How Aztecs Reacted to Colonial Epidemics | Hacker News Reader

How Aztecs Reacted to Colonial Epidemics

daily.jstor.org

43 pointsThevet51 comments

Am I the only one disappointed that an article entitled "How the Aztecs Reacted...." Contains seemingly no information about how they reacted?

It’s mostly the authors reaction to western colonialism on western historical records.

Especially the... odd ending of the article which seemed to have forgotten what the article was supposed to be about. Or maybe the headline was just deceiving.

We Learned About the Aztecs From Their Conquerors—But New Research Is Letting Them Speak for Themselves

BY CAMILLA TOWNSEND NOVEMBER 1, 2019

https://time.com/5715476/aztec-history-myths/

It seems suspicious to me that the Europeans had a whole host of diseases that could wipe out a civilisation but the Americans had nothing comparable to affect Europeans. By symmetry, I expect there was some other force at work. Slavery/forced labour/wars and large-scale resettlements does sound plausible.

Eurasia is a bigger interconnected breeding ground for germs, plus more domesticated animals. "Guns, germs and steel" explains this in depth.

Every reference to Guns, germs and steel should come with a cave-at.

Such as?

What's the caveat? I just read it and thoroughly enjoyed it.

What point of the book related to spread of disease do you have a problem with specifically? Every prominent book has critics, especially in non-hard sciences, that doesn't mean the book is wrong generally. As a general probabilistic diffusion framework, it makes total sense to me.

It's the other points being made, one could get the idea that germs made Europeans stronger, but on the other hand, less germs could give a civilization a developmental edge. Europe lost probably hundreds of years of progress to the Black Death.

> less germs could give a civilization a developmental edge.

Interesting idea, but the way I see it, disease is a cost of civilization in a way. The reasons that there was more disease in Eurasia are also the reasons that caused civilization to progress faster there to begin with. I'm not sure you could have your cake and eat it too.

> Europe lost probably hundreds of years of progress to the Black Death.

Based on what I've read about the Black Death, I don't think that's the case. Unlike the fall of the Roman empire, there wasn't a collapse of civilization despite the devastation caused by it: technological and engineering knowledge was not lost in the process. Some argue that the Black Death was actually benefitial in some ways. There was a big population boom leading up to it, but afterwards the survivors had a better economic situation, and more leverage against nobles resulting in the power shifting more towards farmers and other workers.

If you ignore contemporary prejudices and think of Europe as "New World" back in early middle ages you notice that comparable large human migrations/trade between eurasia has inflicted equivalent toll on Europe's population of that time

They gave us at least Syphilis. Probably others as well.

Tobacco is still one of the worst serial killers known by humanity.

And the terrible dehumanisation effect of cocaine can be seen each day in newspapers infiltrating and destroying communities from inside.

I always thought cocaine was relatively safe compared to other drugs, and used to be an OTC medication sold freely in the past.

The theory I've heard is that to breed a deadly plague, you need to live in close contact with animals. A well-adapted virus won't usually kill its host, so most deadly viruses jump over from the animal hosts they adapted to. Europe has lots of animals that can be domesticated (Chickens, dogs, cats, pigs, cows, etc) while the animals in Africa and the Americas mostly were the kind you can't domesticate. (Apart from Llamas.)

That's why most deadly plagues came from Europe back then, and now tend to come from places where people still live in very close contact with their lifestock or with wild animals.

Most deadly plagues then as now came from the east which had both the human density and practices of domesticated animals while also eating a huge variety of animals that was natural reservoirs of pathogens. Pretty much every plague with the exception of 1918 flu can trace it roots eastwards.

Slavery and forced labour was common in Africa, yet it was known as "white man's grave", not "black man's grave", precisely because the local diseases killed the white masters and soldiers much more than black slaves.

The main cause of disease asymmetry between the Old World and the New World was domestic livestock. Many of the Old World diseases are zoonosis = acquired from animals, especially the domestic ones that shared the living space of the premodern farmers. Sheep, cattle, horses...

In America, there were few species suitable for domestication, especially after the first settlement wave of hunters exterminated most of the megafauna.

One major disease atleast did jump to Europeans from the new world: Syphilis.

Newcomers were dying a lot, including to diseases.

Not an expert, but I'm not sure that's so. Europe had been trading bugs with Asia, the Middle East and north Africa continuously for thousands of years, while the Americas had been largely isolated.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com