WI: Norse brought horses to America

rcduggan

what if Lief Eriksson and the Norse, when colonizing Vinland, brought a large number of horses with them, for whatever reason.

(if they didn't arrive on continental America IOTL, let's assume they did ITTL).

so the Vikings bring a lot of horses to America with them, and even if the colonies die out AIOTL, the horses remain and breed. there is almost five hundred years between the Norse colonization and when Columbus begins his first voyage, so what effects would horses have on the natives in the time before then (1000-1500?)
 

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rcduggan said:
what if Lief Eriksson and the Norse, when colonizing Vinland, brought a large number of horses with them, for whatever reason.

(if they didn't arrive on continental America IOTL, let's assume they did ITTL).

so the Vikings bring a lot of horses to America with them, and even if the colonies die out AIOTL, the horses remain and breed. there is almost five hundred years between the Norse colonization and when Columbus begins his first voyage, so what effects would horses have on the natives in the time before then (1000-1500?)
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Well there are likely to be some major changes. Although horses probably won't penetrate farther down then Panama, this means that the plains have now become really viable as a way of life. In OTL Horses didn't arrive there until the 1600s, now they will arrive in the 1300s and the 1400s. This means Europeans should arrive at the end or middle of a MASSIVE upheaval. Whole tribes will be moving west, like the Sioux did in OTL. Here the population will be spread out, there will probably be less people in the Mississippi, due to raids and movement, therefore the Spanish expeditions will not find as many villages to plunder and use as their food source. There are just so many changes I can think of off the top of my head.
 

robertp6165

Doctor What said:
Considering that the colony was on Newfoundland, how do you propose the horses to get off the island?
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What archaeologists have found on Newfoundland is most likely Leif Ericsson's winter quarters, used during his voyage of exploration. It does not appear to be an actual, permanent settlement, as one would expect to find with the actual Norse colony in Vinland which was founded later by Thorfin Karlsefni. Therefore, the actual Norse colony has apparently never been found, and could very well be on the mainland someplace.
 

wkwillis

Even if the horses are just on Newfoundland, the locals will be able to move foals to the mainland sometime in the next five hundred years. Figure on the horses being prestige gifts for visiting chiefs to bring along to areas without horses.
Horses are pretty good for eating as well as for riding. Now if the Norse had brought cattle as well, then the horses would be more usefull. And if they brought sheep instead of cattle, the Indians would be having even more of a population boom.
Horses make the plagues go through all of the Americas, fast. The speed of transmission means that population will also recover fast. There will be no areas beyond the plague for virgin soil epidemics centuries later, when the Europeans have built up their numbers in the Americas and can move in on the newly empty land.
 

rcduggan

wkwillis said:
Even if the horses are just on Newfoundland, the locals will be able to move foals to the mainland sometime in the next five hundred years. Figure on the horses being prestige gifts for visiting chiefs to bring along to areas without horses.
Horses are pretty good for eating as well as for riding. Now if the Norse had brought cattle as well, then the horses would be more usefull. And if they brought sheep instead of cattle, the Indians would be having even more of a population boom.
Horses make the plagues go through all of the Americas, fast. The speed of transmission means that population will also recover fast. There will be no areas beyond the plague for virgin soil epidemics centuries later, when the Europeans have built up their numbers in the Americas and can move in on the newly empty land.
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I have stated twice that the horses were on the mainland. in this speculation, the Vikings landed on Canada itself too, not just Newfoundland.

but bringing cattle or sheep would be veeeery interesting.. what effect do you think it would have on Native civilization?
 

Tyr

wkwillis said:
Even if the horses are just on Newfoundland, the locals will be able to move foals to the mainland sometime in the next five hundred years. Figure on the horses being prestige gifts for visiting chiefs to bring along to areas without horses.
Horses are pretty good for eating as well as for riding. Now if the Norse had brought cattle as well, then the horses would be more usefull. And if they brought sheep instead of cattle, the Indians would be having even more of a population boom.
Horses make the plagues go through all of the Americas, fast. The speed of transmission means that population will also recover fast. There will be no areas beyond the plague for virgin soil epidemics centuries later, when the Europeans have built up their numbers in the Americas and can move in on the newly empty land.
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The future generations will catch the plagues just as well as their ancestors.
The only people who could potentially keep the plagues alive are down in Mexico and Peru. The regular native Americans won't be able to.
 

Tocomocho

Just four words: Viking tiny cavalry sucked. :rolleyes:

horse_port.jpg
 

karl2025

It really depends on how much the Natives can figure out about horses. They may just view them as a food source to begin with, and only after witnessing what the vikings were doing move up to riding or field work. I don't have any idea how long it would take them to figure it out on their own, and a slightly longer time period for that to happen might be better since the horses would need time to breed and spread.

But a thought I had that seems interesting is also in the mythology that would come from the introduction. If a myth or legend of the horse-bringers or whatever gets passed down, the natives might be much more wary when Europeans start coming back (Given the violence between natives and vikings).
 

TimKeck84

Let's say it takes 200 years for horses to spread around. But the coming of the horse would mean different things for different groups.

Some of the more sedentary tribes would use them for farming, trade and war. It would be the easiest for them to evolve into modern* nations.

Then there are the tribes that are more nomadic. This would allow them to carry more, well more stuff. It would also be a great aid in hunting.

This all leads to a population boom due to the ability to feed more people easily.

With regard to the disease issue, I believe that some diseases, carried by fleas on the horses, would infect the population, but they would eventually develop resistances to them.

So when Columbus arrives in the Americas, He might find nations nearly as developed as those in Europe as opposed to what he did find
 

Dave Howery

TimKeck84 said:
So when Columbus arrives in the Americas, He might find nations nearly as developed as those in Europe as opposed to what he did find
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no; 500 years is just not enough lead time for technology development. Basically, the natives will just be mounted, better fed... they won't suddenly have steel and guns and carracks...
 

zoomar

If the horses simply escape and go feral, the Native Americans would simply hunt them as food.

To become equestrians themselves, natives would have to have spent several decades at least in close proximity to the Vikings to learn the rudiments of the technology and husbandry involved with keeping horses. Once that happens the horse and an equestrian hunting adaptation would spread rapidly (at least based on what happened in the 1500's)

However, I question it would have any significant effect on the evolution of native societies or native ability to resist later European intrusion. The notion that Cortez might have been met by an Aztec light calvary is pretty unlikely. Central Mexico is a looooong way from Canada.
 

AirshipArmada

A trivia point I found interesting:
Generally civilizations evolve from hunting societies to farming societies, but the introduction of the horse OTL sometimes caused the reverse to occur. Some tribes in the Great Plains were agricultural and lacked the means to reliably take advantage of the buffalo herds in the area. When horses came the tribes suddenly converted to primarily hunting for sustenance.

Other things to consider:
horses would lead to more compact soils.
Trails would become wider and more established.
Wheels would become practical.

I don't think horses would help the natives too much with regards to diseases. In OTL the American colonies were subject to periodic outbreaks of small pox and other diseases. For each outbreak the population was almost virgin. The problem was that the population density was not high enough for the disease to become endemic (with the exception of Philadelphia). The American colonies, of course, had horses so it does not follow that horses would help protect one from outbreaks. If, however, horses could somehow lead to a horse empire with a capital with a large population, then the density in that capital might be high enough for pox to become endemic.
 

Kalan

zoomar said:
If the horses simply escape and go feral, the Native Americans would simply hunt them as food.

To become equestrians themselves, natives would have to have spent several decades at least in close proximity to the Vikings to learn the rudiments of the technology and husbandry involved with keeping horses. Once that happens the horse and an equestrian hunting adaptation would spread rapidly (at least based on what happened in the 1500's)
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IOTL no one had to teach how to use a horse for hunting and transport, so I don't believe that anything would be different in this scenario. First the Americans would just hunt the horses for food but they would soon began to ride them as well.

However, I question it would have any significant effect on the evolution of native societies or native ability to resist later European intrusion. The notion that Cortez might have been met by an Aztec light calvary is pretty unlikely. Central Mexico is a looooong way from Canada.
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Yes it is very unlikly that the Aztecs will have horses but mostly because jungle isn't a good habitat for horses. The differences would mainly occure in the Mississippi valley and the great plains. The people living on the plains would get a huge advantage over the inhabitants of the valleys, which would force them to form some kind of defensiv alliances. It would also lead to an increase of population, and a faster exchange of ideas.
Although I doubt it would make much difference in the end. The western settlement would certainly be delayed but I can't see independant nation surviving.
 

Zyzzyva

AirshipArmada said:
The American colonies, of course, had horses so it does not follow that horses would help protect one from outbreaks.
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Of course they don't, since horses don't carry smallpox.

If, however, horses could somehow lead to a horse empire with a capital with a large population, then the density in that capital might be high enough for pox to become endemic.
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The problem is that human diseases are almost all native to, well, people. The sheep/cows idea might give the natives a bit more resistance to some diseases. More interesting might be that the natives, living more densely, might create some of their own nasty, fast-moving, all-killing diseases to ship back to Europe (other than just syphilis).

Although I always think that about Leif: They gave up too soon. I they'd stayed in Vinland long enough to get just one big 'pox epidemic going in the Beothuk (or Micmac) then they'd still be living here today.
 
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