1492: a different new world

Bahamas, 20 October 1492

The island was eerily silent. Clearly, it had been recently inhabited. Garden plots, only partially reclaimed by the encroaching Jungle were clustered around the burnt out ruins of small villages. Rude tools of coral, wood, and obsidian had been left scattered amongst the remains of the huts… as were the decomposing remnants of their inhabitants. Slain by axe and sword, and the occasional iron headed arrow, they had been left unburied to fester in the fields they sought to defend.

If there were any survivors of the cataclysm which had engulfed the island they were beyond the capabilities of the expedition to locate- and yet the task should not be difficult.

Unlike the Islands of the East Atlantic the island lacks any mountains where survivors of the attacks might cower. Instead of jutting out of the sea to a peak, its undulating surface barely peers above the waves and was dotted with numerous sweet water lakes and ponds.
It is the third island they have encountered since finding land a week ago. Each clearly recently inhabited. And each now violently abandoned. But on this island… on this island he has, after all found something new. The fist of Cristobel Colon curls around his discovery, wrested from a reluctant sailor who thought to keep it for himself.

With it in hand he feels ready to face the infuriating Pinzon brothers, purposefully striding towards him through the ruins of the village with a knot of lackeys surrounding them.

Vincente Yanez, youngest of the brothers, is first to speak.
"How long before we return to Palos?"

Palos, not Spain, or even Castile. The brothers may have fought for the crown against the moors and Portugal but like most in the newly unified realm their loyalty was to their province and town.

And Castille, after all, is not a nation renowned for it's seamanship. Palos, and the Pinzon brothers are… and need to be handled with care if he is to avoid a mutiny. The crown may have appointed him admiral of the expedition but it has placed the brothers, and their ambitions, as a check against him. Most of the sailors hail from their hometown, and may well move against him if the brothers cease supporting him.

"Have your feet tired of land so swiftly? Is it not but a week ago that you feared dying out of sight of land?"

"The men now fear falling prey to the Tartars which have clearly ravaged these islands. We are too few, and with too few arms, to face the armies of the Khans!"

Colon smiles. "Then you agree that we have reached the islands of Java?"

Martin Alfonso, the eldest, raises and moderating hand. "Perhaps we have Admiral. Perhaps we have. And it is for that reason that we must return and report on our discoveries. This voyage once known, can be repeated. But what if we fall prey to the Tartars? Or to storms in unknown waters? Then this path to the east will be abandoned for all time and the trade of the indies left to the Portugese. Once Madrid hears of this discovery there will be another expedition. Even without trade to Cathay these islands seem fertile. No doubt they can be colonized and planted with Sugar much as the Canaries and Azores have been."

Colon suppresses a grimace. Martin Alfonso Pinzon, for all of his skill at sea, is a small man, with small dreams. A sugar plantation on a few small islands is not why he begged the courts of Europe to finance this expedition. More to the point he does not believe, even for a moment, that it is he who would be tasked with leading the second expedition if he returns with nothing to show for his voyage than tales of fertile, abandoned Islands.

It is the Pinzons, or some other court favorite who will be tasked with establishing a new colony for Spain. Unless…

" And what will I tell the king and Queen if we return across the great ocean without the spices and gold of the indies?"

Francisco steps in "What spices? What gold? We have found neither. If these are Islands near Java then clearly they are not the same islands found by Marco Polo. The journey to the sources of these riched may be many months yet- and to undertake it we need a secure base on this side of the ocean and far more resources. "

Silently Colon lifts his fist and opens it to display the golden lip-plug to the Pinzon brothers and their companions.

"No. The source of these riches is near, not far. And all we need to do is reach out it take it. When we return home it will be with holds filled with gold and jade, silk and spices- and every man who stays true to me will have a part in it. Northwest of these empty Islands lies Java and northwest of it- Cathay."

The Pinzon brothers argue. But many of their men are carried away by the display of Gold, and their own hearts are riven between greed and fear.
In the end he gains their consent for two more weeks to explore and hopefully trade before the return to Europe.

Two weeks... what new worlds might he discover in two weeks?

Will be interesting to see what is different. But I must say this is very well-written.

Blind first contact simulation

Well, I'll be unveiling the POD around post #4 or #5. Ideally, I'd like to game through first contact between Colon and the dominant new world civilization and its outliers ITTL under conditions of ignorance.

Accordingly I am particularly interested in feedback regarding how the readers think Colon and the other members of the expedition are likely to interpret, respond, and report back to Europe on what they discover. Since I know what Colon is really facing I might slant his response accordingly- you don't know and so you might be able to offer a more plausible/interesting angle.
I think that blaming Tamerlane's heirs for the destruction they witness is the most likely interpretation for what he witnesses in the Bahamas (Tamerlane's empire is long gone, as are the Yuan but they are still alive in the European imagination).

But since Mongols to Colon are viewed through the lenses of Marco Polo and Kubali Khan and since he is totally OCD about finding a route to Cathay, I think it is most likely that he will drag out his maps and plot a course to Cathay- that is, to the Northwest.

OTL, the Taino pointed him to the south (Cuba and the Yucatan beyond it) as the source of their gold. TTL he has no native Bahaman guides.

I'm very interested in where you will be taking this.

I was worried at first that this was going to be like "empty America", with a POD thousands of years in the past with no butterflies, but since the devastation is recent, hopefully that means the POD is recent too. I await more, eagerly....

i find it interesting that the arrowheads are iron and not from the Spanish.

#2 Fathomless Depths

Cape Florida, November 2nd 1492, 02:00

"Fathomless depth!" cried the leadsman, as he did, at Colon's insistence, every hundred breaths to ensure he didn’t fall asleep.

He himself hadn't slept in two days.

It has been three days since they last sighted land, three days since they left the eerily abandoned Isabellan (1) archipelago behind him. In none of the many islands they explored did they find any sign of ongoing human habitation. Those remains of previous habitation they had found grew sparser and more decomposed in the more westerly islands, leading to rising murmurs of fear and discontent amongst the crewmembers.

"Fathomless depth!"

And these murmur had erupted into a storm of discontent when the archipelago was left behind them. Logically, it seemed mutually exclusive to simultaneously fear meeting death at the hands of the mysterious ravagers of the Isabellas and to fear no land lay ahead. But logic, as Colon well knew, played little part in the fears of sailors.

"Fathomless depth!"

So he can't sleep. Not at night at least when a band of mutinous sailors might decide to seize control of the helm and turn the ship back to Spain. Not with moral so low he could not trust the steersman to keep to his duty and keep the ship on course and off sandbars.


"Admiral, you must get some rest."


Vincent Pinzon (2) is solicitous... or is he planning something? Who can he trust?

"In the morning, perhaps. Not now. The men require a sturdy hand to keep them steady"

Vincent took a deep breath

"Admiral… your presence is not helping. The men do not share your… commitment to reaching Cathay on this voyage. They do not understand it, and until we either find your el dorado or turn back then your presence shall enflame them to folly"

"Fathomless depth!"

Colon grits his teeth, torn between his recognition of the truth of Vincent's words and his fury at the usurpation of his authority they imply.

"Had portugese seamen possesed these men's courage they never should have rounded cape Bojador" he remarked acidly.

"They didn't… in their first attempt. Did Gil Eanes drive his men to re-defy the winds and currents immediately? No, he learned from his experience, charted the currents and tried again the next year. And succeeded. And when he did, did he continue sailing until he reached India? No. He made a chart of the African coast he discovered, passed it to the crown, and lived to see those who followed his lead range down the African coast and grow rich on the trade of Ivory and Slaves. A work of two generations, still incomplete, which you propose to accomplish in a single voyage. Hubris. Hubris and vanity. Your men have limits even if you do not"

"Fathomless depth!"

This was too much. Too much by far. Colon let his hand slide down to his sheathed blade. He was less than proficient in it's use, more familiar with the belaying pins and other crude, makeshift weapons of the sea. But he did what he could to maintain the aura of the Castillian Hidalgo which he aspired to become, a necessary pose to maintain his authority on this ship.

"You, and your brothers, gave me your word of honor. Two weeks. Are you an honorless moor to hold your word so lightly?"

"Fathomless depth!"

Vincente's color rose. Then he spat to the side in disgust.

"It is only thanks to my brothers Two weeks. Of which three days are left. Do you stand by your word that if no sign of Java and Cathay is found in this time we will return?. "

Colon hesitates for a critical second, reluctant to commit himself so strongly. Sleeplesness has made him careless, careless enough to show a glimpse of his true heart on his face.

"Fathomless depth!"

In the flickering torchlight Vincent's face seems to lose it's color.

"Mother of god! you call me honorless? You have no intention of turning back, even if see the abyss at the end of the world before your very eyes, do you?


"Four Fathoms! Four Fathoms!"


Colon's lips pull back and his blade is half out of his scabbard before he registers the leadsmans call. It is impossible, of course. They are at open sea, and no sandbank, no ridge, appears that suddenly (3). No doubt the Leadsman has made a mistake,

Still….

"Furl sails! Furl all sails and hard a port!"

He is perhaps twenty seconds too late. The scraping of the keel against the coral amoment later tosses all men on deck off their feet… And also Tosses Vincent Pinzon overboard. For a moment he manages to hang on to rail and reaches out for help, reaches out for Colon.

But Colon does not reach back.


(1) Don't know why Colon never named any of his discoveries after his patrons OTL. But it seems to make sense that he will do his level best to suck up to his patrons TTL, especially if he fears he may have to return with nothing but another Canary like archipelago in his hands.
(2) OTL, Vincente co-captained the Nina. TTL, Columbus is keeping one brother nearby at all times to keep the men calm… and as a sort of an unofficial hostage if the other brothers go rogue.
(3) Well, not in temperate and Meditiranian waters. Coral grows much quicker and thicker in Tropical waters… and the Santa Maria has just run head first into the third largest coral reef in the world.


Thoughts, Ideas?

telynk said:

I was worried at first that this was going to be like "empty America", with a POD thousands of years in the past with no butterflies, but since the devastation is recent, hopefully that means the POD is recent too. I await more, eagerly....

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Hey, Empty America rocked even if both the POD (since multiple crossings into the new world occured) and every oddball group in Europe forming a colony beyond the Atlantic without being overwhelmed by the mainstream powers seemed unlikely.

My inspiration, however, is mostly from the Bronze age new World (and "1491" and "Guns, steel and Germs")

But the "no butterflies" in "Empty AMerica" actually kind of made sense. After all, if some freak sabertooth killed off anyone who crossed the bering land bridge then there's no real reason the Old world should be any different than we know.

However, that being said my butterfly philosophy in writing alternate history is basically to toss them all in a net so long as historical casuality is maintained.

Alternate history is interesting not because it allows us to perfectly simulate the sum total of human development if a nail falls us a horseshoe- that's impossible and hence not interesting.

It's interesting because it allows us to look at familiar situations from unfamilliar perspectives. It's interesting because it us to envision an encounter between the known qualities of history and the unexpected curves of counter-factual history.

A hardline butterfly position would argue for anyone being born after the POD being a completely randomized individual, including gender. Since the geopolitics of Europe the time of Colon were driven by dynastic concerns it would follow that any POD occuring prior to, say, 1462 would completely alter the dynamics leading to the voyage of columbus.

If Henry IV had had sons no war of castillean sucession would have taken place. Absent that war, and it's outcome, it's hard to imagine any of the powers on the Iberian peninsula having any interest in a transatlantic expedition.

Aragon would never have launched that expedition on it's own. It's trade interests, and ports, lay in the Med. Castille lacked the resources, and without unification with Aragon would have been too focused on a two-front threat. Andalus was not cut out from the oriental trade as the Christian powers were, and Portugal was invested in a more promising oriental route.

The new world would have been discovered eventually, of course, by Basque fishermen in Newfoundland or by Portugese merchants blown off course to Brazil. But the dynamic and scramble for territory would have been entirely different- which is not what I want to explore ITTL.

hence, while I'm not saying the POD of TTL has in fact occured prior to 1462, I will say that if it did in fact occur prior to that time, I have decided that no direct or casuality exists between it and the geopolitics of 1492.

Therefore, while realisticly each individual would be randomized, and no Colon or Isabella or Phillip would exist, that TL would be hard to relate to and simply no interesting.

Therefore, ITTL they do exist, unaltered in their life experiences and general knowledge, and the same is true for everyone else in the Old World.

I will, however, say that the POD definitately took place sometime between 10,000 BCE and 1492 CE and that it occurred in either the Eastern or Western Hemisphere.

altwere said:

i find it interesting that the arrowheads are iron and not from the Spanish.

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Well, I would be interested in your speculations as to where those arrows came from- and on your speculations on Colon's speculations.

This looks very interesting! It makes sense to me that the Pinzons and other Spaniards would assume that the islands had been ravaged by Tartar armies of the Khan, given that they're assuming that they are somewhere near Southeast Asia.

I do wonder if the iron and steel-using raiders who wiped out these settlements are from a more technologically advanced but purely Native American culture, or whether they were influenced by earlier contact with other "old world" peoples.

If Columbus is going northwest, presumably he'll be in OTL Florida soon.

I believe that Columbus actually did name several islands in the Bahamas after his royal patrons on his first voyage. The names didn't stick, though, because the Spanish soon lost interest in the islands since they didn't seem valuable compared to other territories that they claimed. Today there's still some uncertainty about which islands in the Bahamas were given which names by Columbus, along with some uncertainty over which island Columbus landed on first.

Paul Spring said:

I do wonder if the iron and steel-using raiders who wiped out these settlements

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I didn't say that evidence was found of Steel use.... though it was. It's not very good Steel and far inferior to what the Spanish are using.

Paul Spring said:

are from a more technologically advanced but purely Native American culture, or whether they were influenced by earlier contact with other "old world" peoples.

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Well, that would be telling

Paul Spring said:

If Columbus is going northwest, presumably he'll be in OTL Florida soon.

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He just ran into the northern edge of the Florida barrier reef, just where the Keys meet the mainland.

Paul Spring said:

I believe that Columbus actually did name several islands in the Bahamas after his royal patrons on his first voyage. The names didn't stick, though, because the Spanish soon lost interest in the islands since they didn't seem valuable compared to other territories that they claimed. Today there's still some uncertainty about which islands in the Bahamas were given which names by Columbus, along with some uncertainty over which island Columbus landed on first.

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Interesting. I didn't realize that. The Isabellas may stick TTL- or they might not.

yboxman said:

After all, if some freak sabertooth killed off anyone who crossed the bering land bridge then there's no real reason the Old world should be any different than we know.

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the Norse Greenlanders misses their neighbours, the Dorset Inuits, and their access to walrus Ivory

Sian said:

the Norse Greenlanders misses their neighbours, the Dorset Inuits, and their access to walrus Ivory

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Good point. But there was only a 5 year time lag between the colonization of Greenland and the discovery of Vinland, and only 15 additional years between the attempted settlement of vinland.

I'm not sure that significant trade relations with the Dorset Inuits were established by then or that they played a critical role in the Greenland's expansion up to 1000 CE.

#3: On the beach


November 4th, 1492, Biscayne Bay

"We are returning home."

Stated Martin Alfonse Pinzon bluntly.

Martin can afford to relinquish pleasantries. His ship, the Pinta, is the only one to have survived the treacherous reef and the terrible night. Separated in that terrible night, and somehow avoiding the reefs, his ship had explored the massive bay. Martin had sighted not only land, but the mainland in the morning.

For the past two days he has ferried the crew members of the Santa Maria and the Nina, and those stores which had not been ruined by leakage, to yet another abandoned settlement at the mouth of a river flowing into the bay. Unlike the settlements on the Islands, this one showed no signs of destruction and seemed only recently, and hurriedly, abandoned. Hide roofed Longhouses of timber, very different from the island huts of the Isabellas, welcomed the exhausted shipwreck survivors, providing shelter from the storms which racked the shore.

"I cannot leave, not now! We must wait for a few more days for the Javans to open up trade with us! Once they do I am sure we can repair the ships!"
From within the deep canopy of the thick forest beyond the gardens of the settlement smoke, rising in clearly artificial and repetitive patterns, could be seen rising into the air during the day. In the night, drums could be heard echoing amongst the trunks of the great trees. Humans were certainly there- but they had made no attempt to contact the Spanish.

"You misunderstand me Don Colon. I did not say YOU were returning home. I and my brother, however, are. The Pinta cannot, however, as you well know, carry all of the crewmembers… and those who must remain here until we return require leadership. Perhaps, by the time we return you shall have established trade with your Cathayans. I truly wish you the best in this endeavor. But I have lost one brother already who was left to your care and do not wish to lose another. We are going home."

November 10th, 1492, Biscayne Bay
"What happened?"

Diego de Arana's hunting party, a dozen strong when it left, did not return with a deer. Nor did it return with all of it's members. It did, however, return with a bloodied, bound and sullen captive.

"The Tartars ambushed us! There were scores of them and they surely would have overwhelmed us had Rodrigo not kept the slow match in the arquebus burning! The devils killed Pedro and Marin and captured Juan, but we must have killed a dozen of them before they fled. And we got this heathen."
His curiosity rekindled into a blaze Colon crouches before the forcibly knelt captive.

At first he takes him to be a moor but soon realizes his dusky skin is an entirely different hue than that of the southerners. Even kneeling he is clearly much taller than his captors, and his limbs straight and well muscled, lacking any of the plague induced scars and disfigurements so common amongst Colon's crew. His face is oddly absent any hint of facial hair. His cheekbones are high, his eyes slightly slanted and his features subtly but unmistakenly different from any Colon had seen in any port in the Mediterranean, made or the more alien by thick tattoos covering his chin and cheeks.

His head is covered by a Turban like covering of soft cloth dyed in a curious pattern of , but his main clothing is a tanned deerhide tunic, and his boots seem to be made of deerhide as well.

"A dozen of them dead you say? It seems that the Tartars are not so fierce warriors after all then! Certainly no match to the brave sons of Castille!"
He did not cross the Atlantic to fight the Tartars, but to trade with them. Still, his words have the desired effect, as the distress of the men manning the palliside at the ambush is temporarily supeceded by an exuberant expression of Machismo.

Diego frowns.

"They were fierce enough… and brave enough until they were startled by the arquebus. But their weapons…"

He dumps them at Colon's feet. They are a motely mix. Most are Mallet like clubs with stone heads. A sword like wooden spatha edged with sharp obsidian flakes. A single simple but well crafted steel headed axe. Three smaller and cruder versions with rusty blades of cast Iron. And a sword.

Colon slowly lifts it. Even an indifferent swordsman such as himself can identify good steel when he sees it. It's hilt is crude, but the blade is sound and well crafted and shows no indication of rust.

"Their leader was carrying this blade… but showed little skill in using it. I bested him easily. But the other weapons… I never heard the Tartars used stone weapons. Did Marco Polo claim they did?"

Colon could only slowly shake his head. Where had he landed his ships?
"Take the prisoner to Louis. He'll soon be able to tell us where this heathen is from… and where we are".

December 24, Christmas eve, 1492, Biscayne Bay
Had he ever suffered such hunger? If so he cannot recall it. The lives of most in Medivial Europe might be hard, but Colon had grown up in relative privilege. But now he, and the other survivors of the Nina and Santa Maria know what true hunger is. They are starving in a land of Plenty.

As the faint desperate hyms of the sailors returning from the first post of the nightwatch rise around him he feels a vast wave of despair drown out what should have been a joyous and holy night.

The surviving Pinzons had probably returned to Spain by now and informed the crown of the fate of his expedition. If his calculations of the Atlantic Gyre were in fact correct. If the Pinzons trusted them, trusted him, enough to follow them. If no freak storm had capsized the Pinta. If the Pinzons were honorable and did not seek his death so that they might claim the Isabellas for their own family.

And even if all this were true would the crown finance a rescue expedition? Even if it did would it arrive before their stores ran out?
For they are under siege. A week after the ambush of the hunting party the hastily built stockade was attacked at night with fire arrows. Twice more since was the stockade assaulted. Steel, gunpowder and Spanish discipline had driven back each large scale attack but it was impossible to gather by land without suffering ambush and arrows from the forest, and fishing sufficiently to feed everyone was near impossible when most men were required to either man the stockade.

Worse, even before Sanitation broke down his men had come down with the runs (1).

And while he was losing men by inches the faceless enemy beyond palliside seemed to grow in numbers daily. The Drumbeat from the forest was insistent, loud, threatening, drowning out the hyms to Christ in it's Pagan beat.

How long before the barbaric darkness beyond drowned out the light? Would anything great the Pinzons when they returned beyond bleached bones?
Weary, he turns to Louis

"What have you found out? Do you yet understand the Tartar language"
Louis sighs.

"Admiral, it is unlike any language I have ever known. Assuming, that is, that it is a language and not deceptive gibberish. The captive, after all has little motivation to cooperate with me beyond the threat of the branding Iron."
"He responds to none of the tongues you claimed to know?"
Louis swallows the insult and respinds calmly.

"Admiral, I am proficient in Hebrew and Aramaic, Arabic and Berber, Greek and some Latin. And I speak moreover the language of the Franks and the Saxons with some familiarity. He responds to none of these tongues. Nor does he show any recognition to inquiries about Cathay, Java, the Khan or Xipangu (2)"

Diego, leaning in speaks softly.
"If he is as so little use then perhaps it is time he ceased receiving rations… and perhaps we should hand his carcass to the men and not enquire to closely as to what becomes of it".

"I can now understand *Some* of what he is saying Admiral. And the more words of his tongue that I can acquire the easier it will be to understand more. Our situation here is hopeless unless we can reach a truce with the Tartars until the Pinzons return… if they return"
Colon chops his hand downwards.

"they will return! Spain will not forget us! Any day now, any day…"
Colon's incomprehensible murmur dies off as the hall falls silent. Wearily he abandones the hall without a word and retires to his quarters.
But when the sun banishes the darkness, and the Christmas blaze is permitted to die down a true Christmas miracle takes place.

For into the bay sails a ship.

(1) Parasite environment in new world water took up to a year to get used to for Europeans. It was rarely fatal on it's own but greatly debilitating.
(2) One wonders how a real Javan would have responded to the mispronounced questions and misconception of a Colon who would have somehow bypassed America. But that is a seprate ASB scenario.

just seven weeks has passed ... to soon for Pinza to have gotten back to Castile, given report and organized a new expedition.

I'm thinking Vinlanders?

Ships, tattoos, no beard...Polynesians?

I got really intrigued, so, subscribed!

Is "Tartar" going to be this world's equivalent of "Indian"?

Sian said:

just seven weeks has passed ... to soon for Pinza to have gotten back to Castile, given report and organized a new expedition.

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Seven weeks is not completely physically impossible. Colon made his second voyage in just 21 days after all. So theoretically, Pinzon could return to the Canaries, organise a possy of willing ship owners and immediately rush back to the rescue within 50 days....

But that, of course is flat out financially and politically impossible.

OTL, it took the crown a friggin year to send a return expedition to relieve the Santa maria crew Which Columbus left behind (and they were all killed by the "gentle" Taino). TTL, with two rather than one ship destroyed, no return of golden trinkets on the initial investment to entice new investors, no native samples of the rich new and populous kingdoms to conquer and only tales of a Canary like Island group 4 weeks out to sea overshadowed by rumors of Tartar raiders...

Well, Colon could be waiting for rescue for a long, long time. The Azores, which are much closer to the Portugese mainland took a decade post discovery to settle. The Madeiras took seven years.

And a lot can happen in seven years to distract Spain away from the "Isabellas"

Wars in Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_War_of_1494–98
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_War_of_1499–1504

Vasco de Gama making it to India and returning with ship holds bursting with spices.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasco_da_Gama#First_voyage

Maybe a crown sponsered expedition will still be launched. Or maybe the Pinzons will avoid bankrupcy and angry creditors (they were heavily invested in the expedition- and the Nina was their own ship) and will sponser a senyoral expedition similliar to the original expeditions to the Canaries. And eventually, of course, Basque fishermen or Portugese merchantmen will land at Newfoundland or Brazil.

But Colon might well be dead of old age by the time they reach him.

Sian said:

I'm thinking Vinlanders?

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Absolutely maybe

Uggh said:

Ships, tattoos, no beard...Polynesians?

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quite possibly

RyuDrago said:

I got really intrigued, so, subscribed!

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Look forward to your feedback!

Albireo said:

Is "Tartar" going to be this world's equivalent of "Indian"?

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Pretty much. And it is, at least more genetically/racially accurate. Though those who crossed the land bridge in the second wave were probably more related to the ancestors of Tungustic groups than the Mongols... and the true Tartars were, for that matter Turkic/Kipchak rather than Mongol.

So we get to guess about the POD then?

OK, here is mine: Vinland. This would explain at least the iron.

This is so good so far. Can't wait to find out what the POD is. My guess is a further/more widespread islander migration eastward from SE Asia in millennia prior. Or, perhaps Colon is not the first European to make it to the New World?