DBWI: Spanish expedition westward to East Asia in the 1490s goes ahead

What if the monarchs of Castile & Aragon had agreed to fund Cristoforo Colombo's planned expedition to sail west across the Atlantic Ocean in order to reach the Orient, rather than rejecting it as a fool's errand? Would Colombo and his crew have died & never been heard from again, or might the voyage have resulted in an accidental discovery of the New World several decades early?

(OOC: "The New World" is just an archaic expression, as it is in OTL, as is "the Orient". You can call America whatever you like)
 
Well, the Spanish were driving everybody and their housecat that were not staunch catholics out for a hundred years. That might actually give them the manpower to grab the Inca and Aztek Empiresin the early 1500s. We would have been spared the French-Aztek Empire. Henri d'Erlon, the fake French nobleman who took the Aztek throne with his mercenaries in 1597 would probably be butterflied away, and Terre Rouge would have had a Spanish name instead. Then again, without the income from the red dye when they took over, the French crown would probably never have the money for their anti-Habsburg campaign in the 1630s. Lotharingia this and Lotharingia that, it was just another step in the German-French conflict, which the French could have done without, considering the revolts they had in their Rhin Superior provinces 1818-1848 - that broke the French monarchy really, especially as the English had taken Terre Rouge by then.

We would perhaps not have seen Vinland form in the north? Remember that it was Hans of Denmark-Norway (and nominally Sweden too) that funded Colon - talk about last desperate measure. Perhaps Colon had sailed to central Vinland (yes, I do think it should be called that, and not Cabotico as others seem to think) if the Castilians had funded him, instead of OTLs Bergen-Iceland-Greenland-Vinland (yes, I mean the province, not the continent this time).

Christian II deported a lot of anti-unionist Swedes to Vinland after his victory at Stockholm, their colonies are still the core of the mainly Swedish, but generally Scandinavian Vinland (the country this time, you would think the Scandinavians would have more imagination than naming a city, a province, a country AND a continent the SAME thing). If not for Vinland the country, would the Nordic Federation ever form? The Norweigan, Danish and Swedo-Finnish colonies east and north of Storsjöarne (OOC: OTLs Great Lakes) never really bothered about the wars in Scandinavia and generally got along very well and even co-operated against the invasion from Dutch Niuew Niedeland 1649. Without those examples, I don't think they could have united under the pressure of the radically anti-monarchist 1st German Republic 1848.

It is ironic, isn't it? That the Nordic Federation borders the Soviet Union east of Sweden-Finland AND west of Vinland (to the Alaskan SSR, of course) - two countries cover everything north of the 54th paralell. I don't think that would have happened if Colon had sailed for the Spaniards. :D
 
It would be interesting to see a world with non-Catholic India between Bengal and Cashmir. Moreover would Castille-Aragon have enough manpower to colonize Tierra Austral?
 
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