The Inuit, that inhabited Northern America within the Artic region, are almost pure hunters due to the fact that there is hardly any edible plant life. They used their surrounding environment such as snow, ice, and animal skins for all of life’s necessities to survive. The snow and ice provided housing for them while animal skins could be used for clothing. Tools and weapons would be formed from that of animal bones as well as used to hunt and fish for their food. The climate in particular, periods of 24 hour darkness, dictated the survival methods and movements for the Inuit people and left them with hardly any foraging capabilities.
John Smith said, "...one amongst the rest did kill his wife, powdered [i.e., salted] her, and had eaten part of her." ( The starving time pg.2) This shows that the colonists were so daspreat for food that they did anything to obtain it. Not only did the colonists spend most of their time looking for gold but they also had little agricultural experiance. To make things worse, the land of which they setteled on was swampy and desease infested. John Smith said, "The colonists, a group with little agricultural experience and weighted with gentry, instead found a swampy and disease-ridden site."
In 1605-1612, the colonists experienced the longest drought (Doc B). Because of the lack of rain, they weren’t able to grow crops (Doc B). The seasons also caused diseases to spread (Doc E). The occupations of the colonists contributed to the colonist dying. They brought gentlemen, rich men that didn’t work with their hands, and they wanted other people to build their houses and hunt for their food (Doc C).
(Document B) Without water, the crops were unable to grow which led to hunger, starvation, and death. When there where crops to tend to, the water levels were too weak to do so. (Document B) Moreover, the rivers and lakes became brackish which means that they started to fill with salt. Therefore, their dependable sources of fresh water became limited. (Document A) Since there was a short supply of fresh water, many colonists died of dehydration.
The cloud caused problems for all over the world, which lead to most of the airspace to be closed. In Kenya and Zimbabwe there were mounds of rotting fruit and flowers because they had nowhere to export them to and they lost a lot of much needed business. New Zealand’s exportation of salmon though improved because it was no longer in
“Infected rats must have left Kaffa (Caffa) on the Genoese ships. By the time the fleet reached Messina, all the crew were dead or dying; and the rats slipped unnoticed to the shore” (Altman 19). The Black Death had three known forms of the epidemic: bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic. The European population had not experienced disease before. They did not have the defenses in their immune system to resist a disease their body didn’t know of.The Black Death was best known as the bubonic plague, because the first known symptom of the victims who were infected with the epidemic complained of painful swelling of their groin and armpits.
At the same time, white settlers were moving into the Crow’s territory. This caused food and game to become scarce, especially since many of the whites shot hundreds of buffalo for sport and then just left the carcasses to rot. Then in 1851 the United States military forced all of the Crow to move onto a small reservation in the same
Disease brought with the French quickly killed many Natives because they didn’t have any immunes built up. Another fault was that Indians quickly became dependent upon the manufactured goods of the French such as kettles and
Subsequently, the settlement became highly dysfunctional since the English gentleman refused to do work that was necessary to the colonies survival. This difference in social status was one of the many problems faced by the Jamestown colony. These setbacks included disease, starvation, massive death rates, and the pending relationship with the Powhatan Native Americans. The Powhatan were initially friendly to the colonists and gave them food, but drought ended the Powhatans generosity. The colonists attacked the Powhatan to procure food and relations never recovered afterwards.
According to Kraut, “The elderly who carried in their heads ancient histories, cures and crafts were often wiped out quickly, taking with them generations of a tribe’s collective understanding of the world and itself” (Kraut 17). It made them lose their expertise: hunting and gathering. Few Native Americans who survived the genocidal disaster had to naturally assimilate into the European culture to survive or fight to the death against the white invaders. Besides, their society fell into ruin. Shamans, conjurers, medicine men, or anyone who had claimed special power lost respect and authority because their traditional therapies were not effective in curing the infectious diseases.