On Mon, Jan 19, 2004 at 03:12:54PM -0800, David Silberstein wrote: > Yup, yup. I've read /Lies my Teacher Told Me/ and /Guns, Germs and > Steel/, so I know that diseases were very important, probably primary > in decimating the native populations. The thing is, the technology Also "1491" http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/03/mann.htm "A year later [1607] Sir Ferdinando Gorges-British despite his name-tried to establish an English community in southern Maine. It had more founders than Plymouth and seems to have been better organized. Confronted by numerous well-armed local Indians, the settlers abandoned the project within months. The Indians at Plymouth would surely have been an equal obstacle to my ancestor and his ramshackle expedition had disease not intervened." > Yes, I remember that as well. There was a certain amount of > speculation that some of the notions of individual sovreignity among > the early colonists arose because of exposure to the democratic nature > of many of the tribes. Also that the Constitution was based on the constitution of the Iroquois Federation. -xx- Damien X-)