AHC/WI: Colonization of America in the 1100s/1200s

The Byzantine Dromon had lateen sails which could sail against the wind. What if sometime from 900-1100, the dromon made it to Iberia and France, where it could be refined to work on the Atlantic coast, creating an earlier 'caravel'? Remove the oars, add another mast of sails (which could easily by done by adding aspects of knarrs or barques), and you have an oceangoing ship.

What if feudal lords colonized the New World during the High Middle Ages?

What kind of colonial structures would arise?
 
I guess the question is why bother? What does the New World have that Europe needs?
In the later medieval period the answer would be fish. A major foodstuff in Catholic western Europe when abstinence from meat or fowl was required every Friday and Lent. The Grand Banks were exploited from the 15th century at the latest by Basque and English fishing fleets. Also furs and ivory from Hudsons Bay and Labrador. Maybe rumours of these sources of wealth spread from Greenland and Iceland to elsewhere in the Atlantic coast of Europe.

For a reason to seek out the Caribbean or Brazil, maybe an earlier wish to find an alternative route to the Spice Islands and Cathay?
 
In the later medieval period the answer would be fish. A major foodstuff in Catholic western Europe when abstinence from meat or fowl was required every Friday and Lent. The Grand Banks were exploited from the 15th century at the latest by Basque and English fishing fleets. Also furs and ivory from Hudsons Bay and Labrador. Maybe rumours of these sources of wealth spread from Greenland and Iceland to elsewhere in the Atlantic coast of Europe.

For a reason to seek out the Caribbean or Brazil, maybe an earlier wish to find an alternative route to the Spice Islands and Cathay?
And of course, gold.
 
From a cursory read on the subject:

I can see America being discovered in the Middle Ages, but likely not colonized in that time frame. The Spanish Conquests were a combination of luck, disease and the conquistadores taking advantage of the weakened Indian positions. Without them conquering huge swathes of well organized territories at once (the Spanish employed much of the native infrastructure to assist their rule and settler colonies probably very small (no reason to go that far away except for fishing outposts and trading), that leaves out the first possibility of an European empire on the Americas. While the cultures at that time in the Americas weren't that unified, I'm confident that they could resist an invasion, even when weakened by plague. In fact, the lack of resentment against empires (most of Cortéz success, for example was by courting enemies to the Aztecs) might prompt them to unite against invaders. From the sources I found, Mesoamerica and the Andes had already city-states. I need to do more research on that.

So, Europeans IMO would have neither the means or needs to form empires. They would visit the Americas. Fishing colonies are a posibility. Trading ports even more so (I'm not sure when the Mesoamericans started using gold, but that would be one of the first places to start trading due to geography. The Andes are far off). Plantations? They would need to secure territory first. The mainland would be hard to secure without technological and allied advantage. The Caribbean islands... maybe, but, did the Europeans have sugar or cotton to be planted there at this time? Can anyone enlighten me?

Someone would inevitably bring up the crusaders, but crusades to America would be logistically akin to crusading to India or China, and probably with less of a payoff. Not to mention the focus of crusading would still be on the Holy Land.

Disease will kill the natives, of course, and will provoke huge social changes (many sophisticated societies disbanded in nomadic bands OTL due to their collapse after European brought disease, like those in the Amazon and many others). But without empires opressing the natives and mass colonization, I would see the survival of many indigenous nations. From there, all bets are off.

What is very interesting, however, is the earlier Columbian Exchange. The introduction of potatoes and other crops to the Old World will forever change demographics, same with the New World and other crops that can easily grow in tropical zones. The intruction of horses and European technology to the natives in a more paired scenario would be very intersting too.

If someone had the time, research and creativity, this could be an excellent TL
 

Driftless

Donor
Or a group of sufficient size, wealth, and warning of impending disaster takes a hike first. i.e. some group like the Cathars. Pick your option.
 
From a cursory read on the subject:

I can see America being discovered in the Middle Ages, but likely not colonized in that time frame. The Spanish Conquests were a combination of luck, disease and the conquistadores taking advantage of the weakened Indian positions. Without them conquering huge swathes of well organized territories at once (the Spanish employed much of the native infrastructure to assist their rule and settler colonies probably very small (no reason to go that far away except for fishing outposts and trading), that leaves out the first possibility of an European empire on the Americas. While the cultures at that time in the Americas weren't that unified, I'm confident that they could resist an invasion, even when weakened by plague. In fact, the lack of resentment against empires (most of Cortéz success, for example was by courting enemies to the Aztecs) might prompt them to unite against invaders. From the sources I found, Mesoamerica and the Andes had already city-states. I need to do more research on that.

So, Europeans IMO would have neither the means or needs to form empires. They would visit the Americas. Fishing colonies are a posibility. Trading ports even more so (I'm not sure when the Mesoamericans started using gold, but that would be one of the first places to start trading due to geography. The Andes are far off). Plantations? They would need to secure territory first. The mainland would be hard to secure without technological and allied advantage. The Caribbean islands... maybe, but, did the Europeans have sugar or cotton to be planted there at this time? Can anyone enlighten me?

Someone would inevitably bring up the crusaders, but crusades to America would be logistically akin to crusading to India or China, and probably with less of a payoff. Not to mention the focus of crusading would still be on the Holy Land.

Disease will kill the natives, of course, and will provoke huge social changes (many sophisticated societies disbanded in nomadic bands OTL due to their collapse after European brought disease, like those in the Amazon and many others). But without empires opressing the natives and mass colonization, I would see the survival of many indigenous nations. From there, all bets are off.

What is very interesting, however, is the earlier Columbian Exchange. The introduction of potatoes and other crops to the Old World will forever change demographics, same with the New World and other crops that can easily grow in tropical zones. The intruction of horses and European technology to the natives in a more paired scenario would be very intersting too.

If someone had the time, research and creativity, this could be an excellent TL

Very good points. Although I don't think the Mesoamerican states of the 1100s would really unite against the invaders--the Europeans never united against the Vikings or the Mongols, and the Egyptians and Syrians took a century to really unite against the Crusaders. The natives states may have a better chance at surviving simply due to different luck and political circumstances, though.

The Caribbean wasn't used to cultivate sugar or cotton for several decades. Rather, the Spanish conquistadors enslaved the native Taíno to find gold and pearls. Slaves were imported starting in 1503, but high volumes of slave trade didn't start until decades later. Without the Portuguese precedent of slavery in Cape Verde, Hispaniola and the surrounding islands might just become places of subsistence agriculture and pastoralism, instead of slaving. But it depends on who conquers Hispaniola. Regardless of how greedy the conquests are, Old World diseases will still cause a great deal of chaos.

I agree that crusades to the Americas are unlikely. To get the dromon to Iberia, the Byzantine Empire has to be in better shape, and in that case, there is no Alexios Komnenos and no Crusades.
 
The Byzantine Dromon had lateen sails which could sail against the wind. What if sometime from 900-1100, the dromon made it to Iberia and France, where it could be refined to work on the Atlantic coast, creating an earlier 'caravel'? Remove the oars, add another mast of sails (which could easily by done by adding aspects of knarrs or barques), and you have an oceangoing ship.

What if feudal lords colonized the New World during the High Middle Ages?

What kind of colonial structures would arise?
Can't they just use the Norse ships? They arrived in Canada in about the year 1000, so it fits your timeframe.
 
Can't they just use the Norse ships? They arrived in Canada in about the year 1000, so it fits your timeframe.
Norse longships and knarrs only had a crew of about 25, while Byzantine dromons had a crew upwards of 100. And Norse ships were clinker-built, which became an obsolete method compared to carvel-built Mediterranean-influenced ships. (Carvel-built ships were used during the Age of Sail, while clinker-built ships gradually declined.)
 
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RousseauX

Donor
The Byzantine Dromon had lateen sails which could sail against the wind. What if sometime from 900-1100, the dromon made it to Iberia and France, where it could be refined to work on the Atlantic coast, creating an earlier 'caravel'? Remove the oars, add another mast of sails (which could easily by done by adding aspects of knarrs or barques), and you have an oceangoing ship.

What if feudal lords colonized the New World during the High Middle Ages?

What kind of colonial structures would arise?
The problem is that medieval era ships while theoretically capable of reaching the Americas have much much less chance of success in doing so and thus cuts down on the commercial viability of journeys. There's also stuff in there like the lack of mariner's astrolabe which wasn't invited yet and therefore you can't determine latitude at sea, meaning ships are more likely going to be lost in the endless oceans. There's also a whole bunch of other maritime technological innovations I can name which greatly improved navigation and ocean-going ships in the 15th-16th century which wasn't available earlier.

Basically colonization is intimately linked to a whole bunch of technology which started to pop up after the 15th century which made ocean going ships reliable enough that the expected value of (Revenue-Cost) of journeys >0. It's not good enough to have a ship capable of reaching the Americas, you need ships which can get there reliably enough to make it profitable and justify heavy capital investment in such journeys.

I agree that crusades to the Americas are unlikely. To get the dromon to Iberia, the Byzantine Empire has to be in better shape, and in that case, there is no Alexios Komnenos and no Crusades.
The Byzantines are a no-go because of the distance between Greece and the Americas are further than between Spain/Portugal and the new world when you have much worse technology. You need to go through the straits of gibraltar and sicily and corsica and any number of islands which could block your access at any given point in time. There's a reason why every colonial state was an Atlantic one. Even if at the very beginning there's no one blocking you, they sure as hell will once ships starts to return with valuable trade goods: whether it be fur or gold.

There's also the fact that, barring maybe the Netherlands, none of the historical Colonial states (Portugal, Valois France, England, Spain) really faced an existential threat during the 16th-19th centuries and other western armies were much less threatening than were the Seijuk Turks were to the Byzantines in the 1100-1300s. Which means that they had more startup capital to put into colonies until they started to turn in a profit. The Byzantines were arguably permanently facing such a threat chipping away at Anatolia. This means that there would be correspondingly lower level of capital the empire could throw into questionable overseas ventures.
 
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RousseauX

Donor
Norse longships and knarrs only had a crew of about 25, while Byzantine dromons had a crew upwards of 100. And Norse ships were clinker-built, which became an obsolete method compared to carvel-built Mediterranean-influenced ships. (Carvel-built ships were used during the Age of Sail, while clinker-built ships gradually declined.)
The problem wasn't with crew size, the problem was with economic viability of maintaining a link between the old world and the new one, the Viking colonies in Greenland for instance largely died because trade routes stop being profitable because the technology for cheap(er) ocean-going voyages wasn't there yet.
 

All Rounder

Gone Fishin'
Well, if you wanted a realistic colonization during this time period then it would not be Byzantine or any Eastern or Southern European power, it would be the Vikings, and that is a fact. Honestly I don't think any powers like that could make a viable colony on the Eastern Seaboard, but the Vikings have such close proximity to it that they could. I honestly don't think Byzantine could do that and if they did, what could happen as a result.
 
The problem is that medieval era ships while theoretically capable of reaching the Americas have much much less chance of success in doing so and thus cuts down on the commercial viability of journeys. There's also stuff in there like the lack of mariner's astrolabe which wasn't invited yet and therefore you can't determine latitude at sea, meaning ships are more likely going to be lost in the endless oceans. There's also a whole bunch of other maritime technological innovations I can name which greatly improved navigation and ocean-going ships in the 15th-16th century which wasn't available earlier.

Basically colonization is intimately linked to a whole bunch of technology which started to pop up after the 15th century which made ocean going ships reliable enough that the expected value of (Revenue-Cost) of journeys >0. It's not good enough to have a ship capable of reaching the Americas, you need ships which can get there reliably enough to make it profitable and justify heavy capital investment in such journeys.

The technology for oceanic travel was present in the Indian Ocean, and almost present in the Eastern Mediterranean. The astrolabe (although not the mariner's astrolabe), and lateen sails, and a reasonably tough hull, were all known among the Byzantines. The issue is that the Byzantines were too far from the Atlantic, and there's no reason for them to develop an oarless, Atlantic-capable ship due to their location well within the Mediterranean. However, if their techniques made it to the Atlantic coast, technological diffusion from North Sea shipbuilding could easily lead to a capable, cheap oceangoing ship like the caravel.
The Byzantines are a no-go because of the distance between Greece and the Americas are further and you need to go through the straits of gibraltar and sicily and corsica and any number of islands which could block your access at any given point in time. There's a reason why every colonial state was an Atlantic one. Even if at the very beginning there's no one blocking you at the beginning, they sure as hell will once ships starts to return with valuable trade goods: whether it be fur or gold.

I agree. I don't mean the Byzantines would be the ones colonizing. I was thinking that a Byzantine conquest of Sicily, or simply an empire that doesn't go through its 11th century disasters, could allow Byzantine influence and technology to spread west to al-Andalus. Then the Moors would be the ones to begin the colonization. Or perhaps Normans or Spanish who take over al-Andalus and are forbidden from the trans-Saharan trade routes.

A Byzantine conquest of Egypt, bringing in Indian Ocean technologies, could help as well--but that would have to wait until the Fatimids are no longer useful as an opponent of Sunni empires (Seljuks etc.) to the east.

The problem wasn't with crew size, the problem was with economic viability of maintaining a link between the old world and the new one, the Viking colonies in Greenland for instance largely died because trade routes stop being profitable because the technology for cheap(er) ocean-going voyages wasn't there yet.

The Viking colony in Greenland survived for 3 centuries. The technology to reach it was certainly there throughout that period. Though there could have been a decline of trade profits which led to its demise. Some scholars believe it was the royal Norwegian monopoly on shipping that ultimately ended the prosperity of the Greenland colony.
 
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To be Honest the only people I could see immigrating en mass to the Americas are the people inhabiting the cold Isles of the North Sea, First it would be people from Greenland and then Iceland and then Faero and after that the Shetlands and Orkney.

People ask why?

Well in my Vinland Tl (Shameless advertisement ;) ), the first real hub of colonization was the St. Johns area in Newfoundland. The Area has rich farmland, High Quality Iron ore, and is in the perfect location for fishing the Grand Banks.

Then after St. Johns becomes at the very least a sizeable town and other colonies get established they will discover the Sugar Maple Tree, Sugar and Syrup would be a luxury Item that could be exported to Europe to rich buyers.



And I don't really think other nations really could or even want to colonize the Americas as they don't have the ship technology and even if they did it's so far away that try to Maintain an Empire Across the Atlantic would be extremely difficult because if someone wanted to rebel and form their own kingdom there was little you could do about it and it would be months before you would even hear about it.
 
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