AHC: Minimize Settler Colonization of the Americas

The challenge is this: with a PoD of 1400, create conditions that minimize the settling of the Americas. This can include lack of profits, unfavorable conditions in Europe, etc.

Bonus points for:
-preserving some remnant of the "Great 4 Civs" of the Aztec, Maya, Muisca, and Inca
-keeping the eastern North American confederations of the Wabanaki, Haudenosaunee, Three Fires, and Powhatan mostly intact
-an indigenous American "Meiji"
 
I'd say OTL was close to maximal in both survival of amerindian cultures/peoples.

Based on what? I’d say that OTL was nowhere near the native survival maximum. For one, the Incan Empire could have survived, or at least successor states. It’s not impossible or even improbable. They weren’t religious maniacs like the Aztecs and had a tradition of adopting foreign technology, quarantining valleys and were sitting on a mountain of silver and some of the best defensive terrain on earth. If they can survive to the point where either Portugal and England are relevant they can survive long term.
 
Here are some ideas...

-With a PoD of 1400 I suppose you have time to invent vaccines, especially if you delay the discovery of the Americas.

-Having Cortes and Pizarro fail may discourage future colonial ventures. Then again, having these areas under Spanish rule as opposed to other European powers may help minimize settlement.

-The French are often said to be light colonizers as opposed to the English. A weaker England and a stronger, more colonial minded France may help limit settlement.

-No reformation would mean no New England, removing a major settlement colony. It would also remove the Huguenots. This might limit English colonialism to simply economic ventures like Virginia as opposed to trying to recreate Britain in the Americas.

-Greater trade could mean greater access to guns, allowing the natives the ability to resist colonialism and therefore settlement.

-OTL there were Europeans who would run off and join the natives. You may count them as settlers, but it might allow you to boost 'native' populations and strength while preserving their culture if this occurred more often.
 

Lusitania

Donor
That was very difficult. As soon as Spanish and Portuguese landed and found out that sugar cane which both countries had begun producing in Madeira and canaries grew even better in carribean and Brazil that set about the decline of the major native tribes. The first group to be enslaved were the natives it was their inability to withstand European diseases that led to African slaves abs European convicts and indebted servente being sent. So the arrival of Europeans meant the colonization of the lands.

As for vaccines sorry but we hundreds of years to that. There are lots of scientific discoveries required.
 
If England adopted French/Dutch model of colonization European population north of Rio Grande would be order of magnitude lower than IOTL (some 10-20% of OTL level).
 
a very interesting POD would be to have the natives have their own stronger strain of diseases which makes them immune to the diseases brought on by the settlers. So you have the natives surviving but the settlers (and any settlers who head back to Europe) suffer from diseases. Might cause Black Death2.0 in Europe but :/
 
a very interesting POD would be to have the natives have their own stronger strain of diseases which makes them immune to the diseases brought on by the settlers. So you have the natives surviving but the settlers (and any settlers who head back to Europe) suffer from diseases. Might cause Black Death2.0 in Europe but :/


Here's one I've suggested before:

While I don't think Mansa Abubakari actually made it to the Americas, lets say as a counterfactual one of his ships makes it to the Americas. Are any of the sailors alive at this point? Doesn't matter. What matters is a stoway has survived, an Aedes aegypti mosquito carrying yellow fever virus. The mosquito flies out of the ship and lucks out by finding some hosts, a troop of monkeys on the beach. It bites them and infects them. Now introduced into its sylvatic cycle, where monkeys are infected by mosquitoes living in forest canopies, the disease spreads across South America into Central America. In some areas humans are infected incidentally by the disease cycle; in other places such as Mesoamerica, human populations are so dense that the virus establishes a human to human cycle of transmission. Either way, the sudden introduction of a large population that is naive to yellow fever-for example, an invading Spanish army-will result in an epidemic in the latitudes between Rio de Janeiro and Veracruz. Mass die-offs meet the would be invaders by the time the 16th century rolls in, and large parts of the European conquest are averted with no Black Death 2.0 involved.
 
As for vaccines sorry but we hundreds of years to that. There are lots of scientific discoveries required.

The first vaccines consisted of scratching people with needles laced with the lymph of people who where carrying the cowpox virus. That wasn't that sophisticated of an invention.
 

Lusitania

Donor
The first vaccines consisted of scratching people with needles laced with the lymph of people who where carrying the cowpox virus. That wasn't that sophisticated of an invention.
Correct that was 1780s not 1490 when most people beloved it was witchcraft or gods will.
 

Lusitania

Donor
Here's one I've suggested before:

While I don't think Mansa Abubakari actually made it to the Americas, lets say as a counterfactual one of his ships makes it to the Americas. Are any of the sailors alive at this point? Doesn't matter. What matters is a stoway has survived, an Aedes aegypti mosquito carrying yellow fever virus. The mosquito flies out of the ship and lucks out by finding some hosts, a troop of monkeys on the beach. It bites them and infects them. Now introduced into its sylvatic cycle, where monkeys are infected by mosquitoes living in forest canopies, the disease spreads across South America into Central America. In some areas humans are infected incidentally by the disease cycle; in other places such as Mesoamerica, human populations are so dense that the virus establishes a human to human cycle of transmission. Either way, the sudden introduction of a large population that is naive to yellow fever-for example, an invading Spanish army-will result in an epidemic in the latitudes between Rio de Janeiro and Veracruz. Mass die-offs meet the would be invaders by the time the 16th century rolls in, and large parts of the European conquest are averted with no Black Death 2.0 involved.
Sorry but European diseases would still decimate native population. Plus Europeans especially those from southern latitudes were already exposed to yellow fever so nothing new.

Other than no Europeans contact nothing stop Europeans
 
Maybe just enough Norse colonization of North America’s Atlantic coast in the Middle Ages to introduce Old World diseases to the rest of the continent and recover demographically from the resultant plagues before other European powers show up?
 
Have the Spanish conquests fail and make Native Americans in North America more aggressive to colonists there. Recovering from disease will take time, but it should be a lot better without the recovery being hindered by slavery and massacres. Also, have the colonists in North America be more prone to commercial failure to the point that people give up on trying to seriously set up there.
 

Lusitania

Donor
Maybe just enough Norse colonization of North America’s Atlantic coast in the Middle Ages to introduce Old World diseases to the rest of the continent and recover demographically from the resultant plagues before other European powers show up?
Sorry but does not work. You just introduced disease earlier and introduced settlers by the Norse
 
Sorry but does not work. You just introduced disease earlier and introduced settlers by the Norse

But do the Norse by themselves have the manpower to conquer the relatively urbanized civilizations of Mesoamerica and the Andes? Consider that they do not have the advantage of gunpowder.

In our timeline, disease was only part of the equation that led to the Spanish conquest of the New World. The conquistadors pressed this advantage to quickly and relatively cleanly add the Aztec and Inca domains to the empire while there was still a significant tech gap.
 

Lusitania

Donor
But do the Norse by themselves have the manpower to conquer the relatively urbanized civilizations of Mesoamerica and the Andes? Consider that they do not have the advantage of gunpowder.

In our timeline, disease was only part of the equation that led to the Spanish conquest of the New World. The conquistadors pressed this advantage to quickly and relatively cleanly add the Aztec and Inca domains to the empire while there was still a significant tech gap.
Ok first off one of two things happen with a Norse successful presence.
1) if an isolated group makes to Newfoundland and establishes a colony that subsequently is cut off they will of course introduce disease to the surrounding area but when Spanish and others arrive be subject to same diseases since they do not have any immunity to the diseases in Europe during the 15-16th century.
2) if the Norse establish a permanent colony with continued contact to Europe this will bring different European sonner and disease sooner. Do the Mayan collapse do the Aztec even come to power not sure but trade and disease will come which weakens the natives and reduces their population and opens the land to Europeans.

Sorry nothing protects the natives from disease which weakens them and makes them easier to conquer.
 
Sorry but European diseases would still decimate native population.

Yes, but without colonization-and the ensuing enslavement, wars, and ecological disruption-the Native populations bounce back within a few generations.

Plus Europeans especially those from southern latitudes were already exposed to yellow fever so nothing new.

I think you're thinking of malaria here. Yellow fever exists in the Americas and Africa South of the Sahara. It does not exist in Europe or Asia, and short of visiting Africa there isn't a way for Europeans to be exposed to it.

Other than no Europeans contact nothing stop Europeans

I think the Andes could stop the Europeans. The Inca would need to avoid some of the blunders they made IOTL, but they could defend themselves from invasion.

Sorry nothing protects the natives from disease which weakens them and makes them easier to conquer.

What about a disease that gives cross-immunity? There are orthopox viruses that are native to North America, such as volepox and raccoonpox. A scenario where they jump to humans could see many Natives given immunity to smallpox, since orthopox viruses generally give cross-immunity.
 
Here are some ideas...

-With a PoD of 1400 I suppose you have time to invent vaccines, especially if you delay the discovery of the Americas.

-Having Cortes and Pizarro fail may discourage future colonial ventures. Then again, having these areas under Spanish rule as opposed to other European powers may help minimize settlement.

-The French are often said to be light colonizers as opposed to the English. A weaker England and a stronger, more colonial minded France may help limit settlement.

-No reformation would mean no New England, removing a major settlement colony. It would also remove the Huguenots. This might limit English colonialism to simply economic ventures like Virginia as opposed to trying to recreate Britain in the Americas.

-Greater trade could mean greater access to guns, allowing the natives the ability to resist colonialism and therefore settlement.

-OTL there were Europeans who would run off and join the natives. You may count them as settlers, but it might allow you to boost 'native' populations and strength while preserving their culture if this occurred more often.

While inoculation has been around since the 10th century in China and/or India, true vaccination against all of the diseases the Europeans brought would be difficult. I can see see it happening ahead of its time in the case of smallpox and it would certainly help save many lives, but measles and those others would be more difficult to fight off. That first wave though will definitely be terrible, especially if it brings a cocktail of diseases. Missionaries might try to vaccinate the natives in return for conversion?

The failure of Cortes and Pizarro would certainly help, Pizarro being the more likely of the two to fail since the Inca were located on difficult to navigate terrain. Cortes failing might only slow the destruction of the Aztec Empire, but it might better preserve the Nahuatl culture and maybe even preserve Tenochtitlan. The Inca might lose their northern lands, but if they can preserve their core areas in what is now Peru and Bolivia I would count that as meeting the challenge's requirements.

Agreed that the French were lighter colonizers, but perhaps a weaker France and England would be more beneficial. Maybe if they expend most of their funds exhausting each other with war or intercontinental trade competition that North America does not cross their mind? Or at least, trade companies would prefer to settle the southern areas around the Caribbean as opposed to the North (Jamaica, Barbados, and Haiti Redux, except expanded)

Fascinating PoD with the No Reformation. It definitely would help in limiting the amount of settlers willing to go to New England. Would not have thought of that. But how do you prevent it, or perhaps contain it? It was very revolutionary and spread quite quickly.

Greater trade was what allowed the Iroquois to secure some power, allowing them to defeat their weaker neighbors through guns by trading for fur. But what comes then if the natives don't have a good to trade to the Europeans? Then they lack the economic power to request for guns. It would also require those guns to not be used against the Europeans for some time.

I would definitely count Europeans who joined the natives as natives if only because most tribes would expect them to take up their customs. It definitely boosts their population in terms of numbers; if they are lucky, they might even net a skilled artisan, a trader, or perhaps farmers who know how to grow Old World crops.

Here's one I've suggested before:

While I don't think Mansa Abubakari actually made it to the Americas, lets say as a counterfactual one of his ships makes it to the Americas. Are any of the sailors alive at this point? Doesn't matter. What matters is a stoway has survived, an Aedes aegypti mosquito carrying yellow fever virus. The mosquito flies out of the ship and lucks out by finding some hosts, a troop of monkeys on the beach. It bites them and infects them. Now introduced into its sylvatic cycle, where monkeys are infected by mosquitoes living in forest canopies, the disease spreads across South America into Central America. In some areas humans are infected incidentally by the disease cycle; in other places such as Mesoamerica, human populations are so dense that the virus establishes a human to human cycle of transmission. Either way, the sudden introduction of a large population that is naive to yellow fever-for example, an invading Spanish army-will result in an epidemic in the latitudes between Rio de Janeiro and Veracruz. Mass die-offs meet the would be invaders by the time the 16th century rolls in, and large parts of the European conquest are averted with no Black Death 2.0 involved.

This would definitely help stave off colonization if most of the people died to yellow fever. Though, if yellow fever gets carried across, why not malaria too? Or other mosquito-transmitted diseases for that matter.

Maybe just enough Norse colonization of North America’s Atlantic coast in the Middle Ages to introduce Old World diseases to the rest of the continent and recover demographically from the resultant plagues before other European powers show up?

Hmm, I feel like this has been discussed before, but it is doable to an extent. Trade was less developed in the Northeast than say, Mesoamerica, and even more so since the Vinland colony was located on Newfoundland, isolated from the rest of the continent. It would require a southern push. Maybe if Greenland is abandoned and they all fled to Vinland, and from there Nova Scotia, or the St. Lawrence Valley, maybe Massachusetts Bay? That would exponentially help spread the early wave of disease, though they might mutate differently from Old World versions of the disease.
 
Maybe have the Chinese (or some other E/SE asian state) show up and introduce diseases before european colonisation? They would not be as inclined to distant settler colonisation or conquistadoring, as far as I can tell, and I doubt that they would settle anything other than the west coast of the US and Canada and maybe also Baja California.
 
Columbus's first voyage was August to October 1492. During the peak of Atlantic hurricane season.

We don't have satellite records, obviously, but there was undoubtedly at least one fish storm that year. Columbus embarks a little earlier or later and crosses that storm's path.

Being lost at sea is an assumed risk, so a few years later someone tries again and suffers the same fate. Meanwhile traders using the eastbound land and sea routes never hear any news of the missing voyages. Eventually the Europeans conclude that sailing west is impossible, or so much harder than east that it isn't worth doing.

They'll still eventually figure out that there's a continent but will pay only minimal attention.
 
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