Chapter 25 Chapter 19 North and South America and Australia
The Vikings stumbled across North America in the 11th century and tried unsuccessfully to maintain a settlement there for about 100 years. In the 15th century, Columbus discovered the American continent, but this time the results were completely different.With discovery came not defeat and retreat, but a massive, overwhelming invasion of North and South America.This comparison reflects the extent to which European effort and dynamism have grown during these 500 years.
The rapid European invasion and exploitation of the Americas contrasted equally strikingly with the belated invasion and exploitation of Africa centuries later.One reason is geography; the American continent is geographically more accessible and attractive.Another reason, as Adam Smith put it, was the "poor, helpless" plight of the Indians.Although they were not at the same level of development, the general state of Indian culture was such that effective resistance was not possible.If this is true of the American Indians, it is even more true of the Aboriginal Australians, who were still in the food-gathering phase.This chapter describes the physical and cultural background of the major developments following Columbus's landing in the West Indies and Captain James Cook's landing in New South Wales.
In contrast to Africa, the Americas were completely open to European immigration.There are no sandbars to hinder approach to the coast; and the ports on the jagged coast of America are often more accessible than those on the straight coast of Africa.In addition, the Americas had well-developed and relatively unobstructed inland waterways that provided easy access to the interior.The Amazon, La Plata, Mississippi and St. Lawrence rivers are majestic.The water flows gently, and such rivers do not exist in Africa.Explorers soon learned to use native birch canoes.They found that with only a few supplies, they could row from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes along the St. Lawrence River; Fraser River to Pacific Ocean.
The climate of the Americas is also generally more attractive than that of Africa.Indeed, the climate in the Amazon basin is hot and humid; the climate in the polar regions of North and South America is very cold.But English and French immigrants flourished in their colony north of the Rio Grande.Likewise, the Spaniards felt at ease in Mexico and Peru; their two great centers, where the climate was not much different from that of Spain, and no doubt formed a welcome contrast to the sweltering, disease-ridden Gold and Ivory Coasts.
Almost all native peoples of the Americas are descendants of immigrants from northeastern Siberia across the Bering Sea.This sentence must be qualified with the word "almost", because there are also minority peoples who arrived on the west coast of South America from the islands of the South Pacific after the arrival of immigrants from the Bering Sea.No one knows how many times these Argonauts of the South Pacific "discovered" South America, but the evidence of the plants they cultivated alone is enough to confirm the fact that they crossed the sea to make an expedition to America.When the same highly domesticated plants, which could not survive without human cultivation, were found on both sides of the Pacific, their distribution could only be explained by human migration.
However, one thing is certain: At least 99% of the Indians discovered by Europeans in the Americas are descendants of races that crossed the Bering Sea.Before modern times, it was thought that Indians first crossed the sea to the American continent about 10,000 years ago.New archaeological discoveries and the use of carbon-14 dating have radically revised this estimate.It is now generally agreed that humans must have lived on the American continent before 20,000 years ago, probably in 20000 or earlier.The last great Indian migration took place about 3000 years ago.Then came the Eskimos, who kept going back and forth across the strait until modern political circumstances compelled them to remain on one side or the other.In short, the Americas closest to Asia were already densely populated by this time, preventing further migrations.
For these early immigrants, there was actually no difficulty in crossing the sea to the American continent.At the end of the Ice Age, so much seawater froze that the sea level dropped 460 feet, exposing a 1,300-mile-wide land bridge linking Siberia and Alaska.Such a large "bridge" was actually a large and new subcontinent, providing a wide range for the widespread spread of flora and fauna at the time.Moreover, due to the sudden drop, this area was not covered with ice, but with lakes, swamps, grasslands, and various shrubs in the tundra; Cattle, elk, moose, elk, goats and antelope, camels, foxes, bears, wolves and horses provide pasture.As these animals crossed land bridges to the American continent, with them came hunters who made a living capturing them.
Even after rising temperatures raised the sea level and submerged the link, the resulting strait was narrow enough to be crossed without difficulty in crude boats with sight of the opposite shore.Later, more advanced settlers probably came to the Americas by boat from Asia, then sailed on along the northwest coast, before finally landing and settling in what is today called British Columbia.
Most of the immigrants who came to Alaska by sea crossed the frozen gorge of the central Yukon Plateau and continued into the North American interior.They were propelled forward by the same forces that drove them to the American continent—the drive to find new hunting grounds and the constant pressure of the tribes behind to move forward.In this way, scattered hunting tribes soon covered the two continents of North and South America.It has been found that there are clear signs that Asian migrations reached the southern tip of South America by 11,000 years ago.
Regarding racial identity, all Indians belong to the Mongoloid race.They are characterized by high cheekbones, straight and thick black hair, sparse hair on the face and body, and Mongolian spots on the back of the spine when they were children.However, the different tribes varied greatly; the first Indians of the Americas were less Mongoloid than later Indians, because they left Asia before the full evolution of what is called the Mongoloids today.The dispersal of immigrants in small groups of inbreds also explains the existence of distinct physiological types.
Immigrants to the Americas brought little culture with them, for they came from northeastern Siberia, one of the most backward regions of Eurasia.They were, of course, hunters in small groups, possessing only crude stone tools, no pottery, and no domesticated animals except perhaps dogs.As they entered an uninhabited continent, they were therefore free to form their own customs, without the native populations which the Aryans emigrated to the Indus valley, or the Achaeans and Dorians emigrated to Greece. influences.
In the next few thousand years, the American Indians did develop a variety of rich and colorful cultures.Not only did they adapt to the vast range of natural environments they faced, but they also adapted to each other.Some Indians remained at the level of hunting groups, while others developed kingdoms and empires.Their religious beliefs include all known varieties, including monotheism.They speak about 2000 distinct languages; some are as different from each other as Chinese is from English.This shows that here, as in the entire Eastern Hemisphere, the language changes are extremely rich; it is reported that in 1500, there were about 3000 languages in the Eastern Hemisphere.These languages are not primitive either in vocabulary or in other respects.Shakespeare used about 24,000 words, and the Chinese translation of the "Bible" used about 7,000 words; while the Nahuatl language of Mexico used 27,000 words. Gan people also have at least 30,000 words.
In view of various systems and customs, anthropologists have divided the American continent into cultural regions such as the Great Plains region, the eastern forest region, and the northwest coastal region.A simpler classification method uses the way of obtaining food as the standard, and divides them into three categories: hunting and gathering culture, intermediate agricultural culture and advanced agricultural culture.Not only is this classification simpler, but it is also more meaningful from a world-historical point of view, since it helps explain Indian responses to European invasions.
Advanced agricultural cultures are found in Mesoamerica (central and southern Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras) and high Andean regions (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and northern Chile); intermediate agricultural cultures are generally located in areas adjacent to advanced agricultural cultures; and food-gathering cultures are located in More distant regions - southern South America and western and northern North America.
This geographical distribution of cultures emphasizes the fact that, in contrast to Africa, the most advanced regions of the Americas were not located closest to Eurasia.One reason is that, unlike the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin, which were of great importance to Africans, northeastern Siberia was not a great center of civilization.In addition, the climatic conditions in Alaska and the Canadian Arctic, which are not the same as those in the Sudanese grasslands, are obviously not conducive to the rapid development of culture.Therefore, the speed of development of the Americas does not depend on the distance from Eurasia, but on the degree of suitability for agricultural development.It is therefore significant that agriculture first developed in those parts of the Americas that closely resembled the Middle East, the birthplace of Eurasian agriculture, that is, the highlands.In the highlands, where extensive deforestation is not required to prepare farmland, there is sufficient rainfall to allow a wide variety of crops to grow, and there are abundant cultivable native plants with potentially high-yielding traits.
Section 1 of Chapter 3 describes the origins of agriculture in Mesoamerica around 7000 BC and the long "early agriculture" period up to 1500 BC, before food cultivation finally became a socially determinant.It is indeed a remarkable achievement that the Indians cultivated more than 100 species of plants, as many as the whole of Eurasia.Today, more than 50 percent of America's agricultural produce comes from a variety of crops domesticated by Native Americans.
Corn, the staple product of almost all regions, began as a weed with ears no bigger than a man's thumbnail.The Indians bred it as a crop with rows of seeds on long sticks.They have cultivated corn so thoroughly that it can only survive on man; if it is not planted, it will become extinct, because the cultivated corn can no longer scatter its own seed, the corn kernel.The Indians were also impressive with their technique in utilizing the abundance of poisonous plants.One of these is cassava, the American tapioca starch; the Indians stripped it of its deadly toxin and kept the starch.Other important plants grown by the Indians were: squash, potatoes, tomatoes, peanuts, cocoa beans, tobacco, and legumes, which contain a lot of protein.The medicinal plants handed down by the Indians include: cascara, cocaine, arnica, impicaque, and quinine.Until these discoveries finally proved that agriculture in the two hemispheres had independent origins, none of the plants grown in the Americas were cultivated in the Eastern Hemisphere.
The birthplace of Indian agriculture is also the earliest area where they further developed agriculture and gradually formed an "advanced agricultural culture".This in turn profoundly changed the Indian way of life.On the whole, the result, as in Eurasia, was a vast increase in the settled population and in cultural activities not directly connected with minimal subsistence.In other words, it was in these advanced agricultural cultures that it was possible to develop vast empires and complex civilizations comparable in some respects to those of West Africa.Unfortunately, these native American civilizations were suddenly subdued by the Spanish.As a result, little remained but the precious plants they cultivated.
The three major civilizations of the American Indians were: the Mayans in present-day Yucatan, Guatemala, and British Honduras; the Aztecs in present-day Mexico; and the Inca, which stretched 3,000 miles from central Ecuador to central Chile. (See Figure 21 "The Empire of the American Indians") The Maya are known throughout the world for their remarkable developments in the arts and sciences.They alone developed ideograms.Use letters or signs as traditional symbols for expressing ideas.They also studied the movements of the celestial bodies in order to keep track of time, predict the future, and calculate auspicious days for sacrifices and major funerals.The astronomical knowledge gathered by specially trained priests was extensive and is thought to be at least as extensive as that in Europe at the time.The complex sacred calendar of the Mayans was based on common cycles; such cycles merged into larger cycles when their multiples coincided with time.Some of their calendar calculations span millions of years - an extremely impressive notion of time scale, if we recall how recently in Europe the creation of the world was set at 4004 BC.
Mayan cities, if they could be called that, were centers of ceremonies, not fortresses, settlements, or administrative capitals.The reason for this is that the Maya practiced slash-and-burn agriculture; this type of agriculture exhausted the fertility of the soil in two or three years, so they needed to constantly relocate villages.To balance this temporary way of life, the Mayan cultivators established large stone structures in centers where religious rituals were mainly held, as a token of the unity of their society.These structures were huge pyramidal temples and communal houses where priests and Protestants probably lived.Built entirely with stone tools, it is adorned with carvings that are unparalleled in America.It is now listed as one of the world's great arts.
During the period from the 4th to the 10th century, the Mayan civilization was very prosperous, but then declined, the reasons are not clear.It may have been the depletion of the fertility of the soil, or the prevalence of disease, or more likely a peasant revolution against the support of the religious center, including the priesthood.In short, these huge stone structures were abandoned, swallowed up by the surrounding forest, and have only been excavated by archaeologists in recent decades.
Compared with the artistic and intellectual Mayans, the Aztecs appeared brutal and warlike; a contrast reminiscent of the disparity between the Romans and Greeks in the Eastern Hemisphere.In fact, the Aztecs came to Mexico later.Over several centuries, a series of highly developed societies formed successively here.These societies were vulnerable to attack by barbarians from the arid north; naturally, these barbarians migrated south, attracted by the fertile land.The last of the invaders were the Aztecs.They settled on some of the islands of Lake Texcoco and then occupied most of the Anahuac Valley.As the population grew, the islands became so crowded that the Aztecs expanded their arable land by building "floating gardens." "Floating gardens" are some floating islands that are covered with lake soil on the overgrown weeds at the bottom of the lake, and are fixed to the bottom of the lake by the growing weeds.Some areas still use this farming method to this day.Before each planting, farmers dug new lakes and laid them on the "floating field," so that the surface grew higher with each plowing.Farmers then dig up the top soil to create new "floating gardens," and a new cycle begins.
The "floating gardens" greatly increased the population and wealth of the Aztecs. In the early 15th century, the Aztecs formed an alliance with the lakeside towns and rapidly expanded their influence in all directions from their foothold.They often made expeditions and raids abroad, forcing other nations to pay tribute to them in kind and serve them as laborers.Before the arrival of the Spanish, the Aztecs' rule stretched as far as the Pacific Ocean in the west, the Gulf of Mexico in the east, almost as far as the Yucatan Peninsula in the south, and the Rio Grande in the north.The capital, Tenochtitlan, was by this time a large city with a population of 200,000 to 300,000, connected to the coast by several roads, and Cortes the Conqueror compared the capital to Venice.Consider it "the most beautiful city in the world".His deputy, Bernardo Diaz del Castillo, was also awed by the splendor of the capital as he watched the city from the top of the great temple:
19th Century Painting: Remains of a Mayan Temple in the Yucatan Peninsula.The building was built by means of stone tools; evidently very richly decorated, as shown.
The power of the Aztecs was based on constant readiness for war.All men are to bear arms; there are always arms in the national arsenal in case of need.With an effective military machine, the Aztecs extracted staggering amounts of tribute from their subjects.According to their surviving records, they collected 14 million pounds of corn, 8 million pounds each of three kinds and amaranth, and 2 million bales of cotton, in addition to various other items such as military uniforms, shields, and precious stones.
The splendor of the capital and the abundance of tributes pouring into it naturally led the Spaniards to conclude that Montezuma was the ruler of a great empire.Not so.The vassal state remains fairly independent in the performance of state duties and exercises complete self-government.Their only link with Tenochtitlan was the payment of tribute; they paid tribute out of fear of an Aztec expedition.Except the country of the Incas in Peru.No Native American nation was organized larger than a city-state.The Aztecs, unlike the Incas, did not attempt to assimilate their subjects to the Aztec way of life in preparation for citizenship for all.
The Spaniards were not only dazzled by the wealth and luxury of the Aztec country, but also horrified by the massacre of rows of sacrificial people in their religious ceremonies.The Spanish soon realized that the pyramids were altars for sacrifices; and it was at the top of these ubiquitous ritual pyramids that sacrifices were massacred.Rituals were common in Mesoamerica, but nowhere did the obsessive massacres of the Aztecs be practiced.In fact, the purpose of the Aztecs' aggression was to capture captives, use them as sacrifices, and force the slave states to pay tribute to their capital.
The Aztecs believed that the first purpose was more important than the second, since the priests warned them that the world was in constant danger of being flooded and especially of the sun being extinguished.Therefore, it is necessary to use human sacrifices to appease the gods in heaven.But this practice plunged the Aztecs into a truly vicious circle: to prevent widespread disaster, human sacrifices were needed, and the human sacrifices could only be obtained through war; A successful war, but in turn the sacrificial man can only be obtained through war.Bernardo Diaz was a witness to the final outcome of this vicious circle:
Finally, a word about the Incas in Peru.It should be noted that "Inca" was the title of their monarch, so although it is customary to call the Incas Indians, it is strictly speaking incorrect.In fact, they were one of many tribes that were good at herding llamas and growing potatoes, spoke the Quechua language, and belonged to the Quechua race. They settled in the Cusco Valley in the 12th century and soon came to rule the region.In the early stages, their war chiefs gradually established a dynasty, while members of their tribes became nobles among other tribes.The combination of hereditary dynasties and aristocracy—unique on the American continent—formed an effective vehicle for empire building.This is especially true because of the outstanding talents of successive generations of Inca, or heads of state.The only legal wives of the Inca were his own sisters, so every Inca was the offspring of intermarriage between brothers and sisters.This inbreeding lasted about eight generations; and the earliest progenitors must have been very vigorous, for the princes, as the Spaniards saw, were handsome, vigorous men.
The Incas sent troops and envoys from Cuzco, the imperial capital on the Peruvian plateau, westward to the coast, and southward and northward along the Great Valley.Before the Spaniards invaded, they had expanded their territory from Ecuador to central Chile, about 2,500 miles from north to south.In this way, the territory they ruled was much larger than that of the Aztecs and made it a veritable empire.
The empire was geographically tightly bound together by a complete system of roads, including rope bridges woven from aloe vines and floating bridges made of buoyant reeds, hundreds of miles of which still exist today. passable.Equally important was the extensive irrigation system that made the Inca Empire a prosperous agricultural nation; some of these irrigation systems are still in use today.Communications at the time were maintained by a comprehensive system of post stations and couriers; couriers quickly dispatched letters across the country.
Complex court rituals and a state religion based on sun worship further promoted the unification of the empire; this religion believed that "Inca" was the descendant of the sun, and he played an important role in sun worship.Other methods of imperial rule included state ownership of land, mines, and livestock; detailed censuses for taxation and military purposes; removal of hereditary local chiefs; and forced settlement in new areas to assimilate conquered peoples. Settle down; under the auspices of the state, hold a collective wedding.Not surprisingly, the Inca Empire is considered one of the most successful totalitarian states the world has ever seen.
Impressive as these achievements of the American Indians are, the fact remains that a handful of Spanish adventurers could easily overthrow and wipe out the three great civilizations of the American continent.The Mexican and Aztec empires each had populations of at least 3 million, and some estimates put them at five times that number, a question that remains unresolved and debated.The reason for Spain's unilateral victory should ultimately be attributed to the isolation of the American continent.It should be noted that this isolation, as in Africa, is both external and internal.That is to say, not only was the mutual influence and mutual promotion between the American Indian civilization and other continental civilizations cut off, but the Indian civilizations were also isolated from each other.
"With regard to the interrelationships of Peru and Mesoamerica," says one archaeologist, "there is not a single object or single record that suffices to establish the long period from its formation [about 1000 BC] to the Spanish invasion." There was indeed influence and contact between these regions. . . . " In other words, there is no reliable evidence of mutual influence between Mesoamerican and Peruvian civilizations for 2,500 years.As we know, the regions of Eurasia and, to a lesser extent, sub-Saharan Africa were in frequent and fruitful contact during these millennia.So the end result was that Amerindians—even those of the Andes and Mesoamerica—were far behind Eurasians, and especially behind Europeans, who had an exceptionally early technological development.By 1500, the American continent had just entered the stage of civilization that Egypt and Mesopotamia had reached as early as about 2500 BC.
What did it really mean when the Spaniards invaded America and there was a confrontation between the two sides?First, it meant: the Indians found themselves economically and technologically far behind the civilization represented by the invaders.The highly developed arts, sciences, and religion of the Indians should not conceal the fact that they were extremely backward in the material sphere.This disparity is most pronounced in Mesoamerica, but it is also common in the Andes.In agriculture, although the Indians have made remarkable achievements in cultivating plants, they rarely take effect in actual production.Their farming techniques never went beyond the bare minimum to feed the entire population, and their populations seldom reached the population densities of the Eastern Hemisphere.Their tools are only made of stone, wood or bone.The Indians did not know how to smelt ore, and although they did use metal, it was almost exclusively for decorative purposes.The boats they built included canoes and ocean-going rafts.As for land transport, the Indians have not yet made use of the wheel; they know it, but only as a toy.The human back is the only means of transport, with the exception of llamas and alpacas, which, although used in the Andes, cannot carry heavy loads.
The immediate significance of this technological backwardness should not be overstated.The Indians, with their spears and bows, were obviously at a great disadvantage against the Spanish horses and guns.But after the initial blows, the Indians gradually got used to firearms and cavalry.In addition, the Spaniards soon discovered that Indian weapons were sharp and durable.They began to prefer the cotton armor of the Indians to their own.A conqueror narrates: The Aztecs had
This shows that, in addition to the disparity in technology, there are other factors that contributed to the Spaniard's victory.One factor was the lack of solidarity among Indian nations.In Mexico and Peru, the Spaniards were able to exploit dependent tribes disaffected by the tyrannical rule of Cusco and Tenochtitlan.The Indians were also weakened by too strict a rule.They have been so instilled in their minds and accustomed to absolute execution that they cannot organize themselves to resist when their leader is overthrown.
This kind of confinement of obeying the ideology and going home to teach is further exacerbated.Both Cortes in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru were originally considered by the locals as gods who returned to the land and fulfilled ancient prophecies.This is why Atahualpa in Cuzco and Montezuma in Tenochtitlan were suicidally vacillating.For Atahualpa, the Spaniards were the creator god Viracocha and his followers.For this reason, the ruler meekly awaited the arrival of Pizarro; Pizarro and his 180 men quickly took control of this vast empire.Likewise, to Montezuma, Cortés is the god Quetzalcoatl; he is returning to the land to claim his rightful throne.The ruler, therefore, waited listlessly for the Spaniards to set up camp in his capital.
The Aztecs' conception of war also plagued them.They believe that war is short-term, and it is to do their best for religious ceremonies; the main purpose of waging war is to capture prisoners and sacrifice their hearts to gods.Their campaigns, therefore, were often ceremonial scrambles; in war, captives were taken with a minimum of confusion and destruction.This military tradition was obviously a big obstacle, because the Spaniards wanted to win, and the Aztecs only wanted to capture captives.
If the major civilizations of the American continent lacked the strength and cohesion to resist the Europeans, this was even more true of the less developed food-gathering and intermediate agricultural cultures.Because they are less developed, their populations are smaller, although estimates vary widely.Taking historically low numbers as an example, the Inca Empire had a population of 3 million, while the rest of South America only had a population of about 1 million.Likewise, 3 million people live south of the Rio Grande, while only 1 million live north of the Rio Grande.When the Europeans arrived, the American Indians in the less developed areas simply did not have enough manpower to guard their homes.This weakness was reinforced by the diseases transmitted to them by the first explorers; their lack of immunity decimated them in large numbers from epidemics.As a result, early colonists often found abandoned fields and uninhabited villages.So, they took over.
Later, when mass migrations from Europe began to migrate to the Americas, the Indians were hopelessly defeated.The first to arrive were merchants.They spread throughout the American continent almost without any competition or resistance; for America, unlike Africa, had no native merchant class to contend with.Next is immigration.Attracted by the pleasant climate and fertile land, they came here in a steady stream, drowning the unfortunate Indians.When the Indians accidentally took up arms in desperation, they were doomed due to their lack of unity and basic human and material resources.The unequal contest was thus quickly brought to an end; the winning whites took possession of the superior lands, and the Indians were driven into reservations or unattractive areas of no interest to the new owners.
Clearly, the balance of power in the Americas is quite different from that in Africa.Geographical conditions, a small population, and a low level of economic, political, and social organization all worked against the Indians, allowing the Europeans to occupy North and South America; while in Africa at this time Europeans occupied only a few coastal areas. Precarious little foothold.Adam Smith was quite right when he called Indians "poor, helpless Americans," as distinct from African blacks.
Australia is the most isolated continent in the world, more isolated than the southern tip of South America and the southern tip of Africa.This isolation has allowed ancient life types to survive into modern times, including plants such as Eucalyptus and mammals such as monotremes and marsupials.In Australia, archaic types also survived; when the first English settlers arrived in the late 18th century, they were still in the Paleolithic period.As in the case of the American Indians, the date of the earliest arrival of Aboriginal people in Australia has not been determined.Archaeological excavations have gradually pushed this date back.The latest findings suggest that Aboriginal people arrived here at least 31,000 years ago.At that time, Australia and the Indonesian archipelago were only separated by narrow straits, and three different ethnic groups came here by crossing the sea.These three races are still discernible among Aboriginal peoples today.Most of them belong to an ethnic group with slender stature and long limbs. They have brown skin, no hair on their bodies, and curly hair and beards.They survived in large numbers because they lived in desert areas that were of little use to white people.In the southeast corner where the climate is cool and the land is fertile, there is a small and completely different indigenous people.They are stocky, light brown, hairy, with bushy beards.And along the northeast coast, in Australia's only dense tropical rainforest area, there is a third ethnic group.They were part of the Negro race, thin, shaggy-haired, and dark-skinned.
The cultures of these peoples are not the same.The most advanced is the culture of the peoples living in the southeast, where the rain is abundant and suitable for long-term living.But Aboriginal people throughout Australia are still in the Paleolithic food-gathering stage due to their complete isolation.Their stagnation is particularly evident in terms of technology and political organisation.They generally don't wear clothes except for decoration.Their dwellings consisted, in dry areas, of simple open windbreaks, and in wet areas, of low domed huts, patchworked from any available material.Their primary weapons are spears, spear launchers, and darts, all of which are made of wood.They knew no pottery, and the only vessels they used were a few woven bags and baskets, and occasional bowls of bark or wood.As food gatherers and hunters, they are highly skilled and very clever.They feed on a wide range of plants and animals, familiarize themselves with the types, habits, and properties of these foods, and endeavor to maintain the reproductive rates of the plants and animals on which they depend.But Aboriginal people were not food producers, and their method of ensuring an adequate food supply was through religious ceremonies, not farming.Typical of these rituals is the mixing of blood and soil where it is desired to increase prey and vegetation.
Australia's political fabric is almost as backward as its technology.Like most peoples in the food-gathering stage, indigenous peoples usually live and live together in the form of groups and family groups, and migrate to certain areas.They have no real tribes, only regional divisions marked by different languages and cultures.As such, they had no chiefs, courts, or other formal institutions of government.However, these Aboriginal peoples had very complex social organizations and ceremonial lives.The hunter who obtained the prey, or the woman who returned from gathering for a day, should distribute the gains to all members of the family according to strict regulations.Among the aborigines of north Queensland, when a person sneezes, all who hear them slap their bodies with their hands, and the exact location of the slap varies according to their exact relationship to the sneezer.
These immaterial aspects of Australian society are so complex that they have been a source of delight to scholars specializing in primitive customs.But the premature development of these things did little to help the Aboriginal people when Europeans came to Australia in the late 18th century.If the American Indians, with their prosperous civilizations and extensive agricultural societies, were incapable of resisting the whites, clearly the same could not be said of the Paleolithic Australians.他们的人数极少，在欧洲人来到时总共约30万。这意味着在有利的沿海或大河流域地区，每平方英里只有一、两个人，而在干旱的内地．每30到40平方英里才一个。除人数少这一弱点外，土著居民还缺乏进行有效的抵抗所必需的武器和组织。与美洲印第安人和非洲黑人不同，他们不大想获得和使用白人的“火棍”。因此，大批不幸的土著居民惨遭英国移民的屠杀；在这些移民中，有许多人是从拥挤的监狱用船运往此地的违法的囚犯。疾病、酒精中毒、肆意屠杀和大批没收土地，使土著的人口下降，减少到今天的45000人，外加同异族通婚所生育的80000混血儿。 1853年，一位维多利亚的移民在下面这段典型详述中，暗示了澳大利亚人所受的待遇：“澳大利亚土著民族同莫希坎人和其他许多已知的部落一样，仿佛是天意注定要他们在文明进步面前从其本上消失。”
更悲惨的是大约2500 名塔斯马尼亚人的命运，巴斯海峡将他们同澳大利亚隔开，澳大利亚土著所缺乏的东西，塔斯马尼亚人也缺乏，而且情况更加严重。他们没有梭镖发射器、飞镖、渔网和其他所有捕鱼的工具。英国向塔斯马尼亚岛运送了最残酷的罪犯。1803年，这些罪犯登陆之后，象猎杀动物一样大肆屠杀当地人。几十年内绝大多数人被消灭。最后的一个男子死于1869年，最后的一个女子死于1876年。这位女子名叫特鲁格尼尼，生于1803年，即白人入侵塔斯马尼亚岛的第一年；因此，她的一生跨越了其民族被灭绝的整个时期。她恳求不要解剖她的尸体，但连这一可怜的请求也得不到满足，她的骨骼被陈列在霍巴特博物馆。这是一个恰当地展现这一民族命运的纪念馆；而塔斯马尼亚人之所以毁灭，是因为他们恰好居住在地球上难以接近、未受到促进的地区。一位名叫雪弗伦德·托马斯·阿特金的人，目击了当地人的灭绝，从而推断出某些不仅与塔斯马尼亚岛有关，而且也与所有这类地区——在那里，欧洲人遇到了物质技术发展受阻碍的民族———有关的结论：
19th Century Painting: Remains of a Mayan Temple in the Yucatan Peninsula.The building was built by means of stone tools; evidently very richly decorated, as shown.
The power of the Aztecs was based on constant readiness for war.All men are to bear arms; there are always arms in the national arsenal in case of need.With an effective military machine, the Aztecs extracted staggering amounts of tribute from their subjects.According to their surviving records, they collected 14 million pounds of corn, 8 million pounds each of three kinds and amaranth, and 2 million bales of cotton, in addition to various other items such as military uniforms, shields, and precious stones.
The splendor of the capital and the abundance of tributes pouring into it naturally led the Spaniards to conclude that Montezuma was the ruler of a great empire.Not so.The vassal state remains fairly independent in the performance of state duties and exercises complete self-government.Their only link with Tenochtitlan was the payment of tribute; they paid tribute out of fear of an Aztec expedition.Except the country of the Incas in Peru.No Native American nation was organized larger than a city-state.The Aztecs, unlike the Incas, did not attempt to assimilate their subjects to the Aztec way of life in preparation for citizenship for all.
The Spaniards were not only dazzled by the wealth and luxury of the Aztec country, but also horrified by the massacre of rows of sacrificial people in their religious ceremonies.The Spanish soon realized that the pyramids were altars for sacrifices; and it was at the top of these ubiquitous ritual pyramids that sacrifices were massacred.Rituals were common in Mesoamerica, but nowhere did the obsessive massacres of the Aztecs be practiced.In fact, the purpose of the Aztecs' aggression was to capture captives, use them as sacrifices, and force the slave states to pay tribute to their capital.
The Aztecs believed that the first purpose was more important than the second, since the priests warned them that the world was in constant danger of being flooded and especially of the sun being extinguished.Therefore, it is necessary to use human sacrifices to appease the gods in heaven.But this practice plunged the Aztecs into a truly vicious circle: to prevent widespread disaster, human sacrifices were needed, and the human sacrifices could only be obtained through war; A successful war, but in turn the sacrificial man can only be obtained through war.Bernardo Diaz was a witness to the final outcome of this vicious circle:
Finally, a word about the Incas in Peru.It should be noted that "Inca" was the title of their monarch, so although it is customary to call the Incas Indians, it is strictly speaking incorrect.In fact, they were one of many tribes that were good at herding llamas and growing potatoes, spoke the Quechua language, and belonged to the Quechua race. They settled in the Cusco Valley in the 12th century and soon came to rule the region.In the early stages, their war chiefs gradually established a dynasty, while members of their tribes became nobles among other tribes.The combination of hereditary dynasties and aristocracy—unique on the American continent—formed an effective vehicle for empire building.This is especially true because of the outstanding talents of successive generations of Inca, or heads of state.The only legal wives of the Inca were his own sisters, so every Inca was the offspring of intermarriage between brothers and sisters.This inbreeding lasted about eight generations; and the earliest progenitors must have been very vigorous, for the princes, as the Spaniards saw, were handsome, vigorous men.
The Incas sent troops and envoys from Cuzco, the imperial capital on the Peruvian plateau, westward to the coast, and southward and northward along the Great Valley.Before the Spaniards invaded, they had expanded their territory from Ecuador to central Chile, about 2,500 miles from north to south.In this way, the territory they ruled was much larger than that of the Aztecs and made it a veritable empire.
The empire was geographically tightly bound together by a complete system of roads, including rope bridges woven from aloe vines and floating bridges made of buoyant reeds, hundreds of miles of which still exist today. passable.Equally important was the extensive irrigation system that made the Inca Empire a prosperous agricultural nation; some of these irrigation systems are still in use today.Communications at the time were maintained by a comprehensive system of post stations and couriers; couriers quickly dispatched letters across the country.
Complex court rituals and a state religion based on sun worship further promoted the unification of the empire; this religion believed that "Inca" was the descendant of the sun, and he played an important role in sun worship.Other methods of imperial rule included state ownership of land, mines, and livestock; detailed censuses for taxation and military purposes; removal of hereditary local chiefs; and forced settlement in new areas to assimilate conquered peoples. Settle down; under the auspices of the state, hold a collective wedding.Not surprisingly, the Inca Empire is considered one of the most successful totalitarian states the world has ever seen.
Impressive as these achievements of the American Indians are, the fact remains that a handful of Spanish adventurers could easily overthrow and wipe out the three great civilizations of the American continent.The Mexican and Aztec empires each had populations of at least 3 million, and some estimates put them at five times that number, a question that remains unresolved and debated.The reason for Spain's unilateral victory should ultimately be attributed to the isolation of the American continent.It should be noted that this isolation, as in Africa, is both external and internal.That is to say, not only was the mutual influence and mutual promotion between the American Indian civilization and other continental civilizations cut off, but the Indian civilizations were also isolated from each other.
"With regard to the interrelationships of Peru and Mesoamerica," says one archaeologist, "there is not a single object or single record that suffices to establish the long period from its formation [about 1000 BC] to the Spanish invasion." There was indeed influence and contact between these regions. . . . " In other words, there is no reliable evidence of mutual influence between Mesoamerican and Peruvian civilizations for 2,500 years.As we know, the regions of Eurasia and, to a lesser extent, sub-Saharan Africa were in frequent and fruitful contact during these millennia.So the end result was that Amerindians—even those of the Andes and Mesoamerica—were far behind Eurasians, and especially behind Europeans, who had an exceptionally early technological development.By 1500, the American continent had just entered the stage of civilization that Egypt and Mesopotamia had reached as early as about 2500 BC.
What did it really mean when the Spaniards invaded America and there was a confrontation between the two sides?First, it meant: the Indians found themselves economically and technologically far behind the civilization represented by the invaders.The highly developed arts, sciences, and religion of the Indians should not conceal the fact that they were extremely backward in the material sphere.This disparity is most pronounced in Mesoamerica, but it is also common in the Andes.In agriculture, although the Indians have made remarkable achievements in cultivating plants, they rarely take effect in actual production.Their farming techniques never went beyond the bare minimum to feed the entire population, and their populations seldom reached the population densities of the Eastern Hemisphere.Their tools are only made of stone, wood or bone.The Indians did not know how to smelt ore, and although they did use metal, it was almost exclusively for decorative purposes.The boats they built included canoes and ocean-going rafts.As for land transport, the Indians have not yet made use of the wheel; they know it, but only as a toy.The human back is the only means of transport, with the exception of llamas and alpacas, which, although used in the Andes, cannot carry heavy loads.
The immediate significance of this technological backwardness should not be overstated.The Indians, with their spears and bows, were obviously at a great disadvantage against the Spanish horses and guns.But after the initial blows, the Indians gradually got used to firearms and cavalry.In addition, the Spaniards soon discovered that Indian weapons were sharp and durable.They began to prefer the cotton armor of the Indians to their own.A conqueror narrates: The Aztecs had
This shows that, in addition to the disparity in technology, there are other factors that contributed to the Spaniard's victory.One factor was the lack of solidarity among Indian nations.In Mexico and Peru, the Spaniards were able to exploit dependent tribes disaffected by the tyrannical rule of Cusco and Tenochtitlan.The Indians were also weakened by too strict a rule.They have been so instilled in their minds and accustomed to absolute execution that they cannot organize themselves to resist when their leader is overthrown.
This kind of confinement of obeying the ideology and going home to teach is further exacerbated.Both Cortes in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru were originally considered by the locals as gods who returned to the land and fulfilled ancient prophecies.This is why Atahualpa in Cuzco and Montezuma in Tenochtitlan were suicidally vacillating.For Atahualpa, the Spaniards were the creator god Viracocha and his followers.For this reason, the ruler meekly awaited the arrival of Pizarro; Pizarro and his 180 men quickly took control of this vast empire.Likewise, to Montezuma, Cortés is the god Quetzalcoatl; he is returning to the land to claim his rightful throne.The ruler, therefore, waited listlessly for the Spaniards to set up camp in his capital.
The Aztecs' conception of war also plagued them.They believe that war is short-term, and it is to do their best for religious ceremonies; the main purpose of waging war is to capture prisoners and sacrifice their hearts to gods.Their campaigns, therefore, were often ceremonial scrambles; in war, captives were taken with a minimum of confusion and destruction.This military tradition was obviously a big obstacle, because the Spaniards wanted to win, and the Aztecs only wanted to capture captives.
If the major civilizations of the American continent lacked the strength and cohesion to resist the Europeans, this was even more true of the less developed food-gathering and intermediate agricultural cultures.Because they are less developed, their populations are smaller, although estimates vary widely.Taking historically low numbers as an example, the Inca Empire had a population of 3 million, while the rest of South America only had a population of about 1 million.Likewise, 3 million people live south of the Rio Grande, while only 1 million live north of the Rio Grande.When the Europeans arrived, the American Indians in the less developed areas simply did not have enough manpower to guard their homes.This weakness was reinforced by the diseases transmitted to them by the first explorers; their lack of immunity decimated them in large numbers from epidemics.As a result, early colonists often found abandoned fields and uninhabited villages.So, they took over.
Later, when mass migrations from Europe began to migrate to the Americas, the Indians were hopelessly defeated.The first to arrive were merchants.They spread throughout the American continent almost without any competition or resistance; for America, unlike Africa, had no native merchant class to contend with.Next is immigration.Attracted by the pleasant climate and fertile land, they came here in a steady stream, drowning the unfortunate Indians.When the Indians accidentally took up arms in desperation, they were doomed due to their lack of unity and basic human and material resources.The unequal contest was thus quickly brought to an end; the winning whites took possession of the superior lands, and the Indians were driven into reservations or unattractive areas of no interest to the new owners.
Clearly, the balance of power in the Americas is quite different from that in Africa.Geographical conditions, a small population, and a low level of economic, political, and social organization all worked against the Indians, allowing the Europeans to occupy North and South America; while in Africa at this time Europeans occupied only a few coastal areas. Precarious little foothold.Adam Smith was quite right when he called Indians "poor, helpless Americans," as distinct from African blacks.
Australia is the most isolated continent in the world, more isolated than the southern tip of South America and the southern tip of Africa.This isolation has allowed ancient life types to survive into modern times, including plants such as Eucalyptus and mammals such as monotremes and marsupials.In Australia, archaic types also survived; when the first English settlers arrived in the late 18th century, they were still in the Paleolithic period.As in the case of the American Indians, the date of the earliest arrival of Aboriginal people in Australia has not been determined.Archaeological excavations have gradually pushed this date back.The latest findings suggest that Aboriginal people arrived here at least 31,000 years ago.At that time, Australia and the Indonesian archipelago were only separated by narrow straits, and three different ethnic groups came here by crossing the sea.These three races are still discernible among Aboriginal peoples today.Most of them belong to an ethnic group with slender stature and long limbs. They have brown skin, no hair on their bodies, and curly hair and beards.They survived in large numbers because they lived in desert areas that were of little use to white people.In the southeast corner where the climate is cool and the land is fertile, there is a small and completely different indigenous people.They are stocky, light brown, hairy, with bushy beards.And along the northeast coast, in Australia's only dense tropical rainforest area, there is a third ethnic group.They were part of the Negro race, thin, shaggy-haired, and dark-skinned.
The cultures of these peoples are not the same.The most advanced is the culture of the peoples living in the southeast, where the rain is abundant and suitable for long-term living.But Aboriginal people throughout Australia are still in the Paleolithic food-gathering stage due to their complete isolation.Their stagnation is particularly evident in terms of technology and political organisation.They generally don't wear clothes except for decoration.Their dwellings consisted, in dry areas, of simple open windbreaks, and in wet areas, of low domed huts, patchworked from any available material.Their primary weapons are spears, spear launchers, and darts, all of which are made of wood.They knew no pottery, and the only vessels they used were a few woven bags and baskets, and occasional bowls of bark or wood.As food gatherers and hunters, they are highly skilled and very clever.They feed on a wide range of plants and animals, familiarize themselves with the types, habits, and properties of these foods, and endeavor to maintain the reproductive rates of the plants and animals on which they depend.But Aboriginal people were not food producers, and their method of ensuring an adequate food supply was through religious ceremonies, not farming.Typical of these rituals is the mixing of blood and soil where it is desired to increase prey and vegetation.
Australia's political fabric is almost as backward as its technology.Like most peoples in the food-gathering stage, indigenous peoples usually live and live together in the form of groups and family groups, and migrate to certain areas.They have no real tribes, only regional divisions marked by different languages and cultures.As such, they had no chiefs, courts, or other formal institutions of government.However, these Aboriginal peoples had very complex social organizations and ceremonial lives.The hunter who obtained the prey, or the woman who returned from gathering for a day, should distribute the gains to all members of the family according to strict regulations.Among the aborigines of north Queensland, when a person sneezes, all who hear them slap their bodies with their hands, and the exact location of the slap varies according to their exact relationship to the sneezer.
These immaterial aspects of Australian society are so complex that they have been a source of delight to scholars specializing in primitive customs.But the premature development of these things did little to help the Aboriginal people when Europeans came to Australia in the late 18th century.If the American Indians, with their prosperous civilizations and extensive agricultural societies, were incapable of resisting the whites, clearly the same could not be said of the Paleolithic Australians.他们的人数极少，在欧洲人来到时总共约30万。这意味着在有利的沿海或大河流域地区，每平方英里只有一、两个人，而在干旱的内地．每30到40平方英里才一个。除人数少这一弱点外，土著居民还缺乏进行有效的抵抗所必需的武器和组织。与美洲印第安人和非洲黑人不同，他们不大想获得和使用白人的“火棍”。因此，大批不幸的土著居民惨遭英国移民的屠杀；在这些移民中，有许多人是从拥挤的监狱用船运往此地的违法的囚犯。疾病、酒精中毒、肆意屠杀和大批没收土地，使土著的人口下降，减少到今天的45000人，外加同异族通婚所生育的80000混血儿。 1853年，一位维多利亚的移民在下面这段典型详述中，暗示了澳大利亚人所受的待遇：“澳大利亚土著民族同莫希坎人和其他许多已知的部落一样，仿佛是天意注定要他们在文明进步面前从其本上消失。”
更悲惨的是大约2500 名塔斯马尼亚人的命运，巴斯海峡将他们同澳大利亚隔开，澳大利亚土著所缺乏的东西，塔斯马尼亚人也缺乏，而且情况更加严重。他们没有梭镖发射器、飞镖、渔网和其他所有捕鱼的工具。英国向塔斯马尼亚岛运送了最残酷的罪犯。1803年，这些罪犯登陆之后，象猎杀动物一样大肆屠杀当地人。几十年内绝大多数人被消灭。最后的一个男子死于1869年，最后的一个女子死于1876年。这位女子名叫特鲁格尼尼，生于1803年，即白人入侵塔斯马尼亚岛的第一年；因此，她的一生跨越了其民族被灭绝的整个时期。她恳求不要解剖她的尸体，但连这一可怜的请求也得不到满足，她的骨骼被陈列在霍巴特博物馆。这是一个恰当地展现这一民族命运的纪念馆；而塔斯马尼亚人之所以毁灭，是因为他们恰好居住在地球上难以接近、未受到促进的地区。一位名叫雪弗伦德·托马斯·阿特金的人，目击了当地人的灭绝，从而推断出某些不仅与塔斯马尼亚岛有关，而且也与所有这类地区——在那里，欧洲人遇到了物质技术发展受阻碍的民族———有关的结论：