# What if native Americans weren't so nice **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 15, 2018, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706 "2018-01-15T18:06:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706/41 "2018-01-18T18:00:23Z")
Don’t forget the psychology of men wanting to have expensive things simply to enhance their own status. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706/42 "2018-01-18T18:15:21Z")
> [@rat\_avatar](#): > > People over estimate the value of muskets compared to bows, but this is purely revisionist history. Muskets were not rifled, and were far from accurate compared to a skilled person with a bow. > > The rate of fire and accuracy of a bow is much higher than a musket, but it also requires high degree of skill to use proficiently. **While modern firearms are superior to a bow, in this era it was a crutch to make up for a poorly trained force.** I think the part I bolded is what’s important here. The natives didn’t have the military tactics of the Europeans, they were used to engaging in direct combat and stealth attacks, they didn’t assemble lines of archers to rain a hail of arrows on their attackers. A musket was a quick solution to a lack of organization and training. In the end it didn’t matter how the Europeans were initially dealt with, the deal with the Pilgrims didn’t hold up no matter what the basis for it was, the Europeans wanted the land, ignored all agreements and took it. I will say that a little later on the Pennsylvanian Quakers put some effort into maintaining their agreements with the tribes there and avoided the Indian Wars that took place in the other colonies. ---
**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:** [January 18, 2018, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706/43 "2018-01-18T18:24:58Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The advantages of bows over muskets are generally two fold, they are more accurate and the rate of fire is higher. The musket, for its part, has one huge advantage : when a ball does hit (mostly by sheer luck), it leaves a \*\*big \*\*hole. Ruins your entire afternoon, it does. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706/44 "2018-01-18T18:27:28Z")
> [@rat\_avatar](#): > > Of course the real absurdity is the fact that we ignore other British colonies that pre-dated them, and which were more successful. What British colony that pre-dated Plymouth was successful, other than Jamestown? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706/45 "2018-01-18T18:43:51Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > What British colony that pre-dated Plymouth was successful, other than Jamestown? There was a Bermuda Colony, but that wasn’t on the North American mainland. Also off our shores was the Brit’s first colony, Ireland. ---
**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:** [January 18, 2018, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706/46 "2018-01-18T18:47:06Z")
> [@rat\_avatar](#): > > The success in colonization of America probably has just as much or more to do with the unintentional introduction of new diseases to a population without an establish immunity than it has to do with anything related to European post facto perceived superiority. That’s a pretty absurd statement considered the Europeans managed to colonize pretty much the entire planet. If it didn’t happen in the 17th century, it would have happened in the 18th. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706/47 "2018-01-18T19:03:35Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > That’s a pretty absurd statement considered the Europeans managed to colonize pretty much the entire planet. If it didn’t happen in the 17th century, it would have happened in the 18th. While this is true, the form that colonization took varied hugely from place to place … the British colonized India, but India is today filled with the descendants Indians, and not the descendants of the British. The impact of diseases and depopulation in North America allowed the Natives not only to be colonized, but effectively pushed aside and replaced, something the British in India never even dreamed of doing. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706/48 "2018-01-18T20:57:44Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > That’s a pretty absurd statement considered the Europeans managed to colonize pretty much the entire planet. If it didn’t happen in the 17th century, it would have happened in the 18th. So tell me, in those other colonies…how many of them are majority “white” populations today? In how many of those places had they actively perused genocide against the native populations for centuries? Independent research suggests 25-50% of Native American Women were sterilized between 1970-1976 alone through fraud and coercion. can you provide an analogue for other colonies in recent times, where the white population replaced the native populations and actively worked to commit genocide for centuries? The **lowest** estimates give a death toll due from disease of 90% by the end of the 17th century. Do you really think that Cortes and 600 Spanish soldiers could have been successful in the absence of a societal collapse caused by disease that the invading parties wouldn’t even understand how was passed on until centuries later? Or are you just arguing that the superiority of muskets and pike lines provided a 10000:1 advantage? While the victors are the ones that tell the stories, I would say the classic narrative is what is absurd. Although it is useful for us all to comfort ourselves and ignore the realities on how our ancestors gained absolute control. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706/49 "2018-01-18T21:50:33Z")
To Quote John Smith (of Jamestown) on the musket: > [@](#): > > “the awful truth…it could not shoot as far as an arrow could fly.” I think that the other barrier here is that schools still teach that areas like New England were wilderness, which was not true. The native populations had been using fire and other tools to improve their crop yields by the time colonization started. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706/50 "2018-01-18T22:09:26Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > What British colony that pre-dated Plymouth was successful, other than Jamestown? I misspoke, I meant to say European. But Jamestown was earlier. In the context of this thread it doesn’t matter that settlements like Port-Royal and Quebec didn’t fly the British flag, I believe that unlike the Pilgrims they didn’t resort to cannibalism. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2018, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706/51 "2018-01-19T03:16:21Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > It doesn’t make sense to let members of your technologically advanced neighbors join you if you just see them as means to an end? Right. If it’s “means to an end” then you let one or two join because maybe they’ll be useful. Then when you see the average sailor knows nothing vaguely useful to you, and is in fact something of a survival liability, plus not even useful as a bargaining chip, you throw them out and don’t let others join. But that’s not what happened. I’m not saying that they did it out of altruism. A big part was probably just curiosity, and that it was cool to have a couple of alien-looking folks in your tribe. I just find it implausible (and somewhat self-serving) to interpret everything they did as part of ruthless cold calculation. ---
**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:** [January 19, 2018, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706/52 "2018-01-19T05:34:47Z")
> [@rat\_avatar](#): > > I think that the other barrier here is that schools still teach that areas like New England were wilderness, which was not true. The native populations had been using fire and other tools to improve their crop yields by the time colonization started. Indeed. I remember reading an account by an early settler of… I think it was Massachussets ? Doesn’t really matter. Anyway, the guy waxes religiously poetic about how this really is the promised land and everything about it proves that God meant it for his Chosen because everything seems designed to help him and his community, they found the perfect flat hills to settle a village with a commanding view of the countryside and there’s great places to put fields with nary a stone to be found and the nearby forest is just perfect for wood gathering and so on and so forth. The reconstructed historical truth is, it had been the place where the Native guide they’d brought with them (who’d been captured by the first wave of explorers, taken to Europe, then brought back _again_ to help the settling party) had called home a decade before - but his village and all the people in it were just gone. He was trying to go home (and possibly, but that’s my own speculation, maybe lure his captors into an ambush), but it just wasn’t there any more. It wasn’t “god’s own garden of Eden on this Earth”, it’s just that generations of people had worked the land and made it suitable for human needs. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_lining](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aca169/32.png) [@Silver\_lining](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_lining)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2018, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706/53 "2018-01-20T18:52:09Z")
> [@AWB](#): > > I was wondering what the world would’ve been like if Europeans hadn’t been able to found colonies in North and South America. > > For example, suppose _all_ of the indigenous peoples of the Americas were more like the [North Sentinelese](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3049022/The-island-dangerous-visit-Mysterious-Sentinelese-tribe-rejected-outsiders-60-000-years-try-kill-sets-foot-land.html), who viciously attack anyone who lands on their island. > > In this scenario, perhaps Colombus’s first voyage would’ve had all his men slaughtered, except for maybe a skeleton crew who escaped. And they reported to the Spanish crown how violent these people were. > > And also suppose the natives could fend off the Europeans for at least a century, even though the Europeans had the greater firepower of guns. Being nice or not had little to do with it. The group as a whole was 100’s of years behind where the Europeans in negotiations, law, military, science, the concept of living in cities, etc… ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2018, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706/54 "2018-01-21T04:40:26Z")
> [@Silver\_lining](#): > > Being nice or not had little to do with it. The group as a whole was 100’s of years behind where the Europeans in negotiations, law, military, science, the concept of living in cities, etc… Factors to consider are that north america was quite highly-populated, guns at the time sucked against skilled bowmen and taking anything across the atlantic was extremely costly in lives and resources. If it weren’t for the most important factor: disease, I would say it’s possible to imagine the natives deterring settlers / invaders for long enough, then playing the various european powers off each other, such that much of the continent would remain independent into the modern era. I’m not saying this is the most likely scenario, just a plausible one. But with disease in the mix, I can’t conceive of anything ultimately happening than basically what did happen, just with a slightly different timeline. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2018, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706/55 "2018-01-21T20:52:47Z")
> [@Silver\_lining](#): > > Being nice or not had little to do with it. The group as a whole was 100’s of years behind where the Europeans in negotiations, law, military, science, the concept of living in cities, etc… Well, by no means all of them. The Mayans and Aztecs had mighty cities, laws, a Military, etc. the Pueblo indians had cities, and the Mound Builders did also. They were still living in the late Paleolithic, it is true and some Indians were still hunter/gatherers. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2018, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706/56 "2018-01-21T21:42:02Z")
The Mayan civilization seems like it was pretty damn advanced. If they had guns, and weren’t as vulnerable to the diseases, I think they probably would have held their own. ---
**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 21, 2018, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706/57 "2018-01-21T22:01:33Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Well, by no means all of them. The Mayans and Aztecs had mighty cities, laws, a Military, etc. the Pueblo indians had cities, and the Mound Builders did also. > > They were still living in the late Paleolithic, it is true No, it isn’t true at all. All the ones you name were, at worst, Neolithic-equivalent and most were more Chalcolithic- if not outright Bronze Age-equivalent. > [@](#): > > and some Indians were still hunter/gatherers. Not really any of the ones that would contact Europeans first. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2018, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706/58 "2018-01-21T22:16:00Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > No, it isn’t true at all. All the ones you name were, at worst, Neolithic-equivalent and most were more Chalcolithic- if not outright Bronze Age-equivalent. > Not really any of the ones that would contact Europeans first. None were bronze age, some did use copper for ornaments, mostly. But yes, if you are going to split hairs, the term Neolithic is better. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2018, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706/59 "2018-01-21T22:18:15Z")
> [@Jacquernagy](#): > > The Mayan civilization seems like it was pretty damn advanced. If they had guns, and weren’t as vulnerable to the diseases, I think they probably would have held their own. The Mayans were on their way out when the Spanish arrived. > **[Maya civilization | Contact period and Spanish conquest (1511–1697 AD)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_civilization#Contact_period_and_Spanish_conquest_(1511%E2%80%931697_AD))** > > In 1511, a Spanish caravel was wrecked in the Caribbean, and about a dozen survivors made landfall on the coast of Yucatán. They were seized by a Maya lord, and most were sacrificed, although two escaped. From 1517 to 1519, three separate Spanish expeditions explored the Yucatán coast, and engaged in a number of battles with the Maya inhabitants. After the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan fell to the Spanish in 1521, Hernán Cortés despatched Pedro de Alvarado to Guatemala with 180 cavalry, 300 infa ---
**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 22, 2018, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706/60 "2018-01-22T04:32:57Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > None were bronze age I’d argue that the Aztecs and Mayans [definitely](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-Columbian_Mesoamerica)were. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-native-americans-werent-so-nice/806706.md?page=4)