotia, Canada.” By 1638 the disease had broken out among people in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1721 people fled the city after an outbreak, but the residents spread the disease to others throughout the thirteen colonies. Smallpox broke out in six separate epidemics in the United States through 1968. The smallpox vaccine was developed in 1798 by Edward Jenner. By 1979 the disease had been
Indigenous peoples in Uruguay territory was inhabited by small tribes of nomadic Charrua, Chana, Arachan and Guarani peoples. They were a semi-nomadic people who survived by hunting, fishing and gathering and probably never reached more than 10,000 – 20,000 people. It is estimated that there were about 9,000 Charrúa and 6,000 Chaná and Guaraní at the time of contact with the Spanish in the 1500s. By the time of independence, some 300 years later, there were only about 500 native peoples remaining in Uruguay. The cause of the decline in native populations was disease, as well as intermarriage. With little immunity to these diseases,