Goodbye, Columbus… hello, Montezuma.
It’s a historical fact that during the 15th Century, the state of European shipbuilding; military tactics and technology; and long-distance naval navigation was far superior to that of the Aztec Empire, the Kingdom of Kamarun, the Iroquois Confederacy or the Kongolese Empire.
The only non-European civilizations that were on par with the Spanish, English, French, and Dutch would be both Japan and China. Unfortunately for them, their history of advanced exploration and colonization came to an end due to their governments back home collapsing.
In all fairness, it was various bands of Austronesian people who first inhabited the thousands of islands of Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia. Again, unfortunately for them, the furthest east they chose to colonize was the Hawaiian Islands and Easter Island.
But back to the topic at hand, let’s flip history around a bit.
What if the Aztecs or the Kongolese were on the cutting edge of exploration and conquest in 1492? What if the Spanish, English, French, and Dutch were still stuck on a Post-Stone Age culture?
What if the Europeans has no clue to what a wheel or gunpowder was? No weaving of items larger than a tunic or dress (forget about weaving massive ships’ sails); shipbuilding technology never went beyond dugout canoes or lashing together a handful of logs to fashion together a makeshift raft; rowing out to sea to the point the shoreline was no longer in sight was essentially a death sentence.
I’ll tell you what would have happened… the Kongolese would have landed on the Iberian Peninsula, then would have rolled-up whatever military the Iberians threw at them.
The Iroquois would have sailed up the Thames River and conquer the town that used to be called Londinium. By the way, those barbaric English are still burning human sacrifices alive in giant wicker men.
Much like the Allies in WWII, the Aztecs would have attacked France’s Côte d’Azur, kick-ass all the way up the Rhône River Valley; then continue to kick-ass all the way to Berlin; then don’t even slow down after taking Moscow and beyond.
The Micmak and Beothuk would have setup slave trading ports in Scandinavia to buy slaves captured by the Nordic petty kingdoms. Hundres of thousands of Poles, Samis, Jutes, Irish and those from the Rus’ would be taken as slaves to work the plantations on Greece, Sicily, the Balkans and Greater Italy.
Wrapping this up, if the Aztecs, Kamaruns, Iroquois, and the Kongolese had the historical script flipped on them, then the Spanish, English, French, and Dutch would have deserved being conquered and colonized by those from beyond the sea.
After all, the only things Cultural Darwinism cares about is the strong surviving and the weak being crushed.
