Chapter 7
Natives in the Early Roman Empire
The native people of Arcadia were, in many areas, a simple people. This is not to say they were somehow inferior nor that they could not develop civilizations the envy of any in the rest of the World. However, in the case of the Ohlone and many like them, it was hardly necessary. Living off the land and in small groups had worked for centuries and would likely have continued to work, until such a day as it became necessary to merge into larger groups. Those who lived along the rivers in the center of the continent did this, with their great cities and mounds. The Haudenosaunee certainly had a civilization of their own. As did the Zuni, the Hopi and the Haida. These people, no matter how advanced they may have been, were completely unprepared for Constantinople and the Roman Empire. How could they have been? No one could have prepared for such an event.
To this day, the oral traditions of many of these Native People relate to their first encounter with the City and her people. Both those absorbed into the Roman Empire, and those on the fringes of it.
Very little survives in writing, of these early meetings. Even my own ancestors left very little behind, as they likely never learned to write. It is these oral stories, passed from parent to child, that tell the tales. Almost universally, they talk of the glory of Constantinople and how difficult it was to understand it at first. Is that too hard to understand for a modern audience? Perhaps. However, it is important to understand the perspective here. How would you react, if you left your wooden hut and saw a massive stone wall with glittering churches and mighty palaces? It is certainly something that only someone there, at the time, could ever understand...
-Hector Diakos, 'Arcadians and Romans: Oral Histories of Arcadia.' 1952
The reaction of the
Ohlone people to the City has already been covered, in some detail. Awe and disbelief. An almost childish curiosity, upon seeing stone used for such massive structures. This reaction was, in many ways, perfectly understandable.
1 What little stonework the
Ohlone understood was simple. Tools and hunting instruments, perhaps some minor use in construction. The vast forests of Elysium, with massive old trees, provided everything that a simple people could need for buildings. Why build in stone when your settlements were always temporary? This feeling would cause some level of friction, in the initial relations between Natives and Romans. The
Ramaytush and those like them, were not a people prone to a sedentary lifestyle.
Disease and Roman settlers did, on some level, empty out the already sparsely-populated land. This made it relatively simple to leave, for those who wished it. Remarkably few did, unwilling to abandon their ancestral hunting grounds.
For those who remained, it was a deluge of culture clashes. Historians sing the praises of Saint Constantine and his benevolent practices. For good reason. However, in the early days, many Romans looked at the Natives as primitive barbarians. Memories of the Turk remained strong. The
Ramaytush and other
Ohlone were so very different, that some level of disdain was almost certainly inevitable. It was not racism, not in the sense that it would later become in European colonies. Romans, as a general point, were among the least racist of any society on Earth. They had become separated from Europe before cultural racism truly came into being, and with the integrationist policies of Constantine, it became very common to see mixing of the population.
2
Roman disdain for the Natives, before Saint Constantine could truly stamp down upon it, came from more traditional corners. The Greek, and Roman, tendency to see those of different cultures as 'barbarians'. Not inferior due to the color of their skin or the ways of their people, but due to not being 'Roman'. Being outsiders. This was a fairly common belief, after so long under siege. It would take more than a few years to truly remove it. Even in the newly formed settlements outside the Theodosian Walls.
If learning to live in permanent, stone settlements was strange to the
Ohlone, it was even more strange to adapt to new religions. Very little survives of the pre-contact
Ohlone faith. So little, that beyond certain beliefs in spirits, few have bothered to study or learn of it. The waves of disease and the new homes were accompanied by, as strange as it was for the Roman Church of the time, missionaries. Saint Constantine's desire to convert the natives was one of the few things that nearly everyone in Constantinople felt strongly for. Even the
Ohlone could not, would not, deny that a miracle had taken place. No power weaker than a God could possibly have moved a city of this size so far away from home. It wasn't possible.
That Constantinople was already a Holy City, in many ways, merely reinforced this notion.
3
Romans, channeling their ancestors, pushed this belief. This paradise was a gift from God and it was their duty to show the light of God as a result. Perhaps, in the long run, it was lucky for the
Ohlone that they lacked an organized faith. Or that it was the Romans, and not other Europeans, who had met them. They converted by the word, and not by the sword. At least, when the people being converted refused to fight back. The
Ohlone equally lacked soldiers of any form. Even if there had been a desire to fight, they would have been completely incapable of it. As it was, conversions were relatively painless. The first few generations had some resistance, holding to certain practices that some believe still exist today, if well-hidden. However, as more and more churches were built and more and more Romans were born, this resistance gradually faded.
It is generally believed that, by the time the Romans would enter
Tzintzuntzan4, the
Ohlone had completely converted to Christianity. In later years, in fact, many missionaries to other states- such as the Haida and Hopi -were
Ohlone natives. This process of conversion was one of the great success stories of Roman relations with the Arcadian natives. It would not be so painless in other areas, though that is for the future.
Another case of culture shock could be found in the presence of livestock animals. The idea of domesticating animals was almost alien to the
Ohlone and many other Native groups. Dogs were not unknown, in some areas. Creatures the like of cows or horses, by contrast, were strange at
best. The
Ohlone had never seen the like, as the great herds of bison that existed in the Plains were completely unknown to them. It must have seemed very strange, indeed, to see cattle grazing deforested land. Or to see Turkish cavalry practicing inside the Walls of the City. It was only the bravest of the
Ohlone who attempted to ride themselves. Very few in the Roman military would ever be from those tribes, especially in the cavalry arm.
However, the food that cattle provided- and, indeed, the milk -revolutionized the society of the Natives. When the population began to recover from the ravages of disease...it boomed. Easy access to food, provided by both crops and cattle, created a situation where the
Ohlone could grow. Hunting and gathering was never able to support a large population. It had never needed to.
With the Romans attempting to restore their population, in addition to the natural growth that more stable food supplies provided? It was little wonder that the Roman population- which included the
Ohlone, by this point -continued to grow rapidly. It was this, more than anything else, that truly integrated Natives into the Roman state. The provision of bountiful food supplies and a population that welcomed them. The first men who had ventured into the City would not have recognized their descendants, even as short as a few decades later. In the end, this may have been for the better. Certainly...
It was far better to be a Roman, than to be the unfortunate soul who lived in the Spanish or English territories.
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1. To a society for whom 'stonework' amounted to tools and firepits, this should come as little surprise. The
Ohlone were more curious than anything else, in awe of such buildings as the
Hagia Sophia.
2. While it is fair to say there has always been a firmly 'Greek' core to the Empire, many in the population are what the Spanish would term 'Mestizos'. This is more common for those of Native descent than for those who immigrated from Ming- and later, Huai- China, in large part due to preexisting populations.
3. Home to the
Hagia Sophia, the greatest Church in Christianity, and founded by Constantine. Constantinople was already a Holy City in many ways, even before it was moved to Elysium. Afterwords, it has, to some, become as Holy as Jerusalem or Rome themselves. If not more so.
4. Tzintzuntzan is the capital of the
Purépecha people. Their story will be covered in greater detail later, however, their relationship with Rome shaped both societies greatly.
I intended for this to be longer than it was...but that seemed like a good point to end it. And I'm very much of the opinion that it is best to end at a natural point, than to pad the word count. Hopefully it's still good.
Also, several hints for later here.
