Let's say Columbus and his flotilla of three small ships never made it to the Western Hemisphere.

Do we imagine he would have been the last explorer to head west from Europe, looking for a new trade route to India, of course not. Once the new world was discovered,

the maritime European powers, England, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal,

had a strong motivation to establish colonies.

If they didn't, they'd be at a competitive disadvantage to their rivals.

It's human nature to move toward new opportunities, often in frantic, haphazard ways. Think of the California

Gold Rush. No one can be in a conference and said, how can we best extract gold from the American

river without disturbing the natural beauty of the land?

No, masses of people rushed into the area at the first opportunity.

So it was with the discovery of the new world.

As soon as word got out that the world didn't end in an abyss somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean,

fishermen and traders sailed across the sea on their own in hopes of scoring a fortune.

Yes, their superior technology and firearms gave them an edge over Native Americans in a

fight. But who wanted a fight? Most of these early adventurers did everything they could to avoid a confrontation.

Of course, no one anticipated that the natives would have almost no defense against the

microbes that these adventurers brought with them.

It wasn't planned and it couldn't have been prevented.

It just happened.

By the time Jamestown was founded in 1607, disease had already reaped its terrible toll.

Even before the Europeans arrived, the population of North America was sparse.

Farming without draft animals and hunter gathering can only

support a tiny population at the best of times. In contrast, the barley, wheat,

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