How smallpox, or Variola , caused widespread devastation during the European colonization of the Americas is a well-known story.
Eschewing the metaphors and hyperbole routinely as.
In Cherokee Medicine, Colonial Germs Kelton challenges the "virgin soil thesis," or the widely held belief that Natives\' lack of immunities and their inept healers were responsible for their downfall.
But as historian Paul Kelton informs us, that\'s precisely what it is: a convenient story .
How smallpox, or Variola , caused widespread devastation during the European colonization of the Americas is a well-known story