Posted on 01/11/2006 1:33:43 PM PST by blam
I'm very suspicious of the claim that only 8 million people died in the initial smallpox epidemic. After all, elsewhere in the Americas, it's known that the death rate among native Americans was ordinarily over 90% for smallpox ~ which is roughly double that found in native African, European or Asiatic populations.
Or, alternatively, there were several tens of millions more people in Mexico that no one knew about until the mid 1500s. Another alternative is that the Spaniards had only the slightest idea how many people lived in Mexico at any time, and even less idea how many died.
The encomienda system mentioned in the article didn't really get set up until almost everyone had died. This was more of a "Works Progress Administration" type labor program than slavery, the idea being that the Mexican population had been so diminished drastic action had to be taken to save society (as well as the recently Christianized native peoples). The Spanish get a bad rap on this.
Onelifetogive wrote:
How is this Bush's fault?
According to fokelore, Cuautemoc Bush realized the deadly threat imposed by Quetzlcoatl bin Laden and his ruthless followers who arrived uninvited from a land far away. He sent his "guarding of the people" to spy on these hostile invaders.
However, several of the Bush hating clansmen, specifically Cacama Kerry, Chalchiutinenetzin Boxer, and Picachu Reed protested vehemently and along with their Aztec hating cohorts were able to send the correct smoke signals to the enemy to warn them of the spies.
As a result, the invaders were able to launch their biological arsenal against the Aztec and pretty much wipe them out before they new what hit them.
Because all the men were dead, Xiloxochitlery became the first woman chieftain. Shortly thereafter, the entire tribe became extinct.
It just is. Accept it and moveon(.org).
They all aborted themselves, I imagine...
bttt
Ha, no, the census data they garner from historical records, mostly. That and piecing together information from the archeaological record.
But, actually, tree rings do identify sunlight and moisture and that then identifies where to focus for animal/human life changes accordingly.
Wasn't that very highly dependent upon family structure too?
It was, from what I've read, due to drought and wars that ensued when competition began to heat up due to deprived resources -- to state the obvious.
The devastating drought in the South and Southwest of North America was the cause of, worse yet, even cannibalism in the Southwest and loss of forests/plant life across much of the Southwest.
It was probably a drought of such proportions that we can only imagine nowadays, extensive and global even, because the Mediterranean shows evidence of similar human populations struggles from about the same time.
Even the Inca don't know who built Tihuanaco, it was there as long as they can remember.
It's actually pretty easy to find references based on secondary sources to a 95% death rate.
I think the problem isn't with the death rate, it's with the estimates of how many people lived in Mexico and how many died.
Whatever it was, the death rate was sufficient to destroy society and actually bring down Earth's mean temperature because of the loss of agriculture and the methane that goes with it.
Sounds like Black Plague to me. Similar symptom's
The Anasazi And Cannibalism, good work by Christy Turner.
I've always thought that the descriptions of the "lost (land) of Atlantis" is best fulfilled by Central South America. Seems to fit in with Tihuanaco...Atlantis being "beyond the world's oceans" or thereabouts, as described, "past the Pillars of Hercules" (something close to those descriptions)...I regard that as being outside the Mediterranean Sea and across the "world's ocean" which was the Atlantic at that time and/or from the East across the Pacific, both would result in arriving in Central South America.
Yes, thanks for that link!
You're not alone in your belief about South America.
Jim Allen's Historic Atlantis In Bolivia
Very, very interesting! Thanks for that link, too. Now I have my reading all waiting for me for when I again wake up, being now too sleepy to read and concentrate on such intense content! But, thanks, looking forward to reading...
~:-D
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