Columbus’ contact resulted in a 92% loss of population in North, Central, and South America. Mexico City area only just re-reached its pre-contact population estimate in the 1960s.
The sheer amount of people, knowledge, and culture lost in the Americas due to European invasion and their treatment of the native peoples makes me so sad.
It is the greatest loss of human knowledge that we know of. Certainly the largest in the last 4000 years. It puts the burning of the Library of Alexandria to shame. Entire civilizations, and the sum of all their knowledge, gone. Wiped out. Practically erased from history. The Aztecs had a full writing system and a long recorded history, all burned to ash by the Spaniards just for the hell of it; only scraps remain.
Several Indigenous civilizations in the Americas had their written records deliberately destroyed, while others relied heavily on oral knowledge that disappeared when communities were decimated. Here’s a clear breakdown of both types:
Civilizations Whose Records Were Intentionally Destroyed
Aztec (Mexica) Empire
Type of records: Pictorial and glyphic codices on history, astronomy, tribute, law, and religion.
Destruction: After the conquest, Spanish authorities, most famously Bishop Juan de Zumárraga and later Diego de Landa, burned almost all Aztec codices as “idolatrous.”
Survival: Fewer than 20 pre-conquest or early-contact codices survive.
Maya Civilization
Type of records: Highly developed writing system; texts on astronomy, mathematics, calendars, history, and ritual.
Destruction: Inquisition-era clerics burned “thousands” of books and idols; Diego de Landa’s auto-da-fé in 1562 is the most notorious.
Survival: Only four confirmed pre-conquest Maya codices remain (Dresden, Madrid, Paris, Grolier).
Mixtec Civilization
Type of records: Rich pictographic histories of dynasties, genealogies, wars, religious rituals.
Destruction: Many codices lost to Spanish burnings and suppression of Mixtec priest-scribes.
Survival: A few extraordinary codices remain (Codex Zouche-Nuttall, Codex Vindobonensis).
Inca Empire (Tawantinsuyu)
Type of records: Not written in books, but quipus—complex knotted-string recording systems for census, tribute, calendrics, and possibly narrative information.
Destruction: Colonial authorities destroyed many quipus, and forced conversion efforts suppressed quipu-keepers (khipukamayuqs).
Survival: ~1,000 quipus remain, but most without context.
Taíno (Caribbean)
Type of records: Primarily oral, but also ceremonial carvings (zemis), sacred objects, and chronicled songs.
Destruction: Spanish campaigns wiped out most of the population within decades; much material culture was destroyed or lost.
Muisca (Colombia)
Type of records: Mostly oral histories and sacred textiles and objects.
Destruction: Spanish suppression of temples and ceremonial items erased much of their intellectual heritage.
Civilizations Whose Knowledge Faded With Their Communities
These relied heavily on oral traditions or fragile local materials. When communities were devastated by disease, enslavement, and forced assimilation, their knowledge systems could not survive intact.
Mississippian Cultures (e.g., Cahokia)
No writing system; history was preserved orally.
Collapse accelerated by population loss after contact, long before written ethnography could record their traditions.
Ancestral Puebloans, Hohokam, Mogollon
Sophisticated sciences (astronomy, hydrology, architecture) maintained through oral knowledge.
Much was lost after displacement, missionization, and cultural fragmentation.
Wari, Tiwanaku (pre-Inca Andes)
No writing system; relied on knot-based or symbolic systems.
Knowledge of state organization and ritual life vanished after the societies collapsed long before Spanish arrival, and then post-contact disruptions erased remaining memories.
Nahua, Zapotec, Purepecha, and many others
These groups had writing or semi-writing systems, but much of what we know today survives only in fragments because:
manuscripts were burned,
priestly classes were suppressed,
or oral lineages were broken.
The Scale of Loss
Across the Americas, scholars estimate:
hundreds of languages vanished, each carrying unique worldviews and knowledge systems;
countless scientific, agricultural, ecological, and medical traditions were lost or fragmented;
many civilizations’ histories and lineages were erased or only partially reconstructed through archaeology.
It truly was a civilizational-scale knowledge collapse—yet also a story of survival, because many Indigenous peoples continue to preserve, revive, and rebuild these traditions today.
Then Cortez finished the job when he explored from Florida to Texas. He also introduced wild hogs to the continent, which introduced trichinella parasites to native fauna. Truly one of the most ecologically destructive events in the past thousand years.
The weird part about that is that Columbus was the third expedition to the American continent from the European continent.
First was a single Irish/Celtic(?) monk in the 800s. Second was Leif Erikson and his crew of “Vikings” in the 1100-1200s. Neither one of those caused widespread disease in the Americas, despite the fact that the monk made it as far as The Great Lakes, and Leif Erickson’s expedition was cut quite short with them engaging in battle with the first natives they saw, resulting in the death of Leif Erikson as well as a few of his companions.
Brendan the navigator, 6th c., but the story about “Saint Brendan’s island” is not proven to be about America AFAIK. Or true. It’s a legend about a blessed island that may be a religious myth.
There’s a ton of legends of sailors finding a vanishing island, an island of plenty, the island of apples, that various theories have attached to the Canaries or Azores and such IINM. Saint Brendan is just one among those, so it’s hard to assume it’s fact.
Also, Leif Erikson was in year 1000. And there is a strong suspicion that diseases did play a big role and made it a shitshow.
Columbus’ contact resulted in a 92% loss of population in North, Central, and South America. Mexico City area only just re-reached its pre-contact population estimate in the 1960s.
“1491” is a good read.
The sheer amount of people, knowledge, and culture lost in the Americas due to European invasion and their treatment of the native peoples makes me so sad.
It is the greatest loss of human knowledge that we know of. Certainly the largest in the last 4000 years. It puts the burning of the Library of Alexandria to shame. Entire civilizations, and the sum of all their knowledge, gone. Wiped out. Practically erased from history. The Aztecs had a full writing system and a long recorded history, all burned to ash by the Spaniards just for the hell of it; only scraps remain.
From ChatGPT:
Several Indigenous civilizations in the Americas had their written records deliberately destroyed, while others relied heavily on oral knowledge that disappeared when communities were decimated. Here’s a clear breakdown of both types:
Civilizations Whose Records Were Intentionally Destroyed
Aztec (Mexica) Empire
Maya Civilization
Mixtec Civilization
Inca Empire (Tawantinsuyu)
Taíno (Caribbean)
Muisca (Colombia)
Civilizations Whose Knowledge Faded With Their Communities
These relied heavily on oral traditions or fragile local materials. When communities were devastated by disease, enslavement, and forced assimilation, their knowledge systems could not survive intact.
Mississippian Cultures (e.g., Cahokia)
Ancestral Puebloans, Hohokam, Mogollon
Wari, Tiwanaku (pre-Inca Andes)
Nahua, Zapotec, Purepecha, and many others
These groups had writing or semi-writing systems, but much of what we know today survives only in fragments because:
The Scale of Loss
Across the Americas, scholars estimate:
It truly was a civilizational-scale knowledge collapse—yet also a story of survival, because many Indigenous peoples continue to preserve, revive, and rebuild these traditions today.
Fuck ChatGPT.
Lol
Don’t care
Then Cortez finished the job when he explored from Florida to Texas. He also introduced wild hogs to the continent, which introduced trichinella parasites to native fauna. Truly one of the most ecologically destructive events in the past thousand years.
The weird part about that is that Columbus was the third expedition to the American continent from the European continent.
First was a single Irish/Celtic(?) monk in the 800s. Second was Leif Erikson and his crew of “Vikings” in the 1100-1200s. Neither one of those caused widespread disease in the Americas, despite the fact that the monk made it as far as The Great Lakes, and Leif Erickson’s expedition was cut quite short with them engaging in battle with the first natives they saw, resulting in the death of Leif Erikson as well as a few of his companions.
Who was the monk?
Brendan the navigator, 6th c., but the story about “Saint Brendan’s island” is not proven to be about America AFAIK. Or true. It’s a legend about a blessed island that may be a religious myth.
There’s a ton of legends of sailors finding a vanishing island, an island of plenty, the island of apples, that various theories have attached to the Canaries or Azores and such IINM. Saint Brendan is just one among those, so it’s hard to assume it’s fact.
Also, Leif Erikson was in year 1000. And there is a strong suspicion that diseases did play a big role and made it a shitshow.
follow it up with “Guns, Germs, and Steel”
That is historically not accurate.