It has long been assumed that the devastation caused by European epidemic diseases on aboriginal populations was due to their lack of immunity to these diseases. It is argued here, from data on modern Third-World aboriginal people, that this has not been proven, thus it is likely that smallpox epidemics played only a minor role in the disappearance of the Khoikhoi at the Cape in the early 18th century. Increasing usurpation of their pasture land by the colony and loss of livelihood through livestock epidemics and drought, resulting in their subjugation and a downward spiral of anomie, had a much greater effect.