Were most of the Native Americans population killed off before English coloniasm?

[zraver]

Also i think one of the points was that Eurasia's use of animals was a triple blessing- work, food and exposure to disease that combined to drive society ever forward.

[Triple C]

Somehow missed an entire page of discussion and my original post is redundant.

Regarding domesticable animals: Harder than you'd suspect. The animal need to be useful to humans in someway, and additionally, be timid or physically unimposing enough to be controllable by humans. It also need to be social so as to be able to live in a herd, have little to no need for territory, and able to breed in confinement. That ruled out the vast majority of bigger mammals.

Jared Diamond has a chapter in Guns, Germs and Steel dedicated to this topic where he talked about how various species in the American Continent should be ruled out as animals capable of human domestication.