k place before the 15th century. The decline of Coosa, which is in the southeast part of the continent, appears to have come about chiefly because "Spanish diseases [e.g., smallpox] ravaged the province."
Variability of European-Indian encounters can also be attributed to the multiplicity of indigenous peoples' identities and cultural, i.e., tribal, practices, not only vis-à-vis the Europeans but vis-à-vis one another. As well, it is important to recognize that for the indigenous peoples, "history did not begin when Christopher Columbus landed in San Salvador." Indeed, the record of violence in North America by no means began when the Europeans arrived. Equally, the practice toward the indigenous peoples on the part of Europeans, whether singly or as exemplars of specific European peoples, varied, being shaped, as Calloway says when citing the interpretation of a French Jesuit priest of the Iroquois, by the experiences the individuals or groups brought with them from Europe to the New World. That is, all Europeans who came to the New World did
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