Smallpox Devastates Hispaniola

1518

A ship from Castile carried the first known smallpox outbreak to the Americas. On Hispaniola the disease spread through Taino villages already devastated by forced labor, killing perhaps half the surviving population in months. It would leap next to Cuba, then to Mexico, with world-historical consequences. The epidemic's catastrophic mortality among populations with no prior exposure set the pattern for biological devastation accompanying European contact across the Americas.