Is it possible for the Native Americans to fight off the Europeans? And if so what would America look like today?
(The America's can be taken over at a different date, but perferrable at a date at least 50 years off.)
one of the things that constantly held back the natives was politics and culture
if the Aztec state, was more stabile, and unified, say if there was a diferent more decisive outcome of the flower wars, or less emfasis on state cults and human sacrifice, better organised "federal" sistem, but most importantly if there was peace instead of civil war when Cortes lands, the Aztec have a fighting chance
they had an numerous, and disciplined military, and could no doubt owercome Cortes if he didnt have the help of Aztec enemies
but the whole Aztec empire was faling apart at the time and natives were actually helping the Spanish fight the Aztec
there are similar examples in North America, where the native culture and traditions often prevented them from coming out of a fight alive, and even do they had manny advantages ower the invasive white population they newer seemed to take these advantages in full, and more importantly newer sucesfully united for a longer period of time, or formed a diferent sistem of goverment(there were exeptions such as the Five nations)
also the tribal sistem and mentality seemed to have a lot of problems with intense prolonged warfare, not olnly was there a need to go back home and get food for the winter, but also there were numerous traditions that made sence in longterm inter-tribal wars but had nothing to do with the new situation, the necesity to prove pride or social position got people killed for no reason, the individual reasons for going on warparties were often more important than oweral startegy, and wariors had a habit of going home when they had enough loot and recreation, not to mention tactics were often based on taking revenge for individual deaths, shoving theyre not afraid by charging into rifle fire, or prowing some other point not easily understandable from a western point of view(corect me on any this if it is wrong)
this realy held them back more than any potential lack of gunpowder or initial cultureshock
50 years on or off could do a lot for the mesoamericans, wichever state controls most of the region at that point, but for the north americans not much would change in 50 years
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