An Expansionist Native American Religion

So, recently I saw a thread discussing disease in the Americas post contact, in which commentators were talking about the lack of genetic diversity being a contributing factor in why Old World diseases were able to tear through the Americas with such ruthless efficiency (at least from the viruses' perspectives). In this thread, the commentators were discussing the possibility of mitigating this with Spanish trade with Meso-American states rather than demolishing of them (perhaps by butterflying Cortés' successes somehow), with specific emphasis on the exchange of slaves for gold. In this scenario, it was proposed that African slavery among the Aztecs and Maya might function more like Middle Eastern/Mediterranean slavery in that slaves would be used for a wider variety of professions than just working colonial cash crops, which could see them making a significant genetic contribution to the population over time, especially as Native populations would be dropping due to disease.


So, all of this got me thinking about the blending of West African/Meso-American societies. Around this time of course (the Early Modern Era), considerable parts of West Africa are Muslim, while others follow indigenous religious traditions, while the Aztecs and the Maya are still very much into religions that center around human sacrifice. I was wondering if, through the blending of indigenous African/Muslim traditions and Meso-American ones, we might see an expansionist religion a la Islam developing in Meso-America, and what such a religion might look like?


Honestly, I am not entirely that knowledgeable about either Meso-American religion or indigenous African religion, but I can tell you quite a bit about Islam, having read the Qur'an more than once. Does anyone have any thoughts?
 
So, recently I saw a thread discussing disease in the Americas post contact
The thread doesn't really reflect the most recent historiography. Nowadays historical demographers are likely to say that disease only had the devastating effect it had because it combined with the profoundly dislocating effects of Spanish imperialism. (There's also a trend of lower population estimates for the pre-Columbian Americas to begin with.)

There is little actual support for the "epidemics spread throughout the Americas before the Europeans got there and made all societies collapse" theory. The Mississippian collapse does not appear to have had much to do with Spanish diseases, although De Soto's military presence exacerbated the process. There is even doubt about whether Huayna Capac really did die of smallpox.

You can look at two counterexamples:
  • The Philippines, conquered by the Spaniards beginning in the 1570s. The Philippines also suffered severe population collapse, with the population shrinking by 36% in thirty years and 66% in ninety years. While less terrible than in the Americas (65% decline in fifty years, in the Basin of Mexico), there's little real evidence that this has to do with the genetic diversity of the Filipinos or their exposure to disease (because of low population densities, the main killers were not endemic in the Philippines). The Filipino population decline seems most attributable to the facts that, first, there were almost no Spaniards in the colony to fuck things up, and second, the population density was already fairly low and settlement patterns were not conducive to the spread of disease.
  • The Jesuit missions in Paraguay. While hardly humane, the indigenous population of the missions more than tripled in the hundred years before their closure, from 40,000 in the 1640s to 140,000 in 1730 (the Jesuit territories did not expand much territorially in these nine decades and the number of new Indians brought in by Jesuits appears to have been equal to the number of Indians running away from the missions, so immigration can't be a major factor). This was despite constant epidemics. Why? Because the Jesuits, as good Catholic priests, worked extremely hard to promote a family system in which 1) marriage was universal and stable, 2) the Indians married as early as possible, and 3) the Indians had as many children as possible (an average of eight children per women). This seems to have offset both a very high mortality rate even under normal circumstances (average annual death rate of 4.4.%) and the regular occurrence of terrible epidemics.
 
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-a-comanche-genghis-khan.422973/
This one thread's second post deals with the possibility of the Comanche getting their own "great leader" and expanding across North America. I'd find it interesting if a "Comanche Muhammad" popped out of a sudden, got lucky, and knit tight a possibly dangerous Comanche confederation.
Albeit one poster says that the Sioux or Cheyenne are more reliable for that job.
 
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The thread doesn't really reflect the most recent historiography. Nowadays historical demographers are likely to say that disease only had the devastating effect it had because it combined with the profoundly dislocating effects of Spanish imperialism. (There's also a trend of lower population estimates for the pre-Columbian Americas to begin with.)

There is little actual support for the "epidemics spread throughout the Americas before the Europeans got there and made all societies collapse" theory. The Mississippian collapse does not appear to have had much to do with Spanish diseases, although De Soto's military presence exacerbated the process. There is even doubt about whether Huayna Capac really did die of smallpox.

You can look at two counterexamples:
  • The Philippines, conquered by the Spaniards beginning in the 1570s. The Philippines also suffered severe population collapse, with the population shrinking by 36% in thirty years and 66% in ninety years. While less terrible than in the Americas (65% decline in fifty years, in the Basin of Mexico), there's little real evidence that this has to do with the genetic diversity of the Filipinos or their exposure to disease (because of low population densities, the main killers were not endemic in the Philippines). The Filipino population decline seems most attributable to the facts that, first, there were almost no Spaniards in the colony to fuck things up, and second, the population density was already fairly low and settlement patterns were not conducive to the spread of disease.
  • The Jesuit missions in Paraguay. While hardly humane, the indigenous population of the missions more than tripled in the hundred years before their closure, from 40,000 in the 1640s to 140,000 in 1730 (the Jesuit territories did not expand much territorially in these nine decades and the number of new Indians brought in by Jesuits appears to have been equal to the number of Indians running away from the missions, so immigration can't be a major factor). This was despite constant epidemics. Why? Because the Jesuits, as good Catholic priests, worked extremely hard to promote a family system in which 1) marriage was universal and stable, 2) the Indians married as early as possible, and 3) the Indians had as many children as possible (an average of eight children per women). This seems to have offset both a very high mortality rate even under normal circumstances (average annual death rate of 4.4.%) and the regular occurrence of terrible epidemics.


Well... I can honestly say I have never read anything that suggested that the epidemics did not play a major role in the collapse of Native American societies. In fact, literally everything I have ever read, listened to, or watched has gone on extensively about incredibly high estimates (between 80-90%) of the Native American populations having died of introduced epidemic diseases before many ever had direct contact with Europeans. I would however, be very interested indeed to take a look at the literature that you seem to be working off of here in stating that such was not the case. Also, are you saying that there is a trend in historiography toward lower estimates of Native Americans before contact in general? Cuz I must say, I did always think that the estimates of 100 million people in North America seemed outlandish to me given that, at least from my reading, it would not appear that we have sufficient evidence of material culture to justify those kinds of numbers.
 
I have never read anything that suggested that the epidemics did not play a major role in the collapse of Native American societies.
Of course they did, I never said otherwise. But their impact was far more amplified by Spanish exploitation than by any genetic defect of the natives.

literally everything I have ever read, listened to, or watched has gone on extensively about incredibly high estimates (between 80-90%) of the Native American populations having died of introduced epidemic diseases before many ever had direct contact with Europeans.
There is insufficient evidence for that high a level of mortality rates in any major region prior to contact with Europeans.

I would however, be very interested indeed to take a look at the literature that you seem to be working off of here in stating that such was not the case.
Start with the 2015 work Beyond Germs: Native Depopulation in North America.

Also, are you saying that there is a trend in historiography toward lower estimates of Native Americans before contact in general?
Yes. There used to be people taking De Las Casas literally and saying that there were 8,000,000 people in Hispaniola in 1492. Unfortunately, because in 1514 there were less than 50,000 natives on the island, they had to explain a population decline of more than 99% in thirty years by assuming unrealistically severe epidemics that there is absolutely no evidence for. Nowadays we think there were only 250,000 natives in 1492, which is much more sensible (although the demographic decline is still unbelievably catastrophic).
 
Of course they did, I never said otherwise. But their impact was far more amplified by Spanish exploitation than by any genetic defect of the natives.


There is insufficient evidence for that high a level of mortality rates in any major region prior to contact with Europeans.


Start with the 2015 work Beyond Germs: Native Depopulation in North America.


Yes. There used to be people taking De Las Casas literally and saying that there were 8,000,000 people in Hispaniola in 1492. Unfortunately, because in 1514 there were less than 50,000 natives on the island, they had to explain a population decline of more than 99% in thirty years by assuming unrealistically severe epidemics that there is absolutely no evidence for. Nowadays we think there were only 250,000 natives in 1492, which is much more sensible (although the demographic decline is still unbelievably catastrophic).


250,000 across the entirety of North America?
 
Assuming no runaway and cceafil conquests of Pizarro or Cortez and a slower less brutal expansion of European power in the Americas, I would imagine christian syncretic/heretical movements would spring up in every Amerindian society.

i doubt that African slaves would be able to exert much influence on Amerindian religion seeing as african traditions would likely be seen as practises of an underclass.
 
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