I think the idea of shaming people for being successful conquerers is ironically very western. Ask what the Mongols think about their conquests or the Han or what the Turks think about the Ottomans or the Russians about their history…
What's striking to me is that despite the Spanish conquistador's well-earned reputation for brutality, the Americas south of the Mexican border is genetically extremely native. The average American who says they have native ancestry, maybe has something like 3-5% precolumbian American ancestry I would guess... but if a Mexican says they have no native ancestry, they may well have ~50% native ancestry and just don't know it.
I haven't read a good explanation for why it is so.
Emigration from Spain to their new world was relatively low. The estimate seems to be that only around 0.42 million people moved from Spain to the Americas between 1492 and 1820. Considering the massive amount of territory they controlled that's very low. In contrast over 1.2 million people from Great Britain emigrated to their colonies which were many times smaller geographically.
Also before modern medicine and other stuff the climate outside of mountainous areas (which besides some exceptions weren't necessarily able to sustain high population density) wasn't great. e.g New England was a much nicer place to live and therefore natural population growth was relatively low.
Combine those things with there being way less Native Americans in the North (due to various reasons) to begin with, very different colonial policies and treatment of the native people and the result is not that surprising.
Isn't it fairly obvious? The Spanish were conquering advanced urbanized civilizations. Seizing the cities and their people was the goal of the entire enterprise. The land was an afterthought.
The British/Americans were settling the territory of primitive tribal nations. Taking over the land was the goal of the entire enterprise. The people were an afterthought.
The Americans really needed something like the "Americaness" (the American law it's over any race), kinda like the Hispanidad with the Hispanic people does. It doesn't matter where you come from, but where you all as a whole are heading to.
Segregation and White Power/Black Power/Native Power should be dealt as something totally obsolete, kinda backwards. "Mi tribe it's the best one, and the rest of the worlds sucks".
As a Spaniard I always hated the concept of reservations and idiots like Jim Crow. The point of America should have been to leave out your tribe behind to be something else.
I agree with you, but I think the problem, with regard to the US (I do not know about the rest of the Americas) is that they are victims of their history. While they can understand at an intellectual level that race is cultural construct, they cannot at other levels stop regarding race (rather than culture, language, etc.) as a essential and immutable part of people's identity.
Also worth thinking that the attitudes you (and I) have have been rejected by many people in the US. For many, a "melting pot" culture is no longer considered desirable.
And, finally, yes, I hate the term 'cultural appropiation'. Civilization means basically 'culture appropiation'... and enhancements.
If not, tell these people to stop using the Roman alphabet while posting under an iPhone at Starbucks, and try to write everything with runes.
I'm from Iberia. We were invaded from zillions of tribes. Spanish itself it's twisted Latin, with some loanwords from French, Basque, Celt, German (and Germanic), Italians and who knows more. We assimilated tons of words from former Iberian dialects, such as Galician-Portuguese, Catalan... and thanks to that we can talk with millions of Spanish speakers, and get understood pretty well from the Portuguese, French and Italian at least in written form.
Ditto with English with Romance terms. Ironically, the higher education you get in English, the more low class Hispanic and Lusophone people in South America will understand you.
And the reverse it's true, too. Use Germanic words in English as the average Joe and only the high class non-native English speakers will get something from your speech.
Also, on races/cultures, at first the Gypsies in Spain hated Camarón (now THE god-like Flamenco singer composer for the Gypsies) because he mixed some progressive music from the 70's with Flamenco and even kind of prototype for Techno.
And tons of Blues from the US, too.
They were more Ethnicist than some staunch American WASP belonging to KKK.
Kinda like Blacks in the US calling another one "Oreo".
They said what Camarón did was "Heresy" to Flamenco music, that his album was not flamenco at all. Heresy with capital letters for them.
10-20 years passed, and, guess why? The gypsies said that Camarón now was "the greatest (Gypsy) one/ever), as it were the Jesus for Gypsies.
The Mediterranean civilization and the further Enlightenment was due to sharing knowledge and goods back and forth, not by keeping the countries and tribes isolated.
Rock music it's a mix between Black and White cultures, creating something else, but better. In Spain we had groups like Triana in the 70's who mixed American Folk and Rock like Jethro Tull (the first two albums are almost a Jethro Tull wannabe, really good) with some Flamenco music. And Flamenco itself it's a mix of Arabic, Gypsy and -who knows- more roots...
Compared to having to choose between being murdered, enslaving or moving to Oklahoma (slightly different periods I know..) that's not necessarily that awful.
e.g there were thousands and thousands of Native American refugees fleeing to Spanish Florida from the Carolinas after the British got there. When Florida was captured some were lucky enough to be evacuated to Cuba and other Spanish colonies (in the few ships they were willing and able to send). The rest? Well...
> I haven't read a good explanation for why it is so.
Iberians bred with the people they conquered. The Spanish in particular practiced an intentional policy of breeding a caste of illegitimate mixed-race offspring that would mediate between the Spaniards proper and the aboriginals they had enslaved.
In the Spanish colonies, there emerged a project to “Mejorar La Raza” (literally: to better the race) by encouraging breeding with those of a fairer complexion than oneself. I suspect (though have never confirmed) that this attitude was primarily fostered to encourage women to more readily breed with Iberian men, but in the present day the attitude is quite prevalent among both Latino men and Latina women; Latinos fetishize white features, which are associated with being not only high-status and wealthy, but also simply beautiful in their own right.
The Americans largely arrived after small pox had substantially reduced the native population, and subsequently followed a comparatively genocidal path of historical development. They did not tend to breed with the natives they encountered, so they have a far lower proportion of aboriginal ancestry. At some point between the late 1800s and early 1900s, they developed a romantic appreciation for Native Americans, which later leads to the common trope of every American family claiming to have a Cherokee great great grandmother on their mother’s side. Since the 2000s, the common trope is that all the growth in these tribes has been from white-passing people looking to cash in on affirmative action; this is not an undeserved stereotype.
> Estimates have varied widely from as low as 8 million to as many as 100 million, though many scholars gravitated toward an estimate of around 50 million by the end of the 20th century.
At least check the articles you link yourself, ffs.
Not sure why the apologism here, genocide was done through and through, intentionally by outright murder and slavery and unintentionally via diseases (but even that was spread with intent once found out their immunity is weak against old continent diseases)
"but even that was spread with intent once found out their immunity is weak against old continent diseases"
This is somewhat unsure. First, if we are talking about the Spanish conquest, that is deep 16th century, with all its magical thinking. God, the Devil and witches were all plausible explanations for epidemics, and holy processions, pilgrimages and carrying of medailons dedicated to saint X were considered reasonable treatment methods. It is a mistake to look at the 16th century with 21st century eyes; it is a different world resting on very different mental foundations.
Second, at least in the Spanish territories, losing your workforce was economically disadvantageous.
Doing this is the equivalent of throwing a small piece of litter in an otherwise clean alley. Humans being what they are, the alley will soon be a trash heap.
> At least check the articles you link yourself, ffs.
Yeah, and as you see, the 100 million is a highly questionable value. Just try to read past the first paragraph, maybe?
> but even that was spread with intent once found out their immunity is weak against old continent diseases
Nope. The germ theory of disease was not formed until 1800-s, the invention of vaccination was in 1796. There were some inklings that smallpox can be spread through contaminated items even before that time, but not much earlier.
> The Spanish conquest of the Aztecs was terrible. It was a prolonged period of pestilence, famine, torture, rape, plunder, destruction, conquest, cultural eradication, and general misery, with a short term death toll of something like 600,000 (including military and civilian casualties), and a long term death toll in the millions.
> And yet part of me thinks it was totally awesome.
> And yet part of me thinks it was totally awesome. That portion of my brain that grew up on Total War and Civilization games thinks the concept of a small number of hyper-technologically sophisticated foreigners led by a verified psychopath waging war on an empire of pyramid-dwelling, polygamist, slave-owning, human sacrificing pagans with the fate of a largely uncharted landmass at stake is incredibly cool. And no one can convince me otherwise.
The comment reads differently given the context, so I’m not sure why you felt it appropriate to post it without that context.
He continues:
> My main takeaway from the book is that the Aztecs were a highly unique civilization that I desperately want to learn more about. They offer great insights into how a society with radically different structures and norms might function.
It reads differently how? Maybe that the “context” shifts from being about the misery induced by the conquest to being fascinated by the feat of the conquest, not about the misery induced by it per se. Okay. I can see that.
Then my comment could have been misleading. And I’m sorry.
> , so I’m not sure why you felt it appropriate to post it without that context.
And he is clearly not celebrating this violence, he’s saying he is fascinated by it. Would you feel this way about a woman telling you she watches a lot of True Crime documentaries? I consider both interests to be perverse; it just seemed like an odd thing to fixate on when the article had quite a bit more to it than that.
> And he is clearly not celebrating this violence, he’s saying he is fascinated by it.
Okay then it was what I thought (see previous). Done?
> Would you feel this way about a woman telling you she watches a lot of True Crime documentaries?
I would think that about anyone who takes the time to frame the conquest in that way and then do a heel-turn in the next paragraph. This is not me saying that the conquest was evil and blaming someone for being interested in it—this is the author framing it in terms of the suffering and then “And yet” (note conjunction) thinking that it was awesome. This is just what he himself chose to write.
Would I judge someone—or I guess specifically a woman—for explaining their fascination with True Crime in the same way? Uh. Yes.
> I consider both interests to be perverse; it just seemed like an odd thing to fixate on
You’re just casually policing off-hand comments. But that’s not odd? My comment, ill-contexted as it was (and sorry for that to the gamer author) was in response to someone focusing on the crimes the conquistadors. Both my response and the quote from the author (on another piece) was relevant to that point.
Considering that I also made a response to the whole article here (which you have replied to by the way) this is clearly not a fixation.
> when the article had quite a bit more to it than that.
