American population had been affected by disease even more catastrophically than Isabela's first settlers were. By 1506, only a third of the native population remained. The Taíno population before European contact is estimated to have been between 60,000 and 8 million people, and the entire nation was virtually extinct 50 years after contact, which has primarily been attributed to the infectious diseases. After the first European contact, social disruption and epidemic diseases led to a decline in the Amerindian population. Because the Indigenous societies, including the Taínos, were unfamiliar with the diseases, they were not prepared to deal with the social consequences. The high number of people incapacitated by the disease disrupted the normal cycles of agriculture and hunting that sustained the Native American populations. This led to increased dependence on the Europeans, and reduced capacity to resist the European invasion. The eventual enslavement of the Taíno people by the Europeans compounded the effects of the epidemics in the downfall of the Indigenous societies. Impact of the transatlantic slave trade As the population of enslaved Indigenous peoples fell due to disease and abuse, the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors began to import enslaved workers from Africa in 1505. Until 1800 the population rose as slaves arrived from West Africa. Because there was already an established European colonial presence in Africa at the time, the enslaved Africans were less vulnerable to disease than the Taíno people on Hispanola. However, they came carrying their own diseases, including malaria. At the time, malaria was endemic both in Europe and Africa, though more prevalent in the latter continent. The climate of the Caribbean was hospitable to mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles, which acts as a vector for the disease and allowed it to spread. Many of the African-born enslaved people had genetic protections against malaria that Indigenous enslaved people did not. As malaria, smallpox, and other diseases spread the Indigenous populations continued to fall, which increased the motivation for the Spanish and Portuguese colonists to continue to import more enslaved workers from Africa. This enslaved people worked in mining and agriculture, driving the development of triangular trade. See also Catholic Church and the Age of Discovery Columbian Exchange HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean Malaria and the Caribbean Native American disease and epidemics Seasoning (colonialism) Timeline of European imperialism Triangular trade Virgin soil epidemic References Bibliography Engerman, Stanley L. "A Population History of the Caribbean", pp. 483–528