AHC: Put off the European Discovery of the Americas as Long as Possible

[Meerkat92]

So this challenge has a pretty simple premise:

We've all more or less come to a consensus here that contact between Europe and the New World was more or less inevitable. But let's take that to the logical extreme! With a PoD after 1 AD, put off European exploration and their discovery of the Americas for as long as possible. I'm interested to see what you guys come up with.

 

[Tripwire]

Europeans successively lose battle after battle to Mongols and Muslim invaders, resulting in most of the continent being conquered by 1600, and the rest preoccupied with fighting the invaders rather than trade.

Middle Eastern traders become the first modern Eurasians to discover the Americas. (Not sure if this is cheating)

 

[Meerkat92]

Europeans successively lose battle after battle to Mongols and Muslim invaders, resulting in most of the continent being conquered by 1600, and the rest preoccupied with fighting the invaders rather than trade.

Middle Eastern traders become the first modern Eurasians to discover the Americas. (Not sure if this is cheating)

It's not really cheating, but sort of a greyish area. How long would you expect first contact to be delayed by?

 

[Tripwire]

It's not really cheating, but sort of a greyish area. How long would you expect first contact to be delayed by?

Medieval and Ancient history isn't my forte. If conquering hostile territories slows things down and with a far more eastern seat of power, (no motive for sailing west) and if the winds of history just sort of blow the wrong way....maybe a couple centuries? But my PoD would be quite a ways after 1 AD.

The other scenario that jumped to mind was more devastating plagues and other epidemics in Europe, which IMO was one of the main OTL reasons for the apparently slow rate of technological progress in the middle ages, with losing a significant chunk of the population every generation.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

The question may be more like 'put off the european COLONIAL investment in Americas as long as possible'... As long the powers have no gain to make in Americas...

 

[scholar]

With a POD of 1 A.D. its possible to keep Europeans from discovering (or anyone else for that matter) the Americas until the present day.

You simply have to prevent the major factors that led to the attempt at circumnavigating either the Atlantic or the African continent, or shift them to entirely "on land" avenues or Indian Ocean avenues with a demi-Suez of sorts taking place instead of travelling over two years around the African Continent where most people died in the process.

 

[twovultures]

Possibly: Columbus sinks in the Atlantic, AND in the next few decades the first Portuguese ship to land on South America returns with only a few survivors after running afoul of the local people. Reports of hostile natives and a land that doesn't seem to have any discernible wealth aside from loads of jungle and savannah means that Europeans spend several more decades before beginning major exploration in the Americas.

 

[Meerkat92]

With a POD of 1 A.D. its possible to keep Europeans from discovering (or anyone else for that matter) the Americas until the present day.

You simply have to prevent the major factors that led to the attempt at circumnavigating either the Atlantic or the African continent, or shift them to entirely "on land" avenues or Indian Ocean avenues with a demi-Suez of sorts taking place instead of travelling over two years around the African Continent where most people died in the process.

Easier said than done, methinks.

 

[PoeFacedKilla]

With a POD of 1 A.D. its possible to keep Europeans from discovering (or anyone else for that matter) the Americas until the present day.

No its not.
sometime, someone is going to discover america.

england is so close to north america (which has sort of the same environment)

and the SE Asians had quite a few sea faring peoples. if one of them was to find gold in california.

plus i do believe that SE Asians and Native Americans had been trading for awhile, it just was consensual and nobody made a big deal about it "discovering new lands"

 

[Meerkat92]

No its not.
sometime, someone is going to discover america.

england is so close to north america (which has sort of the same environment)

and the SE Asians had quite a few sea faring peoples. if one of them was to find gold in california.

plus i do believe that SE Asians and Native Americans had been trading for awhile, it just was consensual and nobody made a big deal about it "discovering new lands"

Well, you only need to keep Europe from getting there in any sort of large numbers. I'm not asking for some sort of wall to be erected around the Western Hemisphere or anything, merely that OTL's European contact is put off. How long do you think it could be put off for?

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Plus, the Norses did it a few centuries before, the Basques came later but before COlombus too (perhaps).. so...

 

[PoeFacedKilla]

Well, you only need to keep Europe from getting there in any sort of large numbers. I'm not asking for some sort of wall to be erected around the Western Hemisphere or anything, merely that OTL's European contact is put off. How long do you think it could be put off for?

Ok i think probably the 16 maybe 1700s. It all depends on the rate at which ship technology developes (which, intern depends on the need for better ships.)

So you can retard the development of ships but idk for how long. england is an island and they're (to me the most likely european country to discover america in an ATL) going to need a navy unless they want to fight wars on they're land (which they don't.)

You can however, easily prevent them from colonizing america if you keep them at war on the continent.

 

[scholar]

No its not.
sometime, someone is going to discover america.

england is so close to north america (which has sort of the same environment)

and the SE Asians had quite a few sea faring peoples. if one of them was to find gold in california.

plus i do believe that SE Asians and Native Americans had been trading for awhile, it just was consensual and nobody made a big deal about it "discovering new lands"

Yes, but not by the year 2012 if the cards are played right. Eventually, and eventually is between now and never.

England was so close but did nothing, and "so close" is more or less the entire length of europe with no land in sight unless you count Iceland and Greenland, which people didn't even inhabit until the Norwegians went there. England, however, was poor and economically dependent upon the mainland. It took centuries of economic buildup, and even then they merely followed the Portuguese and Spanish that came before.

There's a difference between sea sailing and transoceanic sailing. They had nothing that would allow them to do that without continuous resupply, which they were unlikely to find.

That's far more baseless an assertion than the Ming Treasure Fleet making it to the new world. You want to know the big reason for this? If that were the case then they would already have an immunity to most European Diseases. Livestock would move across the ocean and there would be clear traces of Asian goods. There is none of that in the archeological record, and less than nothing to support such notions from the historical record.

 

[Herzen's love-child]

A few decades delay tops in more plausible scenarios. Unless you go full Kim Stanley Robinson and kill off essentially the entire European population with a plague.

 

[Prime Minister]

If trade across the Middle East, between Europe and Asia remains undisturbed it could put discovery of the Americas off for centuries. Never give the Europeans a reason to Sail West to reach the East.

 

[Herzen's love-child]

If trade across the Middle East, between Europe and Asia remains undisturbed it could put discovery of the Americas off for centuries. Never give the Europeans a reason to Sail West to reach the East.

It is quite possible that Basque and Bristol fishing vessels were already sailing off Newfoundland even before Columbus. Just a matter of time...

 

[The Ubbergeek]

It is quite possible that Basque and Bristol fishing vessels were already sailing off Newfoundland even before Columbus. Just a matter of time...

There is hints that they knew those productive zones off Newfoundland since a while... maybe like 15th century.

And as I said, the norses knew of the area generaly in vague details.

It was not forgotten as Scandinavia got christianised.

 

[scholar]

It is quite possible that Basque and Bristol fishing vessels were already sailing off Newfoundland even before Columbus. Just a matter of time...

Possible they were sailing about the time of Colombus in the 15th century. A full 14 centuries before the earliest POD allowed, the "just a matter of time" argument doesn't fit.

 

[Herzen's love-child]

Possible they were sailing about the time of Colombus in the 15th century. A full 14 centuries before the earliest POD allowed, the "just a matter of time" argument doesn't fit.

You'll have to explain yourself a little, you sound a little confused. With a POD after 1 AD is what the OP had called for. I'm speaking to the inevitability of European discovery w/o some of the OTL actors in play in a similar timeframe to OTL. I'm talking about fisherman in the 1400s AD!
It is immensely hard to delay the discovery and the exploitation of the Americas unless you totally screw Europe in an early POD.

 

[scholar]

You'll have to explain yourself a little, you sound a little confused. With a POD after 1 AD is what the OP had called for. I'm speaking to the inevitability of European discovery w/o some of the OTL actors in play in a similar timeframe to OTL. I'm talking about fisherman in the 1400s AD!
It is immensely hard to delay the discovery and the exploitation of the Americas unless you totally screw Europe in an early POD.

You cannot speak of inevitability when you have such a sheer scale of time to play around with. Hence speaking of fishermen in the 15th century implying inevitability when you can go back as far as 2 A.D. just seems wrong.

Its immensely easy to delay the discovery of the Americas if you actually avoid the build up of factors leading to its discovery in the Middle Ages. You can do this by avoiding the middle ages. If the Roman Economic Block remains strong and connected to the vast wealth of the east there's virtually no reason to travel across an Ocean without lands for nearly the entire length of the Roman Empire. If Roman Merchants in North Africa maintain their monopoly over the African trade northward there's no reason to travel to sub-saharan Africa. If the Mediterranean is your personal ocean providing your every maritime want you will lack the capacity to have ocean fairing vessels as Mare Nostrum is a particularly timid place in comparison to the Altantic. The powers that form on the borders will look enviously to the South, not look to circumvent them by traveling around Rome and Africa both for a vague dream of an 'India'.