General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I could see that the white man did not care about each other the way our people did. [View all]BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)The shift to agriculture allowed populations to grow quickly and then outgrow resources, so new land had to be taken. Hunter gatherers are limited by the food supply and often require large territories in order to support the population which leads to much more balance.
The common assumption is that Europeans were able to conquer indigenous peoples because of gun powder, and while this is true, just as important is that they had domesticated animals such as horses which could be compared to modern day tanks. That is how small groups of Spaniards could ravage a continent, not to mention large ships with cannon. But the greatest problem was disease. Indigenous peoples had no resistance and so were wiped out in great swaths.
But genocide of native peoples was systematic. The same happened in Australia, where colonists called Aborigines vermin and nearly completely wiped them out. Estimates of Aborigines before contact are between 750,000 to 1.2 million. After the invasion, the population became dangerously low, with estimates of 25,000 survivors. This pattern happened to all indigenous peoples including the Polynesians in Hawaii who only number 8,000 now with estimates over two million when Cook first contacted.
The Middle East and Asia were often at the same level of technology and agriculture (I am loathe to say the same level of civilization) so Europeans, though they tried, were unable to colonize. But most of all, it was a clash of cultures. And as Black Elk states, indigenous peoples had a far different culture in that they did not attempt to "acquire" more than they needed. It was part of what they simply could not understand about the behaviour of the whites and so were taken off guard. If one were to say the quote is a comparison of culture, rather than race, it show the difference in values.