Diseases like the plague and black death can destroy societies. Charles c mann wrote, it was as if the suffering these diseases had ca sed in eurasia over the past millennia were concentrated into the span of decades. Of the 25 hundred colonists who arrived in hispaniola in 15 o, two one thousand died in a fairly short period of time. The spaniards were bewildered, some even horrified, as the indian population seemed to evaporate before their eyes.