No Colombian Rediscovery

Jlinker613

Banned
Let's say that Colombus doesn't go exploring West in 1492, and the Americas are not rediscovered by Western Europe. This doesn't stop the colonization revolution because Portuguese and the Dutch had already been exploring the Indian Ocean and had been going past the southernmost part of Africa. Hypothetically Sub-Saharran Africa and the Indian Ocean Basin takes the place of the Americas as the big target for colonization and migration.With Western powers having to extend much farther to colonize territories with people who aren't affected by European disease requiring more resources to quelling native populations. With West Europe spending more men, time, and resources on Africa. With this focus on the more difficult to tame colonies, West Europe will divert far less attention towards lands directly to its east in the short term. This could stimulate a situation where Italy, Russia, the German states and the Ottoman Empire become more powerful. Italy due to its geographic location is the most likely to rise up and become a great power. It would attempt to expand and control the central portion of the Mediterranean basin, expanding as far west as the Balearics, and would attempt to expand east to control Dalmatia, Corfu, Peloponnese, Crete, and Cyprus, and would move south to Libya and Tunisia. Russia would not be greatly affected and expand in the same manner as it did it the OT. The German states were unified by Napoleon's France and later Prussia. Without an American Revolution France would not Erupt into war. Perhaps a similar Revolution could erupt in a new African state triggering France's revolution, but that is up for discussion. Eventually Europe would attempt to break the Ottoman Empire's hold on the the thin strip of land that would eventually become the Suez Canal would become a focus of the European powers. Whoever dominates that territory would come to hold a great amount of power. Which power does that is also up for discussion. What is up for discussion is how Africa and the Indian Basin would be divided up, what kind of independence revolutions would happen, and what the international system would be like.
 
Okay, let's see how this looks in bite sized (and spaced!) pieces:

With Western powers having to extend much farther to colonize territories with people who aren't affected by European disease requiring more resources to quelling native populations. With West Europe spending more men, time, and resources on Africa. With this focus on the more difficult to tame colonies, West Europe will divert far less attention towards lands directly to its east in the short term.

Assuming no one ever looks west, which seems so extraordinarily unlikely it hurts, but okay. But even then, colonization isn't a drain on nations - if Africa turns out to be too problematic, European settlers will give up.

This could stimulate a situation where Italy, Russia, the German states and the Ottoman Empire become more powerful. Italy due to its geographic location is the most likely to rise up and become a great power. It would attempt to expand and control the central portion of the Mediterranean basin, expanding as far west as the Balearics, and would attempt to expand east to control Dalmatia, Corfu, Peloponnese, Crete, and Cyprus, and would move south to Libya and Tunisia.

There is no "Italy" in this period. Its a quarreling, squabbling group of undersized states.

So it would attempt all of nothing in this regard.

Russia would not be greatly affected and expand in the same manner as it did it the OT.

There are probably a variety of changes that would matter here, but nothing as obvious.

The German states were unified by Napoleon's France and later Prussia. Without an American Revolution France would not Erupt into war. Perhaps a similar Revolution could erupt in a new African state triggering France's revolution, but that is up for discussion.

No mention of you know, uniting by their own efforts?

Eventually Europe would attempt to break the Ottoman Empire's hold on the the thin strip of land that would eventually become the Suez Canal would become a focus of the European powers. Whoever dominates that territory would come to hold a great amount of power. Which power does that is also up for discussion. What is up for discussion is how Africa and the Indian Basin would be divided up, what kind of independence revolutions would happen, and what the international system would be like.

"Europe"? What is this "Europe" you speak of as if there would be some pan-European coalition to take that area?

As for "What is up for discussion..."

Until you satisfactorily explain why no one explores to the west and why Africa is colonized instead and Western Europe sinks in the effort and energy on both the individual and national level you're proposing, that will probably get in the way of any discussion of how the area is divided up.
 
Your scenario is nonsensical and ASB and does not belong in before 1900 even if Columbus doesn't find America, Americus or one of the other explorers will. Then Europe colonizes

Also learn to space
 
Columbus' death wouldn't keep the Portuguese from reaching Brazil or the English from reaching Newfoundland. It would probably preempt the Treaty of Tordesillas, and would probably delay the exploration of the Carribean by 15 to 20 years.
 
The problem is, by 1492 Europeans ship and navigation technology was advancing quickly. Wind and current patterns made it almost inevitable that southwestern Europe would get to Brazil and northwestern Europe to Newfoundland.

To completly prevent the discovery of the Americas, you'd need a PoD that wrecks Europe beyond belief. Mongol invasions followed by Black Death waves maybe.

Personally, I feel that if Colombus drops off the edge, and the Americas get discovered from Brazil and Newfoundland, it'll leave the Mesoamericans in a better strategic position, though.
 

Jlinker613

Banned
What I am assuming are
A- without foreign intervention the italian unification occurs at a much earlier point in time
B- I am trying to discuss what would happen if the Americas were not discovered at this point in time, and are left out of the equation for a while. Perhaps later it would be scramble for the Americas rather than Scramble for Africa
 
What I am assuming are
A- without foreign intervention the italian unification occurs at a much earlier point in time
B- I am trying to discuss what would happen if the Americas were not discovered at this point in time, and are left out of the equation for a while. Perhaps later it would be scramble for the Americas rather than Scramble for Africa

The Americas are fairly easy to get to from Europe. Any traveler in the Canary islands might be interested to see what lies beyond the ocean. The wish to get to Asia was still there.
 
What I am assuming are
A- without foreign intervention the italian unification occurs at a much earlier point in time
B- I am trying to discuss what would happen if the Americas were not discovered at this point in time, and are left out of the equation for a while. Perhaps later it would be scramble for the Americas rather than Scramble for Africa

Regarding "B", leaving North and South America un-rediscovered and out of the equation much beyond 1500 is extremely unlikely without a great deal of handwavium.
 

Jlinker613

Banned
This is all hypothetical, so let's just pretend that nobody wants to go out that far west and let's hypothesize what would have happened.
 
This is all hypothetical, so let's just pretend that nobody wants to go out that far west and let's hypothesize what would have happened.

The brainwashing by the 'bats wears off after a while and people wonder wtf happened.

If you want to explore a POD where the Americas aren't (re)discovered until long after OTL, you need to change a lot about Europe to get there. Even if Columbus is regarded as a loon in regards to the Indies, there's other reasons - Europe in general is interested in new markets and new opportunities.

And Italian unification, given that the Italians are quite happily divided amongst themselves - that is, their disunity is their "fault" - is not happening without change as well.

The city-states saw each other as competitors, nevermind they were both "Italian".
 
This is all hypothetical, so let's just pretend that nobody wants to go out that far west and let's hypothesize what would have happened.

Even if nobody wants to go west it is extremely likely that somebody that wants to sail around Africa ends up in Brasil. Furthermore, naval development is not limited to traders and the military. Fishermen will also have better and better boats and go further into the Atlantic. I frequently read about the possibility of Basque Fishermen fishing at the North American coast even before Columbus. That will happen here as well.

Thus, you can kill Columbus and delay the discovery of the Caribean. Clearly, stories about India found and natives with gold fueled exploration. Butterflying all this away will delay exploration of the Americas. Within some years, though, the coasts of New Foundland and Brasil will be known. Yet there's still the possibility that these coasts offer less interesting opportunities and without gold not that many will go there anyway. But that will change. Somebody will sail along the known coasts and finally meet a native with a gold ring. Or find that Canada offers valuable furs. Or find that that fishing station one has founded overseas can be manned all-year and that people can make their living there.

To summarize, I think it's possible to delay the exploration of all of the Americas by quite some years, maybe up to 1550. But once it starts colonization will be even faster than IOTL. Effectively you'd have colonization powers that sailed to India for years and just found out that there's gold and wealth to be found much closer by.
 
This is all hypothetical, so let's just pretend that nobody wants to go out that far west and let's hypothesize what would have happened.

Actually, I can buy this as a reasonable pretense, but you'd need a PoD at least several hundred years previosuly to create a broad cultural background in europe that eliminated state-sponsored exploration, except perhaps to broaden influence in already known areas such as Africa and the Indian Ocean.

Just because the knowledge and technology existed in Europe to sail west doesn't make this inevitable. We've had the technology and knowledge to have permanent manned lunar stations and manned voyages to Mars since the early 1990's, but we don't and probably won't in my lifetime. One interesting difference between the 1490's and the 1990's is that that only governments could fund space exploration in the 1990's. In the 1490's pirates and other unfunded and illegal adventurers could have done this and make the first contact with the Americas, increasing the possibility that hybrid native civilizations might survive in the Americas long enough to meet Europeans on a more even basis when the inevitable official age of exploration began.
 
Actually, I can buy this as a reasonable pretense, but you'd need a PoD at least several hundred years previosuly to create a broad cultural background in europe that eliminated state-sponsored exploration, except perhaps to broaden influence in already known areas such as Africa and the Indian Ocean.

Just because the knowledge and technology existed in Europe to sail west doesn't make this inevitable.

The knowledge, technology, and interest.

Europe was seeking new markets, faster ways to old markets, more resources, more...it was strongly motivated to go west.

Nor was it impractically expensive to do so.
 
The knowledge, technology, and interest.

Europe was seeking new markets, faster ways to old markets, more resources, more...it was strongly motivated to go west.

Nor was it impractically expensive to do so.

This sounds fighteningly like simplistic economic determinism. Motivations are not always determined by economics. Co back a couple hundred years and it would be possible to posit any number of plausible religious, cultural, and even economic reasons why the age of state-sponsored exploration westward could be delayed a hundred years.
 
This sounds fighteningly like simplistic economic determinism. Motivations are not always determined by economics. Co back a couple hundred years and it would be possible to posit any number of plausible religious, cultural, and even economic reasons why the age of state-sponsored exploration westward could be delayed a hundred years.

Determinism, no. Simply that it was done OTL for very compelling reason.

It would take a lot to make Europe uninterested in the economic possibilities, and for cultural and/or religious factors to do anything to deter those who were interested in pursuit of such.

And in the mid-late 1400s, the factors that will lead to if not Columbus, someone - are firmly in place and moving forward steadily.

Two hundred years earlier, what are you going to do to deter the fact that Europe is interested in the outside world and the economic opportunities of trade and that there's no one in a position to interfere with it (neither pope or emperor) on the scale of the continent?

I wouldn't say its "inevitable", but it would be very difficult to stop with what one has to work with - even a successful HRE or a papacy without the stay in Angivon for instance is hardly able to prevent Spanish and English merchants from looking for more wealth and more markets and more ways to make money, and for kings to hope to take advantage of that.

You'd have to go back quite far for European exploration to be something which can be shut down on a continent-wide level by this point, or for the economic incentives to not exist.
 
The biggest problem is that people traded with Iceland. If you go to Iceland in the late 1400s and talk to the native Icelanders, they can tell you all they know about Vinland, not a great deal, but enough to know its there and approximately how far away it is. In fact, Columbus was in Iceland in the late 1470s and he may have got his ideas about sailing to China that way.

The other major problem is that despite what people say about Columbus discovering the new world, Basque sailors were fishing and whaling off of Newfoundland since probably the 1450s. Sooner or later, someone else is going to follow them, more likely sooner than later.

Frankly, I'm surprised that it took as long as it did to rediscover the Americas, any longer and you would have to assume a Europe that was totally wrecked. The absolute latest I can see the discovery of the Americas is like 1510, which I know is much earlier that you would like.
 
I'd think you could postpone it longer, but only by absolutly wrecking Europe. Some combination of plagues, invasions and successive crop failiures, maybe.

There has been some speculations on TLs where christianity falls in Europe as a result of pressure by Islam in the south and pagans in the north. Normally with a "Viking Mohammed" figure. But by 1500, that would not resemble the Europe we know.

It would help if some Pope declares gunpowder the devils work. I somehow doubt that'll keep noble from using cannon, though. But it may make them keep the use of gunpowder covert, or retard development and production.
 
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