No. I meant the "lead poisoning" remark.
Did you ever really think about the unlikelihood of 180 Spaniards conquering the Inca Empire of supposedly upwards of 16 million inhabitants?
Consider this demonstration.
The Spanish invented the Arquebus which the guy in the baggy pants is using in the 15th century. Of those 180 Spaniards most would not have been arquebusiers. Many would have carried pikes...which on European battlefields were necessary to keep the cavalry from overrunning the gunners between shots.
Worse, and what is not apparent from this video, is the fact that black powder weapons could get horribly fouled after 8-10 shots to the point where they were unusable until cleaned. So to suggest that it was the volume of fire put out by firearms which defeated hordes of Inca is fairly silly.
However, in 1491 by Charles Mann he makes the case that contact with European diseases wiped out up to 90% of the population of the Americas and most Indians were killed long before they ever saw a white man. The diseases spread along internal trading routes from the coasts. Bullshit Spanish propaganda aside their campaign would have been a cakewalk through a landscape devastated by the effects of the plague which preceded them.
That makes a great deal more sense than a handful of Spaniards armed with those weapons conquering a large and vibrant nation at the peak of its power. But, such a story doesn't give proper credit to "god" does it.
Did you ever really think about the unlikelihood of 180 Spaniards conquering the Inca Empire of supposedly upwards of 16 million inhabitants?
Consider this demonstration.
The Spanish invented the Arquebus which the guy in the baggy pants is using in the 15th century. Of those 180 Spaniards most would not have been arquebusiers. Many would have carried pikes...which on European battlefields were necessary to keep the cavalry from overrunning the gunners between shots.
Worse, and what is not apparent from this video, is the fact that black powder weapons could get horribly fouled after 8-10 shots to the point where they were unusable until cleaned. So to suggest that it was the volume of fire put out by firearms which defeated hordes of Inca is fairly silly.
However, in 1491 by Charles Mann he makes the case that contact with European diseases wiped out up to 90% of the population of the Americas and most Indians were killed long before they ever saw a white man. The diseases spread along internal trading routes from the coasts. Bullshit Spanish propaganda aside their campaign would have been a cakewalk through a landscape devastated by the effects of the plague which preceded them.
That makes a great deal more sense than a handful of Spaniards armed with those weapons conquering a large and vibrant nation at the peak of its power. But, such a story doesn't give proper credit to "god" does it.
