Final answer:
The impact of European contact on the Native American population was negative due to the introduction of diseases like smallpox, resulting in catastrophic population losses and transformations in their society.
Step-by-step explanation:
The impact of European contact on the Native American population between 1500 and 1620 was overwhelmingly negative. The introduction of diseases like smallpox, to which Native Americans had no immunity, resulted in devastating epidemics that decimated the indigenous population. This was compounded by changes to their environment and social structures brought on by European colonization. While Europeans benefited from the introduction of new foods, plants, and animals through the Columbian Exchange, Native Americans suffered catastrophic losses in their populations, knowledge, and traditions due to these diseases.
For instance, between 1616 and 1618, along the New England coast, epidemics claimed the lives of 75 percent of the native people. The introduction of European diseases resulted in one of the most abrupt and severe population disasters in human history, with up to 90 percent of Native Americans dying from infectious diseases after European contact. These outbreaks ravaged through indigenous communities with no natural resistance, fundamentally altering the landscape of the Americas and facilitating European conquest.