Originally posted by Alxandro
Geez, what is it with the Europeans' thirst for conquest of the Anericas?
France invaded Canada, England went into the US, Spain into Mexico and Portugal into Brazil.
But all we always hear about is how the early Americans killed of the Native Americans.

Well, actually the French got along pretty well with the locals...you know, in a relationship like that, anyway. And you can pretty well thank the Church. For better or worse, it cared more about saving the souls of the 'savages' than it did about extinguishing them. All the parties took sides as they were divvying up the continent.

As far as Mexico goes, it's pretty well been shown that these large complex societies had little respect for the average Joe, so you can bet that they melted back into the jungle the first opportunity. They got tired of being 'stinkards'.

Leave???? The population vs FOOD was the problem.. The population was too large to sustain they must have run out of food....I dare anyone to come up with a better explanation... If all of them could eat, why would they leave?

Originally posted by etombo
Leave???? The population vs FOOD was the problem.. The population was too large to sustain they must have run out of food....I dare anyone to come up with a better explanation... If all of them could eat, why would they leave?

These large centres were pretty well meant as ceremonial sites, and largely occupied by a priest/ruling class...supported by regular folks. As such, society was highly stratified and those on the bottom laboured to support those on the top. Many parallels can be drawn using the historical remains of the Mississippian culture in the southern US.

Bottom line is that people get tired of being abused and once the upper class are shown to be mortal by being pulped by conquistadores, the smart ones are going to head for the hills and jungles where there is plenty of food.

...and there are plenty of Mayans out there today...just look for that singular facial profile, and there they are!

Originally posted by soothsayer
The clerics were so amazed, in fact, that they decreed the Mayans as devil worshippers, for only the Devil could have told them of such things. The Spanish started to systematicly destroy Mayan texts and books, and the slaughter of people, to keep the heathen teachings down.

This reminds me of what happened to the Pagans, they would not embrace the "new religion, Christianity" , from 20 AD to around 500 AD 99.9% of all Pagan text was destroyed, thousands Pagans were starved or murdered in that period. I have followed John Lash's work on the Gnostic's for years, he has done meticulous research in Belgium for over 20 years at a library near there that has facsimiles of what is left of the Pagan writings. The Pagan's were Cosmologist and Astronomers who discovered we lived in a Galaxy, it wasn't until the thirties and Hubel that we kniew that.
www.metahistory.org

The mayans were not nearly as centrally organized as many would like to think. The other sedentary groups in pre-columbian latin america, such as the incas and aztecs, were far more socially and "economically" centralized than the Mayas. By the time of the 3rd and 4th conquests, done by Montejo's son, there was not much Mayan civilization left undisturbed, especially in the Yucatan. Due to drought, illness, war (both against the spaniards and amongst themselves), and other effects of Spanish conquest, the population of native Mayans declined sharply, and the few that were left were converted or assimilated into the new colonial era. It's very similar to what happened with the native americans up here in North America. Contrary to popular ATS belief, they did not just up and "disappear", well, no more so than many other native cultures demolished by or enveloped into modern living.

They appear to have just abandonen their cities. As famine and drought brought down the organized cities the farmers somehow survived - or others from farther afield took over the lands. Some cities lasted longer some collapsed immediately some lasted a few centuries.

When I worked around Merida and points to the SE the various Maya (the 'western' educated ones) had a deep interest in their past.

So, they are still there-as are the cities.

There are still Mayans today. They didn't dissipate, they left.

It's like coming to Pennsylvania and saying all the indians disappeared. They didn't, they just went somewhere else because the whites pushed them westward (or killed them, in which case then yes I guess some did disappear.)