American Indians Colonize the Old world in 1250 BC

[Thomas Bowman]

Problem of copying firearms is obtaining materials of sufficient quality, and having manufacturing techniques of similar high enough quality. Firearms require quite high technology (metallurgy in particular, but also in chemistry, and also in mechanisms and machining, and eventually, in repeatable manufacturing processes). Manufacturing firearms will require advancing a sizable industrial base.

Thx!
TomB

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.

 

[Thomas Bowman]

I think this would be a fun idea for a campaign. But I also think a lot of folks are taking something that should really be a fun and engaging thought exercise, counterfactual history, and turning it into something of a misery. People are going to approach this with different levels of mastery of the subject, with different assumptions, and they are naturally going to overlook things other people might see. But it completely drains the enthusiasm out of the experience, by using the discussion to position yourself as the smartest guy in the room at other peoples' expense. In counterfactual history there are not always clear answers, and people can reach wildly different conclusions, which is half the fun. Especially if the end goal is just a campaign or game book and not a history paper.

To the OP, I'd say run with this concept and explore counterfactual history for inspiration if you need it.

Thanks, I appreciate that.

 

[Thomas Bowman]

Its not a matter of labor force but of skill and knowledge.
I do not know how the metallurgic skill of the high cultures in America, Inca, Maya, Aztec would compare to 1200BC Europe. Considering their jewellery they must have known smelting so maybe them not using bronze much might just have been an issue of availability.
The tribal natives in North America probably didn't know how to work metal at all.

In Europe in this setting it would be similar. The big nations around the Mediterranean, the Greek states, Persia, Egypt and the Phoneticians probably would be able to at least create hand cannons or maybe even a mortar considering their skill in bronze working. Everything north of them is very unlikely to possess the skill to do anything.
The real problem would be the availability of gunpowder. If the Natives sell it in good quantity some nation in Europe will at least experiment with them. If it is scare then probably no one will bother or even realize what it is.

You know the Indians are necessarily all unified, there will be rival Indian Nations just like there were rival European Nations. Some Indian Nations might not want other Indians Nations to succeed in their colonization plans, and of course there will be independent traders seek profits, they might sell their skills to the Egyptians for some gold.

 

[Greg K]

I forgot about the N-S alignment problem. But I thought that the New World plants were less desirable than what was available elsewhere, in particular, wheat.

Thx!

Sort of. The advantages of Eurasian founder crops were a) the Mediterranean climate which resulted in plants not wasting their energy on the development of non-edible fibrous parts, but required them to grow fast, and produce big seeds (which happened to be more useful to humans); b) the ancestors of these founder crops were all abundant and productive meaning that it was useful dedicating energy to collect as there was more than enough to store; c) all of the first eight founder crops of Eurasia were hermaphroditic self pollinators including the three cereals; and d) of the cereals, wheat is high in protein.

Rice and early corn in the New World were much less convenient and they were both low in protein which meant that they posed nutritional issues. Teosinte, the ancestor of corn, was much smaller than what we know today as corn. It also had a hard inedible covering which meant energy was wasted removing that covering was the size of one's thumb. It took a long time before corn became useful to the diet of Native Americans.

While Native Americans in Eastern North America had squash as a founder crop, its other founder crops were sunflower, sumpweed and goosefoot. Sumpweed was apparently had good protein value, but it had drawbacks such as causing hayfever and skin irritation according to Diamond This posed problems. First in terms of nutritional value the package was incomplete requiring North American Native Americans to rely on fishing and hunting. Second, the major indigenous crops of Eastern North America were hard to exploit and still are in the 20th Century according to Diamond (the difficulty is why Native Americans of Eastern North America eventually abandoned them for the "trinity").

Speaking of the trinity, Mexican crops started to arrive to Native Americans in the Eastern North America by 1AD, but they didn't have the complete trinity (beans, corn, and squash until 1100 AD when "modern' corn arrived. This put intensive food production far behind both Meso and South America let alone Europe and, thus, behind in other areas that arise with intensive food production.

 

[Greg K]

With regard to technology, the E-W axis of Eurasia was such as boon compared to the N-S axis of the Americas. This was not just in terms of the food production (and its diffusion) according to Diamond, but also in terms of the diffusion of technology and innovation. The N-S axis of the Americas and its geography provided greater barriers to the diffusion of innovations of technology and ideas as it did food production.

 

[Greg K]

One other thing to consider is motivation. First, as explained to me in an Ancient Histories class, European Christianity went through a change between surviving both the Crusades and the Black Death. First, people saw themselves favored by God. Second, Christianity had become more militant and expansionist after Pope Urban II called people 'to take up the Cross". Religion was a good guise for those seeking adventure, fame, fortune, and/or land.
The other motivation was due to more widespread literacy due to printing. Written accounts provided motivation to go to new places as well as direction on how to get there. Plus, sailing technology ( along with other factors) had improved since the Vikings went to Iceland and the New World.

Anyway, I will leave it to others here more knowledgeable on this to correct me and/ or expand on this.

 

[trancejeremy]

A few years ago I read an interesting book called "Sky People" by Ardy Sixkiller Clarke, which was written by an American Indian woman who traveled throughout Central America collecting stories about UFOs. Basically a recurring theme to the stories was that many people thought their ancestors were from another planet in space who seemingly stranded them on Earth.

(You actually saw this in the original Battlestar Galactica, that some of the ancient Earth cultures weren't helped by aliens, but actually were aliens)

Anyway, just for the sake of story, let's say that's true, that they were alien colonists, but instead of all their equipment and such being lost in say a crash, they kept some of it?

 

[Riley37]

People are going to approach this with different levels of mastery of the subject, with different assumptions, and they are naturally going to overlook things other people might see.

I'll suspend disbelief at various levels for various purposes. I enjoy Far Side cartoons in which cave-men co-exist with stegosaurus (and the Thagomizer). I've played D&D characters who could *reliably* expect that after falling fifty feet, they'd be able to stand up and fight (and/or sprint). I am not clear on the appropriate level of internal consistency for this thread, which starts with imagery from a dream.

There's a difference between asking from ignorance - "what do you think would happen? or "here's an idea, is it plausible?" - versus bold declarations made without fact-checking.
For example, the assertion that Custer's soldiers used muzzle-loading weapons. Would you say such a thing, without checking that it was true?

Who cares? Well, the idea that Indians (aka Native Americans, aka First Peoples, aka Trans-Bering Americans) were "savage" and "primitive" has been used to justify... you can call it conquest, or you can call it genocide, or Manifest Destiny, as you please. So people with differing agendas, on that topic, tell different stories of how the Lakota won at Little Bighorn. So it's related to touchy topics.

The assertion that "Indians" (aka Native Americans, aka First Peoples) didn't have the organization to build pyramids, can also fall on touchy ground. Does "Indian" include all the Trans-Bering peoples, including the Maya, Olmec, Nahuatl and Aztecs, and thus the builders of the Pyramid of the Sun at Tenochtitlan? Or does it only mean those who lived (and some who still live) in what's now Canada and the USA? Thomas Bowman's "the typical image of an American Indian was one of a warrior with face paint, buffalo hide clothing, moccasins, and a feathered head dress" sounds more Lakota than Aztec. (Also more Lakota than Hopi, Ohlone, Inuit, Algonquin or Chinook, unless any of those had access to buffalo hide.)

So I held off on the question of history, and simply gave my answer to the question of whether this could be a TRPG that I'd want to play. (And sparked a reference to the Sea Peoples - which is effectively an in-joke, among those of us familiar with the history of Egypt around 1250 BCE.) I'm kinda biting my tongue, on some other points.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

So people with differing agendas, on that topic, tell different stories of how the Lakota won at Little Bighorn.

You can't always blame differing agendas. Lakota who were at the battle tell different stories of how the Lakota won at Little Bighorn. Really soured me on the reliability of eyewitness accounts and oral history, that.

Does "Indian" include all the Trans-Bering peoples, including the Maya, Olmec, Nahuatl and Aztecs, and thus the builders of the Pyramid of the Sun at Tenochtitlan? Or does it only mean those who lived (and some who still live) in what's now Canada and the USA?

Even up north, you've got big monumental works like Cahokia and Serpent Mound.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So I held off on the question of history, and simply gave my answer to the question of whether this could be a TRPG that I'd want to play. (And sparked a reference to the Sea Peoples - which is effectively an in-joke, among those of us familiar with the history of Egypt around 1250 BCE.) I'm kinda biting my tongue, on some other points.

I majored in history so I appreciate where you are coming from, but I also think this kind of attitude does a lot more harm to clarifying peoples misconceptions about history than good. And to be clear, I am not claiming to be particularly knowledgeable about Native American History (so I am not making any assertions about the history itself here). My point is more about the attitude and the lines of attack people often bring into these discussions and what I see pretty prevalent here. Absolutely not saying you have to play a table top RPG you regard as historically inaccurate, or culturally insensitive. I just don't see what is gained by lording one's historical knowledge over a poster who is just trying to make a setting. If the concern is you feel Thomas has a troubling set of assumptions about the history of Native Americans, I am not seeing how an approach that feels like ridicule is going improve that. And I still think we have to allow people the freedom to set the accuracy bar where they want it in their own games and books. I think it really kills peoples interest in history when folks comb over the details like that. And I do understand this particular topic has more sensitivities around it, but I've seen just as heavy flame threads on the topic of Romans and Celts or even something fairly mundane and boring like medieval textiles. And just to be clear here, I am not defending every historical assertion Thomas has made (I've barely had an interest in most of the posts in the thread). I am responding more to the general reaction. Getting snarky about the potato (and not saying you didi this), isn't going to spark more curiosity about New World trade goods.

It is the same sort of attitude I see kill efforts to run historical games. 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. And once they are relaxed, their interest in learning about the subject in more details is a lot stronger. I just think this whole approach, which isn't just about this thread but something I see in gaming threads about history all the time, does way more to deter interest in history than encourage it. And it makes our handling of history in games pretty dry and uninteresting.