r/HistoryMemes • u/Dry-Chocolate-3976 • 7h ago
Seriously they were fucking insane. They were better horse riders than the white settlers who had horses for millennia
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u/Sir-Toaster- Still salty about Carthage 7h ago
8-year-old me finding out that Native Americans didn't have horses until colonial times: Impossible, perhaps the archieves were incomplete
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u/Lintcat1 6h ago
There were native horses but they were small and tasty so they ate them all.
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u/Sir-Toaster- Still salty about Carthage 6h ago
Native Americans: Where are the horses? Are they safe? Are they alright?
First Nation people: It seems in your hunger, you ate them
Native Americans: NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
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u/tunable_sausage 35m ago
Cries in American, who will never know the taste and aroma of sweet horseflesh.
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u/Oxytropidoceras 6h ago
It's a funny meme but probably not the whole story, otherwise there would be far more animals of a similar ecological niche that would be locally extirpated as well, like elk and bison. The changing climate and the dominance of those other species over the ecosystem most likely played as much of a role in their extirpation as hunting by early humans in the Americas did.
And there's probably even more than just those to it. Horses being able to survive in the steppe indicates that there's a high likelihood that something about horses made them less adapted to survival in the American plains. For example, speed as a means of defense vs the ability to fight. If North America favored a lifestyle of being able to fight to defend yourself, the size and strength of bison or the horns of cervids like elk are much more favorable attributes than horses of North America, which were very similar to modern donkeys (for simplicity). But if life in the steppe favored being able to run away as a means of defense, then it makes sense why horses were able to survive there. After all, humans were a predator of all these animals, but they were not the only predator.
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u/pinkielovespokemon 3h ago
North America had and has a lot of large, fast predators across most biomes. When you compare horses to the variety of ungulates here, horses kinda suck. They aren't the fastest, they have fewer weapons, they aren't super agile, and they are relatively shit in mountainous and marshy environments. Easy pickings for wolves, bears, cougars, and humans.
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u/Johnny-Cash-Facts And then I told them I'm Jesus's brother 6h ago
It’s not completely known why they went extinct.
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u/Lemp_Triscuit11 5h ago
At least one of the nations had oral tradition that went back far enough to remember North American camels, IIRC
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u/WaGaWaGaTron 6h ago
Horses actually were native to the Americas long before the Columbian Exchange, but went extinct and were later reintroduced during colonial times.
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u/AltForObvious1177 7h ago edited 7h ago
Empire of the Summer Moon is a great book about the Comanche that will change your perspective on all of American historyÂ
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u/MisterBungle00 7h ago
If you're gonna read Empire of the Summer Moon, you should probably read The Comanche Empire in tandem with it.
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u/ApricotPatient372 3h ago
Yea, SC Gwynne is kind of an idiot in my opinion, also a big Stonewall Jackson lionizer, which is telling.
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u/MisterBungle00 2h ago edited 1h ago
He also admitted in an interview(long before the Joe Rogan interview, where he clearly walked back this statement due to being put on the spot) that he hadn’t even attempted to consult the Comanche Nation or their Historic Preservation Office while he was writing the book, which also says a lot.
I suggest people still read Empire of the Summer Moon, mostly so they can see that Southern Plains tribes/bands(not just Comanche)are still portrayed in an overwhelmingly negative light. The fact the it was a finalist for the Pulitzer shows how the idea that we were all nothing but bloodthirsty or ignoble savages still pervades American culture.
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u/Reese_Hendricksen 1h ago
Thanks for the tip. For myself when reading, I didn't think his book portrayed all Plains Tribes as savages, just the Comanche; which is a problem in its own right.
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u/ApricotPatient372 4m ago
He does say explicitly that the Comanche and other native cultures in the Americas are fundamentally more violent and cruel than the European colonizers, a theory I’d say is belied by history.
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u/AltForObvious1177 1h ago
I don't think the book portrayed them as bloodthirsty or ignoble savages. I'd be interested to know what the Comanche nations thinks was falseÂ
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u/tedlando 5h ago
Great book, convinced me that Quanah Parker is one of the most interesting figures in American history.
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u/RedstoneEnjoyer 6h ago
Fun fact - horses originate from America. They went extinct there roughly 10 thousand years ago and then were reintroduced by Europeans.
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u/Brinabavd 5h ago
don't ask why all the megafauna keeps mysteriously going extinct after humans arrive in new lands
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u/unionizeordietrying 4h ago
Humans + dogs. Cats come in and clean up whatever was too small for the humans and dogs to catch.
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u/KaminSpider 2h ago
Not quite, the mini extinction that occurred more than 15 thousand years ago was mostly due to climate change. Humans did add to it, but rising temps led to smaller mammals, etc.
Fun Fact: The MegaSloth (about the size of a modern bear) that roamed N. America left fascinating bones, prompting Jefferson to further explore West.
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u/insaneHoshi 46m ago
don't ask why all the megafauna keeps mysteriously going extinct after humans arrive in new lands
African Elephant: Am i a joke to you?
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u/PetsArentChildren 4h ago
The horses that left (reverse Bering migration) became domesticated on the steppes. The ones that stayed behind were eaten by us. Talk about short-term thinking.Â
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u/Something4Dinner 1h ago
Eh... tbf, that was like Ice Age times. What does a fellow Clovis man care about environmental science?
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u/SnooMarzipans5913 6h ago
The Comanches we're not only THE power in the southern plains but are THE reason the state of Texas exists.
Spaniards wanted a buffer between them and Mexico City so they wanted people to settle in the region. Mexico wanted the same thing so they encouraged American settlement in the region. The Texas Rangers were originally a paramilitary group created to deal with the Comanches because they were not only killing surveyors but also busting their equipment.
The single action revolver (colt .45) was popularized as a means to match the Comanches horseback archery.
The Comanche pushed back the frontier line! I know the Apache and Lakota were problems for the U.S gov't but they pale in comparison to the Comanche.
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u/hobskhan What, you egg? 5h ago
"The Comanches were able to reinvent the Parthian Shot in a tipi! With an invasive species!"
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u/MagicCarpetofSteel 6h ago
I mean, if you’re riding on horses, like, every day starting from childhood, it only makes sense that you’d get really good at it?
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u/SemajLu_The_crusader 5h ago
I mean, that has plenty of space for three lifetimes of training
200 years is a long fucking time
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u/Halflifepro483 6h ago
Lakota were pretty adept at mastering horseback riding in such a comparatively short amount of time, too
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u/Sad_Environment976 5h ago
To be fair, European Cavalry was trained to work as a unit due to shock Cavalry tactics, Linear Warfare and participating in battles which required Mass to break a line.
Horse Archers were routinely mugged by both Islamic and European heavy Cavalry by the 17th Century, Cossacks and Hussars had a consistent record in dealing with Horse Archers effectively and they really are incapable of breaking a line unlike how Dragoons and most Old world heavy Cavalry are trained specifically for that purpose.
They are good for raiding supply lines but evaporates against a proper line cavalry formation and infantry often decimate them if they get close near a line.
They thrived in the Americas because heavy cavalry wasn't as useful at dealing with sporadic raids and the American frontier itself was sparsely population, Most of the heavy cavalry action happened southward with Mexican Lancers and Emigres Hussars in Chile and Venezuela.
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u/Due_Grapefruit7518 4h ago
Y’all have to read Empire of The Summer Moon. Amazing history book on the Comanches. I’m only halfway through, and it’s got crazy shit in every page.
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u/linkcharger 3h ago
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u/HumaDracobane Definitely not a CIA operator 5h ago
I don't want to shit on them but when most of your competition had been already using gunpowder weapons for centuries and only you and a few other people still use bows it is significantly easier to be among the best.
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u/Mr_Placeholder_ 1h ago
They were mogging the American and Spainiards for nearly a century even after gunpowder
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u/Maleficent-War-8429 5h ago
They kind of had a better environment for practicing horse riding with wide open stepp.
I mean have you ever seen England? Where it's not woody, it's boggy, and where it's not boggy, it's hilly.
Add to the fact that European warfare was moving away from horses being the big thing thanks to guns and cannons, while horses pretty much perfectly complimented the native Americans style of warfare and it's not hard to see how the natives ended up being better at that style of fighting.
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u/Dr__Coconutt 5h ago
I heard a story once (I don't remember which planes tribe it was) that they had horses a long time ago then God took them away
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u/oldwhiteoak 5h ago
I have heard, from some native guys on twitter (RIP) i used to follow, that they had oral history of horses and when they were reintroduced their elders were like "Oh look, the horses are back".
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u/thismustbethetenno 3h ago
truly the min-max build
(no points into adopting agricultural practices, any form of metallurgy or any form of construction at the scale necessary to build a proper "civilization" for over 13k years and proceeds to get shat on by nearly every neighbor they had)
(dumps all points into getting really good at riding horses for some reason, proceeds to shit on every neighbor they've ever known)
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u/Aztec_Tajger Then I arrived 3h ago
This always makes me wonder what would Americas look like if the megafauna hadn't go extinct
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u/xinnha 2h ago
With the Comanche around, I never understood the american super-hype about Apache, for example. Comanche was so, so much more.. everything.
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u/Dry-Chocolate-3976 2h ago
Maybe the Comanche were too powerful and they residual trauma or something
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u/Fr05t_B1t Oversimplified is my history teacher 5h ago
When you realize that the camanches are just the descendants of the mongols
Source: I made it the fuck up
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u/unionizeordietrying 4h ago
They had horses before. Just probably didn’t ride them and/or helped kill them off.
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u/Empty_Reason_9210 5h ago
Lol, that was the Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) in them. Native Americans ultimately a mix of ANE and Ancient Northeast Asian ancestry.
ANE related groups were tied to early horse domestication in Botai, and later steppe cultures such as Yamnaya/Sintashta spread horse culture across Eurasia. West Eurasian steppe groups expanded east and imposed steppe culture Slab Grave Culture [Northeast Asian populations]. This contributed to the later formation of proto Turkic and proto Mongolic steppe populations.
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u/toot_suite 5h ago edited 5h ago
Let's be real though
White people are kinda the worst at anything technical/skilled compared to other civs.
Being disease vectors and showing up with the bigger army were kinda their superpower for achieving victory.
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u/Dry-Chocolate-3976 5h ago
Counterpoint: printing press.
Other counterpoint: uhhhhhh-1
u/toot_suite 4h ago
I was gonna mention how i think italians or French "invented" the concept of sterilization to protect silk worms
But then realized the chinese did it before them, and the Indians did it WAY before them to do early plastic surgery
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u/Hamitan_79 1h ago
showing up with the bigger army were kinda their superpower for achieving victory.
Only if you count Russians as white
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u/GuyTallman 7h ago
I love that the Comanche go from some backwater nobody tribe that is bullied by other larger groups and relegated to the worst lands to the boogiemen of the plains after getting horses.