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I'm surprised not to find any mention to the diseases brought by the conquistadores. Quick glance at literature seems to indicate a consensus on the outsized i

by 627467 7y ago

I'm surprised not to find any mention to the diseases brought by the conquistadores. Quick glance at literature seems to indicate a consensus on the outsized importance of diseases in demographic changes in the Americas. Just over 100 years before the arrival of Cortés, Europe was going through similar epidemic disaster with the Black Plague also brought through intercontinental contact between people's. Then, the plague was also seen by many as divine intervention. While it does seem self serving to propagate the message that Europeans were seen as gods it does not seem unusual for people to turn to religious explanations when faced with existential threats. edit: misspellings

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jcranmer 7y ago
The diseases do not appear to have been a particularly major factor in the defeat of the Aztec Triple Alliance, mostly occurring after the polity had already collapsed.
- totalZero 7y ago
  What about the smallpox outbreak that ravaged the Aztecs in 1520? “As the Indians did not know the remedy of the disease, they died in heaps, like bedbugs. In many places it happened that everyone in a house died, and as it was impossible to bury the great number of dead, they pulled down the houses over them, so that their homes became their tombs.” https://theconversation.com/how-smallpox-devastated-the-aztecs-and-helped-spain-conquer-an-american-civilization-500-years-ago-111579 https://theconversation.com/how-smallpox-devastated-the-azte...
- wayoutthere 7y ago
  Disease was indeed a huge factor, but like all imperial conquests, the technology advantage (steel weapons / armor in this case) likely made the biggest difference.
  - jcranmer 7y ago
    No, the biggest advantage was uniting all the disaffected neighbors to do the dirty work of fighting the war. There were at least 80,000 native allies of Cortes fighting the Aztecs, without whom the Spanish would have been slaughtered. Most imperial expansion in the New World tended to rely on "ally with my neighbors' neighbors to defeat my neighbors, and now that my neighbors' neighbors are now my neighbors, turn against them using their neighbors" as the primary strategy for expansion. The technological advantage is often grossly overstated, especially since natives were eager buyers of European military arms, and Europeans were eager sellers of them.
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by 627467 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

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jcranmer 7y ago

The diseases do not appear to have been a particularly major factor in the defeat of the Aztec Triple Alliance, mostly occurring after the polity had already collapsed.

totalZero 7y ago
What about the smallpox outbreak that ravaged the Aztecs in 1520? “As the Indians did not know the remedy of the disease, they died in heaps, like bedbugs. In many places it happened that everyone in a house died, and as it was impossible to bury the great number of dead, they pulled down the houses over them, so that their homes became their tombs.” https://theconversation.com/how-smallpox-devastated-the-aztecs-and-helped-spain-conquer-an-american-civilization-500-years-ago-111579 https://theconversation.com/how-smallpox-devastated-the-azte...
wayoutthere 7y ago
Disease was indeed a huge factor, but like all imperial conquests, the technology advantage (steel weapons / armor in this case) likely made the biggest difference.
- jcranmer 7y ago
  No, the biggest advantage was uniting all the disaffected neighbors to do the dirty work of fighting the war. There were at least 80,000 native allies of Cortes fighting the Aztecs, without whom the Spanish would have been slaughtered. Most imperial expansion in the New World tended to rely on "ally with my neighbors' neighbors to defeat my neighbors, and now that my neighbors' neighbors are now my neighbors, turn against them using their neighbors" as the primary strategy for expansion. The technological advantage is often grossly overstated, especially since natives were eager buyers of European military arms, and Europeans were eager sellers of them.

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