Impact of European Invasion on Native American Cultures.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus set upon his voyage to the far east, but ended up reaching a "new and untamed" land. His first and previous voyages, seet into motion a chain of other explorers and voyages. This period, rightly named The Age of Discovery, brought about riches to the European countries who exploited the new world, but also had a huge impact on the Native American cultures of this time. Such factors as diease, loss of territory, and loss of culture, destroyed whole civilizations and nearly ruined others.
When Cortes invaded Mexico in 1520, the population was around 20 million. A century later is was less than 2 million. European germs killed far more of the inhabitants than European gunpowder and steel.* Dieases were having a huge effect on the Native American population long before any European set foot on the "new" world. Smallpox and measles were the two main killers Indians faced with the coming of the European, which accounted for 80 percent of the deaths of the Native American civilization(s) in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. Such dieases effected the Indians on the epidemic level, since they were never introduced to there civilizations before. Because of this, Native Americans lacked any immunities to dieases brought by the Europeans. Dave Krzywanski wrote that dieases had a "direct correlation" with the number of deaths of the Amerindians and the coming of the European. The effects of dieases alone hugley impacted the arrival of the European to Native Indian lands, but it is but one of many of the consequences brought on by there arrival.
Native Americans enjoyed vast territories that were unplundered and unspoiled. With the arrival of European explorers such as Pizarro and Cortes, lands of such civilizations as the Inca and Aztecs, were quickly exploited for there rich deposits of gold and silver.