2. Genes or exploitation and experience: Why did natives suffer so greatly from the disease?
Genes: Stearn and Stearn (1945): “...even in the nineteenth century when some immunity had already been acquired by this race...”
Exploitation, the social context of epidemics: Audiencia Judge Alonso de Zorita (~1560) “So the Indian returns home from his toil [for Spaniards] ... famished, unhappy, distraught, and shattered in health. For these reasons pestilence always rages among the Indians.”