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> Europeans defeated indigenous peoples throughout history, by superior technology and numbers. Oh boi, not this horrible and flawed argument again. People hav

> Europeans defeated indigenous peoples throughout history, by superior technology and numbers. Oh boi, not this horrible and flawed argument again. People have learned nothing from recent research into the impact of diseases in that history? Popular books like "Guns, Germs, and Steel", and "1491" give you a view into these matters and provide one with references for their sources for research. This idea of "Europe won because it is good at tech" really needs to die. The best weapon Europe had when fighting indigenous people in the Americas was actually various kinds of pox.

axguscbklp 5y ago
True, but from what I understand the Europeans would probably have won anyway. In 1500 AD, indigenous Americans had about the same level of technological development that Europeans had had in 1500 BC, so I suspect that unfortunately even had diseases not played a role, it probably would just have been a matter of time before the Europeans managed to bring over enough people to overrun the Americas. It would have taken longer but I doubt that the indigenous Americans would have been able to adopt European technology fast enough and on a large enough scale to beat the Europeans back. Now on the other hand, if Europe had suffered something like 50%+ death from American diseases while indigenous Americans suffered much lower death tolls from European disease - in other words, the reverse of what actually happened - then I figure that all bets would have been off. In that timeline maybe the indigenous Americans would have had enough room to maneuver that they would have been able to adopt European technologies in time to defend their lands.
- Bayart 5y ago
  >Now on the other hand, if Europe had suffered something like 50%+ death from American diseases while indigenous Americans suffered much lower death tolls from European disease - in other words, the reverse of what actually happened - then I figure that all bets would have been off. The Black Plague killed off 50% of the population in quite a few countries and it didn't result in any invasion. I'm not sure the rationale stands without a technological imbalance as a basis.
  - soapdog 5y ago
    Because it also hit the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Where would the invader come from? They were also dying of it too. In China alone there were about 40% dead according to recent estimates. The Black Plague was not restricted to Europe, it came to Europe and it wrecked nations everywhere. You can't have people invading, if these potential invaders are dealing with the same plague.
    - Bayart 5y ago
      >Where would the invader come from? Poland ! I was alluding to the fact that the Plague wasn't uniform and that if demographic depression were an incentive to invade by itself, places that were unaffected (like Poland) would have expanded. Instead Poland repeated the exact same pattern that had been pioneered in Gaul, then picked up by the Germans : expend East, where the Plague didn't have much effect, into non-Christian land and implement literate administration, centralized religion and feudalism. The fact is the Black Plague didn't pose an existential threat in Western Europe, and it seems even else in other urban regions. I remember a historian, perhaps Le Goff or Leroy-Ladurie, remarking that the most astonishing thing about the Plague is that it changed nothing. The archives looked the same before and after. Just business as usual. In that sense the Thirty Years War was far more destructive. All that to say that disease, as large as it gets, in itself isn't enough to sink well established institutions. And it's not a good enough argument to strip the Spanish of any credit in the conquest of the Americas.
- soapdog 5y ago
  You might enjoy reading 1491 and learning more about the cultures of the Americas. There is way more there than "tech from 1500 BC", and I don't feel like just quoting from the book because I want people to go read it. It is important to realise that there are recent estimates that mention 9 out of 10 people all over the Americas dying of diseases. Remember that diseases travel faster than European invaders, so by the time they arrive at those locations the population is already in kind of chaos and traumatised. There were a lot of people living in the Americas. A lot. The first chronicles mention large cities and populations, other chroniclers passing the same regions some years later see nothing. In certain areas, such as the Amazon, where people built things out of wood, almost nothing remains. It is also important to remember than in many cultures, part of the healing process for a disease involved family and loved ones doing wakes and staying close to the afflicted. This causes a havoc as contagious diseases such as pox spread and claimed whole families, and then the next family, and so on. Pox was not common, nor was flu. Many variations of pox are associated with use beasts of burden, most of the indigenous cultures didn't use them. So no resistance to cowpox, smallpox, etc > I doubt that the indigenous Americans would have been able to adopt European technology fast enough to succeed in beating the Europeans back. Please, read that book. You'll see the indigenous population of North America adapting quite fast to European technology to the point of managing sailboats. Also, sidenote the Spanish first met the Inca not on land but on the sea, they bumped into one of their large sailboats. Europeans adopting indigenous technologies in South America because theirs didn't work. This happened everywhere. Everyone was adapting. Many of us learned different stuff in school and uni, mostly because it takes a very long time for research to trickle into school curriculum, and also because of the bias of those telling the stories who century after century create a narrative that favours them. There a lot of recent research that throws away a lot of what was taught to me in school. Unfortunately, the usual reaction from people is that "this is not what I was taught, so it must be wrong!" and then proceed to repeat fairy tales about technology superiority which is a positivist way of seeing things that is very flawed. "Beating Europeans back" is not the only possible outcome. It is not about beating people back to the other side of the Atlantic. If so many native people had not died of diseases, the Americas would look much different today.
  - thinkingemote 5y ago
jgilias 5y ago
A serious question. Why didn't the opposite happen? Why wouldn't the arriving Europeans drop like flies after encountering foreign pathogens thus killing off the entire conquest?
- mynegation 5y ago
  "Guns, germs snd Steel" book makes an argument that European population evolved higher levels of immunity to the pathogens because of population density, especially in the cities. Population density and wars for land and resources, book argues, also propelled the development of warfare tech ("guns and steel")
  - brian_cloutier 5y ago
    The book mentions population density but quickly discards population density as the primary factor. Instead it focuses on domesticated animals. Eurasians had many domesticated animals and often lived in close quarters with them. The New World had an extreme paucity of domesticable animals and therefore much less exposure to disease vectors and therefore no major disease capable of wiping out populations. (pg 212-213)
    - soapdog 5y ago
      Yes, that is key! The lack of beasts of burden and domesticated animals in the Americas. People often overlook this when talking about "how could a whole continent be wiped out by pox"
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    Didn't Tenochtitlan have a famously-large population for the era?
- BeniBoy 5y ago
  I read that it was because Europeans lived in wider settlement so they were more exposed to serious pathogens and had the opportunity to develop immunity. When they met society that lived in scarce group, they exposed them too quickly, which resulted in mass deaths.
HelloNurse 5y ago
Horses and guns might have had a little impact too. Consider, for example, the "battle" of Cajamarca.
- soapdog 5y ago
  The battle of Cajamarca is in 1532. The Sapa Inka and his court were all wiped out by pox in 1527, then the successor died too of pox, then their successor also died of pox as well. Then the remaining of the court had to choose a new Inka, and we get to civil war between the new Inka (who was a teenager) and Atawallpa. The whole Empire was already in civil war for three years before the Spanish arrive, and the diseases were spreading through their lands faster than the Spanish. The last battle of the civil war counted 35 thousand dead according to recent research, and that is only the final battle, the one that gave victory to Atawallpa. This battle was few months before Pizarro appeared on the scene. It was on the same year that the Spanish arrive in their land, that Atawallpa became Inka. Yes, this was not a stable Empire that met Pizarro, it was an Empire just out of a brutal civil war, whose new government didn't had any time to adjust or consolidate. Atawallpa tried to manipulate the Spanish after seeing their lust for gold, he was arrogant. The Spanish didn't win because horses and guns, the Spanish won because the Empire was in shambles, because Atawallpa thought he could manipulate those white skinned people, because pox killed a ton of people including the ruling elite before the Spanish arrived.
brian_cloutier 5y ago
This comment is worded in such a way that I initially disbelieved it. After all, two of the three items in "Guns, Germs, and Steel" are technologies. I remember the book spending a lot of time on diseases, but also remember a lengthy description of Cortes' conquest of the Aztec's who had far superior numbers. Apparently I remembered incorrectly, and the parent comment is correct. Here's a quote from the book: > The importance of lethal microbes in human history is well illustrated by Europeans' conquest and depopulation of the New World. Far more Native Americans died in bed from Eurasian germs than on the batlefield from European guns and swords. Those germs undermined Indian resistance by killing most Indians and their leaders and by sapping the survivors' morale. For instance, in 1519 Cortes landed on the coast of Mexico with 600 Spaniards, to conquer the fiercely militaristic Aztec Empire with a population of many millions. That Cortes reached the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, escaped with the loss of "only" two-thirds of his force, and managed to fight his way back to the coast demonstrates both Spanish military advantages and the initial naivete of the Aztecs. But when Cortes's next onslaught came, the Aztecs were no longer naive and fought street by street with the utmost tenacity. What gave the Spaniards a decisive advantage was smallpox, which reached Mexico in 1520 with one infected slave arriving from Spanish Cuba. The resulting epidemic proceeded to kill nearly half of the Aztecs, including Emperor Cuitlahuac. Aztec survivors were demoralized by the mysterious illness that killed Indians and spared Spaniards, as if advertising the Spaniards' invincibility. By 1618, Mexico's initial population of about 20 million had plummeted to about 1.6 million.
Bayart 5y ago
Acknowledging the weight of passive factors (disease) shouldn't be at the cost of disqualifying the role of active ones like technology (military, political, administrative, trades). The Spanish had plenty of military engagements in the early colonization of the Americas that were easily solved purely because of their overwhelming technological advantages.
- soapdog 5y ago
  That is the biased narrative that we have been told for centuries, and it doesn't match recent research. Diseases happened first, they travel faster. The population affected devolves into chaos as disease often kills 9 in 10 and leave them without ruling and without those with specialised knowledge. Basically society is broken, the traumatised survivors are the ones that face the Europeans. > military, political, administrative, trades The civilisations of the Americas were trading with each other. Many of them had highly structured political and administrative centers. Just research the Inka for example, they had an administrative structure that in many ways is better than their European counterparts, a good example is how they eliminated hunger in the Empire. They had mechanisms in place to prevent the population dying of starvation, they were able to feed their whole Empire, that is not easy and requires a ton of accounting and planning. Do not dismiss the civilisations of the Americas, and think that there is a ladder of evolution in which Europe is somehow higher. These civilisations were very advanced, and had they been able to survive in their own path, who knows where we'd be. As for military, just check how fast the Spanish conquistadors changed from their equipment and garments to the native ones because they were better suited for work in the tropical climate, and how bitter were the confrontations with the pockets of resistance. Disease is the key factor. Recent figures such as 90% dying from diseases is a devastating blow to any civilisation, there is no recovering from that.
  - AlexSW 5y ago
    I agree with the majority of what you're saying, but like so many wars throughout history, surely superior weaponry played a huge role in the conquests? Particularly here where the difference is so large. Not the only role, certainly, and maybe not the biggest (compared to disease), but a very sizable one still. I struggle to imagine Spanish success had the weapons been reversed.
poisonarena 5y ago
"Oh boi, not this horrible and flawed argument again" Starting out with your point written like this seems aggressive and patronizing. "This idea of "Europe won because it is good at tech" really needs to die. " Because you don't like it? I disagree. Spanish Conquistadors were some of the greatest and most experienced warriors in all of history, and were trained veterans of the reconquest of Spain from the Moors. Why people want to discount the fact that obsidian shatters on steel, Spanish had shock cavalry, dogs, and just the thought of hearing and seeing a gun go off for the first time is wild. Disease catalyzed things for sure, and is definitely one of the biggest factors in the speed in which the conquest of the Americas happned, but to entirely discount The Spanish Empires elite warriors seems like a revisionist cope, because you want to demonize colonizers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cajamarca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cajamarca 168 Spanish vs 3000-8000 Incan warriors Only one Spaniard was injured and 2000+ Incan warriors were killed, the rest taken prisoner. That probably would nothave happened without cannons, horses, and swords
- shakow 5y ago
  > and were trained veterans of the reconquest of Spain from the Moors Cortes was 7 y.o. when the Reconquista ended...
  - poisonarena 5y ago
    Who trained Cortes? The Spanish developed tactics for decades and decades, building knowledge from previous wars and conquests.
    - shakow 5y ago
      It does not make any sense. To this measure, every last soldier in a European army until post-WWII era should be a highly trained veteran.
      - poisonarena 5y ago
        I think you are missing the point entirely, I am saying that there is a thing called collective military knowledge, The Spanish had experience in fighting wars for many years. This knowledge of tactics and techniques is passed on through training.
beaconstudios 5y ago
Why not both? The Conquistadors had guns and steel armour and swords, versus the Mesoamericans' copper, bronze and obsidian weapons plus bows & atlatls. Technologically, the Spanish had the advantage, and won militarily. In addition, the indigenous population was ravaged by disease brought by the colonisers. Having better weapons is not an argument to ethnic superiority. It comes down to geography and history. The myth that needs to die is that the Mesoamerican civilisations were inferior because they didn't use wheeled transport; that's a Eurocentric idea based on the idea of the wheel as "fundamental" technology, even though they help on Europe's mostly-flat land and not Mesoamerica's mountainous and heavily forested territory.
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
  That's interesting what you say about the wheel because the narrative I've heard is instead about gunpowder: the Conquistadores had gunpowder weapons that frightened the Aztecs and dispersed their armies without a fight, even though they had numbers on their side. I've also heard the same thing about horses: the Aztecs were afraid of horses and so broke and run at the sight of the Spaniards on horses. These are not very well supported by first-hand accounts, for example in my favourite history book of all times, The Conquest of Mexico, by Bernal Diaz del Castillo (one of Hernan Cortes' men), there are many descriptions of battles between the Conquistadores and the Aztecs and the Aztecs don't run away - the gunpowder and the horses make a great impression on them but they stay their ground and fight. Except, in Bernal Diaz's telling anyway, they are used to fighting ritualistic battles, where the point was to capture some of the enemy's men, to later offer up as sacrifices to their gods. So the Aztecs are playing for points, in a sense, whereas the Spaniards are fighting dirty and going for the throat. Obviously, the Spaniards have the tactical advatage and it's not because of their weapons and armour, or their steeds. Another detail almost always overlooked is that the Spaniards were allied to local Mexicans that were enemy to the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan, particularly the people of Tlascalla. So in many of the battles with the Aztecs, the few hundred Conquistadores Cortes has with him are joined by thousands of Tlascallan warriors. This information is almost always left out of the narrative of the overwhelming technological superiority of the Conquistadores that allowed them to win despite being fewer in number. In truth, the forces of the Conquistadores joined by the Tlascallans and other enemies of the Aztecs were comparable in size with those of the Aztecs. Finally, when the Aztecs decide enough is enough and start fighting for real, the Conquistadores run for their lives. This is the tale of La Noche Triste, The Sad Night, when the Conquistadores try to escape Tenochtitlan under cover of darkness with all the gold they've looted from Moctezuma's vaults, after he was killed (by his own subjects, according to Bernal Diaz, but, well... he would say so, wouldn't he?). They are chased through the streets of the city by the Aztecs who are in open revolt and catch and kill them one-by-one. Most drown in the waters around the city, many weighed down by the loot they cling to, stubbornly. Just a few barely escape with their skins and some of the gold. It's a sad night indeed- and it really puts the kibosh on the Conquistadores' crushing superiority, technological or other.
Folcon 5y ago
"Guns, Germs, and Steel" is a good book, really enjoyable read. But speaking to historian friends of mine has given me the impression that it's not highly regarded in those circles. Unfortunately I can't give any criticisms beyond that because it has been a long time since I had those discussions and the details just don't come to mind, so I guess really what I'm saying is though it's a popular and enjoyable read, perhaps take the narrative it gives with a pinch of salt, perhaps dig into the current historical perspective and see where it differs?
- escape_goat 5y ago
  One of the remaining gems within my reddit horizons is the /r/AskHistorians subreddit, which maintains an FAQ that (amongst many other things) contains a plethora of academic responses to GGS. I have included below a link to the top and presumably most comprehensive response [1] for those who are interested. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2mkcc3/how_do_modern_historians_and_history/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2mkcc3/how_d...
  - Folcon 5y ago
    I didn't know about this! Thanks for bringing it up :)...
- COGlory 5y ago
  Brett Deveraux touches on this here: https://acoup.blog/2021/05/28/collections-teaching-paradox-europa-universalis-iv-part-iv-why-europe/ https://acoup.blog/2021/05/28/collections-teaching-paradox-e...
SuoDuanDao 5y ago
Sure, but the widespread domestication that caused those more aggressive diseases to coevolve with European populations is technology.
imbnwa 5y ago
I mean the theory in TFA is talking about Neantherdals evolving in Ice Age Europe but somehow that's related to the human genetic bottleneck that had to have had occurred in Africa to apply to all humans unless there's new origin of emergence and migration I didn't know about. The whole theory is bathed in a casual Eurocentrism, we don't even get a reference to a non-European creature of fantasy fitting these traits, we're just sorta assuming this is the case that they're all actually approximate. Whatever was constitutive for human beings in the period of our dwindling numbers happened in Africa
jtms 5y ago
Don't both guns and steel fall firmly under the category of "technology"?

axguscbklp 5y ago

True, but from what I understand the Europeans would probably have won anyway. In 1500 AD, indigenous Americans had about the same level of technological development that Europeans had had in 1500 BC, so I suspect that unfortunately even had diseases not played a role, it probably would just have been a matter of time before the Europeans managed to bring over enough people to overrun the Americas. It would have taken longer but I doubt that the indigenous Americans would have been able to adopt European technology fast enough and on a large enough scale to beat the Europeans back. Now on the other hand, if Europe had suffered something like 50%+ death from American diseases while indigenous Americans suffered much lower death tolls from European disease - in other words, the reverse of what actually happened - then I figure that all bets would have been off. In that timeline maybe the indigenous Americans would have had enough room to maneuver that they would have been able to adopt European technologies in time to defend their lands.

Bayart 5y ago
>Now on the other hand, if Europe had suffered something like 50%+ death from American diseases while indigenous Americans suffered much lower death tolls from European disease - in other words, the reverse of what actually happened - then I figure that all bets would have been off. The Black Plague killed off 50% of the population in quite a few countries and it didn't result in any invasion. I'm not sure the rationale stands without a technological imbalance as a basis.
- soapdog 5y ago
  Because it also hit the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Where would the invader come from? They were also dying of it too. In China alone there were about 40% dead according to recent estimates. The Black Plague was not restricted to Europe, it came to Europe and it wrecked nations everywhere. You can't have people invading, if these potential invaders are dealing with the same plague.
  - Bayart 5y ago
    >Where would the invader come from? Poland ! I was alluding to the fact that the Plague wasn't uniform and that if demographic depression were an incentive to invade by itself, places that were unaffected (like Poland) would have expanded. Instead Poland repeated the exact same pattern that had been pioneered in Gaul, then picked up by the Germans : expend East, where the Plague didn't have much effect, into non-Christian land and implement literate administration, centralized religion and feudalism. The fact is the Black Plague didn't pose an existential threat in Western Europe, and it seems even else in other urban regions. I remember a historian, perhaps Le Goff or Leroy-Ladurie, remarking that the most astonishing thing about the Plague is that it changed nothing. The archives looked the same before and after. Just business as usual. In that sense the Thirty Years War was far more destructive. All that to say that disease, as large as it gets, in itself isn't enough to sink well established institutions. And it's not a good enough argument to strip the Spanish of any credit in the conquest of the Americas.
soapdog 5y ago
You might enjoy reading 1491 and learning more about the cultures of the Americas. There is way more there than "tech from 1500 BC", and I don't feel like just quoting from the book because I want people to go read it. It is important to realise that there are recent estimates that mention 9 out of 10 people all over the Americas dying of diseases. Remember that diseases travel faster than European invaders, so by the time they arrive at those locations the population is already in kind of chaos and traumatised. There were a lot of people living in the Americas. A lot. The first chronicles mention large cities and populations, other chroniclers passing the same regions some years later see nothing. In certain areas, such as the Amazon, where people built things out of wood, almost nothing remains. It is also important to remember than in many cultures, part of the healing process for a disease involved family and loved ones doing wakes and staying close to the afflicted. This causes a havoc as contagious diseases such as pox spread and claimed whole families, and then the next family, and so on. Pox was not common, nor was flu. Many variations of pox are associated with use beasts of burden, most of the indigenous cultures didn't use them. So no resistance to cowpox, smallpox, etc > I doubt that the indigenous Americans would have been able to adopt European technology fast enough to succeed in beating the Europeans back. Please, read that book. You'll see the indigenous population of North America adapting quite fast to European technology to the point of managing sailboats. Also, sidenote the Spanish first met the Inca not on land but on the sea, they bumped into one of their large sailboats. Europeans adopting indigenous technologies in South America because theirs didn't work. This happened everywhere. Everyone was adapting. Many of us learned different stuff in school and uni, mostly because it takes a very long time for research to trickle into school curriculum, and also because of the bias of those telling the stories who century after century create a narrative that favours them. There a lot of recent research that throws away a lot of what was taught to me in school. Unfortunately, the usual reaction from people is that "this is not what I was taught, so it must be wrong!" and then proceed to repeat fairy tales about technology superiority which is a positivist way of seeing things that is very flawed. "Beating Europeans back" is not the only possible outcome. It is not about beating people back to the other side of the Atlantic. If so many native people had not died of diseases, the Americas would look much different today.
- thinkingemote 5y ago

jgilias 5y ago

A serious question. Why didn't the opposite happen? Why wouldn't the arriving Europeans drop like flies after encountering foreign pathogens thus killing off the entire conquest?

mynegation 5y ago
"Guns, germs snd Steel" book makes an argument that European population evolved higher levels of immunity to the pathogens because of population density, especially in the cities. Population density and wars for land and resources, book argues, also propelled the development of warfare tech ("guns and steel")
- brian_cloutier 5y ago
  The book mentions population density but quickly discards population density as the primary factor. Instead it focuses on domesticated animals. Eurasians had many domesticated animals and often lived in close quarters with them. The New World had an extreme paucity of domesticable animals and therefore much less exposure to disease vectors and therefore no major disease capable of wiping out populations. (pg 212-213)
  - soapdog 5y ago
    Yes, that is key! The lack of beasts of burden and domesticated animals in the Americas. People often overlook this when talking about "how could a whole continent be wiped out by pox"
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  Didn't Tenochtitlan have a famously-large population for the era?
BeniBoy 5y ago
I read that it was because Europeans lived in wider settlement so they were more exposed to serious pathogens and had the opportunity to develop immunity. When they met society that lived in scarce group, they exposed them too quickly, which resulted in mass deaths.

HelloNurse 5y ago

Horses and guns might have had a little impact too. Consider, for example, the "battle" of Cajamarca.

soapdog 5y ago
The battle of Cajamarca is in 1532. The Sapa Inka and his court were all wiped out by pox in 1527, then the successor died too of pox, then their successor also died of pox as well. Then the remaining of the court had to choose a new Inka, and we get to civil war between the new Inka (who was a teenager) and Atawallpa. The whole Empire was already in civil war for three years before the Spanish arrive, and the diseases were spreading through their lands faster than the Spanish. The last battle of the civil war counted 35 thousand dead according to recent research, and that is only the final battle, the one that gave victory to Atawallpa. This battle was few months before Pizarro appeared on the scene. It was on the same year that the Spanish arrive in their land, that Atawallpa became Inka. Yes, this was not a stable Empire that met Pizarro, it was an Empire just out of a brutal civil war, whose new government didn't had any time to adjust or consolidate. Atawallpa tried to manipulate the Spanish after seeing their lust for gold, he was arrogant. The Spanish didn't win because horses and guns, the Spanish won because the Empire was in shambles, because Atawallpa thought he could manipulate those white skinned people, because pox killed a ton of people including the ruling elite before the Spanish arrived.

brian_cloutier 5y ago

This comment is worded in such a way that I initially disbelieved it. After all, two of the three items in "Guns, Germs, and Steel" are technologies. I remember the book spending a lot of time on diseases, but also remember a lengthy description of Cortes' conquest of the Aztec's who had far superior numbers. Apparently I remembered incorrectly, and the parent comment is correct. Here's a quote from the book: > The importance of lethal microbes in human history is well illustrated by Europeans' conquest and depopulation of the New World. Far more Native Americans died in bed from Eurasian germs than on the batlefield from European guns and swords. Those germs undermined Indian resistance by killing most Indians and their leaders and by sapping the survivors' morale. For instance, in 1519 Cortes landed on the coast of Mexico with 600 Spaniards, to conquer the fiercely militaristic Aztec Empire with a population of many millions. That Cortes reached the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, escaped with the loss of "only" two-thirds of his force, and managed to fight his way back to the coast demonstrates both Spanish military advantages and the initial naivete of the Aztecs. But when Cortes's next onslaught came, the Aztecs were no longer naive and fought street by street with the utmost tenacity. What gave the Spaniards a decisive advantage was smallpox, which reached Mexico in 1520 with one infected slave arriving from Spanish Cuba. The resulting epidemic proceeded to kill nearly half of the Aztecs, including Emperor Cuitlahuac. Aztec survivors were demoralized by the mysterious illness that killed Indians and spared Spaniards, as if advertising the Spaniards' invincibility. By 1618, Mexico's initial population of about 20 million had plummeted to about 1.6 million.

Bayart 5y ago

Acknowledging the weight of passive factors (disease) shouldn't be at the cost of disqualifying the role of active ones like technology (military, political, administrative, trades). The Spanish had plenty of military engagements in the early colonization of the Americas that were easily solved purely because of their overwhelming technological advantages.

soapdog 5y ago
That is the biased narrative that we have been told for centuries, and it doesn't match recent research. Diseases happened first, they travel faster. The population affected devolves into chaos as disease often kills 9 in 10 and leave them without ruling and without those with specialised knowledge. Basically society is broken, the traumatised survivors are the ones that face the Europeans. > military, political, administrative, trades The civilisations of the Americas were trading with each other. Many of them had highly structured political and administrative centers. Just research the Inka for example, they had an administrative structure that in many ways is better than their European counterparts, a good example is how they eliminated hunger in the Empire. They had mechanisms in place to prevent the population dying of starvation, they were able to feed their whole Empire, that is not easy and requires a ton of accounting and planning. Do not dismiss the civilisations of the Americas, and think that there is a ladder of evolution in which Europe is somehow higher. These civilisations were very advanced, and had they been able to survive in their own path, who knows where we'd be. As for military, just check how fast the Spanish conquistadors changed from their equipment and garments to the native ones because they were better suited for work in the tropical climate, and how bitter were the confrontations with the pockets of resistance. Disease is the key factor. Recent figures such as 90% dying from diseases is a devastating blow to any civilisation, there is no recovering from that.
- AlexSW 5y ago
  I agree with the majority of what you're saying, but like so many wars throughout history, surely superior weaponry played a huge role in the conquests? Particularly here where the difference is so large. Not the only role, certainly, and maybe not the biggest (compared to disease), but a very sizable one still. I struggle to imagine Spanish success had the weapons been reversed.

poisonarena 5y ago

"Oh boi, not this horrible and flawed argument again" Starting out with your point written like this seems aggressive and patronizing. "This idea of "Europe won because it is good at tech" really needs to die. " Because you don't like it? I disagree. Spanish Conquistadors were some of the greatest and most experienced warriors in all of history, and were trained veterans of the reconquest of Spain from the Moors. Why people want to discount the fact that obsidian shatters on steel, Spanish had shock cavalry, dogs, and just the thought of hearing and seeing a gun go off for the first time is wild. Disease catalyzed things for sure, and is definitely one of the biggest factors in the speed in which the conquest of the Americas happned, but to entirely discount The Spanish Empires elite warriors seems like a revisionist cope, because you want to demonize colonizers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cajamarca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cajamarca 168 Spanish vs 3000-8000 Incan warriors Only one Spaniard was injured and 2000+ Incan warriors were killed, the rest taken prisoner. That probably would nothave happened without cannons, horses, and swords

shakow 5y ago
> and were trained veterans of the reconquest of Spain from the Moors Cortes was 7 y.o. when the Reconquista ended...
- poisonarena 5y ago
  Who trained Cortes? The Spanish developed tactics for decades and decades, building knowledge from previous wars and conquests.
  - shakow 5y ago
    It does not make any sense. To this measure, every last soldier in a European army until post-WWII era should be a highly trained veteran.
    - poisonarena 5y ago
      I think you are missing the point entirely, I am saying that there is a thing called collective military knowledge, The Spanish had experience in fighting wars for many years. This knowledge of tactics and techniques is passed on through training.

beaconstudios 5y ago

Why not both? The Conquistadors had guns and steel armour and swords, versus the Mesoamericans' copper, bronze and obsidian weapons plus bows & atlatls. Technologically, the Spanish had the advantage, and won militarily. In addition, the indigenous population was ravaged by disease brought by the colonisers. Having better weapons is not an argument to ethnic superiority. It comes down to geography and history. The myth that needs to die is that the Mesoamerican civilisations were inferior because they didn't use wheeled transport; that's a Eurocentric idea based on the idea of the wheel as "fundamental" technology, even though they help on Europe's mostly-flat land and not Mesoamerica's mountainous and heavily forested territory.

YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
That's interesting what you say about the wheel because the narrative I've heard is instead about gunpowder: the Conquistadores had gunpowder weapons that frightened the Aztecs and dispersed their armies without a fight, even though they had numbers on their side. I've also heard the same thing about horses: the Aztecs were afraid of horses and so broke and run at the sight of the Spaniards on horses. These are not very well supported by first-hand accounts, for example in my favourite history book of all times, The Conquest of Mexico, by Bernal Diaz del Castillo (one of Hernan Cortes' men), there are many descriptions of battles between the Conquistadores and the Aztecs and the Aztecs don't run away - the gunpowder and the horses make a great impression on them but they stay their ground and fight. Except, in Bernal Diaz's telling anyway, they are used to fighting ritualistic battles, where the point was to capture some of the enemy's men, to later offer up as sacrifices to their gods. So the Aztecs are playing for points, in a sense, whereas the Spaniards are fighting dirty and going for the throat. Obviously, the Spaniards have the tactical advatage and it's not because of their weapons and armour, or their steeds. Another detail almost always overlooked is that the Spaniards were allied to local Mexicans that were enemy to the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan, particularly the people of Tlascalla. So in many of the battles with the Aztecs, the few hundred Conquistadores Cortes has with him are joined by thousands of Tlascallan warriors. This information is almost always left out of the narrative of the overwhelming technological superiority of the Conquistadores that allowed them to win despite being fewer in number. In truth, the forces of the Conquistadores joined by the Tlascallans and other enemies of the Aztecs were comparable in size with those of the Aztecs. Finally, when the Aztecs decide enough is enough and start fighting for real, the Conquistadores run for their lives. This is the tale of La Noche Triste, The Sad Night, when the Conquistadores try to escape Tenochtitlan under cover of darkness with all the gold they've looted from Moctezuma's vaults, after he was killed (by his own subjects, according to Bernal Diaz, but, well... he would say so, wouldn't he?). They are chased through the streets of the city by the Aztecs who are in open revolt and catch and kill them one-by-one. Most drown in the waters around the city, many weighed down by the loot they cling to, stubbornly. Just a few barely escape with their skins and some of the gold. It's a sad night indeed- and it really puts the kibosh on the Conquistadores' crushing superiority, technological or other.

Folcon 5y ago

"Guns, Germs, and Steel" is a good book, really enjoyable read. But speaking to historian friends of mine has given me the impression that it's not highly regarded in those circles. Unfortunately I can't give any criticisms beyond that because it has been a long time since I had those discussions and the details just don't come to mind, so I guess really what I'm saying is though it's a popular and enjoyable read, perhaps take the narrative it gives with a pinch of salt, perhaps dig into the current historical perspective and see where it differs?

escape_goat 5y ago
One of the remaining gems within my reddit horizons is the /r/AskHistorians subreddit, which maintains an FAQ that (amongst many other things) contains a plethora of academic responses to GGS. I have included below a link to the top and presumably most comprehensive response [1] for those who are interested. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2mkcc3/how_do_modern_historians_and_history/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2mkcc3/how_d...
- Folcon 5y ago
  I didn't know about this! Thanks for bringing it up :)...
COGlory 5y ago
Brett Deveraux touches on this here: https://acoup.blog/2021/05/28/collections-teaching-paradox-europa-universalis-iv-part-iv-why-europe/ https://acoup.blog/2021/05/28/collections-teaching-paradox-e...

SuoDuanDao 5y ago

Sure, but the widespread domestication that caused those more aggressive diseases to coevolve with European populations is technology.

imbnwa 5y ago

I mean the theory in TFA is talking about Neantherdals evolving in Ice Age Europe but somehow that's related to the human genetic bottleneck that had to have had occurred in Africa to apply to all humans unless there's new origin of emergence and migration I didn't know about. The whole theory is bathed in a casual Eurocentrism, we don't even get a reference to a non-European creature of fantasy fitting these traits, we're just sorta assuming this is the case that they're all actually approximate. Whatever was constitutive for human beings in the period of our dwindling numbers happened in Africa

jtms 5y ago

Don't both guns and steel fall firmly under the category of "technology"?