[lit-ideas] On misunderstandings and dialogue
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 11 May 2014 22:13:14 -0700
Yes, but I didn’t quite know how to reply to this since you were presenting the
traditional point of view while Cochran and Harpending are drawing conclusions
based on recent studies based upon the human genome and arguing new points of
view. Perhaps I put it poorly, but at some point Cortez put about 500 troops
on the ground. Not everyone available came ashore. I didn’t mean to imply
that 500 was all he had throughout his entire military career. Cochran and
Harpending clearly don’t imply that. But had it not been that disease
destroyed about 90% of the Amerindians during the period that Cortez was
working, he (in the opinion of Cochran and Harpending) would not have
succeeded. They mention one critical battle where the Amerindians opposing
Cortez were largely sick, but there were probably others.
The traditional view is to credit Cortez cleverness and not to think disease
played a critical role. I believe Cochran and Harpending have argued that the
traditional view does not adequately explain these events. Viruses and
bacteria deserve more credit than they’ve received.
I can see that my brief examples haven’t done justice to Cochran and
Harpending’s arguments but I don’t feel up to going into much more detail than
I already have – especially since their book seems one argument after another.
In another case, I had written that it was easier for colonist to settle North
America because disease had wiped out most of the Amerindians. North American
was empty. I thought I wrote enough to mean “empty” as compared to “India” for
example.
In another case I wrote that the Ashkenazi Jews working as money lenders
developed skills that gave rise to Einstein, but I intended “money lenders” as
a synecdoche. Medieval states didn’t need that many money-lenders. Ashkenazis
did other things as well. Cochran and Harpending refer to the Ashkenazis as
being the “white collar workers of the medieval world.”
Jews were treated better in Muslim dominated areas during the period the
Ashkenazis were coming into their own, but those Jews were only permitted to do
menial work. And today in Israel the difference in potential, between
Ashkenazi Jews and Jews from Muslim countries is marked. The latter apparently
are not competent to take on the more complicated work. They do menial work in
Israel just as they did in Muslim lands. I’m sure there are exceptions.
Lawrence
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Omar Kusturica
Sent: Sunday, May 11, 2014 4:21 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: On surviving plagues and travelling to Yucatan
It is true that the Astecs were decimated by plague, but the notion that
several hundred Spaniards conquered the Astecs on their own is a myth.
Cortés’s overall plan was to trap and besiege the Aztecs within their capital.
Cortés intended to do that primarily by increasing his power and mobility on
the lake, previously one of his main weaknesses. He ordered the construction of
thirteen small war ships (brigantines) by his master shipbuilder, Martín López,
and sent to Vera Cruz for the ships he had previously scuttled and any other
supplies that had arrived. Cortés continued to receive a steady stream of
supplies from Vera Cruz, some of it intended for Narvaez.
Cortés first decided to have ships built in Tlaxcala, while moving his base to
Tetzcoco. With his main headquarters in Tetzcoco, he could stop his forces from
being spread too thin around the lake, and there he could contact them where
they needed. Nevertheless, this plan was not satisfactory, so he moved the
shipbuilders and other supplies towards Tetzcoco at the start of February 1521.
Cortés had 86 horsemen, 118 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbalest>
arbalesters and <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arquebus> arquebusiers, plus 700
Spanish foot soldiers. He stationed 25 soldiers plus artillerymen on every
ship, since each was equipped with one cannon. He put his remaining land forces
into three separate groups. Under the guidance of Alvarado was 30 horsemen, 18
arbalesters and arquebusiers, 150 Spanish foot soldiers and 25,000 Tlaxcalans,
to be ordered to Tlacopan. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristobal_de_Olid>
Cristobal de Olid had 20 arbalesters and arquebusiers, 175 foot soldiers, and
20,000 native allies, who would be sent to Coyohuacan.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzalo_de_Sandoval> Gonzalo de Sandoval was in
command of 24 horsemen, 14 arquebusiers, 13 arbalesters, 150 foot soldiers, and
30,000 natives, who would be sent to Ixtlapalapan. The three major causeways
that connected Tenochtitlan to the mainland were by each of the cities. Cortés
forces went for their positions on May 22.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Tenochtitlan#cite_note-Hassig-1> [1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Tenochtitlan
On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 1:11 AM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Lawrence,
I have commented on that already, so you might want to look at my comments.
O.K.
On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 1:03 AM, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Cochran and Harpending write on page 162, “In Mexico, where Hernán Cortés and
his troops had made the Aztec emperor their puppet, the Aztecs rose against
them, killing Moctezuma II and two-thirds of the Spanish force in the famous
“Noche Triste.” The Aztecs probably would have utterly destroyed the invaders,
were it not for the smallpox epidemic under way at the same time. The leader of
the Aztec defense died in the epidemic, and Cortés and his men conquered the
Aztec Empire. The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human
Evolution. Basic Books. Kindle Edition.
How were these Aztecs contaminated? Bernal Diaz Del Castillo in his The
Conquest of New Spain wrote of how 110 of them (Cortez wasn’t with them at this
point) sailed away from Cuba in 1517 and up the coast of the mainland,
discovering Yucatan. They needed to go ashore for water from time to time, and
those activities did not always go well. Here is the first foray to get water:
As these Indians approached us in their canoes, we made signs of peace and
friendship, beckoning at the same time to them with our hands and cloaks to
come up to us that we might speak with them; for at that time there was nobody
amongst us who understood the language of Yucatan or Mexico. They now came
along side of us without evincing the least fear, and more than thirty of them
climbed on board of our principal ship. We gave them bacon and cassave bread to
eat, and presented each with a necklace of green glass beads. After they had
for some time minutely examined the ship, the chief, who was a cazique, gave us
to understand, by signs, that he wished to get down again into his canoe and
return home, but that he would come the next day with many more canoes in order
to take us on shore. Del Castillo, Bernal Diaz (2013-11-03). The Conquest of
New Spain (Kindle Locations 400-405). Bybliotech. Kindle Edition.
The Indians ask where they came from and when they admit to coming from where
the sun rises the Indians decided to kill them. “The cazique had no sooner
given the signal, than out rushed with terrible fury great numbers of armed
warriors, greeting us with such a shower of arrows, that fifteen of our men
were immediately wounded. These Indians were clad in a kind of cuirass made of
cotton, and armed with lances, shields, bows, and slings; with each a tuft of
feathers stuck on his head. As soon as they had let fly their arrows, they
rushed forward and attacked us man to man, setting furiously to with their
lances, which they held in both hands. When, however, they began to feel the
sharp edge of our swords, and saw what destruction our crossbows and matchlocks
made among them, they speedily began to give way. Fifteen of their number lay
dead on the field. [Del Castillo, Bernal Diaz (2013-11-03). The Conquest of
New Spain (Kindle Locations 422-427). Bybliotech. Kindle Edition.]
Bernal Diaz and his fellows didn’t learn their lesson and later on needing more
water answered the same question in the same way, that they came from the
direction in which the sun rises, and met with the same result. Eventually so
many of them were injured that they couldn’t man all their boats. They burned
one, and headed back toward Havanah, but they needed water and no longer had
enough sound men to fight off the Indians long enough to get it. But
eventually most of them got back to Havana.
But I noticed an interesting anecdote way back at the beginning of Bernal
Diaz’s narrative: “In the year 1514 I departed from Castile in the suite of
Pedro Arias de Avila, who had just then been appointed governor of Terra Firma.
At sea we had sometimes bad and sometimes good weather, until we arrived at
Nombre Dios, where the plague was raging: of this we lost many of our men, and
most of us got terrible sores on our legs, and were otherwise ill.” [Del
Castillo, Bernal Diaz (2013-11-03). The Conquest of New Spain (Kindle Locations
347-349). Bybliotech. Kindle Edition.]
What was this plague and what caused the sores that Bernal Diaz and most of the
others had on their legs? He writes initially of 1514 and it wasn’t until 1517
that they had several battles with the Amerindians on the coast of Yucatan, but
that Diaz and the others were carriers of more than one disease doesn’t seem a
stretch.
Cochran and Harpending write, “The European advantage in disease resistance was
particularly important because those early attempts at conquest and
colonization were marginal. Shipping men and equipment across the Atlantic
Ocean presented huge logistical difficulties. European military expeditions to
the New World were tiny and poorly supplied. The successes of the conquistadors
are reminiscent of ridiculous action movies in which one man defeats a small
army—and that’s a lot harder to do with an arquebus than an Uzi. Early
colonization efforts often teetered on the edge of disaster, as when half the
Pilgrims died in their first winter, or when most of the settlers in Jamestown
starved to death in the winter of 1609. Epidemic disease didn’t just grease the
skids for the initial conquests: It reduced Amerindian populations and made
later revolts far weaker than they would have been otherwise. If they had not
died of disease, the Amerindians would have had time to copy and use many
European military innovations in the second or third round of fighting. [pp.
164-165. Basic Books. Kindle Edition.]
Lawrence
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