# European contact with the New World... how could it have played out better? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 26, 2013, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620 "2013-07-26T19:52:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620/21 "2013-07-26T22:08:50Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Another bigger alt-history: what would have happened if the infectious disease pandemic had gone the other way, some germ coming back to the Old World from the New that they had never seen before that caused mass die off? This would be more fun to discuss. IMO, the Aztecs deserved to be exterminated. Other AmerInd cultures I might shed half an imaginary tear for, but not the Aztecs. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620/22 "2013-07-26T22:10:24Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#): > > Actually they sure as heck were a lot more tolerant of other religious beliefs. Occasionally even adding other people’s gods into their pantheon. Except for the whole persecuting Christians bit under certain Emperors… Plus it wasn’t as if being killed in gladitorial combat or being whipped to death as a slave was any better… BTW virtually all Indian wars occurred for political reasons not by trying to persecute or “exterminate” pagans. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620/23 "2013-07-26T22:17:56Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Sure…the Europeans didn’t completely wipe out the Chinese or Japanese, nor destroy their culture, though they did exploit both, and the contact certainly had a profound change on both Chinese and Japanese culture and society. I think one of the main reasons that the various cultures and civilizations in the new world came to a bad end was that they were initially crippled by European germs, and were so imbalanced by this that they never really recovered. It’s hard to recover when large portions of your population are dead AND you are at such a huge technological disadvantage. It was just too much for them, and it allowed the Europeans to dominate and destroy, rather than having to work with on some level as they did with the Chinese and Japanese. > [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Unless they met each other wearing bio-hazard suits I don’t see how to arrange contact without it turning into a disaster for the natives. Small Pox is passed on just as easily from a benevolent explorer of good will as it is from an greedy enslaver, and that’s what really wiped out the native populations. If I remember my graduate virology classes after all this time, it was not just smallpox but measles and influenza that devastated the New World. China and Japan had been exposed to those viruses - and had some immunity - well before the European voyages and colonization attempts that followed Columbus. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2013, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620/24 "2013-07-26T23:27:57Z")
[The Master Speaks.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/995/why-did-so-many-native-americans-die-of-european-diseases-but-not-vice-versa) > [@](#): > > **Why did so many Native Americans die of European diseases but not vice versa?** > > \*July 29, 1994 > > Dear Cecil: > > Why is it that native Americans died from Europeans brought by the Europeans but Europeans didn’t die in great numbers from native American diseases? > > — Bob Kelso\* > > Dear Bob: > > There may have been at least one native American bug that wiped out a few boatloads of Europeans; see below. But in general you’re right: percentagewise, and probably absolute numberswise, a lot more native Americans died of European diseases than did Europeans of American diseases. The natives had no resistance to smallpox, influenza, or plague or even to mild (to us) diseases like measles. Entire populations were virtually wiped out, with some Atlantic coast tribes losing 90 percent of their adult members. Some historians go so far as to say European diseases reduced the pre-contact population of the New World as a whole by 90 percent or more. One says the population of central Mexico was reduced from 25 million in 1519 to 3 million by 1568 and only 750,000 by the early 1600s, 3 percent of the pre-conquest total. > > […] > > \*\*WHY THEY DIED > > Dear Cecil: > > Upon reading your column on the demise of the Native Americans following European contact, I immediately recognized myself as an expert and am forwarding the enclosed articles, making your story far more complex. My question for you is from an old Firesign Theatre album: “Why does the porridge bird lay its eggs in the air?” --Thomas Templeton, Laboratory of Malaria Research, NIAID/NIH, Bethesda, Maryland\*\* > > Cecil replies: > > Who knows? Maybe she’s waiting for the electrician or someone like him. Your enclosures raise an interesting point but one that, far from complicating matters, is in line with the view I presented and had I not taken that second coffee break would surely have thought of myself. The point is this: recent research suggests that Native Americans lacked “genetic diversity”–bluntly put, that they were inbred, virtually the entire indigenous population of the Americas having descended from just four (4) women–or at least four groups of closely related women. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2013, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620/25 "2013-07-27T00:28:25Z")
I think all this “it was the diseases, stupid” is a bit simplistic and kind of a convenient way of washing our collective hands. There were still plenty of natives left hundreds of years after Columbus was dead and gone, and other inflection points. What if, to name one example, the fraudulent [Treaty of New Echota](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_New_Echota) had received just one fewer vote in the Senate? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2013, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620/26 "2013-07-27T00:31:30Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I think all this “it was the diseases, stupid” is a bit simplistic and kind of a convenient way of washing our collective hands. There were still plenty of natives left hundreds of years after Columbus was dead and gone, and other inflection points. What if, to name one example, the fraudulent [Treaty of New Echota](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_New_Echota) had received just one fewer vote in the Senate? Then the Cherokee Republic might . . . just possibly, conceivably . . . have become a State of the Union separate from Georgia, setting a precedent. (Also raising a constitutional can-o’-worms, since the Constitution says no state can be deprived of territory without its consent.) ---
**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:** [July 27, 2013, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620/27 "2013-07-27T00:37:13Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I think all this “it was the diseases, stupid” is a bit simplistic and kind of a convenient way of washing our collective hands. There were still plenty of natives left hundreds of years after Columbus was dead and gone, and other inflection points. What if, to name one example, the fraudulent [Treaty of New Echota](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_New_Echota) had received just one fewer vote in the Senate? Ultimately irrelevant. Nowhere except in the most backwoods and barren regions did AmerIndians resist being ultimately absorbed into the immigrant population, and even then were largely assimilated into the larger immigrant culture. Ultimately, this was going to happen by human nature: people expand where they see opportunity. The minute AmerIndians were no longer a significant threat, it was arguments over regions and who owned what section of what, both in North and South America. People came and settled it themselves, regardless of what any law or treaty said, and they come from every corner of Europe. ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2013, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620/28 "2013-07-27T01:16:59Z")
I don’t think we have to guess too much about what would have happened. We can look to history and see what happened in other areas of the world where the people were not wiped out by European diseases. Colonization of Africa didn’t proceed until industrialization started giving the Europeans much better weapons and the ability to move lots of men and material into Africa. In India Europeans were able to use their advanced weaponry to aid some locals against others in order to set up European rule through some of the existing Indian rulers. In China the existing social order was too powerful and cohesive to allow the Europeans to set up much more than trading colonies. ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2013, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620/29 "2013-07-27T03:50:57Z")
Colonization of Africa and even some parts of Central and South America by Europeans was also delayed by tropical diseases. But then the guns and steel ultimately tipped the balance. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2013, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620/30 "2013-07-27T04:08:11Z")
> [@gazpacho](#): > > I don’t think we have to guess too much about what would have happened. We can look to history and see what happened in other areas of the world where the people were not wiped out by European diseases. Colonization of Africa didn’t proceed until industrialization started giving the Europeans much better weapons and the ability to move lots of men and material into Africa. In India Europeans were able to use their advanced weaponry to aid some locals against others in order to set up European rule through some of the existing Indian rulers. In China the existing social order was too powerful and cohesive to allow the Europeans to set up much more than trading colonies. Most importantly, all of those places were (1) more populous and (2) more civilized and technologically advanced (even the Africans were living in the Iron Age while American Indians were still in the Stone age) and (3) more disease-ridden even before the Euros arrived than were the pre-Columbian Americas. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2013, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620/31 "2013-07-27T10:12:26Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I am no historian of this period and am taking all this off basic sources like Wikipedia, but it seems that there were many points that could have ended up leading to very different outcomes. > f? All the alternatives you’re mentioning lead to a failure of Cortez’s expedition. But had he failed, someone else would have lead another some years later. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2013, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620/32 "2013-07-27T10:18:04Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Ultimately irrelevant. Nowhere except in the most backwoods and barren regions did AmerIndians resist being ultimately absorbed into the immigrant population, and even then were largely assimilated into the larger immigrant culture. Ultimately, this was going to happen by human nature: people expand where they see opportunity. The minute AmerIndians were no longer a significant threat, it was arguments over regions and who owned what section of what, both in North and South America. People came and settled it themselves, regardless of what any law or treaty said, and they come from every corner of Europe. That’s not what happened in South America, though. So, I don’t think it’s a given that local populations would necessarily be displaced by massive numbers of settlers. What is the USA could have been more similar to Mexico, with most of the population having local ancestry, no? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2013, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620/33 "2013-07-27T11:41:35Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > All the alternatives you’re mentioning lead to a failure of Cortez’s expedition. But had he failed, someone else would have lead another some years later. Or it could have led to the conclusion that invasion was too costly and that diplomacy/trade was the more efficient way to maximize profit. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2013, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620/34 "2013-07-27T13:10:10Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I think it’s pretty well accepted that the European contact with the New World starting with Columbus was a massive genocidal catastrophe, wiping out millions, destroying cultures and societies, and generally being a massive blot on human history. > > My question is… what’s a realistic best case for how it could have gone? Assuming that the basic logistics are the same, and that human nature is still human nature, what’s a path that the entire sordid story could have taken which would have ended up better for the New World inhabitants? > > And please, no pie-in-the-sky idealistic answers like “well, the Europeans should have just seen that the continent was occupied and then just sailed away because that’s what virtuous people would do”. On the other hand, there might well be some key turning points where things were actually close to going another way… could the Aztecs or Incas reasonably have beaten the Spaniards if things had gone a little differently? Were there key turning points in North America where some-guy-who-wanted-to-deal-fairly-with-the-Indians got narrowly edged out by some-guy-who-didn’t? > > Are there examples from history of somewhat similar contact scenarios that do NOT end up in genocide and cultural destruction? In the world of the 15th century (and generally the world prior to the past century, for that matter), there isn’t a sense of international community, with international conventions and international law. It’s tribe against tribe on every continent. Coalition against coalition. Political structure against political structure. In that paradigm, the strong will always defeat the weak. The able will over-run the disabled. The clever will outsmart the slow. Those able to better develop technology will defeat those unable to do so. Or, if you like Jared Diamond’s perspective, the lucky will find themselves to have enough advantage to plink the unlucky. The idea that “Europeans” were somehow fundamentally different in their perspective that the next guy over needs conquering if possible, is incredibly naive. This statement (by Kinthalis) is beyond silly…“a bunch of nut job Christians who devalued the lives of the native inhabitants simply because they hadn’t accepted Jesus as their personal savior.” The “native inhabitants” of the entire world all had about the same perspective of the next guy over: Try to get his land, his women, and his stuff if you can. European conquest of the world–particularly africa and the americas–resulted from superior competence, and not from inferior morality or unilateral absence of altruism. Where the potentially-conquerable population was significantly more competent (or lucky, if you like Dr Diamond’s interpretation of the world), the Europeans couldn’t conquer as easily or completely, and didn’t. Areas of the world with primitive societies were a two-hit fight, and disease just a bonus weapon. Even without it, resistance would have been futile given the relative lame-ness of local progress toward a society that could defend on a world stage. But make no mistake about history. The original peoples everywhere in africa and the americas were already doing their damndest to conquer, enslave and eliminate. They destroyed cultures and societies, and blotted out wherever they could. They just stunk at it compared with the Europeans, who took the concept to a world-class level. So, no. European “contact” with the New World could not have played out better. The Europeans were playing to win, and local resistance didn’t have a bat’s chance. The assorted gods upon which both sides called upon had nothing to do with it, other than being a convenient rallying point. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2013, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620/35 "2013-07-27T13:23:06Z")
> [@MLS](#): > > Colonization of Africa and even some parts of Central and South America by Europeans was also delayed by tropical diseases. But then the guns and steel ultimately tipped the balance. More precisely, populations who created better metal technology and invented guns. It’s not like they found guns and steel under a bush. And of course, Europeans had their own little brushes with germs back in the old country. Yersinia pestis bumped off a third of them in the 14th century. ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2013, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620/36 "2013-07-27T14:32:52Z")
Quite true. But it was “only” about a third. Not the 90 percent mortality rate that hit some native American groups. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2013, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620/37 "2013-07-27T14:48:43Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > … Areas of the world with primitive societies were a two-hit fight, and disease just a bonus weapon. Even without it, resistance would have been futile given the relative lame-ness of local progress toward a society that could defend on a world stage. … local resistance didn’t have a bat’s chance. … The distance involved was substantial and the locals did not need to win; they just needed to make the cost of invasion and occupation such that diplomatic trade was clearly the more profitable approach. Remember that some few hundred years later a relative rag-tag group of colonists would throw off an empire’s control despite the greater military might of the latter. The Revolutionaries did not beat the British; they just made it not worth the cost. > [@](#): > > More precisely, populations who created better metal technology and invented guns OH, you mean the Chinese! Or do you mean hand-held firearms as used by infantry? Then the Ottomans. As far as weaponry went the European Empires created and invented little. Contact allowed them to absorb and perhaps _marginally_ improve upon the creations and inventions of others. > [@](#): > > And of course, Europeans had their own little brushes with germs back in the old country. Yersinia pestis bumped off a third of them in the 14th century. The bit with germs in Europe was that it rarely had a major differential effect on two warring sides’ populations. If one third of France was being killed off by the Plague (let alone 80 to 90%) while Spain was relatively unaffected, then Spain would have had a huge advantage in a conflict. But if both populations are having to deal with the same epidemic then no such competitive advantage is operative. The other issue was fraction of the population incapacitated at one time: society ceases to be able to function well when there are not enough healthy people available to plant, raise, hunt, and distribute food. An invading force immune to the Plague attacking Europe in 1350 would likely have had a walk-through. European society was in upheaval. Wars in Europe stopped during the Plague and the period immediately afterwards because the manpower and resources were not there to fight them from _any_ side. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2013, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620/38 "2013-07-27T18:20:14Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Most importantly, all of those places were (1) more populous and (2) more civilized and technologically advanced (even the Africans were living in the Iron Age while American Indians were still in the Stone age) and (3) more disease-ridden even before the Euros arrived than were the pre-Columbian Americas. This. Malaria did enormous damage to North American native populations. It’s not clear whether the falciparum strain brought by Africans did more damage than the vivax strain brought by Europeans. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2013, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620/39 "2013-07-27T19:29:21Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > So, no. European “contact” with the New World could not have played out better. The Europeans were playing to win, and local resistance didn’t have a bat’s chance. The assorted gods upon which both sides called upon had nothing to do with it, other than being a convenient rallying point. I can only agree with your arguments and conclusion. ---
**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:** [July 27, 2013, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620/40 "2013-07-27T21:08:41Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > That’s not what happened in South America, though. So, I don’t think it’s a given that local populations would necessarily be displaced by massive numbers of settlers. What is the USA could have been more similar to Mexico, with most of the population having local ancestry, no? You’ll note that what you describe absolutely _did_ occur in Mexico. It happened in a different way than in the United States, but at the end of the day native cultures were largely eradicated. The details, as I have said, simply don’t matter. If you want to posit an America with a slightly different complexion, go ahead; there’s no changing the history, though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/european-contact-with-the-new-world-how-could-it-have-played-out-better/664620.md?page=3)