DBQ1: Contact and Change

Among the most disastrous effects of the arrival of Europeans in the Americas was the rapid spread of disease.  Historians estimate that about 90 percent of the Native American population was killed by diseases like smallpox, influenza, and malaria.  The image shown here (larger version below) was drawn in the mid-to late 1500s by a Spanish friar named Bernardino de Sahagun, who had befriended many Aztecs.  In his General History of the Things of New Spain, from which this image is taken, Sagagun describes the effects of these diseases on Aztec populations.  The image shows Aztecs suffering through various stages of smallpox.