alternatehistory.com

Ok, so the Americas were cut off from Afro-Eurasian diseases and in 1500s when the Spanish show up in the mainland they spread their little friends to the new world and many die.

What if: some asian power establishes long range fishing or furring on the western edge of the pacific that follows sea life up around the siberia-alaska line and keeps contact the eskimos in north America. This trade grows and Asian merchants make voyages to the pacific north west bringing their diseases with them, slowly, over a period of hundreds of years. I am thinking a POD before the 1200s so the various major plagues can go both ways and have devastating effects on the whole world more evenly.

This, however, would alter Marco Polo and other such adventures and by the time the data on Asia got back to Europe, the Europeans would have a foggy clue about this strange land across the sea, and Columbus might rethink his western voyage because there was "Something" between Iberia and India... unless he thought it was just a rather large, or mythical island...

what kind of alterations do you see from this?
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