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“In 1491 the Inka ruled the greatest empire on earth. Bigger than Ming Dynasty China, bigger than Ivan the Great’s expanding Russia, bigger than Songhay in the Sahel or powerful Great Zimbabwe in the West Africa tablelands, bigger than the cresting Ottoman Empire, bigger than the Triple Alliance (as the Aztec empire is more precisely known), bigger by far than any European state, the Inka dominion extended over a staggering thirty-two degrees of latitude — as if a single power held sway from St. Petersburg to Cairo. The empire encompassed every imaginable type of terrain, from the rainforest of upper Amazonia to the deserts of the Peruvian coast and the twenty-thousand-foot peaks of the Andes between. “If imperial potential is judged in terms of environmental adaptability,” wrote the Oxford historian Felipe Fernandez Armeato, “the Inka were the most impressive empire builders of their day.””
from “1491 — New Revelations of the America’s before Columbus” by Charles C. Mann.
If you liked Jack Weatherford’s “Indian Givers” you will LOVE this. Another fascinating quote, “If Genghis Khan had invaded Europe at the same time as the Black Death, we would not be speaking English today.” This to discredit, in a nutshell, the European conceit that they won their invasion by way of superior weaponry and warfare. Muskets at the time of Contact did not have nearly the range or the accuracy that the bows of skilled archers had. The battle for this hemisphere was fought by microbes, which destablized and destroyed entire, often massive cultures, before any foreign encroachments were ever made.
Linda;34149 wrote: The battle for this hemisphere was fought by microbes, which destabilized and destroyed entire, often massive cultures, before any foreign encroachments were ever made.
Seems to me, that (if true) just shifts the foundation of the myth of European superiority — to saying they had superior antibodies, rather than superior weaponry. Or gods, or libraries.
I’m interested in other contexts than “battles” in which to view, on a long scale, what has happened. Boys will be boys, I suppose; but several other things were going on — like intermarriage (or at least breeding), learning, guiding, sharing, translating, planting, helping — even jamming, among the musicians — you know, all that peaceful stuff that affects survival. As a theme, acculturation doesn’t make very exciting movies, but it does leave a visible trail. Increasingly visible, as we get the science together for DNA and genome studies.
Dick
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