I was editing my post accordingly while you posted this reply.
Could the European colonial powers defeat the American empires without the diseases they brought?
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I was editing my post accordingly while you posted this reply.
I would like to note that without the "free" Potosi silver the Europeans wouldn't have had nearly enough money to feed their war machine, early capitalism, statebuilding and of course colonial expansionism. My money is with the American natives in this scenario.
Maybe. Certainly be a lot harder in some respects. Then again, the Potosi silver and other precious metals generated a severe inflation in Spain and much of Europe. So not an unalloyed benefit and perhaps Europe's technological edge would still make the conquistadors and other invaders prevail.
If a conquest succeeds (and it can, although it is more at risk), society will be different. I like the Africa analogy for many parts of the Americas, but for the Caribbean, Mexico, Peru and Amazon, India and Indonesia might be a somewhat better analogy.
Rebellions are more risky and conquest is more expensive.
On the other hand, trade and tax income realized from conquest may be even greater than OTL, with so many more living taxpayers and surplus producers.
A non-population crashed Americas also means that there's no economic sense to the African slave trade. Native labor is just so much more economical.
More surviving population, elite and masses alike, means more cultural continuity. So we could end up with revolutions in Mexico and Peru around the time of OTLs but they are nativist rather than Creole-led. Mexico and Peru synthesize a new native tradition, but never forget many of the things they learned from the Spanish, or they forget that things they regard as native they actually learned from the Spanish. So here again the analogy is with India. Spanish could still be a lingua franca in many places even if more native languages survive among a higher proportion of the population.
Rebellions are more risky and conquest is more expensive.
On the other hand, trade and tax income realized from conquest may be even greater than OTL, with so many more living taxpayers and surplus producers.
A non-population crashed Americas also means that there's no economic sense to the African slave trade. Native labor is just so much more economical.
More surviving population, elite and masses alike, means more cultural continuity. So we could end up with revolutions in Mexico and Peru around the time of OTLs but they are nativist rather than Creole-led. Mexico and Peru synthesize a new native tradition, but never forget many of the things they learned from the Spanish, or they forget that things they regard as native they actually learned from the Spanish. So here again the analogy is with India. Spanish could still be a lingua franca in many places even if more native languages survive among a higher proportion of the population.
I can't fathom why you would think so. The colonization of India and Indonesia featured, among other things, a highly developed weaponry on the side of the natives due to a prior tradition of advanced metalworking and some acquaintance with firearms, state societies following universal religions incompatible with Christian conversion, (for India) intricate bureaucracies, and some of the world's most advanced economies. These are all lacking in both Mexico and Peru (well, the Aztecs had a good market system, but the Inca were a palace economy). As to the Caribbean and Amazon, they didn't even have state societies and a lower population density than Angola.
To the extent there *are* a valid analogies for a European-American encounter with lower impact from disease, perhaps Spain in the Philippines for Central America (fairly dense population, sub-tropical climate, state level societies, a technology gap) and New Zealand writ larger scale for North America (temperate climate fairly suitable for European settler colonisation, pre-state agriculturalists, relatively low population density)?
The Philippines were very lightly populated, with a population density of around 9 people per square kilometer. This is much higher than most of the Americas, but much, much lower than Mesoamerica. It's not subtropical, but full on tropical. There were no state societies prior to Spanish colonization, simply chiefdoms of varying complexity. The best analogue for Mexico and Peru is not the Philippines, but coastal West Africa minus the prevalence of endemic diseases there.
More than 80% of Maori died within a century of European contact, so I'd hardly say it's a case of European-Native encounter "with lower impact from disease."
I'm not so sure about the assertion that societies resembling state societies were less developed in the Philippines prior to colonisation against West Africa... but in any case West Africa minus the prevalence of endemic diseases seems almost unimaginable and pretty impossible to use as a reference? That was overwhelmingly the decisive factor in how Europeans were able to operate there.
Also, out of interest, do you have a good source on population densities? I am only aware of crude forms like this - http://www.worldmapper.org/posters/worldmapper_map8_ver5.pdf (1500AD). Implies a population density in 1500AD that should be about equivalent between the Philippines as a whole and the most densely population state territory in West Africa. From academic references I find only at a quick search - https://tinyurl.com/yd6xvl2m: "... huge differences in population densities within Southeast Asia itself. High densities obtained in parts of Indonesia, like Bali (80) and Java (35), in parts of the Philippines like greater Manilla and Ilocos (Luzon) (>20), and in northern and central Vietnam (20). Very low figures were found in Borneo (1) and Mindanao-Sulu (Philippines) (1.5)."
From searching I have seen references that suggest 50%-60% rather than 80%. But still, this increases the degree to which this whole topic is ASB, and there are no good analogies.
The difference is that West Africa actually had a few state societies (Benin, for example) when Europeans showed up. The Philippines had absolutely none.
See Conquest and Pestilence in the Early Spanish Philippines by Linda A. Newson, 2009. There were around 1.57 million people in Luzon and the Visayas in 1570. Note that this is actually a higher estimate; older estimates of the pre-Hispanic Filipino population was usually around 0.7 million.
In the 1874 census there were around 50,000 Maori. The different mortality rates have to do with differing estimates of the precolonial Maori population. In the old days it was thought that there were only 125,000 in North Island and a few thousands in the South, but more recent studies suggest that the Maori population was actually around 250,000.
I read somewhere that the original indigenous population that spread through America was very small caused a low genetic and immunological diversity primarily in the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), as a consequence that the same population will respond in the same way to an infection.
"On the other hand, inside a population, the presence of many different alleles ensures there will always be an individual with a specific MHC molecule able to load the correct peptide to recognize a specific microbe. The evolution of the MHC polymorphism ensures that a population will not succumb to a new pathogen or a mutated one, because at least some individuals will be able to develop an adequate immune response to win over the pathogen. The variations in the MHC molecules (responsible for the polymorphism) are the result of the inheritance of different MHC molecules, and they are not induced by recombination, as it is the case for the antigen receptors."
I think that a great factor to acquire resistance fast (process that can last from centuries to millennium) was the miscegenation, today many groups that declare themselves to be indigenous have more European autossomic DNA than native.
"On the other hand, inside a population, the presence of many different alleles ensures there will always be an individual with a specific MHC molecule able to load the correct peptide to recognize a specific microbe. The evolution of the MHC polymorphism ensures that a population will not succumb to a new pathogen or a mutated one, because at least some individuals will be able to develop an adequate immune response to win over the pathogen. The variations in the MHC molecules (responsible for the polymorphism) are the result of the inheritance of different MHC molecules, and they are not induced by recombination, as it is the case for the antigen receptors."
I think that a great factor to acquire resistance fast (process that can last from centuries to millennium) was the miscegenation, today many groups that declare themselves to be indigenous have more European autossomic DNA than native.
Considering it was on the edge of a Malthusian crisis at the time of the discovery, I don't think this is as much of a problem as you imply
QueerSpear
Banned
That's not true- the Age of Exploration started aproximately in the early 15th century, while in the century before Europe had gone through a massive crisis such as the Great Famine and the Black Death (which alone killed aprox 45% to 50% of the European population). The total world population would not return to pre-Black Death numbers until the 17th century.
So, no- Europe was not facing a Malthusian Crisis at the beginning of the Age of Exploration. And my argument still stands: without the Indigenous populations quelled by plagues, the European would not be able to colonize to a massive extend for a long time. The monetary and human costs of their wars would prevent them from engaging in settler colonialism.
@ Intransigent Southern, thanks.
@ Pere F. further as well, heard that low population sizes in Beringian founding populations for the Americans may have meant that they lost some of the diseases that were common in Eurasia+Africa and look like they've been around in human populations since the Pleistocene (e.g. TB and smallpox, latter in less virulent form).
I expected that to be contra Austronesian and Polynesian migrations, which came from relatively large populations who already had agriculture, and were fairly recently in contact with other large human populations. Possibly around 4000 BC for split out from Southern China, then possibly around 2500 BC for actual expansions further than Taiwan in earnest, then with further contact with other peoples in maritime Southeast Asia and Oceania after that.
So it surprises me that the impact of disease could be comparable in Maori to Central and North America, as Intransigent Southerner says. But if it is so, that is how it is.
@ Pere F. further as well, heard that low population sizes in Beringian founding populations for the Americans may have meant that they lost some of the diseases that were common in Eurasia+Africa and look like they've been around in human populations since the Pleistocene (e.g. TB and smallpox, latter in less virulent form).
I expected that to be contra Austronesian and Polynesian migrations, which came from relatively large populations who already had agriculture, and were fairly recently in contact with other large human populations. Possibly around 4000 BC for split out from Southern China, then possibly around 2500 BC for actual expansions further than Taiwan in earnest, then with further contact with other peoples in maritime Southeast Asia and Oceania after that.
So it surprises me that the impact of disease could be comparable in Maori to Central and North America, as Intransigent Southerner says. But if it is so, that is how it is.
The Polynesian case just shows that mortality rates have much, much more to do with actual conditions on the ground than biology. Clearly, Polynesians are genetically remarkably similar, having been one population less than two thousand years ago and having had virtually no intermarriage with non-Pacific populations until the 1800s. Yet look at the mortality rates:
- Tongatapu Island, Tonga, population in the late 1700s: Approximately 18,000 people. Tongatapu population in 1891: Around 8,000 people. Mortality rate in Tongatapu after little more than a century: Around 55%.
- New Zealand, population in the late 1700s: 130,000~260,000 people, the vast majority living in North Island and with the upper range of estimates more plausible. Maori population in 1871: 47,330 people. Mortality rate in New Zealand after a century: 64~82%.
- Hawaiian archipelago, population in the late 1700s: 300,000~800,000 people, with around 500,000 most plausible. Native Hawaiian population in 1876: around 54,000 people. Mortality rate in Hawaii after a century: 82~93%, most plausibly 89%.
- Samoa, population in the late 1700s: around 200,000 people. Population in the late 1800s: around 40,000 people. Mortality rate in Samoa after a century: around 80%.