Alternate Columbian Exchanges:

Basically this ponders contact between different worldviews with the American Indians.

Suppose, for instance, that India colonizes America, likely from the Pacific direction. What would Hindu India make of the Indians? :p What would they be called? How would they fit into Hinduism and/or alter it? What would an Indian colonization look like?

How would the Eastern religions handle it? Which Chinese language would become largest in America? What would the cultural mixing produce? How would Chinese colonization work?

How would Islam handle it? Would the passage in the Quran about how different languages and skin colors are a sign of God's existence lead to greater toleration of Natives? What would be the basis of an Islamic colonization of America?

Suppose one of the West African empires establishes a permanent outpost in the Americas, too. If that were to happen, what would the results be? What would an Afro-American culture look like Africans and not Europeans were the colonizers?

I think the discussion on this would be interesting....
 
There's some evidence that Africans may have travelled to and traded with peoples in the Americas, guanine alloys, Spanish accounts of Africans (pre transatlantic slave trade) in Hispaniola, Panama, and near present day Brownsville TX. Polynesians did also, their DNA is in several Indian tribes. Plus of course the Vikings.

The challenge is not in finding explorers but in finding invaders who'd do the same as Europeans (excepting Vikings), colonizing and conquering. The three above weren't hegemonic.

You'd have to find trade items that'd give a motive for India, China, etc, to come to the Americas regularly.

Islamic colonization with evangelism'd be interesting, and I recall there was a pretty good thread on that.
 
Top