Limited Colonization in the Americas

As some of you are aware, I've been making a TL dealing with trying to get the Maya to survive as a culture, a nation, and a civilization. Now while I wait for my good, non-borrowed computer to be repaired, I felt like making a thread to discuss some potential side effects I was thinking about.

To be frank, what are the chances and possible consequences of European colonization of the Americas not being what it was? This is to say, I was thinking more along the lines of having people like the Aztecs, Inca, etc, not being completely conquered, wiped out, and/or assimmilated, but instead the colonial powers (probably still Spain) simply maintains them in a vassal relationship, as in they remain intact, their rulers still on the throne, but they must pay tribute, mostly in gold and silver, to Spain and they are not allowed to trade with any country but themselves. In addition, Spanish missionaries and traders and other such people are allowed to travel freely across their lands.

What is the likelihood that a change of events can lead the Spanish or whoever into trying to get a situation like this rather than bloodthirsty conquest? Obviously one of the changes will have to be the death of Cortez. Preferably long before he even gets to Mexico proper. He could possibly simply be killed in battle on Cozumel. But beyond that, would would have to change? And if this is possible, what are the consequences in Europe? How long do you guys think it'd take for them to throw off the Spanish yoke? Etc.

Each time this question comes up, I wonder how any Native American culture can survive the onslaught of European diseases. Estimates of mortality rates among the Maya range as high as 80 percent, and one source puts the mortality rate from smallpox alone at 90 percent for some tribes/cultures. So solve that problem, and then there's a chance that the Maya, Aztec, or Inca civilizations might survive.

The sources and cites at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas

offer a start at exploring this problem.

One possibility is a power taking control of an area of the Americas with trade rather than settlement in mind-the Dutch, I believe, were more interested in trade than colonization, and the French trapped for furs rather than colonized large parts of their territory.

A power that needs trade or access to resources but not land will not casually massacre its native allies, and will even attempt to protect them. This could give a chance for native populations to recover, or at least stabilize to the point where they can re-form into their own autonomous nation, although they would be a protectorate.

twovultures said:

One possibility is a power taking control of an area of the Americas with trade rather than settlement in mind-the Dutch, I believe, were more interested in trade than colonization, and the French trapped for furs rather than colonized large parts of their territory.

A power that needs trade or access to resources but not land will not casually massacre its native allies, and will even attempt to protect them. This could give a chance for native populations to recover, or at least stabilize to the point where they can re-form into their own autonomous nation, although they would be a protectorate.

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Yeah, this is what I was thinking. So basically have someone other than Spain get there? Although if my memory serves me well the Spanish king himself wasn't all that happy with what happened OTL.

As stated before disease is the main problem but if you can take care of smallpox and measles there will be no need to import large numbers of African slaves and you can avoid the introduction of malaria and yellow fever into the Americas.

One way to deal with smallpox would be too have western science become aware of the Vedic practice of onoculation and say later in the Renaissance have a great scientist like Da Vinci realize the connection between cowpox and smallpox. The Vedic texts also included hydration therapy (a good way to deal with Cholera, Typhoid and the like) as well as germ theory.

Measles is the hardest to get around other than finding some method of quarantine and screening.

Well someone on a totally different thread a while ago mentioned having a less virulent strain of smallpox hit the Americas first. Lots of people will still die, but not as much as OTL. Beside, this thread isn't so much about having nobody die from disease as it is about the native cultures surviving and not being totally conquered. Instead they face a situation more similar to that of the Chinese in the 19th Century, or a better comparison perhaps would be to India under British domination. India retained its customs, religion, and even its rulers in a lot of places, but they were still subservient to the British.

On another thread recently, someone (sorry I can't remember who ) reminded me that Columbus basically discovered the Americas because he sucked at math. So, WI Columbus never sails and the New World is first documented by another European, someone who realizes he's not in Asia, sometime later? Knowing that China is really not just around the corner, the first Europeans might not be all that interested in what they've found; there's some possibility for trade, and of course missionaries must be sent to give unto the heathen the light of the true faith, but other than that there's not much going on as far as Europeans are concerned. There would likely be a permanent trader and missionary presence from then on, but European exploration might proceed more slowly. However, their diseases will be getting ahead of them via native trading routes. Eventually, of course, rumors are going to get back to the Europeans about cities of gold stocked with unimagined riches: but if this takes, say 50 years after first contact, the advanced civilizations like the Aztecs will have already endured epidemics and rebuilt, and if the societies are able to survive the epidemics basically intact, they might have a shot at forcing the Europeans to deal with them on a more equal footing.

Another idea could be a failed Reconquista, so that Spain remains Muslim and they really don't have that much interest in going westward looking for gold and slaves. Maybe some explorers do go out there and find new lands (and accidentaly spread the less potent form of smallpox), but don't take much interest in them beside trading Mesoamerican trinkets and novelties for their own stuff.

Anyway, the idea I was rolling with for my TL is that there is no Mayan Collapse, and over the centuries they become much more unified than OTL, so that they end up blunting Spanish conquest by killing the first few waves of conquistadors. I don't see this as totally unlikely considering how a governor of a minor Maya province kinda defeated 200 Spaniards on his own several years before Cortez. My thought train which hasn't really been completed yet has contemplated having the Spanish experience in America be so bad that the Viceroys and even the king himself decide further attempts aren't worth it. But I was never really sure as to the fate of the Peru and Mexico proper.

For the purposes of this discussion, let's say the Aztecs are the ones to blunt Spanish conquest, as I'm sure you guys are more familiar with them and it requires less POD's. Now, this would obviously impact Peru if Pizarro never really made it to the New World as Mexico wasn't conquered. Cortez is obviously dead along with any of his followers who didn't surrender and cooperate with the Mexica. And let's assume that the less potent smallpox, viriola minor IIRC, is what spreads rather than the bigger one. Rather than a 1/3 death rate, assume 1/5 or so. Still disastrous, but not on the same scale. Given that in this situation not only have hundreds of Spaniards died, so have many tens of thousands of their Indian allies, the Spanish authorities in the Americas might be a bit daunted and despite their losses, the Mexica are in a stronger position than before. The former allies of Cortez sue for peace with Tenochtitlan as they too have been devastated by disease and their armies are broken. The Aztecs are too weak to punish them, but they accept their surrender and the empire has grown larger. What is the actual likelihood of further Spanish conquest in this scenario? Remember, on the mainlaind they still pretty much only have Panama, far from anybody really. The Inca I don't think have met the Spanish yet as well. So is it possible that the king will tell Vasquez to negotiate with the Aztecs? Would the same be likely for the Inca?

Well, I certainly think this is possible. It's obscured by later events, but the Spanish treated the early leaders of the defeated states as... not equals, but certainly worth a lot of effort to go to the Spanish side. The Nahuatl of nobility of the Triple Alliance, for instance, was allowed a fair degree of autonomy, and did produce some fascinating Nahuatl texts in that time. The scenario you've outlined above seems plausible, but perhaps it would be best to have the Spanish get another native Empire enemy as a major enemy by some accent, thereby forcing them to rely on the native allies? Something like Campeche in the Spanish Conquest of the Yucatan or the Tlaxcaltec (who were treated better then the other natives for significant period of time), but with less eventual dismissal as they become unimportant?

Desmond Hume said:

... say 50 years after first contact, the advanced civilizations like the Aztecs will have already endured epidemics and rebuilt, and if the societies are able to survive the epidemics basically intact, ...

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But they won't have rebuilt and they aren't going to survive. That's what we constantly have to explain in threads of this type.

As late as the 1800s, diseases like smallpox were still killing Amerindians more than they did people of European or African descent. It wasn't the case that surviving one epidemic would save you and your kids from the next.

Don Lardo said:

But they won't have rebuilt and they aren't going to survive. That's what we constantly have to explain in threads of this type.

As late as the 1800s, diseases like smallpox were still killing Amerindians more than they did people of European or African descent. It wasn't the case that surviving one epidemic would save you and your kids from the next.

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Which Amerindians, though? The ones in Mexico and Peru that had had hundreds of years of continual contact with Europeans and Africans? Or the ones from the interior of Brazil or the future US who had only been exposed indirectly and sporadically?

I mean, there's obviously a big difference there! Just saying "Amerindian" lumps together a lot of groups with different contact histories, populations, and connections with the rest of the world. It's a nice statistic, but without that context it doesn't tell you anything.