How come European colonial settlers were able to replace indigenous people as a majority of the population in the Americas and Australia but not Africa or Asia?
I have always wondered what factors made it possible for Europeans to almost fully replace indigenous people in North America, Australia and parts of South America as compared to other colonial hotspots such as Africa, India etc?
Is it only correlated to population volume? Disease? More aggressive eradication/displacement tactics? Or is the term “indigenous”misleading since all people are replace by new “tribes” sooner or later?
There are multiple factors in play in each region of the world and at different times.
People have already touched on why European powers were able to so thoroughly replace Native American peoples, and I don't have much to add there.
As far as Africa goes, diseases were actually on the side of the natives rather than the colonizers. Sub-Saharan Africa has multiple endemic diseases which Europeans had minimal resistance to. Huge numbers of Europeans attempting to colonize or do business in Africa died from dengue, malaria, yellow fever and other diseases until the invention of quinine (which helped control malaria symptoms). It also didn't help that horses do not do well in Sub-Saharan Africa. Just like for their European importers and riders, there are a number of parasites and diseases which are very deadly to horses. There's a reason you don't see any large scale use of horses in Sub-Saharan cultures. This meant that it was very difficult for Europeans to penetrate into the African interior farther than the edges of navigable rivers. It wasn't until the introduction of railroads - right around the same time as the invention of quinine - that allowed Europeans to expand their zones of control beyond a few miles from the water's edge.
Asia, of course, as part of the Old World was not particularly susceptible to European diseases because they had the exact same ones. Asia resisted direct colonization for a much longer time as well because there were many large, well-developed and centralized states which resisted incursions into their territory. The Chinese Empire, Japan, Siam (Thailand), the Mughal Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and Persia, just to name a few. These were states with large geographical reach, economic power, and the ability to raise armies every bit as large and technologically advanced as the Europeans who were coming their way - for a while, at least. It wasn't until the mid- to late-1700s that European military technology began to seriously eclipse that of the Asian nations. Before this time, a European expedition of a few ships (even if they did have dozens of cannons apiece) and a few hundred or thousand soliders were all that could reasonably be deployed to the Indian Ocean or the Pacific, and only at great cost; just about any major Asian state would easily outnumber any invader. Eventually, European technology did begin to eclipse Asian technology - although the reasons for this are also very complicated and controversial. And not just better guns or cannons or ships, but better *economic* technology. The ability of comparatively small states such as the Netherlands and Great Britain to expand their tax receipts, use national debt, and expand their economic bases through what are now considered common capitalist means, gave them a huge advantage over Asian nations which were still using basically medieval economic systems.
For more information on this, I can recommend the book "Why Did Europe Conquer The World?" by Phillip T. Hoffman. It is a book that concentrates on economic theory to explain both the culture of European militarism and how Europeans were able to utilize that culture to take over basically the entire planet.
Source? Calvary was an important part of conquest and empire building in Wagadou, Mali, Songhai, Kanem, Sudan, Benin, Ehiopia. So I would have to call bullshit on that claim. Horses are all over Nigeria and that's the most populous African country by far and always has had the highest population and density of people in Africa bar the Nile.
Just like for their European importers and riders, there are a number of parasites and diseases which are very deadly to horses
Again, not sure where you get this notion from? I've read the epics of Sundata Keita and Askia Mohammed, plenty of horses in the armys.
Sorry, I might have been being a bit too general. I didn't mean to imply there were no horses at all in Africa. I'm thinking mainly of the tse tse fly, which carries a parasite which is deadly to horses and other cattle. These weren't everywhere in Africa, obviously, and the cultures you mention did indeed use cavalry. But horses, especially European breeds, were definitely more difficult to keep healthy in certain areas of Western and Central Africa. Just like the European humans.
The places I named contain the majority of the African population as well as the some of the largest empires and kingdoms in history period. The average European was not riding horses or involved in any kind of horse culture to my knowledge. European hunter/gatherer were not riding horses to my knowledge. No different than in Africa. Horses were a sign of wealth and a part of the military culture. Rock art in Libya and Niger show people riding ponies with chariots as early as 5000-7000 BC.
Sure, but I thought we were talking about the period of European colonization? I am definitely less educated than I would like on sub-Saharan African history, so I will take your word on that.
Disease was a huge factor in the Americas. Perhaps in Africa and Asia they had better resistance to some of the diseases that wiped out indigenous americans.
That's becaise people of Europe, Africa and Asia have been in contact with each other since forever. America, Australia and oceania was "the new world"
Smallpox destroyed >50% of the aboriginal Australian population in a single year.
Yep. About 90% of the native population of NA succumbed to disease in the 100 years after European contact, and at that point it was a devastated stone-age culture vs. European high technology. It was never going to end any other way... except maybe in later centuries fucking them over time and again. Breaking treaties was just a dick move.
It mainly has to do with disease, especially in Africa. Europeans set up extractive colonies in Africa because it was nearly impossible for them to create viable settlements and so they focused mainly on resource extraction. In the Americas, for example, large settlements were much more viable and the diseases the Europeans brought over decimated the local populations, as opposed to the effect being reversed in Africa.
An interesting article is the The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development which you can read here. It talks about how settler mortality rates affect the institutions that persist today but the beginning of the article deals with why there was a difference in the types of colonies set up (extractive vs settler).
Many have already mentioned disease as the primary cause of the drastic reduction of the indigenous population , I would also like to add the in spanish territories the indigenous population didn't just disappear but It was mixed with the spanish conqueror .The conquistadores were mostly male and they took in marriage indigenous women ( altough as you can probably immagine It wasn't a consesual marriage).
Consent in an age where in Europe rape was a tool to force a marriage in court is hard to come by. But would isn’t that a bit too black and white? The reasons why you’d marry the people in power can be for all the 50 shades in between?
Many people have cited disease, which may be the biggest factor. But another is that the new world was the focal point of colonial agriculture. Plantations needed people to run them and there was no existing infrastructure or local expertise in the kind of system they were implementing. African land was more about logistics than production and presumably a much less appealing spot to settle for the most part. Asia was heavily populated and a dynamic economy already existed that didn’t require as much European resettlement.
Americas : the Europeans carried diseases that wiped up to 80-90% of the Native population in just a century.
Australia : It doesnt seem to have been densely populated to start with, so the Aborigines were overwhelmed by wave after wave of settlers from UK and europe.
Africa: The climate is more hostile to Europeans, and they arrived as colonizers quite late in history (19th century) so the intention of colonizing was just a mild attempt.
India : Are you sure you can replace about a billion or so native inhabitants?
In the case of the Americas, disease dealt the first major blow to indigenous populations. After that, a constant supply of new immigrants (colonists) and systematic resesettling / extermination of the indigenous populations.
In the case of Africa and Asia the disease part was not as big a factor because unlike the Americas, Africa and Asia are not separated from Europe by an ocean. Throughout history there's always been plenty of interaction and trade between these regions. In fact, the black death originated in China and travelled west to Europe following the silk road. And the disease part was somewhat opposite in Africa as malaria is naturally occuring there and not in Europe, so many european colonists died from that and it was a major reason why colonization of Africa happened so much later. The colonists had virtually no immunity to malaria whereas the indigenous populations, though they weren't immune, had some defense against it. Because of this the already well established kingdoms and empires of Africa and Asia never suffered the same kind of societal collapse as the American ones, so the colonists didn't really get the upper hand until the introduction of the Maxim Gun.
Who keeps downvoting automod? He's just trying to help.
It's already been touched on, but disease was absolutely one of the key, if not the key, reasons. Many diseases arise from animal domestication, and over time the people domesticating those animals gain a degree of immunity to those diseases but still serve as hosts to them. This is important because it means that they brought diseases that they were immune to to areas where people were not immune to them largely because they lacked domesticable animals to gain that immunity. This explains why they were able to have so much success in the Americas and Australia - both of those areas lacked large numbers of domesticated animals and were sparsely populated in general (I believe this was less true of South America though, specifically in the Inca and Maya empires - nonetheless, South America as a whole was not so highly populated) so they were able to be defeated in combat and because of diseases. Fun fact, Australia's largest animal is the kangaroo - this is because the aborigines got to Australia at a relatively late period in human history, when humans had developed advanced hunting techniques, which allowed them to annihilate the local large animal populations (this happened in North and South America as well) - robbing them of any large animals to domesticate and use to farm.
As far as Africa, I recall reading an account of when they tried to heavily inhabit an African country (either South Africa or Ethiopia, I believe) but were repelled by disease, probably yellow fever. On top of that, I just don't know that they saw the practicality in settling Africa because A. much of Africa isn't particularly habitable as I understand the geography and B. because it was close enough that they could exploit African resources without actually having to be there (In Australia and the Americas, they were so far away that if you want to be able to exploit them for resources you really need a dominant presence there). In the case of Asia, there was a strong history of animal domestication there so they were comparatively immune to European diseases - on top of that, areas in similar latitudes have similar climates and thus are suitable for similar forms of animal domestication, which implies that they were immune to the same diseases. Furthermore, the Americas and Australia were not controlled in the same way that Asia was - the Asians had a long history, even at that point, of great civilizations and so were fairly deeply entrenched and could not just be driven from the land quite as easily.
You should really read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. That book is essentially dedicated to answering your question.
Hi!
It looks like you are talking about the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.
The book over the past years has become rather popular, which is hardly surprising since it is a good and entertaining read. It has reached the point that for some people it has sort of reached the status of gospel. On r/history we noticed a trend where every time a question was asked that has even the slightest relation to the book a dozen or so people would jump in and recommending the book. Which in the context of history is a bit problematic and the reason this reply has been written.
Why it is problematic can be broken down into two reasons:
In academic history there isn't such thing as one definitive authority or work on things, there are often others who research the same subjects and people that dive into work of others to build on it or to see if it indeed holds up. This being critical of your sources and not relying on one source is actually a very important history skill often lacking when dozens of people just spam the same work over and over again as a definite guide and answer to "everything".
There are a good amount modern historians and anthropologists that are quite critical of Guns, Germs, and Steel and there are some very real issues with Diamond's work. These issues are often overlooked or not noticed by the people reading his book. Which is understandable given the fact that for many it will be their first exposure to the subject. Considering the popularity of the book it is also the reason that we felt it was needed to create this response.
In an ideal world, every time the book was posted in r/history, it would be accompanied by critical notes and other works covering the same subject. Lacking that a dozen other people would quickly respond and do the same. But simply put, that isn't always going to happen and as a result, we have created this response so people can be made aware of these things. Does this mean that the r/history mods hate the book or Diamond himself? No, if that was the case we would simply instruct the bot to remove every mention of it, this is just an attempt to bring some balance to a conversation that in popular history had become a bit unbalanced. It should also be noted that being critical of someone's work isn't that same as outright dismissing it. Historians are always critical of any work they examine, that is part of they core skill set and key in doing good research.
Below you'll find a list of other works covering much of the same subject, further below you'll find an explanation of why many historians and anthropologists are critical of Diamonds work.
Other works covering the same and similar subjects.
Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
Last Days of the Inca
Epidemics and Enslavement: Biological Catastrophe in the Native Southeast, 1492-1715
The Great Divergence
Why the West Rules for Now
Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900
Criticism on Guns, Germs, and Steel
Many historians and anthropologists believe Diamond plays fast and loose with history by generalizing highly complex topics to provide an ecological/geographical determinist view of human history. There is a reason historians avoid grand theories of human history: those "just so stories" don't adequately explain human history. It's true however that it is an entertaining introductory text that forces people to look at world history from a different vantage point. That being said, Diamond writes a rather oversimplified narrative that seemingly ignores the human element of history.
Cherry-picked data while ignoring the complexity of issues
In his chapter "Lethal Gift of Livestock" on the origin of human crowd infections he picks 5 pathogens that best support his idea of domestic origins. However, when diving into the genetic and historic data, only two pathogens (maybe influenza and most likely measles) could possibly have jumped to humans through domestication. The majority were already a part of the human disease load before the origin of agriculture, domestication, and sedentary population centers. This is an example of Diamond ignoring the evidence that didn't support his theory to explain conquest via disease spread to immunologically naive Native Americas.
A similar case of cherry-picking history is seen when discussing the conquest of the Inca.
This is a very broad generalization that effectively makes it false. Conquest was not a simple matter of conquering a people, raising a Spanish flag, and calling "game over." Conquest was a constant process of negotiation, accommodation, and rebellion played out through the ebbs and flows of power over the course of centuries. Some Yucatan Maya city-states maintained independence for two hundred years after contact, were "conquered", and then immediately rebelled again. The Pueblos along the Rio Grande revolted in 1680, dislodged the Spanish for a decade, and instigated unrest that threatened the survival of the entire northern edge of the empire for decades to come. Technological "advantage", in this case guns and steel, did not automatically equate to battlefield success in the face of resistance, rough terrain and vastly superior numbers. The story was far more nuanced, and conquest was never a cut and dry issue, which in the book is not really touched upon. In the book it seems to be case of the Inka being conquered when Pizarro says they were conquered.
Uncritical examining of the historical record surrounding conquest
Being critical of the sources you come across and being aware of their context, biases and agendas is a core skill of any historian.
Pizarro, Cortez and other conquistadores were biased authors who wrote for the sole purpose of supporting/justifying their claim on the territory, riches and peoples they subdued. To do so they elaborated their own sufferings, bravery, and outstanding deeds, while minimizing the work of native allies, pure dumb luck, and good timing. If you only read their accounts you walk away thinking a handful of adventurers conquered an empire thanks to guns and steel and a smattering of germs. No historian in the last half century would be so naive to argue this generalized view of conquest, but European technological supremacy is one keystone to Diamond's thesis so he presents conquest at the hands of a handful of adventurers.
The construction of the arguments for GG&S paints Native Americans specifically, and the colonized world in general, as categorically inferior.
To believe the narrative you need to view Native Americans as fundamentally naive, unable to understand Spanish motivations and desires, unable react to new weapons/military tactics, unwilling to accommodate to a changing political landscape, incapable of mounting resistance once conquered, too stupid to invent the key technological advances used against them, and doomed to die because they failed to build cities, domesticate animals and thereby acquire infectious organisms. When viewed through this lens, we hope you can see why so many historians and anthropologists are livid that a popular writer is perpetuating a false interpretation of history while minimizing the agency of entire continents full of people.
Further reading.
If you are interested in reading more about what others think of Diamon's book you can give these resources a go:
/r/askHistorians section in their FAQ about GG&S
Jim Blaut on Jared Diamond
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel" is an excellent book that touches on this topic. It explains why in certain parts of the world civilizations thrived while in others less so.
Hi!
It looks like you are talking about the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.
The book over the past years has become rather popular, which is hardly surprising since it is a good and entertaining read. It has reached the point that for some people it has sort of reached the status of gospel. On r/history we noticed a trend where every time a question was asked that has even the slightest relation to the book a dozen or so people would jump in and recommending the book. Which in the context of history is a bit problematic and the reason this reply has been written.
Why it is problematic can be broken down into two reasons:
In academic history there isn't such thing as one definitive authority or work on things, there are often others who research the same subjects and people that dive into work of others to build on it or to see if it indeed holds up. This being critical of your sources and not relying on one source is actually a very important history skill often lacking when dozens of people just spam the same work over and over again as a definite guide and answer to "everything".
There are a good amount modern historians and anthropologists that are quite critical of Guns, Germs, and Steel and there are some very real issues with Diamond's work. These issues are often overlooked or not noticed by the people reading his book. Which is understandable given the fact that for many it will be their first exposure to the subject. Considering the popularity of the book it is also the reason that we felt it was needed to create this response.
In an ideal world, every time the book was posted in r/history, it would be accompanied by critical notes and other works covering the same subject. Lacking that a dozen other people would quickly respond and do the same. But simply put, that isn't always going to happen and as a result, we have created this response so people can be made aware of these things. Does this mean that the r/history mods hate the book or Diamond himself? No, if that was the case we would simply instruct the bot to remove every mention of it, this is just an attempt to bring some balance to a conversation that in popular history had become a bit unbalanced. It should also be noted that being critical of someone's work isn't that same as outright dismissing it. Historians are always critical of any work they examine, that is part of they core skill set and key in doing good research.
Below you'll find a list of other works covering much of the same subject, further below you'll find an explanation of why many historians and anthropologists are critical of Diamonds work.
Other works covering the same and similar subjects.
Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
Last Days of the Inca
Epidemics and Enslavement: Biological Catastrophe in the Native Southeast, 1492-1715
The Great Divergence
Why the West Rules for Now
Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900
Criticism on Guns, Germs, and Steel
Many historians and anthropologists believe Diamond plays fast and loose with history by generalizing highly complex topics to provide an ecological/geographical determinist view of human history. There is a reason historians avoid grand theories of human history: those "just so stories" don't adequately explain human history. It's true however that it is an entertaining introductory text that forces people to look at world history from a different vantage point. That being said, Diamond writes a rather oversimplified narrative that seemingly ignores the human element of history.
Cherry-picked data while ignoring the complexity of issues
In his chapter "Lethal Gift of Livestock" on the origin of human crowd infections he picks 5 pathogens that best support his idea of domestic origins. However, when diving into the genetic and historic data, only two pathogens (maybe influenza and most likely measles) could possibly have jumped to humans through domestication. The majority were already a part of the human disease load before the origin of agriculture, domestication, and sedentary population centers. This is an example of Diamond ignoring the evidence that didn't support his theory to explain conquest via disease spread to immunologically naive Native Americas.
A similar case of cherry-picking history is seen when discussing the conquest of the Inca.
This is a very broad generalization that effectively makes it false. Conquest was not a simple matter of conquering a people, raising a Spanish flag, and calling "game over." Conquest was a constant process of negotiation, accommodation, and rebellion played out through the ebbs and flows of power over the course of centuries. Some Yucatan Maya city-states maintained independence for two hundred years after contact, were "conquered", and then immediately rebelled again. The Pueblos along the Rio Grande revolted in 1680, dislodged the Spanish for a decade, and instigated unrest that threatened the survival of the entire northern edge of the empire for decades to come. Technological "advantage", in this case guns and steel, did not automatically equate to battlefield success in the face of resistance, rough terrain and vastly superior numbers. The story was far more nuanced, and conquest was never a cut and dry issue, which in the book is not really touched upon. In the book it seems to be case of the Inka being conquered when Pizarro says they were conquered.
Uncritical examining of the historical record surrounding conquest
Being critical of the sources you come across and being aware of their context, biases and agendas is a core skill of any historian.
Pizarro, Cortez and other conquistadores were biased authors who wrote for the sole purpose of supporting/justifying their claim on the territory, riches and peoples they subdued. To do so they elaborated their own sufferings, bravery, and outstanding deeds, while minimizing the work of native allies, pure dumb luck, and good timing. If you only read their accounts you walk away thinking a handful of adventurers conquered an empire thanks to guns and steel and a smattering of germs. No historian in the last half century would be so naive to argue this generalized view of conquest, but European technological supremacy is one keystone to Diamond's thesis so he presents conquest at the hands of a handful of adventurers.
The construction of the arguments for GG&S paints Native Americans specifically, and the colonized world in general, as categorically inferior.
To believe the narrative you need to view Native Americans as fundamentally naive, unable to understand Spanish motivations and desires, unable react to new weapons/military tactics, unwilling to accommodate to a changing political landscape, incapable of mounting resistance once conquered, too stupid to invent the key technological advances used against them, and doomed to die because they failed to build cities, domesticate animals and thereby acquire infectious organisms. When viewed through this lens, we hope you can see why so many historians and anthropologists are livid that a popular writer is perpetuating a false interpretation of history while minimizing the agency of entire continents full of people.
Further reading.
If you are interested in reading more about what others think of Diamon's book you can give these resources a go:
/r/askHistorians section in their FAQ about GG&S
Jim Blaut on Jared Diamond
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
The only thing that might not have been mentioned was technological advancement... Certain countries (Japan, India, Hong Kong) were advanced/developing and presented different opportunities to Europe. Colonizing them like the America’s/Australia was not a possibility. So instead, European infrastructure was installed and trade was established.
In America - disease that may have wiped out as much as 98% of the pre Colombian population, low overall population figures preceding that and systematic genocide.