Posted on 09/25/2011 6:27:22 AM PDT by Renfield
Given the number of new arrivals that was a death rate to equal the worst Indian death rates.
Recall, at the time of initial settlement (1609) Virginia was just now at the end of nearly half a century of semi-arid conditions within which was a 17 year drought sufficient to have driven EVERYONE to live above the Fall Line. Those conductions always presage a major hanta virus outbreak once the drought breaks and the grasslands return.
Other historians have noted a similar period up the coast in the decade prior to the 1646-48 die-offs.
It was not the case that white folks just stood around and watched Indians died. Everybody died. The whites had backup resources in Europe. The Indians didn't.
Mann's estimate of 25 million is far too low. The agricultural base extant in the Americas at the time of first contact was far too large for such a small population.
Even if the Indians had had superior technology and were discovering Europe and Africa, they'd still died off in the Americas ~ as they had been doing for thousands of years.
Apocalypto was my first thought when I read the article. What Mel Gibson did in that movie is brilliant, and the way he marketed it was really sly. He sold it with the insinuation that its message is about anti-imperialism. This was during the whole Iraq war hubbub. But then, at the very end, in literally the last scene, the movie delivers its real payload when the Spanish galleons are seen pulling up to shore — and the thought that you can’t help but think is “It’s going to be okay, Western Civilization has arrived”.
There are videos of MEChA Hispanics who want to establish "Aztlan" in the U.S. "occupied" Southwest. They compare the Mayans to the Ancient Greeks and claim that we derived all our knowledge from them.
There are some history writers who would agree; 25 million is probably on the low side. I agree, climate changes moved or wiped out large numbers.
If these estimates are correct, central and south America had a larger and healthier population than most of Europe.
It would be interesting to see a graph showing the European and native populations from 1510-1800.
When practicing ritual child sacrifice and cannibalism, it’s always good etiquitte to use a finger bowl.
Why do archeologists always try to bend old civilizations into modern times? “The children did not reach personhood” Is this another way of saying very late term abortion? Maybe the Mayans had great respect for children and it was the highest form of sacrifice to the gods. Think of the slaughtered calf. If they had no respect for children would it not have been like offering leftovers to the gods?
There is an interesting book, “1491 New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus” by Charles C. Mann, which discusses the pre-Columbian populations in considerable detail.
A Democratic Party Fund Raiser.
I’m reading it now.
Finished “1493” about a month ago.
Still, much of their base culture survives in meso-America. We see it in beheadings along the border.
Blood lust.
The Ancient Greeks were pretty brutal.
You can, if the guy at the morgue doesn't pry it out and tell the police it was missing when he came in...
Grave robbing is an old profession, and once the box is closed, who's gonna know? (Not sanctioning it, just saying...)
Heads on pikes, drawing and quartering, impalement, crucifixion along the Apian Way...such are the tools of terror which can keep a resistant population cowering in their hovels rather than fighting in the streets. No one wants to end up like that, so they tend to be quiet--until the killing gets out of hand.
How many political adversaries (and their entire clans) have been sold into slavery or slaughtered, only to have the reason painted as a sacrifice to some God or otherwise whitewashed?
No gold was found when opened?
Dig leader Houston added, "[The fact] that at least four appear not to have been able yet fully to speak or walk may put them at that threshold of human existence."
Professor Peter Singer, pick up the white discourtesy phone...
You and me both. I thought of that all the way through the article.
"You are going to believe people who know when the world was going to end are the same people who ate still beating hearts ripped out of their captured conquests, sacrificed thousands of people by throwing them down the stairs of their temples, sacrificed infants to their sun god, had no technology, no written language, were basically savages and you are concerned they know when it all is going to end"
"Okey Dokey....it's a free world..."
Two pieces of flamebait:
“Too bad that noble civilization was overrun by the eeeeeeeeeeeeevil white Spaniards.”
“So...were they the Jaredites? or the Lamanites? or some other ancient Jooooooooooooooooooos?”
For years, Western historians thought they were the “Lost Tribes” of Israel.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.