Posted on 12/20/2011 8:28:04 AM PST by fireforeffect
Chart of Mega-Deaths or Multicides in human history, with one exception. The Holocaust.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Read recently that there have been 250 million killed as a result of Muslim expansion since its beginnings approximately 630 AD. This is no where on the graph. Look at that number compared to the crusades. Strange thing about the crusades many of the deaths were not battle related, and many were fellow Christians in Constantinople that were killed as the crusaders passed through.
If Martel the Hammer had not stopped Islam at the Battle of Tours in 732 AD, all of Europe would have fallen under its rule.
The crusades were to take back the holy lands from those who had invaded and conquered formerly Christian nations.
Also remember that the final conquest of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire)was shortly before 1492, when Constantinople fell and was renamed Istanbul.
Our country is the direct result of Europe looking west to find a shorter route to the Indies. The major reason was to avoid the enormous additional cost of imported goods from the east. Muslims controlled the trading routes and added cost at every turn to goods that were headed west. They also controlled Greece and a lot of eastern European nations under the Ottoman Empire..
How many people were forced to convert to Islam or die. Of course the "People of the Book" (Christians and Jews) were allowed to live as third class members of Islamic society. Iranians (Persians),who are not Arabs, had their own religion, and at one time Persia had a Jewish queen. How many Christians and Jews eventually converted after years of being a virtual slave to Islam, or died because they were perceived as insulting Islam?
Side Note: Funny thing our first senator from Florida, David Yulee Levy had a father who was raised in a Moroccan harem. David was born in the Caribbean, and eventually became a wealthy man. He changed his last name to Yulee after our county was named after him. The Confederate treasury eventually ended up at his plantation in Archer, FL, but shortly disappeared
15 million for the conquest of the Americas? Speculative at best.
If you include the Aztecs killed by disease from the Spaniards and those europeans my ancestors got, maybe.
Or the Philippine-American War from 1899.
There were never enough Spaniards in the Americas to kill even a small number of people.
Earlier folks pointed to Smallpox as a possibility for the widespread deaths, but more recently they've pointed to HANTA VIRUS. It is native to the entire planet. It comes and goes with droughts.
It can easily kill tens of millions of people in their prime of life leaving the elderly and small children behind to fend for themselves as best they can.
Coming as it did on the heels of one of the greatest mass deaths in human history (plague of justinian AND an unknown but quite potent weather anomaly that affected the Chinese core civilization, Central Asia and Western Europe) the Moslem “conquest” was a lot less bloody than they’d have liked. Just not as many people to kill ~
Current opinion is that a hanta virus epidemic killed tens of millions of Indians.
Might put this in your future notes, that's probably what was killing off the Jamestown settlers (plus some other stuff), and what kept any large scale European settlements from being made on the American continental mainlands until the 1600s.
Even the Spanish focused almost entirely on the islands in the 1500s ~ and if you read their journals you find out that they knew about the disease ravaging the land.
Not really true. While England had no successful settlements till then, the Spanish were all over Central and South America. The Islands were very largely abandoned by the Spanish after the first two or three decades of the 1500s due to the incredible opportunities on the mainland.
However, after the initial looting the mainland colonies went through an extended economic depression that lasted most of the 16th century, due primarily to the ongoing depopulation caused mainly, though not exclusively, by Eurasian diseases.
One of the major killers in Mexico during the mid to late 16th century was cocoliztli, which some believe is hantavirus or something similar. But nobody knows for sure.
When King Philippe II/III crammed down the Treaty of London on all his enemies and allies, settlements could be developed.
However, prior to that Spanish settlements on the mainlands were small and few in number. Spanish power in the Americas was seen mostly on the islands.
The Portuguese had no problem bringing in slaves to replace Indians ~ but in 1535 Spain took over Portugual and ended that for a while. That's what probably killed the economies ~ but I'll go further in this, there was nothing terribly important happen in the Americas beyond gold-mining until nearly the end of the 17th century. With the Thirty Years War out of the way, and Europes return to a growth economy, they had the resources to subsidize American ventures.
The 1700s are big time here with American born European origin populations rapidly achieving near European sizes ~ but not densities.
In North America absolutely correct.
Central and South America were a whole other story. The annual Treasure Fleet to bring back the bullion from the New World started in 1566, largely because the Spanish were forced to convoy by pirates and buccaneers.
Very little of the wealth it transported came from the islands. It came from Peru (mostly from Potosi, founded in 1546) and Mexico (mostly Zacatecas, founded about the same time)
Meanwhile Cuba, Hispaniola and Jamaica were largely depopulated by Spanish colonists moving to the Spanish Main, leaving Jamaica vulnerable to the English and western Hispaniola to the French.
“due primarily to the ongoing depopulation caused mainly, though not exclusively, by Eurasian diseases.”
I read fairly recently that the worst plague was not brought by the Spaniards at all, but was endemic to the area.
Wish I could find that again.
Didn’t see China’s Tai Ping rebellion, either.
“Didn’t see China’s Tai Ping rebellion, either.”
Under “Civil Wars.” 20 million.
As far as North America (North of Mexico) no one really knows what the Spanish were up to but there were Spaniards and allies all over the place ~ maybe more than 20,000 people by the mid 1600s.
As far as developing South America was concerned, Argentina was still killing off Indians to open up lands for Italian and Spanish settlers in the early 1900s. There were VAST areas totally unsettled or developed throughout all of South America. In fact, there still are empty places.
Ever check out Canada North of Winipeg? That was Chile South of Santiago ~
“Didn’t see China’s Tai Ping rebellion, either.”
Under “Civil Wars.” 20 million.”
Thanks.
More like 40 million, though.
You’d have to kill every Indian alive in the 16th and 17th centuries to get to 15 million, much less 100 million.
See post 29. Like most attempts to reconstruct epidemic effects from centuries ago, these claims are speculation.
However, while the disease organism itself may have been endemic, it does not appear to have ever struck before (or since for that matter), which indicates something about the Spanish invasion may have contributed to it breaking out.
The most common opinion is that it was hantavirus, which is found all over the world but seldom affects humans, certainly not in epidemic form.
But when hanta does hit, it is remarkably deadly. Killed my sister’s best friend in CO. Dead less than 36 hours after symptoms started, and probably less than four days after exposure. Symptoms somewhat similar to Ebola. Very nasty.
Suggest you read 1491 by Charles Mann. In 1500 it is likely the population of Mexico alone was 25M or more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_population#Population_overview
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/1491/2445/
In any event, the wilderness with only occasional small Indian villages seen by the first explorers in most areas was not what had been there in 1500. In most areas, they saw the rough equivalent of what America might look like 50 or 100 years after a nuclear war had destroyed 75% to 95% of the population.
In 1540 Desoto explored the lower Mississippi valley. He described numerous populous cities, with several to be seen in the distance from each.
In the 1680s La Salle explored the same area. He described what was essentially wilderness, with occasional small primitive villages.
Nope. The Manila galleons sailed back and forth across the Pacific. They carried spices, silks, porcelain from the Orient to Mexico and returned with silver from Mexico and Peru to pay for it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manila_galleon
Anson captured one of the westbound galleons in 1743. It was loaded with silver and was one of the greatest prizes of all time. Individual sailors received 20 years wages as prize money. Officers of course got a great deal more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Anson%27s_voyage_around_the_world
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