American Indians Colonize the Old world in 1250 BC

Gradine · Aug 6, 2018

Derren said:
I wouldn't even call 1453 dark age any more but early renaissance.

Oh the Dark Ages, probably the most egregious Eurocentrism in world history. Which is a pretty damn high bar, all things considered.

As to the dilemma of the OP, I think the bar is comparatively low when it comes to exploring and playing with historical tropes in a simple home game. My personal belief is that the only two things you really ought to try to do to clear that bar is:
1) Try to be as respectful as possible of the source (both the historical cultures and the modern descendants of said cultures)
2) At the very least, do no harm (as in, do not promote false stereotypes used to justify actual historical atrocities and/or modern-day bigotry)

Again, if we're talking just a home game you've got a lot of leeway there and it ought to be a pretty low bar to clear. It's just that, like [MENTION=6683613]TheCosmicKid[/MENTION], I'm skeptical of both the OP's ability or even desire to clear those bars.

That said, the proposed "role reversal" is not a reversal of "roles" at all. What's being described is exactly what happened historically, you've simply swapped the continents. You've only moved the Christian European imperialists to the Americas and vice versa. Now, you could actually do some interesting things with a premise such as that; a "here is what it's like to be subject to a imperialist subjugative force" type of campaign. But that's a much harder line to tightrope, and would require a lot of nuance and care to pull off. And there are much easier ways to tell that type of story without flipping the historical tables and villainizing cultures that suffered genocide at the hands of the exact same forces.

Again though, it's your home game, low low bar, do what you want. But I'm not seeing many positives to come from pursuing this type of campaign in this type of style.

tomBitonti · Aug 6, 2018

Thomas Bowman said:
Muskets in American colonial times were made by gunsmiths, one at a time, there were no musket factories. Gunsmithing was a skill that was passed down to an apprentice just like black smithing. Gunpowder is a mixture and so does not have a chemical formula. Its main components are sulfur (S), charcoal (C), and potassium nitrate (KNO3). Do you think the Egyptians can obtain these three things? A gun is a tube which contains an explosion to propel a bullet. Gun tubes can be made out of steel, Iron, or bronze, the Egyptians could work bronze, so they could make some kind of musket.

That identifies two technologies involved in gunmaking, both of which have extensive histories, both with very significant advancement over time (at least several centuries worth).

Gunpower (as black power) has a lot of ways of being made, with huge variations in specific technique and material selection. More goes into manufacturing gun tubes, as a problem of producing a high quality metal and of fashioning that into a gun barrel.

That is not to mention the technology of the action of the gun, which has its own challenges.

To make a decent gun, you need some other folks (probably, a lot of them) to make decent metal, and other folks (maybe not as many) to make decent gunpower. A society which is advanced in all of the necessary prerequisite technologies should be able to adapt quickly to making firearms (if they aren't doing so already, which seems very likely). A society which is centuries behind in technologies in general are mostly likely centuries behind in making gunpower and metal, and would be making inferior firearms until they caught up in the prerequisite areas.

I'm thinking that for quite a while, capturing weapons and ammunition (or, buying these from black markets), will be the more effective way to obtain firearms.

Thx!
TomB

Derren · Aug 6, 2018

tomBitonti said:
To make a decent gun, you need some other folks (probably, a lot of them) to make decent metal, and other folks (maybe not as many) to make decent gunpower. A society which is advanced in all of the necessary prerequisite technologies should be able to adapt quickly to making firearms (if they aren't doing so already, which seems very likely). A society which is centuries behind in technologies in general are mostly likely centuries behind in making gunpower and metal, and would be making inferior firearms until they caught up in the prerequisite areas.

I'm thinking that for quite a while, capturing weapons and ammunition (or, buying these from black markets), will be the more effective way to obtain firearms.

One thing to keep in mind is that the colonization of America happened over several centuries.
The typical image most people think of when they think of the colonization are the British settles on the North American mainland. This happened throughout the 17th century. Yet the discovery of America was in the 15th century and the Spanish conquests of the high cultures happened in the early 16th century.

In that time muskets advanced quite a lot.
Think about it, when Columbus discovered America the 100 year war between England and France in which the Battle of Agincourt was a part of had only been over for 50 years. In Europe pike squares only started to became the premier fighting formations and replace knights. Guns only started to slowly to appear in armies and when Columbus made voyages they were still unreliable and hard to use.
By the time the British settlers arrived muskets had advanced a lot, were much more easy to use and much more widespread.

So when you want to reverse roles, which timeframe do you want to use? The discovery and the first conquest of the Spanish? Then guns wouldn't be much of an advantage and even the natives would primarily use melee weapons and steel armor. If you want to emulate the British Colonization then muskets would indeed be a powerful tool even outside of professional hands which gives a huge advantage.

Thomas Bowman · Aug 7, 2018

Gradine said:
Oh the Dark Ages, probably the most egregious Eurocentrism in world history. Which is a pretty damn high bar, all things considered.

As to the dilemma of the OP, I think the bar is comparatively low when it comes to exploring and playing with historical tropes in a simple home game. My personal belief is that the only two things you really ought to try to do to clear that bar is:
1) Try to be as respectful as possible of the source (both the historical cultures and the modern descendants of said cultures)
2) At the very least, do no harm (as in, do not promote false stereotypes used to justify actual historical atrocities and/or modern-day bigotry)

Again, if we're talking just a home game you've got a lot of leeway there and it ought to be a pretty low bar to clear. It's just that, like [MENTION=6683613]TheCosmicKid[/MENTION], I'm skeptical of both the OP's ability or even desire to clear those bars.

That said, the proposed "role reversal" is not a reversal of "roles" at all. What's being described is exactly what happened historically, you've simply swapped the continents. You've only moved the Christian European imperialists to the Americas and vice versa. Now, you could actually do some interesting things with a premise such as that; a "here is what it's like to be subject to a imperialist subjugative force" type of campaign. But that's a much harder line to tightrope, and would require a lot of nuance and care to pull off. And there are much easier ways to tell that type of story without flipping the historical tables and villainizing cultures that suffered genocide at the hands of the exact same forces.

Again though, it's your home game, low low bar, do what you want. But I'm not seeing many positives to come from pursuing this type of campaign in this type of style.

I don't see any villains here, just two groups of people pursuing their own selfish primitive interests for the most part. in our history, the natives weren't all saints and the colonizers weren't all villains, it is simply that their two interests were incompatible with each other. I bet you a lot of European settlers may have come across the ocean thinking they were doing the natives a favor by brining "civilization" to them, teaching them about Christ and thus saving their souls from eternal damnation. There were Europeans that honestly thought that, it wasn't some gimmick through which they could exploit the natives. Some of the missionary types were truly appalled at what they saw other Europeans doing.

If you reverse the roles, there will be some Indian Missionaries that will be appalled at what other Indians are doing. Both sides have their heroes and villains, so I am not painting one side as "all dark" and the other side as "all light", history doesn't work like that anyway. reversing the roles helps us to get away from those old stereotypes. if you studied this ancient period, you would realize than not everyone was nice or nasty. You might even have a rebellion going on in Egypt, someone trying to lead his people out of bondage perhaps.

Thomas Bowman · Aug 7, 2018

Derren said:
One thing to keep in mind is that the colonization of America happened over several centuries.
The typical image most people think of when they think of the colonization are the British settles on the North American mainland. This happened throughout the 17th century. Yet the discovery of America was in the 15th century and the Spanish conquests of the high cultures happened in the early 16th century.

In that time muskets advanced quite a lot.
Think about it, when Columbus discovered America the 100 year war between England and France in which the Battle of Agincourt was a part of had only been over for 50 years. In Europe pike squares only started to became the premier fighting formations and replace knights. Guns only started to slowly to appear in armies and when Columbus made voyages they were still unreliable and hard to use.
By the time the British settlers arrived muskets had advanced a lot, were much more easy to use and much more widespread.

So when you want to reverse roles, which timeframe do you want to use? The discovery and the first conquest of the Spanish? Then guns wouldn't be much of an advantage and even the natives would primarily use melee weapons and steel armor. If you want to emulate the British Colonization then muskets would indeed be a powerful tool even outside of professional hands which gives a huge advantage.

if I want to keep with a familiar history and setting in the Old World, then the technology would be more in line with that of Columbus that with American Rebels fighting the British for their independence I think. the Indians don't have much democracy, they have strong monarchs taking over direct administration of their lands from vassals, using bureaucrats, and mercenaries in place of knights and nobles. The Aristocracy still exists, but the kings and queens are growing more powerful in relation to them at this time. Kingdoms in the Americas are becoming more centralized in their administration, but it is still a work in progress. the total area of the Americas is larger than that of Europe. Most of the colonizing countries are located in North America however, some of them have colonized South America, and their are ships sailing around South America to get to the West Coast from the East Coast and trade with the exotic cultures there. One thing the Indians aren't accustomed to is encountering different races of humans, they have never seen a Caucasian or an African before, later on when they travel to East Asia they will see people that look more like them.

Riley37 · Aug 7, 2018

Bedrockgames said:
I know this first hand because I see the anxiety on players faces when they feel like they don't know enough to play a character in a historical setting. I also see the wave of relief when they realize I am not going to sit there and make them feel like idiots if they get things wrong or have assumptions that are informed by movies rather than real history.

That's a reasonable concern. I'm glad you're able to put people at ease.

Riley37 · Aug 7, 2018

Thomas Bowman said:
if you studied this ancient period, you would realize than not everyone was nice or nasty.

To me this comes across as talking down, as if you're assuming that Gradine hasn't studied that period, and as if you're assuming that Gradine has an oversimplified view of who's nice and who's nasty.

When people disagree with you, is it always because they're ignorant?

You apparently believe that "villains" and "groups of people pursuing their own selfish primitive interests" are non-overlapping categories. (If so, then I disagree.) Gradine didn't say anything about "villains". How do you know that Gradine sees anyone - individually, or collectively - as villains? What if Gradine is judging the large-scale outcome, which reduced the populations of two continents by a factor of millions, *without* assuming that every individual involved was equally "nasty"? What if Gradine is *already* aware of Bartolomé de las Casas (a Spanish missionary who was appalled)?

I think that you jump to conclusions, in order to dismiss Gradine's position as oversimplified.

I'd rather that you either (a) address the points people make, as such, in their words, on the questions of morals and ethics; or (b) just ignore their opinions and do what you wanna do.

Thomas Bowman · Aug 8, 2018

Riley37 said:
To me this comes across as talking down, as if you're assuming that Gradine hasn't studied that period, and as if you're assuming that Gradine has an oversimplified view of who's nice and who's nasty.

When people disagree with you, is it always because they're ignorant?

You apparently believe that "villains" and "groups of people pursuing their own selfish primitive interests" are non-overlapping categories. (If so, then I disagree.) Gradine didn't say anything about "villains". How do you know that Gradine sees anyone - individually, or collectively - as villains? What if Gradine is judging the large-scale outcome, which reduced the populations of two continents by a factor of millions, *without* assuming that every individual involved was equally "nasty"? What if Gradine is *already* aware of Bartolomé de las Casas (a Spanish missionary who was appalled)?

I think that you jump to conclusions, in order to dismiss Gradine's position as oversimplified.

I'd rather that you either (a) address the points people make, as such, in their words, on the questions of morals and ethics; or (b) just ignore their opinions and do what you wanna do.

Can I disagree with someone's ideas without someone taking it personally?

I'm not saying anything about anybody, merely the subject. Here's the situation, you have two sides, one of them lost, who is morally superior? Who was worse, the victors or the losers?

Whoever loses often end up as the victims of the victors. Neither side is like us. People tend to identify with one side or another, often wrongly.

Riley37 · Aug 8, 2018

Thomas Bowman said:
Can I disagree with someone's ideas without someone taking it personally?

That's a good question. Some people can, some can't. It might depend on how you express disagreement. "if you studied this ancient period..."

Thomas Bowman said:
Here's the situation, you have two sides, one of them lost, who is morally superior?

I have my opinions, but I cannot expect everyone to agree with my opinions on moral superiority.

I think sometimes there's a moral difference between victor and vanquished. So far as I know, when the Third Reich invaded Czechoslovakia, the vanquished was as close to "innocent victim" as ever happens in actual history. Same for the Athenian invasion of Syracuse in 415 BCE. I'm less clear on Octavian versus Anthony.

From what I've read, Columbus treated the Taino much, much worse than they treated him and his crews. Columbus wrote about selling girls aged 9 and 10 as slaves. The Aztec empire practiced slavery and indenture, but what I've read about them doesn't include selling *children* as slaves.

"Neither side is like us." Who is "us"? Some of my ancestors came to the Americas via the Bering Straits, others (much later) over the Atlantic from Europe. I imagine there are EN World participants who have never even visited the Americas. Who do you mean by "us"?

TheCosmicKid · Aug 8, 2018

Riley37 said:
From what I've read, Columbus treated the Taino much, much worse than they treated him and his crews. Columbus wrote about selling girls aged 9 and 10 as slaves. The Aztec empire practiced slavery and indenture, but what I've read about them doesn't include selling *children* as slaves.

Not sure why you're jumping from the Taino to the Aztecs. And you don't want to rest your argument on the claim that the Aztecs weren't so bad, because they really, really were. (On the subject of children... look up "Tlaloc".) The stronger argument is that regardless of how bad the Aztecs were to themselves and to their neighbors, their badness hardly justifies visiting further badness of the same genus upon them. After the fall of the Third Reich (and I make this comparison advisedly), the Allies did not slaughter, enslave, or subjugate the Germans - and to the extent that the Soviets did do that in the East, we think that was a bad thing too.

American Indians Colonize the Old world in 1250 BC

Gradine

The Elephant in the Room (she/her)

tomBitonti

Adventurer

Derren

Hero

Thomas Bowman

First Post

Thomas Bowman

First Post

Riley37

First Post

Riley37

First Post

Thomas Bowman

First Post

Riley37

First Post

TheCosmicKid

Hero

Similar Threads