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Threads that are respectful, interesting and insightful like this are why I adore HN. Please don’t ever change. That aside, As a historian, I think our skeptic

Threads that are respectful, interesting and insightful like this are why I adore HN. Please don’t ever change. That aside, As a historian, I think our skepticism of primary sources has gone way way way to far. Plutarch is ignored, because Roman. Cortez was ignored because Spanish. Do they have reason to exaggerate? Sure and they at times do. But the archeological evidence on both Carthage and Cortez was really clear. We continue to find sites with mass sacrifices (not just of children) in Central and South America (Aztec, Mayan, and Inca) and instead of disregarding it due to the Spanish reports, students should understand that these incidents were probably a big reason why Spain so quickly supplanted the Aztecs.

Gibbon1 8y ago
> I think our skepticism of primary sources has gone way way way to far. Plutarch is ignored, because Roman. Cortez was ignored because Spanish. Do they have reason to exaggerate? Sure and they at times do. When I think about that I have trouble with the idea that Cortez would have come up with THAT if he was trying to slander the Mesoamerican ruling class. As he would have had no cultural references to draw on. > students should understand that these incidents were probably a big reason why Spain so quickly supplanted the Aztecs. I keep thinking that to Mesoamerican peasants Catholicism was probably least offensive thing about the Spanish.
felipemnoa 8y ago
>>were probably a big reason why Spain so quickly supplanted the Aztecs. Maybe, maybe not. It didn't hurt that the Spaniards had powerful biological weapons on their side that decimated [1] the Aztec population. Same as what happened here in the United States with the native population. Had it been the natives spreading new infectious diseases to the arriving europeans, history would probably have been quite different. Imagine going to a new land and upon contact with the natives a sizable portion of your people always dies off while the natives stay healthy and at full fighting strength. And even the ones that do not die off still get so sick that it completely incapacitates them for some time and hence unable to fight. They'd be very vulnerable to native attacks. The news would spread like wild fire in Europe that everybody that travels to the new world dies because of sorcery or what not. Yep, history could have turned out very differently indeed. [1]http://blogs.plos.org/publichealth/2013/07/30/guest-post-what-killed-the-aztecs/ http://blogs.plos.org/publichealth/2013/07/30/guest-post-wha... This is the relevant part: >>When Hernando Cortes and his army conquered Mexico starting in 1519, there were roughly about 25 million people living in what is now Mexico. A hundred years later, after a series of epidemics decimated the local population, perhaps as few as 1.2 million natives survived. Records confirm there was a smallpox epidemic in 1519 and 1520, immediately after the Europeans arrived, killing between 5 and 8 million people<<
- graeme 8y ago
  Even more than that. If news was able to make it back, the viruses also surely would have made it back to the European mainland at sime point, bringing Europe to its knees. Native societies all across the americas were struck by plague even before Europeans got there, as the disease moved faster than colonists into the interior.
- natecavanaugh 8y ago
  History could have turned out differently, but wouldn't it require other factors to also change? For instance, isn't European colonialism responsible for both the larger number of diseases the explorers had been carrying, but also the higher herd immunity? And that the native's relative isolation led them to be more exposed when confronted with foreign cultures? I guess what I'm asking is, isn't this a little bit of a chicken/egg situation? If the natives had been more aggressive in expansion, they may have had a higher exposure rate to other cultures and diseases and thereby a higher immunity to it as well as leading to more genetic diversity, and possibly having reached Europe first? I guess the way I read your comment was implying that history could have easily been different (which you may or may not actually be stating), but the number of factors (genetic/cultural temperament, geology, etc) all have to line up over such a long period so as to basically be a fundamentally different world history than what has transpired, both before and after the actual colonisation period. I overall agree with your point, that it was a large factor in the colonisation of the Americas, but even that aspect was far more determined or influenced by a huge range of factors that co-mingle into the history we know (and largely left to random natural processes and historical fiat). I'm probably being overly pedantic (it is Saturday night on HN after all ;)), but I guess your statement read similarly to other "history-could-be-different" thought experiments, but seem fundamentally different (I'm contrasting that to the most common experiments, situations like the TV show High Castle and what if Germany won the war, or what if JFK hadn't been assasinated, etc). Again, I'm not necessarily disagreeing, just following a mental thread of what would be needed in order for that change to be possible. Having written and read all that, at the very least, I was assuming something that's probably different than what you're actually saying. Your comment does make me wonder about some of the other accounts of European history where the Romans had a harder time invading (parts of Brittania, for example) where the cultures were written off as barbarian and completely deranged or had large myths associated with them, if disease played some part in the comparable success/failure of colonisation for those areas and the coloring of Western history in general.
HillaryBriss 8y ago
> these incidents were probably a big reason why Spain so quickly supplanted the Aztecs yes. two sides to the Mezoamerican practice of human sacrifice. the Aztecs carried out the sacrifices, but thousands of people from other local groups were the victims. and one must wonder how enthusiastic they were about the practice. it's not so hard to see how the Spanish found local allies, initially, in their fight against the Aztecs.

Gibbon1 8y ago

> I think our skepticism of primary sources has gone way way way to far. Plutarch is ignored, because Roman. Cortez was ignored because Spanish. Do they have reason to exaggerate? Sure and they at times do. When I think about that I have trouble with the idea that Cortez would have come up with THAT if he was trying to slander the Mesoamerican ruling class. As he would have had no cultural references to draw on. > students should understand that these incidents were probably a big reason why Spain so quickly supplanted the Aztecs. I keep thinking that to Mesoamerican peasants Catholicism was probably least offensive thing about the Spanish.

felipemnoa 8y ago

>>were probably a big reason why Spain so quickly supplanted the Aztecs. Maybe, maybe not. It didn't hurt that the Spaniards had powerful biological weapons on their side that decimated [1] the Aztec population. Same as what happened here in the United States with the native population. Had it been the natives spreading new infectious diseases to the arriving europeans, history would probably have been quite different. Imagine going to a new land and upon contact with the natives a sizable portion of your people always dies off while the natives stay healthy and at full fighting strength. And even the ones that do not die off still get so sick that it completely incapacitates them for some time and hence unable to fight. They'd be very vulnerable to native attacks. The news would spread like wild fire in Europe that everybody that travels to the new world dies because of sorcery or what not. Yep, history could have turned out very differently indeed. [1]http://blogs.plos.org/publichealth/2013/07/30/guest-post-what-killed-the-aztecs/ http://blogs.plos.org/publichealth/2013/07/30/guest-post-wha... This is the relevant part: >>When Hernando Cortes and his army conquered Mexico starting in 1519, there were roughly about 25 million people living in what is now Mexico. A hundred years later, after a series of epidemics decimated the local population, perhaps as few as 1.2 million natives survived. Records confirm there was a smallpox epidemic in 1519 and 1520, immediately after the Europeans arrived, killing between 5 and 8 million people<<

graeme 8y ago
Even more than that. If news was able to make it back, the viruses also surely would have made it back to the European mainland at sime point, bringing Europe to its knees. Native societies all across the americas were struck by plague even before Europeans got there, as the disease moved faster than colonists into the interior.
natecavanaugh 8y ago
History could have turned out differently, but wouldn't it require other factors to also change? For instance, isn't European colonialism responsible for both the larger number of diseases the explorers had been carrying, but also the higher herd immunity? And that the native's relative isolation led them to be more exposed when confronted with foreign cultures? I guess what I'm asking is, isn't this a little bit of a chicken/egg situation? If the natives had been more aggressive in expansion, they may have had a higher exposure rate to other cultures and diseases and thereby a higher immunity to it as well as leading to more genetic diversity, and possibly having reached Europe first? I guess the way I read your comment was implying that history could have easily been different (which you may or may not actually be stating), but the number of factors (genetic/cultural temperament, geology, etc) all have to line up over such a long period so as to basically be a fundamentally different world history than what has transpired, both before and after the actual colonisation period. I overall agree with your point, that it was a large factor in the colonisation of the Americas, but even that aspect was far more determined or influenced by a huge range of factors that co-mingle into the history we know (and largely left to random natural processes and historical fiat). I'm probably being overly pedantic (it is Saturday night on HN after all ;)), but I guess your statement read similarly to other "history-could-be-different" thought experiments, but seem fundamentally different (I'm contrasting that to the most common experiments, situations like the TV show High Castle and what if Germany won the war, or what if JFK hadn't been assasinated, etc). Again, I'm not necessarily disagreeing, just following a mental thread of what would be needed in order for that change to be possible. Having written and read all that, at the very least, I was assuming something that's probably different than what you're actually saying. Your comment does make me wonder about some of the other accounts of European history where the Romans had a harder time invading (parts of Brittania, for example) where the cultures were written off as barbarian and completely deranged or had large myths associated with them, if disease played some part in the comparable success/failure of colonisation for those areas and the coloring of Western history in general.

HillaryBriss 8y ago

> these incidents were probably a big reason why Spain so quickly supplanted the Aztecs yes. two sides to the Mezoamerican practice of human sacrifice. the Aztecs carried out the sacrifices, but thousands of people from other local groups were the victims. and one must wonder how enthusiastic they were about the practice. it's not so hard to see how the Spanish found local allies, initially, in their fight against the Aztecs.