Cause of Death
Turning to the cocoliztli cemeteries in Teposcolula-Yucundaa, Oaxaca, researches dug up 29 skeletal remains. Using teeth, researchers analyzed DNA evidence and were able to identify that all 29 remains had the same typhoid-like information. What the researchers found is a type of “salmonella enteric bacterium of the Paratyphi C variety.” Through this DNA analysis the research team, headed by Åshild Vågene of the University of Tuebingen in Germany, has concluded that one of the worlds largest epidemics was indeed a type of pestilence and not smallpox, measles, or flu.
Now that there seems to be an answer as to what caused the population collapse of indigenous people, the question is why did so many die? The answer may be found in the decades leading up to the arrival of the Spaniards and the drought cycle. All regions have a drought cycle. For several years there will be ample rainfall and agriculture will be very productive. Then for several years there will be lower than usual rainfall and crops will fail. For indigenous people in the New World, in the decades before the arrival of Europeans, they had suffered a horrible drought that stretched from modern-day Venezuela to Canada.
Humans are not able to function at full capacity if they suffer from a shortage of food. For the Aztec, failing crops meant that there was not nearly enough food to sustain the population. As a result, they were unable to fight off even the most common of diseases. When the Spaniards arrived, the Aztecs were already physically compromised. This contributed to the rapid decline in the indigenous population from disease.
The pestilence linked to the Cocoliztli Epidemic of 1576 was caused by a rare strain of paratyphoid fever. Researchers believe that this particular strain came from the Spaniards in the form of food and water. As with life in most of Europe, sanitation did not exist in the 16th century. People who lived off of the land knew not to empty buckets of human feces near their drinking water source.
As urbanization increased, as it did for the Aztecs, waste was thrown into the streets. Hand washing was not a common practice nor was daily bathing. Researchers believe that contaminated water by already-sick Aztecs and Europeans is what ultimately caused the collapse of the native population in New Spain.
Where did we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
Wikipedia: Cocoliztli epidemic.
Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., “The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492.”