Anonymous #1 2w

The native Americans had all of those things but only after a large majority of their populations were wiped out by plague. I would say it’s the most unintentional genocide ever, but there are documented cases of people giving the native Americans infected blankets because they knew they weren’t immune to the disease

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Anonymous #4 2w

A lower population density and fewer urban centers in North America (plus with many Mississippian societies in decline when De Soto arrived) meant that the USA and Canada were more vulnerable to large-scale population replacement than Mexico or the Andes. And there were many native powers in North America during the European colonial period, many of them taking advantage of access to European goods and markets.

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Anonymous #4 2w

The Iroquois confederacy’s dominance of the Great Lakes was only because of the competition for pelts during the Beaver Wars and access to European firearms. The Great Plains domains of the Lakota, Comanche, Apache, and others was due to access to European horses and firearms. The Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, Creek, and Chickasaw adopted European styles of government, agriculture, and chattel slavery.

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Anonymous #4 2w

And we can’t deny the role of slavery here either. The native civilizations of Florida like the Timucua and Calusa weren’t wiped out by disease, but by slave raiding from the Creek and Yamasee who sold to Englishmen in Charleston. From what I’ve read the Amazon basin in South America is similar, and its depopulation was likely more from Portuguese slaving than from disease.

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Anonymous #4 2w

So it’s a mixed bag. Disease absolutely played a huge role, but also important across the continent was political instability and technological inequality. The Spanish couldn’t have conquered Mexico if the Tlaxcaltecs didn’t join them against the Aztecs (and I can’t blame them). The conquest of the Incan empire, meanwhile, happened because they were weakened by a succession crisis and civil war caused by European diseases.

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Anonymous #4 2w

For societies like the Iroquois, Yamassee, Cherokee, and Creek, close political and trade alliances with Europeans were initially beneficial, giving them an upper hand over indigenous rivals. It’s just that when the Europeans gained enough of an upper hand, they turned on allied native tribes and subjugated them.

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Anonymous #4 2w

The destruction of the Yamassee is particularly wild to me. They and the Creek were the primary tribes responsible for the total depopulation of the Florida peninsula. The last remnants of the Florida tribes like the Calusa, Timucua, Ais, Jaega, and Teqesta fled to Saint Augustine and the Florida keys, where they were evacuated by the spanish to Cuba.

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Anonymous #4 2w

With the populations of both deer and tribes available for slave raiding dwindling, the Yamassee became increasingly indebted to colonists in South Carolina. This eventually sparked a Yamassee revolt where many colonists were killed. The resulting Yamassee war completely shattered the Yamassee confederacy, and a huge proportion were killed. Some joined the Creek or Seminoles. And some fled to Saint Augustine, where the Spanish evacuated them to Cuba, like the yamassee’s victims decades prior

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