• njm1314
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    5 hours ago

    A smallpox vaccine would be way more effective.

  • Jumi
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    8 hours ago

    Give the Apaches some Apaches, the Comanches some Comanches and the Chinook can take over logistics with some Chinooks and so on

  • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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    7 hours ago

    I always wondered if I got dropped off into 1650s North America if I could get the Native Americans technically advanced enough to have semi autos by the time I die before the huge colonizer/settler events happen.

    I bet even just muskets and penicillin could have tipped the scales.

    • SleeplessCityLights@programming.dev
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      11 minutes ago

      Gunpowder is a bitch. I don’t even know where to find potassium nitrate off the top of my head. You can get sulphur from hot springs and charcoal is simple. From experience, in a lab environment, getting the ratios for a useful explosion is a hard, even when you know what the possibilities are. Unless you have this memorized, that will be a 5 to 10 year adventure.

    • rumba@lemmy.zip
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      5 hours ago

      Gunpowder would be an easy sell.

      Mining/forging might be rough to bootstrap without capitalism. You’d be fighting against their love and respect for nature. Convince a number of them to mine, get black lung.

      You’d also have to convince a bunch of different tribes with different languages to stop fighting long enough to fend off invaders, and well, to know the people coming are assholes that will destroy them.

      Advanced medicine would be amazing, chemistry.

      Honestly, if you wanted them to win, I think you’d just have to get them to band together, maybe bomb ports. If the ships couldn’t properly resupply that’d be one hell of a fight.

  • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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    9 hours ago

    I shall bring horses to the Americas in the year 1011 AD. With any luck, the black plague will get around them anyway, but they’ll recover in time for the yuropeean arrival

  • Rozaŭtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    12 hours ago

    The main reason native americans had such a hard time fighting back the europeans is that they didn’t have immunity to old world diseases. You should’ve brought vaccines.

    • HasturInYellow
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      11 hours ago

      You could save literally millions of lives if you could get reproducible vaccines to them. 90% of the population of the continent was killed off before white people even set foot in the area. The set foot on the coast, and disease spread outward very quickly. They walked into abandoned villages, often times. The few that lives were exterminated.

      Smallpox vaccine and Kalashnikovs. That’s the way to go.

    • AdolfSchmitler
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      10 hours ago

      I mean, the guns can take them out from a distance no? Maybe when they’re rowing to shore.

    • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
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      10 hours ago

      There was also couple hundredth years of development difference between them. The rate of development depends on crops and animals available. Middle east had most of the grains we use today, pigs, cows, sheep and goats that they domesticated. Americas had only corn and llamas so the development was slower there. When Europeans came with horses, wearing armor and armed with iron swords and cannons the natives were simply unable to confront them in battle. The warrior class of native Americans (at least in South America) was also still working the fields so they were unable to wage prolonged wars. Even if they would win they would be left so weakened other tribes would defeat them soon after.

      • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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        9 hours ago

        Americas had only corn and llamas so the development was slower there

        The Americas also had varieties of squash, beans, amaranth, potato and several other crops that could be cultivated, stored and eaten. A lot of those fell out of favor because of colonialism. The lack of animal traction made the european style of farming a lot more labor intensive, but a number of native american communities simply didn’t need them.

        Outside of Central America and the Andean side of South America, there were no “great powers”, but hundreds of small, independent groups. It’s a lot easier to deal with a village that cannot call for reinforcements than a city that can. Even then, Europeans weren’t stupid and knew that they needed to ally with locals, which was key to their success.

        When Europeans came with horses, wearing armor and armed with iron swords and cannons the natives were simply unable to confront them in battle.

        Which is why they quickly learned they had to use guerilla tactics. Also, in the denser forests of Central and South Americas, cannons were usually too much of a hassle to haul and would often be more of a psychological effect than anything, since you can’t aim for shit when you can barely see 100yd in front of you due to vegetation.

        • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
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          9 hours ago

          They sure had tasty plants in the Americas but I think grain was generally easier to store over long periods of time and offer higher yields so you could feed bigger populations of people and civilization developed faster. I’m not an expert though, just what I’ve read.

          Which is why they quickly learned they had to use guerilla tactics. Also, in the denser forests of Central and South Americas, cannons were usually too much of a hassle to haul and would often be more of a psychological effect than anything, since you can’t aim for shit when you can barely see 100yd in front of you due to vegetation.

          Yes, I remember cannons mentioned mostly in the initial contact when they could still be used from ships. In land battles better weapons and armor still gave have Europeans huge advantage.

  • Agent641
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    12 hours ago

    “Aborigines of Sydney Cove, I know you can’t understand me but this is called a howitzer and you’re gonna want some earplugs.”

  • doingthestuff@lemy.lol
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    6 hours ago

    At this point is there any land that hasn’t been stolen and restolen again and again? It happens with plant and animal life too.

  • 001Guy001@sh.itjust.works
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    15 hours ago

    If we’re arming people I think a slightly better solution would have been to go further back and arm the peasants in Europe so they can overthrow the monarchs/feudal lords and dismantle the hierarchical system that sent people to “discover” the world for profit/plunder and did the enclosures at home

  • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
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    15 hours ago

    I don’t remember the name now (I can find it if anyone’s interested) but I remember reading about a native from south America that spent some time in Spanish colonies and then joined an expedition to North America (think California) as a translator. Once he arrived north he told natives what the Spaniards are up to and to kill all of them. The north was of course still conquered eventually but they did enjoy couple more decades of freedom thanks to him.

  • Fart Armpit
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    10 hours ago

    So, if there’s no gun in my possession, then i’m unable to become based i guess… Wellp, ended up being regular linux chad again 🐧

  • AItoothbrush@lemmy.zip
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    15 hours ago

    That would be a horrible decision. They would likely still die from the diseases spread from europe but also proceed probably having a huge native on native war because i know this is very surprising but native americans also had wars between each other as they were also humans.

    • wpb
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      15 hours ago

      I think you underestimate the magnitude of the genocide of the natives. It completely dwarfs the holocaust. Some researchers found it had a noticable effect on the temperature of the planet. About 49.5 million were killed.

      Also your comment reeks of “they’re savages!”

      • AItoothbrush@lemmy.zip
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        1 hour ago

        Yeah? All humans are savages. I literally said in my comment. If you gave guns to the ancient romans they would also use it to shoot the shit out of eachother. Now, a much better idea would be to go back and tell them them how to defend themselves from the invaders. Also with the power you could get from knowing the future it might be better to do something political like establishing a sort of native american united states in which natives have to respect other natives’ rights and the whole of america is also protected federally under non-natives. They already had their own politics you would just need to tweak it so the british dont steamroll over them.

      • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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        8 hours ago

        Also your comment reeks of “they’re savages!”

        Maybe if your reading comprehension sucks, or if you’re overly sensitive to certain words

        • wpb
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          6 hours ago

          Don’t be a dick.

          • rumba@lemmy.zip
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            5 hours ago

            TBF, he didn’t say shit about them being savages. And he’s absolutely right that they were warring with only basic armament.

            Where you two aren’t meeting in the middle is that the indigenous people need to work out proper communication and organize against the invaders with adequate gear. That’s kind of a big ask. To this day we’re trying to keep nukes out of the hands of warring nations and those people are decidedly not savages.

          • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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            6 hours ago

            I’m not - suggesting that Native Americans weren’t/aren’t susceptible to human flaws is foolish at best, revisionist history at worst. If anything I did not show nearly enough disdain.

            Were aspects of their cultures superior? I believe so, they were certainly better stewards of the earth and sexual violence was very much taboo. However they were also warring, scalping, and enslaving each other for a long time before white men showed up.

            Does that mean they deserve genocide? Unequivocally, no. Effectively asserting that they aren’t human simply because the person you’re disagreeing with used terms you dislike is silly. Would you have rather they typed out ‘Native American on Native American’ war? Would that hoop being jumped through suddenly make all of this make sense to you?

      • Auli@lemmy.ca
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        10 hours ago

        Really because they are saying their humans and not the Nobel savage that it seems you like to think they were

        • wpb
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          6 hours ago

          “I have black friends” level copium

      • Pman@lemmy.org
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        12 hours ago

        Dude you need to read up on how native Americans dealt with Europeans and Americans until they were forced on reservations, the black hills were a focal point of war and and while the Lakota Sioux are the current tribe most associated with them in the American cultural zeitgeist the Cheyenne and Arapaho have older links to those hills if I remember correctly. Hell going back to the sale of Manhattan was not the local tribe selling it but their enemy neighbor who sold the land and helped depopulate the island for the Dutch.

        In short native American tribes had conflict and hatreds between themselves and fought eachother to their detriment until there was no other way to go forward than to unite.

        • wpb
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          11 hours ago

          I’m sure they had conflicts, they’re human. But the colonizers had a greater impact than internal conflict ever could have. Again, 49.5 million out of 50. And your comment still reeks of this idea that the colonizers coming in was somehow a neutral or ok thing. It wasn’t. It’s one of the greatest atrocities committed in the history of mankind.

    • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
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      15 hours ago

      I’m pretty sure AK-47 has enough range to protect you from airborne diseases. And European countries had wars that were made more deadly with modern weapons. Would it be better if Europe was genocided by some invaders instead?

  • Diplomjodler
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    1 day ago

    If you want to save the indigenous peoples of the Americas, you should bring them vaccines.

      • Auli@lemmy.ca
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        10 hours ago

        So their going to stop all of them from the coast when we can’t even do that now. Yah right.

    • Yggstyle
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      20 hours ago

      This. Before a shot was ever fired the natives in most “undeveloped” regions were being decimated by pathogens refined in our “civilized” cities. This was long before “smallpox blankets” ever made an appearance.

    • Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone
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      1 day ago

      Don’t even have to bring anything, early smallpox vaccines were little more than ground up pox sores rubbed into a cut. But it worked a hell of a lot better than no vaccine.

      • Godort@lemmy.ca
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        1 day ago

        Didn’t they use Cowpox instead of smallpox? The virus is similar enough to trigger the correct immune response, but significantly less deadly