Mayan North America

Suppose the Classic Mayas, specifically the kingdoms of Tikal and Copan, had explored the North American continent centuries before Columbus? Think of the mystic cities they might have built in the Florida Everglades, the Carolina Coast, or maybe in what is today New England! What would happen if they eventually came into contact with the Vikings? Or the Apaches? Think very carefully before you respond.

If you were a Mayan king who founded a city state outside of Central America, what decisions would YOU make?
 
Hm, I’ll have to think about this but per recent discussion the postclassic might be a better time to consider this.
 
Making ships that could navigate high seas (not hug a coast) is pretty difficult, and requires a well-developed maritime culture, which itself requires a well-developed maritime interest. The Mediterranean encouraged naval technology because useful goods were spread between disparate societies; the Nile is straightforwardly better for growing wheat than the Greek highlands are, while if you want quality copper you can't beat Cyprus. Moreover, some parts of the Mediterranean (Egypt and the Levant, ancient North Africa, then later Italy and southern France) have a high population carrying capacity, with no practical limit.

The Maya just didn't really have this. Pretty much all goods they really needed were produced in abundance in one part of the Maya sphere or another, so not much essential stuff ever passed through non-Maya hands. The elite stuff like jade did need a longer trade network, sure, but never one that's so debilitating you'd need to conquer anywhere else. And even then, that's all to the south! If Maya oarmen had somehow reached the Caribbean islands or the north shore of the Gulf, they'd have found a bunch of people who have basically nothing of use. There was no economic motive to develop or build ships that could do more than hug the coast.

But let's assume they did so. What would incentivise them to build a new city there? Classic Maya society was an extremely conservative aristocracy, where priests and nobles ruled over their own city-state and its thousands of commoners who themselves had neither the means or the motive to go anywhere else. The city wasn't just an important economic unit, it was the focal point of the entire religious and cultural system. There weren't any aristocrats on the Mayflower, and unlike 17th-century England the Maya aristocrats had no intention of allowing their subjects to leave - at least, they certainly wouldn't have financed the undertaking.

But let's assume they do for some reason. What are the native peoples who already live there going to think? The Maya would probably think of them as uncivilized, sure, but there wasn't exactly a massive disparity in technology, nor would they introduce any devastating diseases. Absolutely nothing about Maya material culture would have any use in the bayous or on the coastal plains. Our poor Maya "colonists" would find themselves astonished that their intimate knowledge of water conservation and building with stone don't do much for them in a swamp, and instead they'd have to learn how to build levees and mix their crops really quickly. So quickly, in fact, that I suspect we'd stop calling them "Maya" and instead call them "Mississippians" within two or three generations. Considering both of the above points, it's not like they'd have had a particularly close connection to their original homeland anyway.

People on this board take too much from the 17th and 18th centuries (as well as just plain hindsight) in thinking that "populous colonies = good". Even the European colonisation of the Americas started as trade enterprises, and some colonies like New France barely ever got beyond that level. Even Rome, the sine qua non of premodern colonisation, didn't really send out colonial expeditions - they preferred to conquer the land first, and then dole it out to Roman families later if they had to, or else just assimilate the natives. It should be a basic rule of thumb that settler colonisation just didn't really happen before the 18th century, and unfortunately I can't see the Maya becoming an exception.
 
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Could the Mayans survive in the Desert Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, Texas)?
How would they get there and why would they even bother? Does the Southwest have some precious resource that they can't get just by sending a trade expedition to deal with the natives? And wouldn't the people of Central Mexico be in the way of a Maya group going that direction? If the Maya were going to expand it would be to the south, a more accessible region with resources they wanted, a climate they're used to, and easily within the realms of possibility. People don't just pack up their cities and move an entire civilization across a continent.
 
Could the Mayans survive in the Desert Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, Texas)?
Probably not while remaining anything recognizable as Maya. The environment there is completely different from anything the Maya knew in their homeland, the only thing really shared being the possibility to use the same staple crop (maize). But it took literally millennia for the peoples who eventually became the Pueblo builders to adapt their technology and lifestyle to maize agriculture, while breeding the required maize cultivars adapted to their climate and soil, which also took considerable time. Hypothetical Mayan settlers would have to pick the local tech or adapt their own to the new situation quick.
 
And the conclusion to this thread regarding Maya colonization of North America is...….?
If by North America you mean the eventual United States (Mexico and Central America are in North America), then no, it's never going to happen for various reasons, chiefly there being little means of actually getting there was with the distance over land and lack of sailing technology, and because there's no reason for them to go there. If the Maya did expand then the most logical direction would be the other way, further into Central America since that region is on the Maya frontier that's easier to access and has at least some stuff they'd find valuable.
 
How would they get there and why would they even bother? Does the Southwest have some precious resource that they can't get just by sending a trade expedition to deal with the natives? And wouldn't the people of Central Mexico be in the way of a Maya group going that direction? If the Maya were going to expand it would be to the south, a more accessible region with resources they wanted, a climate they're used to, and easily within the realms of possibility. People don't just pack up their cities and move an entire civilization across a continent.
I agree.

Now, Mesoamerican trade colonies or acculturation in the Southwest could be possible, but they would probably have to originate from the Valley of Mexico or even further north for such expansion to make sense.
 
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