Why weren't Siam, Abyssinia, Liberia, Iran and Japan colonized?

I think he was objecting to the characterization of Native Americans, Aboriginal Australians, Africans, and Maoris as mere "primitives" and the implication that Indian states were toppled because they had inferior government forms.

I thought the original post contrasted Africans with the rest?

The indigenous peoples in North America, Australasia and the Southern Cone were supplanted because they had lower population densities than Africa and Asia. They had low population partially because of disease, but mostly because their societal structure was more primitive, and had not yet developed the agricultural surplus to get to African and certainly not Asian levels. The two places in the Americas which aren't majority white are the places where more advanced societies developed: the Incas and the Aztecs.
 
Point taken

I hope this is a quote from Jan Morris, because if it's your own words it's really inaccurate and quite insulting. US lands alone included many complex farming societies and large tribal confederations that were powerful enough to resist Western encroachment until the late 19th century. Indigenous American and African cultures and languages are equal to any of those of Europe in richness and complexity. The view you promoted above has always been inaccurate and was discredited decades ago. Just a heads up.
Yes, many of the American and African cultures were sophisticated, especially the latter. Metallurgy in Benin, for example, was at least the equal of Europe when it was contacted by Portugal in the 15-16th century. The levels of social organisation was also pretty equal at that time but of course American societies were crippled by Eurasian diseases.
:(

I'm not sure what the modern consensus on pre-contact population in the Americas is but the losses were at least 50% and probably far higher within a century. Which had an impact on the East Coast native societies, leaving them unable to resist European settlement effectively. Outnumbered and outgunned from the 17th century, and also to an extent out organized. Loose tribal confederacies find it hard to deal with states, which was probably the situation the poster you objected to envisaged. The expansion of British North America was pretty constant from mid-17th century, especially after the utility of native allies in the Anglo-French colonial war had ended.
:confused:

In Australia the aboriginal peoples didn't have either the technology or numbers to resist. "Primitive" is harsh as a reflection on their culture but on the society as a whole it catches the disparity in organisation and power. Which meant resistance there and in BNA was pretty futile.
:(
 
Didn't the Italians use chemical weapons such as mustard gas in the 30s in Ethiopia? IIRC the UK used chemical weapons in the 20s in British Mesopotamia against rebel tribes in the country.

Yes. Right on both counts, although the use of chemicals in Mesopotamia is poorly documented.
 
I would consider the idea that a stone age society can't have advanced agriculture an insult to the stone age. The earliest culture to have any forged metalworking technology (as opposed to beaten softer metals) dates from around 2800 BC. Agriculture dates from about 10,500 BC, and urbanisation from around 7000 BC. Even paper pre-dates forged metalworking.

"Stone age" simply means no access to forged metal-working technology. It makes no comment on other technologies or concepts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_technologies

Even the idea that the Americas were stuck in the neolithic is wrong.

The Andean civilizations had extensive smelting of metals, including gold, silver, copper, and even arsenic bronze. It is true that metalworking was used mainly for adornment and ritual purposes, but this was beginning to change in the Inca Empire, which had begun making more knives and axes out of bronze. By 600 CE metalworking had spread to Central America, and by 800 CE Mesoamerica, where copper was widely used for bells, wire, pendants, and needles.

In North America, a separate tradition of cold-hammering native copper formed around the Great Lakes. Copper was more widely used in the region for utilitarian objects such as knives and fishhooks, but this may be because of the lack of empires in the region more than anything. Cold-working of copper also seems to have been independently discovered by some Alaskan tribes.

The Americas never developed a real bronze age for two reasons. One, they were just behind the Old World in terms of the foundation of agriculture, and hadn't had enough time. Two, there weren't large deposits of tin anywhere that the major copper cultures could utilize.
 
The indigenous peoples in North America, Australasia and the Southern Cone were supplanted because they had lower population densities than Africa and Asia. They had low population partially because of disease, but mostly because their societal structure was more primitive, and had not yet developed the agricultural surplus to get to African and certainly not Asian levels. The two places in the Americas which aren't majority white are the places where more advanced societies developed: the Incas and the Aztecs.

Papua New Guinea is another great case of this. It has been stuck at the tribal, neolithic level since the development of agriculture (which may have been as old as agriculture in the fertile crescent). But despite having primitive technology and no organized states, there was no colonization and ethnic replacement. This was for two reasons. For one thing, population density was high - millions of people have likely inhabited the island for thousands of years. But more importantly, there was never a general collapse of the population due to western epidemics.
 
Ethiopia being in Italy's sphere was mostly Italian dreams. And if Ethiopia really had been in the Italian sphere Mussolini would never have felt the need to invade. But truth to be told both Paris and London had much more influence in Addis Abeba than Rome. The French were the ones who built the railroad (Addis - Djibouti), while the British were negotiating over the right to buld a dam at Lake Tana (and the Ethiopians were mostly stalling).

For that matter it shouldn't be forgotten that Britain successfully invaded Ethiopia in 1868 and overthrew the emperor, who committed suicide. Pretty much the only reason why it wasn't taken on as a colony then was because Britain didn't want it - italian ambitions were irrelevant. I would strongly recommend General Flashman's memoirs of the campaign to anybody interested:cool:
 
Even the idea that the Americas were stuck in the neolithic is wrong.

The Andean civilizations ...

In North America, a separate tradition of cold-hammering native copper formed around the Great Lakes. ...

To be sure, the original post that triggered this discussion was talking about native Canadian tribes (and Australian aborigines) as primitives. Calling the Andes Canada is on a par with mistaking Petersburg for Babylon.

And cold-hammering native copper is in fact a neolithic technology†. The key technology that indicates bronze or iron age technology is the ability to forge metal tools and shape them using heat.

† Okay, technically it's chalcolithic, a stage that is often merged in with the various stone ages in historiographical texts, although many texts also merge it into the bronze age in the three-age model.
 
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