The REAL reasons European colonialism was possible
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ธ.ค. 2024
- Contrary to popular belief, the European colonization of the Americas was made possible not by the Europeans having superior technology, but by the inadvertent introduction of pathogens from the Eastern Hemisphere that had not previously been present in the Americas.
This accounts for the fact that when the Europeans were colonizing the Americas in the 1500s and 1600s, they were not also colonizing Africa and Asia (with a few exceptions). It was not possible for the Europeans to colonize most parts of Africa and Asia at the time, because the people there already had the same technologies and the same diseases that the Europeans had.
Of course, Europeans did end up colonizing Africa and Asia, but not until the 1800s. This was suddenly possible then, when it hadn't been earlier, because the Industrial Revolution happened to begin in Europe then. Within just a few generations, industrial technology also spread to the rest of the world, but by then the Europeans and people of European descent had managed to establish their preeminence in world affairs.
The economic, military, and technological superiority of the countries of Europe and of people of European descent traces back only as far as the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s. Before that, Europeans had no advantages over the countries of Asia and Africa.
Based on the comments, it appears that some viewers don't understand how colonization of the Americas happened or what the battles between settlers and natives looked like. It wasn't big European field armies with heavy cavalry and artillery going up against bows and arrows. The Europeans were not shipping armies across the ocean to the Americas, and the natives did in fact use firearms from an early date. I recommend watching the video "Indigenous Weapons and Tactics of King Philip's War" on the channel Atun-Shei Films for an example of what the natives were working with.
th-cam.com/video/VMXKXoA1_gQ/w-d-xo.html
Bro is a fraud - ain’t no fucking way guns and ships were a minor factor to this situation
I find this video too simplistic. It's a resonable argument, that diseases were an important factor in conquering Americas, it's a good point because it isn't something people usually bring up. But saying that lack of diseases prevented Europeans from conquering Africa and Asia is just bollocks. What made China so easy to conquer, was it's disfunctional, not working goverment system, corrupt in every way possible. China throughout the history almost didn't change in terms of the way it's goverened, hence it has been conquered multiple times by different other nations: Mongols, Manchus, even Japanese more recently. Conquering people, after the conquest were always assimilated into Chinese culture, after time and generations repeating the exact same govermental errors, leading to another downfall.
On the other hand, in Africa, there weren't a centralized goverment, people were split into multiple smaller groups, divided so much, the land was easily conquered by more coordinated forces from abroad, especially when you could play warring factions against each other. Both situations had nothing to do with diseases, nor the technology was a major factor, it had to do with disfunctional goverments on both continents. I would like to remind everyone, that battle at Lake Poyang in China took a place at 1363, where two different Chinese factions used gunpowder, canons and grenades on board of ships extensively on tens of thousands of ships. It's not that the technology was not present there, it's that it has not been properly utilized on a govermental level, and hundreds year from this, proper military gunpowder usage was less, not more popular. Financial, organizational and corruption issues again.
@@dziku2222 Ah yes the notorious "coordinated forces" of the 19th century who managed to march through the entirety of the central african rainforest battling any native soldiers they came across, the african soldiers who somehow were technologically at the same level but never managed to have the same amount of coordination because of infighting. Where can i find more information on this event in history?
@@cazek445 upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Scramble-for-Africa-1880-1913-v2.png
No you’re just completely wrong.
A society that has not discovered metallurgy can only beat the advanced society numerologically.
The societies of Europe and Asia were exponentially more advanced than those of the Americas and Africa.
Actually, in the 1500's the Europeans were more technologically advanced than the New World peoples in one, specific way: they had far superior transportation. European sailboats were able to cross the Atlantic which meant that Europeans could get to the Americas but not vice versa. This ability incentivized Europeans to keep crossing the Atlantic, not just for conquest, but for economic development. This cannot be overstated. The Spanish Galleons that the conquistadors sailed in were a recent development and were state of the art.
Yes, this is even more striking with the Portuguese, whose colonial expansion was mostly in the Indian Ocean. Even though they were facing people of an otherwise similar technological level, their powerful ships allowed them to dominate the sea lanes and impose their will on kingdoms half the world away.
and metal working...
Wrong. The Spanish did NOT take down the Aztec Empire; their TLAXCALAN allies did. Nor did the Spanish have the man power to subjugate and ethnically cleanse the natives from Mexico and South America, which is WHY there's so many brown mixed race MESTIZOS in Latin America.
The Spaniards would have liked it to be all Spanish blood Europeans living there if they could, BUT the natives' populations were still high and in full force. They HAD to interbreed with them to at least get them to become culturally Spanish, since it was impossible to make them genetically so. This was especially true in my family's home state of Zacatecas. The "Chichimeca" were a group of nomads that were the ONLY Indians that the Spanish never outright conquered. Their ability to live off the desert land and know where to ambush supply lines and civilian homesteads made it impossible for them to conquer the area and safely move north, so they recruited some of their Tlazcalan allies and mestizos to go to Zacatecas in order to interbreed with the locals and make them culturally Spanish in exchange for land and money. And it worked! They gave up their nomadic ways and adopted Catholicism along with their new mestiza wives.
The early interbreeding with the Spanish gave the natives in Latin America the immunity from European diseases, and since mixed blood mestizos were already discriminated against they would tend to breed more with other natives or mestizos, which only boosted the number of brown people instead of whites.
The English however didn't have this problem because they arrived literally one hundred years later, and by that time Smallpox, plague, and all other European diseases wiped out the natives to literally only 10% of their former population. Making it easier for the British to take their land and push them out without having to interbreed or culturally assimilate them.
And don’t forget the horses, donkeys and mules when talking about transportation.
Cortez said him self if each of his mean killed killed 20,000 Aztecs in battle they would still lose because there was so many Aztecs ..they left went back to Spain came back yo America to find disease had killed millions of poeple
In the case of Mexico, one could add consideration of the poor diplomatic and political approach of the Aztec Empire. The fact that they relied on a tributary system and allowed their Tlaxcallan rivals to survive gave the Spanish plenty of allies - in that sense, it was more the Tlaxcallans who conquered Mexico with the Spanish help for Cortez. Had the Aztecs produced a unified state (perhaps the direction they were heading, but they weren't there yet), the Spanish would have faced a large and unified army with no allies. Even if the disease would have eventually facilitated their conquest, it would have taken much longer.
Worth also considering the survival of the rump Inca state for several decades after Cusco fell and the survival of some Mayan and Central American states for even longer in the deep jungle.
The Tlaxcalans were so influential and tied up in Spanish colonial activity, that there are Nahua loanwords in Phillipino languages from how many of them travelled to help the Spanish across the Pacific
I don't think it was inevitable that the Spanish conquered the Aztecs and the Inca. The Spanish was always incredible outnumbered, but the Spanish made the right decision at the right time by allying with the Aztecs' tributaries and by kidnapping the Inca emperor. Both empires were in shambles mainly due to losing 90% of their population but also due to internal division.
@@8is you are right, it wasn't inevitable at all. There were several moments when either the Tlaxcallans or Aztecs would have wiped Cortez's army off the face of the earth had slightly different decisions been made. The Conquistadors were almost entirely wiped out in la noche triste for instance (a battle which the Aztecs unambiguously won)
@@sankarchaya It's honestly one of the more absurd events in history. No one could've predicted that after a several centuries long conquest, the Spanish would discover an entire new continent on the other side of the world, go there, just barely be able to conquer two larger empires, complete and utterly consolidate their gains and eradicate nearly all previous culture replacing it with what's essentially an extension of western civilization.
colonisation is always a story about of divide et impera, no large European army set sail to conquer and colonize
In the Americas, it wasn't just the natives in direct contact with the Europeans that suffered those diseases. There were existing native trade routes throughout the Americas. When the English reached New England, the indigenous population, there, already had declined greatly, from European diseases that worked their way up from Mexico.
And down from French Canada, which was colonized before the English arrived. Also north from Florida and New Mexico. Plus de Soto's travels from the Carolinas west to the Mississippi River and north along the river to southern Illinois. Cabaza de Vaca trip from Texas to Arizona.
According to Charles Mann, an area 200 miles long and 40 miles wide had been emptied by disease before the Mayflower arrived. In response to the kidnapping of several Wampanoag young people, the tribe kidnapped the crew of the next ship and distributed the captives. Historians suspect that the disease that killed up to 90% of the tribe was hepatitis A. While this outbreak burned itself out without spreading the length and breadth of the Americas, other outbreaks did.
Check out "Pox Americana" by Elizabeth A Fenn. She writes of the early 18th century outbreak of smallpox. This outbreak began in the Spanish empire and spread north to both the French and English colonies. The French and Indian War only spread it more.
I read somewhere, that an English colonist guest through were 300,000 natives I have hear of an anthropologist estimate of 3,000,000. Why the difference, my guess is the loss to disease between Spanish exploration and English colonization.
Yeah I heard some people say native Americans in the us were the way they were not just because of frugal living but because when the British arrived they encountered the remains of basically a zombie apocalypse
It’s estimated that 50 years after first contact with Europeans, the population of North and Central America was halved by disease
Disease was a big part, but there were other factors, specifically the inter fighting among American natives and the willingness of the Spanish to absorb the native nobility into its own. The latter is a massively overlooked factor, when the Incan and Aztec royalties are still part of the Spanish nobility to this day.
evidence?
@@michaelsonsarmiento5943
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonor_Cort%C3%A9s_Moctezuma
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionisio_Inca_Yupanqui
@@michaelsonsarmiento5943 en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_of_Moctezuma_de_Tultengo
es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casa_real_incaica
@@michaelsonsarmiento5943 I gave you a couple links, there have been several presidents in Latin America who are descended from Inca nobility too, including the current queen of the Netherlands.
Absolutely correct. The spanish armies never crossed the sea - as they were fighting all over Europe - and the conquistadores basically established alliances with the natives that were already at war with each other. The native elites were assimilated as noblemen of the empire and had the same status than the spaniards, that already had the order of evangelising and mixing from the early 1500. You can still easily see today this mixture, that central american population look mesoamerican, peruvians look peruvian, etc... You can't say that from any other colonised territory by the europeans, were the natives were just completely anihilated.
Here is a big difference between the first period of colonialism and the second period of colonialism that isn’t pointed out. The first era was largely accidental on the part of European governments. These were largely true colonies, essentially similar to how the Greeks and Phoenicians settled the Mediterranean - essentially, scattered settlements. European governments largely outsourced the creation of these colonies to individuals or groups, and stepped on to control them once societies were created - sometimes to clean up a mess (like in India), sometimes to merely reap the benefits (like New Spain, the 13 colonies).
The second era was deliberate. It was empire building - it was genuinely imperialism. The European governments went out to conquer these lands with their own militaries. This era also was less permanent - in the former the residents are in societies that are evolved extensions of the colonial relationship, in the second instance, the indigenous people are the society. We can see this with Africa - it has been independent almost as long as the colonies existed there.
These misconceptions are created because we haven’t had time to intellectually digest this information. Mass decolonization only occurred 60-70 years ago, this being too close in time to develop an attempt at an honest assessment of what occurred.
very well said
There's definitely evidence of trans Atlantic trade before Columbus.
The 19th century colonisation of Africa was spectacular, but it lasted barely a century. Livingstone trekked through Africa in the 1850's, the Berlin Congress was in 1878, Africa became independent in the early 1960's. That is less than a century of effective colonial rule. Barely two generations. A wink of an eye.
@@theo-dr2dz Yet still the Africans and left wing psuedo intellectuals blame the evil white men for all their misfortunes, conveniently forgetting that they are still tribal societies and each tribe tries to suppress it's neighbour. Not to mention dictatorial governments that have emerged after the European countries tried their best to leave these countries with some sort of democratic process and a civil administration. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. Why is Botswana doing so well and neighbouring Zimbabwe one of the poorest countries in the world. That is a question that the Africans themselves must answer to one another if this impoverished but potentially wealthy continent is ever going to advance.
The 1800s massive colonial expansion was brought about by britain becoming the dominant power creating peace in europe allowing all of europe to redirect their efforts outwards for 100 years
If anyone reads Cortez's diaries, even he admits how much of a miracle it was that he succeeded
Really speaks to the inherent feebleness of native societies compared to real civilizations.
Makes sense the initial conquistadors in meso America were not professionals in any feild, most weren't trained soldiers, or leaders. They're were just venture captalist in a way. Their orginal mission statement was just get gold.
@@twelvecatsinatrenchcoatno it points the personal skill, determination, intelligence, charisma, and shrewdness of Cortez and his followers. The man managed to show up on an unexplored land, scratch build a huge collision of local cities and tribes and use it to overthrow a kingdom that had equivalent millitary and economic power of any European power.
@@wisconsinkraut3445 "had equivalent military and economic power of any European power" So you clearly went to school after they replaced actual real History class with Woke nonsense.
@@twelvecatsinatrenchcoat buddy I know up from down, and certainly I did go to high-school after they stopped teaching anything but propganda, I also know it was 90%strait bs. Simply put if you put a 1500ad spanish army against a equivalent sized force of jaguar warriors I'm betting even odds, until about 1600 and the widespread adoption of muskets there just wasn't an insurmountable gap between armies of different time periods(read Alexander at Waterloo for more). My point was that the Aztec empire and the spanish throne could both realistically put 20,000 melee infantry men in the feild and supply them on campaign. After that who will win has infinitely more to do with the commanders of those armies than if one side's swords have stone edges or steel. Cortez won because he was a genius simple as.
I remember I commented on your video about the wheel in Africa and I told you that I made a video on the same topic. It just occurred to me that we made another similar video 2 years ago. Just like this one haha. Mine was called "Why European Diseases Didn't Kill Africans." It covered this exact same topic. I'm gonna send you an email.
Let's remember that some areas of Asia were colonized earlier than the 19th century. Generally, areas of endemic warfare were easier to takeover. When small kingdoms with a lot of violent conflicts are temporarily exhausted, outsiders can step in and take control.
India was under British control before the 1800's - but largely because of historical accidents such as the collapse of the Mughal Empire, after Delhi was sacked by some Persians in 1721. This allowed the East India company merchants to use the age-old tactics of divide and conquer, setting various disaffected factions against each other, and accidentally creating an empire that the stock holders back in England had neither requested, desired, nor expected.
@@davidbarry6900 You absolutely forget that England was the place where the Industrial revolution started the earliest and where this technological superiority was actually already present in the late 18th century, before it was the case in the rest of Europe. So the conquest of India already kind of happened in this window of opportunity of emerging technological superiority, and the consolidiation of British rule over India certainly happened during that time of technological superiority.
@@lupen_rein wrong, the consolidation of India IS the direct cause of technological ascendancy via economic supremacy.
@@davidbarry6900 Yes, this is important. The role of stochastic events in human history likely had a huge impact on outcomes. I don't say that lightly, because I also consider material factors (e.g., regional and local ecologies, food availability and procurement technology, demography) to have been of high significance.
yep, Portugal managed to conquer several african and asian areas during a long time, saved the Ethiopian empire from the sudanese neighborgs and even keep it until british appeared saying "hallo mate"
It's also worth noting that Europeans couldn't have colonized the interior of Africa before industrialization due to disease. The same way the natives of the Americas didn't have as deadly diseases, Europe didn't have as deadly diseases as Africa did. This is due to the tropical climate in sub-Saharan Africa, which was too infested with tropical diseases for the Europeans to control it. This relegated the Europeans to controlling small ports on the coast (Portugal is the most famous example), but Europeans still died in droves due to disease. It was only due to stable production of quinine, which allowed the Europeans due deal with malaria, that made the colonization of the interior of Africa possible.
Another thing worth noting is that the invention of the railroad was critical in the colonization of interior Africa since Africa has very few navigable rivers and horses died due to disease, which meant that there weren't any real alternatives for transportation until the railroad.
It should also be clear that Europe already had a technological advantage before the industrial revolution, much of the interior of sub saharan africa consisted of iron age societies. With industrialization, it wasn't just possible for Europe to colonize the continent, it was actually really easy.
This is a much better explanation for why Europeans only colonized much of Africa in the 1800's. Note that they had already established a foothold in what is now South Africa much earlier than that, due to it having a much milder climate and being largely free of malaria. So the technological advantages of 1500's and 1600's Europe were enough - except for the matter of African diseases which killed European explorers and settlers.
I've learned that for the French part, they worked with Lebanese to settle there in Africa, because French didn't want too (because of disease and all...). The Lebanese wanted to settle in America but the French drop them in Senegal and other place as they will do business for the french here...
The industrialization played a larger part than you are implying. If not then Africa would've been colonized in the 1500s. The technology they had back then was not effective on the Continent. Even in the 1700s (think about loading a musket and fighting in the thick bush). African societies had organization, experienced armies and tactics. Now if you were to say the established rivalries amongst nations that existed in Africa already may have been an additional factor. I could take that argument. There were many competing kingdoms and of course Africa did not have a view of "pan-africanism" or a fluid racial identity at that time.
Portugal didn’t colonize Africa because it would be impossible, they only had 1 million citizens in Portugal! They weren’t interested in colonization, their main goal was to establish outposts in order to support their ships going back and forward from India. Of course the explorers and representatives spoke as equals with African kingdoms, they had much much more people than the few hundreds of a portuguese outpost, it has nothing to do with not being more technological… do you honestly believe Africans were technologically more advanced than the Portuguese???
@@Cobalt1520 The Kingdom of Benin, Meroe, Axum and Mali were superior to Portugal in the 1400.
the diseases was the gap that I had in my knowledge of history. and now suddenly every thing makes sense
I think it's also important to understand that at the time, people had no idea of such things as germs and diseases. Let alone how to tackle it.
The inverse was true as well. Europeans had a hard time dealing with African borne diseases. Although the Europeans kept sticking their noses into everyone’s businesses, which is why they were so immune to most diseases and suffered all of them themselves. Keep in mind he sites that 90% of the Indian population were deceased from 1500 to 1650 (1776 colonies were still on the eastern seaboard) due to diseases which meant that the small colonies in the Americas which at the time had no grand designs we’re just spreading diseases by accident, they were not deliberate.
It had a large impact, but the technological gap is massively underplayed in this video. Firearms vs no firearms. Standing army vs no standing army. Cavalry vs no cavalry. Organized society vs unorganized societies. Nevermind the massive massive gap in warship technologies. All pre-industrialization. EDIT: spelling mistake
@@mrcrowley109 That is true. But disease was still a more important factor than technology.
Diseases were more important. I think that was because the Europeans never entered America in enough numbers for their technological advantage to really play out in those early centuries
"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” - Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
While I don't necessarily disagree with the point you're making, I think the idea of this "gap" your pointing out, where Europeans "left" the Americas around 1800 and then colonized Africa and Asia around 1850 is wrong.
By 1808, when the Spanish Empire began falling apart the British had already conquered large parts of India and of course the Europeans never really left the Americas either, though the biggest Colonies did gain independence.
What I know is that Africans had a lot of diseases dangerous to us Europeans, but due to the industrialization we managed to create more effective medicine. Is what I've heard.
Crazy stupid, the VOC (dutch) was abolished in 1796, thats 200 years of colonization before this dude talks about this "gap".
@@fivepack3887 Watch the video again and then read up on history of Asia in the 1600s and 1700s. Trade (monopolies) was not colonialization. Europeans had only tiny footholds in Asia and Africa in those times. Yes they dominated long distance trade, but did not excercise local politcal power outside a few coastal cities.
No the British had NOT conquered large parts of India. They had vasalized large parts of India. The local political structures were still intact self ruled. Britain had merely managed to dominate the power euqilibrium and control foreign politics of most of those entities. Thats not (yet) colonialization.
PS: Watch carefully what the Chinese will (try to) do in Africa in the next 20 years.
@@michaelrenper796 More like "not colonialization". They whole company stuff were more or less being used to fool the locals so that the Dutch didn't seems appear as invading country. They already killing and controlling the local monarchs during VOC reign.
Man i love history. Nearly unlimited content (depending how deep you dive in). Absolutely enjoying your content!
Just be careful! There is a lot of information that's biased or false especially on a platform like TH-cam. I'm not talking about this video by amy means but in general.
@@vlody33 half the enjoyment of studying history is sorting through the myths and misconceptions to find something close to the "truth" on a subject.
A key thing about the industrial revolution: while it provided a significant advantage in technology, e.g. better rifles, better cannons, steam engines, etc. what industrialization REALLY provided was a huge amount of technological goodies. Mass production was decisive in colonization, and later it was decisive in conflicts between the industrial powers.
The industrial revolution also provided a lot of excess population. Compared to pre-industrial agriculture, where the vast majority of people were growing food, industrial agriculture leaves a lot of people free for the army or resettlement.
@@nikolatasev4948 True. Ironically though, most migration of Europeans was to colonies that were established before the industrial revolution (with the exception of Australia/New Zealand, possibly South Africa). Equatorial Africa, India, and China saw almost no migration of Europeans, probably due to disease. I think the later, industrial phase of colonization able to happen because the Europeans figured out how to do it, after practicing in the Americas on a population decimated by disease. Thus, after using the big armies, they could maintain control with small administrations.
@@mliittsc63 Equatorial Africa and China are a matter of how the Europeans were starting to exhaust themselves, they already had their settlement phase, hard to continue the mass spree, and how do you even colonise China en masse? Too many people. India meanwhile is also the same, too many people, not empty enough for settling down en masse.
A lot of the population growth in the 19th century was possible because of potatoes. And those were first found in south america, wouldn't have come to Europe without the early conquest and colonization period.
@@nahblue pretty sure you could've just... imported the potato without colonisation, mind you disease.
If it was "just" disease, that doesn't explain why Africans or Asians didn't colonize the Americas or Australia. Europe had a technology edge, which perhaps was not that large at the time, but also an organizational/cultural edge in terms of risk taking and competition. And let's not forget latent factors like the fact that Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and Leonardo da Vinci were all European and not Chinese. Even though scientific knowledge and tradition maybe didn't have a massive effect on their ability to colonize yet, it still suggests a vastly different culture and latent capability. Disease made it possible, but there were a lot of other factors that it was the Europeans and not some other people doing it.
No it’s just not every continent is as poor and small as Europe, not every people were starving for any scrap of natural resources that was actually valuable, the Chinese had the ability to colonise Europe and the word long before any European power but instead they chose to peacefully trade because they were self sufficient , in contrast Europe has been poor for most of its existence and has gotten its wealth by being a parasite to the global south and importing their wealth into Europe. The only “culture” you could be talking about is Christianity which acted as some sort of unifying identity for the Christian powers and would lead to a “them versus us” mentality later on, colonisation was also necessary for Europeans so that they could fuel further wars between their Europeans rivalries back home it wasn’t for everyone else.
@Dg0ydAnd it still isn't. There are 90 something other ethnicities that aren't Han that exist in China. A bunch of dialects that aren't even intellgible to mandarin. This is a false equivalency to european expansion intk the rest of the world.
The Age of Imperialism was not only enabled by a technological advantage, it was brought on by one too. European economies looked overseas for resources, and this was a big part of what helped drive colonialism in the first place.
europeans looked to traverse the atlantic because constantinople fell to the turks
@@lost524 OP was talking about the 19th century tho. 1453 helped plant the seed, but it wasn't until much, much later that it would grow into the classic European imperialism.
@@lost524 also because the ottomans were cockblocking the spice trade route
@@marusdod3685they didn't block it but took their cut what increased the price and scarcity. So european traders and their patrons (nobilty) funded the discovery of direct trade routes. This problem persisted even in 20th century like the suez canal crisis.
@@farkasabel That is blocking it dummy. They block it, and force you to pay in order to pass through.
I think another advantage the Europeans had was investment banking, somewhat crude in 1500's but still more advanced than other regions. While monarchs might sponsor an expedition of discovery, investors would step in afterwards to maintain the process of exploiting those discoveries. That's why colonies were economically possible.
Another point, the native peoples may have acquired European weapons, but they lacked the means of production of those same or similar weapons. The natives didn't know how to make gun powder or metal based projectiles.
Some might argue commercial institutions like banking were what separated Europe from the rest of the world. Banking changes one's frame of reference for economic endeavors. Suddenly "investment" becomes the default way of thinking. Now you have people inventing things, sailing to find new markets to trade, opening new lands for settlement.
Interesting, I haven't heard of banking being instrumental in the pursuit of knowledge and progress! Makes sense though, I'll have to do more research
And le'ts not overlook the fact that the rise of banking was made possible thanks to the accumulation of wealth created by the slave trade and the exploitation of slaves. Anthropologist Sydney Mintz's book Sweetness and Power greatly explain the links between slavery, wealth and the industrial revolution.
@liversuccess1420Yes its true, while Spain and Portugal were entirely state sponsored there were many limited stock companies in the colonial business, the VOC, the British East India Company, Hudsons Bay, the Virginia co etc. All the way down to DeBeers.
Banking is what we use to colonize in modern times
90% of the entire native South American population just gone is so hard to wrap ones head around. It's apocalyptic, a borderline extinction event.
50% of the European population went extinct in the 12th and 13th century because the Mongold brought the Bubonic Plague to Europe. These disease extinction events has happend more times in human history
Not shocking when you study European history. Hitler, Leopold, Columbus
Yeah..
they just all almost got wiped off the face of the earth 😢
90% of the South *_and_* North American native population was wiped out. Get it right. And remember they were wiped out by Old World diseases. Not from warfare. There’s no way European colonialists could have destroyed 90% of the native population through warfare alone
Don't forget that some of the technologies were social, creating the structure for relatively independent human beings to be stripped of their ability to survive without committing to the horid and short life of a contemporary urban factory worker without direct threat of physical violence from the state.
The video is a very, very simplified version of Jared Diamonds "Guns, Germs and Steel" (highly recommended).
And while Germs (ie. diseases) certainly played a role, they were by no means the reason that a handful of Conquistadors was able to defeat the Aztec- and the Inca Empire.
In the first case the Europeans basically helped other tribes and peoples to get rid of the hated Aztec ruling elite and replaced them, and the Inca fell victim to a civil war and underestimating the military power of the Conquistadors.
But the Spanish fe. were never able to defeat the Maya completely. Regardless of Germs Guns and Steel. And the same was true for other indigenous peoples.
On other continents it were the Europeans that fell easier victim to infections then the indigenous populations. Like in Asia and Africa.
Still didn't held them back - because technology. Also Europe at that time had a relative high and young population compared to other regions of the world. So they also had the manpower for colonization.
Why Europeans had the need to even start exploring and finding other trading routes (sailing West and also around Africa) is a whole different story altogether. Basically it was because the Ottomans and Arabs blocked the trading routes to the east, especially since the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Making trade on the Silk route and through the Red Sea either to expensive or even impossible.
Before that time some Italian city states even had trading outposts at the Black Sea.
You touch on two important points, each of which would be a good topic for a stand-alone video: (1) The Spanish didn't defeat the Aztecs single-handedly but were in coalition with a very large number of indigenous allies, and (2) The European conquest of the Americas was not total in the early modern period (e.g. the Maya). They would both be important correctives to widely held historical misconceptions.
With regard to the second point, it is worth noting that the period in which Europeans and people of European descent finally did attain complete mastery of the Americas was in the late 19th century, in the wake of industrialization.
Regarding the Aztecs and Incas, just to clarify -- I'm not saying that they fell simply because of disease. You and I seem to agree that European technology was not an important factor in their fall. I didn't mention the Spaniards' indigenous allies in Mexico in 1519-21 because I was making a wider point about the Americas in general. That said, disease did in fact play a role in the conquests of both the Aztecs and Incas. Tenochtitlan was hit by a smallpox outbreak prior to the final siege, and the Inca civil war you mentioned was precipitated by the Sapa Inca dying of smallpox. (Smallpox was one of the diseases inadvertently introduced from Europe.)
Disease in Africa DID hold back the Europeans. They did not go into the interior of Africa until modern drugs started becoming available in the late 19th century. The modern pharmaceutical industry was made possible by industrialization.
I think someone would sooner or later still find America even if trade wasn't blocked. It was just going to happen I think. Maybe Europeans but later like in 1600s or maybe Chinese or Russians as they started to expand in Siberia. Someone would find it I think. Just like Vikings managed to find it
@@premodernist_history sure it held back Europeans somewhat. But Europeans also didn't need to go to the interior of Africa.
@@skeletorlikespotatoes7846 The why is a lot more difficult to answer than the how.
@@8is why what?
Another great video! (these videos are so good I'm trying to get your engagement stats to go up!!!)
Yeah, my channel's been kind of under the radar. Thanks for helping!
Great video, but one comment: British and dutch company rule in South Asia began as early as 1600. Obviously this was greatly expanded in the early 1800s, but I don't think its entirely accurate to say that European imperialism was not felt in Asia before the industrial revolution.
They had to negotiate, get leaders on their side, provide land, protection etc. That’s vastly different than what happened later.
@@godofthisshit Europeans seeking to get natives on their side is "The French & Indian War" got its name. It's just a sensible thing to do, and the important thing is that the Europeans kept growing in power.
@@godofthisshitSpain conquered the philippines in the 1500s and 1600s
Same with the Philippines. Spain has already begun their conquest of the Philippines in 1565 and by the end of 1800 we are are already fighting for our independence.
Exactly, basically European increase in colonisation of the Americas happened at the same time as Asia and Africa. The colonies only expanded inland in 1800s, same as Africa and Asia. The Portuguese sailed around the tip of Africa at the same time they discovered Americas. They were successfull in Africa in the same way that they were in the Americas
I started watching your videos a few days ago and I've just been binging them in the evenings. Some of the best history content I've seen in terms of choice of topics and presentation!! Keep up the good work.
I really second this
4:18 The European ships were vastly superior to any other ships at the time. So they had that huge advantage. Navel power = power
Spot on. Europeans being able to travel entire world is a sign of superiority, Europeans are excellent sailors and shipbuilders.
@@rimiserk8277 True. As far as I can remember, I have heard of European ships fighting on the other side of the globe for 500ish years, but I have never heard of the Chinese, Persians, Indians coming anywhere close, until now in these resent decades
@@RandomNorwegianGuy. I only heard of Ottomans raiding Ireland and Iceland for slaves, for example. In reality, Ottomans are kinda white and have been exposed to European technology, beside that, never heard of anyone else.
@@rimiserk8277 " Ottomans are kind white " lmao , what European technogy they were oxposed to at the time tell me ?
But the Chinese and Malaysian kingdoms traded with us in South East Africa from about 600AD, a full 1000 or so years before Europeans arrival. And yes they came here by boat, take a look at Madagascar for example it is racially the way it is because of Malay traders settling it, yet it is more than 3000miles from the Malay peninsular.
It's humbling to think how many major historic events were caused, aided, or prevented by viruses and other outbreaks of disease.
In reality, this video author left only one detail aside.
Most natives died out of disease, yes. But the contamination happened on purpose, by use of biological warfare.
In some cases, they gave clothes infected with smallpox to the natives. This, alone, have wiped out the entire Goitacá tribe (which consisted of many villages)
Europeans also used smallpox, flu and yellow fever, and have usually poisoned the waters of the natives.
There’s a famous documented case where they used a catapult to throw dead infected HUMAN bodies in the middle of a fortified city.
So natives died due to disease, yes, but not “naturally” like on the Black Plague.
It was very, very intentional.
Considering germ theory didn't even exist at the time its very, very unlikely that there was any intentional biological warfare. It certainly helped hasten colonization but wasn't a primary weapon, just an unexpected bonus.
@@NathanHenriquefaso europeans learned something from mongols.
Well now I can agree that they didn't know what a virus/germ is but they know that throwing rotting bodies at the enemy makes them ill, that was know and used by the romans and mongols half a millennium early.
@@tau-5794 I'd say wiping out 90% of the population was more than an unexpected bonus. It was the main factor that enabled colonization.
Also, it doesn't matter whether or not people knew germ theory (seriously?). You don't need to know germ theory to know that diseases are contagious . The Mongols knew this as they catapulted bodies over city walls to spread diseases among the inhabitants under siege. Quarantine and isolation were also practiced in Europe and the Middle East in the Middle Ages.
That being said, Europeans didn't generally spread diseases intentionally in the Americas. Some did (smallpox blankets), but for the most part it was unintentional.
I think you may be underestimating how industrialized pre-industrial Europe was. Europe made significant use of water wheels for iron production through smelting, transporting, and pumping. It also made a huge difference that ships and carts were used when metals were commoditized, and pack animals simply cannot carry that weight.
While Europe’s technologies may not have been substantially more advanced, they were dramatically more synergistic. This synergy produced the enormous economic productivity that made even the early colonial efforts possible. It’s unlikely that an African or Asian nation had the surplus to afford to sustain colonies for 100+ years before seeing meaningful benefit. China maybe, but still not at the scale of the combined European efforts.
It is also true that technologies arise from previous technologies generally speaking. Coke blasting furnaces give way to the Bessemer process. This is usually incremental.
... Which were mostly all technologies from ancient roman times...
Why does that matter? Its interesting surely. But most technological advancement happens in spurts and then stagnates for a time. @@cazek445
“Combined European efforts” the Europeans fought each other over their empires for centuries. European cooperation is a myth
True enough. But the video wasn't comparing various civilizations' abilities to colonize, but the question of what gave the Europeans the advantage once they had the ability (what you are describing) to project colonies overseas.
So the real question is how did the Europeans industrialize before everyone else?
The British did it. And of course it spread
1) Britain at the time was one of the most scientifically and technologically advanced nations.
2) there was abundant coal and iron deposit close to the surface level in the british isles.
3) since they had to pump out all the water from coal mines steam engine was invented and refined.
@@hlatt9868 more devoloped places have high iq
Necessity is the mother of invention
Resources - and access to resources elsewhere - that were exceptionally conducive to commercial exchange, the emergence of a mass market and the ability to release swathes of labour into non-agricultural production. You need all of those: western & central Europe had them; others didn't.
Sir. I have never binge watched a channel, but channel is truly remarkable.
This is a perspective I haven't really ever conciddered.
Good job
I'll give a brief and abrupt timeline of Western powers in Southeast Asia, 'cause I'm from there:
Early 16th century - The Portuguese came first. The Spanish also came first.
Mid-16th century - The Spanish came again.
17th century - The Dutch came second.
18th century - The British came third.
19th century - The British came again. The French came.
Late 19th century-Early 20th century - The Americans came.
20th century - Countries in Southeast Asia gained independence one by one.
I apologize if I miss some of the more equally important details here, but this is the general timeline I learned at school.
sorry you had to witness all that
@@irnpoo lol 😂
How useful were captured firearms to the indigenous people? What kind of access to repair materials, gunpowder, etc. would they have? My first thought would be that it would be hard to effectively use guns without the infrastructure in place.
Africa&Asia first attacked Europe. Indian Gypsies are older invaders of Europe then Europeans in India (and still Europe is not decolonized from them) and Africans were attacking Balkans as far as 3000 years ago: Danaus, Cadmus, pharaon Sesostris, Ethiopean king Memnon in Trojan war...
Least unhinged white man.
This was so enlightening, thanks.
Going from your Library of Alexandria video where you point out that major events that resonate through history did not generally come from one simple factor but from a complex web of incidences... to this one where the European conquest of the Americas, compared against Asia/Africa is answered entirely and almost wholly with "Disease" is some real whiplash.
Yes, obviously the diseases were a massive factor, but the technological advantage was enormous (if nothing else, it was why they were there instead of vice versa) and the industrial revolution only made it completely insurmountable.
The issue with your comment being that technological advantage couldn’t have amounted to much of anything without the massive population wipes from disease. Disease is almost certainly the most dominant factor which allowed for any of any of the others to be close to relevant
@@domgaar9933 Without the mentality, the moves (different, at that; the spanish or portuguese colonizers weren't like the english colonizers), the technological superiority etc the natives wouldn't have been colonized and the europeans wouldn't have retained control. Diseases or not.
Technological superiority? Yes, in many respects, the colonizers were technologically advanced; BUT, the indigenous (especially in the Northeastern Woodlands) also used firearms, and had far more advanced tactics in respect to guerilla warfare, than the Europeans. In many colonial wars, the native peoples actually had superior arms from their decades of trading with people like the Dutch!
I disagree, the Technological advantage was minimal particularily in the Central and South America, where the terrain was not favourable to either guns or Horses, disease was the major cause for their downfall, not only in terms of the death caused but also in how disorderly a society becomes after losing so much population in such short time. Then there was also the incredible amount of infighting in the America's that helped Europe.
@@masterdclone2172
why didn't the diseases go both ways? what immunity did the European explorers have to immunize themselves against the American masses?
the superiority in European medicine clearly was more important that the inferiority in medical care care. This is made all the more apparent when reviewing the accounts of the injured.
The discrepancy here is the conquest of India by the British, it started in 1760 when the Americas were still colonies but Britain wasn't completily industrilizated yet -it did so around 1840-. So no disease or technological advantage could explain that one.
It was a private company that conquered those nations that togheter make it the largest economy at that time (India has around 25~30% world GDP), it was an alliance of that company and Indian elites, and it was done with Indian soldiers, and even with Indian technology.
India suffered a massive de-industrialization trought the Biritsh dominion.
The industrial revolution does also have consequences as third world nations industrilizate, Turkey, Iran, Egypt, India, Pakistan, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Brasil, and in the future probably Ethiopia, Indonesia, Nigeria, Algeria, some other American nations.
Being industrial societies, mean they make their own weapons, their economy does not rely exclusively on exporting to Europe or USA -so sanctions do not work-, so they will take their own geopolitcal paths independent of what Europe and America could say.
Saying that Europeans weren't more advanced than other parts of the world is BS. Technology is something more than firearms and horses. It can also be something like military tactics. And I strongly believe that at this point in time Europe had most advanced ones. Europe's history consists mostly of wars and different conflicts reaching Roman Empire and even more ancient times. At Europe already existed schools and military academies. This meant that Europeans were already teaching their officers and soldiers about strategy and tactics on real examples from their own history reaching thousands of years. Something like this gives yours military leaders huge advantage. Only China can say that they have similar experience, but on the other hand they didn't get colonized as hard as others.
You forgot about other kingdom such as Mali , Korean and others. I think the technology part , yes europeans ( western ) were advanced compared to others except China and Korea.
Europe in the 15th was not more advanced than alot of places in Africa West, North and East ( Morroco, Egypt, Somalia, Ethiopia, Mali, Benin, Oyo, Swahili coasts list goes on and on some places in Africa were on the same level like Europe, China and India in 16th century... Africa had ships, writtings,metallurgy, educational places and armies...what killed Africa was the late Transatlantic slavetrade...
There's also two geographic reasons, I think :
First, European geography require a lot of boats. Small and big rivers, lakes, small and large sea, islands, ocean. No other continent is so "broken" between land and water.
Second, European needed to cross the oceans to find a new road to China and India for spices and silk.
Together this ended with Colombus able to cross the atlantic ocean and all western european countries following him : Portugal, Spain, UK, France, Belgium and Netherland.
All this is the result of european particular geography.
Nobody followed Columbus lol. Portugal was pioneer and then countries followed them. Columbus studied in Sagres Portugal.
@@BurniaccThat's true. Hi from Spain.
Europe geographically is adavantaged in some sense. The biggest civilaztions were stopped by geography. For example China has Siberian tundra in the north, the highest mountains on the world in the west, tropical forest in the south and the biggest ocean in the east. African kongdoms were stopped by the sahara but in the east coast could trade with muslims. Indian subcontinent is kinda delimited by the aIndus and Himalaya. But still the other places where they could go were already "occupied" by others
@@andreamarino6010 Yeap, geography makes history.
In terms of Geography and resources, there was also the fact that Europeans had access to larger trees and different types of useable wood that allowed them to manufacture fleets of ships. There is the misconception that the Iberian peninsula is dry and desert like but this isn’t true in the north of Spain and west in Portugal, where it is heavily forested. It was a major advantage compared to what was available in North Africa.
Combined with superior naval technology and improved map making, the Spanish and Portuguese also managed to bottle in the Turks and North Africans at Gibraltar and the various straights in the Indian Ocean, keeping them from expanding outward.
Reject one word answers like disease, technology. Why does a people have superior technology? Why an industrial revolution on a single small damp island?
Easily accessible coal, a surplus of raw resources from colonies and good institutions like banks.
Europe got a head start mainly because of their geographic advantage. Guns, Germs and Steel explains this clearly.
@@Uarehere A major reason for European advantage was religion i.e. Christianity -the catholic church in particular was a total powerhouse of knowledge and creativity. The medieval church established the great universities such as Bologna (the first university)Padua, Rome, Paris and of course Oxford and Cambridge. The monasteries were powerhouses of knowledge and technology as well that can still be seen in the vast monastic libraries and even as late as the mid 19th century a monk in Austria called Gregor Mendel could kickstart the science of genetics.(Mendelian genetics)The Catholic church as a matter of fact formulated the scientific method -originally it was about forensic application when applied to canon law and the revival of Roman law as happened at Bologna (Gratian) but then got extended to scientific evidence.The scientific method got institutionalised at all the great universities -Latin being the medium and scholars and scientists all over could communicate and peer review each other in Latin. That's why Isaac Newton wrote his "Principia" in Latin. The number of Catholic priests and monks who were outstanding scientists and thinkers is absolutely astonishing and undeniable covering all the disciplines but especially in astronomy. The pope sent missions of Jesuit priests to China in order to convert China and the 'genius" level of the priests who were sent was off the planet especially in astronomy and chronology proving to the Chinese that their scientific competence was far inferior. Besides inventing the Gregorian calendar that the whole world uses today the Jesuits were even able to reform the traditional Chinese calendar! The clincher came with the Protestant reformation where the individualism of the Protestant ethic and the promotion of literacy because of the need to read the Bible gave this part of Europe a great advantage. Sweden became literate as early as the late 17th century. Protestantism however was far more flexible and pragmatic than Catholicism and set far less store on religious externals like building vast monasteries and cathedrals - they would rather invest in more material things like ships, guns and fortifications. Hence the Dutch and the English quickly overshadowed the Spanish and Portuguese.
@@andresano4545Lol, most cop out answer ever. The Americas and Africa are some of the most resource rich places on the planet. The native Americans had tens of thousands of years to industrialize, but failed! It’s even more ludicrous in the case of Africa because humanity allegedly started there! If any group of people had a chance to industrialize, it would be the Africans on their resource rich continent and thousands of years of a head start!
@@ASK-iz1pm What resources did Africans have that other continents didn't?
On the same topic, I read about the widespread use of quinine in the xix century which made it possible for europeans to go into africa heartland minimizing the risks of death by malaria. While previously malaria and other tropical deseases were almost impossible to withstand for europeans.
Correct. Until then it was impossible for whites to enter Africa.
Great Video. You won a follower from Portugal. I am happy with the video, because it's crucial to explain this old reality. Africa had huge kingdom's when portugueses arives, and they already had a slavery market to asia.
And as another portuguese here, I gotta add that all that slavery didn't even started as and African idea,.. it's not European's or Africans fault. It was the ARABS the ones who for CENTURIES prior to the arrival of the Europeans, were already invading, killing and destroying African tribes and enslaving them, as still of today slavery is allowed and legislated in their religious book Q'uran. No wonder The African tribes learnt it was better to trade their own prisioners as slaves than having their whole village destroid.
Also, in Lisbon there's official historic records that shows letters from the King of Congo and the Portuguese, and he was the one who offered them his prisioners. He even asked for more ships to be sent there so he could trade more for more armoury. But it was normal for them already somehow. It wasn't normal to us. We didn't come up with the idea of enslaving people. It was already going on there.
And as another portuguese here, I gotta add that all that slavery didn't even started as and African idea,.. it's not European's or Africans fault. It was the ARABS the ones who for CENTURIES prior to the arrival of the Europeans, were already invading, killing and destroying African tribes and enslaving them, as still of today slavery is allowed and legislated in their religious book Q'uran. No wonder The African tribes learnt it was better to trade their own prisioners as slaves than having their whole village destroid.
Also, in Lisbon there's official historic records that shows letters from the King of Congo and the Portuguese, and he was the one who offered them his prisioners. He even asked for more ships to be sent there so he could trade more for more armoury. But it was normal for them already somehow. It wasn't normal to us. We didn't come up with the idea of enslaving people. It was already going on there.
And as another portuguese here, I gotta add that all that slavery didn't even started as and African idea,.. it's not European's or Africans fault. It was the ARABS the ones who for CENTURIES prior to the arrival of the Europeans, were already invading, killing and destroying African tribes and enslaving them, as still of today slavery is allowed and legislated in their religious book Q'uran. No wonder The African tribes learnt it was better to trade their own prisioners as slaves than having their whole village destroid.
Also, in Lisbon there's official historic records that shows letters from the King of Congo and the Portuguese, and he was the one who offered them his prisioners. He even asked for more ships to be sent there so he could trade more for more armoury. But it was normal for them already somehow. It wasn't normal to us. We didn't come up with the idea of enslaving people. It was already going on there.
And as another portuguese here, I gotta add that all that slavery didn't even started as and African idea,.. it's not European's or Africans fault. It was the ARABS the ones who for CENTURIES prior to the arrival of the Europeans, were already invading, killing and destroying African tribes and enslaving them, as still of today slavery is allowed and legislated in their religious book Q'uran. No wonder The African tribes learnt it was better to trade their own prisioners as slaves than having their whole village destroid.
Also, in Lisbon there's official historic records that shows letters from the King of Congo and the Portuguese, and he was the one who offered them his prisioners. He even asked for more ships to be sent there so he could trade more for more armoury. But it was normal for them already somehow. It wasn't normal to us. We didn't come up with the idea of enslaving people. It was already going on there.
And as another portuguese here, I gotta add that all that slavery didn't even started as and African idea,.. it's not European's or Africans fault. It was the ARABS the ones who for CENTURIES prior to the arrival of the Europeans, were already invading, killing and destroying African tribes and enslaving them, as still of today slavery is allowed and legislated in their religious book Q'uran. No wonder The African tribes learnt it was better to trade their own prisioners as slaves than having their whole village destroid.
Also, in Lisbon there's official historic records that shows letters from the King of Congo and the Portuguese, and he was the one who offered them his prisioners. He even asked for more ships to be sent there so he could trade more for more armoury. But it was normal for them already somehow. It wasn't normal to us. We didn't come up with the idea of enslaving people. It was already going on there.
Just got into your channel through al-Muqqadimah, great videos! For this one though, I was a little surprised and wondered why you didn't discuss some of the ways the first wave colonial empires enabled the second. I'm thinking specifically of the Hobsbawm argument about British early industrialization: you couldn't have gotten such a massive explosion in supply of textiles without knowing that there'd be sufficient demand, and that demand was guaranteed by the literally captive market Britain had in its Indian colonies. India itself is sort of its own missing link in the video (maybe just for reasons of time?) but it also points back to the first wave colonialism: the Columbian encounter might not have happened if the Europeans hadn't been trying to do a maritime end-run around the Ottoman control of the Silk Road, and that end run wouldn't have been commercially successful if not for European access to American gold and silver, since there wasn't really anything else the Chinese wanted in return (I have Graber's "Debt" in mind here).
Thanks! It was just a matter of keeping the video simple, as an intro to the concept. I agree that India does not fit neatly into the chronology I presented (nor do a few other places). It was a generalization. I really just wanted to drive home that European technology was not superior as early as many people think it was.
I haven't read Hobsbawm's argument that you reference. I wonder why the British would need to have political/military control of India to be able to undercut the local textile manufacturers. Couldn't they just ensure that local princes would keep their markets open? But admittedly I don't know much about India's economic history.
Your point about India being the missing link in European activity in the two hemispheres is a good one, but I think it would have been outside the scope of this video. It'd be worth someone doing a video on it though, because I suspect a lot of folks don't necessarily connect the two in their minds. My impression is that American students are taught about colonialism in North America in isolation, without reference to how it connected to the rest of the globe. Maybe that kind of feeds into the American tendency to see the U.S. as distinct from and disconnected from the rest of the world.
@@premodernist_history funny thing is, during the early modern era, in certain areas (i.e. agriculture, urban planning, and a few others) Europeans were actually technologically behind the some of the people they conquered. As you said in the video it was only during the Victorian era that Europeans got ahead of everyone else.
To name an example the type of farming that the aztecs did was far more efficient that anything in Europe, and tenochtitlan was better designed than any city in Spain.
The biggest reason Europeans managed to conquer during that time period was due to their extensive use of divide and conquer strategy (whether it's in Asia or americas)
Yep, and not just India, but also Malaya, East Indies (modern day Indonesia), and the Philippines. Europeans begin the colonization of those regions in the 1600s, not 1800s.
The Portuguese defeated a coalition of Asian maritime empires to conquer Malacca (1511), and the Dutch later crushed successive local powers in the region (e.g. conquest of Batavia in 1619) to become the de-facto colonial overlord of majority (if not all) of the states/sultanates in East Indies by 1750s.
Fact is, Europeans did have significant technological advantage in the 1600s, even in the 1500s. Europeans (e.g. the Portuguese) had superior navigation, better ships, and better guns.
China (Ming Dynasty, and later Qing Dynasty) was the *ONLY* state in Asia that can compete with (or at least effectively resist) the Europeans till 1700s.
@@sasi5841 It is true that the Europeans were *NOT* universally superior in everything (at least not till mid/late 1700s). There are some aspects that they were behind, for example in chemistry and medicine, also, like you said, in agriculture (especially in some less advanced region).
But the Europeans were more advanced (or at least in relative parity with the then forerunner) in certain tech, like metallurgy, astronomy, navigation, and shipbuilding.
Above all, one thing that the Europeans were superior to everyone else was in *finance and economics.* Almost all of "modern" financial institutions and instruments were invented/founded in Europe. This enable European companies to absolutely outcompete their Asian and African rivals and dominate the market.
After all, the success of this "divide and conquer" strategy relies heavily upon *strong finance.*
@@ihl0700677525 true
I have a bit of a nitpick about the claim at 1:31. Humans in the Western Hemisphere did have domesticated animals prior to colonization. Indigenous people in the Americas already had the domestic dog when Europeans arrived, and they also had some domesticated species of their own that weren't shared by the Eastern Hemisphere, such as guinea pigs, llamas, alpacas, and turkeys. That being said, the Western Hemisphere didn't have the same amount of variety in domesticated animals prior to colonization as the Eastern Hemisphere did.
Good video. Disease most definitely played a huge role in weakening and undermining native populations in the west. I remember watching something about the tribes in South America, notably the ones around the Amazon River recoiling from the devastation of disease. When the Europeans first arrived, there were huge population centers out there. Then disease ravaged them, an apocalypse for the locals. Survivors were trying to flee further west, away from it all.
I'd add however, that there's also the politics of the native population out west: They were divided just as much as Europe, Asia, Africa. There were many different kingdoms, tribes, etc. They had their own political games with each other. Alliances, enemies, etc. just like anywhere else. When the Spanish conquered the Aztec Empire, the Spanish had a huge native following allied with them. Why? Because the Aztecs were the main power of the region, they were quite brutal in establishing and maintaining their supremacy over the weaker ones. So, when an outside power, i.e. the Spanish came in and started to disrupt things, and people started following them, it steamrolled into an alliance that toppled the Aztecs.
In North America, even before the United States even existed, the Native Americans were not one people. They had different dealings with the French, Spanish, and English. Later on even in the 1700s, they'd be aligned in different ways, i.e. some siding with the French and fighting against the English, etc.
I like your take in how Disease and then later Industrial Revolution and technology paved the way for European colonialism's success.
There’s one thing that is still missing from his explanation though.
Most natives died out of disease, yes. But the contamination happened on purpose, by use of biological warfare.
In some cases, they gave clothes infected with smallpox to the natives. This, alone, have wiped out the entire Goitacá tribe (which consisted of many villages)
Europeans also used smallpox, flu and yellow fever, and have usually poisoned the waters of the natives.
There’s a famous documented case where they used a catapult to throw dead infected HUMAN bodies in the middle of a fortified city.
while ironically, the diseases kept the Europeans from venturing further into subsaharan africa's interior until almost recently
False. If disease were so important a factor, then the Spanish allies who fought the Aztecs would have died from smallpox and thereby Hernan Cortes could not have conquered the Aztec Empire. Vaccination is a scam.
Between the Mexican tribes that immeditely joined Cortes' company of troops, there were others who repeatedly tried to defeat him in battle as a matter of honor, repeatedly failed, and then joined forces with him out of honor. Between Cortes' diplomatic ability, ability to force others to join him, and ability to convince a larger Spanish force to join him instead of arresting him, it's really quite an amazing story. It would make for a great TV series but you wouldn't be allowed to because muh noble savage.
@@C-Farsene_5Europeans faces alot of defeat in subsaharan Africa than anywhere in the world, entire European armies were destroyed by native tribes
I don't know what college gave this man his degree. Metal casting was not being done in Africa or the Americas.
It's absurd to suggest that technology wasn't a factor.
Metal >Obsidian
The oldest steel manufacturing was done in Tanzania.
@@charlesasoluka9656 Did Tanzania also invent battleships and firearms, or they used their steel on spears and arrows?
@@igors1234 that is an irrelevant question. The question was whether metal casting was done in pre-colonial Afrịka and I responded. Your question is unrelated.
@@charlesasoluka9656 He made a mistake, because indeed metal casting was invented thousands of years ago by different societies independently.
But his main point of technological superiority is still right. It's not enough to just process metals, you need to actually craft something. Firearms are superior to arrows and spears, and ships are superior to boats.
This reply is a complete error. A second of research you will find how wrong. Tanzania did not make the first metal casting in any way. If he's claiming ancient metal allows you will find it in China, turkey, Celtic burials, ECT
Let's clarify " Metal casting at this time"
Did any single one of these colonized nations have the ability to metal cast a CANNON!!!...Le Fin
This reminds me of the classic kids' story, "who sank the boat". I accept your premise that disease was more powerful than guns and technology, and that without, colonisation may have failed, but there were many other "happy coincidences" that worked in Europe's favour. One that I've been looking into has been the role of hopped beer and the still. Sailor's rations were crucial in convincing the poor to risk life and limb to take the helm of a ship, and it can't have been the food or the pay that convinced them! Spain had wine, which was quite stable, but it wasn't until England and the Netherlands started hopping their beer that their ships started making longer passages, add spirits, and you suddenly have more cargo space too.
Colonization may have still been successful in NA/SA, but it's interesting to think what mass migration would have done to Native American society. Would they have accepted immigrants en masse?
@@redryan20000no successful country takes in migrants en masse
@@redryan20000
There was already a collapse of some sort (disease?, Malthusian?) in the century before Columbus arrived. The Mississippian culture collapsed. Linguistic evidence suggests the Cree rapidly expanded and filled a void ~500 years ago. Cabot spent two summers in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia (1497 +1498) and didn't see any natives, and only scant logging evidence of human activity. And of course the Mayans.
It's also important to note that the biggest empire in the americas, the spanish empire, did not create colonies mostly of spaniards. spaniards ruled the colonies, but most of the working class was american or african. the spanish took over new spain from the aztecs by diplomacy, gunplomacy, and diseasepolicy, they did not destroy it and create a new thing.
Spain did destroy it they knocked aztec temples and today aztecs are extinct.
People have this perception that Europeans strolled into Africa and suddenly conquered it with ease. Africans and Europeans were in direct contact and trade with one another for centuries. It was only until the late 1800’s that Europe was able to conquer Africa. And make no mistake, they did try to conquer Africa prior, and failed. Which leads me to my next point on slavery. Slavery never could have happened to the scale it did without the authorisation of African kingdoms. It’s an uncomfortable fact but very true. The idea that Africans were these uncivilised people that were captured and forced on boats just isn’t true. Many African kingdoms were extremely powerful.
This is an overgenrlization. The Portuguese didn't ask to trade slaves they were kidnapped without authorization. Mevmba Nzinga sent several missives to the Pope and the Portugeuse to stop kidnapping his people. They exploited politcal conflict throughout Africa and supported those who would trade with them.
But, then how did the British conquer all of India before the industrial revolution started? I think you are making this seem too simple.
They didn't conquer all of India before the industrial revolution, my God... the standard of education has gone down the drain in Western countries
They conquer all of India in 1820 because India has became unstable and weak before that they were only there for trade.
I wonder if things like military doctrines and diplomatic skill count as technology? Because Europe sure had a lot more opportunity to develop those skills than other parts of the world due to their complex balance of powers.
Compared to China or Japan, Europe was pretty backwards when it came to military doctrine... compare 100 years war with Feudal Japanese squabbles.
European civilizations were really simplistic compared to Asia and Middle East until early modern era and Industrial revolution.
Lol😂 British literally copied Indian war tactics and navy building to make themselves stronger. Dutch were stronger than British but they were completely annihilated by India after which the water body was named the Indian Ocean.
@@divyavashisth4919Lmao no one is copying Indian doctrine
Is lying a skill? B/c that’s what happened…
What’s interesting is that Groups other than Europeans could colonise but it’s the scale of what the Europeans did that was impressive
Pizarro and his 300~ men taking power in the inca empire hearing a guy saying it was just for diseases:
That was 1532, 40 years after plagues had begun to ravage the continent, remember the natives had no access to any large domesticated animals, they had no mules, no horses, no oxen, no cattle, no chickens (the aztecs had some ducks), there's a point where advancing your civilization becomes very difficult when the fastest way to get a message across is a guy physically running over to the other side of your empire
@@bobgriffin2070yea but it wasn’t like the Spanish weren’t greatly outnumbered. Ok so they only mustered an army of a few thousand to challenge the three hundred. Still says something when you have breastplate and Spanish steel while the natives have obsidian stones tied to wooden boards.
Pure lies, South Americans were genocided by Spain same way they did to Native Australians.....
Their Diseases theories are pure lies... they conquered the Native Americans the same way they conquered the native Australians.. their diseases theory already has been debunked....
Their diseases theory and America are pure lies... Already has been debunked....
This dude is wrong. The main reason why Europeans colonized America was technology and, in large part, social technology.
I studied a lot about the war between Russia and Sweden. And you can’t even imagine what battles the Swedes won against Russia. There were literally cases where 10 thousand Russians could not defeat 1 thousand Swedes. And why? And the answer is simple. The Swedes copied the tactics of the Dutch militias and attacked or defended with the help of pikemen, arquebusiers and they had drilled discipline. In the Russian army of the 17th century there was not even approximately such discipline. But the Russians had the same guns and the same pikes as the Swedes, but they constantly lost direct battles due to the fact that the discipline and well-coordinated work of the Swedish army put the Russian soldiers to flight. But by the 18th century, when Russia adopted discipline and military tactics from the Netherlands, then, in general, almost any European country lost 100% 1 on 1 to Russia due to the fact that Russia now had a fairly modern and disciplined army, while the population of the country was much larger. The situation with the Indians is absolutely the same. If you read studies about the colonization of Mexico. You will be surprised that the Spaniards did not use gunpowder against the Indians at all. Why do you need gunpowder if you can line up in a line of pikemen equipped with a dispilin and simply go trampling an enemy who doesn’t even have a clue about defense lines. Just as the Russians of the 17th century fled in fear from the Swedish formations, so the Indians in the 15th and 16th centuries fled in fear from the Spanish formations. One of the tricks of the Spanish army was silence. That is, imagine, you are an Indian who only knows how to yell and hit his neighbor on the head with a sword, you have ideas about honor or military combat like an ancient Gaul. And people with long peaks are coming against you, and when they die from your blows, they don’t even make any sound. What will you think? Of course, you will decide that these are some kind of sorcerers and that this is very scary and you will run to hell from these Spaniards and when they come to your city you will freeze and will not even offer resistance. The social scientific progress of Europe has largely become the driving force and the reason why Europe has become the center of the world for several centuries. The scientific revolution is nothing more than a social breakthrough that happened in the 18th century. Even if Americans didn't have problems with disease, they would be colonized.
Europeans did have a technological advantage during the 1500-1600s as they had better metallurgy and metal working which contributed to better armor and weapons. They also had better ships. The two keys factors here being that while their technology was better it was not so significant that they could win with a significantly smaller force like in the 1800s. The ratio of troops needed to win/occupy would’ve been higher and as such make it rather impractical if not logistically unfeasible to do. Also even if they could move a larger army they would be vulnerable to an invasion or uprising which was particularly common in the 1500-1600s considering the whole Reformation going on
They certainly didn’t have a drastic technological advantage over many of the big African kingdoms. This is why I’ve never subscribed to the idea of Europeans easily conquering Africa. They were in direct contact and trade with them for centuries.
African kingdoms had ships, armies and metallurgy. East Africa was trading with India and China centuries before first Portugese came to Africa this was all by ships... Go learn history please
Surely there is a relationship between colonization and the exploitation of the Americas, which fueled the industrial revolution and led to the colonization of Asia and Africa?🤔
Africa was before the americas.
Was gonna mention this too
I don’t get what you’re trying to oversimplify something that’s so complicated.
I'd say on the whole it's complicating it by saying it's not just because "europeans better than americans", which seems hard for people to understand based on the comments on this video.
thats a great video you made, really cleared out my misconceptions.
No it's not. It's sjw filth
Explain total Portuguese and then European dominance in the Indian sea as early as the 1500s
you still have to take this video with a grain of salt because most historical facts were written by specific types of people.
The idea that the native Congolese tribes in the 1500s had the same technology as the Portuguese who arrived in oceangoing ships with steel weapons and firearms is absolutely insane, and is grounds for this individual losing his degree
No you just don’t understand history about African kingdoms, firearms weren’t game changers yet, and African kingdoms had a long history of warfare with iron weapons and even firearms from trade, the Portuguese were beaten several times while trying to attempt naval incursions
@@dimieneyitemi1721 you’ve lost your mind.
In the 1500s firearms WERE game changers. Especially when it involved ships (what the Portuguese showed up in).
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman-Portuguese_conflicts_(1538-1560)
Cortez conquered tenochtitlan on makeshift brigantines armed with cannons because they just shot every Aztec canoe trying to break the siege and get to the mainland. Turns out cannons really do work.
In Africa it was much worse, they had even smaller populations at this period. They did not have ANY defensive fortifications like the Aztecs did, and their access to iron did NOT mean they had spring steel weapons and armor like the Portuguese. It meant they had brittle iron spear tips.
Africa was not colonized earlier because of the diseases mentioned in this video. Europeans are actually NOT IMMUNE from tropical diseases, and Africa did not have established civilizations to extract wealth from like Mexico and Peru did.
The defeats by Africans you cite are because it turns out being thousands of miles away from home without the ability to re supply or get reinforcements or retreat to is actually a disadvantage (obviously). Starving sailors washing up on shore getting pot shotted by cannibals is not the same as Congolese tribes defeating a Spanish tercio in battle. (Spoiler alert this did not happen)
You and the postmodernist don’t realize this obvious reality because you are reasoning In reverse. You know the Europeans won and are ascribing reasons to it which fit your worldview.
It is incredible for 2000 adventurers to show up on a distant continent without any hope of re-supply or reinforcement and actually defeat an empire of 8 million in battle (yes they did fight many actual battles against the Aztecs cholulu/otombo/tenochtitlan) and yea it WAS because they had better technology
@@dimieneyitemi1721 you’re reasoning in reverse to justify your worldview (which is incorrect), firearms were a big deal. Cannons in the 1500s allowed you to sink ships instead of board/ram them.
This was important in the conquest of Mexico because the siege of tenochtitlan entailed the Spanish sinking Aztec canoes and therefore preventing them from reaching the mainland.
In the Portuguese ottoman wars, this is how the Portuguese defeated the ottomans on numerous occasions in the Indian Ocean, simply by being able to bombard the ottoman fleets.
In Africa, they had crude iron tools and weapons, and did not even mine iron. The Portuguese had far better (less brittle) steel and far more of it since they mined and produced it on a wider scale.
The success Africans had was largely against shipwrecked sailors or adventurers who had run out of supplies, no African tribe ever defeated a Spanish tercio in battle. If they had ever encountered one they would have been absolutely annihilated by steel weapons and armor as well as firearms
@@asabovesobelow3023 what are you talking about about Africans had been mining and practicing metallurgy for thousands of years at this point, also what do you mean “tribes” we are talking about our kingdoms and empires here not naked people surrounding fires like you’re trying to make it seem, their weapons weren’t crude they built their own and import lots from North Africa they also had firearms of their own due to trade with other Europeans and on many occasions Portuguese incursions were destroyed by both the kingdom of Kongo and Mali
@@dimieneyitemi1721 none of that is accurate.
1) sub-Saharan ferrous metallurgy was done with surface level iron (see Wikipedia for source) not with mined iron.
2) yes quite literally sub-Saharan tribes were in loin clothes around fires. This has continued in many parts quite literally to the modern day
3) “Portuguese Expiditions” I can only assume here means 5 conquistadors who were shipwrecked. If not provide an example, I have never heard of one.
4) you just outed yourself that they required European firearms for parity with Europeans, but earlier claimed European firearms were not a technological advance
You are doing “Home team history” here. I understand you love your ancestors and think highly of them. We need to be able to separate technology and warfare from value as a person.
The reality is Europeans had superior technology. That’s why they made contact with africa not the other way around. If you do not like this then change that in the modern day. Become a scientist and advance African technology beyond that of Europe.
The population of large unified European countries needs to be talked about more. Proto industrialized farming made Germany, England and France have massive populations in relation to the total amount of people on earth. For example in 1914 nearly 1 in 20 people on earth were germans and majority of the populations outside Europe were either in the splintered Indian sub continent or in the the declining Qing Empire. I always hypothesized that one of the main reasons that the Ottoman empire declined was because it was very under populated. During 1914 The Ottoman empire could only draw troops from Turkish, Kurdish and some arab muslims. There was 67-70 Million Germans in 1914 and only 11-14 Million Turks/Kurds. Larger land masses, Larger sustainable populations means more industry, technology and war capabilities.
Wasn't there spanish colonies in asia before 1800?
Oh yes. The Philippines, for one.
What about conquering and colonization of Siberia? You don't count it as european colonization of Asia?
You are not quite correct about the African colonization - the timeline starts earlier. The Portuguese started colonizing Africa in the 15th century, establishing small presences in West Africa and full-scale colonization of the Cape Verde islands. After Bartolomeus Dias sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, trading posts were established in East Africa (present day Mozambique) and Zanzibar. The French established trading posts in Senegal in 1638. The FIRST COLONY was established by the Dutch (Jan van Riebeeck) at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 with a colony being established in what is now known as Western Cape, South Africa. The Dutch colonists were joined by a large contingent of French Huguenots in 1688-89 in the Cape Colony.
The indigenous San people, the Khoekhoe/Khoikhoi (then called Hottentots - but one should avoid the term as it is considered pejorative), that lived in Western Cape were decimated by the Smallpox Epidemic of 1713, which enabled Dutch colonists to occupy the large area formerly inhabited by the Khoekhoe - a parallel of what happened in the New World.
The Trekboers (Dutch) started migrating further inland in the mid 18th century, but the much greater colonization drive, the Great Trek, was mostly spurned on by the British annexation of the colony in 1795 with farmers from Dutch and French descent trying to get away from the British. The British Settlers arrived in 1820, but remember, the Dutch and French were there for more than a century and a half!
His main point was conquer. Having trading posts is very different to all out conquering and imperialism. Which the Europeans certainly did not do to African kingdoms at that point.
It was trading not colonization.. the Indians also came to the Swahili coasts but they never conquered ..
Also 15th century Europe was a temperate archipelago, where waterways were very important for transportation, so Europeans had more incentive and experience in sailing and shipbuilding. Just the ability to travel somewhere else and take exotic resources home, for example in the Colombian Exchange, made a huge difference in Europeans quality of life
This fails to explain the how the indigenous of North America didn't experience the same growth. North America is awash in lakes and rivers including the Mississippi, St. Lawrence and the great lakes.
@@anthonymorris5084 The geographical location of North America explains it. Europe is considered a subcontinent, as it is connected to Asia, and is quite close to the Middle East and North Africa. Innovations from these regions were easily streamed into Europe, whereas North America, being on the other side of the world, was technologically isolated from the innovations happening in Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.
@@NanakiRowan Right, because the Americas are a tiny little island. No innovations came from Africa, ever. Nothing came from the Middle East, ever. Keep spewing your fiction and grasping at straws.
@@anthonymorris5084 Not true whatsoever. Literally everything that Europe has or had, originated in the Middle East, East Asia, and North Africa. You absolutely cannot prove otherwise.
@@NanakiRowan I don't engage with trolls and liars and your lies are off the charts.
I dunno, the technological differences are still gigantic. You kinda breeze past the difficulties involved in getting guns, steel armour and ships. There is a second technological dufference, beurocracy. While the natives had societies with a beurocratic class, the efficiency of european beurocracy let us manage much more complex systems. Our accounting was rigorous and meticolously tracked by writing.
exactly. culture is completely overlooked in his analysis
Accounting and bureaucracy isn’t cultural.
@@aos8695 no... and i didnt say it was. i called it technologies, and that the europeans had it.
@@ravener96 sorry for the confusion. My reply was directed at @devc9661
It doesn't matter if they are gigantic, they still aren't as gigantic as the ratio of natives to Spanish people, so they wouldn't have won without diseases
Can you cite your sources? I think these videos are great, but I’d love to do some additional reading for context. If you did not use specific sources for this video, can you at least mention the teacher/course/website from which you learned these topics?
This is pretty basic world history. 😂
Good presentation. Couple of questions.
1. If Europe, Africa and Asia were technologically equal in the 1500’s, why didn’t they colonize the Americas?
2. Why did the Industrial Revolution take place only in Europe and then spread to the world?
Thanks!
1. Why should they? Technology does not inevitably lead to colonization. See the Treasure Fleets of Zheng He.
2. There is a lot of debate over this question. Some historians think there were conditions specific to Europe that made industrialization inevitable there and impossible elsewhere (but they disagree about what those conditions were). Other historians think that China (and perhaps to a lesser extent Japan and India - though the latter is a very controversial claim) was on the brink of industrialization, too, and if it had been delayed in Britain then it would have happened in China first.
Either way, the Industrial Revolution was an *extremely* dramatic change. Europe was completely transformed by it, so it would be anachronistic to project back and say, "well, Europe was a certain way after industrialization, so it must have been like that before."
@@premodernist_historyI'm sorry are you implying Asian and Mesoamerican cultures did /not/ empire build in their regions? Why would they? Because it's human nature lol
@@LogisticsWW You're totally misunderstanding the question. Why would they do the Americas Specifically is the question, a massive risky venture across the sea to a totally new continent? Zheng He's expedition didn't find much the chinese at the time particularly wanted , it made more sense for them to focus on conquest of their neighboring territories, which comparatively had much more wealth and were much more developed, the farther they got from home the less they saw of value to them.
Europeans were forced into this position because around 1500 they were desperate, years of relgious war had devastated the continent, resource wise Europe was kind of a backwater, Ottomons had taken Constantinople and so totally controlled the traditional trade routes to the far east
@@LogisticsWW Its really obnoxious how Europeans are so hyper sensitive to any sort of moral critique of european colonialism that they just reflexively jump to "but human nature! other people did bad things too! You're just anti-white" just a bunch of thought terminating cliches to shut down historical discussions. Literal snowflakes.
even when other people are actually just trying to have a normal historical discussion and weren't even talking about that. Like bro chill out
You're still not answering why the industrial revolution happened in Europe first
Because of capitalism
Narrow it down, why did it happen In Britain first ?
The lust for wealth and power combined with the genius of autistic men. Still true today, just most evident in the US currently.
@@visorij3374The major theory is that the large amount of coal is the reason.
Steam engines could be used to pump water out of coal mines and because the coal is already there they were cheap enough to run.
This meant people had an incentive to improve and build more of them.
That was the largely the 1800s.
Superior technology, advanced combat skills, unity under one God, one flag and one code of conduct. Unity goes a long way
Wrong. While native Americans could use firearms, they relied on trade with Europeans to make, repair and get ammunition for them. Native Americans were significantly less advanced than Europeans.
"Europeans were not more advanced than Africans"
- Goes onto show Europeans creating the industrial revolution
I also want to mention that in the beginning of colonialism, Europe had just undergone a steep population increase. So there was also a high push factor for Europeans to go away and travel and try out their luck elsewhere.
I think that what helped Europeans in this processus was the lack of unified and effective governments and leaders, with real visions and plans to develop the lands to support independence from foreign invasion.
Take the example of Medieval Lithuania. They hold against Teutonic Order and surrounding powers by developing economy, cities, administration, armies and hierarchy, allying with neighbours…
Centuries later in Asia, Japan emerged from centuries of isolation, and processed to develop a new form of government by observing the Western Powers and combining it intelligently with their own us…
Theres a definite sense of the Aztecs having no foreign affair experience when you read about how Cortez took Tenochtitlan.
a lot of people needed to hear this. we're so used to being pandered to when it comes to this topic.
We also cannot overlook the importance of Empiricism. Western Europe adopted empirical research methods and rapidly outpaced everyone who hadn't. Empiricism made the Industrial Revolution possible.
Just look at Japan's Meiji modernization vs. China's Qing modernization. Japan enthusiastically embraced European ways of thinking while China merely imported Western tech and weaponry without a wholesale societal reformation.
That seems more logical but also feels like hindsight. Like the major difference there is that Japan tried colonialism as well, so does the thinking method really matter? And it's not like Japan didn't had hard time assimilating western values. Japan, China, and Korea all had the attitude of "western technology is good but their philosophy and religion are bad". And if you were to study the technology, you'll eventually led to study its logics. Accepting the philosophy gave Japan a rocket start yes, but I'm not sure if it had effect beyond that.
How do you account for the Industrial Revolution happening where it did, and not simultaneously elsewhere? How did Europeans develop the ability to cross the seas? with enough army to, if not conquer. then to at least greatly subdue? Portugal on one side of the Straits of Gibraltor was completely, utterly different from Morocco, on the south side of the straits. I am curious how that is interpreted.
The British had worked out their mines as deep as they could. Deeper needed steam powered pumps. Steam power instantly made it possible to retrieve masses of valuable minerals, but also made it possible to have stem powered weaving mills, metal pressing plants, weapons factories, and metal fittings for ships, steam tractors with steel ploughs and a lot of other volume manufactured stuff, all delivered by steam trains, and later, steam powered ships. (The UK had steam trains from 1860).
I read England had easy access coal mines, combine with invention of steam engine
I think Wayne Lees theory in his book Waging War is a little bit more robust. Industrialization, for instance, doesn’t explain how the British were able to defeat the Qing dynasty with a handful of marines. The technological difference between the Qing and the British was essentially irrelevant. Sure British ships were far superior, but the Qing used fortified emplacements with canons. There is a deeper reason than industrialization, and this goes for basically every conflict. The moguls losing to the southern Indian tribes despite the Moguls having firearms and the Indians not, the Austrians with rifled breech-loading guns losing to Prussian smooth bore muzzle loading canons in 1866.
Hmm... I'd love to hear more, just don't have time to read a new book now, and the few reviews I just looked at were very vague - can you summarize some deeper reasons for me?
@@stephenmontague6930 The book goes through pre-history to counter insurgency tactics, its an 800 page book so unfortunately I can't really summarize it for you since so much changes. However, his main argument is that the reasons certain powers triumph over others is socio-cultural differences. Whether that be how certain cultures worldviews work, or how the society's view on warfare shapes their warfighting methods, and so on. I think the best point he makes regarding technology is that the technology only matters insofar as the society develops the proper tactics to employ them, and every culture and every society develops them differently.
@@TerryGruss Yeah a lot of people are going way too far to try and explain away why the Europeans were able to dominate the globe. They take away all the agency from the Europeans themselves and give them purely deterministic reasons, I think it falls really flat and I blame Guns, Gems, and Steel for it personally.
@@TerryGruss "You don’t conquer that entire globe by accident". You speak for yourself!
@@TerryGruss"Cultural superiority" 💀💀💀
Interesting video. This right here is why the TH-cam can be useful at times.
Industrial revolution was one of the hardest periods of history for low and middle class Europeans , and those that were colonised alike. Most Europeans had horrible lives during the Industrial revolution
Technological advancement is a good thing. Remember that. Unless you are a caveman.
@@armaanchowdhury1690 it is, but it just required a lot of sacrifice
@@alexanderm2220 anything with manual labor and construction.
Most sensible vídeo I've seen on this matter. Well put, very well put
Thanks for the video! Just wondering, why did North America go through industrialization at the same time the europeans did? Did they have closer ties? It's a statement at the end of the video that I thought would've been interesting to explore.
There were some entrepreneurs who migrated from England to the US because of lower competition. And the US allowed these entrepreneurs/ businesses to grow unhindered.
I always thought it was because most Americans and proto-Canadians were English. England was the home of the Industrial Revolution, so the other Englishmen across the world could more easily implement English ideas.
More developed trade networks also
Better question: Why did China go through industrialization at that time? Because their elites were distrustful of merchants and would never allow them to have such power.
Europe's success was due to its political decentralization more than anything. While Feudalism is portrayed as a backwards political model, in reality it spurred intense competition that was a precursor to global capitalism. As a result, any time Europe absorbed a technology from China, the Europeans improved upon it drastically to gain an advantage over their neighbors. This intense competition led European rulers to tolerate the merchant class and free thinking in hopes of gaining an advantage in wealth or power, and this fundamental political difference was the force that persistently kept Europe ahead of the rest of the world. Even to this day there is a very wide technological gap between East and West, in fact it seems to be getting wider, though you won't hear about that on CNN.
I'm going to stop the video at the point where you claim 16th century technology was "not a big jump" beyond the neolithic civilisations the europeans encountered. This is so wrong that the rest of the video is not worth watching. The fact that a culture familiar with stone tools were able to use flintlocks when gifted them and explained how to use them is not evidence they were technologically close to europeans, it's evidence that europeans were able to make user friendly technology.
Native americans were vastly behind europeans and the outcomes of almost any military encounter show it. This isn't to say they had no victories, but the victories they did have required huge odds in their favour and (due to their technological gap) they were unable to maintain equivalent population sizes as european civilisations, so even if they developed the ability to produce steel and manufacture modern wearpons, they wouldn't have been able to sustain the armies needed to put them to use.
If you look at actual conflicts, the Europeans in the 16th century were not OP. We might think theoretically that they must have been because they had guns, but it just wasn't how conflicts played out. It took a long time, many generations, for European settlers to spread across North and South America. Most regions in the Americas did not effectively come under European control until after the American republics gained their independence in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
@@premodernist_history How many generations ought it to have taken? I look at how consistently Europeans were able to defeat/conquer larger groups and find it hard to explain other than through them having a technological advantage even if it did take time for the inevitable conclusion.
@@clownpendotfart The Europeans consistently lost wars against indigenous Americans, and some nations were never conquered. The Amerindians, in many cases, met the Europeans with firearms acquired through raiding and trade with earlier groups like the Dutch.
@@TheSuperRattConsistently? No. The conquistadors wouldn't have been conquistadors if that were the case. And which nations were never conquered?
@@clownpendotfartconsistently in the sense that even if they did win eventually, it took them way to long for supposed "better technology" being what made them better
Don’t agree. Sub Saharan Africa didn’t have the wheel. Europe was sailing around the world.
What a great argument. No wheel, but metallurgy, agriculture, governance, commerce, architecture, medicine, and boats that would outperform European ships on the African coast. You have a flawless argument.
europe was sailing around the world because everything in europe sucked
Sometimes you have to use occam's razor bro, even I could make a wheel, without anyone showing me anything, based just on my intuition, so why would an entire society of people not do this? Obviously there must've been a reason, notice how mayans and aztecs had the wheel only on children's toys, because wheels aren't very useful in a jungle/mountainous terrain
@@NanakiRowan Europe had all that and were superior in most.
@@thomascarlyle8015 Maybe- still were technically superior.
It's also the ability to get there to begin with. The western euros had access to the Atlantic, a convenient place to sail out once the navigation and ship building techs were in place. The Ottomans were confined to the Medi. They did have a presence in the Red Sea and Ind Ocean but it was a long stretch to sail across the Pacific. The Chinese were very inward looking and had no appetite to explore east. Zheng He's extravagant voyages bankrupted the Ming and Yongle's successors had to pick up the tab. Instead of a small and nimble exploration party they sent an armada, getting very little in return. Without boots on the ground, East African polities were hardly gonna pay heavy tribute. The Mughals and Qing were never much of maritime explorers to begin with. The Qing navy after defeating Koxinga was merely an anti-piracy coast guard.
Eye opener stuff... Thank you man...
Don't be too quick to accept everything you see or hear on youtube. This presentation ignores cultural differences which existed between the various groups of people during this time period. Cultures rise, and become strong, expand then weaken and collapse they are always changing. Also, the claim that 90% of the native population died from diseases brought from Europe is quite a leap, yes there were deaths from those diseases but ninety percent of the entire population? Take a moment to think about that.
You are forgetting the real reason, our massively big balls
I didn't know parasites had balls.
@@pedropontes2230keep hating the master race pedro
Even your name is european haha
@@cmd7930 You shall become a minority in your own countries soon.
So called master race when it faces massive demographic decline because they were simply too good @@cmd7930
"our"
Taking credit for other people's actions, sad.
Europeans colonized the places they wanted to colonize, and a lot of wanting to colonize these places was their rivalries with each other - because each European colonial empire would turn its colonies into privileged or even exclusive trade zones that would not deal with the other empires.
The colonial apparatus in general was extremely wasteful and was not a good way to manage things locally - it was mostly there to keep out other empires, and then by force of habit. If there is no need to keep out other empires trading with locals voluntarily is much more profitable and less wasteful than colonizing them.
Other places did not do this in the same way because they did not have multiple concurrent empires with metropoles located next to each other.
And most settler colonialism consisted of refugees and the politically excluded who were on the wrong side of various conflicts involving those same empires. And of course the movement of the enslaved was involuntary.
So the peculiarities of internal European politics shaped how they endeavored upon their brand of imperialism, which is a very visible and easy to identify kind of thing - to the point that by comparison the more subtle ways of engaging in imperialist economics and politics engaged in elsewhere in the world don’t even seem like the same category of thing.
Short and compelling! Good visuals too! Greets from Switzerland
Guns, germs and steel. And greed. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.
>when you don't know what you're talking about
@@tcpgblizzard How did England do in the rugby world cup?
Videos with this title have a 50/50 chance of being so racist it would make mein kampf look like a kids story. Happy to say it’s not
Sorry to break it to you but most of history is "racist" lol
@@maxwillis3840there’s a difference between actual history being that way and glorifying it.
@HighFlySoyGuy an accurate retelling of history isn't necessarily glorifying it; but even so, there is plenty within European history to worthily glorify.
@@HighFlySoyGuy Europeans have every right to be proud of our history and our ancestors
@@enochpowellwasright899 I was specifically talking about glorifying racism so how’d you go there from that?
Thank you for the increase and perspective.
Is this the same guy that said that wheels are not that important?
Bruh, it's like saying that written language does not give you an enourmous advantage over someone who is illeterate. That's just dumb!
If you're the only one literate and there's no books, what does it give?
"Bruh, it's like saying that written language does not give you an enourmous advantage over someone who is illeterate. "
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Wheels aren't important because no all regions are effective for wheeled transport. Try living in the mountain and sahel. In some places horses also aren't really present as often. In North Africa anyways the camel it's self took the place for wheeled transport and it's not because they didn't know the wheel existed (there is paintings of chariots).
Writing is imporant though I'll agree. Though very few places actually created it independantly.
@@boslyporshy6553 It is impossible to became literate with no books to become literate from. Therefore, the comparison doesn't hold. Still, there was a time when people had not invented writing yet but eventually figured out that it was pretty useful (see Oxford very short introduction book on the subject), so even if not everyone did it at the same time, arguing that it was not useful because of "context" does not make any sense.
When the diseases Europeans introduced in the Americas started decimating native population, Spaniards had already conquered the local empires with smarts and alliances with subjected ethnic groups that had grievances against those empires. They replaced the local royals and started ruling those empires and it was then when diseases reduced population in a significant ammount, but not as much as some historians try to propagate. Countries in Central and South America keep having between 60 and 95 % of native DNA nowadays, quite different proportion of what you can find in Northamerican lands invaded by the USA in the last two centuries.
" Countries in Central and South America keep having between 60 and 95 % of native DNA nowadays".
That is very much false, and the reality is the opposite. Most of the ancestry of Latin Americans is European. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_Latin_America#Genetic_studies
the spanish who are european, also owe the vast amount of their success to diseases as well. research
@@NanakiRowan I just call them Spanish no difference, they are barely native and speak a European language..
they were actually welcomed and fed well but then shows there true colors..
Interesting video, good to dispel misconceptions surrounding European technological advances around the time of colonization.
However isn't the elephant in the room on this topic, especially when viewing a chart like the one at 7:05, the rise of the US and the Monroe Doctine?
Great video, thank you very much , note to self(nts) watched all in it 00:01
Your channel is so good and I cannot wait till it blows up, you have great content.
Thanks!