Comparison of population growth in (former) European colonies 1500-1998
pre-colonial level, with smallpox considered to have been the most destructive. Additionally, the indigenous populations of the Caribbean and Tasmania were virtually all wiped out.
The European colonization of the Americas and Oceania introduced new diseases to biologically defenseless societies, and this resulted in a significant population decline among the indigenous populations in the early years of settlement. In the first two centuries of the Americas' colonization alone, the indigenous population dropped to just 10 percent of its