Hello everyone. Thanks for joining me in this special. I want to thank all of you and especially to my Discord community, whose contributions to my research have been crucial for the elaboration of this video. Please join us if you want to support my channel. See ya! Discord link: discord.com/invite/R3ENvmz
This is one of your finest episodes! Discussing how colonial system exaserbated epidemics among native communities does not get enough attention and you give it the gravity it deserves.
This is a topic I NEVER have seen discussed in schools, not even in Mexico. The "Virgin Soil" doctrine is still dogma and it is just a way to deny the genesis of the current inequalities in Latin America, not only in Mexico. We need to know this part of history, to understand that the tragedies of our history were symptoms of a much greater problem: the inequality created by the colonial mercantilist economic system. Only then we will honor the memory of those who died, and the sacrifices of those who struggled to build new societies out of the colonial world
That was fascinating, really good work. I have done a little bit of work on similar subjects and you provide a lot of new information. The point about lower disease rates in mission towns is particularly interesting to me. I'm going to have to look into that. I find it aggravating the way so many people oversimplify the colonial epidemics, boiling them down to the virgin soil hypothesis at best or often just outright pseudoscience like bad racial genetics or the thrice accursed thrifty gene. With a subject as complicated as health there are necessarily going to be a lot of interrelated factors. Every element of life and society contribute to one another in a variety of ways, a major disruption of any aspect is going to disrupt the others to some degree, and the colonial period consisted of a lot of disruption.
Exactly. And regarding the mission towns, their record is indeed mixed, many were death traps but others were sanctuaries. The exact outcome depended on many factors, from who ran the mission towns to the geopolitical context of said location. In case you want to look at especially interesting case, try to read about the Jesuit missions among the Guarani. Although I warn you that it will be depressing towards the end of their existence. Greetings
I'm going through "Tending the Wild", and I was struck first with the near perfect human life the native inhabitants of California has made through their land use habits and generations-long vision of environmental interaction. The shift in land use by the colonizers was so stark and brutal it would make me shake with rage reading it. Of course people would be malnourished if you cut down the pinenut groves for firewood , cleared the oaks pasture, and let cattle herds loose in the fields that grew medicine. On the whole, when the actions of the colonizers that affected baseline health of communities are considered, they are just as morally guilty of the deaths from disease as they are from outright murders.
Not even farming societies were spared from that kind of intransigence. In Mexico, Spaniards tried to get rid of maize in order to replace it with wheat, as they deemed corn as "ungodly". However they soon were forced to desist as most of Mexico is just too humid for growing wheat, and even Europeans had to rely on native crops. Ignorance mixed with zealotry is a powerful recipe for disaster.
If you feel like covering the topic at some point, I think a video explaining the various systems like the Encomienda employed in the Spanish Americas and how these system differed would be really valuable.
I've also thought about that topic. There are way too many misunderstandings about colonial economies in Hispanic America, and they should be addressed
Thank you for making captivating videos! Hoping that historians like yourself will help grow interest in the history of the Americas! It’s criminally undervalued while being some of the most interesting stories in human history !
I'm technically in the field of social sciences, but I'm not an actual historian unfortunately. However I try to bring the work of actual historians to the forefront, as many brilliant and dedicated people have invested years of their lives studying these topics and yet their work gets ignored and lost under a torrent of pop history bullshit. Greetings
The amount of fascination I have with the concept of multiple points of system collapse compounding to cause perpetual health crisises is only matched by my heartbreak learning about the peoples who had to endure it.
Really good video. To add onto the things you said about Europeans and disease transference to native Americans I’ve been reading a lot of québécois and northeaster native history lately and think I may add some things. In terms of the British using smallpox as a weapon of war the Ottawa historian Andrew blackbird on page 4 of his “history of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan” book talks about the British using tins containing smallpox to intentionally make native Allie’s of the French sick during the 7 years war, which predates the smallpox blankets used by the British to put down Pontiac’s rebellion. Also while the French defiantly had their brutalities towards natives (I’m French Canadian so maybe I’m unintentionally being biased) they were usually more trade based and consequently native nations around them often had lower disease rates than native neighbors of other European powers. I can remember the specific book I read that in, so you may discard it if you want, but if true it seems to agree with your idea that social factors played a huge role in how much disease spread. I’m also currently reading “canadas forgotten slaves” which is a book specializing in québécois slavery. Of the 4125 slaves whose origin we know 2683 were native and 1443 were African. (Pg 77) These slaves had very high mortality rates in spite of doing mostly household labor and it’s likely disease helps explain why. Great video
@@HegelOnHisHead No problem. And I certainly welcome the facts you present, as we rarely hear about colonial French Canada in the rest of the world. In the video, I already mentioned the fact that the French had a more trade-based colonial policy, and how that didn't really help their case as that trade came with diplomatic strings which eventually set the trend that sent the natives of Canada and the Mississippi into a long age of wars, and well, I already described how that ended 😥 Also, as for biases, we all have those. I am Mexican, so I used to be quite lenient with the Spaniards... until I really dug up about Spanish colonial exploitation policies.
Thanks for bringing this to attention. I had always pretty much just accepted the virgin soil hypothesis. I'd always just assumed that diseases from Europe were worse because of the poor city management, hygiene and livestock. I'd never even thought about why populations didn't quickly build immunity, and I am glad you brought attention to the topic. Cheers.
Going to school in Los Angeles in the 60s, the missions were celebrated and the extinction of Chumash languages and culture was hidden. I only learned about California's 1850s legalization of murder of indigenous people this year
Can anybody clarify the following for me. I was under the belief that Europeans who were susceptible to a particular disease were over many generations, killed off (by the disease) thus removing them from the gene pool. So, that the population as a whole was less susceptible to the harmful effects of that disease. From what I understand from this video, my belief is incorrect? The correct version based on science is: Europeans were less susceptible because the had recent contact with the disease giving them temporary protection. Is that right?
You are closer to the facts, but there are some points to clarify: 1. You first idea would be wrong due to the existence of two factors: herd immunity and inherited immunity. If you live in a population in which the majority of people have immunity to a disease, the pathogen cannot spread well, and therefore you (not-immune person) are protected as the pathogen cannot find its way to you. As I said in the Part 1 video, mothers pass some of their immunity down to their children, making easier for them to handle diseases in infancy and therefore enabling them to build stronger defenses during their lifetimes. And in case said children are female, when they have kids of their own, they'll repeat this same process. 2. Immunity not only relies on contact with the pathogen, it can also be influenced by other factors, including but not limited to: - Contact with similar pathogens. The best example being how cowpox enables people to fend off smallpox. - Healthy diets. Well-nourished people can develop more effective defenses faster than those who are malnourished. - Psychological well-being. Depression can wreck your immune system. Just remember that immunity and infection are complex, multifactorial processes. Greetings
Hello everyone. Thanks for joining me in this special.
I want to thank all of you and especially to my Discord community, whose contributions to my research have been crucial for the elaboration of this video.
Please join us if you want to support my channel. See ya!
Discord link: discord.com/invite/R3ENvmz
This is one of your finest episodes! Discussing how colonial system exaserbated epidemics among native communities does not get enough attention and you give it the gravity it deserves.
This is a topic I NEVER have seen discussed in schools, not even in Mexico.
The "Virgin Soil" doctrine is still dogma and it is just a way to deny the genesis of the current inequalities in Latin America, not only in Mexico.
We need to know this part of history, to understand that the tragedies of our history were symptoms of a much greater problem: the inequality created by the colonial mercantilist economic system.
Only then we will honor the memory of those who died, and the sacrifices of those who struggled to build new societies out of the colonial world
@@AztlanHistorian well said!
That was fascinating, really good work.
I have done a little bit of work on similar subjects and you provide a lot of new information. The point about lower disease rates in mission towns is particularly interesting to me. I'm going to have to look into that.
I find it aggravating the way so many people oversimplify the colonial epidemics, boiling them down to the virgin soil hypothesis at best or often just outright pseudoscience like bad racial genetics or the thrice accursed thrifty gene. With a subject as complicated as health there are necessarily going to be a lot of interrelated factors. Every element of life and society contribute to one another in a variety of ways, a major disruption of any aspect is going to disrupt the others to some degree, and the colonial period consisted of a lot of disruption.
Exactly.
And regarding the mission towns, their record is indeed mixed, many were death traps but others were sanctuaries.
The exact outcome depended on many factors, from who ran the mission towns to the geopolitical context of said location.
In case you want to look at especially interesting case, try to read about the Jesuit missions among the Guarani. Although I warn you that it will be depressing towards the end of their existence.
Greetings
@@AztlanHistorian Thank you, it's good to have a starting point.
I'm going through "Tending the Wild", and I was struck first with the near perfect human life the native inhabitants of California has made through their land use habits and generations-long vision of environmental interaction.
The shift in land use by the colonizers was so stark and brutal it would make me shake with rage reading it. Of course people would be malnourished if you cut down the pinenut groves for firewood , cleared the oaks pasture, and let cattle herds loose in the fields that grew medicine.
On the whole, when the actions of the colonizers that affected baseline health of communities are considered, they are just as morally guilty of the deaths from disease as they are from outright murders.
Not even farming societies were spared from that kind of intransigence. In Mexico, Spaniards tried to get rid of maize in order to replace it with wheat, as they deemed corn as "ungodly".
However they soon were forced to desist as most of Mexico is just too humid for growing wheat, and even Europeans had to rely on native crops.
Ignorance mixed with zealotry is a powerful recipe for disaster.
If you feel like covering the topic at some point, I think a video explaining the various systems like the Encomienda employed in the Spanish Americas and how these system differed would be really valuable.
I've also thought about that topic. There are way too many misunderstandings about colonial economies in Hispanic America, and they should be addressed
Thank you for making captivating videos! Hoping that historians like yourself will help grow interest in the history of the Americas! It’s criminally undervalued while being some of the most interesting stories in human history !
I'm technically in the field of social sciences, but I'm not an actual historian unfortunately.
However I try to bring the work of actual historians to the forefront, as many brilliant and dedicated people have invested years of their lives studying these topics and yet their work gets ignored and lost under a torrent of pop history bullshit.
Greetings
@@AztlanHistorian appreciate the honesty! Well you at least hold yourself to a decent standard . 👏👏👏
The amount of fascination I have with the concept of multiple points of system collapse compounding to cause perpetual health crisises is only matched by my heartbreak learning about the peoples who had to endure it.
Very under appreciated channel. Great explanation of a complex issue.
Thanks for the compliment. Hope we can get more subscribers
Really good video. To add onto the things you said about Europeans and disease transference to native Americans I’ve been reading a lot of québécois and northeaster native history lately and think I may add some things. In terms of the British using smallpox as a weapon of war the Ottawa historian Andrew blackbird on page 4 of his “history of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan” book talks about the British using tins containing smallpox to intentionally make native Allie’s of the French sick during the 7 years war, which predates the smallpox blankets used by the British to put down Pontiac’s rebellion. Also while the French defiantly had their brutalities towards natives (I’m French Canadian so maybe I’m unintentionally being biased) they were usually more trade based and consequently native nations around them often had lower disease rates than native neighbors of other European powers. I can remember the specific book I read that in, so you may discard it if you want, but if true it seems to agree with your idea that social factors played a huge role in how much disease spread. I’m also currently reading “canadas forgotten slaves” which is a book specializing in québécois slavery. Of the 4125 slaves whose origin we know 2683 were native and 1443 were African. (Pg 77) These slaves had very high mortality rates in spite of doing mostly household labor and it’s likely disease helps explain why. Great video
Sorry for the misspellings and bad grammar I’m on my phone and I’m up late lol
@@HegelOnHisHead No problem. And I certainly welcome the facts you present, as we rarely hear about colonial French Canada in the rest of the world.
In the video, I already mentioned the fact that the French had a more trade-based colonial policy, and how that didn't really help their case as that trade came with diplomatic strings which eventually set the trend that sent the natives of Canada and the Mississippi into a long age of wars, and well, I already described how that ended 😥
Also, as for biases, we all have those. I am Mexican, so I used to be quite lenient with the Spaniards... until I really dug up about Spanish colonial exploitation policies.
Thank you for your research and video production Aztlan! I'm sure Part 3 will be just as good as the first 2
I'll make sure it is :)
Thanks for bringing this to attention. I had always pretty much just accepted the virgin soil hypothesis. I'd always just assumed that diseases from Europe were worse because of the poor city management, hygiene and livestock. I'd never even thought about why populations didn't quickly build immunity, and I am glad you brought attention to the topic. Cheers.
There's a lot of myths to debunk and I hope to make my part in doing that with this special.
Greetings
Fantastic channel
Thanks for the compliment!
Thank you for making this series. I am learning a lot.
Glad you enjoy my videos
Love you homie
Going to school in Los Angeles in the 60s, the missions were celebrated and the extinction of Chumash languages and culture was hidden. I only learned about California's 1850s legalization of murder of indigenous people this year
Can anybody clarify the following for me. I was under the belief that Europeans who were susceptible to a particular disease were over many generations, killed off (by the disease) thus removing them from the gene pool. So, that the population as a whole was less susceptible to the harmful effects of that disease. From what I understand from this video, my belief is incorrect? The correct version based on science is: Europeans were less susceptible because the had recent contact with the disease giving them temporary protection. Is that right?
You are closer to the facts, but there are some points to clarify:
1. You first idea would be wrong due to the existence of two factors: herd immunity and inherited immunity.
If you live in a population in which the majority of people have immunity to a disease, the pathogen cannot spread well, and therefore you (not-immune person) are protected as the pathogen cannot find its way to you.
As I said in the Part 1 video, mothers pass some of their immunity down to their children, making easier for them to handle diseases in infancy and therefore enabling them to build stronger defenses during their lifetimes. And in case said children are female, when they have kids of their own, they'll repeat this same process.
2. Immunity not only relies on contact with the pathogen, it can also be influenced by other factors, including but not limited to:
- Contact with similar pathogens. The best example being how cowpox enables people to fend off smallpox.
- Healthy diets. Well-nourished people can develop more effective defenses faster than those who are malnourished.
- Psychological well-being. Depression can wreck your immune system.
Just remember that immunity and infection are complex, multifactorial processes. Greetings
@@AztlanHistorian Thank you for the explanation.
Hay comunidades indígenas que en los años noventas primero vieron miles de soldados antes que un centro de salud, gran vídeo de real a real
Desafortunadamente esa situación sigue siendo el caso en varias partes de America :(
Saludos
🗿👍