Medieval America?

[SemperFI]

I'm new here so sorry if anyone has discussed this before. I thought of this while reading Louis L'Amours book The Walking Drum. What if the Europeans had followed the Vikings path to the New World and settled here 600 years before Columbus. We would have castles and possibly another crusade or two

 

[Flocculencio]

I'm new here so sorry if anyone has discussed this before. I thought of this while reading Louis L'Amours book The Walking Drum. What if the Europeans had followed the Vikings path to the New World and settled here 600 years before Columbus. We would have castles and possibly another crusade or two

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The POD we use there is Harold Godwinson winning the battle of Hastings and establishing a dynasty that in time dominates the British Isles and scandinavia. The settlement of Vinland carries on boosted by emigration from England and Wales. Right now we're in the 1230's and are in the middle of a crusade against the Maya.

 

[SemperFI]

that's real good I like what you've done with that. I hadn't thought much about the Mayans.

 

[wkwillis]

Maybe the Mongols chase them over?

The primary cause of the conquest of the New World was disease. This works for any immigrant group that includes children with measles, smallpox, rubella, chickenpox, pertussis, mumps, influenza, etc.
So we have middle age villages inside wooden stockades, with Indian raids as their population recovers. Iron, copper, and lead smelting, some byproduct silver, some gold in North Carolina and Virginia, maybe some salt mining eventually, lime and gypsum kilns, glass and ceramics, textiles, etc.
Horse barbarians rule the plains. Some Indians and some Europeans and some mixed. The East involves mostly Europeans. No Africans without an organized slave trade. Some Moslems brought over as slaves but they look too much like Europeans to stay inslaved because the small and independent states make it easy to run away.

 

[trendel13]

Maybe the Native Americans would be able to knock the Europeans back off the continent at some future time. The technological advantage wouldn't be enough to overcome Native Americans superior numbers. Also this may lead to the formation of Native American power.

 

[DominusNovus]

Maybe the Native Americans would be able to knock the Europeans back off the continent at some future time. The technological advantage wouldn't be enough to overcome Native Americans superior numbers. Also this may lead to the formation of Native American power.

Nah, the Amerindians would be so devastated by the diseases that they'd have populations, at best, on par with the Europeans coming over (if we're assuming serious colonization efforts are made).

 

[Brilliantlight]

Maybe the Native Americans would be able to knock the Europeans back off the continent at some future time. The technological advantage wouldn't be enough to overcome Native Americans superior numbers. Also this may lead to the formation of Native American power.

Quite likely true. The Europeans best chance would be to settle the islands first.

 

[Tom_B]

Yes and no

Maybe the Native Americans would be able to knock the Europeans back off the continent at some future time. The technological advantage wouldn't be enough to overcome Native Americans superior numbers. Also this may lead to the formation of Native American power.

Walled cities along the coast might be difficult for the Amerindians to overcome. A path of development might be a set of coastal enclaves--esp. where they could be be have a productive fishing fleet) living in an uneasy coexistence with the natives who would be too numerous for the colonists to overcome. There would be Catholoc missionaries going out amongst the natives.

 

[wkwillis]

Why would they?

They didn't used to have nationalism. They used to have tribalism. The Iroqouis would not have cared whether their neighbors were white, black, red, or whatever. They would have cared that they were not Iroqouis. So the higher population density of the Europeans would have gave them persistence advantages as the Indians lost 99% of their population to repeating epidemics and alcoholism, and the Europeans bred like flies.
But without gunpowder weapons, railroads, etc, the Europeans would have melted into the Indian population gradually, like Mexico rather than like America.

 

[Norman]

European Technological advantages

I think the Europeans had a huge technological advantage, even without guns. Consider that native tribes didn't know how to make wheels, this would limit their ability to transport foodstuffs for any sustained campaign.

No horse, no metal, no good sources of meat (They did have the domesticated turkey, but only through central america). Natives were also divided, with numerous cultural differences.

Given the European advantages, I just don't see them getting kicked off the continent, and by the time the natives have learned and adopted these technologies, they wouldn't even be thinking along the lines of 'kicking these pale guys off the continent', because they would be so interrelated that they wouldn't know where to start.

 

[Faeelin]

given the German propensity to colonize the East in this era, I think you'll see a lot of Saxons, Flemings, etc. in this Brave New World.

What do they call it?

 

[Kuralyov]

Atlantis? Thule?