In North America, it seems that Europeans dominated the land. There was not as much mixing of Native American and European, and Native American numbers decreased.
In South America, the destruction was great, but mixing occurred to a great extent, the civilizations were not wiped out, and today Hispanics basically look like Native Americans, at least to a considerable extent.
Feel free to correct the above. It’s just my impression at my current inadequate level of knowledge.
And also: Why did the above happen the way it did? Thanks!
Huh? The populations that look “basically Native American” are those who existed in very very large numbers, and presented some degree of opposition to the invaders. You can’t compare some of the societies that existed in the east coast of the US with the empires that were in Mexico and South America. In any case, it is more easier to compare to the Caribbean, where they were basically exterminated or intermingled. And most of the population in the Caribbean, despite a large percentage of Native American markers, does not look like them. And if they do, it is more likely because of the mixing of Africans and Europeans.
I’ve wondered this too. My guess is that the Spanish were cooler with race mixing than the French and English. That’s why a huge percentage of Central and South America is populated by Spanish speaking mestizos.
A lot of the colonies (after initial exploration) that were initially formed by English companies included families. While in Spanish colonies, families were originally not the first immigrants. Single young men were. So yes, there was more mixing (voluntarily or not).
And again, this is not true in all parts of Latin America, even in areas with large indigenous or mestizo populations. And these populations have also been traditionally discriminated against.
This is basically it. The English and Spanish colonies were settled in a very different manner. English colonists often consisted of families, and also included single women as well as single men. The initial Spanish colonists were soldiers and adventurers trying to make their fortunes. They came without wives, and there were few single Spanish women among them. They took native women as partners, resulting in a large mixed population.
To some extent it was also due to different population densities in North and Central and South America. When the Spanish arrived, there were very large, dense indigenous populations in Mexico, Central America, and parts of South America. Although the native peoples suffered catastrophic declines due to European and African diseases, enough remained so they are still a large part of the population.
In North America, the original population was probably not as dense in most places. In many places, the population decline due to disease took place before the arrival of many Europeans (due to transmission from tribes that had been in contact). The ratio between European colonists and natives was greater there.
Recent genetic work in Panama has shown evidence of the early settlement patterns. I don’t recall the exact figures, but about 70% of Panamanians have indigenous ancestry in the female line (as shown by mtDNA, which is inherited matrilineally). In contrast, a similar figure is descended from Europeans in the male line (as shown by the Y-chromosome, present only in males).
IIRC, something similar was found for Puerto Rico, at least in the study that was done. Two thirds or so of the population had mtDNA markers showing indigenous ancestry.
Wasn’t pre-1492 indigenous population heavily skewed toward Latin America anyway? Admittedly estimating these populations is fraught with problems, but most sources hold 90% of the native population of the Americas was located south of the Rio Grande. It would be much easier for the North American population to either die off or be absorbed into white populations without making much of a genetic influence on whites.
As I mentioned, that could also be a factor. Argentina has one of the largest percentages of European ancestry in Latin America, and as a mostly temperate country probably had a comparatively lower indigenous population than other areas. (Another factor, however, was that as a temperate area it was more attractive to later European settlers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.)
Much of South America was largely inaccessible in a manner that North America was not. The Amazon Basin, the Guiana Highlands, The Andes and Atacama Desert are some of the most harsh environments on Earth. That limited most settlement of South America to its coastal fringes where it remained until the middle of the 19th century. Had South America had the vast plains found in what is now the US and Canada, its interior would have been settled more thoroughly than it was, which is indicated by the relatively tiny populations of The Andes and of Bolivia in particular.
There’s also the fact that Spain and Portugal essentially controlled the continent, with minor exceptions along its northern coast (Guyana,Suriname and French Guiana) and the Falkland Islands. Given those nations relatively tiny populations until the 20th century ( the Iberian Peninsula where both countries are located have a total population of slightly less than 60 million even though their landmass is almost 4 times that of the United Kingdom which has a larger population) it’s not surprising that they were unable to send the numbers of colonists to the overseas holdings that Great Britain and France were. And as such, they were less likely to infect their native populations with Old World diseases will there were no treatments for those diseases.
The numerically fewer Spaniards were able to pass on plenty of disease to the native populations. If I remember “1491” correctly, the Inca were suffering from the SECOND massive European-delivered mass disease outbreak at the time of Pizarro’s conquest. The same book also discusses the numerous settlements along the Amazon seen by the first Spaniards in the area.
Note that in New France, which was closer to the “resource exploitation” model than to settlement, there was considerable mixing between male Europeans and female indigenous, in the interior, where the French fur traders travelled. The Prairie provinces have a significant Métis population as a result. However, with the great mass settlement of Europeans in the prairie region in the late 19th-early 20th century, the Métis population declined significantly as a percentage of the population overall.
The Inca were never a large population to begin with, so a mass extinction, while certainly tragic, would have in no way depopulated the continent in the same manner that the introduction of European diseases did to North America. Again, the Spanish and Portuguese colonist in South America primarily settled the fringes of the continent until the 19th century by which time they colonies were either in revolt and expelling their colonial masters.
This is quite wrong. European diseases were introduced into areas colonized by the Spanish almost immediately upon contact, or even before direct contact. Smallpox was introduced to the Aztec realm by the Cortez expedition in 1519, and its decimation of the population played a large part in the success of the conquest. As TSBG says, an epidemic of introduced disease spread through the Inca Empire even before Pizarro arrived, and also contributed to the conquest of that empire.
This is also wrong in just about every way. It is evidently based on projecting the present population distributions of these areas into the past. The Andes, far from being sparsely populated, actually have thehighest population densitiesof the Spanish speaking parts of South America even today. In Mexico and Central America also, the densest populations are generally found in the highlands, rather than in peripheral areas.
The population of the Inca Empire has been estimated at anything from 4 to 37 million, with the best estimates perhaps 8 to 12 million. The population of Spain in 1500 was about 7 million, so even at the lower estimate the Inca Empire was over half its size, and possibly much larger. The population of the British Isles in 1500 was perhaps 4 million, and thus much less than Spain. France was the most populous country in western Europe, with maybe 15 million. Differences in population do not account for the differences in colonization by these countries.
Also, I fail to see what the Great Plains of the US and Canada have to do with the ease of settlement, since at present they are some of the most sparsely populated areas in the Americas. (They also had a relatively low density in pre-Columbian times.) The most densely populated areas of the US and Canada are in the east, in areas that were once forest, and where westward expansion was blocked at first by the Appalachians.
I would think that the sparse population of pre-Columbian Great Plains was due to the dependence on the bison (buffalo). This entailed being able to move your group (tribe, etc.) and all belongings around following the migratory animals. The Eastern Woodlands peoples (of which my tribe was one) relied on farming, fishing and hunting and were thus able to support higher population densities in pre-Columbian times.
I remember reading about settler’s reactions to the “vast sea of grass” upon encountering the tallgrass prairies of the Great Plains. The plains were almost regarded as a grassland desert, with little to attract people to remain there. Apparently this lack of desirability remains in some fashion to the present day.
I’ve seen it claimed in the past that the French preferred the “insinuate themselves into native society and negotiate with or subvert them” method of expansion, the Spanish preferred the “subjugate the native population” method, and the English preferred the “shove out or kill the natives then replace them” method of expansion.
So, going by that the reason that there are more people with Native America ancestors in South America is because the Spanish version of imperialism dominated in SA, and subjugated their ancestors rather than killing them or driving them onto reservations. Meanwhile, North America was dominated by the English model of imperialism, which resulted in NA Indians being killed or herded into reservations.
The lack of people and the dependence on the buffalo was probably a result of the depopulation of the Indians caused by infectious diseases. Cahokia in present day Illinios was thought to be one of the largest cities in the world during the 1200s. It was abandoned in the 1300s for unknown reasons but those people likely didn’t just disappear.
Malaria affected all the Americas but it seems to be most prevalent in warmer and marshier areas. Since most of South America is hotter and wetter than north America malaria was more prevalent there. This made it very difficult for Europeans to move to South America as malaria would kill about half the people who had no resistance to it. Very few people would move to a place where there is a fifty/fifty chance of a painful death. This kept numbers of colonists down and meant higher percentage of people being Indian.
The Aztec were/are a Meso-American tribe, not South American. A Central American, such as yourself would and should know that. What they have to do with a discussion of SOUTH AMERICA is somewhat unclear unless we are moving the goalposts.
Since Pizarro conquered the Incan Empire, please feel free to enlighten me on how the regime was decimated prior to his arrival.
You do realize that the areas of South America where the Incas reigned were (and are) multiples the size of the Iberian Peninsula,correct? Even Bolivia, at 424k square miles is more than twice the size of the Iberian Peninsula in total. SO having a population of 4 million spread across an area of that size would make it…wait for it…sparsely populated.
In fact you would need to get a population above 50 million to have an area almost the size of Australia (modern day Peru, Bolivia and Colombia where the Inca reign extended to) to even begin to resemble “densely populated” in some areas. And no one has ever claimed that the Inca population ever reached those number in pre-Colombian times.
Unless things changed since I woke up this morning, the majority of the aboriginal peoples in South America came from…wait for it again…North America. If North America’s more temperate climes could have supported at least a comparable population to pre-Colombian South America, it’s difficult to see how a region who’s most temperate portions (modern day Uruguay,Paraguay and Eastern Argentina) are beyond dense jungles and steep mountains would have ever been populated which comparable or greater numbers.
Also, North America was colonized from West to East by its aboriginal inhabitants. The Appalachians only “blocked” the few European settlers who were unwilling or unable to locate and access the numerous mountain passes, water gaps and rivers which bisect the the mountain region. And even that only lasted 50-100 years after the populations on its Eastern Seaboard built to levels where overcrowding and a lack of resources became pressures to motivate further exploration.
I think the short answer is that most of the peoples of North America were still hunter-gatherers. The Mississippian culture flourished and then largely dispersed (as puddleglum noted) and in most of North America natives never settled down at all.
Hunter/gathered societies invariably have much lower population densities than settled peoples - the dense population of the Andes (which Colibri refers to) is largely due to the fact that they had agriculture and most of the rest of South America didn’t.
Smallpox crossed the isthmus of Panama and killed the legitimate Inca and his primary heir while they were campaigning in modern day Ecuador. In addition to whatever damage this first epidemic may have done generally, this event directly precipitated the civil war between rival candidates Atahualpa and Huascar for the throne. Which was still raging when Pizarro arrived to take advantage of the chaos.
As noted it was probably twice that or more, but yes by modern standards it was not a dense population. It was however a large population by contemporary European standards under a single semi-centralized regime. The population density reflected the discontinuous nature of Andean settlement, which coincidentally is probably the largest factor in the slower spread and comparatively lighter damage suffered by Andean populations to diseases with human-to-human communicability chains. As communities died they served as firebreaks, something a lot less possible in more densely populated Mesoamerica.
