East Asian culture and gunpowder spread to the Americas in the 1400s

[Cantankerous]

It's well known that Native American groups in the Americas on the eve of Christopher Columbus' voyages to the Americas in the 1490s had little individual- or population-acquired immunity from European colonizers, leading to more than 90 percent of all indigenous peoples dying as a result of diseases introduced into the Americas by the Europeans.

Let's say that in the early 1400s Chinese, Korean, and Japanese religious missionaries sail to the west coast of North and Central America aboard gigantic Chinese junks to spread Chinese folk religion, Shintoism, and Buddhism to indigenous peoples in western North America and Central America, and stocks of gunpowder and the rocket tubes for gunpowder are hauled into North America aboard those junks. If Native American cultures had acquired gunpowder-filled rockets from the Chinese and adopted the religious and cultural practices of East Asians in the early 1400s as well as the attire worn by people in China, Korea, and Japan, would indigenous peoples in the Americas have had a chance of repelling the conquistadors in the early 1500s and remaining immune to foreign diseases with East Asian clothing? One thing to point out is the fact that the Spanish conquistadors were appalled by human sacrifices conducted by the Aztecs and Incas, so if East Asian culture had diffused into the Americas in the early 1400s, then indigenous peoples would have abandoned the practice of human sacrifice and become converts to Buddhism, Shintoism, and Chinese folk religion.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Looking at the spread of European technology through North America 1500 to 1600, or over two centuries to 1700 we can see small bits of it, like horses, spread swiftly. Other bits like Iron working and large scale use of other metals spread slowly. The jump from a neolithic agrarian culture to a early industrial culture is a large one. Could the Aztec. The post Mayan, orthography Central American cultures assimilated Asian technology as a high enough speed to resist the Europeans in the 16th Century?

Then there's the question of epidemic disease brought from Asia vs Europe. Are the effects of disease imported from Asia much different than from Europe?

[T. A. Gardner]

Outside of the Central American indigenous peoples, and possibly some of the US East Coast tribes, it would make no difference. The plains Indians for example were still just hunter-gatherers. Most of the West Coast tribes were pre-agrarian and lived off hunter-gathering and organized fishing.

The Aztecs and Inca (and associated tribes) were about the only groups that could benefit from this. The problem there was that for the Aztec warfare was ritualized, individual (hero oriented one-on-one if you will), and used specific weapons in an agreed fashion to maximize prisoner / hostage taking. The Maya were already in serious decline by 1400.

The Inca were somewhat the same way, but as an empire they really didn't face any true organized opposition that would make it worthwhile.

In the Southwest US there were agrarian tribes like the Tohono O'than and Navajo that would have seen little value in better weapons as they weren't overly threatened by any other group simply due to the vastness of the land area they occupied.

The most likely way this could occur is that the East Coast tribes begin to interact with Viking parties on a regular basis. They develop metallurgy practices by watching the Vikings. By say, 1500 they can produce bog iron, have improved agriculture as they can clear land, and have developed fortification knowledge on par with the lower end of Europe.
If gunpowder and basic knowledge of firearms had made it to them, they could have resisted more effectively than they did. The problem would be they wouldn't have organized society better so the Europeans would be dealing with the same small tribal system that originally existed.

Then factor in disease. Smallpox wiped out close to 90% of the Mesoamerican population and it only takes one spreader to start that. The tribes in the Amazon basin, now estimated to exceed a million people total, was likewise wiped out by one or two spreaders from Europe.

It's likely the America indigenous population would still meet the same fate they historically did.

[Carl Schwamberger]

...The most likely way this could occur is that the East Coast tribes begin to interact with Viking parties on a regular basis. They develop metallurgy practices by watching the Vikings. By say, 1500 they can produce bog iron, have improved agriculture as they can clear land, and have developed fortification knowledge on par with the lower end of Europe.
If gunpowder and basic knowledge of firearms had made it to them, they could have resisted more effectively than they did. The problem would be they wouldn't have organized society better so the Europeans would be dealing with the same small tribal system that originally existed.

Then factor in disease. Smallpox wiped out close to 90% of the Mesoamerican population and it only takes one spreader to start that. The tribes in the Amazon basin, now estimated to exceed a million people total, was likewise wiped out by one or two spreaders from Europe.

It's likely the America indigenous population would still meet the same fate they historically did.

It really requires a Contact PoD at least 3-4 centuries earlier. However long it takes for immunity to European/Asian Diseases to build, and population to recover to levels where the technology takes hold broadly and deeply enough. Maybe 1100 AD is early enough, maybe not. Now if the Phonecians or Greeks take wild and crazy exploring/colonization to the next level then all bets are off.

[T. A. Gardner]

...The most likely way this could occur is that the East Coast tribes begin to interact with Viking parties on a regular basis. They develop metallurgy practices by watching the Vikings. By say, 1500 they can produce bog iron, have improved agriculture as they can clear land, and have developed fortification knowledge on par with the lower end of Europe.
If gunpowder and basic knowledge of firearms had made it to them, they could have resisted more effectively than they did. The problem would be they wouldn't have organized society better so the Europeans would be dealing with the same small tribal system that originally existed.

Then factor in disease. Smallpox wiped out close to 90% of the Mesoamerican population and it only takes one spreader to start that. The tribes in the Amazon basin, now estimated to exceed a million people total, was likewise wiped out by one or two spreaders from Europe.

It's likely the America indigenous population would still meet the same fate they historically did.

It really requires a Contact PoD at least 3-4 centuries earlier. However long it takes for immunity to European/Asian Diseases to build, and population to recover to levels where the technology takes hold broadly and deeply enough. Maybe 1100 AD is early enough, maybe not. Now if the Phonecians or Greeks take wild and crazy exploring/colonization to the next level then all bets are off.

It also takes far more population pressure than existed other than in Central America and along the Pacific S. American coast. In N. America there was no particular need for better weapons than existed as the population was so spread out that hunter-gathering and isolated agrarian societies worked.

[Carl Schwamberger]

It also takes far more population pressure than existed other than in Central America and along the Pacific S. American coast. In N. America there was no particular need for better weapons than existed as the population was so spread out that hunter-gathering and isolated agrarian societies worked.

Depends on which historical school you follow for North America population pre 1492. At one end you have it placed at as little as three million. At the other forty million. I have not looked at this subject for over two decades and have no idea what the current scholarship is.

[T. A. Gardner]

It also takes far more population pressure than existed other than in Central America and along the Pacific S. American coast. In N. America there was no particular need for better weapons than existed as the population was so spread out that hunter-gathering and isolated agrarian societies worked.

Depends on which historical school you follow for North America population pre 1492. At one end you have it placed at as little as three million. At the other forty million. I have not looked at this subject for over two decades and have no idea what the current scholarship is.

It doesn't matter. The population was so spread out that with only a few exceptions mostly in Central and South America, there was little pressure on any particular social group to innovate to fend off another group. In Central America, the Aztec and other related groups had devised a set of rule of warfare centered around duels between 'heroes' using agreed to weapons thus eliminating the need to develop better ones.

In the Amazon basin, tribes simply lacked access to the raw materials like copper, zinc, or iron, to produce anything better than stone age weapons.

In the US southwest, relatively isolated tribes either were agrarian societies like the Navajo, or T'Onotham. The alternative was raiding as the Apache did. Thus, the agrarian societies built cliff dwelling villages or walled their villages to fend off the raids simply by making it too difficult to carry one out.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Depends on which historical school you follow for North America population pre 1492. At one end you have it placed at as little as three million. At the other forty million. I have not looked at this subject for over two decades and have no idea what the current scholarship is.

It doesn't matter. The population was so spread out that with only a few exceptions mostly in Central and South America, there was little pressure on any particular social group to innovate to fend off another group. ...
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Damm you. that sent me down the rabbit hole of studying population densities over history.

Main thing I learned is the archaeological research of land use in the Americas is a lot less complete than for Europe. I did see the estimates for population density circa 1000 AD in the British isles and Scadinavia were below some North and south American regions like the Pacific North West, extreme southern California, an extreme east edge of Amazonia. Meso America has density estimates comparable to Iberia of 1000 AD, the Iranian plateau, the German language region of Europe. The long running development of a Chaolitihic and Iron Age culture seems to come from the trade interconnecting the cultures running in a east west band from the western edges of Europe to the eastern sea rim of Asia, as far as Maylasia. A secondary north south band extends deep into Africa, Meso America was not part of that. It was effectively isolated, a limited interchange with a very few other populations along the west edge of N America.

[T. A. Gardner]

Damm you. that sent me down the rabbit hole of studying population densities over history.

Main thing I learned is the archaeological research of land use in the Americas is a lot less complete than for Europe. I did see the estimates for population density circa 1000 AD in the British isles and Scadinavia were below some North and south American regions like the Pacific North West, extreme southern California, an extreme east edge of Amazonia. Meso America has density estimates comparable to Iberia of 1000 AD, the Iranian plateau, the German language region of Europe. The long running development of a Chaolitihic and Iron Age culture seems to come from the trade interconnecting the cultures running in a east west band from the western edges of Europe to the eastern sea rim of Asia, as far as Maylasia. A secondary north south band extends deep into Africa, Meso America was not part of that. It was effectively isolated, a limited interchange with a very few other populations along the west edge of N America.

Population density matters. It is often one of the big drivers of warfare which in turn is a big driver of technology. In 1000 AD in Mesoamerica, the Maya were reaching a point where internecine conflict was unraveling their civilization and would ultimately destroy it. We are only now beginning to see just how massive that civilization truly was and how over-population drove warfare between factions in it.

The Aztec were on the edge of a bronze age, but the Spanish put an end to that. Clearly, the Aztec and related tribal factions in Southern Mexico had gotten relatively far in terms of agriculture and social organization. Their style of warfare however was not about conquest but rather about taking prisoners alive to sacrifice in mass, a necessity of their religion. That same thing also limited population growth by offing tens of thousands a year or more.

The N. American mound builders were another possibility, but they to succumbed to over population that caused a collapse of society much like the Maya because they, again, didn't have easy access to many raw resources necessary for a technological revolution.

What the indigenous Americas needed was for say, the Vikings to show up and stay in such a way that they can't conquer the locals but do show them enough technology to make it stick and spread. Then, when foreign nations do show up in greater numbers the locals are at a technological level where they can't be steamrolled in the least.

Of course, mass warfare and disease are still likely to wipe them out in the end.