The speaker says Indigenous peoples could not overcome institutional hostilities that had deep historical roots.

“So they couldn't overcome the kind of institutional hostilities.”

“these which go way way back through their history the only way that that the indigenous people could have played the same game and to a degree this did happen later was to play different european powers off against each other but of course the problem for for the aztecs for the inca was the spanish were the only game in town they were the only outsiders they'd encountered if the english french”