# Let's imagine for a moment that there was no colonization **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 17, 2022, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955 "2022-01-17T22:50:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/21 "2022-01-18T12:31:59Z")
> [@PozhanPop](#): > > Would we be looking at gigantic herds of elephants , lions and other extinct animals ? We’d almost certainly have more bison without the US campaign to wipe them out in order to starve and disrupt the Native Americans. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/22 "2022-01-18T12:52:04Z")
> [@PozhanPop](#): > > What would the population numbers be like ? > Diseases ? I imagine that without expansion (and I would still like to know when in history you would place this freeze in expansion, btw), the density in population in each isolated area would rise faster than it normally would, until disease and/or violent internal conflict knocked it back a bit. Before using Japan as a counter example, remember that today Japan is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Try to imagine what it would be like if the smallpox epidemic of 735-737 hadn’t wiped out a third of the entire Japanese population, an event that almost surely was caused by interaction with the Asian mainland. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/23 "2022-01-18T13:09:50Z")
> [@PozhanPop](#): > > Zulu,Matabele, Maori and Aztec living in harmony with nature only taking from it that they need to ? One example being the native population of North Sentinel Island in the Andaman and Nicobar island chain. > Would there still be violence as in tribal wars ? Most indigenous peoples weren’t living in harmony with one another let alone with nature. The Maori engaged in violent warfare with one another long before Europeans arrived and if you lived in what is now Mexico you probably wouldn’t have wanted the Aztecs as your neighbors. So, yes, there would still have been violent tribal wars as that kind of thing happened prior to the arrival of Europeans to places like the Americas or Africa. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/24 "2022-01-18T13:36:43Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > if you lived in what is now Mexico you probably wouldn’t have wanted the Aztecs as your neighbors. So, yes, there would still have been violent tribal wars as that kind of thing happened prior to the arrival of Europeans to places like the Americas or Africa. Why are you characterizing wars between monarchic city-states as “tribal wars”, please? ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/25 "2022-01-18T13:43:09Z")
Europeans took to the seas because they were isolated from the trade routes connecting Europe to India and China. If they had not done this, I guess Europe may have been colonised by the expanding Ottoman Empire. Rather like it was previously colonised by the Roman Empire. It assumes that oceanic trade would not have been developed by Mediterranean trading nations venturing into the Atlantic. This seems unrealistic since North African Corsairs ranged up the Atlantic coast as far as Iceland on slave capturing expeditions. If Africa and America were left to develop in their own way how would it be? Magnificent cities ruled by benign kings or emperors whose people were happy and fulfilled, living a state of harmony with nature? I am sure the tribes conquerored by the Aztecs or the Zulus or whichever militarily dominant nation would have a very different view. There were slave trading routes across central and west to North Africa. Empires and nations are not held together by chains of flowers. Maybe resource poor people living in areas where subsistence farming is possible and there are no natural resources valuable to nations. Perhaps they might be left in a state of nature. But they would have to be very poor. Human societies that develop into cities, nations and empires based around the fertile river systems that make possible large scale agriculture that require organisation on a large scale. That makes possible armies and wars. Cities need food supplies. The Greeks and Romans had colonies across the Mediterranean. So did the Phoenicians and Venietians. Trade in food and valuable commodities that can be carried by ship have been around for thousands of years. That would have continued where there are rivers that are navigable and coastal shipping is possible. This existed long before oceanic trade routes were developed and would have continued between states that valued trade. One thing that would have been avoided was the sudden devastation of the civilisations in the Americas due to the introduction of diseases endemic in the connected continents of Euro-Asia and Africa by Colombus and the Spanish. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/26 "2022-01-18T13:45:15Z")
The jungle cities of the Maya weren’t jungle cities at all. At the time, the Maya had chopped or burned away all of that rainforest, and intensively developed the land between the cities for agriculture. Once their civilization collapsed, the jungle grew back. Of course, that particular collapse happened long before colonization. So without widespread European conquest and colonization, we’d still have had empires across the world rise and fall, and nature would still have been bent to men’s will. On the other hand, Christianity and Islam would be far less dominant. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/27 "2022-01-18T13:52:33Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#): > > Human societies that develop into cities, nations and empires based around the fertile river systems that make possible large scale agriculture that require organisation on a large scale. You’re phrasing this as though development into urban agricultural states is some inevitability. _The Dawn of Everything_, already cited above, takes some pains to show this is not the case. ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/28 "2022-01-18T14:13:12Z")
Interesting hypothetical, but I’m not sure whether one should look only at the colonized states on their own. Colonization occured for a reason, in particular the possibility to extract natural resources by force. These resources were used in various ways by the colonizing powers, which had further consequences on a global scale, which in turn influenced the way in which colonization was effected. I’m not sufficiently knowledgeable to give a proper assessment, but I do wonder whether the industrial revolution would have happened in the way it did without colonization. Was the rise of science in the modern word made possible by the influx of wealth that allowed leisure for an intellectual class? Did the exposure to other cultures speed up enlightenment and agnosticism? And what was the effect of the massive influx of specie on the premodern economy of Europe? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/29 "2022-01-18T14:37:21Z")
> [@Tusculan](#): > > I do wonder whether the industrial revolution would have happened in the way it did without colonization. Not at the same _pace_, certainly. No abundance of cotton from the colonies means not as much impetus to industrialize the British textile industry, which was a big driver of the IR. > [@Tusculan](#): > > Did the exposure to other cultures speed up enlightenment and agnosticism? _The Dawn of Everything_ goes at some length into the connection between Native American political thought and the “Enlightenment” > [@Tusculan](#): > > And what was the effect of the massive influx of specie on the premodern economy of Europe? American silver [fucked the Spanish economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_revolution) _royall_y \* \* [my little joke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_real) ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/30 "2022-01-18T15:11:09Z")
Lima is in Peru not Mexico ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/31 "2022-01-18T15:16:09Z")
> [@PozhanPop](#): > > Yes. Population growth and nature. > I guess without major transoceanic voyages as with the > European expeditions in the 14th century to find spice routes Without transoceanic voyages, I doubt Oceana (Hawaii, Easter Island, Tonga, Samoa, Gilligan’s Island, etc.) would have been populated. Or even New Zealand and Australia. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/32 "2022-01-18T15:38:29Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > I’m with you on this point. I wonder of Japan is a good example - an autonomous and mostly closed society, which obviously had contact with other countries but in a much more limited sense, and so has a highly distinctive culture that has only become more ‘westernised’ with the advent of opening up/TV/Trade/globalisation/WWII in the last 80 years or so. Japan was colonized, a few times at least, by people from what are currently Korea and China. The indigenous people of Japan were mostly wiped out. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/33 "2022-01-18T16:04:50Z")
The Greeks were wealthy enough to have a class of philosophers and soldiers. They would have been subsistence farmers and fishermen without ships bringing food for their cities through trade and, for the Spartans, a tribe of slaves to do the menial work. What we know of past civilisations tends towards those that left behind stone buildings that have endured and those that developed writing. So the archeological record, like the geologic record, is only part of the picture. The Dawn of Everything is over 700 pages long. I am guessing it theorises about what type of societies existed in the past and connects that to what anthropologists can observe in indigineous societies that still survive. There is usually a political bent to such books and there is only so much we can decipher from the meagre evidence of what remains from ancient times. Archeology tends to attract some very odd ideas. Thanks for the reference. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/34 "2022-01-18T16:24:12Z")
That would be the Ainu people, there are a few left. The Ainu story is rather sad and all too familiar tale of the fate of a native people, overwhelmed by technologically advanced nation state expanding into their territory. > **[Japan’s forgotten indigenous people](https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20200519-japans-forgotten-indigenous-people)** > > Japan’s indigenous people, the Ainu, were the earliest settlers of Hokkaido, Japan’s northern island. But most travellers will not have heard of them. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/35 "2022-01-18T16:30:41Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#): > > That would be the Ainu people, there are a few left. The Ainu story is rather sad and all too familiar tale of the fate of a native people, overwhelmed by technologically advanced nation state expanding into their territory. No. Its them and the tsuchigumo and the others. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/36 "2022-01-18T16:34:13Z")
> [@Chingon](#): > > Lima is in Peru not Mexico Sorry, was this in reply to something I wrote? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/37 "2022-01-18T16:37:07Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#): > > They would have been subsistence farmers and fishermen without ships bringing food for their cities through trade and, for the Spartans, a tribe of slaves to do the menial work. The Spartan helots weren’t brought in by ship. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/38 "2022-01-18T16:37:50Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#): > > I am guessing it theorises about what type of societies existed in the past and connects that to what anthropologists can observe in indigineous societies that still survive. Your guess is 100% wrong. _The Dawn of Everything_ is based on hard facts, serious research, and hundreds of cites of published papers, many of them within the last 20 years, and it’s written by life-long professionals in the field. About a third of those 700 pages are taken up by footnotes, a bibliography, and an index. This is a serious landmark study, not populist speculation. But make no mistake, it’s not dry reading. It’s fascinating, compelling, and a genuine pleasure to read. (By the way, the authors go into detail about why present day hunter-gather societies have very little to tell us about the past.) ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/39 "2022-01-18T17:04:46Z")
Good to know, I will add it to my reading list. ---
**Author:** ![PozhanPop](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pozhanpop/32/8022_2.png) [@PozhanPop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PozhanPop)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2022, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955/40 "2022-01-18T17:56:44Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > Elephants and lions are extinct? Oops, that should have read , animals that are presently extinct or very close to it. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-imagine-for-a-moment-that-there-was-no-colonization/957955.md?page=3)