Today's Boston Globe editorializes about Columbus Day:
Along with gunpowder and the other inventions that crossed the Eurasian plain, deadly microbes also made the trip from China to Europe -- plague, influenza, hepatitis, measles, and the other maladies of everyday life in Europe. The Americas were virgin territory for these microbes, and the Indians lacked immunity to any of them.The Globe points out that since disease was the primary cause of genocide, the argument continues about whether the decimation of entire peoples was the result of systematic biological warfare or simply the "unwitting" result of European expansion. In either case, history's cautionary tale should make us act to stop the genocides taking place right now -- like the one in Burma against the Karenni (the forgotten war that provides the setting for my forthcoming novel from Charlesbridge, The Bamboo People).