While most likely the plagues would be introduced in waves, I think it's possible for multiple plagues to make it in one wave. Essentially, what would happen would be something like this: the Spanish give the Aztecs smallpox and pick up the parrotpox. Smallpox ravages the Americas, parrotpox ravages Spain and causes them to end their colonialization attempts. However, someone else (possibly a different power sending an expedition right before it gets hit by the parrotpox, or perhaps freebooters looking to score American gold) sends an expedition to the Americas, and delivers measles but picks up Red death. So, within two years, a "two disease" wave hits both areas. Enough to almost destroy society, but it would leave enough of a population base to create a recognizable successor society.
A good point. I'm not sure it would be recognizable. Certainly interesting, but it's hard to overestimate the effects of having something like 80% of the population of a society die.
I did a couple of 'Indian diseases strike back' scenarios in American Indian Victories. One had a disease with a rodent vector that was almost invariable deadly to horses. That let the existing Indians develop unchanged, but when the Spanish reached mainland of the New World their horses simply died under them. No horses probably=no conquest until firearms got good enough to overcome Indian manpower advantages, probably in the 1800s.
Ah, interesting. I can't quite remember my early conquest of the Spanish well enough to truly give an answer, but were horses really that important to the conquests of the Carribean? I know that in the Andes they were basically useless (almost a hindrance really), but the conquest of Mexico would surely suffer tremendously. It would make American colonization much more like that of Africa's certainly.
The other one was thoroughly nasty. Basically, the Indians carried a harmless minor infection in their joints--harmless except that if a person carried antibodies to smallpox those antibodies went after the infection and destroyed the joints in the process of trying to destroy it--essentially an autoimmune disease, but only if you have smallpox antibodies. The infection spreads to European settlers and basically paralyzes anyone who is immune to smallpox. Like I said, nasty.
That is nasty. It basically makes it impossible to be both immune to smallpox and immune to this. Honestly that sounds horrible, considering that smallpox will ravage everyone and then when they get immune to it, they die. But wouldn't that kill Native Americans as well, once they get infected by smallpox and if any survive?
Were the Americas really so "backward" in the 15th century? The Incan Empire was a marvel of political centralization. I have trouble thinking of the Incas as being so much "less advanced" than the Europeans as being "technologically different."
No, they were less advanced. Different in many ways (
many ways), but certainly less advanced, for a number of reasons. Even if we discount the usage of metals as cultural differences, we still have a society that is extremely lacking in many areas compared to Eurasian ones, such as ocean navigation, political philosophy and governmental structure, even the beginnings of a scientific structure, an enormous lack of literacy, and a significantly less advanced set of tools. Well adapted to their environment certainly, but in a straight up fight against Eurasians, they would lose, just as did almost every other civilization that fought Eurasians (Sub-Saharan Africa, Australia etc.). Therefore the challenge is of course to make sure they don't have a fair fight.
One thing that might have put the Incas on par militarily with Europeans would be iron smelting, but given the nature of Andean civilization that would probably butterfly the Incas out of existence (they'd probably be replaced by a theocracy of blacksmith-priests, which would probably put so many religious restrictions and taboos on the use of iron that they'd still be hobbled against the European military machine).
Wait, what? No that makes very little sense at all. Yes, the Incas would be butterflied away, but the idea of blacksmith priest theocracy has very little evidence to support it at all. Considering the structure of Andean society (which is likely to be similar to OTL with any POD, due to it's well adapted form for the distribution of labor and resources in a verticality oriented society), any form of government based off of one particular group of craftsmen is extremely unlikely. The distributed nature of the ayllu structure is designed to give access to a large pool of specialists and strategies to be utilized by the whole ayllu in the precarious environment of the Andes. Giving political control to a particular sub-group would fundamentally break that whole idea!
Having the natives discover a crude form of vaccination would go a long way in keeping American civilization alive. It's certainly not impossible--supposedly proto-vaccination (involving innoculating an uninfected person with small amounts of pus from infected people or animals) was known to Slavic peasants and certain African tribes.
Wouldn't they need an actual sample of endemic disease first to create such a system?
I think the answer lies not in diseases and animals (though horses would have been a great advantage) but in metal working. Only the Tarascans, who lived northwest of the Aztecs, had metal tools and had the extended this to body armour, swords, spears and shields they would would have dominated the whole region.The mesoamerican civilizations were very developed in the fields of mathematics, astronomy and engineering and had strong central governments. All that was lacking was a suitable response for European guns, and armour.
What are you talking about? Andean civilization was probably the most advanced and experienced in metalworking in the Americas, although certainly their metalworking was highly different in goal then what we Western metalworkers strived for. You are correct that the Tarascans had metal tools and were the most advanced Mesoamerican society in metalworking, but to outright dismiss every other society in Mesoamerica as lacking in any metalworking is ridiculous. Not only was there local metalworking, but Tarascan tools were widely available as trade goods throughout Mesoamerica. Finally I believe you overestimate the ease of adapting metal to use in warfare and the advantages a society would gain from it. Even if the Tarascans managed to create a bizarre schizotech situation and armed only themselves with full bronze weaponry (considering the heat of much of Mesoamerica, full bronze armor would be ridiculously uncomfortable. Some perhaps, but not full), they would still face major challenges in defeating and occupying the rest of Mesoamerica.
* A New World Silk Road (NWSR) stretching from OTL Chile to OTL Southwest USA established thousands of years before the arrival of the Spaniards.
* Domesticated plants and animals and technology from all the civilizations along the NWSR as well as political, philosophical and scientific ideas are travelling in both directions on this route.
* The Tarascans have metal tools and extend this to body armour, swords, spears and shields. This knowledge is also spread on the NWSR.
But this totally ignores the challenges of crossing that enormous and ridiculous distance! Firstly a land route is right out, considering the dangers of attempting to cross the Isthmus of Panama (Hell even today we still have the Darien Gap!), and a sea route while quite possible would require significant advances in shipbuilding for American societies then what we see in OTL. Finally the distance is so large and diverse that I highly doubt we could make a unified trade route, even if the Americans wanted to (What would a Puebloan even desire in the realms of the Mapudungun?). I understand the intent, which is a good one to advance the Americas, but the way it's described is implausible.
Maybe have some nasty African-style disease evolve in the Amazon and become endemic in the Amazonian civilization? If it's mosquito-borne, you might even be able to get it to spread well beyond the Amazon without having to posit a second POD (most likely, the Amazonians somehow linking themselves to the Caribbean trade routes).
If the American jungles and swamps are as hostile to European settlement as the African interior was up until the development of modern medical techniques, you've pretty much kept the Europeans from directly settling in most of the Western Hemisphere.
Said nasty African-style disease sounds like a hindrance as much as a help.
It's hard to guess with the Amazon due to the paucity of knowledge we have available on it. Europeans mostly did keep out before the 19th and 20th centuries, and a disease would only push them farther into the future. Unfortunately I doubt a disease would be able to save any of the pre-Colombian cilizations there (if you hold that those civilizations existed of course), since in anyeven they would be destroyed by disease like OTL.
