What happened, from what I've read, is that initial contact put enough European disease into the population that the population and society collapsed; it was thus much easier for Europeans settling here to win.
The Amazon was, allegedly, basically a garden at one point -- the natives the Spanish eventually encountered were just broken remains of a much larger civilization which had been successful and then disappeared.
Comments
What happened, from what I've read, is that initial contact put enough European disease into the population that the population and society collapsed; it was thus much easier for Europeans settling here to win.
The Amazon was, allegedly, basically a garden at one point -- the natives the Spanish eventually encountered were just broken remains of a much larger civilization which had been successful and then disappeared.
http://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-Colum...