| >no guilt. No reparations. Have you ever wondered why the European North American settlers didn’t have a unified indigenous empire to contend with, such as could be found in Central and South America? (Ie Incan or Aztec). I would posit that it was because the Hunter/raider/gatherer societies could not sustain growth beyond a certain point. For whatever reason, the North American indigenous tribes would not cross a threshold of government and infrastructure that is required to eliminate their reliance on raiding (the perpetual changing hands of limited refined resources), and game hunting (ie lack of livestock domestication and food storage that allow for permanent settlements, growth). What the Europeans did to the Indians was as horrendous in execution as it was consequential to the decisions those tribes made during the hundreds of years leading up to the arrival of the Europeans. Who knows what may had been if Columbus had been confronted with a unified indigenous empire with permanent settlements and defensive emplacements? Instead he found desperate tribes of marauding Indians, reliant on a singular food source and very willing to accept short term alliances for short term infighting advantages. Its hardly a thing, IMO, for a descendant many generations removed to feel guilty over…let alone pay penance for. |
The Tahuantinsuyu (Inca) had a civil war of succession followed by a purge of the nobility after the monarch died Huayna Capac of smallpox.
So not even in those cases they faced a unified front.
And the innovations you mention are not enough. On one side you have no navigation technology (map making, compass, etc), no animal traction.