Eurasian diseases such as influenza, pneumonic plagues, and smallpox devastated the Native Americans, who did not have immunity to them. Conflict and outright warfare with Western European newcomers and other American tribes further reduced populations and disrupted traditional societies.
When workers lived in a company town where all the businesses, schools, housing and any other utilities or facilities where owned by their employer, they were oppressed under a situation of monopoly. Since their employer owned the place where they lived, where they bought their food, their clothing, their house supplies and the schools their children went to, they had several means of pressure and control over all the workers and their families. they could raise the rent as much and as often as they wanted, they could raise the prices of all retail products and services. The workers were isolated in these towns and had no other choices for housing, food, services or employment. That means that the employer had total power to prevent them from joining a union by simply evicting them from their homes, or denying them services or products at the company's stores and outlets. The fact that there were no competing stores or housing facilities meant that workers had to accept whatever level of rent or prices their employer wanted to set since he was the "only game in town".
