What role did disease play in the colonist?

Some of the diseases were new and treatments were ineffective. Malaria was deadly to many new colonists, especially in the Southern colonies. Of newly arrived men, over one-fourth of the Anglican missionaries died within five years of their arrival in the Carolinas. Mortality was high for infants and small children, especially for diphtheria, small pox, yellow fever, and malaria.

Disease was also the single greatest killer of native people