The reason the entire concept of 'Westerners' exist, is because empires who became dominant in the aforementioned dimensions conquered, subjugated other peoples on the continent, or others were forced to adapt to their standards to avoid the same fate.

In a couple hundred years these populations in many ways were quite indistinguishable from their conquerors, as they adopted their customs and ways of running society.

Many of these conqured peoples while becoming Westernized culturally, didn't escape the yoke of their conquerors until much later.

This process was repeated in Latin America.

I know there are a lot of politically motivated people are interested in simple stories of the virtuous locals versus the evil West, but the same story played out pretty much everywhere over different continents and timeframes.

I'm not sure if Romes conquest of the Gauls was any less brutal than the Spanish conquest of Mexico.

The middle eastern cultures where better at that and that wasnt enough. Its in the ability to peoduce institutions which then produce a tech/power gradient that allows exploitation. Keeping cultures artificially alive that can not do that is artificially prolonging inevitable change.

> better at running civilization

If by 'running' you mean 'colonizing', then yes.

I'm glad you brought up the contrast between the Aztecs and Ottomans - the majority of South America was inhabited by tribes similar to Native Americans in the North.

The Aztecs are noteworthy because of having an empire to conquer.

I am not suggesting that their civilizations did not have artistic or cultural merit, but I think even in a fictional alternate history where the Spanish decided to peacefully trade with Montezuma, I bet a couple hundred years later these people would've had mechanical looms and walked around in tailored suits just the same as their European counterparts.

Not to speak of an what an empire gaing such powerful technologies and ideas about running society would've done to its neighbors.

What a bunch of nonsense. I really urge you to look into more contemporary research on it.

By which measure were they less advanced? Tenochtitlan had a population of north of 200k when the Spanish arrived - bigger than most European cities at that time, bar a couple. When you read the chronicles of the conquistadores you realise how advanced they were in many ways compared with Europeans.

Th Maya were contemporary to and very similar to Greece in many ways - definitely more advanced in some aspects of mathematics and astronomy, and had an extremely complex architecture.

The gap wasn’t so big, and in some cases American cities were even more advanced - probably the complex sanitation system of most mesoamerican cities contributed to the biggest asymmetry of all - European cities were a Petri dish of filth and disease.

No empire in the world would have been able to accomplish what the Spaniards did if the indigenous population of millions decided to put up a strong resistance against them.

The 2014 Ukraine invasion worked because the nation was splintered and demoralized, and the Russians could just roll in and take what tey wanted. The 2022 didn't because the Ukrainians were unified and willing to fight, despite a much higher degree of military readiness on the Russian side.

But going back, over time, the native population became serfs, picked up the language, culture, religion of their conquerors, they even intermarried to a significant degree. Latin America is full of people with both European and native ancestry to some degree.

Yes they were serfs, but so were most European peasants at that time.

And only a couple hundred years later, as the Spanish empire collapsed, these people, culturally Westernized at this point, threw off the yoke and formed their independent countries, with Mexico starting it's own empire.

I just cannot imagine a credible scenario in which even if Western colonial powers didn't manage to conquer the territory of Mexico, they wouldn't have been Westernized to a significant degree, by the Aztec rulers themselves starting a Meiji style modernization.