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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cthulhudrew" data-source="post: 1903662" data-attributes="member: 4090">Who would have conquered them? The Chinese were very insular and had little to no contact with the western world for the most part. India I can't say very much about, but from what I recall, they were largely concerned with internal politics as well, and not conquering one another. Europe was almost conquered by the Mongols back in the 13th century, but possibly were only halted by the death of Ogodei Khan and their subsequent retreat to deal with the succession.As for Europe itself, it was subject to many back and forth conquests and wars for a long time during (and before and after) the years when plagues were rampant and widespread. I think the fact that it was such a mix of small feudal kingdoms and such probably helped to isolate it from any "large scale" conquest by an outside power. There was no central authority that would have been weakened in and of itself by a ravaging epidemic.As for specific plagues, I'm not sure of any that might have been able to have an impact (the bubonic plague was brought by mongols in 1346, but I think it was confined largely to the eastern european region).Otherwise, I could think of any number of reasons. Primarily, that they were in a better position to treat such diseases than the native Americans. Having shared cross-cultural fertilization with Asia for centuries, the sorts of epidemics suffered in Europe and Asia would have been similar, and the people would have been more resistant to such. On the other hand, the native American population, which (for the most part) did not have the large cities of Europe never had a chance to develop these same sorts of wide-scale diseases (and subsequent resistances). I'm probably not explaining it very well, though. Maybe someone else can do a better job here. The climatic differences, primarily, as I understand things. I don't recall specifics, though, so again- hopefully others can clarify.Another factor that I can think of offhand is that at least some African diseases are endemic- they can survive in areas were populations are widespread and small because they don't kill their hosts. Whereas the most well known diseases of Europe (like the Black Plague) were epidemics- virulent diseases that cause the death of the host, and thrive in areas which are crowded and populous. They can afford to kill the host because there are plenty of other hosts that they can reproduce and infect. Epidemics are very quick and violent, but don't last long term. The survivors are (by nature) immune to that particular strain of epidemic disease. Another factor was the rise of large population centers where diseases could rapidly spread and become epidemics. Europe, with all of its large cities, had these, while most of the Americas didn't. The result was that Europe had several periods of really bad epidemic diseases (the Black Plague, Bubonic, etc.) during which a lot of the population died, yes, but the survivors developed a resistance to these diseases. On the other hand, the native Americans didn't have these immunities, and thus died out as a result of rapidly spreading epidemics. If they hadn't been pressed by other factors (notably invading conquerors) they might have been able to develop their own resistances to disease and recover their population to levels that would have better been able to stand against invaders (provided they had been able to organize, of course).There were definitely indigenous diseases. Being stationed in the Americas was often regarded as hazardous duty by soldiers even during the much later  Napoleonic era- precisely because of the possibility of catching terrible diseases (not to mention the isolation, but that's beside the point).As you point out, though, the risk of spreading these diseases back to Europe was minimal at best, because of the distances involved. Epidemics need large populations in which to thrive by their very nature. A virulent disease would likely kill its host before it ever arrived in Europe, and thus could not spread. If it were benign enough to survive in its host/carrier for the trip, it probably would not be virulent enough to create a massive death-causing plague.</blockquote>

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