What if the natives were smarter than Columbus?

[Robonoise]

So wondering, if Christopher Columbus came to the America’s and then the Europeans started to take over, what would happen if the natives were more advanced? Not just about mid 1800’s smarter, but modern 2019 smart? What would happen? War? If so, the Europeans would probably lose (no offense to European memebers, though). Would they team up? What would the world be like today? I know this sounds like a question that belongs in some other forum, but I couldn’t really see it fitting in with anything else. 

[Superfluous J]

To start, smarts had nothing to do with it, the Europeans were more technologically advanced, a very different thing.

So you're wondering what it would be like if Columbus landed on the shores of an America that was essentially today's America, but populated fully by Native Americans with an Internet and massive cities and coast-to-coast one-day shipping of kitty litter for free and all that?

Well for one I'd be very curious why those people hadn't invented ocean travel, air travel, or space travel yet. But assuming they for some reason hadn't they would probably very quickly get at least ocean travel, and their advanced population size plus technological capabilities would cause them to become the supreme superpower of Earth.

No clue on what would happen after that but Europeans would have to be HORRENDOUSLY STUPID to try to go to war with them.

[tater]

90% of the natives in the Americas die in any counterfactual history where they ever make contact with Europeans or Asians.

Disease.

There were not really any animals to domesticate in the Americas, and as a result, natives didn't live in close proximity with as many animals. In Europe and Asia people did, and it was a Petri dish for plagues (form in animals, jump to humans). All of us from those regions are descendants of the survivors of all those massive plagues, and we have some immunity as a result.

So any meeting, and the natives are wiped out, even if it is entirely friendly.

Edited October 22, 2019 by tater

[tater]

I should add that the same conditions that led to Europe and Asia being a breeding ground for plagues also contributed to their development of large scale civilization, and a kind of agriculture unavailable to the peoples of the Americas. Draft animals are a huge force multiplier in agriculture, without them you are stuck with small gardens by comparison. The only largish domesticated animals in the Americas were llamas and alpacas in South America. They were used as food, and as pack animals, but I don't think they put up with pulling plows, etc.

In short, it wasn't lack of intelligence, they were fellow humans. It was a lack of the appropriate resources to make the same kind of civilization happen, either at all, or in a similar time frame. They were also every bit as territorial and warlike as the rest of humanity, so had they had better animals around to domesticate, etc, they would have moved along in much the same way as Europe/Asia, and the Europeans would have found 2 continents full of nation states at each other's throats, probably.

Edited October 22, 2019 by tater

[YNM]

They'd still have died regardless.

 

Natural selection is cruel.

 

[kerbiloid]

40 minutes ago, tater said:

All of us from those regions are descendants of the survivors of all those massive plagues, and we have some immunity as a result.

We're also immune to milk and alcohol, mostly. That's nice for healing.

Spoiler

And for teambuilding.

 

[Mr. Peabody]

I think we need to recognize the native culture in this discussion. There are island tribes today that have hardly advanced at all since Columbus' time. Superstition plays a large part in this. Humans are hardly inclined to study something that they regard as spiritual or supernatural. This is largely the reason for the lack of scientific advancement during the dark ages. It clearly follows that a deeply superstitious culture cannot truly advance itself. My point is, if America was discovered in 2019 instead of 1492, it's a fair guess that many native populations would not have advanced one tick.

I do not believe that every culture was equal in potential for advancement. Some were clearly less superstitious and more inclined towards scientific study. This had nothing whatsoever to do geographic location, but rather the mindset of the population.

[tater]

It's also how the location drives innovation.

Survival in Europe for early humans was non-trivial. It requires substantial technology vs Tahiti, for example, where they developed pretty advanced navigation techniques for sailing, but could literally walk around naked. When Europeans landed places like Tahiti, what was the big problem? None wanted to leave, lol, even with the lower native tech.

[Kerbart]

Read Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel. The thought that “smartness” had anything to do with it borders neo-colonialism and misplaced supremacy. The reality is that Columbus was raised in an environment that, mostly by chance, give him various advantages, probably the most important one being carrying a large amount of bacteria that the natives had no proper immune response for.

[razark]

12 hours ago, tater said:

90% of the natives in the Americas die in any counterfactual history where they ever make contact with Europeans or Asians.

 

11 hours ago, YNM said:

They'd still have died regardless.

Except the OP posits a modern, 2019 level of advancement.  Medical knowledge and technology may go a long way to reducing the death toll.

 

 

Just now, Kerbart said:

Read Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel.

From reading this thread, it looks like several posters already have.

Edited October 22, 2019 by razark

[tater]

29 minutes ago, razark said:

Except the OP posits a modern, 2019 level of advancement.  Medical knowledge and technology may go a long way to reducing the death toll.

As I said, the same limitations apply to their civilization forming in the first place. No domesticated animals. How do they get to modern tech with 1 pack animal, plus guinea pigs for food?

Aliens?

In a bizarre counterfactual where 15th century Europeans meet 21st century tech natives of the Americas? Then we see conquest in the other direction, the peoples of the Americas invade and exploit the rest of the world (OP was saying Columbus comes to the "New World" and finds 2019 tech natives). They do this easily, BTW---but they still suffer massive death rates due to disease.

[razark]

34 minutes ago, tater said:

How do they get to modern tech with 1 pack animal, plus guinea pigs for food?

Aliens?

No clue.  But I wasn't the one that set the conditions for the question.

I'm curious how this civilization would manage to exist, but 16th century Europe is the one that comes to find them.

Edited October 22, 2019 by razark

[k00b]

13 hours ago, tater said:

90% of the natives in the Americas die in any counterfactual history where they ever make contact with Europeans.

Disease.

/\ this.

but adding to that > the remaining 10% would be superior in every respect to the europeans...

also for reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, tater said:

No domesticated animals. How do they get to modern tech with 1 pack animal, plus guinea pigs for food?

But Kerbals did. Shouldn't others?

[YNM]

6 hours ago, razark said:

Except the OP posits a modern, 2019 level of advancement.

Then we'd have had Americapox, since they'd been 'civilized' enough.

Plus, they'd be the ones who come over to Europe.

Edited October 23, 2019 by YNM

[Robonoise]

Here’s a timeline for the natives to get to that level:

Somewhere in 1000 A.D: Vikings and natives begin to share resources, begin to form new languages, natives learn seatravel, discover coast of Russia.

1100’s: Trade begins with some of Asia’s coastal countries, natives build up immune systems to some diseases and begin to enter their renaissance age, tribes become countries and sacrifice is eliminated from religion, one major language arises.

1200: Some countries begin to use a republic system, industrial era towards late 1200’s, signing of the directive to not interfere with Europe’s advancing.

1300’s: Industrial era occurs, modern technology towards the late 1300’s, first artificial satellites in orbit.

1438: Incan Republic arises, joins with Aztec Democracy to get a new country.

1469: First man on the moon by Aztec-Incan country.

1492: Columbus arrives.

This is based on some real events, I just threw this together from my imagination on what would happen.

[kerbiloid]

3 hours ago, Robonoise said:

natives learn seatravel

Why? They had a lot of land. Scandinavians were just forced to, and not from the very beginning.

3 hours ago, Robonoise said:

discover coast of Russia.

In 1000 they probably could discover just Staraya Ladoga, next to Novgorod, which was a well-known tradepost for the vikings. Norhern cities specific for Norway and British trade appeared a little later.
So, they could just ask.

3 hours ago, Robonoise said:

natives build up immune systems to some diseases

By the same price in their lives, as this was evolving for thousands of years.

3 hours ago, Robonoise said:

tribes become countries and sacrifice is eliminated from religion, one major language arises.

Took about 5000 years in Eurasia, and still far from completion.

3 hours ago, Robonoise said:

Some countries begin to use a republic system

It was the orginal form of society in tribal times. Monarchies appeared later.

3 hours ago, Robonoise said:

industrial era towards late 1200’s

began when total production of iron reached the level of really huge ovens fed by mineral coal, allowing to melt iron rather than reduce it.
This in turn happened when on one hand, a lot of resources were concentrated in same hands (authocratic states, monarchies), on  the other hand crafts and technologies had been developed in the places with concentrated humans resources (free cities).
So, anyway it would take not less than one or two thousand years to grow up rich monarchies and local trade republics.
And we should not forget that the their enrichment got  much faster when Europeans had conquered "India"s whatever they mean as it them.

Also Europe is a zone of temperate broad-leaf forests, surrounded by sea, with a lot of mountains, and relatively rich soils, i.e. almost the best place in the world to develop the economics from scratch.

Edited October 23, 2019 by kerbiloid

[Robonoise]

Remember that the Vikings were with them and likely traded and taught them seatravel. In real life the Vikings were chased off. But this could have happened if they stayed.

[Nikolai]

Tangent: Monkeypox is related to smallpox, only not lethal.

ISTR an alternate history where a very early European visit to the Americas had a crewmember with a domesticated monkey carrying monkeypox.  This led to the American people spreading monkeypox and basically being inoculated against smallpox when, in our timeline, smallpox was an enormous and deadly problem.  The immunized inhabitants really gave the invaders what for.

[tater]

12 hours ago, Robonoise said:

Somewhere in 1000 A.D: Vikings and natives begin to share resources, begin to form new languages, natives learn seatravel, discover coast of Russia.

As soon as they meet Europeans, they are hit with plagues. There's simply no way around this. It's important to note that it's not like Europeans were immune to all the plagues, plagues killed huge %s of the population of Europe at different times, and even with some surviving, the same plagues come back again and again (Black Death hit several times). So they get diseases that are still incredibly lethal to Europeans, PLUS they get diseases that no longer kill very many Europeans, but that they have no immunity to, it's a recipe for disaster, and there is no counter to it short of their first visitors being from the present, armed with modern medicine and the ability to vaccinate everyone on 2 continents.

They meet any decent number of people from outside of the Americas, and the fate of the continent is sealed. Everything after this meeting you postulate is done by a fraction of the population.

1 hour ago, Nikolai said:

Tangent: Monkeypox is related to smallpox, only not lethal.

ISTR an alternate history where a very early European visit to the Americas had a crewmember with a domesticated monkey carrying monkeypox.  This led to the American people spreading monkeypox and basically being inoculated against smallpox when, in our timeline, smallpox was an enormous and deadly problem.  The immunized inhabitants really gave the invaders what for.

Hanging with the moneys on the ships are the rats that always lived down in the bilges... some with plague.

[kerbiloid]

Iirc, there was also something about the earthworms, but I'm not sure.