I wrote: > Cortes conquered Mexico with a few dozen men; what do you think, Minoru, that > he > and handful of his troops annihilated several million Incas one by one on > their > march to Tenochtitlan? No. There was a virgin field epidemic among the Incas > caused by the sheep brought on Cortes' ships.
And Mark wrote: > Minor correction: > Cortes = Mexico = Aztecs > Pizarro = Peru = Incas > > More at: > http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/essays/comp/cw13cortezpizarro31011403.htm Thanks for the correction, Mark, I of course know the difference between Aztecs and Incas, but was writing quickly and slipped up. Anyone who is interested in learning more about this topic can have a look at the works of Alfred Crosby, particularly "The Columbian Exchange", and also the more recent study by Noble David Cook, "Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest", which is a good rejoinder to hyperventilating PC "scholarship" about this subject (for example, David Stannard's "American Holocaust"; Stannard is an English lit professor trying his hand at colonial New World history, with predictable results). Crosby's "Ecological Imperialism" is particularly interesting in that it has comparative material about Siberia, where a similar demographic collapse occurred when Russian colonists brought various viruses with them and encountered Siberian populations without natural immunities to these. And of course it is well known that the South Pacific and Hawaii suffered a similar demographic collapse due to communicable diseases brought by European explorers (discussed for example in Lawrence Fuchs' now dated classic "Hawaii Pono"). John M. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Persons posting messages to not_honyaku assume all responsibility for their messages. The list owner does not review messages prior to posting, and accepts no responsibility for the content of messages posted. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
