Can someone take Mexico before Spain does?

The 1497 English expedition led by Italian Venetian John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) was the first of a series of French and English missions exploring North America.

North America isn't Mexico and Newfoundland is a lot closer than Mexico and you don't have Spain there already.

In 1520–1521 the Portuguese João Álvares Fagundes, accompanied by couples of mainland Portugal and the Azores, explored Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.

At that time the main interest was Asia and those were private expeditions to a place where Spain had no settlements.

In 1524, Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano sailed at the behest of Francis I of France, who was motivated by indignation over the division of the world between Portuguese and Spanish. Verrazzano explored the Atlantic Coast of North America, from South Carolina to Newfoundland, and was the first recorded European to visit what would later become the Virginia Colony and the United States. In the same year Estevão Gomes, a Portuguese cartographer who'd sailed in Ferdinand Magellan's fleet, explored Nova Scotia, sailing South through Maine, where he entered New York Harbor, the Hudson River and eventually reached Florida in August 1525.

Giovanni was a expedition to show that they could go there and Estevão sailed under Spain to those areas not under Portugal.

From 1534 to 1536, French explorer Jacques Cartier, believed to have accompanied Verrazzano to Nova Scotia and Brazil, was the first European to travel inland in North America, describing the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, which he named "The Country of Canadas", after Iroquois names, claiming what is now Canada for Francis I of France.

Is it really so implausible that any of these OTL voyages couldn't have taken place prior to 1519, and couldn't have gone to Mexico before the Spanish did?

The problem of all the expeditions you shoe was that they were all to North America and they were just to explore unclaimed land. In contrast the Mexican golf had Spanish presence in the area and when the riches of Mexico are found they would protect the area from other European powers. You basically have to butterfly Columbus to ensure that there are no other European powers in the area to allow the other countries to conquer Mexico.
 
So as already raised by some on this thread, this ATL could go back to Columbus and who could have backed him:

In 1488, Columbus appealed to the court of Portugal once again and, once again, John II invited him to an audience. That meeting also proved unsuccessful, in part because not long afterwards Bartolomeu Dias returned to Portugal with news of his successful rounding of the southern tip of Africa (near the Cape of Good Hope). With an eastern sea route to Asia apparently at hand, King John was no longer interested in Columbus's far-fetched project.

Columbus traveled from Portugal to both Genoa and Venice, but he received encouragement from neither. He had also dispatched his brother Bartholomew to the court of Henry VII of England to inquire whether the English crown might sponsor his expedition, but also without success.

This opens up the possibility of England, Venice or Genoa (yet a French satellite?) backing Columbus and establishing the initial Caribbean colonies. Venice is the least plausible in policy terms as it had good relations with the Arabs. England could afford it if it could afford to back Cabot a few years later. Genoa has the money and the will to compensate for the loss of its Byzantine routes after the fall of Byzantium (sic).
 
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I've to other candidates: Mali and China. Sure, both options would require a POD in the 14th or 15th century, but especially China has the means to conquer Mexico. It's much more populous than Spain and has advanced maritime technology. The question is how to have the Chinese to explore the Pacific and expand in this region.
 
I've to other candidates: Mali and China. Sure, both options would require a POD in the 14th or 15th century, but especially China has the means to conquer Mexico. It's much more populous than Spain and has advanced maritime technology. The question is how to have the Chinese to explore the Pacific and expand in this region.
Mali would need a way earlier PoD. Riches were in the hinterland, in the Niger/Mali region, while the coast was way underdeveloped.
The tale of the Mali King going west is a fable about how going west ss not great and the king would have been better off if he'd done the hajj instead
 
I've to other candidates: Mali and China. Sure, both options would require a POD in the 14th or 15th century, but especially China has the means to conquer Mexico. It's much more populous than Spain and has advanced maritime technology. The question is how to have the Chinese to explore the Pacific and expand in this region.
The Chinese might "trade" and I use that word loosely. But the psyche of the Chinese Middle Kingdom won't allow, without a PoD of 200 BCE, for actual Chinese colonization and conquest. It just isn't what the Chinese did. The Chinese knew of India and Africa and never tried to colonize or conquer even when they cared about sea travel. Chinese "colonists" in places like current Malaysia and Philippines are equivalent to the Jewish colonies in India or the Roman Empire, or Armenians doing the same. Traders who didn't try to uproot or overthrow the native rulers or bring the mother country down to annex. And the Chinese method of "trade" was- give us tribute to recognize our greatness and in return we will give you our superior finished goods as symbols of our superiority and as gifts to you peons. Seems superficially no different than capitalist or medieval style trading; but it IS fundamentally different not only psychologically but economically. And that's the problem with China throughout history and why capitalism and world trade and European style colonialism of the pre-Adam Smith mercantalism doesn't work with Imperial China. You have to dismantle everything that made China, China, first.
 
The Chinese might "trade" and I use that word loosely. But the psyche of the Chinese Middle Kingdom won't allow, without a PoD of 200 BCE, for actual Chinese colonization and conquest.

Ask Central Asia, Korea and Vietnam about the lack of attempts of Chinese conquest and expansion.

Seriously: Do you really think that psyche is a thing? We're talking about a time span of 1600 years! Chinese culture evolved during this time, as every culture would do in 16 centuries. For example, Italic culture of 200 BCE and Italian culture of 1400 CE is completly different.

Now to the part about the psyche: sure, China didn't colonize India and Africa. But psychology can change, especially because there is the need for a change. I'm sure that if you give the Chinese a reason to colonize the east (i. e. America), they'll do it regardless of psychological obstacles.
 
Ask Central Asia, Korea and Vietnam about the lack of attempts of Chinese conquest and expansion.
Vietnam and Korea were seen clearly as part of Greater China and firmly in the Chinese sphere of influence. Know less about Central Asia but I'd say it's to stop raids and because it as a large flat plain right there.

Psyche is very much a thing: China never engaged in long range colonisation even though they could have very much done so in Indonesia.
When you're the center of the world, what need is there to go abroad? The Europeans went abroad precisely because they had not much home
 
Jerusalem was, and is, one of spiritual centers of Christianity, not the center of world for Europeans, Rome has more claim to that title than Jerusalem.
Early map makers made Jerusalem literally the center of the world. It is also why east was more commonly the top of a map instead of north.
 
That stems from the late XVIIIth century, XIXth century, when Europe became the de facto center of the world.

No, Greek maps were also centred around the Mediterranean Sea, while medieval maps saw Jerusalem (and the Christian Religion) as the center of the world - at least in an idealistic way.
 
No, Greek maps were also centred around the Mediterranean Sea, while medieval maps saw Jerusalem (and the Christian Religion) as the center of the world - at least in an idealistic way.
Well, it's not like the Greeks had much -precise- knowledge of the rest of the world. You map what's useful as well which is why the first precise maps we have in Europe, the portolans, are of the Med.
Maps centered around Jerusalem were, as you said, more symbolic
 
Well, it's not like the Greeks had much -precise- knowledge of the rest of the world. You map what's useful as well which is why the first precise maps we have in Europe, the portolans, are of the Med.
Maps centered around Jerusalem were, as you said, more symbolic

So what? Every civilization is self-centered. The conquistadores who fought for gold and the Christian faith were
some of the most self-centered humans the world ever saw.
 
When you're the center of the world, what need is there to go abroad? The Europeans went abroad precisely because they had not much home

Bit of a simplification. In fact the Chinese had state-sponsored voyages abroad before the Europeans did, their Treasure Fleets sailed as far as Zanzibar. These were stopped because of religious doctrine in the Imperial Palace. Remove that factor, and an ATL could see the Chinese rounding the Cape of Good Hope before the Portuguese did. Indeed, they might have: nobody knows the origin of the junk that rounded the Cape in 1420, as recorded by Fra Mauro in the map that he made for the Portuguese.
 
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