Kimberly Steele

Another reason smallpox and probably also the bubonic plage burned though the Native American population like a wildfire has to do with immunological diversity. IOW, the Native Americans did not have as much of it as other people in the world at the time. All Native Americans in the so-called New World descended from a relatively small number of people who were able to survive making that punishing trek across the Bering Strait land-bridge during the most recent ice age. This resulted in a population with a herd immunity that lacked diversity in its physiological make-up. This diversity is a major part of a population's ability to deal with novel diseases.