alt Hacker NewsCortez had around 500 men. Even if you get rid of 99% of the local population, which they didn't, they'd have been outnumbered in to an absurd degree.
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narrator • yesterday at 9:20 AM
In the battle of Frankenhausen, Germany, 1525, German peasants went up against armored soldiers and the casualties were 5000 peasants dead vs 6 armored soldiers. The technological advantage before modern firearms for formal armies was enormous, even in Europe, even without the help of imported European diseases.
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jrimbault • yesterday at 9:20 AM
If that's 500 fighting men, that's actually a sizeable army. Especially with no supply train.
An army is more than the number of men around. Losing 99% of the population (or even much less) is instant collapse.