<Tr> <Td> 1877 </Td> <Td> Los Angeles, CA </Td> <Td> </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 1902 </Td> <Td> Boston, Massachusetts </Td> <Td> Of the 1,596 cases reported in this epidemic, 270 died . </Td> </Tr> <P> After first contacts with Europeans and Africans, some believe that the death of 90--95% of the native population of the New World was caused by Old World diseases . It is suspected that smallpox was the chief culprit and responsible for killing nearly all of the native inhabitants of the Americas . For more than 200 years, this disease affected all new world populations, mostly without intentional European transmission, from contact in the early 16th century to until possibly as late as the French and Indian Wars (1754--1767). </P> <P> In 1519 Hernán Cortés landed on the shores of what is now Mexico and was then the Aztec empire . In 1520 another group of Spanish arrived in Mexico from Hispaniola, bringing with them the smallpox which had already been ravaging that island for two years . When Cortés heard about the other group, he went and defeated them . In this contact, one of Cortés's men contracted the disease . When Cortés returned to Tenochtitlan, he brought the disease with him . </P>

When was smallpox introduced to the new world