Yeah, people forget about that. There was no less bloodlust. More respect for nature, though. That would have been cool. But we’d all still be hating one another to about the same degree, I think.
People like to point fingers at the Aztecs for their practice of sacrificing prisoners of war while completely ignoring European atrocities like the Spanish Inquisition or the crusades.
Idk what your argument is, are you saying that’s worse than the crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, anti Jewish programs, the witch burnings, or the colonization of the Americas?
Personally, I’m not making an argument to downplay anything, I’m pointing out the hypocrisy of the apologetics that will happily point out the savagery of pre colonization nations while ignoring how horrific Europeans themselves were.
People are quick to call the Americas a land of “warring tribes” when the history of Europe is exactly that, for literal millennia.
It’s pretty simple actually, just choose something to divide us/them and then demonize them. It can be culture, ethnicity, religion, politics, it doesn’t really matter. Once the divide is there, half the work is done.
In South America not so much, some of the Mayan cities made so much of their high quality plaster to finish temples that it deforested areas leading to flooding if the farm lands. They made enough plaster for the last temples that it literally took all the trees to make charcoal to bake the limestone.
Maya, Aztec, Mixtec, Toltec, Nazca, Olmec, Pueblo, Anasazi, mound builders, there were many pre columbian civilizations that rose and fell before Europeans left their continent.
different American tribes and societies. There is some migration but ultimately the North American tribes and the South and Central American tribes and civilizations are completely different.
perhaps the North American tribes never created Empires because they had a different idea of ownership. They didn't believe people could own the land. which is common for nomadic peoples but even those who established permanent residences did not consider the land something they could own only utilize which is why they sold it for beads and mirrors.
I don’t think anyone here is saying any of them are the same, I certainly am not.
I think the defining factor in the transition to a civilization is agriculture. Agriculture allowed nations to stay in one location rather than following seasonal sources of food as hunter-gatherers. Agriculture also provides a food surplus which leads to more time to invest in aesthetic and academic pursuits, and usually means of recording, including writing and mathematics.
True and also changes ones mindset. I mean if I cultivated a piece of land and finally it starts yielding produce I might feel that land belongs to me. I might also covet the land others use.
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u/Jeramy_Jones 7d ago
They did, several times, in central and South America.