That would be the weather; the harsh winters were brutal.
And what the weather didn't do, the many diseases certainly did.
No, it wasn't so much the native Americans -- like you were probably thinking.
The sentence <em>The cat ate the rat </em>contains a direct object.
<em>The cat </em>is the subject, <em>ate </em>is the verb, <em>the rat </em>is the direct object.
Answer:
elated...................
