
The Southern Paiute were affected by European culture long before their first face-to-face contact. Some impacts were positive, such as the trade of small items like steel strikers for starting fires, metal knives and glass beads. The earliest, and biggest, negative impact came in the form of disease. Small pox and measles pandemics swept through the Americas in the early 1500s. By the 1870s, these diseases and others, had reduced most native populations by 80%.
In 1776 the first Spanish explorers (Dominguez and Escalante) arrived in the region, searching for a route from Santa Fe to the missions in California. Once routes were established, Spanish traders from New Mexico began trading Indian slaves in California and New Mexico. The effects of this slave trade on the Paiute were noted by people traveling through the area: