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> Remarkably, the Inca managed to forge this vast society without the wheel, the arch, money, iron or steel tools, draft animals capable of ploughing fields or

by Hilift 2y ago

> Remarkably, the Inca managed to forge this vast society without the wheel, the arch, money, iron or steel tools, draft animals capable of ploughing fields or even a written language. No horses until they were reintroduced by the Spanish. Minimal mobility. California had 500 distinct tribal groups before the Spanish arrived. The increased mobility allowed disease to wipe out about 90% of the indigenous peoples in North America before 1600.

AlotOfReading 2y ago
Some of this information is a bit outdated. Horses were reintroduced by Spaniards, but precolumbian mobility was not what we'd call minimal today and adoption of horses in the plains was deeply tied to political changes from Spanish colonialism in the southwest. As one example, people would make annual pilgrimages hundreds of miles across the desert from modern Phoenix to the gulfs of California and Mexico. People in the Northeast would travel hundreds of miles on their waterways for social visits. There was a vast trade network spanning the continent from the arctic down to South America, and the Pacific to the Atlantic. Epidemic disease also didn't spread in advance of European contact. The demographic shattering diseases that led to those (fairly questionable) population loss figures happened after sustained European contact. Some regional disease slightly preceded contact, but we think they were fairly minor events demographically. Textbooks and popular media haven't caught up with the new work in this area though, like: https://doi.org/10.7183/0002-7316.79.3.487 https://doi.org/10.7183/0002-7316.79.3.487
- throwup238 2y ago
  > Epidemic disease also didn't spread in advance of European contact. The demographic shattering diseases that led to those (fairly questionable) population loss figures happened after sustained European contact. Yup, the biggest killer - smallpox - was probably introduced by Pánfilo de Narváez‘s expedition to arrest Cortez’ while he was already well into his campaign to conquer the Aztecs, decades after Columbus. Europe and North Africa were experiencing their own sporadic outbreaks at the time and it’s likely that a slave named Francisco Eguia brought it over Several of the indigenous people in the Caribbean were already wiped out because of the awful conditions of their enslavement by this point.
  - bboygravity 2y ago
    DIdn't Columbus essentially wipe out natives on the Carribean Islands though through a kind of forced labour (mining) genocide (with the "help" of disease)? And Cortez wasn't exactly a passive visitor either? Sure the diseases might've helped speed things up, but both of them seemed to be on a pretty intense and efficient pillaging, killing and raping spree. Where Cortez even went to great lengths to not only wipe out the natives but actually also destroy any trace of their largest city.
    - krapp 2y ago
      The crazy thing about Columbus (well, one of many) is that Spain explicitly forbade him to take slaves in the Caribbean, they wanted the natives Christianized and the land colonized. Columbus just did it anyway, and shipped over boatloads of slaves they didn't even want.
- Unbefleckt 2y ago
  From my reading I understand that the Aztecs and Inca people never met, how did this trade network span the continent?
  - mkl 2y ago
    There were lots of other groups of people in between. Even if only neighbouring people traded with each other, the trade network could still span the continents, with some items moving much farther than the individual people.
netdevphoenix 2y ago
Find it curious how people in the US tend to give a questionably huge role of disease to the population loss of the first americans
- Terr_ 2y ago
  Well, what's the better explanation? If it was internecine warfare, the victors would be around. If it was colonial attackers, we'd have more records. We have good documentation for it happening in the other direction, where some areas had diseases which struck Europeans so badly that they didn't want to immigrate and raise a family there.
  - AlotOfReading 2y ago
    The modern explanation is that disease played a major role, but it's disease that's closely related to the social and political disruptions from European contact. Some examples: Spaniards enslave the Taino of Hispaniola, who are ravaged by diseases with lethality and infectiousness boosted by the malnutrition and stress of their enslavement. Spaniards take over Tenochtitlan, then destroy the sewer systems of the valley of Mexico. A series of E. Coli and salmonella epidemics known as Cocoliztli subsequently ravage the Mexican highlands. Spaniards get involved with a bitter civil war in Peru, and diseases decimate the displaced and destabilized populations. Spaniards institute corvee labor and create a famine in the southwest, which is followed by decades of recurrent epidemic diseases that heavily affect the people most directly under Spanish influence. Nomadic groups largely outside Spanish control, but still physically in the same regions like the Apache and the Comanche then became ascendant political forces in the resulting demographic collapse. And the result of these losses was permanent because the populations ended up displaced or absorbed into colonialism.
- potato3732842 2y ago
  Because when they learn the origin of each of the 13 colonies in grade school that's the way Massachusetts and New England (which get a lot more time than some of the other because they were one of the first and US democracy traces its roots do the Pilgrims) get taught because it's the easy way. There is a kernel of truth to it. The Pilgrims did kinda luck into settling an area that was somewhat depopulated from recent disease (but they also picked just about the most shitty area in the region so it wasn't exactly densely populated to begin with). But that line of causation gets over-played because nobody wants to stand in front of a bunch of teenagers and split hairs between various flavors of christian extremists and the circumstances by which they came to "own" the land they settled.

by Hilift 2y ago

AlotOfReading 2y ago

Some of this information is a bit outdated. Horses were reintroduced by Spaniards, but precolumbian mobility was not what we'd call minimal today and adoption of horses in the plains was deeply tied to political changes from Spanish colonialism in the southwest. As one example, people would make annual pilgrimages hundreds of miles across the desert from modern Phoenix to the gulfs of California and Mexico. People in the Northeast would travel hundreds of miles on their waterways for social visits. There was a vast trade network spanning the continent from the arctic down to South America, and the Pacific to the Atlantic. Epidemic disease also didn't spread in advance of European contact. The demographic shattering diseases that led to those (fairly questionable) population loss figures happened after sustained European contact. Some regional disease slightly preceded contact, but we think they were fairly minor events demographically. Textbooks and popular media haven't caught up with the new work in this area though, like: https://doi.org/10.7183/0002-7316.79.3.487 https://doi.org/10.7183/0002-7316.79.3.487

throwup238 2y ago
> Epidemic disease also didn't spread in advance of European contact. The demographic shattering diseases that led to those (fairly questionable) population loss figures happened after sustained European contact. Yup, the biggest killer - smallpox - was probably introduced by Pánfilo de Narváez‘s expedition to arrest Cortez’ while he was already well into his campaign to conquer the Aztecs, decades after Columbus. Europe and North Africa were experiencing their own sporadic outbreaks at the time and it’s likely that a slave named Francisco Eguia brought it over Several of the indigenous people in the Caribbean were already wiped out because of the awful conditions of their enslavement by this point.
- bboygravity 2y ago
  DIdn't Columbus essentially wipe out natives on the Carribean Islands though through a kind of forced labour (mining) genocide (with the "help" of disease)? And Cortez wasn't exactly a passive visitor either? Sure the diseases might've helped speed things up, but both of them seemed to be on a pretty intense and efficient pillaging, killing and raping spree. Where Cortez even went to great lengths to not only wipe out the natives but actually also destroy any trace of their largest city.
  - krapp 2y ago
    The crazy thing about Columbus (well, one of many) is that Spain explicitly forbade him to take slaves in the Caribbean, they wanted the natives Christianized and the land colonized. Columbus just did it anyway, and shipped over boatloads of slaves they didn't even want.
Unbefleckt 2y ago
From my reading I understand that the Aztecs and Inca people never met, how did this trade network span the continent?
- mkl 2y ago
  There were lots of other groups of people in between. Even if only neighbouring people traded with each other, the trade network could still span the continents, with some items moving much farther than the individual people.

netdevphoenix 2y ago

Find it curious how people in the US tend to give a questionably huge role of disease to the population loss of the first americans

Terr_ 2y ago
Well, what's the better explanation? If it was internecine warfare, the victors would be around. If it was colonial attackers, we'd have more records. We have good documentation for it happening in the other direction, where some areas had diseases which struck Europeans so badly that they didn't want to immigrate and raise a family there.
- AlotOfReading 2y ago
  The modern explanation is that disease played a major role, but it's disease that's closely related to the social and political disruptions from European contact. Some examples: Spaniards enslave the Taino of Hispaniola, who are ravaged by diseases with lethality and infectiousness boosted by the malnutrition and stress of their enslavement. Spaniards take over Tenochtitlan, then destroy the sewer systems of the valley of Mexico. A series of E. Coli and salmonella epidemics known as Cocoliztli subsequently ravage the Mexican highlands. Spaniards get involved with a bitter civil war in Peru, and diseases decimate the displaced and destabilized populations. Spaniards institute corvee labor and create a famine in the southwest, which is followed by decades of recurrent epidemic diseases that heavily affect the people most directly under Spanish influence. Nomadic groups largely outside Spanish control, but still physically in the same regions like the Apache and the Comanche then became ascendant political forces in the resulting demographic collapse. And the result of these losses was permanent because the populations ended up displaced or absorbed into colonialism.
potato3732842 2y ago
Because when they learn the origin of each of the 13 colonies in grade school that's the way Massachusetts and New England (which get a lot more time than some of the other because they were one of the first and US democracy traces its roots do the Pilgrims) get taught because it's the easy way. There is a kernel of truth to it. The Pilgrims did kinda luck into settling an area that was somewhat depopulated from recent disease (but they also picked just about the most shitty area in the region so it wasn't exactly densely populated to begin with). But that line of causation gets over-played because nobody wants to stand in front of a bunch of teenagers and split hairs between various flavors of christian extremists and the circumstances by which they came to "own" the land they settled.