I’m pretty sure it happened many times? Not all cultures are rampaging hordes like the west Europeans, though even then given enough time and contact conflict becomes more likely to arise.
For essentially peaceful first contacts, the Chinese treasure fleets of the Ming Dynasty come to mind. They sent out their voyages six times, traveling around the southeast Asia and the Indian ocean (to India, Arabia, east Africa, and Iran). They had varying degrees of prior contact with many of those they visited, but further out as they went further west and south they only knew the routes. Other than some minor anti-piracy activity, overthrowing a Sri Lankan king who was engaging in piracy against Chinese trade partners in favor of an ally, and helping an ally in Indonesia (in Sumatra) reclaim their throne from an usurper, it was primarily peaceful and mutually beneficial on all sides. Gifts and tribute were exchanged, and ambassadors and samplings of goods from previously known but not directly contacted regions returned with the fleets.
There is also history of peaceful trade (probably with no real reason for conflict) between Indonesians (Makassans) and pre-colonial, aboriginal Australian societies.
between Indonesians (Makassans) and pre-colonial, aboriginal Australian societies.
Interesting…
The extra history on Indonesia tells a very different story about how botched the Chinese intervention in Indonesia was. They ended up helping the original “usurper’s” son back to the throne because of several misunderstandings and deceits. Unless they are also oversimplified things.
Yeah, like most nations of Australia traded normally with technology exchange across the continent (and from the Polynesians and Makassans as you note), with only limited conflict
Didn’t like 30% of people in Arnhem Land die violently?
Though maybe that’s internal clashes?
It’s hard not to respond with hostility when the citation provided is Keely (1996) War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage (you know it’s gonna be racist shit), using a word for the mob that live there that’s about half a century out of date.
Have you read those sources?
Have you wondered to yourself how a white Brit in the 1930s estimated the number of deaths in a small part of Northern Australia, and have you then wondered how that’s relevant to 60,000 years of living in a contact because the Europeans came and almost wiped everyone already there out?
Anyway I’m downloading Warner’s 1937 book so I’ll reply again to shit on it.
Ancient Americas recently made a video about contact between Polynesia and South America, which there is an increasing amount of evidence for.
Thor Heyedahl had a version of that theory
Hellååååå eiv djast arreivd in mei fæntæstikk båt, Kon Tiki feiv!!
oh yeah coz you are Norwegian and Thor Heyerdahl is Norwegian
It’s a reference to the Raske Menn sketch “World History in 5 Minutes” where it’s a recurring gag that Thor Heyerdahl shows up in unexpected places and says in a thick accent, “Hello!! I’ve just arrived in my fantastic boat, Kon Tiki 5!!”
That sketch also has some casual racism and Islamophobia so y’know be warned about that
didn’t he do a test sail of the route just for fun
he is acknowledged to have had an above-average sense of fun
apparently a batshit weird version of that theory…
Also, relations between communist countries such as that of Cuba and USSR come to mind.
most formal ‘contact’ between people was outran by the technology, it was easier for a daisychain of neighbors trading with neighbors to develop than a single group gathering up provisions & technological products, then bypassing a whole portion of the trade network & getting somewhere that didn’t have roughly the same sophistication.
Kinda the silk road?
That’s what colonialism was all about!deleted by creator
My memory is hazy, but didn’t Japan and Portugal have a more or less amicable relationship?
It was more or less amicable… if you disregarded the rampant slavery that was going on (Portuguese were big in the Asian slave trade, and feudal Japan was a hellhole- though fwiw the highest authorities on both sides seem to have been horrified by it and sent missives in that regard - the Japanese for obvious reasons, and the Portuguese due to concerns it was affecting evangelization).
The Portuguese authorities eventually tried to ban the east Asian slave trade (because they wanted to continue trade relations and there was real risk of being locked out).
Relations with the Japanese otherwise seem to have been peaceful, which honestly is kinda surprising considering how they infamously behaved across the entire Indian ocean and even initially in China (tons of piracy and slave raiding on coastal towns).
