A brief account on the Destruction of the Indies

[Dimentio]

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/20321/pg20321.html

This would settle the issue about genocide during pre-modern times. Probably at least the same size as the Holocaust, and in a world with a much smaller population...

[Invader Zim]

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/20321/pg20321.html

This would settle the issue about genocide during pre-modern times. Probably at least the same size as the Holocaust, and in a world with a much smaller population...

The assumption being that the author's testimony is both accurate, informed and universally true of the conquest of the Americas. That isn't to say that de las Casa wasn't correct about the brutality of the European invasion of the Americas, rather it is to suggest that de las Casa almost certainly wasn't aware of the extent that other factors had upon the indigenous population.

[Kléber]

The assumption being that the author's testimony is both accurate, informed and universally true of the conquest of the Americas. That isn't to say that de las Casa wasn't correct about the brutality of the European invasion of the Americas, rather it is to suggest that de las Casa almost certainly wasn't aware of the extent that other factors had upon the indigenous population.
What are you trying to say? Colonialism is off the hook because of a smallpox epidemic (which was actually worsened by the breakdown of indigenous societies and medicinal practices due to European conquest and enslavement)? De las Casas was wrong about many things but the genocide which wiped out entire peoples was not some fairy tale.

[Invader Zim]

What are you trying to say? Colonialism is off the hook because of a smallpox epidemic (which was actually worsened by the breakdown of indigenous societies and medicinal practices due to European conquest and enslavement)? De las Casas was wrong about many things but the genocide which wiped out entire peoples was not some fairy tale.


'Off the hook', 'fairy tale'? What a childish post. As I stated, nobody denies the brutality of the European conquest of the Americas. But to understate the massive impact of disease on the indigenous population is absurd. Historians have estimated that the indigenous population had reduced by 80%+ within a century and a half of first contact, and disease was the primary cause of that decline. These are historical facts.

[S.Artesian]

Well yes, disease played a part, in weakening the indigenous peoples, but let's be clear the result is the same, no? Yes, the indigenous population of Mexico was reduced by about 90% in about 120 years after first contact. And that 120 years saw expropriation of indigenous lands, ignoring and destroying the complicated system of water and water rights that sustained the nutrition of the indigenous people, capitation taxes that the indigenous pueblos had to collect and deliver.

So whatever the "natural immunities" were or were not, the vector for the penetration an domination of disease was not "super-pathogens" but the overall destruction of the social network that supported the public health of the indigenous people.

Anyway, let's not forget the historically significant response to de las Casas' work:-- the Atlantic slave trade to preserve the indigenous people by substituting Africans in the killing fields of the haciendas, the great houses, the manors, the plantations.

I love the benevolence of priests.

[S.Artesian]

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/20321/pg20321.html

This would settle the issue about genocide during pre-modern times. Probably at least the same size as the Holocaust, and in a world with a much smaller population...

Yes, and followed up by the working to death of between 15 and 30 million Africans as a result of the slave trade.

What was it Marx said? "Capitalism emerges into the world dripping blood and filth from every pore."

[Invader Zim]

Well yes, disease played a part, in weakening the indigenous peoples

Weakening? You call an 80% population reduction a 'weakening'? This is a massive understatement. Individual outbreaks of smallpox, measels, influenza, the plague, etc, individualy wiped out as many as a fifth of the population of areas which now constitute entire modern day nations, and we aren't disucssing individual outbreaks, but numerous outbreaks over the course of a century and a half, before someone trots out the notion that an individual outbreak of an individual disease could do this kind of damage. And of course this is before we consider the impact of the population decline on birth rates, agricultural productivity, etc. Indeed, given the fact that these outbreaks spread beyond European expansion, and laid waste to entire populations long before their survivors made any contact with European settlers, your casual dismissal of the impact disease is rendered even more inexplicable.

You don't need to understate the impact of disease in order to grasp the extent of brutality inflicted by the European invaders. As I have said before, the massive population decline of the indigenous Americans was not the result of genocide and the contention that it is only serves to trivialise actual genocides; the subsequent treatment of the surviving population on the other hand is something that actually is subject of serious debate among people who know something about the topic. What you are suggesting is not.

[S.Artesian]

Weakening? You call an 80% population reduction a 'weakening'? This is a massive understatement. Individual outbreaks of smallpox, measels, influenza, the plague, etc, individualy wiped out as many as a fifth of the population of areas which now constitute entire modern day nations, and we aren't disucssing individual outbreaks, but numerous outbreaks over the course of a century and a half, before someone trots out the notion that an individual outbreak of an individual disease could do this kind of damage. And of course this is before we consider the impact of the population decline on birth rates, agricultural productivity, etc. Indeed, given the fact that these outbreaks spread beyond European expansion, and laid waste to entire populations long before their survivors made any contact with European settlers, your casual dismissal of the impact disease is rendered even more inexplicable.

You don't need to understate the impact of disease in order to grasp the extent of brutality inflicted by the European invaders. As I have said before, the massive population decline of the indigenous Americans was not the result of genocide and the contention that it is only serves to trivialise actual genocides; the subsequent treatment of the surviving population on the other hand is something that actually is subject of serious debate among people who know something about the topic. What you are suggesting is not.


No, I call it genocide. What you have to account for is an "epidemic" that takes its toll of 80% - 90% over 150 years. Can you point to anything comparable in human history? Where a pathogen, or pathogens, are that successful over such a long period of time, without the pathogens abating, moderating, establishing some sort of much lower rate of mortality, hell, a much lower rate of infection?

Hasn't happened before, at least not in my readings. I suggest then that the pathogens could only achieve such a phenomenal success rate due to the destruction of the "natural" mechanisms of human beings dealing with pathogens-- attempts at sanitation and isolation of those infected, maintenance of adequate food and water supplies, internal migrations away from the centers of infection, and increasing reproduction rates over time to make up the population loss-- correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that was the course followed in Europe in response to the plague, no?

Nothing says these processes aren't shot through with ignorance and superstition, but they do represent a response that does, in part, reduce the mortality, and eventually, the morbidity rates.

I think the Spanish destruction of the indigenous people's abilities to migrate, to maintain effective nutrition and sanitation which would allow for a survival of certain numbers with greater immunities, and also allow for increased rates of reproduction, was what made the epidemics into genocidal events.

[Invader Zim]

What you have to account for is an "epidemic" that takes its toll of 80% - 90% over 150 years.

But, as noted, we aren't discussing a single disease, were are discussing numerous diseases. Do you deny that a single strain of a single disease could feasably kill 20% of a population of a region? Imagine dozens of these diseases and strains, such as small pox, measels, mumps, plague, cholera, typhoid and scarlet fever, all spreading to the same region, whose people have no immunity to these diseases, in quick succession. Then imagine the impact of these diseases on agricultural productivity and birth rates, Do you really want to suggest that it is impossible for a population to reduce by 80% within 150 years? So yes, if we were talking about one strain of one disease, then yes you might have a point. But we aren't. We are talking about a dozens strains and scores of major pandemics.


Can you point to anything comparable in human history?

Certainly, in Australia small pox alone wiped out 50% of the indigenous population. While TB, typhoid, etc, wiped out another 30%. Estimates of the 1348-1352 black death range between a 30%-60% loss to Europes total population and in smaller areas - i.e. Italy, we are talking about an 80% population decrease in just 4 years. That is an individual disease causing that much damage, and again to reiterate the point, we aren't talking about one disease in the case of the Americas, we are talking about multiple outbreaks of multiple diseases (including the black death) all within a century and a half. So yes, this has indeed happened before.


Hasn't happened before, at least not in my readings. I suggest then that the pathogens could only achieve such a phenomenal success rate due to the destruction of the "natural" mechanisms of human beings dealing with pathogens-- attempts at sanitation and isolation of those infected, maintenance of adequate food and water supplies, internal migrations away from the centers of infection, and increasing reproduction rates over time to make up the population loss

Doubtless that is true, to an extent. However, as noted, the diseases that were wiping out the population spread far quicker than European colonisers. It isn't so much that imperialism facilitated the spread of disease, but that the spread of disease facilitated imperialism by wiping out enitire regions before a Spaniard set foot anywhere near it. The Spaniards thought it was God clearing the New World for them.


correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that was the course followed in Europe in response to the plague, no?


And doubtless the indigenous population would have proceeded along similar lines given the opportunity to recover. However, to say it again, the indigenous population suffered major outbreaks, killing upwards 10% of individual regions, in quick succession. And yes, the destabalisation of society and its ability to recover from disease was further restricted by the European invaders but the weight of the damage manifestly lies with disease. Indeed, it is more than a touch Eurocentric to suggest that the damage must have been due to deliberate policy by the European invaders. Do you really suppose that a proportionally miniscule number of European would have had such a huge military and social impact upon an entire continent of millions of people had society not already been massively destablised? So as noted earlier, i think you have this whole thing backwards, it was disease that facilitated imperialism far more than the other way round.

[S.Artesian]

I don't really find myself in much determined opposition to what you say-- except for the Eurocentric crap.

It is certainly clear that disease saved the Spaniards in Mexico. As for damage being deliberate-- what was deliberate was the conquest, and the fact that the conquistadors, often in opposition to the wishes of the Spanish crown, simply destroyed the rational basis for agriculture and water use that had been developed by the indigenous people.

Yes the indigenous people suffered major outbreaks, but it is not quite so clear that these outbreaks took place in quick succession. We are talking about an elapsed time, in Mexico at least, of over a century.

The "proportional impact" as you put it doesn't quite take into account the numerous splits and oppositions among the indigenous peoples; the allies the conquistadors were able to make in Mexico for example in opposition to the Aztecs.

As for what facilitated which-- the disease didn't bring the conquest, the conquest brought the disease. That's the part you have backwards