Columbus Goes North

Suppose instead of traveling from Spain to the Caribbean Columbus decides to take a route similar to how the Vikings would have gone and ends up exploring America from Newfoundland to Cape Cod before going back to Spain. Would Spain, or Columbus for that matter, have any interest in exploring, colonizing, or settling North America if they didn't find any gold?
 
Doesnt that go against the currents and the tradewinds?

Yes. Due winds route is quiet difficult and long. I don't see any reason why Columbus would do that. Caribbean/South America were about only options what he could have reach easily.
 
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Why go south when you know that if you sail directly west you will get to India. Defeats the objective of the exercise if you ask me.
 
Why go south when you know that if you sail directly west you will get to India. Defeats the objective of the exercise if you ask me.

IIRC, you can't go directly west due to the currents/winds, which is why he made a big arc to the south and west. As for the north... any reason he couldn't have done what the Norse did and island hop to Iceland/Greenland/Vinland?
 
IIRC, you can't go directly west due to the currents/winds, which is why he made a big arc to the south and west. As for the north... any reason he couldn't have done what the Norse did and island hop to Iceland/Greenland/Vinland?

Maybe he studies old scripts, which describes the sagas of the old Norse (they existed) and has the idea to find this mysterious Greenland. He probably thinks, it is a rich lost colony. Maybe he can go to the King of Denmark and ask for aid. Than he miraculously finds Greenland and make contact to the last remaining Viking colonistst who haven´t seen a ship for a long time.
 

Sir Chaos

Banned
Maybe he studies old scripts, which describes the sagas of the old Norse (they existed) and has the idea to find this mysterious Greenland. He probably thinks, it is a rich lost colony. Maybe he can go to the King of Denmark and ask for aid. Than he miraculously finds Greenland and make contact to the last remaining Viking colonistst who haven´t seen a ship for a long time.

The Greenland colonists would already extinct at this point - the colony failed earlier in the 15th century.

But with the demise of the colony only a short time in the past, and the buildings undisturbed, Columbus would certainly have been able to locate the remains of the colony if he knew where to look.


There is one more factor would be in Columbus´ favor if he took the Northern route. IIRC his big problem when finding a backer was that he proposed to sail out into the open ocean, when nobody knew for sure how long it would take to reach his destination, i.e. if the ships would actually be able to make the voyage with the provisions he carried.
With the Iceland-Greenland-Vinland route, on the other hand, it was pretty well known how long the voyage took, and even the Norse of 1000 AD with their far less sophisticated navigational methods (and probably less seaworthy ships) made the voyage repeatedly - so hardly anybody would have doubted Columbus´ ability to reach Vinland.
And, operating from a base in Vinland, going further west to China would be a far less ambitious undertaking, even discounting the possibility (as his contemporaries might have believed) that Vinland was the northeastern end of the Asian continent and Columbus would simply have to follow the coast southwest to get to China.
 
TWith the Iceland-Greenland-Vinland route, on the other hand, it was pretty well known how long the voyage took, and even the Norse of 1000 AD with their far less sophisticated navigational methods (and probably less seaworthy ships) made the voyage repeatedly - so hardly anybody would have doubted Columbus´ ability to reach Vinland.
And, operating from a base in Vinland, going further west to China would be a far less ambitious undertaking, even discounting the possibility (as his contemporaries might have believed) that Vinland was the northeastern end of the Asian continent and Columbus would simply have to follow the coast southwest to get to China.
The problem with Vinland is that it is habited by dangerous savages who ran the Norse out, at least in the accounts that Columbus would have read.

The Portuguese built forts in Africa as much for trade as bases for further exploration. In contrast a base purely for exploration has no value as far as any backer would see. Columbus is after spices and everyone knows that there are no spices in the region. That there is a new world to harvest furs from is unknown.
 
lol what if Columbus' winds accidentally blew him to Africa

Maybe him making treaties in Benin, Songhai & Solinke etc. Becomes a mayor player in West Africa for Spain. With a character like Columus one could be worried, that he ends up like a Renaissance Colonel Kurtz in Josph Conrad´s novel Heart of darkness.
 

Sir Chaos

Banned
The problem with Vinland is that it is habited by dangerous savages who ran the Norse out, at least in the accounts that Columbus would have read.

So? Centuries have passed since then, and Europeans have run far more dangerous savages out of Europe - the Moors, the Mongols. Besides, the Norse must have looked like half-savages themselves to the late 15th century European.

Also, more rationally, the Norse that got run out of Vinland were backed by the exceedingly meagre infrastructure and manpower of the Greenland settlements, not that of a late 15th European kingdom (even a second-rate kingdom like Denmark/Norway); Columbus´ first voyage alone probably carried a lot more military power than anything the Greenland Norse could muster.

The Portuguese built forts in Africa as much for trade as bases for further exploration. In contrast a base purely for exploration has no value as far as any backer would see. Columbus is after spices and everyone knows that there are no spices in the region. That there is a new world to harvest furs from is unknown.

Any forts along the coast of Vinland would not exist for their own sake, but as waystations on the route to China, much like the Portuguese forts in Africa existed as waystations on the road to India. And, once the forts are there, people will find something to trade.
 
Suppose instead of traveling from Spain to the Caribbean Columbus decides to take a route similar to how the Vikings would have gone and ends up exploring America from Newfoundland to Cape Cod before going back to Spain. Would Spain, or Columbus for that matter, have any interest in exploring, colonizing, or settling North America if they didn't find any gold?

Regarding the Vinland/Greenlan discussion:

The Norse weren´t savages anymore (There is always a misconception about Vikings as uber giant tall blonde warriors. They had health problems , weren´t so tall compared with today´s people and didn´t all wear long beards and long hair-basically they had been people). They were just Scandinavian, Christian farming and fishing settlers, who went to church and had a bishop.
 
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