# Could the native Americans have stopped the settling of America?? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 5, 2010, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-native-americans-have-stopped-the-settling-of-america/534982 "2010-04-05T03:22:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-native-americans-have-stopped-the-settling-of-america/534982/41 "2010-04-07T04:02:14Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > If they were murdered on site without exception eventually an army would have shown up instead of settlers. Yeah, an army supplied across the Atlantic in enemy territory. That wasn’t easy in 1941 or even now. The enemy wouldn’t even have to show up before the army stated dying. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-native-americans-have-stopped-the-settling-of-america/534982/42 "2010-04-07T04:08:59Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > Man has an insatiable appetite for discovery. I’d say if 5 years went by with no returning Columbus, someone else would have tried a similar venture. They might have been better equipped for adversity – more ships, more guns, more sailors – prepped for disaster and loaded for bear. Really? So who went just before him? If Columbus is nothing special (and I’m not saying he is) who decided this was possible before and didn’t come back? Columbus showed it _was possible_ and after that everything changed, too little is made of that. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-native-americans-have-stopped-the-settling-of-america/534982/43 "2010-04-07T06:40:36Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > It seems highly unlikely that a 100% extermination could continue for long without someone getting suspicious and mounting an all-out, well-provisioned assault. But what for ? Assuming the natives kill every would-be explorer and colonist on sight, then there’s no one to bring back cocoa beans, coffee, tobacco, tales of cities of gold, silver from Aztec mines etc…, all the things that made sending people out to the New World profitable to begin with. The land grabbing aspect was secondary and subsequent to that (almost three centuries subsequent). No gold, no goldbug. No goldbug, no assault. Why mount a costly (not to mention, as \*\*Sitnam \*\*says, logistically nightmarish) expedition halfway across the world where nobody has ever returned, when you can mount less costly expeditions right here in Europe, when historically some conquerors have managed to conquer lands and riches ? The point Columbus was trying to make was that it was possible to trade with Japan and China faster going West than sailing around Africa. Well, in that scenario it certainly isn’t, cause there’s a great big landmass filled with omnicidal pricks in the way. Scratch that plan, back to business as usual… OTOH, India and Africa would probably have ended up getting colonized much earlier and more thoroughly, had the New World extravaganza not taken place. So there’s that. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-native-americans-have-stopped-the-settling-of-america/534982/44 "2010-04-07T11:59:33Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > But what for ? Assuming the natives kill every would-be explorer and colonist on sight… Big assumption, difficult to carry out. With the population density then, I doubt that every single mile of shore could be manned with a lookout, so the “on sight” provision fails right there. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-native-americans-have-stopped-the-settling-of-america/534982/45 "2010-04-07T15:20:12Z")
It’s not like the natives need an Atlantic Wall or anything. What if it was an established meme in Native America that people with white skin and hair on their face were devils that must be killed and burned on site? That isn’t so hard to imagine as the natives in northeastern Canada encountered the Vikings. I think it’d be rather difficult for any scraggly lost European band to go ashore against even a diminished population trained in stalking live game for a living. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-native-americans-have-stopped-the-settling-of-america/534982/46 "2010-04-07T15:26:03Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > Imagine this: (and I’m not saying it was actually do-able, because getting everyone to agree would not have been possible. So just play along anyway) the native americans, every single tribe, every single person, man, woman, and child alike, committed to brutally murdering every single European they saw, sparing no one. They just became death machines. Ship lands, people get off, people die. Next ship, more dying. NO native EVER lets ANYONE who isn’t a native american EVER live. > > It would have prevented colonization, and America would be populated exclusively by the natives forever, don’t you think? Without some degree of cooperation from the natives, the europeans would never have managed to get enough of a safe toehold to remain, would they? It could be argued that this was what the Russians (P-AK – Russian-America Company) faced in the Pacific Northwest. It got so bad that they had people serving with the French to learn their methods of dealing with the Native peoples in the hopes of being able to do something in their “colonies”. The toe-hold came from the Spanish in the south and the lack of population in the north. But in-between there just was no real success in colonization (or even trade) from the sea. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-native-americans-have-stopped-the-settling-of-america/534982/47 "2010-04-07T16:21:24Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > It’s not like the natives need an Atlantic Wall or anything. What if it was an established meme in Native America that people with white skin and hair on their face were devils that must be killed and burned on site? That isn’t so hard to imagine as the natives in northeastern Canada encountered the Vikings. I think it’d be rather difficult for any scraggly lost European band to go ashore against even a diminished population trained in stalking live game for a living. Actually, they did pretty well. The Spanish colonized much of the Caribbean against hostile natives who were pretty warlike. It didn’t help them, because guns are really badass, and because armor is a really tough. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-native-americans-have-stopped-the-settling-of-america/534982/48 "2010-04-07T16:39:42Z")
> [@](#): > > It didn’t help them, because guns are really badass, and because armor is a really tough. > Reply With Quote And the Spaniards had horses, war dogs (true!) and swords. Natuive Americans had few domesticated species (and none that I know of that could be used for war) and limited metalworking (again, without any for war). They had wooden war clubs, stone-edged weapons, and (in central america) wooden “swords” edged with obsidian and the like. I’d rather have a metal sword or axe, myself. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-native-americans-have-stopped-the-settling-of-america/534982/49 "2010-04-07T16:40:12Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > The land grabbing aspect was secondary and subsequent to that (almost three centuries subsequent). The Roanoke colony was attempted in 1585, and the Jamestown colony was founded in 1607. Where are you getting three centuries? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-native-americans-have-stopped-the-settling-of-america/534982/50 "2010-04-07T17:38:01Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Well, the OP asks us to assume they cooperate. That’s part of the assumption. > > The problem I see is that Europeans would have found out about the strategy sooner or later and sent fleets of warships to take over. And, as others have mentioned, disease would still have spread. So, there might have been some delay, but the end would have been brutal beyond imagination if they continued to fight to the death. Well, that’s why I’m fighting the hypothetical. It requires people to behave in ways that people don’t behave. If we’re figuring a hypothetical that allows the Indians to expel the Europeans, why not imagine that every man woman and child in the Americas devotes all their spare time to scientific research in 1492, and by the time the Pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock they’re greeted with steam tanks and machine guns? I mean, if we’re imagining that people don’t act like normal humans, why restrict ourselves to imagining that they are implacably warlike, but only to certain ethnicities? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-native-americans-have-stopped-the-settling-of-america/534982/51 "2010-04-07T17:56:43Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Well, that’s why I’m fighting the hypothetical. It requires people to behave in ways that people don’t behave. Not really. But it would imply a level of sophistication and civilization beyond what existed in Europe at the time to unite the ~100M Native Americans into one political entity. And that would almost certainly imply a level of technology equal to or greater than what existed in Europe at the time. Of course if that were true, it might be the Native Americans taking over Europe instead of the other way around. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-native-americans-have-stopped-the-settling-of-america/534982/52 "2010-04-07T19:46:00Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > But what for ? Assuming the natives kill every would-be explorer and colonist on sight, then there’s no one to bring back cocoa beans, coffee, tobacco, tales of cities of gold, silver from Aztec mines etc…, all the things that made sending people out to the New World profitable to begin with. The land grabbing aspect was secondary and subsequent to that (almost three centuries subsequent). > > No gold, no goldbug. No goldbug, no assault. Why mount a costly (not to mention, as \*\*Sitnam \*\*says, logistically nightmarish) expedition halfway across the world where nobody has ever returned, when you can mount less costly expeditions right here in Europe, when historically some conquerors have managed to conquer lands and riches ? It’s worth noting that the Europeans were making a _shitload_ of money from sugar plantations on the Canaries and the Azores. The Canaries had an indigenous population that fought back about as hard as it’s possible to fight and very favorable terrain, and they were still the victims of one of the most total genocides in history. There’s no reason that Europeans would fail to exploit possible profits from land with similar climate, like the Caribbean islands and Brazil. And once they’ve got a foothold in the Caribbean, there’s no reason that they wouldn’t push into Mexico. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-native-americans-have-stopped-the-settling-of-america/534982/53 "2010-04-07T22:31:11Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Actually, they did pretty well. The Spanish colonized much of the Caribbean against hostile natives who were pretty warlike. It didn’t help them, because guns are really badass, and because armor is a really tough. The arquebus takes a minute or longer to load, has worse range and accuracy than a bow and god help you if your stuff gets wet. At that time guns were not badass. And a metal helmet and breast plate won’t stop someone with a sharp stick. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-native-americans-have-stopped-the-settling-of-america/534982.md?page=2)