American colonization delayed

Is it possible for European contact with the Americas, or at the very least significant European colonization of the Americas, to be delayed until the 19th century, during the big thrust European colonialism in other parts of the world?
 
Successful Crusades leaves the Holy Land and more importantly the Suez penninsula in Christian hands. The Catholic church decrees them a papal zone so no one European nation-power has control of the contentious area. Benign neglect leaves the trade route over the Suez (caravan route between Med and Red) with little tax impedance, blossoming it as a mercantile corridor to the Indian Ocean and the riches beyond. Therefore there is no need to circumvent first Africa and then the world to find a route to Asia that avoids Muslim control.

Without the need for long blue-water voyages (Arabian Sea/Indian Ocean traffic can hug the coasts) the development of bigger and sturdier ships is delayed. The Americas may well be 'discovered' by (fishing vessles from) Europe during the 300 year delay you're asking for, but by accident and not extensively. The dangers of trans-Atlantic voyage in the Med-appropriate galleys that still dominate naval technology makes the venture too risky to be attempted, especially with an unknown pay-off.

ITTL the devlopment of larger vessles occurs in the Indian Ocean to circumvent Indian traders on the passage from Suez to the Spice Islands. The technology is late in getting to the Atlantic because there is no need for it (as far as they know). In the late 1700's explorers of Africa's West Coast eventually make the crossing to South America, discovering in earnest for the first time the size and breadth of teh New World. the European powers, stagnating and looking for new markets/nationalist glory rush to lay claims in the Western Continents...
 

mojojojo

Gone Fishin'
Successful Crusades leaves the Holy Land and more importantly the Suez penninsula in Christian hands. The Catholic church decrees them a papal zone so no one European nation-power has control of the contentious area. Benign neglect leaves the trade route over the Suez (caravan route between Med and Red) with little tax impedance, blossoming it as a mercantile corridor to the Indian Ocean and the riches beyond. Therefore there is no need to circumvent first Africa and then the world to find a route to Asia that avoids Muslim control.

Without the need for long blue-water voyages (Arabian Sea/Indian Ocean traffic can hug the coasts) the development of bigger and sturdier ships is delayed. The Americas may well be 'discovered' by (fishing vessles from) Europe during the 300 year delay you're asking for, but by accident and not extensively. The dangers of trans-Atlantic voyage in the Med-appropriate galleys that still dominate naval technology makes the venture too risky to be attempted, especially with an unknown pay-off.

ITTL the devlopment of larger vessles occurs in the Indian Ocean to circumvent Indian traders on the passage from Suez to the Spice Islands. The technology is late in getting to the Atlantic because there is no need for it (as far as they know). In the late 1700's explorers of Africa's West Coast eventually make the crossing to South America, discovering in earnest for the first time the size and breadth of teh New World. the European powers, stagnating and looking for new markets/nationalist glory rush to lay claims in the Western Continents...
Who would such a later date of contact effect things for the Native Americans?
 
Not in a good way, I would imagine.

300 years is unlikely to put them on a major development path allowing them to close the tech gap with Europe. They would still have the crop and domestic animal deficits that impeded their development. If anything there will be more diseases to afflict them (there having been closer contact with East Asia and Europe for a few centuries) and even better weaponry (rifles vs OTL arquebuses at time of contact).

The political/national landscape in the New World is impossible to predict - the situation in Central America or the Andes would likely change beyond recognition. There may or may not be a Haudenosee League, but I don't see it making much difference given the 'superiority' the Europeans will see themselves as having will prevent serious cultural dialogue...
 
I kinda agree with Dutchie - without search for alternate trade routes it is possible to delay discovery of the New World until late 18th century,
 
Excellent, it would appear that it could be in some way plausibly accomplished. I was mostly curious to see if we could have ended up with a situation in the New World similar to that of OTL colonial Africa.

Do you think that the British will be in as good a position as they were in OTL by this time? Would British maritime capabilities be able to adequately exploit these TTL trade routes to the orient?

As for the technology level of the Native Americans, while it would be pretty much impossible for them to truly catch up with European levels during this interlude, might it be possible for them to acquire certain advances through further contact with groups such as the Vinlanders? Again, it hardly levels the playing field, but it might the eventually interactions with the Europeans more interesting.
 

King Thomas

Banned
Maybe you could have the diseases that in OTL decimated the Native Americans going the other way and causing an outbreak of disease in Europe, that would slow down colonisation of America.
 
Is it possible for European contact with the Americas, or at the very least significant European colonization of the Americas, to be delayed until the 19th century, during the big thrust European colonialism in other parts of the world?

I'd have thought a more virulent form of the Black Death to kill off at least 50% if not more of the Eurasian population - Europe would take longer to recover and largely unified regions like England & France could fracture leading to more internicine strife rather than conducting voyages of exploration.

A weaker idea would be for the Mongols not to "abandon" Europe at the height of their conquests. They could raze more Western European cities, kill more of the intelligentesia (i.e. the church) which would set the progress of the West back a few centuries. IIRC, France/The University of Paris benefitted massively from refugees escaping the Mongol Hordes.
 
I'd have thought you couldn't really delay the DISCOVERY of the Americas much beyond the Great Age of Exploration (maximum 100 years later than OTL) but you could certainly delay any attempt to conquer it

There would no doubt be trading posts, but in OTL these on W Africa were only small bases until the mid 19th century.

What this WOULD do to the benefit of the natives would be to give them exposure to European diseases, and the chance to work up a natural synthesis between their own immune systems and the white man's pox

In the interior, stronger nations would have a chance to develop, based on trade with the Europeans - horses and guns and metal implements etc.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
I'd have thought you couldn't really delay the DISCOVERY of the Americas much beyond the Great Age of Exploration (maximum 100 years later than OTL) but you could certainly delay any attempt to conquer it

There would no doubt be trading posts, but in OTL these on W Africa were only small bases until the mid 19th century.

What this WOULD do to the benefit of the natives would be to give them exposure to European diseases, and the chance to work up a natural synthesis between their own immune systems and the white man's pox

In the interior, stronger nations would have a chance to develop, based on trade with the Europeans - horses and guns and metal implements etc.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

The Age of Exploration was directly attributable to the search for alternate routes from Europe to South & East Asia - if you remove the need to bypass the Levant, then you diminish the driving force of the AoE and perhaps forestall it.

As for the disease vector two thoughts:
  1. African disease was to Europeans what Europe's diseases were to Amerinds. Without a widely different set of circumstances you're still going to have Africa as an unhealthy place for colonists which is why they were largely limited to trading posts. The Americas were much more benign for European settlement, both in that there was little threat to the health of incomers, and the native population was decimated to the point they were relatively little threat.
  2. I don't buy that increased contact with Vinlanders (where did they come into this POD?) would allow a strong Amerind response to eventual European discovery. Even if the disease vectors made the longer, colder journey over the North Atlantic without killing their Viking hosts, and then jumped to the sparse native populations in Labrador and the Gulf of St. Lawrence coasts (a big if), spreading from there across to the whole of two continents is unlikely - I don't believe there was sufficient cross-culture contacts among the various groups to jump from biome to biome, across widely-spaced groupings. Remember sick people dont' travel that much. And then, even if all that is overcome and you have the diseases spread across all the native peoples, the huge population declines that would result would not be restored in a mere 300 years. Entire societies would collapse (more so than OTL, where at least the Spanish were able to impose some form of government, even if it wasn't all that beneficial to the locals).
Without a collapse of Old World civilizations (European or Muslim) before the end of the 15th century and delaying the AoE for a thousand years or so, I don't see how any contact between Old and New could go anything but disasterously for the New World. The technology and disease differences were just too great and growing.
 
Successful Crusades leaves the Holy Land and more importantly the Suez penninsula in Christian hands. The Catholic church decrees them a papal zone so no one European nation-power has control of the contentious area. Benign neglect leaves the trade route over the Suez (caravan route between Med and Red) with little tax impedance, blossoming it as a mercantile corridor to the Indian Ocean and the riches beyond. Therefore there is no need to circumvent first Africa and then the world to find a route to Asia that avoids Muslim control.

Without the need for long blue-water voyages (Arabian Sea/Indian Ocean traffic can hug the coasts) the development of bigger and sturdier ships is delayed. The Americas may well be 'discovered' by (fishing vessles from) Europe during the 300 year delay you're asking for, but by accident and not extensively. The dangers of trans-Atlantic voyage in the Med-appropriate galleys that still dominate naval technology makes the venture too risky to be attempted, especially with an unknown pay-off.

ITTL the devlopment of larger vessles occurs in the Indian Ocean to circumvent Indian traders on the passage from Suez to the Spice Islands. The technology is late in getting to the Atlantic because there is no need for it (as far as they know). In the late 1700's explorers of Africa's West Coast eventually make the crossing to South America, discovering in earnest for the first time the size and breadth of teh New World. the European powers, stagnating and looking for new markets/nationalist glory rush to lay claims in the Western Continents...

If we assume that something like OTL's Protestant Reformation takes place, then it is highly likely that the Catholic Church will make it more difficult for Protestant countries from using the Suez trade routes. This could provide a stimulus for such countries (e.g. England or the Netherlands) to try alternative routes around Africa or across the Atlantic. So we could get an English or Dutch discovery of the Americas in the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century.

Cheers,
Nigel.
 
If we assume that something like OTL's Protestant Reformation takes place, then it is highly likely that the Catholic Church will make it more difficult for Protestant countries from using the Suez trade routes. This could provide a stimulus for such countries (e.g. England or the Netherlands) to try alternative routes around Africa or across the Atlantic. So we could get an English or Dutch discovery of the Americas in the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century.

Cheers,
Nigel.
Good point, I hadn't thought of that... That could bring England back in from the periphery of Europe, making it relevant again.

just to be devil's advocate, I could argue that papal control of the Sinai would give the Church even more wealth (I don't think NO taxes on trade is likely, but low...) would allow the Church to successfully campaign against the Reformation, or that it would be more cosmopolitan being in close contact with other cultures (Mid Eastern, South Asian, Far Eastern) that would allow the RCC to be more tolerant towards Protestants demands...
 
Good point, I hadn't thought of that... That could bring England back in from the periphery of Europe, making it relevant again.

just to be devil's advocate, I could argue that papal control of the Sinai would give the Church even more wealth (I don't think NO taxes on trade is likely, but low...) would allow the Church to successfully campaign against the Reformation, or that it would be more cosmopolitan being in close contact with other cultures (Mid Eastern, South Asian, Far Eastern) that would allow the RCC to be more tolerant towards Protestants demands...

I don't know how the Pope hoarding trade tariff wealth for himself would make the Spanish, French, or Austrians be more successful in the counter-Reformation... :confused:
Because the Papacy / Papal States would keep most of the wealth, not distribute it to Catholic princes.
 
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