What would Colonization of the New World Without Gunpowder Look Like?

[Intransigent Southerner]

Yes. It's not a disparagement, it's just a fact. There were many other stone age societies outside of the Americas, and some of them were fairly impressive in their day. Over the millennia, they all gave way to societies with metallurgy. That's all there is to it, really. I am not trying to be very specific with the terminology here, I'm just referring to what the industrial chain supplying the arms looks like.

It's not a fact at all. Stone Ages is an archaeological term that exists in Afro-Eurasia and nowhere else, just as the Iron Age is rarely used in Chinese archaeology despite their actual use of iron. Applying Eurasian terms to American archaeology is like applying American terms to Eurasian archaeology; completely nonsensical and fundamentally mistaken. Apples & oranges, etc.

The only real military examples where non-European people actually drove the colonizers out were in Taiwan and along the Amur, but the non-Europeans in this case were Chinese, another civilization whose warfare revolved around steel and powder, and who outnumbered the colonizers by a huge margin due to much shorter logistics.

Cough, Araucania, West Africa, Oman in the Swahili Coast (fine, the Omanese weren't indigenous), cough.....

I...don't know what to say. Alvorado's big pitched victories in his own attempt at carving out a domain had a lot to do with his (very modest amounts of) cavalry. Most of the 17th c. Spanish wars in the colonies were fought on horseback. People who picked up riding gave the Spanish frontiers the only real check they ever experienced. Horses completely transformed life and warfare in the Great Plains.

See Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest, Matthew Restall (Oxford University Press), Chapter 7

 

[The Gunslinger]

Is that a fair assessment to refer to groups like the Aztec and Inca as "stone age"?

That's an honest question.

In terms of weapons and arms aside from gun powder I'm not sure the Spanish actually had a huge advantage? Due to the environment conditions the Conquistadors were known to drop their armor and actually adopt the cotton cloth armor of the Aztec.

Not to mention the Aztec obsidian blade club was reported to be able to decapitate a horse.

I'm not claiming that steel isn't still superior but in that environment I don't think the Spanish weaponry minus gun powder was that much better.

Disease would still trump all, but without it, it would have been quite a fight in my mind.

Obsidian is literally a rock, a very sharp rock mind you, but a rock nonetheless. It's the epitome of a stone age weapon.

 

[Napoleonrules]

Guns (excluding cannons) weren't that reliable and were hard to reload and took too long. They didn't do much in the way of pre-1600s conquests other than make a lot of noise, confuse, and scare. The crossbow and long bow of Europe would have been as effective a killing weapon against Native American technologies. Really nothing much would have been different in the New World, but as pointed out the real butterflies are what happens in Europe. You'd almost have to make the PoD this- gunpowder exists as per OTL in EUROPE, but for whatever made up handwaving reason, all European nations agree- no gunpowder is allowed to go to this new strange world. Now, if we agree that's the PoD things can be worked out easier as far as butterflies. Nothing much happens, a tiny bit slower, but not as slow as people are making it out to be, I think people are forgetting the efficiency of the crossbow, and while we aren't pretending European conquistadors are Legolas or Hawkeye, they are still quite efficient with "modern" European bows at the time, which would have been superior to the Native equivalents. Steel makes a big difference too. Then there's the diseases. The diseases do more than anything, and gunpowder or not they will wipe out just as fast and efficiently. Nothing much changes. In fact without gunpowder and guns to give the Natives in trade, which they then use against each other and on Europeans- the Europeans might actually move QUICKER through the interior when you get farther along. The Comanche and Sioux with horses and guns became a great fighting force, without guns (or less guns than OTL because by then there's been illegal guns smuggled in I'm sure) they aren't able to put up as much of a resistance in the 1800s. The American Revolution though in this ATL might be delayed, or at least go a little different, for either both sides don't use gunpowder keeping to the ban; or Britain breaks the ban and smashes the Americans in Boston (Arnold and Nathan can't take the cannons at Ticonderoga and haul them to Boston because there are no cannons there), without cannons no way Washington is forcing the British out. Next comes Providence, then New York, finally Philadelphia and Charleston.

 

[RGB]

Cough, Araucania, West Africa, Oman in the Swahili Coast (fine, the Omanese weren't indigenous), cough.....

Don't cough. Araucania is basically Patagonia but worse (and likely not worth it, nobody bothered with most of the Pacific either before the 1780s), Oman isn't indigenous (it's also a steel-and-powder expansionist power) and in any case the Portuguese there won a lot more than they lost even with the Ottomans in the picture, while West African states were never able to get rid of European coastal factories, and a Moroccan army that was armed rather similarly to any of the European armies we're discussing brought down West Africa's most formidable state in one single campaign.

See Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest, Matthew Restall (Oxford University Press), Chapter 7

So the cavalry that proved important in the Canaries is also covered in Matthew Restall's chapter? How about the cavalry that brought down Songhai, does he cover that?

Well no, he doesn't. He barely has a paragraph on that in his "Myths" and his only specific piece of evidence is that Pizzarro preferred to fight on foot. That's no surprise because he was an infantry officer of very modest means and in all likelihood like Cortez himself a bad horseman, but that seems enough for Restall to dismiss horses altogether.


---

I don't know how else to describe the recent thrust of the studies of the Conquest (and its alleged luck, uniqueness, and precarity) except some kind of strange attempt at exceptionalism. There really was an enormous set of advantages a Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, Ottoman, Russian, Moroccan or Omani expansion attempt enjoyed over most of the rest of the world. Given time and more importantly interest, conquest was far more likely than otherwise, and history bears that out world over.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

With a slower conquest, more cross-cultural transfer would surely happen, and not all one way.

You probably couldn't have gunpowder without lots of guns, a la China, as Europeans will weaponize anything.

But a Europe without gunpowder -- would there even be expeditions to the Americas?

Well contrary to popular misconception mediaeval Europeans knew perfectly well that the world was round, so once the naval technology to sail long distances was there I think it inevitable that someone would sooner or later head west.

 

[gochisox]

if somehow the Europeans still discovered Americas in 1492, without gunpowder, early on i dont think there would be much difference, the diseases would still be there and the steel and horses were bigger for shock at first. However, I think in the long term the Natives would have a better shot.

Say what you will about the power and accuracy of early guns, they were still a huge power, the shock and fear they could put in many tribes was a big help for the Europeans. And depending on when they get the guns (will the Europeans adopt guns at a later point or are the butterflied away forever), larger scale expansion into North America especially would be much more difficult, the English ability to consolidate and fortify forts with gunpowder was a big advantage in the Indian Wars, and if the colonist had to focus on close quarter fighting, Native skills would be a huge advantage (the colonist were simple farmers, the tribes had many warriors who would be able to adopt to steel armor and weapons fairly quickly, though producing them is probably out of there skill level.) If the colonist were limited to archery and steel weapons, the Natives could probably hold them at the coast and many of the tribes would be able to regrow there number after the diseases wiped them out, but Europe would still easily have strongholds and control of the coast. It would be interesting to see and actual battle for the inland though, the Europeans could win if they put enough effort and troops into it (steel still beats anything America could throw at it) but it would be bloody and without gunpowder American tactics are a lot better and could work a lot easier.

 

[Intransigent Southerner]

while West African states were never able to get rid of European coastal factories

Read Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500-1800. The factories were generally dependent on arrangements with locals and the idea that Africans would be not doing anything to remove them, as we see with the French withdrawal from the Senegal when the local rulers grew tired of them - not even attacking them, simply refusing to support them. Operations were not possible without West Africans, which is of course why the landward sides of factories were less defended than the seaward side. In the Gold Coast factories the Europeans paid tax to the Akan prince in question, just like in - guess what - Macao (ETA: and like how the Portuguese paid tribute to "Monomotapa" in order to be allowed trade with the interior after "Monomotapa" defeated them). In any case, off the top of my head (and specifically excluding everything after 1600, like the First Anglo-Asante War) there's the Bijagos Islands in 1535 and everything the Portuguese tried to do in the 1450s against Mali and the Great Jolofs.

and a Moroccan army that was armed rather similarly to any of the European armies we're discussing brought down West Africa's most formidable state in one single campaign.

Songhai was disintegrating of economic issues long before Morocco ever ventured in, for example with the redirection of southern trade and the decline of the Trans-Saharan routes (which are long-term causes that explain the lack of large Sahelian empires after Songhai). Also you rather specifically said "the only real military examples where non-European people actually drove the colonizers out" so Morocco is irrelevant, as is the military capacity of Oman. You specifically said "European," don't move the goalposts and say "but I meant 'modernized'." If you discount Oman than you should equally discount the Amur and Taiwan.

So the cavalry that proved important in the Canaries is also covered in Matthew Restall's chapter?

The Canaries are off Africa so I don't see why he should.

How about the cavalry that brought down Songhai, does he cover that?

Very frankly do you actually know anything the Moroccan "conquest"? Sahelian warfare was obsessed with cavalry and had been for centuries by Tondibi, to the point that cavalrymen scorned infantrymen for fighting on foot. It was Morocco that had the less cavalry, both absolutely and proportionately. At Tondibi (the battle was actually fought at Tankondibogho IIRC but whatever) the Songhai had between 12,500 and 18,000 cavalrymen and between 9,700 and 30,000 infantrymen, whereas the Moroccans had something like 2,500 cavalrymen out of 13,500 soldiers or so (obviously these statistics all remain under dispute, ie al-Saʿdī suggests 9,000 Moroccans total). The primary source I'm most acquainted with, which is al-Saʿdī’s Taʾrīkh al-Sūdān, gives about 30% of the Songhai forces as being cavalrymen, which is higher than the ratio of cavalrymen during the Siege of Tenochtitlan. Besides, to quote Thorton's final chapter on west Sahelian warfare, "the subsequent history of the Moroccans does not suggest that they had any longlasting military superiority because of their weapons, and the future even then still lay with the riders of Segu, or even the nomads of the desert."

Well no, he doesn't. He barely has a paragraph on that in his "Myths" and his only specific piece of evidence is that Pizzarro preferred to fight on foot. That's no surprise because he was an infantry officer of very modest means and in all likelihood like Cortez himself a bad horseman, but that seems enough for Restall to dismiss horses altogether.

First, you're theoretically correct, but he gives reasoning besides specific evidence. Anyways Myths is an intentionally short book, but A Cultural History of the Atlantic World, 1250-1820 (which is written by the same guy who wrote Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500-1800) discusses this briefly as well, giving a few other reasons - although Warfare suffers from the opposite problem of having too wide a topic to linger too long on this. Hassig's Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control also has discussion on the quick Aztec response to the horse. I don't deny that horses were very useful at times, for example at Otompan when the Aztecs basically first faced cavalry in an open field. The issue is that horses are way overrated, especially in terms of mobility.

 

[RGB]

the Bijagos Islands in 1535

Okay, that one actually seems legit.

Also you rather specifically said "the only real military examples where non-European people actually drove the colonizers out" so Morocco is irrelevant, as is the military capacity of Oman. You specifically said "European," don't move the goalposts and say "but I meant 'modernized'." If you discount Oman than you should equally discount the Amur and Taiwan.

Yeah no. I am not falling into the trap of Eurocentrism accusations because I'm not making any. It's that, in contrast to all the exceptionalists who seem to claim that technology has no deep impact on conquest, I'm simply making a case that technology, warfare and political science really are all tied together very tightly, and steel and horses are among the most important, with powder completing the package that made the 16th and 17th cc. what they were. It doesn't matter if they were mercenaries working for Morocco or private enterprises working for Spain, as long as they came from a culture that used the above things widely.

And yes, upon reflection you're right. I should probably discount Amur and Taiwan as well since steel and powder is as relevant to Ming/Qing as it is to Oman. So that leaves us with just the Bijagos islands.

The Canaries are off Africa so I don't see why he should.

Because the conquest of America was not born of a perfect void but was a direct continuation of military experiences the Spanish and Portuguese had off Africa, as are colonial attempts, plantation economies and other dubious things that followed.

The big islands of the Canaries were conquered at the same time as Hispaniola. The final operations involved more men than the conquest of Peru or Guatemala and about as much all of the men under all captains that landed in Mexico.

They're directly relevant. This is Restall's Chain of Conquest at its most obvious but he ignores it.

...the quick Aztec response to the horse. I don't deny that horses were very useful at times, for example at Otompan when the Aztecs basically first faced cavalry in an open field. The issue is that horses are way overrated, especially in terms of mobility.

It's not that horses are generally overrated, it's that you're expecting way too much of them. They're not unstoppable tanks or mahcines that never tire, but small average advantages add up in large numbers and so on the whole they are a massive civilization-changing development that increases efficiency of everything from communication to labour to logistics to warfare.

Yes, the Maya and Aztecs learned how to theoretically deal with them quickly enough (all humans everywhere are very smart, really), but they were never very effective at dealing with them in reality, because "dealing with horses" is not a free tech upgrade but a matter of individual experience.

As for "overrated" mobility of horses, whatever do you mean? I'm sure the vast array of horse-based Empires (and that includes the post-contact North American native nations) that would otherwise have not been possible really disagree with you. Individual horses might not be unstoppable, horses in numbers are a whole different thing, horses in numbers on horse-friendly terrain are game-changing.

 

[Intransigent Southerner]

Yeah no. I am not falling into the trap of Eurocentrism accusations because I'm not making any. It's that, in contrast to all the exceptionalists who seem to claim that technology has no deep impact on conquest

First off you're completely misrepresenting the modern academic consensus, and considering your general tone I'm not particularly interested in repeating what it actually is.
Second here's what you actually said: "The only real military examples where non-European people actually drove the colonizers out were in Taiwan and along the Amur." Yes, you are most definitely being Eurocentric here, even if I assume that you believe that Morocco and Oman are European for some bizarre reason. I don't know how you can make a statement equivalent to saying that Europe never really lost except to the Chinese and somehow expect people not to accuse you of Eurocentrism.

So that leaves us with just the Bijagos islands.

Is this a joke/sarcastic remark, or do you really think the Bijagos are the only examples of Europeans losing terribly? In Africa alone the Portuguese were forced to pay tribute to "Monomotapa" after several military defeats. There was the Portuguese failure in the Senegalia in the mid-15th century, and I'm not even talking about events like King Fāsīladas expelling every Jesuit from Ethiopia and destroying most Catholic writings with the Catholic European powers able to offer virtually no payback to this major insult. And since you seem keen on mentioning the Americas, let me remind you a large number of early European expeditions or attempt at expeditions into the Americas simply failed, such as Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón, Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, Juan de Grijalva, Aleixo Garcia (poor dude), Juan Ponce de Leon, Pánfilo de Narváez, Gonzalo Pizarro, Hernando de Soto, etc. Obviously many of these failures were multifaceted, but in most/all of them native resistance, direct or indirect, was a major part (and in some cases the principal or only cause).

They're directly relevant. This is Restall's Chain of Conquest at its most obvious but he ignores it.

Restall's book also does not discuss European geopolitics at the time of the conquests, although they are of course relevant. Should we fault him for that? Myths isn't a narrative history, it's primarily an argumentative text (it's in the title after all).

As for "overrated" mobility of horses, whatever do you mean? I'm sure the vast array of horse-based Empires (and that includes the post-contact North American native nations) that would otherwise have not been possible really disagree with you. Individual horses might not be unstoppable, horses in numbers are a whole different thing, horses in numbers on horse-friendly terrain are game-changing.

I believe it is fairly clear from contact that what was meant is the mobility of horses during the principal conquests of the Americas is overrated, since the main conquistador teams rarely actually had horses in numbers.

 

[RGB]

Second here's what you actually said: "The only real military examples where non-European people actually drove the colonizers out were in Taiwan and along the Amur." Yes, you are most definitely being Eurocentric here, even if I assume that you believe that Morocco and Oman are European for some bizarre reason. I don't know how you can make a statement equivalent to saying that Europe never really lost except to the Chinese and somehow expect people not to accuse you of Eurocentrism.

I should definitely have phrased it better. I really don't make a major distinction between any of the Western Eurasian civilisations - they're all roughly in the same basket in terms of capabilities. You make an excellent point that Eastern Eurasians should generally fit within the same basket. From now on I shall do so and just call everyone "Eurasian".

The primary focus of highlighting Africa and Siberia and the Indian Ocean is that the expansionist powers of the 16th c. were fighting people who were more numerous than the Americans, objectively tougher targets militarily than the Americans, did not experience much of a technology gap, and did not have the disease disadvantage.

Despite all that, the expansionist powers of the period did just fine against these much tougher opponents. It's not that they never lost - they lost plenty, if they don't lose how do they learn? - but that they couldn't generally be kept out by military means.

There by contrast are plenty of places that were colonised only very very late. They are usually very remote, unsuitable for Mediterranean crops, and don't have enough density to sustain occupation through extracting food locally. Local resistance usually helps in making the cost somewhat higher, but if the incentive is high enough this resistance will be overcome.

I think the higher cost in a powder-less world (mostly political, internal to the colonizing states) might discourage serious attempts for much longer, since even OTL all of the overseas conquests were done on a comparative shoestring when measured against wars and state projects closer to home. If the costs of colonization are not marginal, there may be no attempts at all. However if there are attempts and the goal is seen as worth the cost (central Mexico, for example, totally worth the cost), then attempts will proceed until victory.

Is this a joke/sarcastic remark, or do you really think the Bijagos are the only examples of Europeans losing terribly? In Africa alone the Portuguese were forced to pay tribute to "Monomotapa" after several military defeats.

...for one generation, against an enemy whose core territories lay so far that they couldn't sustain anything sizable there until the 19th c. anyway, and against which they exploited an opportunity when it arose to turn the tables around.

Good on the Mutapans but it's far from the "disaster" you seem to think it was, and they weren't kept out, which was pretty central to my original claim.

I do appreciate some additional perspective on how much more difficult the Portuguese Empire was to achieve than the Spanish equivalent, however. It's useful to get a new look at things, and this forum is good for that.

I believe it is fairly clear from contact that what was meant is the mobility of horses during the principal conquests of the Americas is overrated, since the main conquistador teams rarely actually had horses in numbers.

Then we don't really disagree? Yes, horses were a minor though not insignificant factor in terms of military impact on the original conquest, but they were integral to producing a civilization that could launch such a conquest and once they arrived in numbers they changed everyone, Spanish and American alike.

Since this is a hypothetical about a pre-gunpowder invasion of America rather than a detailed case study of Cortez' campaigns (which I think is overly specific if we're trying to grapple with a question this broad), dismissing horses seems pre-emptive. A powder-less invasion may have more emphasis on cavalry, for example, or take longer. The longer it takes, the more time for horses to make an impact.

All of these things would need to be considered over a much longer timeframe than if we were solely focusing on one single event.

 

[Intransigent Southerner]

The primary focus of highlighting Africa and Siberia and the Indian Ocean is that the expansionist powers of the 16th c. were fighting people who were more numerous than the Americans, objectively tougher targets militarily than the Americans, did not experience much of a technology gap, and did not have the disease disadvantage.

But the thing is that the Eurasians did not win. We saw what happened with Africa, that is, virtually no real European conquests except in Angola until quite late. With the exception of the Swahili Coast, which had a very weak population base and a culture unacquainted with warfare, it appears that the Indian Ocean world was disturbed by European intrusion but generally continued to operate without singular domination until the 18th century, since newer focus on South Asian sources is challenging the idea that Europe took over the IOT, ie Asian Merchants and Businessmen in the Indian Ocean and the China Sea by Lombard and Aubin. Siberia, I'll fully concede that the Europeans completely overran it relatively early - but then it's not actually true that most Siberians were any better equipped than North Americans.

 

[Inquisitor Tolkien]

Staying away from debating-to-the-death the perennial Eurocentrism that this board maintains, the net military outcome can be anywhere from profound to negligible.

By itself, gunpowder was largely entirely unimportant to the success of the Spanish Conquest in either Mexico or the Andes. Neither, for that matter, was steel metallurgy or cavalry. If you read Bernal Diaz's first-hand account of the Mexican conquest, you'll note that at multiple points, he states that the Spanish had traded away their steel armor for local fabric armors.

The predominant reason for these two conquests lies in the underlying political situations in both regions: in the Andes, the Inca were engaged in a major civil war that Pizarro was able to take advantage of, while in Meso-America, the Aztec ruled over a vast tributary state of resentful, semi-independent city-states and vassals, through which Cortes, unlike the other (at times better-equipped) conquistador expeditions to Mexico that utterly failed at just the coast, was able to skillfully navigate (with the help of skilled translators), coalesce an anti-Aztec coalition, and, through politicking and marriage, into rulership of.

Disease vectors were far more relevant to the Spanish Conquest (in the long-term), though their impact in terms of the "immediate" conquest was fairly muted; disease would afflict both the Aztecs and anti-Aztec forces in Mexico, and in the Andes, disease spread fairly slowly, resulting in a less-devastating introduction (we're looking at single-digit % decline over decades, as opposed to a double-digit decline).


The main reason I mention that the changes could be profound is due to the impact of "no gunpowder" on Eurasian and Mediterranean political structures that would later drive Europeans into exploration. There's a large net of butterflies that arise from this, which could lead to anything from, say, Portuguese trade with the Meso-American and Andean state as opposed to conquest, to the failures of conquistador expeditions due to different leadership (as was exemplified by the various expeditions into Mexico prior to Cortes) or due to more stable political climates within native states.

 

[yournamerandomnumbers]

But the thing is that the Eurasians did not win. We saw what happened with Africa, that is, virtually no real European conquests except in Angola until quite late. With the exception of the Swahili Coast, which had a very weak population base and a culture unacquainted with warfare, it appears that the Indian Ocean world was disturbed by European intrusion but generally continued to operate without singular domination until the 18th century, since newer focus on South Asian sources is challenging the idea that Europe took over the IOT, ie Asian Merchants and Businessmen in the Indian Ocean and the China Sea by Lombard and Aubin. Siberia, I'll fully concede that the Europeans completely overran it relatively early - but then it's not actually true that most Siberians were any better equipped than North Americans.

I believe his point isn't that Europeans (or Eurasians, or whoever) were the sole controller of the entire place, but that when Europeans wanted to enter the markets, they did, and there was no long-term military solution to keeping them out. They had to accommodate the Europeans every time. To use the Mutapa example, if they were so powerful, why did they only collect tribute from the Portuguese instead of expelling them completely and taking over that region themselves?

By itself, gunpowder was largely entirely unimportant to the success of the Spanish Conquest in either Mexico or the Andes. Neither, for that matter, was steel metallurgy or cavalry. If you read Bernal Diaz's first-hand account of the Mexican conquest, you'll note that at multiple points, he states that the Spanish had traded away their steel armor for local fabric armors.

The predominant reason for these two conquests lies in the underlying political situations in both regions: in the Andes, the Inca were engaged in a major civil war that Pizarro was able to take advantage of, while in Meso-America, the Aztec ruled over a vast tributary state of resentful, semi-independent city-states and vassals, through which Cortes, unlike the other (at times better-equipped) conquistador expeditions to Mexico that utterly failed at just the coast, was able to skillfully navigate (with the help of skilled translators), coalesce an anti-Aztec coalition, and, through politicking and marriage, into rulership of.

What this says to me is that Europeans (or Eurasians in general as RGB said, Oman and Morocco are valid examples in this case) could've conquered the regions even without their technological advantages, using basic political science. The question becomes, how did they develop this political science? Was it a function independent their society, or was it tied directly to it?

 

[RGB]

The predominant reason for these two conquests lies in the underlying political situations in both regions: in the Andes, the Inca were engaged in a major civil war that Pizarro was able to take advantage of, while in Meso-America, the Aztec ruled over a vast tributary state of resentful, semi-independent city-states and vassals, through which Cortes, unlike the other (at times better-equipped) conquistador expeditions to Mexico that utterly failed at just the coast, was able to skillfully navigate (with the help of skilled translators), coalesce an anti-Aztec coalition, and, through politicking and marriage, into rulership of.

Pizzarro was a poor gentleman, likely illiterate, and with no great personal connections. Cortez had burned a lot of bridges and was no great lord himself. Yet these people were able to correctly read the local situation and exploit their tiny numbers' small tactical advantages into large strategic victories.

Other captains elsewhere had done the same, all over the world (which is really the entirety of my general point, this happened in many places besides America, even if Africa proved much tougher).

This isn't a unique occurrence. These aren't unique people. Even the circumstances are hardly unique. There's a high chance of the same coincidence of events repeating, simply based on what the culture of the colonizers was producing, in terms of sailors, soldiers, captains and craftsmen, and there is an even higher probability that any state in the period would eventually hit some kind of exploitable crisis.

It's not like the Eurasians (in this case the Spanish, for example) didn't practice exploiting crises against each other on their own continent, you know?

As was exemplified by the various expeditions into Mexico prior to Cortes

So like the singular example of Cordoba is all we have to base this very broad statement on? The other expeditions explored the area but never landed in any numbers.

It's not like Cortez was the first, neither was Pizzarro. They were both aware of where they were going before they started based on earlier contacts and exploration. Reconnaissance is part of warfare, after all.

 

[Mitchell Hundred]

For reasons stated in the short term Spanish forces could have conquered the Americas without gunpowder but again assuming a scenario without widespread disease could they have held on to those lands long term?

Also wouldn't purely metal melee weapons be easier to replicate and use than firearms? IOTL we have examples of natives blending their traditional weapons with metallurgy.

Also metal melee weapons are much easier to adapt to culturally "stone age" or bronze age cultures than firearms. I believe many Zulus abandoned rifled arms in favor of their traditional weapons due to their misunderstanding of how to use them.

Swinging a metal sword vs swinging an obsidian club is less of a learning curve than going from that to an arquebus or flintlock.

 

[maxman33]

could they also be able to replicate the european longbows and crossbows?

 

[Mitchell Hundred]

could they also be able to replicate the european longbows and crossbows?

Cross-bow I don't know.

However I read this book on archery before and apparently some of the Native Bows were actually quite good and better than many give credit for.

Up until the repeating firearm, in many instances it was said the plains indians on horseback with bow and arrow actually had somewhat of a weapons advantage over the settlers. In fact it really was the invention of the revolver in the 1840's that fully changed the weapons dynamic there.

I know this topic is about gunpowder but without disease I think it wold have taken many decades longer for European forces to fully colonize the Americas even with better technology.

 

[Inquisitor Tolkien]

@RGB:


First, you are equating literacy and background as an indicator of intelligence. This is quite an obvious and major fallacy, as it goes without saying that many of these great lords were quite dimwitted and stupid. For instance, the founder of the Han dynasty and of modern China was a crude, illiterate peasant. That their background is common does not mean that they were not pivotal to their conquests.

Yes, the conquests of Mexico and the Andes were somewhat unique events to a degree. Less so in Mexico, as the political structure of the region was rather loose and would be certainly open eventual co-option. Without the rise of a major centralized state in the region, as opposed to the loose tributary empires that traditionally dominated the region, it would be eventually subjugated in a similar manner as India. Nonetheless, it would be disingenuous to neglect the unique aspects of Cortes' expedition and, especially, of his translator Doña Marina, whom Bernal Diaz for instance held as critical to the conquest, and whom is now at times referred to by historians as the "true conqueror" of Mexico.

In the case of the Inca, without an extenuating internal political crisis, are significantly better-positioned to resist, in comparison to the Aztecs and Mexican city-states. And the largest issue in these cases is that first contact was almost immediately followed by conquest; surviving the first contact opens up significantly better prospects of survival for the major native empires.

I for one generally find hold that without major shifts in the political landscape of Meso-America, it's unlikely to resist European expansionism, but that the conquest of the Andes is a much more singular matter entirely, one which basically requires the political disunity of the empire for a conquistador band to take it as Pizarro did.


Again, the issue is not the equipment: gunpowder, steel, and horses by all accounts played only a small part in the conquest.

For reasons stated in the short term Spanish forces could have conquered the Americas without gunpowder but again assuming a scenario without widespread disease could they have held on to those lands long term?

That's a very good question, and it's hard to say. In Mexico, the anti-Aztec coalition were likely doing so for pragmatic reasons; the myth that the natives saw the Spanish as gods is currently believed to have been postulated by the Aztecs after the conquest in order to comprehend the enormity of their defeat. For them, decades of Aztec dominance needed to be overthrown, and the Spanish served as a convenient tool to remove them from power. If they were not crippled afterwards by disease, would have have banded together to push out the Spanish (by themselves, militarily, they absolutely could)? Possibly: it may have been their intent all along, without factoring in cataclysmic population loss. Nonetheless, the Spanish had already begun the process of integrating themselves in the region through intermarriage, and while there may certainly be strong city-states that will end up opposing the Spanish, they will still have a loyal base of indigenous allies. It would decelerate the conquest in Mexico, but would likely still occur.

As for the Andes, it's much harder to say: over the course of the century after conquest, there was something approaching a 90+% decline over several major outbreaks (and hacienda/forced labor losses, but those are generally exaggerated in the West) in the region. There were several movements that generally seemed aimed at overthrowing the Spanish, but my memory of these movements and details are hazy, so I cannot really say.

 

[RGB]

could they also be able to replicate the european longbows and crossbows?

The local bows (granted all of this is post-conquest) are pretty good, and the flatbow used across the USA has excellent energy transfer properties as far as bows go, it's just a bit light poundage compared to Eurasian warbows that had to deal with useful armour as opposed to bows mostly employed in hunting.

So I don't really see what a longbow (or another really heavy draw bow) would add to the mix unless armour also became widespread, which, granted, it might well do, since it's very useful and can defeat any weapon local cultures produce, so that in turn would require harder-hitting weapons.

Again, the issue is not the equipment: gunpowder, steel, and horses by all accounts played only a small part in the conquest.

By all accounts? Yeah, I don't think the actual accounts agree (they very blatantly don't, but I do understand that modern reinterpretations challenge the actual accounts for various reasons).

I mean it makes sense that a handful of (mostly non-soldiers) couldn't have done much on their own, but they proved a critical multiplier that let people who hitherto had repeatedly failed in military endeavors against the Mexica suddenly start winning. If they could do the same without the Spanish, why didn't they?

I mean that's a very valid question to ask, no? There's no evidence at all that the Triple Alliance was especially unstable at that particular moment compared to other periods of its history, or that the Tlaxcalans had any realistic hope of overthrowing them until the Spanish arrived, but people seem to assume that it sounds plausible anyway.

So, reasonably assuming that the Spanish were the key disrupting factor, and for the Spanish, yes, their warmaking skills and the equipment they had were the things that set them apart and made them valuable allies, it seems totally strange to claim that their equipment and tactics had nothing to do with it.

But once again: Cortez was not the first contact with the Aztecs, and similar seemingly unlikely shoestring conquests occurred in many places around the world. No society is immune to internal unrest exploitable by people who come with a tactical edge in warmaking and a corresponding mindset. The steel and horses are not only immediately useful things, they also represent a society that has grown into their habitual use and all the skills associated with that. Gunpowder makes it even more lopsided. So the question is, is the third component necessary? I don't think so in terms of the expansionist capability of the colonizing people, but it might have heavy impacts on the internal costs of expansion without the social changes that gunpowder and artillery in particular brought about and might delay this expansion significantly for that reason.