Ecological imperialism

In 1607, a group of colonists led by Captain John Smith arrived in North America and established the Jamestown colony in Virginia.

Native Americans had never seen a disease like this, and it wiped out entire settlements in nations such as the Abenaki, the Pawtucket, and the Wampanoag.

William Bradford, governor of the Plymouth Colony, observed that: "They lye on their hard matts, ye pox breaking and muttering, and running one into another, their skin cleaving (by reason thereof) to the matts they lye on; when they turn them, a whole side with flea off at once...and they will be all of a gore blood, most fearful to behold.

"[3] During this time of colonialism, Europe had seen a great increase in the demand for luxury fur, mainly by Western Europeans.

[5] The fur trade not only miscalculated the predator-prey ratio, it allowed for the increase spread of smallpox in the Northern regions of the Americas; Thus creating a geographic commercial route for smallpox to travel from urban populated cities to the rural, open, woodland northern country.