AHC: Hanseatic colonies in the Americas

Just what it says on the tin. How do we achieve colonies by the Hansa in the New World? What happens afterward? Do they get a head start on the fur trade? Could we see a German-speaking canada as a result? Would these colonies be direct colonies of the city which sponsored them, or colonies of the League as a whole, or full members of the Hanseatic League? What sort of POD do we need for this?
 
So for a start what is the economic incentive to send ships across the Atlantic? Perhaps a surviving 14th century Greenland settlement leads fur traders, or fishermen to Newfoundland & points south? Its going to take a lot of fur & fish to pay for the voyages across the Atlantic.

Note the point of a surviving Greenland settlement. One implication of that is a warmer climate enabling the survival. A warmer climate leads to population growth in Europe & a incentive to immigration as one way of dealing with population growth faster than improvement of agricultural production.
 
I would see any Hanseatic colonies founded more as city-states or trading depots. They would probably be under the control of the League in general, but they would probably be the first that the Hansa would lose control over.

After the Hansa lost control, the city-states would probably align with either the next colonial power to show up, or with the most powerful local Indian nation.

Some creolized form of Low German could become a trade language.
 
the creole trade language would probably be some mix of English and low german ... pseudo-Flemish?
 
The most likely scenario would be a joint emporium, soimething like the steelyard or the tyske brygge. That would have to be set up in an area that already had trade relations with the Hansa, so it would either be in the context of someone else's colonial undertaking (maybe Burgundian, for the hell of it) or in cooperation with a powerful native state.

If no such partner exists, but the Hansa cities still feel the need to trade, they may simply set up seasonal camps, Newfoundland-style, and invite natives to barter. Some people might stay behind when the convoy leaves, but they won't be so much real colonists as woodsmen, securing the supply of trade goods by tapping into native treade networks.

I can't see any lasting impact on the American side because the Hanseatic cities, even if they retained their cohesion, are poorly placed to exert that kind of influence. They do not have people to export - most of them had negative population growth and imported migrants - and they are averse to fighting wars, which means they lack the military power to play for big prizes "beyond the line". A surviving Hanseatic league would most likely have a small part of the American trade, mostly using its experience in Arctic shipping to harvest natural resources like cod, whale and walrus oil, seabird fat, and traded furs on the Canadian coast. Until the big players pushed it out, if they do ITTL.
 
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