Thanks again for an interesting read.

Other European diseases decimated whole cities, especially along the Mississippi drainage system, scurvy as other readers have pointed out, was not one of them.

La Salle's first journey remarked on large towns, some of whose populations equalled that of some European towns.

His return voyage found them abandoned.

Mann's 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, and Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, while dated, make for really good reading.