[restalis]

"that would have been «technologically superior» to what the native Americans would have had, since they had boats, not ships"

Technological superiority as in "the air [or aura] of invincibility"¹ that conquistadors acquired in their campaigns. That required quite a difference in military capabilities and skill to leverage that superiority into an exploitable psychological effect. I'm sure there were plenty of technological advantages over native Americans, but I'm not so sure that those were enough to have the same impact as that had for the later Spanish conquest force.

"Mali also had guns so I’m not sure how Mali couldn’t have been seen as more technologically advanced"

I doubt that gunpowder had at that time a significant use in Middle East², let alone in some far western parts of Africa. That use was initially reduced to casted-on-the-spot direction-fixed heavy bombards, used in fortress sieges, not against dispersed groups of infantry. It took time for technology to be developed into hand-wielding guns like the Arquebus. Add to that it would have been a stretch for some attacking force accustomed to dry weather to rely on gunpowder in (probably unexpected) tropical/equatorial wetlands.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cajamarca

² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunpowder#Middle_East