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I would not dispute that corn and potatoes had an immense effect on the stability of the European food supply, nor that their derivatives have made a huge impact on industrialized food, but to imply these foods somehow bailed out Europe or that European agronomy and agriculture was somehow undeveloped or crude, is just silly.
The potato, like Old World grain crops are largely just staples, calorie extenders that allow civilizations maintain a huge surplus of calories to feed their underclasses. Staple crops tend to replace more nutritious horticultural strrategies that rely on a diversity of crops, and thus nutrients, which while won't support a larger population, make for a healthier smaller population, and one that is a lot less likely to suffer from the disadvantage of a blight on a monocrop.
Also, if you want to suggest New World plants with real nutrition that added positively to the range of European diet, I would suggest the tomato, beans, and squash over those starch crops, anyway. That said, I do like potatoes and corn, but their real 'value' is no more than wheat, i.e. empty calories to maintain the masses.
I think the point is more that "New World" agricultural was sophisticated. Perhaps moreso than "Old World" agriculture of the same era (painting with broad brushes, of course). Societies need a food surplus in order to develop scientifically, culturally, politically, and economically. The Americas were not a 'monoculture' in 1491 when it comes to agriculture, but maize and soybeans were certainly backbones of many American food systems pre-contact (along with seafood, wild game, fruit, and nuts).
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Originally Posted by southwest88
Cortez was able to conquer the Aztecs because he took advantage of political discontent among the vassal states to the Aztecs. He marched on Tenochtitlan with a huge Tlaxcalan (and other allies) army (see Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.) And of course, the Spanish had steel armor and weapons, horses and war dogs. Gunpowder weapons too - but they were more for show - good shock and awe, not so much for close quarters and single combat. Disease favored the Spanish, in particular - and later English colonization of N. America.
In the early invasive period of European contact, it was mostly menfolk who came to the New World. Therefore - especially among the Spanish and French - the men married - or at least fathered - criollo children. In the case of Mexico, I don't believe there ever were a lot of Spanish women who made the trip to settle in the Americas. Most of the early administrators were Spanish, and their goal seemed to be to make a pile of money and then return to the old country, to settle down and be a somebody.
Disease was the expeditionary force. There are reasonable postulations that disease was a major cause of the political factionalization in the Aztec empire that so weakened the empire to foreign invasion.
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Originally Posted by Electrician4you
If left completely alone I am pretty sure the natives would still be doing what they were when first found. They had absolutely no infrastructure no kingdoms, no sciences, written language or higher learning of any kind. They were still fairly nomadic and basic hunter gatherers for the majority. The closest thing to a "city" were Pueblo Indians or some tribes that built actual structures not just pitched a tent.
Why this myth persists in the 21st century, I don't know. Your analysis is incorrect. Read the rest of this thread and look to some of the literature on the subject of pre-contact Americas.
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Originally Posted by jwkilgore
The concept of European explorers (or Asian, or African) somehow never finding the Americas is one I can't wrap my head around. But as explained by others, the Native Americans would have continued to advance. Most likely not as far as our current world, but at the time of European "discovery" the dominant societies already had well established understanding of mathematics, hydraulics (irrigation), and agriculture. Also well-established trade routes with other societies, so any new development could be shared.
There would be must as much deforestation (maybe even more, because back then wood was the ONLY source of fuel) and animal depopulation. They had already helped wipe out the Mastodons using only stone tools.
A much more realistic scenario would be if old Chris C. still sailed the ocean blue in 1492, but the natives did NOT get wiped out by a massively devastating plague. It's documented that the native Americans kicked the Vikings out of North America (they called it "Vineland") many Centuries before Columbus was born, so a native population at full strength could have easily done the same to European settlers. Actually, they did so. There is a reason it took 128 years between Columbus and Plymouth Rock. The plague wrapped up in the late 1610's, so it's no real surprise that the first successful permanent European colony on the continent was founded only a few years later in 1620. They found an "abandoned" Native American settlement with corn (maize) already growing wild in the fields from where the natives planted back when they were alive. Back to the alternate scenario... Native societies would have still traded with Europeans, and may have even been briefly subjugated by them, but eventually the settlers would have been kicked out. Think of actual India, which was colonized by England. Do Indians today look like the English? No? America would be the same.
I agree that your proposed scenario is much more likely. If the Americas were never successfully colonized, it is interesting to consider what the influence would have been on subsequent history. Would there have been an industrial revolution in Europe in the 1800s without the lengthy, one-sided trade system that brought the riches of the Americas to the European capitals? Would Europe have developed capitalism and socialism?
The question is almost akin to thinking about history had Rome decisively lost the Punic Wars and thus didn't really expand beyond the borders of present-day Italy in that era. The Roman economy thrived on the conquest of new lands and peoples, as did the economies of the European imperial powers. Instead of running out of steam in the early to mid 20th century, perhaps those economies would have faltered in the 17th and 18th centuries without expansion to the Americas. Who knows?
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