Need input: An American surprise for Coulmbus et al

J.D.Ward

Donor
The discovery of a New World.

Everyone seems to have missed the obvious possibility here.

Setting aside the question of the POD for the moment, although this is important, what happens if the *Americans take to the oceans in the early fifteenth century AD ? They sail East on the Gulf Stream and discover the strange civilizations of the New World of the Eastern Hemisphere ?

The discovery of Europe (as the natives call it) is a turning point in world history....
 
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Everyone seems to have missed the obvious possibility here.

Setting aside the question of the POD for the moment, although this is important, what happends if the *Americans take to the oceans in the early fifteenth century AD ? They sail East on the Gulf Stream and discover the strange civilizations of the New World of the Eastern Hemisphere ?

The discovery of Europe is a turning point in world history....

HOORAY!!!!!!!

Thank you! It had crossed my mind that this could happen but I had not even thought about the impact of such an eventuality. I have 200 years to play with...soooo.....Maybe.
 
Dave Howery; In this case, there is a POD and a catalyst in place. The POD is not ancient, it is the late 13th century and there would be sufficient people, supplies and livestock. In any case, the POD is not particularly relevant to my original question...

It has been estimated that 2/3 of domesticated plants on a worldwide basis are indigenous to the Americas. From potato to maize, Tomato to chili, and numerous other fruits, berries, grains, vegetable, legumes, nuts etc, etc, etc.
Deer had been domesticated in some parts, as pets, a source of food and, possibly, even milk. In addition there were guinea pigs, llamas and alpacas etc.

um... the POD is vitally important to this scenario. There is no way (without magic) that a single POD is going to transform the new world into old world level of tech in a few short centuries. And even if it's 200 years after the smallpox epidemics, the new world is still going to be rather unpopulated (especially when compared to Europe).
As for the plants... the Americas had nothing comparable to wheat or oats, which were comparatively easy to domesticate, and large enough to be worth eating right from the start; these two plants gave the old world a fast start on agriculture. Maize took centuries just to breed large enough to bother eating and centuries more to acclimate to the north. Potatoes started out similarly small, and were rather isolated too. Deer were never domesticated; they can't be. They might have been captured and kept as semi-wild pets, but they were never domesticated. The natives still lack draft animals, and large meat animals.
The new world, regardless of any number of PODs, just lags too far behind the old world to catch up to it, technologically. Unless you want to talk ASBs...
 
Some points on disease:

1) Unless the contact is continious and high tariffic the diseases in Eurasia and the Americas will diverge over a relatively short time span.
2) Due to the Amerindians being wrecked by the first round they'll probably drop below a connectivity trheshold that will keep some of the diseases in circulation
3) Whilst some of the Amerindians problems are due to lack of exposure - there is also a genetic component, the bottleneck and radiation of their expansion into the Americas, and the lack of selection has left them with significantly less MHC diversity as a population and other problems with disease that are not going to be overcome by anythign less than millenia of change (indeed they were only dealt with by the development of modern medicine).

Thus the Americans will just get screwed again by this new disease contact, and the fact that there will be some going the other way at this time will be of little comfort.

If on the other hand (1) isn't correct and there is sustained contact, then butterflies and rumours will probably remove Columbus/leave him unsuprised to find these polities.
 
um... the POD is vitally important to this scenario. There is no way (without magic) that a single POD is going to transform the new world into old world level of tech in a few short centuries. And even if it's 200 years after the smallpox epidemics, the new world is still going to be rather unpopulated (especially when compared to Europe).
As for the plants... the Americas had nothing comparable to wheat or oats, which were comparatively easy to domesticate, and large enough to be worth eating right from the start; these two plants gave the old world a fast start on agriculture. Maize took centuries just to breed large enough to bother eating and centuries more to acclimate to the north. Potatoes started out similarly small, and were rather isolated too. Deer were never domesticated; they can't be. They might have been captured and kept as semi-wild pets, but they were never domesticated. The natives still lack draft animals, and large meat animals.
The new world, regardless of any number of PODs, just lags too far behind the old world to catch up to it, technologically. Unless you want to talk ASBs...

Dave...
[FONT=&quot]The POD is not the discussion in this thread, the reactions of the Europeans to a nearly comparable culture is. Yes there are far fewer Americans scattered over a far more vast land. If the POD is brought into the discussion, the OP will be lost in those arguments. I really want to hear ideas about Europe’s reaction.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]You know, we are not discussing the America of 8,000 years ago, but an America that had been farmed and harvested for thousands of years.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Maize had been under cultivation for 7,500 to 8,500 years prior to the arrival of Columbus. To make cultivation viable, the productivity needed to outweigh the energy expended in farming the crop or in gathering it in the wild. Maize became a staple throughout North and Central America, as well as into South America. That won’t happen in all likelihood with the meager ears of Balsas teosinte. Maize was not a skimpy plant in 15th century America, it was a powerhouse that was quickly adopted for use in Europe. From the single teosinte variant in a valley in Mexico, it had spread to the east coast of North America, where the forests were altered to provide room for it's cultivation.[/FONT]

You don’t expend that much effort for a puny grain.

Ditto with the Potato in South America. There is evidence of cultivation 10,000 years ago. It was fully domesticated in Peru 6,000 to 7,000 years ago. There were many varieties and they were not measly tubers nor isolated in their range. They were the staple food of an empire of 20,000,000 or more. The effort involved in growing them had to be economically justifiable.

Amaranth is a grain that has been cultivated in Mexico for about 6,000 years. The Spaniard banned it’s cultivation and the plant went feral. Because of that there has been little if any effort to improve the yield of the species which is comparable to rice or corn. Not bad for agriculturally impoverished Pre-Columbians. Most of the plant is edible by the way, the leaves are eaten like spinach.

There is evidence that chilis were domesticated over 6,000 years ago, we know the Mexican peoples cultivated cocoa beans, and of course, there is the tomato.

We must not forget:
· maygrass, little barley, wild rice
· goosefoot (quinoa), knotweed, sunflower
· Common bean, tepary bean, scarlet runner bean, lima bean
· Cotton, yucca, agave
· Jicama, manioc (cassava), sweet potato, oca, mashua, ulluco, arrowroot, yacon, leren, groundnuts
· avocado, blueberries, cranberries, huckleberries, strawberries, cherimoya, papaya, pawpaw, passionfruit
· Squashes
· turkey, bison, muscovy duck, guinea pig
· hickory, black walnuts, pecans, shagbark hickory
· canna, tobacco, chicle, rubber, maple syrup, vanilla


Regarding Domesticated Deer; There is evidence that the Maya kept them as pets (I think that requires a certain amount of domestication) and they have long been raised in captivity, i.e. farmed. I guess that “domestication” may be taking it slightly too far, but “semi-domesticated” might fit the bill…what would you call the reindeer of the Sami, or for that matter, the Red Deer that are currently being farmed commercially?


There are no native draft animals, other than the Llama, and I am not proposing that. There are / were large meat animals…Bison, deer, turkey, ...


But, to the point...how do you think the Europeans would react to a nearly competitive culture in the New World?


 
Some points on disease:

1) Unless the contact is continious and high tariffic the diseases in Eurasia and the Americas will diverge over a relatively short time span.
2) Due to the Amerindians being wrecked by the first round they'll probably drop below a connectivity trheshold that will keep some of the diseases in circulation
3) Whilst some of the Amerindians problems are due to lack of exposure - there is also a genetic component, the bottleneck and radiation of their expansion into the Americas, and the lack of selection has left them with significantly less MHC diversity as a population and other problems with disease that are not going to be overcome by anythign less than millenia of change (indeed they were only dealt with by the development of modern medicine).

Thus the Americans will just get screwed again by this new disease contact, and the fact that there will be some going the other way at this time will be of little comfort.

If on the other hand (1) isn't correct and there is sustained contact, then butterflies and rumours will probably remove Columbus/leave him unsuprised to find these polities.

There are a lot of individuals arriving in a very concentrated space but contact with the old world will be sporadic at best, if it even happens.
By the way, the catalyst people have a method that was used to immunize (hopefully) people against smallpox. They ground the scabs of infected or dead victims into a powder and blew it into the noses of uninfected people (I'm not making this up you know). The goal was to induce a mild case of the disease resulting in immunity. Of course the death rate from the preventative treatment would have precluded acceptance by the FDA.

Additionally, natural genetic resistance will also be building due to c ross cultural exposure...if you know what I mean.
 
Yeah, Snotter's completely right on this one. As far as deer go, there is some evidence they might have been raised in houses by women. Even Diego de Landa mentions this IIRC.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Okay let's ignore how and what have happen, but only how the Spanish would react. Well we can look to Spanish and Portugeese behaviour in the east or just along Africas coast to see how. They will establish a trading post, if the local rulers are hostile, they either (if they are weaker than the Spanish) strongarm them into trade and conquer a few coastal towns, or (if they are stronger) look to neighbouring realms. They will likely send a few missionary, but beside that they will only force convert people in areas they rule.
 
Here ya go:

Divergence: 600 B.C.E.

What If: Every historical event in the Book of Mormon can be verified by archeological evidence, and the contributions of the Nephite culture were available to Amerind -- excuse me, Lamanite -- societies at the time of Columbus.

The Consequences Are:

Excerpt from Columbus' Report to Isabella & Ferdinand: "The natives have sea-going galleys and trade on the islands and coasts of a huge salt-water gulf. . . . large steel smithies, producing keen-edged scimitars, several of which I have purchased for Your Majesties. ...Melech Mordechi, the King of Cuba, makes you gifts of several horses of a breed not known in Europe. He would have given Your Majesties an Elephant (which has a shovel like jaw unlike any other breed of Elephant I have seen), but I lacked the space to transport it back home.

"King Mordechi knows of Israel, the ancient homeland of his ancestors & of Babylon. Yet he knows no Latin or Greek, nor do his scholars . . Perhaps the Jews might be sent here to facilitate conversation as the native speech is some variety of Hebrew . . . .

" . . . . difficulties of translation allow me only a meagre knowledge of the history of the Laman people. The original settlers of this land, the Jaredites, had mostly died out when sea-going ships on God's instruction left Israel many centuries ago. Lehi was the leader of that 2nd expedition. Tragically when Lehi grew old and feeble in mind, Lehi's son Nephi manipulated the old man in order to make himself a tyrant over his own kin. A brave man named Laman resisted Nephi's evil ways, and King Mordechi counts Laman and his followers as the remote ancestors of his people . . . The evil empire of Nephi lasted for generations, but was finally overthrown by the freedom-loving descendents of Laman, the Hebrew Brutus."

Spain establishes a mutually valuable commerce with the sailor's kingdom of Cuba and the Mexica Empire (which has conquered, thanks to coast-going galleys, the city states of the Mayan coast). As their ancestors were only isolated from Europe for two thousand years, there are no great epidemics aside from the 1510-1540 Measles epidemic which may have killed as many as 10% of the Lamanites. Potatoes from the Incan Empire, chlili peppers and the meat of giant sloth become common fare on European tables.

To the anger of the Pope, the Lamanite nations, though monotheists, are appalled at Christianity and refer to folk myths and ancient scrolls to the effect that the infamous Nephite Empire also believed in a Jesus Christ, the Son of God, thus giving the sons of Laman yet another reason to destroy them. Jews throughout Europe, even in Poland, begin the "voluntary Diaspora" in the 16th Century, away from intolerant Christendom and to their co-religionists among the Lamanite nations.

Protestantism spreads like wildfire through Europe. No Catholic monarch, not even Habsburg Emperor-Spanish King Charles, has the assets to fight the Protestant movement.
When the Catholic Crusade to the Lamanites is evicted from war-torn Cuba in 1536, the Mexica have bought gunpowder technology from their Protestant Allies in Holland and the Germanies.

When Sir Walter Raleigh establishes the first permanent English Colony in the New World, he finds the ruined cities, buried roads, broken bridges, statues and graveyards of an ancient steel-useing race. After more than a millenium the Lamanites in the ruins recognize the builders of the old works as the Neffi, Nefay, Knee, etc. In _Discovery of the Nephite Homeland_, Sir Walter announces that the north continent of the New World was the center of the Nephite Empire.

By the end of the 16th Century, the Catholic church has had terrific setbacks. Henry IV, the first Bourbon King of France, sees no point in fidelity to a religious leader whose authority has dwindled to Italy and Spain, so France offically becomes a Protestant nation, though the Edict of Nantes 1598 gives toleration to Roman Catholics. The Twelve Year War (1618-1630) ends with the protestant Palatine emperors firmly in control of the Holy Roman Empire (which lost its possessions in Italy). The sole bright spot in Catholism's long confrontation with European Protestants, African Muslims and Jewish Lamanites was the eviction of the Mexica and English pirates from the Azores and Canary Islands in 1640-45.

Charles the Great maintained cordial relations with the declining Catholic powers. "Why fret over the customs of a dying patient in a sickbed?" Charles asked his Parliaments in England (London), Scotland (Edinburgh), Ireland (Dublin) and North Lamania (Roanoke). Though Charles kept executive control of finance, foreign affairs and diplomacy, he allowed his several parliaments to make laws "peculiar for the life and well-being of one part of our several domains." Many years later, Blackstone would identify Charles the Great as the founder of the Federal Kingdoms of Great Britain and Northern Lamania.

In the middle of the 18th century, the Holy Roman Empire was torn apart by civil wars when a Polish King gathered significant support for the Holy Roman throne after the last of the Palatine Emerors died childless in Vienna. After two decades, the ultimate winner was Frederick Hohenzollern, who established the independence of his Prussian kingdom with the help of his Russian ally's attacks on Poland's eastern border.

Meanwhile, France was evicting its Portuguese, Dutch and English rivals from India. In exchange for leaving India, Charles III of the Federal Kingdoms was given all title to French settlements and discoveries in North Lamania.

So it was in 1827, when Joseph Smith, a North Lamander living near Palmyra, Erie Province, was diggng in a Nephite mound, alledgedly at the request of an angel. There he found golden plates, indisputably of Nephite origin, which (when translated by Professor Charles Anthon of Columbia College, an expert in Nephite Hebrew) turned out to be the long-awaited Nephite version of their history and culture.

++++++++++++++++

What happens next? Does everyone in North Laman turn Mormon? Or is the Book of Mormon taken as the relic of a byegone age, much as we read the Greek myths?

Please tell me . . . .
 
I believe sustained long term contact before the arrival of Europe would do it. I would suggest China personally, but it could have happened earlier and then dropped off.

Or, if we don't focus on technology we could have Polynesian expansion sped up, ending with them giving pre-Columbian Americans pigs and chickens which then gives us endemic diseases across the Atlantic. Columbus arrives, someone picks up the disease takes it back, massive epidemics across the old world. We could easily kill off a majority of the old world population. Of course, the native Americans will get it just as bad from the other side, but hey, that was going to happen in almost any TL without sustained long term contact.
 
Strategos' Risk; Thank you! that was a lot of fun.

Sseriously though, it did raise the question of the impact on the reformation. I love the report from CC and am beginning to see the corresponding report in my TL. thank you again for sparking thoughts of additional impact!
 
Bumping this thread here now. Anyways, the idea of contact with China gives me an idea. Assuming they had some sort of contact with China that involved getting Chinese weapons (crossbows, iron, gunpowder, etc) in return for jade and gold and the like, what are the possibilities of native development of these weapons? They could be quite inventive after all and siege warfare was not a foreign concept to them. Their only limit was the lack of natural resources with which to make complicated weaponry. But they were no slouches. I've heard that in the Northeast, were villages were typically protected by tall wooden palisades, the typical attack method was to advance under cover of large mantlets and then attack the palisade with axes. But I have heard at least one source describing the Indians as using a large log to split the palisade logs by dropping it between the individual pieces with some force. And among the Maya, attackers sometimes tried to assault cities using canoes and some defenders would make use of double walls and let the enemy through the first wall to create a killing ground. I've even read something saying the Maya would sometimes guard city walls by placing gourds of bees and wasps on the walls! So, with the addition of new technology, what insidious and crafty new weapons do you think these people would be able to make?
 
Gourds of bees and wasps?????
That sounds nasty if you are attacking.

we don't have sustained, or even occasional trade going on here, but a single injection of Asian influence, technology, livestock and disease. So they are getting exposure to guns, crossbows and gunpowder etc. iron may be an issue at first. they would also get access to Chinese marine technology as well.
 
Any thoughts on religion?

Assuming multiple religions are introduced from Asia what would have resonated with the various Native American beliefs?

Asian beliefs would have included Animism, Taoism, Buddhism and Islam. Other influences would have been Confucianism and, probably, Nestorian Christianity.

What would have clicked with the Maya? The Inca?
 
Suppose that we do have sustained contact. Since, let´s say, 7th or 8th century. In 8th century, smallpox epidemic ravaged Nara Japan. Wasn´t the Great Buddha of Nara build to fight a smallpox epidemy?

Let´s say that Japanese ships follow the coasts northeast in 7th and 8th century, trading with Ainu for furs and selling them to China. Hokkaido, Sakhalin, Kurils, Kamchatka, Aleutians, Alaska... Following the coast, not crossing open Pacific. Eventually, the coast turns south. And so they reach Mexico, shopping for jade there. Toltecs get Chinese books and Buddha images, war horses (Japanese warriors were horseback archers by 6th century), iron, blacksmiths and potters, silkworms and rice seeds (The lakes of Anahuac prompted invention of chinampas. Would rice paddies work there?).

What are the PoDs required? And what are the back end consequences in Japan?
 
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