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What if the native Americans had bullshitium potions to cure European diseases?

Mook

Mook

How do you think history would have gone down if disease didn't kill of a huge chunk of the native american population when the Europeans showed up in The New World?
 
Europeans don't get nearly as far into north America as in RL. Without the deaths from desisae the natives can effectively bottle them up along the coast.
 
Mook said:
How do you think history would have gone down if disease didn't kill of a huge chunk of the native american population when the Europeans showed up in The New World?
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It goes a great deal more like the African or Asian experience, depending on the reaction of the various natives to the novel developments of the incomers.
 
Spanish simply replace Aztecs/incans at the top of their respective pyramids, they're able to enforce Christianity less effectively due o having to placate more numerous natives. Revolts more likely to be effective as well, although the Natives in the Caribbean still get exterminated. English colonies utterly fail, tribes not devastated by small pox won't need to play nice to use them as Mercs.
 
Gaius Marius said:
Spanish simply replace Aztecs/incans at the top of their respective pyramids, they're able to enforce Christianity less effectively due o having to placate more numerous natives. Revolts more likely to be effective as well, although the Natives in the Caribbean still get exterminated. English colonies utterly fail, tribes not devastated by small pox won't need to play nice to use them as Mercs.
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English colonies won't fail, they just won't get as far, as the west and maybe midwest will modernize and turn into real nations that won't allow further English expansion.
 
Gaius Marius said:
Spanish simply replace Aztecs/incans at the top of their respective pyramids, they're able to enforce Christianity less effectively due o having to placate more numerous natives. Revolts more likely to be effective as well, although the Natives in the Caribbean still get exterminated. English colonies utterly fail, tribes not devastated by small pox won't need to play nice to use them as Mercs.
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The Incans are unlikely.

The only reason they were in a civil war when the Spaniards arrived was because their previous ruler was killed by an early wave of European diseases. The Spaniards don't have the numbers to beat the Incans.
 
The Inca with gunpowder technology would be fascinating, given their organisation and the fact they're sitting on huge reserves of saltpetre.
 
Teocraso said:
The Incans are unlikely.

The only reason they were in a civil war when the Spaniards arrived was because their previous ruler was killed by an early wave of European diseases. The Spaniards don't have the numbers to beat the Incans.
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True, but the incans had several disadvantages similar to the Aztecs in that every other group hated them. Their empire was very young in the grand scheme of things and most of their subjects resentful.

Cloak&Dagger said:
English colonies won't fail, they just won't get as far, as the west and maybe midwest will modernize and turn into real nations that won't allow further English expansion.
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The only reason Jamestown and Plymouth lived was because the local tribes supported them to use as allies against their rivals after seeing most of their strength erode via plague.
 
We have a model for this; it's the European colonisation of Africa. That is, colonisation on a large scale will happen later, and it will be much more superficial. There won't be any US, Canada, Mexico or any of that; instead, what will happen is that the European colonial empires will at some point become unsustainable and the colonial power will pull out, after which you'll be left with Native American countries based on arbitrary lines drawn on a map.

The strongest Native countries, like the Incas, might well manage to survive.
 
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*centuries later the British Empire starts dropping nuclear bombs on basically everyone, in the closing stages of the second of two colossal World Wars that have no decisive conclusion without the presence of a continent spanning, logistically untouchable hyperpower*
 
Gaius Marius said:
True, but the incans had several disadvantages similar to the Aztecs in that every other group hated them. Their empire was very young in the grand scheme of things and most of their subjects resentful.


The only reason Jamestown and Plymouth lived was because the local tribes supported them to use as allies against their rivals after seeing most of their strength erode via plague.
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Eh.

The Aztecs problem is that while they brutalized their neighbors, they also gave them a lot of autonomy. The Incans favored a much more direct method of control and they were a way larger empire.
 
Does the North American settlements still get established at all? If so, gun fire and steel is used a little more. The Aztecs still fall, the Incas are a maybe, depending on how badly Spain wants it.
Ironanvil1 said:
It goes a great deal more like the African or Asian experience, depending on the reaction of the various natives to the novel developments of the incomers.
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Asia had powerful centralized empires, and Africa had its own set of deadly diseases and a general disinterest. In North America beyond the Rio Grande, neither of those really exists, and the Natives that the English, Dutch and other settlers can still be shot to death and stabbed to death and have little in the way of effective resistance. There was infighting as far as 1812, long after it was established who was the greater threat.

The Five Civilized Tribes, including the Cherokee, might have it better or worse. The Seminole might not be allies of the Spanish, but if they continue to conduct raids, Jackson would still stomp their shit in. If he is born.

If anything like the 13 colonies gets established by gunfire and steel, they win. Its too many people, that are too technologically powerful, for the disparate and disunited to resist. It might mean that the American Army and Militia has a deeper and larger history, and that the settlers by and large can't just use natives as target practice and win everything between the Mississippi and the Appalachians. More Forts, more major, disturbingly lopsided curbstomps and possible alliances as a result.

Oh and the slaughter of the buffalo however, is still a viable tactic for crushing the Plains Tribes.
 
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You would need an entire army to create and enforce a European settlement area against a North America unravaged by a wave of disease that almost makes the Black Death look like a case of the sniffles in how it destroyed civilisation.

It is never going to be worth the money to any European power to perform such direct settlement. In the long run the British Empire is likely to 'conquer' North America the same way it did India through giant sacks of money and promised power backed up by armies, but direct settlement doesn't have a good enough cost:benefit ratio.

Even now the vast moat of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans make continental America untouchable...even if the US were second world it would still be an impossible endeavour to attack it simply because of the logistics. This is rather magnified when you're in the Age of Sail. It's perfectly viable to perform divide and conquer and rule through puppeting existing power structures with aforementioned sacks of money and some military support for your puppets. Direct, overt conquest and settlement? Not happening.
 
The Inca survive this.

They are an organized empire that only went to hell because od the european plagues. Without that the Inca Empire will survive. Also the Incas adapted their believes to spanish colonization in RL and many believes and traditions in the Andes right now go back to the Inca's time.

The Inca would get something from the spanish attemps of colonization, basically european tech
 
Even India had fairly powerful and centralized states. In NA, a fortified settlement of 10,000 is nearly impregnable and a Pyrrhic fight for anyone who engages in it. There simply aren't any tribes who can both afford to sustain the massive casualties and fight off other tribes.

What it really means is that some of the earlier tribes have a longer history of an alliance and stay allied. More like French settlements. Until the settlers keep on expanding their numbers through superior farming practices and such. And the Dutch on Manhattan remain on Manhattan. Because trade. Which will still occur.

EDIT:Yeah, the Inca can definitely survive this as a political entity. IRL they survived quite well as a people, without the plagues the Spanish are simply King Shit of the Mountain. A place they remain forever when Pizarro sends word of the shit load of gold.
 
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A fortified settlement of 10,000 would starve to death because it would be under perpetual siege. A fortified settlement of 10,000 also requires you to, you know, bring over ten thousand people and build an entire fortified settlement.
 
Mook said:
Finally someone brings that up. There's more to history than just war and conquest but you wouldn't know it from the responses in this thread.
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Yeah. By the responses in this thread, Quebec never existed, and their was no French settlements in Louisiana or trade along the Mississippi.
SaintD said:
A fortified settlement of 10,000 would starve to death because it would be under perpetual siege. A fortified settlement of 10,000 also requires you to, you know, bring over ten thousand people and build an entire fortified settlement.
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When exactly did the Native American above the Rio Grande do this, have the numbers and logistics to sustain such, the will to do so, and also not suffer assault from other tribes? And where were they located?
 
Vashon said:
Does the North American settlements still get established at all? If so, gun fire and steel is used a little more. The Aztecs still fall, the Incas are a maybe, depending on how badly Spain wants it.

Asia had powerful centralized empires, and Africa had its own set of deadly diseases and a general disinterest. In North America beyond the Rio Grande, neither of those really exists, and the Natives that the English, Dutch and other settlers can still be shot to death and stabbed to death and have little in the way of effective resistance. There was infighting as far as 1812, long after it was established who was the greater threat.
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There were significant settled cultures in North America, such as the Mississippian Mound Builders, who were largely annihilated by disease. The natives are also going to possess plenty to trade for weaponry from competing European traders/colonists, and the lack of devastation by disease will give them far more time to adapt to the incomers, rather than being rolled over.
 
doorcf the first and only said:
Also since the Natives have bullshit potions our type of medicine would not develop as fast if ever
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The bullshit potions only let the natives have the same mortality rate from disease as the Europeans. Nothing more and nothing less. So the OP hath spoken.

The potions are just a plot device for the scenario, they aren't important and shouldn't be used for anything other than making the scenario possible.
 
Ironanvil1 said:
There were significant settled cultures in North America, such as the Mississippian Mound Builders, who were largely annihilated by disease. The natives are also going to possess plenty to trade for weaponry from competing European traders/colonists, and the lack of devastation by disease will give them far more time to adapt to the incomers, rather than being rolled over.
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A lot of those, are far from the reach of the initial East Coast settlements and thus a non-concern.
 
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