The Europeans who easily conquered the Americas were successful. Was it a coincidence or was it because of their strength?

The 15th century was an era of great geographical discovery, and it was also an era of coexistence of killing and colonization. During this era, Europeans discovered southern Africa, the Americas, and sea routes to Asia through navigation. Discovery, however, was a disaster. Prior to this, the Americas were almost isolated from Asia. The indigenous inhabitants of the Americas established relatively backward civilizations here, such as the Mayan civilization, the Aztec civilization, etc. With the arrival of Columbus's ships in 1492, everything changed.

Many people will have a question, that is, why are the Spaniards not sure of defeating the ancient civilizations of Asia, but they can easily defeat the empires of America? The answer is viruses. Prior to this, Europe experienced the Black Death, which killed 20 million people. Eventually, Europeans' immunity improved, and Asians had already fought the plague many times and had strong resistance. But the Americas are different. The Americas have always been isolated from the Eurasian continent. The lack of communication between humans in the two places has resulted in the Americans not being as resistant to viruses such as the plague as the Eurasians. They lack immunity to diseases such as smallpox, measles, diphtheria, typhoid, mumps, and influenza. For example, the hosts of the smallpox virus are camels and gerbils, but these do not exist in the Americas, and Americans raise few large animals, so they lack immunity to smallpox.

In 1507, a sick black slave was brought to the Americas, and his gang caused the deaths of thousands of Indians. In 1520, the colonial army led by Spanish colonist Cortez was defeated by the Aztecs, and a Spaniard suffering from smallpox was killed. As a result, the virus quickly spread among the Aztecs, and a huge empire collapsed. In 1521, the Aztec capital was surrounded. Its population had dropped sharply from 300,000 to 150,000, and the Aztec capital was captured. American scholar Howard Macheld said in "A Plague Story": "Unless you put your boots on the body of a red man (Indian), you can't walk."

Once the most populous country in South America The powerful country, the Inca Empire, occupied almost all of the west side of the Andes Mountains and had a population of 10 million. In 1522, Spanish colonist Pizarro led a colonial group of 168 people to arrive here. At that time, the weapons of the Incas were still stone axes, wooden clubs, spears, and bows. However, the Spanish colonists were equipped with advanced firearms, metal armor, and horses. . In the end, 168 people actually defeated the Inca army of tens of thousands. There is certainly some exaggeration in this. During their contact with the Spaniards, the Incas were infected with smallpox and began to die out on a large scale. In 1572, the empire was completely conquered by the Spanish.

In North America, Indians also suffered from plague. In 1620, British immigrants discovered that the land near the Plymouth settlement was almost deserted. It turned out that the plague here killed 90 Indians. Reflecting on this period of history decades later, the Puritan Incline Mather said: “The Indians began to harass the frontiers of the territory they had sold to the British, but God ended the conflict by spreading smallpox among the Indians. "The colonists later realized the power of smallpox and deliberately spread the plague to the Indians. For example, when the British were unable to advance in Canada, they negotiated peace with the Indians and gave pillows and quilts contaminated by smallpox patients as gifts to the Indians. Subsequently, diseases such as mumps, measles, cholera, gonorrhea and yellow fever came from Europe.

Not only were the Indians in the Americas unable to resist the smallpox virus, they also had no relevant awareness of prevention. The emergence of smallpox did not occur all at once and would not cause large-scale deaths in a short period of time. Instead, it spread like the flu on a massive scale throughout the Americas. Gradually, more and more people fell ill. The virus conquering America is like boiling a frog in warm water. Year after year, day after day, the Indians were decimated. Someone once made a statistics saying that after Columbus discovered America, infectious diseases brought by Europeans caused the death of 95 Indians. Before Columbus arrived, there were 60 to 100 million Indians here, but later only a few million remained.

Compared to the crimes of Europeans killing Indians, Hitler was nothing.

Soon, the white people who arrived in the Americas also found that they lacked another thing - labor force, and thousands of black people were transported to the Americas as slaves. In this process, for every black person successfully transported, 10 black people died, ultimately costing Africa a population of 100 million. Until 1980, Africa's total population was only 100 million.