If the reconquista had never happened, How advanced would the mesoamerican culture and the incas be right now?
I feel like they're pretty underrated. They came up with writing independently, developed math and build one of the largest cities in the world at the time.
>Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés arrived in Tenochtitlan on November 8, 1519. With an estimated population between 200,000 and 300,000. Compared to Europe, only Paris, Venice and Constantinople might have rivaled it. It was five times the size of the London of Henry VIII.[6] In a letter to the Spanish king, Cortés wrote that Tenochtitlan was as large as Seville or Córdoba. Cortes' men were in awe at the sight of the splendid city and many wondered if they were dreaming.[15]
Aaron Murphy
Not very. Within a hundred years, you had other people besides the Iberians, French and English and Danes and the like, exploring the New World. And within a hundred years, the Mesoamericans aren't likely to catch up to things like steel and horses and guns, and certainly won't have an answer to the diseases Europeans carry with them. Someone else would have shown up and then beaten the shit out of them.
Elijah Baker
Even without a brutal conquest they would have inevitably faced extreme devastation from disease.
Also the Aztecs would have faced a major totonac uprising even if the Spanish hadn't shown up, it was already a powder keg Cortes just lit it.
Caleb Bailey
The aztec would have been better of if cortez showed up 50 years earlier. Their society was collapsing for various reasons when the spanish "discovered" them
Dominic Cook
Reconquista was against the Moors in Iberia though.
Levi Mitchell
Someobe would have to give them metalurgy and no nation is that dumb They wouldn't be first world but they would have a shitton of food because of how asvanced they were in agriculture After a while they would probably figure out steel and gunpowder meaning the colonies are fucked if the still exist
Kevin Walker
I know. If it never happened they couldn't have got in America unless the Moors started exploring too.
James Sanchez
Disease is truly the only important factor here. If the native americans had normal resistances to small pox the colonization that occurred would have been much more like that in africa. Remember africa only got colonized in the 19th century because that level of technology was needed to supress a large local population.
A high quality breastplate, rapier, and smooth boore musket weren't THAAT superior to sticks and clubs. Repeating rifles on the other hand...
Lincoln Gomez
>how asvanced they were in agriculture
Based on? Mesoamerican food production wasn't anything spectacular, especially compared to where the rest of the world was. They hadn't domesticated draft animals to pull plows or even wheeled carts for the most part.
If anything I would argue pre-Colombian societies are overrated based on some sort of academic "white guilt" shit.
Also the Inca never developed written language, they just tied rope into a series of knots to represent stuff (Quipu).
They were somewhat impressive compared to the hunter-gatherer tree niggers in the N.E I guess, but compared to 15th century Europe? Lol be real homie.
Elijah Taylor
Africa was only colonized that late because of Malaria.
People underestimates diseases
Camden Diaz
Why are you comparing them to people who had more time to develop and borrowed from other non-european cultures? btw Inca was only 100 years old. Context is important...
James Martinez
Colonization in africa did NOT take off in the 16th century sorry m8. Africa would have been like SOUTH Africa if not for malaria, you have a point. But theres a big difference between the way south africa and the americas were colonized.
Tyler Jackson
>A high quality breastplate, rapier, and smooth boore musket weren't THAAT superior to sticks and clubs. a high quality breastplate made them completely invulnerable against any of the native weaponry (unless they attacked the conquistadors in a place they weren't armored obviously) they were a massively huge deal and are one of the reasons Cortes' conquest succeeded in the first place
Andrew Young
>Why are you comparing them to people who had more time to develop and borrowed from other non-european cultures? btw Inca was only 100 years old. Context is important...
Because OP called them "underrated" which implies a comparison to other societies and also because the OP mentioned the Spanish, a group located on the iberian penisula in the continent of, you guessed it, Europe.
I don't have anything against mesoamerican cultures or view the people as biologically inferior and fully understand how important the exchange of good and ideas was in Europe's success. I just don't understand Veeky Forums obsession with the "mighty meso-meme". They were a comparatively primitive people who got btfu when they inevitably came into contact with other people, the end.
They were no more special than any other primitive group that suffered the same fate.
Ian Lewis
Unless the Inca started producing massive llamas that could function like a horse/camel and figured out steel, I think the Native Americans would have still been subjugated by someone.
Whether that's other Europeans, Arabs, Turks, Chinese, or whomever.
Jace Williams
>They were no more special than any other primitive group that suffered the same fate.
>"Moctezuma possessed out of the city as well as within, numerous villas, each of which had its peculiar sources of amusement, and all were constructed in the best possible manner for the use of a great prince and lord. Within the city his palaces were so wonderful that it is hardly possible to describe their beauty and extent ; I can only say that in Spain there is nothing equal to them."
>"On their route they passed through three provinces, that, according to the report of the Spaniards, contained very fine land, many villages and cities, with much scattered population, and buildings equal to any in Spain. They mentioned particularly a house and castle, the latter larger, of greater strength, and better built than the castle of Burgos (the castle of kings of Spain); and the people of one of these provinces, called Tamazulapa, were better clothed than those of any other we had seen, as it justly appeared to them."
- Hernan Cortes, Second Letter of Relation to Charles V
Gavin Cox
>They were somewhat impressive compared to the hunter-gatherer tree niggers in the N.E I guess, but compared to 15th century Europe?
>"(About Tlatelolco) After we had sufficiently gazed upon this magnificent picture, we again turned our eyes toward the great market, and beheld the vast numbers of buyers and sellers who thronged there. The bustle and noise occasioned by this multitude of human beings was so great that it could be heard at a distance of more than four miles. Some of our men, who had been at Constantinople and Rome, and travelled through the whole of Italy, said that they never had seen a market-place of such large dimensions, or which was so well regulated, or so crowded with people as this one at Mexico." Bernal Díaz del Castillo, True History of the Conquest of the New Spain, Chapter XCII
>They agreed to work at it viribus et posse, and began at once to divide the task between them, and I must say that they worked so hard, and with such good will, that in less than four days they constructed a fine bridge, over which the whole of the men and horses passed. So solidly built it was, that I have no doubt it will stand for upwards of ten years without breaking —unless it is burnt down — being formed by upwards of one thousand beams, the smallest of which was as thick round as a man's body, and measured nine or ten fathoms in length, without counting a great quantity of lighter timber that was used as planks. And I can assure your Majesty that I do not believe there is a man in existence capable of explaining in a satisfactory manner the dexterity which these lords of Tenochtitlan, and the Indians under them, displayed in constructing the said bridge: I can only sav that it is the most wonderful thing that ever was seen. - Hernan Cortes, Fifth Letter of Relation to Charles V
Lucas Wilson
>Based on? Mesoamerican food production wasn't anything spectacular, especially compared to where the rest of the world was. These raised, well-watered beds had very high crop yields with up to 7 harvests a year. Chinampas were commonly used in pre-colonial Mexico and Central America.
Anthony Williams
Doubt it, the only ones who could have posed a serious challenge to the Aztecs were the Purepecha, who were expanding as well.
Ethan Murphy
they would still have been neolithic tier at the present day without European contact
Jose Davis
This would have happened.
>1492 : Abdel Colombus discovers America in the name of Allah the merciful
Lucas Evans
Got source on that? 7 Harvest per year is crazy number.
Isaiah Hall
They would have fared better under muslim rule desu.
Kayden Rogers
naturally, the muslim would have seen much of himself in the blood rites of the aztec
Levi Brown
>a high quality breastplate made them invulnerable to native weapons.
Objectively false. You don't have to be hit in the center mass to suffer a fatal wound, and sling weaponry was infamously effective even against armored soldiers.
In any case Spanish technological superiority being a deciding factor is a dank ass meme is obvious as soon as you remember La Noche Triste happened.
Oliver Rodriguez
Aztec Medicine and Health, and Nutrition by Bernardo Ortiz de Montellano, sadly I can't source it exactly right now
Mason Rodriguez
>Someobe would have to give them metalurgy and no nation is that dumb this, Spaniards didn't even allow iron explotaiton in New Spain
Jaxon Fisher
>they just magically figure out gunpowder
you're american
Justin Bennett
>A high quality breastplate, rapier, and smooth boore musket weren't THAAT superior to sticks and clubs. lmao
Swords could not only parry any hit from a macuahuitl but even break the weapon, the thrusting potential of the sword also allowed close formations which allowed the spaniards to mantain defensive positions until the cavalry or the artillery killed off the enemy general and routed the army.
Jack Bailey
>un-ironically posting tabloid-tier Spanish greentexts that were invented to persuade euro powers to fund additional trips
Cameron Wood
>unironically ignoring the archaeology that back up the Spanish accounts you can give it a try and prove them wrong if you please, but the images on the side of those tabloid greentexts are not there just for decoration
Ethan Roberts
Dude you posted some images of monumental stone ruins (something found in pretty much every corner of the world) and an artists rendition of what the city may have looked like at one time. Neither of those things prove that they were "underrated" compared to Europe or any other civilization to have come before.
Mesoamerican civ's were neat-o, no doubt, but compared to most everywhere else in the old world they were very primitive. I mean ffs there are universities in europe that predate the entire aztec civilization. Doesn't mean their lives had any less meaning or that their civilizations aren't worth studying, but they weren't some space-age master race that only lost b/c of "muh germs".
Aiden Hall
If an arabic nation had found the americas instead of spain the world would be way cooler
Josiah Stewart
Aztecs also had schools of learning. And it was open to all classes and genders.
Luke Williams
Further proofs that egalitarianism destroys civilizations.
Kayden White
>you posted some images of monumental stone ruins (something found in pretty much every corner of the world) Didn't know every corner in the world had the biggest structures of all time, the more you know.
>and an artists rendition of what the city may have looked like at one time Renditions done by two groups of archaeologists of the mexican institute of archaeology and one by independant american antropologists. But yeah, the ongoing researches might prove them inaccurate considering the precinct of Tenochtitlan on which they are mostly based, turned to be bigger than what the Spanish accounts stated.
Glad you didn't adress the third pic of the chinampas, I would have had to repeat that they produced 7 times more than the average Spanish crop.
>Neither of those things prove that they were "underrated" compared to Europe or any other civilization to have come before. Seems you also forgot to adress those tabloid greentexts you complained in the first place. Everyday, the marketplace of Tlatelolco recieved as many people as the total population of contemporary Florence. The Aztecs built a bridge while being 1500 km away from their supply lines and counting with the same resources and men as the Spanish.
Won't bother to discuss the villas of moctezuma, I will only say that his zoos predate the zoos of post classical europe by 300 years.
>Mesoamerican civ's were neat-o, no doubt, but compared to most everywhere else in the old world they were very primitive. Of course they didn't match the Old World shared development, their whole sphere of cultural exchange was 1.5 times the size of the Iberian Peninsula. They didn't get horses from the Central Asians, neither civilization, writting and ironworking from the Mesopotamians, nor shipbuilding from the Egyptians, mathematics and bulls from the Indians, science from the Greeks, engineering from the Romans, gunpowder from the Chinese, etc But that doesn't mean their achievements were despicable.
James Diaz
>compared to most everywhere else in the old world they were very primitive The Spaniards esteemed the medical knowledge of Aztec physicians. Hernando Cortés reportedly told the Spanish monarch that the Aztec physicians were superior to those in Spain, so superior, in fact, that the king need not bother sending Spanish physicians to the New World. Fray Toribio Motolinía thought that the Indian doctors were "so experienced that they have cured many old and serious infirmities which the Spaniards have suffered many days without finding a remedy"
>I mean ffs there are universities in europe that predate the entire aztec civilization. Europeans had universities since 6th AD? Woah, I thought euros were tribes and petty warring kingdoms before Spain was created in 1492.
John Watson
Would've been conquered by the French, Dutch, or English, bro.
Nicholas Collins
>all classes and genders >implying more than two genders
Christopher King
Mesoamerica haters BTFO
Jaxson Hernandez
>They hadn't domesticated draft animals to pull plows or even wheeled carts for the most part.
Because there were no draft animals to domesticate.
Charles Diaz
I very highly doubt it but it would be cool to see what pyramids they could have built with better technology