Introduction
In the 1530s, the Inca Empire was in South America which was spread from Colombia to Chile. Their population was 16 million and they had a lot of gold. A group of 168 people came through a ship from Spain wanted to steal their gold surprisingly a handful of Spanish people attacked and killed 2,000 guards of the Inca Empire at once. Seeing this, the remaining 80,000 guards surrendered in front of the Spanish people. The question is why the 80,000 guards of Inca could not attack the 168 people of Spain?
The reason for this is guns and steel. The Spanish people had steel armor and guns and the guards of the Inca Empire had quilt armor and bow and arrow to fight. Why was it that the Spanish people only had guns and steel and the Inca Empire did not?
You must have read in history that the Europeans occupied India, America, China and Southeast Asia and that is why they consider themselves superior races.
Why did the Europeans become conquerors?
The reason for this is not racial superiority or intelligence, The reason for this is geography. This geographical advantage started when humans gradually shifted from hunter-gatherer to agriculture. This made it easier for humans to settle and enabled women to have more children. To feed the extra population, food also started coming from agriculture due to which people started choosing diverse occupations and technology developed due to this. Now it sounds like this has happened naturally all over the world
But to do agriculture on a large scale you need climate, land and animals, The people of Eurasia had natural advantages in these matters. If you look at the world map the horizontal expanse of Eurasia is larger as compared to America and Africa
In the horizontal direction, the climate does not fluctuate much but in the vertical direction it does, If you travel from Mexico to Canada then the climate can fluctuate from plus 40 to minus 10 degrees. If you travel from Europe to Asia then the climate will have a maximum of 20 degrees difference. Therefore, a crop that can be grown in Europe can also be grown in Turkey. The nutrients of the crops found in Eurasia were also better than those of other continents.
For agriculture, you need the right climate and domestic animals. There are only 14 animals in human history that can be domesticated 13 of them are found only in Asia. One animal was Lama in South America. The rest were just wild animals which were not easy to domesticate Zebras and elephants look innocent but it is not possible to domesticate them on a large scale Due to the extreme climate variation of Africa animal domestication and crop production was difficult The horizontal landmass of Eurasia was perfect for large-scale agriculture because of which cultures, mega cultures and empires were formed in Asia and technology was developed rapidly
How Europe Became Conquerors
To become conqueror the right set of conditions technology and diverse population are required.
The Spanish used guns and steel. Gunpowder was invented in China 2000 years ago and after 1000 years, it was used in portable guns Steel making technology was invented in the Indian subcontinent
These two technologies reached Europe through Silk route trading and Mongol Invasions. Continents like America, South Africa and Australia due to the ocean body between the two continents these technologies were not able to reach these continents
Finally, Europeans introduced this technology in these continents. There were many natural barriers in Europe such as mountains, rivers due to which multiple empires were formed and due to competition among themselves rulers rapidly adopted this technology
Asia, particularly China’s empires were very large and didn’t face much competition due to which they neither developed technology nor explored other lands beyond the oceans, For example, in the 16th century where Europeans were starting to explore China’s rulers abandoned their ships. In India, where Chola rulers had a well-established navy later due to fighting among themselves they were not able to explore other continents beyond South Asia Where India, China and Middle East rulers did not develop these technologies and kept fighting among themselves. Europeans developed these technologies through scientific discoveries one by one and occupied many continents
One more important factor which was in favor of Eurasians, was Germs, Due to contact with animals initially diseases started to spread among Eurasians, Slowly slowly they developed immunity but when Eurasians came in contact with African, Australian or American their immunity was not so developed and due to diseases native population started to die Europeans got natural advantage over native population when coulombs reached Americas their native population was 100 million but due to diseases like smallpox, influenza, typhus 95% of their population died
You must have read in ancient history that civilizations generally developed near rivers. Throughout history, geography was an important factor of civilization or empire’s superiority and greatness. You can still see the effect of all these top richest people in the world are either from Europe or America.