I think that even had they killed the first settlers, Europeans were always going to come in and conquer the Americas. The natives just did not have the right kind of civilization to fight nations that were so experienced with colonization. It might not have gone as smoothly for the colonizers. Might have drastically changed how the continent was divided up. Maybe even would have caused, what is now the US, to be more like divided colonies for different nations. Maybe, MAYBE this would have prevented as many natives being killed, but there really no way I see the natives of the time preventing the eventual colonization of Central and North America.
The Philippines also did something similar when the Spanish started colonizing. While we did manage to drive the Spanish away in the Battle of Mactan (leading to the death of Ferdinand Magellan), they would later return and the Philippines got colonized anyways.
This narrative that the natives people were somehow “Civilizationally” inferior is false. They were near on par in almost all aspects, and were very much capable of holding their own. One of the big factors that allowed the Europeans to get such a strong foothold was co-operation with natives and Indians in the lands they occupied, and turning tribes and groups against each other and hiring mercenaries from among the natives to fight for them. Had there been some form of unified front, there would almost certainly have been a chance for them to resist the colonizers.
I never said they had an “inferior civilization.” I said they did not have the right kind of civilization, to fight off the colonizing forced that would repeatedly come for the Americas, even had they had killed the first group.
Their conditions simply didn’t require them to form a civilization like that. They didn’t need to make fortified bases and castles, invent firearms, develop large scale unified armies with tactics designed to fight other large scale armies. Sure, they had battle experience. They went to war and such but they had never had to deal with something like these European colonizers before that would have required them to unify against a threat like that.
Them having said large scale unified front would require pretty drastic changes to the society that would go back much farther in time. Had your original comment been “The native Americans forming a cohesive, unified civilization capable of keeping the Europeans out of the Americas.” Then I would have to agree. Had that happened, even with the technical superiority of the EUs it would have drastically changed how North America would develop. The US as we know it probably wouldn’t ever come to exist.
There is however, a significant difference between that and simply saying " the Natives should never had trusted the Europeans," which is what my first response was to.
Before you revised your first comment it came across like you were implying some sort of civilizational backwardness, maybe that wasn’t the intention but it was what you wrote. I think you should look into the nature of the conquest of Latin America, the romanticized idea of a small, technologically superior European force defeating large unorganized and less “advanced” indigenous peoples is nearly a complete fabrication. It was achieved through divide and conquer, and in large part by hiring natives to fight each other. Even in north America this was done, with certain peoples siding with the colonizer to evict their fellow Indians. The conquest of the Americas could not have been possible without the co-operation from the local leadership. In nearly every single large scale battle between natives and Europeans, the Europeans had significant Indian forces siding with them. The short sightedness of those who sided with the colonizers at the time is what I was referring to in my original comment.
I think that even had they killed the first settlers, Europeans were always going to come in and conquer the Americas. The natives just did not have the right kind of civilization to fight nations that were so experienced with colonization. It might not have gone as smoothly for the colonizers. Might have drastically changed how the continent was divided up. Maybe even would have caused, what is now the US, to be more like divided colonies for different nations. Maybe, MAYBE this would have prevented as many natives being killed, but there really no way I see the natives of the time preventing the eventual colonization of Central and North America.
The Philippines also did something similar when the Spanish started colonizing. While we did manage to drive the Spanish away in the Battle of Mactan (leading to the death of Ferdinand Magellan), they would later return and the Philippines got colonized anyways.
This narrative that the natives people were somehow “Civilizationally” inferior is false. They were near on par in almost all aspects, and were very much capable of holding their own. One of the big factors that allowed the Europeans to get such a strong foothold was co-operation with natives and Indians in the lands they occupied, and turning tribes and groups against each other and hiring mercenaries from among the natives to fight for them. Had there been some form of unified front, there would almost certainly have been a chance for them to resist the colonizers.
I never said they had an “inferior civilization.” I said they did not have the right kind of civilization, to fight off the colonizing forced that would repeatedly come for the Americas, even had they had killed the first group.
Their conditions simply didn’t require them to form a civilization like that. They didn’t need to make fortified bases and castles, invent firearms, develop large scale unified armies with tactics designed to fight other large scale armies. Sure, they had battle experience. They went to war and such but they had never had to deal with something like these European colonizers before that would have required them to unify against a threat like that.
Them having said large scale unified front would require pretty drastic changes to the society that would go back much farther in time. Had your original comment been “The native Americans forming a cohesive, unified civilization capable of keeping the Europeans out of the Americas.” Then I would have to agree. Had that happened, even with the technical superiority of the EUs it would have drastically changed how North America would develop. The US as we know it probably wouldn’t ever come to exist.
There is however, a significant difference between that and simply saying " the Natives should never had trusted the Europeans," which is what my first response was to.
To add to this, the colonizers had diseases on their side.
Before you revised your first comment it came across like you were implying some sort of civilizational backwardness, maybe that wasn’t the intention but it was what you wrote. I think you should look into the nature of the conquest of Latin America, the romanticized idea of a small, technologically superior European force defeating large unorganized and less “advanced” indigenous peoples is nearly a complete fabrication. It was achieved through divide and conquer, and in large part by hiring natives to fight each other. Even in north America this was done, with certain peoples siding with the colonizer to evict their fellow Indians. The conquest of the Americas could not have been possible without the co-operation from the local leadership. In nearly every single large scale battle between natives and Europeans, the Europeans had significant Indian forces siding with them. The short sightedness of those who sided with the colonizers at the time is what I was referring to in my original comment.