WOW!

agreement on a mudcat thread drift.... LOL

unfortunately for the pre-Columbian inhabitants, isolation left them vulnerable to diseases brought by newcomers.

there has been scientific speculation that the African slave trade was "successful" was because the west african populations had enough exposure to disease that they survived longer than local populations.

perhaps things would have been different if the earliest northern European contact with North America had been more successful... but the onset of the "Little Ice Age" precluded more contact.