Cont.:
The Hanseatic League leaped into action at this opportunity. A force of 300 men, primarily from towns along the Southern coast of the Baltic Sea, financed by Brabantian towns and endowed with weapons manufactured further South in Nürnberg, sailed to Bakailaoa and began to turn Harriguzki and a new town, Robbenstein, into forts. For the better part of three years, they conducted a punitive campaign against the Beothuk, which took them across much of the island, helping greatly in carthographying it. It thinned the native population out further, even though every third Hanseatic soldier died to Beothuk arrows, knives and spears, too. When the leader of the Hanseatic force, a certain Gustav Riemenschneider of Stettin, decided to end the campaign, the native population of the island had been further thinned out. Yet more Beothuk had fled in boats across the sea to the nearby mainland, of whose existence the Europeans learned at around this time, too, while a few native groups held out in remote regions of the inland.
Another frontal assault on a settlement like at Babesberri was excluded for the moment, but movement across the inland parts of the island would still not be entirely secure. The Hansa`s military presence would remain – especially since the heavy investment would have to pay off now.
In this regard, the persecution of the Beothuk had produced a great setback; now, there were no longer any furs to be obtained by trade from Bakailaoa. Turning into hunters themselves was unpractical, given the Europeans` individual backgrounds and skills and their limited knowledge of the place. What was needed, thus, were other, friendly natives.
They were found in the Illnuasch (Basque: Illnuatx). Living in a much larger territory, they showed much less internal coherence than the insular Beothuk had; thus, some Ilnuasch groups had maintained friendly relations to the Beothuk, offered their refugees asylum, and were hostile to the new arrivals, while others had had hostile relations to the Beothuk and were quite ready to co-operate with the Europeans and hunt furry animals on Bakailaoa, too, in addition to selling them furs from their own territories. The latter became official commercial partners of the Hansa, for whom Bakailaoa and nearby Nittassinan on the continent became their no. 1 source of furs, for which they mostly paid with all sorts of iron- and glassware and with beer, which, after a few failed attempts, the Germans were finally able to concoct and brew from what they could grow on Bakailaoa.
Although the Basque, and increasingly also the Breton and English, were more numerous in Bakailaoa`s villages, the Hanseatic Germans quickly assumed a hegemonial role thanks to their military background, and increasingly also due to their close relations with the Innuasch. For while the Basque refugees – and some of the fishermen who took up permanent residence on Bakailaoa, too – had mostly come with their families, the Hanseatic mercenaries were exclusively male. The fishermen had not enough daughters, by far, to meet these demands. And so it did not take long until the first mixed German-Innuasch marriages occurred – with the wives often having held important positions in their native communities, or being the daughters of such persons. These ties secured the Hanseatics` position of greater power vis-à-vis the other European settlers, as did the document in which Harriguzki`s and Babesberri`s surviving inhabitants had accepted the sovereignty of the Hanseatic League over the Island of Bakailaoa. (It was the first territory which the entire Hansa, not one or several of its member towns and not even one of its “quarters” held in common. The Hansa was not quite used to such a situation, which added to the near-total autonomy which their appointed governor enjoyed anyway because of the great geographical distance.)
As settlements and trans-Atlantic trade volumes slowly grew, though, Hanseatic control would not remain uncontested. When England consolidated politically under King Edward, attempts were made to wrestle the control at least over the fishing and whaling businesses, if not the fur trade, from the Hanseatic monopolists. This was no difficult task to achieve because Hanseatic trading privileges in England were still very important to the League, and the ongoing protection by English ships and access to English ports were vital if the Hanseats did not want to risk losing their hegemonial role in the North Sea like they had in the Baltic. Thus, a Hansetag in 1478 grudgingly accepted the exemption of all English subjects from the tolls and staple regulations which the League had begun to establish on Bakailaoa. (With Normandy, Brittany and Gascony all controlled by the English crown, this applied to a majority of non-German Bakailaoans by 1478, the large exception being only those Basques who were subjects of the King of Navarra.)
Increased English involvement in Bakailaoan trade attracted Scottish suspicion, of course. Robert IV., King of Scots and heir to William II., was the first Reformed monarch who involved his country in the affairs concerning the new lands in the far North-West. Attempting to profit from his country`s ideal geographic position for trans-Atlantic trade, he sent out missions to sail around Bakailaoa and see if any new islets could be claimed for Scotland without giving England, which served as one of the Hansa`s indirect protectors, another reason to invade Scotland. The voyage made by Arthur MacLeod in 1484 may not have been the first European discovery of the New Skye [2], but it established a Scottish claim to the otter-rich island, which would be corroborated by the foundation of a small fishing colony in the following years. It had to be fortified from the beginning, for the Innuasch, who also used to hunt otters there, were not exactly pleased by the Scottish presence. And so, throughout the 1490s, tensions began to grow between the Innuasch-Hanseatic-English faction on one side, and the few Scots, who were increasingly joined by fellow Reformist Norse especially from Hjaltland [3].
* * *
In comparison, Novgorodian explorations and expansions into the North-Eastern parts of the Vast North were much more uncontested. With their ships of the koch type, they possessed a unique nautic advantage in these ice-ridden waters. Throughout the 15th century, new Pomorsk outposts were established as far as Mangazeya. [4] What drove these expansions was primarily the struggle between the Novgorod Republic and the Khanate of Kazan. Pomors fulfilled a vital role in the Novgorodian-Kazan War of the 1460s, in which the Republic caught the self-proclaimed and Kazan-backed polity of "Great Perm" in a vice, its ushkuyniki launching two-pronged attack from the North and the West which crushed Permian resistance, forced the insubordinate natives back under the Novgorodian yoke, and reached deep into Kazan`s heartlands. Subsequently, Novgorodian outposts served the purpose to secure this control in the future. The reason why these barren Northern regions were important enough for Novgorod to break its alliance with Kazan, which had served the Republic well in previous wars with Lithuania [5], over it was not dissimilar from the reason which made the distant North-West attractive for the Hansa, the English and the Scots: an abundance in furs.
[2] Anticosti Island
[3] Shetland Islands
[4] IOTL, it was only established in 1600.
[5] More on that in one of the next updates.
The last updates focusing on specific countries / parts of the world in the second half of the 15th century are going to be 1) on Austria/Hungary/the Hussite core lands and 2) on Lithuania, the Eastern ex-Rus`, Novgorod, Kazan, the Ottomans and the question of what became of the Byzantines.
The Hanseatic League leaped into action at this opportunity. A force of 300 men, primarily from towns along the Southern coast of the Baltic Sea, financed by Brabantian towns and endowed with weapons manufactured further South in Nürnberg, sailed to Bakailaoa and began to turn Harriguzki and a new town, Robbenstein, into forts. For the better part of three years, they conducted a punitive campaign against the Beothuk, which took them across much of the island, helping greatly in carthographying it. It thinned the native population out further, even though every third Hanseatic soldier died to Beothuk arrows, knives and spears, too. When the leader of the Hanseatic force, a certain Gustav Riemenschneider of Stettin, decided to end the campaign, the native population of the island had been further thinned out. Yet more Beothuk had fled in boats across the sea to the nearby mainland, of whose existence the Europeans learned at around this time, too, while a few native groups held out in remote regions of the inland.
Another frontal assault on a settlement like at Babesberri was excluded for the moment, but movement across the inland parts of the island would still not be entirely secure. The Hansa`s military presence would remain – especially since the heavy investment would have to pay off now.
In this regard, the persecution of the Beothuk had produced a great setback; now, there were no longer any furs to be obtained by trade from Bakailaoa. Turning into hunters themselves was unpractical, given the Europeans` individual backgrounds and skills and their limited knowledge of the place. What was needed, thus, were other, friendly natives.
They were found in the Illnuasch (Basque: Illnuatx). Living in a much larger territory, they showed much less internal coherence than the insular Beothuk had; thus, some Ilnuasch groups had maintained friendly relations to the Beothuk, offered their refugees asylum, and were hostile to the new arrivals, while others had had hostile relations to the Beothuk and were quite ready to co-operate with the Europeans and hunt furry animals on Bakailaoa, too, in addition to selling them furs from their own territories. The latter became official commercial partners of the Hansa, for whom Bakailaoa and nearby Nittassinan on the continent became their no. 1 source of furs, for which they mostly paid with all sorts of iron- and glassware and with beer, which, after a few failed attempts, the Germans were finally able to concoct and brew from what they could grow on Bakailaoa.
Although the Basque, and increasingly also the Breton and English, were more numerous in Bakailaoa`s villages, the Hanseatic Germans quickly assumed a hegemonial role thanks to their military background, and increasingly also due to their close relations with the Innuasch. For while the Basque refugees – and some of the fishermen who took up permanent residence on Bakailaoa, too – had mostly come with their families, the Hanseatic mercenaries were exclusively male. The fishermen had not enough daughters, by far, to meet these demands. And so it did not take long until the first mixed German-Innuasch marriages occurred – with the wives often having held important positions in their native communities, or being the daughters of such persons. These ties secured the Hanseatics` position of greater power vis-à-vis the other European settlers, as did the document in which Harriguzki`s and Babesberri`s surviving inhabitants had accepted the sovereignty of the Hanseatic League over the Island of Bakailaoa. (It was the first territory which the entire Hansa, not one or several of its member towns and not even one of its “quarters” held in common. The Hansa was not quite used to such a situation, which added to the near-total autonomy which their appointed governor enjoyed anyway because of the great geographical distance.)
As settlements and trans-Atlantic trade volumes slowly grew, though, Hanseatic control would not remain uncontested. When England consolidated politically under King Edward, attempts were made to wrestle the control at least over the fishing and whaling businesses, if not the fur trade, from the Hanseatic monopolists. This was no difficult task to achieve because Hanseatic trading privileges in England were still very important to the League, and the ongoing protection by English ships and access to English ports were vital if the Hanseats did not want to risk losing their hegemonial role in the North Sea like they had in the Baltic. Thus, a Hansetag in 1478 grudgingly accepted the exemption of all English subjects from the tolls and staple regulations which the League had begun to establish on Bakailaoa. (With Normandy, Brittany and Gascony all controlled by the English crown, this applied to a majority of non-German Bakailaoans by 1478, the large exception being only those Basques who were subjects of the King of Navarra.)
Increased English involvement in Bakailaoan trade attracted Scottish suspicion, of course. Robert IV., King of Scots and heir to William II., was the first Reformed monarch who involved his country in the affairs concerning the new lands in the far North-West. Attempting to profit from his country`s ideal geographic position for trans-Atlantic trade, he sent out missions to sail around Bakailaoa and see if any new islets could be claimed for Scotland without giving England, which served as one of the Hansa`s indirect protectors, another reason to invade Scotland. The voyage made by Arthur MacLeod in 1484 may not have been the first European discovery of the New Skye [2], but it established a Scottish claim to the otter-rich island, which would be corroborated by the foundation of a small fishing colony in the following years. It had to be fortified from the beginning, for the Innuasch, who also used to hunt otters there, were not exactly pleased by the Scottish presence. And so, throughout the 1490s, tensions began to grow between the Innuasch-Hanseatic-English faction on one side, and the few Scots, who were increasingly joined by fellow Reformist Norse especially from Hjaltland [3].
* * *
In comparison, Novgorodian explorations and expansions into the North-Eastern parts of the Vast North were much more uncontested. With their ships of the koch type, they possessed a unique nautic advantage in these ice-ridden waters. Throughout the 15th century, new Pomorsk outposts were established as far as Mangazeya. [4] What drove these expansions was primarily the struggle between the Novgorod Republic and the Khanate of Kazan. Pomors fulfilled a vital role in the Novgorodian-Kazan War of the 1460s, in which the Republic caught the self-proclaimed and Kazan-backed polity of "Great Perm" in a vice, its ushkuyniki launching two-pronged attack from the North and the West which crushed Permian resistance, forced the insubordinate natives back under the Novgorodian yoke, and reached deep into Kazan`s heartlands. Subsequently, Novgorodian outposts served the purpose to secure this control in the future. The reason why these barren Northern regions were important enough for Novgorod to break its alliance with Kazan, which had served the Republic well in previous wars with Lithuania [5], over it was not dissimilar from the reason which made the distant North-West attractive for the Hansa, the English and the Scots: an abundance in furs.
[2] Anticosti Island
[3] Shetland Islands
[4] IOTL, it was only established in 1600.
[5] More on that in one of the next updates.
The last updates focusing on specific countries / parts of the world in the second half of the 15th century are going to be 1) on Austria/Hungary/the Hussite core lands and 2) on Lithuania, the Eastern ex-Rus`, Novgorod, Kazan, the Ottomans and the question of what became of the Byzantines.
There`ve been a few hints so far. The Grand Duke we`ll start with is going to have a different agenda than Svitrigaila...