Smallpox is a deadly and infectious disease that is transmitted through the person(s) lungs and saliva. It can also be transmitted by the infected persons clothing and bedding. Symptoms associated with smallpox are fever, fatigue, body aches, raised pink rashes that will turn into scabies and later fall off, vomiting and even death. Most persons did not know that they were infected since symptoms did not occur for seven to twelve days after one was introduced to the virus. Most people that were infected succumbed to the ease since there was no cure.
Smallpox eradicated about 33% of its victims. Smallpox was once believed to have come to New Mexico through the Spaniards to turn the Indians to the Christian religion. One route suggests that smallpox was carried northward by the Spanish explorers from Mexico into the ROI Grandee Valley in the summer Of 1779. Another possible route that smallpox traveled was by way of the tribes of the Southern plains as early as 1778. New Mexico was introduced to smallpox from the Indians in the East or he Spaniards in the south.
Although there is no way to tell who brought smallpox into New Mexico, the significance that it has caused an epidemic and fatality of people of all ages. The epidemic drained the labor forces and put strain on households. Smallpox played a significance in New Mexico that it changed the demographic balance between the Pueblo Indians and Spanish population, giving the Spanish the upper hand. So the change in population grew in the Spanish favor. Thus making present day New Mexico colonized by more Spaniards.
