Challenge: No to Little Colonization

Your challenge, with a POD of 900 AD, is to ensure that almost all areas of the world do not get colonized by any power. By the year 2008, all areas of the world must be at least the OTL tech and infrastructure level of the United States. Liberal democracy as we know it or some other form of it must be the favored government in most countries, including the major powers. How do you get to this?
 
The part about no colonization is at least somewhat plausible: just have something terrible happen to Europe, yet not have any other major powers step in, either because they are simply not interested in having colonies, are too concerned with internal matters, or have some kind of religious/cultural aversion to colonization. Maybe right after it starts to conquer the New World, Europe gets hit by a super Rice-and-Salt plague, and the rest of the world decides that God hates empires.;) I suppose you could also do something drastic to mess up transportation tech, specifically massively retard naval tech (although I have no idea how) which would make it harder to travel to colonies. Although the 900 AD thing does limit this option, so we can't have a really crazy early POD like... wood no longer floats? :eek: :confused: :D

The "entire world with US-level infrastructure and tech" part I won't even touch. Barring an alien spaceship with an infinite supply of free energy on board suddenly crashing, there's just no freaking way.
 
I have an idea for the Americas, but not yet for elsewhere.

Had the medieval warm period been warmer and lasted longer, the Scandinavian Vikings may have managed to establish small, permanent colonies (cf Vinland) along the coast of the western North Atlantic, from Baffin Island to Newfoundland.

Once they ventured further south than Vinland, they would have eventually found some very temperate climes in places like Long Island, the Chesapeake and the Carolina tidewater. Given such fertile lands, they would surely have developed trade and perhaps scattered colonies, which would slowly creep southward along the coast, only stopping when they reach Florida and tropical diseases. The economic and political chaos in Europe precludes mass colonisation, but maintaining contact is a real possibility.

This would have allowed the Columbian Exchange (of diseases, animals and technologies) to occur both much earlier, and much more slowly. The slowness is important, because it gives the natives of North America a few centuries to adapt to European introductions. It is likely it would have diffused completely (except maybe some of the more remote Inuit and Amazonian tribes) throughout the Americas by say, 1200. This would lead to a transition from hunting gathering and nomadic farming to sedentary farming and trade specialised cultures.

The rise of loose nations would divide eastern North America among the Iroquois Nation in what is now the US northeast, the Mississippi Nation (including roughly MO, TN, KY, LA, AR, MS, AL), a Plains Confederacy of some sort, a Great Lakes and Laurentian based fresh water maritime nation using Viking sailing tech, and an assortment of minor states, such as perhaps buffer states between Mississippi and Iroquois in Appalachia, Georgia and the Carolinas. The original viking colonies would likely have independent status as enclaves, mostly along the coast, but also perhaps with settlements in spots along the river valleys, such as the St. Lawrence, Hudson, Delaware, Chesapeake and on the VA tidewater. Greater hurricane activity due to warmer weather would make permanent colonies further south along the coast too chancey.

One or more of these native nations would likely use viking tech to conquer, colonise or absorb the natives of the Caribbean.

This way, when European colonial powers arrive on their shores driven westward over the Atlantic by the sudden end of the warm period in say, 1500, they are met by a large number of natives bearing resistance to European diseases, carrying European weapons and riding horses, rather than the scattered survivors of massive plague they did find. The Europeans would also find natives more similar to themselves, perhaps even speaking European languages and having been partially Christianised. Had the Aztecs had these advantages, it seems unlikely the Spanish could have conquered them.

Any colonisation would have been more similar to that in the Near East or India than IOTL the Americas.
 
The part about no colonization is at least somewhat plausible: just have something terrible happen to Europe, yet not have any other major powers step in, either because they are simply not interested in having colonies, are too concerned with internal matters, or have some kind of religious/cultural aversion to colonization. Maybe right after it starts to conquer the New World, Europe gets hit by a super Rice-and-Salt plague, and the rest of the world decides that God hates empires.;) I suppose you could also do something drastic to mess up transportation tech, specifically massively retard naval tech (although I have no idea how) which would make it harder to travel to colonies. Although the 900 AD thing does limit this option, so we can't have a really crazy early POD like... wood no longer floats? :eek: :confused: :D

The "entire world with US-level infrastructure and tech" part I won't even touch. Barring an alien spaceship with an infinite supply of free energy on board suddenly crashing, there's just no freaking way.

More advanced tech=more energy. There's plenty of eco-friendly energy for everyone in the world plus much more; we just don't have the technology to fully use it yet.
 
You'd need to kill everyone on Earth for no colonization at all.
Even if you wipe out Europe then you'd just get Asians coming and and colonizing Europe and someone else finding America and colonizing there.

Reducing it is possible though. Africa was a bit of a silly idea on all counts.
 
You'd need to kill everyone on Earth for no colonization at all.
Even if you wipe out Europe then you'd just get Asians coming and and colonizing Europe and someone else finding America and colonizing there.

Reducing it is possible though. Africa was a bit of a silly idea on all counts.

I said little...early and slow European contact with natives (AKA Vikings) fits the little colonization requirement and would give natives the technology needed to survive any European attempts at colonization. All you need to do is have Europe turn inwards for a much longer time- kind of hard, but doable.
 
I don't think no colonization -or even little- is possible.
So with Viking America we have gotten rid of Europe. What stops the muslim conquests from Spain to Indonesia? Or just because it shares a frontier, conquering your neighbour country and imposing your language and religion is not colonization anymore?
The Aztecs conquered all the surrounding nations, as did the Inca. I don't see why the north american natives, should they create their own city-based nations, would do differently.
With a POD of 900 the Mongols may be butterflied, but a similar tribe can arise -steppe nomads conquering nations, settling and in turn being conquered by the next wave of nomads was constant in India and the middle east; the Mongols were just the most powerful wave.
Is an English conquest of Ireland colonization? The Norman conquest of England, for that matter? The Russian expansion towards Siberia? The chinese enclaves all over Indochina, etc.
Or Colonization only happens when those nasty, nasty Europeans conquer a non.european nation?
 
I don't think no colonization -or even little- is possible.
So with Viking America we have gotten rid of Europe. What stops the muslim conquests from Spain to Indonesia? Or just because it shares a frontier, conquering your neighbour country and imposing your language and religion is not colonization anymore?
The Aztecs conquered all the surrounding nations, as did the Inca. I don't see why the north american natives, should they create their own city-based nations, would do differently.
With a POD of 900 the Mongols may be butterflied, but a similar tribe can arise -steppe nomads conquering nations, settling and in turn being conquered by the next wave of nomads was constant in India and the middle east; the Mongols were just the most powerful wave.
Is an English conquest of Ireland colonization? The Norman conquest of England, for that matter? The Russian expansion towards Siberia? The chinese enclaves all over Indochina, etc.
Or Colonization only happens when those nasty, nasty Europeans conquer a non.european nation?

Oops...

I guess we should move the POD up to 1400 instead and say no to little colonization after that date...
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Oops...

I guess we should move the POD up to 1400 instead and say no to little colonization after that date...

Complete ASB without colonisation, there will be no spread of crops or European technology, and the world will stay several different technolocal niveaus*, with Europe and Middleeast in the late Rennaisance, India, China and Southeast Asia caught in the late medieval periode, Subsaharan Africa in the early Iron Age, Americas in the Bronze and Stone Age, and Australia in the pre-farming Stone Age. You need European** imperialism to spread more advanced technogies and spread the different crop packets.

*I use European comparison, and it's only based on technology.

**For geography reasons you need it to be European, because the likelyhood of other discovering the Americas is extremely small.
 
Complete ASB without colonisation, there will be no spread of crops or European technology, and the world will stay several different technolocal niveaus*, with Europe and Middleeast in the late Rennaisance, India, China and Southeast Asia caught in the late medieval periode, Subsaharan Africa in the early Iron Age, Americas in the Bronze and Stone Age, and Australia in the pre-farming Stone Age. You need European** imperialism to spread more advanced technogies and spread the different crop packets.

*I use European comparison, and it's only based on technology.

**For geography reasons you need it to be European, because the likelyhood of other discovering the Americas is extremely small.

I normally just read the threads and have never posted. However, I just wanted to comment on this (I have had to deal with Eurocentrism for the past couple of days, so after reading your comment, I had to respond). I hope this does not sound rude.

Though you qualified this by saying that you are comparing to a European/Middle East level of technology, there is a somewhat Eurocentric bias in your assertion that Europe would be the leader in a "little colonization" world.

Remember, before the 1500s (and some historians, i.e. Andre Gunder Frank, Kenneth Pomeranz, B. G. Wong, etc. argue not until the 1700s or even the 1800s), Asia was technologically on par if not superior to Europe.

The European colonization of the Americas was a HUGE boon (though not the only factor) in allowing Europe to surpass the traditional great powers of the time.

As a Vietnamese-American, I find it funny (and sad) that people forget that before the 1500s (or even the 1700/1800s, as I have mentioned), there were more advanced areas of the world besides Europe. People, typically Westerners - i.e. Europeans, Americans, Australians, etc., often take the success of their countries now and try to back project it to the past. They can not comprehend a world in which non-Europeans were the major movers in world history.

Of course people do occasionally cite China, as well as the Ottoman Empire, Mughal India, and Safavid Persia.

However people forget that Japan, Southeast Asia (including Vietnam ... had to plug that in), Central Asia, and certain areas of Sub-Sahara Africa (Mail/Songhai, Benin, Ghana) were as advanced, if not more so, than Europe, certainly during the 1500s and arguably during the 1700s.

This is not to say Europe was not important. Europe played a vibrant part, though not central part, in world history during the discussed timeframe.

Again, I apologize if this came off as rude. I just wanted to comment that other areas were as advanced (if not more so) as Europe before the discovery of the Americas.
 

Hendryk

Banned
Defining colonization is tricky. Does the takeover of China by the Manchus in the mid-17th century qualify as colonization? What about their vassalization of Tibet, Xinjiang and Mongolia? Does the settlement of Taiwan by Han Chinese at the expense of the local natives?

Do the Mughals qualify as colonizers? Do the Ottomans?
 
If you mean delaying Australian and American colonisation , we could get a Steepe tribe from hell which proceeds to decimate over 90 Percent of the Eurasian population in the course of 3 centuries. It starts with the Mongols engaging with the systematic slaughter of all Chinese in Northern China ( there were advocates among the Mongols who actually suggested that ) , instead of taxing them for revenue. This policy is repeated again and again, and for five centuries , the world reverts back to Mongol Pastorialism in most of Eurasia. Agriculture only returns and displaces Pastorialism in around 2000 AD, starting from the temprate peripheries .
 

Hendryk

Banned
If you mean delaying Australian and American colonisation , we could get a Steepe tribe from hell which proceeds to decimate over 90 Percent of the Eurasian population in the course of 3 centuries. It starts with the Mongols engaging with the systematic slaughter of all Chinese in Northern China ( there were advocates among the Mongols who actually suggested that ) , instead of taxing them for revenue.
Just because some of them considered the idea doesn't mean they could have plausibly implemented it.
 
Top