What are some other polities able to colonize the Americas?

Yes, they had the capacity to sail, what they lack is capacity to defend themselves against the European Navies, they were able to reach Iceland by sneaking there and attacking unnarmed civilians, but if they want to keep their colonies they need a real Navy to defend their colonies and maybe even more important their communication routes.
I don't know where you get this from. Ottoman and Algerian Corsairs routinely fought against French, Spanish, Portuguese and English ships in the Atlantic during their raids and (mostly) held their own.
 
As intriguing as that is... having a German colonization of the Americas in the 12th Century is intruding a bit too much into the realm of our leathery-winged extraterrestrial friends for my tastes :openedeyewink:
Not Henry the Lion himself, but his heirs who aren't deprived of their duchy and either gain the imperial title or end up like Bavaria or Austria in terms of forging a regional powerbase.
also, the Polynesians without their 2000 year pause from exploring would be very interesting. It’s unknown why they ceased exploring for so long, but had they continued, they would’ve certainly reached the Americas, and could have set up a lot of colonies in places like California. It’s a very interesting scenario, but it’s hard to say how much they’d have been able to settle.
They'd be most successful in places they have the advantage over the locals, which is pretty much just southern Chile/Chiloe Island area. I'd assume the Polynesians would first settle the Juan Fernandez Islands where they'd replace their tropical crops for an appropriate temperate package (basically potatoes) and then settle the mainland where agriculture, superior boats/sailing, and their trade network would let them outcompete local societies like the Chono.
This is a borderline ASB, but how about an Itelmen-wank (e.g. earlier exposure and intermarriage with West Eurasian pastoralists) in relation to the western coast of North America?
Why the Itelmen in particular? They were mostly a fishing culture, while the Chukotkan peoples like the Koryaks and Chukchi basically had a twofold division of their society into fishing and reindeer herding (at least since around a thousand years ago). Maybe a more intensified reindeer herding (and thus true domestication of the reindeer) would see them displace the Inuit and migrate to Alaska. If early enough, I think they'd totally displace most or all of the Northern Athabaskans and wind up the dominant culture group in most of Western Canada and parts of the Rocky Mountains.
 
I always have founded weird that the low countries under belgium never had any colonies despite their habsburg union with spain and emperor charles v being born in the low countries.
New Spain and Peru were part of the Crown of Castille, that meant that other Spanish territories (Aragon, Two Sicilies, the Netherlands, etc.) were not politically connected to the Spanish colonies except by having the same monarch, after the north seceeded the Scheldt was closed off and trade in the south was starved, preventing major maritime expansion there, it wasn't without attempts, the Austrians after receiving the land in the 18th century tried to establish an East Indies Company based at Ostend, but as upstarted it faced opposition from the English and Dutch, which alliance the Austrians sorely needed,
 
papal states, Assuming they placed some kind of Claim when they divided the world between Spain and Portugal and successful in their colonization
 
Why the Itelmen in particular? They were mostly a fishing culture, while the Chukotkan peoples like the Koryaks and Chukchi basically had a twofold division of their society into fishing and reindeer herding (at least since around a thousand years ago). Maybe a more intensified reindeer herding (and thus true domestication of the reindeer) would see them displace the Inuit and migrate to Alaska. If early enough, I think they'd totally displace most or all of the Northern Athabaskans and wind up the dominant culture group in most of Western Canada and parts of the Rocky Mountains.
True enough.
 
If the Kalmar Union stays together, it could be a major contender in North America. I could see them being the major settlers of OTL Canada (Vinland 2: Electric Boogaloo), with colonies in the Caribbean and maybe Guyana being possible too
 
I don't know where you get this from. Ottoman and Algerian Corsairs routinely fought against French, Spanish, Portuguese and English ships in the Atlantic during their raids and (mostly) held their own.
Corsairs successfully attacking European shipping is no different from European pirates and privateers attacking European shipping. Some pirates successfully attacking individual ships isn't comparable to having a proper navy protecting trans-oceanic trade routes. The contrasts between the corsairs' successes and fearsome reputation in the Med/Atlantic, and the Ottoman failures in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean are pretty telling.

An independent and unified Ireland might be in a good position to do it.
An independent Ireland would be a really good candidate. A good geographic location and a bigger population than the Netherlands, Portugal, or Denmark-Norway, definitely some potential there.

Have him live a few years longer, and you can get an Italian colony in South America, though I can’t begin to tell you if it could’ve survived.
It would be doomed, less than half a century later Tuscany was a financial wreck. And even before that the Tuscan navy was nothing compared to that of its competitors.
 
Why the Itelmen in particular? They were mostly a fishing culture, while the Chukotkan peoples like the Koryaks and Chukchi basically had a twofold division of their society into fishing and reindeer herding (at least since around a thousand years ago). Maybe a more intensified reindeer herding (and thus true domestication of the reindeer) would see them displace the Inuit and migrate to Alaska. If early enough, I think they'd totally displace most or all of the Northern Athabaskans and wind up the dominant culture group in most of Western Canada and parts of the Rocky Mountains.
It is genuinely odd to me that the Chukotkan peoples and the Eskimo-Aleutians seemingly had no contact with each other.
 
An independent and somewhat inflated, Brittany could have maybe colonised areas of the New World.

Cartier himself I read somewhere believed that Breton fishermen had already reached the coast of North America , obviously Cartier was still looking for trade routes to the Orient at this stage.
 
Not if they have Iceland.
Hmmm... good point.

It would pigeon-hole them into mostly northern colonies, tho. Unless go for the Caribbean as well, maybe lower.
Granted, it does mean they can bring the same agricultural package, which is a plus.
They probably would't be a colonial power on the tier of the big boys (Spain, Portugal and later Britain), but perhaps on the level of say, France.
I wonder how they would do with the natives...

It would be funny for the Kalmar Union to go to the other side of the world, build new colonies and at the end of it... Russian Territory, AGAIN.
"You could not live with your own failure. And where that brought you? Back to me." - Russia

An independent Ireland would be a really good candidate. A good geographic location and a bigger population than the Netherlands, Portugal, or Denmark-Norway, definitely some potential there
Was Ireland that populated during the 1500s-1600s?
 

Gabingston

Kicked
Hmmm... good point.

It would pigeon-hole them into mostly northern colonies, tho. Unless go for the Caribbean as well, maybe lower.
Granted, it does mean they can bring the same agricultural package, which is a plus.
They probably would't be a colonial power on the tier of the big boys (Spain, Portugal and later Britain), but perhaps on the level of say, France.
I wonder how they would do with the natives...

It would be funny for the Kalmar Union to go to the other side of the world, build new colonies and at the end of it... Russian Territory, AGAIN.
"You could not live with your own failure. And where that brought you? Back to me." - Russia
I could see the Scandinavians getting most (if not all) of modern day Canada if they play their cards right in North America.
 
I could see the Scandinavians getting most (if not all) of modern day Canada if they play their cards right in North America.
That what I was thinking.
There really ins't much competition for that, especially in the 16th-17th century.

- Portugal and Spain are all about that sweet sweet gold, silver and sugar cane. They already "got theirs" and are more interested in affairs elsewhere. They might attack the Scandi colonies but it would be a minor matter compared to real issues like Dutch, English and French attacks.
- France was always a 2nd tier colonizer that kept getting bitchslapped around by Spain, Portugal and England. France is too continental focused to be a big colonizer, the French endgame is picking up where Charlemagne left off, it would need a big shift in thinking for that to change.
- England is probably the biggest threat here for the Scandinavians, I suspect we will see wars similars to that between that of the English and the French, but the Scandinavians can prioritize colonization more than the French. So that might NOT end well for England, which btw was also a second-tier colonizer power for a good time.
- The Dutch are very commercially minded and there ins't anything really commercially exciting in Canada.
- Would Kalmar Union continuing butterfly the Iberic Union? It did end sixty years before the Iberic Union happened. It would change dynamics a lot either way.

If they try in places like Caribbean, Africa and India, shit is going to get real, through.

I wonder how Scandinavians would fit into the geopolitics of this? Could they consider England a rival and ally with France, Netherlands or Spain? Or would they ally with England and Portugal against France, Netherlands and Spain? Then there's the fact allying with Netherlands or Spain would automatically make them a rival of one or the other...
 

Gabingston

Kicked
That what I was thinking.
There really ins't much competition for that, especially in the 16th-17th century.

- Portugal and Spain are all about that sweet sweet gold, silver and sugar cane. They already "got theirs" and are more interested in affairs elsewhere. They might attack the Scandi colonies but it would be a minor matter compared to real issues like Dutch, English and French attacks.
- France was always a 2nd tier colonizer that kept getting bitchslapped around by Spain, Portugal and England. France is too continental focused to be a big colonizer, the French endgame is picking up where Charlemagne left off, it would need a big shift in thinking for that to change.
- England is probably the biggest threat here for the Scandinavians, I suspect we will see wars similars to that between that of the English and the French, but the Scandinavians can prioritize colonization more than the French. So that might NOT end well for England, which btw was also a second-tier colonizer power for a good time.
- The Dutch are very commercially minded and there ins't anything really commercially exciting in Canada.
- Would Kalmar Union continuing butterfly the Iberic Union? It did end sixty years before the Iberic Union happened. It would change dynamics a lot either way.

If they try in places like Caribbean, Africa and India, shit is going to get real, through.

I wonder how Scandinavians would fit into the geopolitics of this? Could they consider England a rival and ally with France, Netherlands or Spain? Or would they ally with England and Portugal against France, Netherlands and Spain? Then there's the fact allying with Netherlands or Spain would automatically make them a rival of one or the other...
I think the fishing in the Grand Banks of Newfoundland would draw the Scandinavians in (although they'd have to compete with the English, French and Basques), and from there they'd move on to dominating the fur trade, especially if they can lock down both the Saint Lawrence River and the Hudson Bay. I'm sure most of the settlers would be from the Atlantic-oriented part of Scandinavia, namely Norway, The Faroe Islands and Iceland, while the Swedes would be more focused on the Baltic and the Danes trying to split the difference between the two.
 

Crazy Boris

Banned
I’ve actually been thinking of something similar lately, how many countries could possibly hold colonies in the Americas at one time.

It’s been mentioned multiple times but I have to say Morocco. One of the Saadi sultans, Ahmad al-Mansur, expressed interest in a possible American expedition. If they can get someone to help keep Spain and Portugal off their back, they could have a good chance at getting in fairly early.

Back in Europe, Brandenburg was active on St. Thomas, they didn’t stick around long, but had they held onto it maybe we could have had a German Virign Islands.

Ragusa may not seem like a potential player, but I recently learned they had a colony in India before England, France, or the Dutch got there, so who knows, maybe they could surprise us. Besides, if Courland of all places can have American colonies, anyone can. (Totally not throwing this in just because I’m a fan of tiny irrelevant countries doing crazy stuff)

Also, shoutout to the Polynesians. World’s greatest navigators, makes sense they’d bump into the Americas eventually. All we need is a sizeable collection of emigrants from Hawaii, Rapa Nui, or elsewhere setting up a chiefdom somewhere (and hopefully managing to avoid getting obliterated by an invasion by some neighboring tribe)

It’s tempting to say China (Could there possibly be an alternate universe where Gavin Menzies isn’t a complete hack fraud?) and Japan could have a chance, and they could given the right circumstances, but the question is, would they want to? No one wants a colony without any benefits, it’s just a liability at that point, and what would China or Japan possibly gain from sailing into Puget Sound? They would get resources and trade with the natives, but would that be enough?

And keep in mind, Japan isn’t in a state to colonize during the Sengoku and then goes Sakoku pretty much right after, so they’d either have to be really early or Iemitsu’s gonna have to cancel closing the shogunate.
 
I don't know where you get this from. Ottoman and Algerian Corsairs routinely fought against French, Spanish, Portuguese and English ships in the Atlantic during their raids and (mostly) held their own.
If you have information about the Ottomans (or even Moroccans and Algerians) fighting and winning against western warships in the Atlantic share it, all that I could find was them capturing islands, capturing merchant ships, but evading the western warships, but I could be wrong, and I will be happy if you share knowledge with us.
 
That what I was thinking.
There really ins't much competition for that, especially in the 16th-17th century.

- Portugal and Spain are all about that sweet sweet gold, silver and sugar cane. They already "got theirs" and are more interested in affairs elsewhere. They might attack the Scandi colonies but it would be a minor matter compared to real issues like Dutch, English and French attacks.
- France was always a 2nd tier colonizer that kept getting bitchslapped around by Spain, Portugal and England. France is too continental focused to be a big colonizer, the French endgame is picking up where Charlemagne left off, it would need a big shift in thinking for that to change.
- England is probably the biggest threat here for the Scandinavians, I suspect we will see wars similars to that between that of the English and the French, but the Scandinavians can prioritize colonization more than the French. So that might NOT end well for England, which btw was also a second-tier colonizer power for a good time.
- The Dutch are very commercially minded and there ins't anything really commercially exciting in Canada.
- Would Kalmar Union continuing butterfly the Iberic Union? It did end sixty years before the Iberic Union happened. It would change dynamics a lot either way.

If they try in places like Caribbean, Africa and India, shit is going to get real, through.

I wonder how Scandinavians would fit into the geopolitics of this? Could they consider England a rival and ally with France, Netherlands or Spain? Or would they ally with England and Portugal against France, Netherlands and Spain? Then there's the fact allying with Netherlands or Spain would automatically make them a rival of one or the other...
The French navy was the second largest in the world in the XVIII and the largest for a short peak at some point in the XVII century. The Scandinavians never developed the power projecting capabilities than the French did.
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I think Scandinavian presence could be limited to some islands in Canada, but the Scandinavian control of the Saint Lawrence river and the great lakes is a bit of stretch given their demographics and the relative small size of their economies.
 
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It is genuinely odd to me that the Chukotkan peoples and the Eskimo-Aleutians seemingly had no contact with each other.
This is not true, at least with the Eskimo and Yupiks (the Aleuts were pretty isolated in their corner of Alaska for the past 2 millennia). They frequently traded with each other, and this is how there was always a trickle of iron goods (which were obtained from Tungusic peoples, at least in the past few centuries) in Alaska. The Bering Strait wasn't really a barrier either since villages on either side regularly met, and the villages on the Siberian side were in contact with the Chukchi for centuries. Linguist Michael Fortescue demonstrates that the Inuit languages around the Bering Strait have Chukotkan loanwords, and all Chukotkan languages have Inuit loanwords, including those as remote as the Kereks and Koryaks of northern Kamchatka. What this suggests--and this is somewhat backed by archaeology--is that the Inuit languages were once spoken over a much wider area of Chukotka and only gradually replaced by Chukotkan languages around a millennia ago.
I'm sure most of the settlers would be from the Atlantic-oriented part of Scandinavia, namely Norway, The Faroe Islands and Iceland, while the Swedes would be more focused on the Baltic and the Danes trying to split the difference between the two.
I think the Finns would make up a sizable amount of settlers, given they settled in Norway in the Early Modern Period where they became the Kvens. All it takes is someone in charge of the colonies thinking "this land is full of forests and swamps and has poor soil, just like Finland, so maybe some Finnish peasants could make something out of it." This happened OTL in New Sweden/Delaware.
Xiong Nu I think is possible.
Then they'd be following in the footsteps of their distant kin the Athabaskans who share several parallels in their culture and archery.
I think Scandinavian presence could be limited to some islands in Canada, but the Scandinavian control of the Saint Lawrence river and the great lakes is a bit of stretch given their demographics and the relative small size of their economies.
Demographics don't really matter given that it's mostly a matter of willingness to colonise, hence why France (largest in population in Europe) only lightly settled their colonies while Portugal (rather small population) sent a huge amount of settlers. Economy is trickier, but given Scandinavia's role in producing timber, naval supplies, and copper, they'd have enough money and resources to put into a naval (and deny enemies the resource) and perhaps balance it with an army that could help them gain back their colonies in a peace treaty should the colony be conquered. Denmark and Sweden not fighting each other but being as allied as England and Scotland post-17th century would mean a lot for Scandinavian power projection.
 
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This is not true, at least with the Eskimo and Yupiks (the Aleuts were pretty isolated in their corner of Alaska for the past 2 millennia). They frequently traded with each other, and this is how there was always a trickle of iron goods (which were obtained from Tungusic people, at least in the past few centuries) in Alaska. The Bering Strait wasn't really a barrier either since villages on either side regularly met, and the villages on the Siberian side were in contact with the Chukchi for centuries. Linguist Michael Fortescue demonstrates that the Inuit languages around the Bering Strait have Chukotkan loanwords, and all Chukotkan languages have Inuit loanwords, including those as remote as the Kereks and Koryaks of northern Kamchatka. What this suggests--and this is somewhat backed by archaeology--is that the Inuit languages were once spoken over a much wider area of Chukotka and only gradually replaced by Chukotkan languages around a millennia ago.

I think the Finns would make up a sizable amount of settlers, given they settled in Norway in the Early Modern Period where they became the Kvens. All it takes is someone in charge of the colonies thinking "this land is full of forests and swamps and has poor soil, just like Finland, so maybe some Finnish peasants could make something out of it." This happened OTL in New Sweden/Delaware.

Then they'd be following in the footsteps of their distant kin the Athabaskans who share several parallels in their culture and archery.

Demographics don't really matter given that it's mostly a matter of willingness to colonise, hence why France (largest in population in Europe) only lightly settled their colonies while Portugal (rather small population) sent a huge amount of settlers. Economy is trickier, but given Scandinavia's role in producing timber, naval supplies, and copper, they'd have enough money and resources to put into a naval (and deny enemies the resource) and perhaps balance it with an army that could help them gain back their colonies in a peace treaty should the colony be conquered. Denmark and Sweden not fighting each other but being as allied as England and Scotland post-17th century would mean a lot for Scandinavian power projection.
France had a navy that was at least 10 times larger than that of Denmark which was the greatest Scandinavian navy, and even if they didn't send that many people, they had built a large network of alliances with the natives to secure the Saint Lawrence river and the trade of furs.
If it was hard for the British to quick them out, imagine how hard it would have been for a country like Denmark or Sweden to even try to set a colony with a French navy that could shred their navy with little difficulty
 
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