Timeline / Colonizers and Resistance / AD 1518: Mayans report smallpox spread to Yucatan Peninsula

AD 1518: Mayans report smallpox spread to Yucatan Peninsula

Mayan writings record that tribal trade expeditions traveling by canoe have spread smallpox to the Yucatan Peninsula from Hispaniola. Spanish invaders, including Hernán Cortés, who will wage war against the Aztecs, will carry the smallpox inland.

Theme: Epidemics

Region: Caribbean

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Drawing Showing Nahuas [Nahuatl] Infected with Smallpox Disease

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Image of a Mesoamerican infected with smallpox; illustrated panel from the Florentine Codex, a compendium of information on Aztec people and history by Bernardino de Sahagún, a 16th-century Spanish Franciscan missionary

Courtesy Granger Collection, New York