Se Deus quiser, há-de brilhar! - Uma História do Império Português (Updated 03/18)

If I remember right John II was a King that preferred to establish protectorates peacefully instead of conquering land in Morocco. He did this with Safim and Azamor when the two cities voluntarily submitted to him for protection. He was a pragmatic ruler more interested in commerce but I guess that with a larger army and population he can get more aggressive. Don't know what your plans are for Granada, I have seen the maps you posted before and there is really no land connection to Portugal so I wonder if it's advantageous for Portugal to take it...Gibraltar could be interesting since it would make Portugal control the Strait...

As for the military orders, well as you wrote, the Crown absorbed them and took control of their revenues, they still existed afterward but not with the power they once had, nevertheless, I think they can still provide trained troops to fight against the "infidels".

Lastly, it was a good update considering the lack of information on the subject, it seems military knowledge is really lacking especially in Portugal...
 
About Gibraltar and control of the Strait, considering that Portugal AFAIK has not and will have not posessions in the Mediterranean, I really don't think that's so important for Portugal. It just makes conflicts with Castille ( or other European countries, like the UK ) more probable.
Same thing with Morocco, having territories there will not help Portugal so much, but it will pull them in never-ending conflict with Morocco and other N. African states. Especially because I think that such area ( especially if large- so no few coastal enclaves ) will not become cristianised or even portugalised, so they will have problems like the French in Algiers.

What Portugal needs, if it wants to become a big power ( amongh other things OFC ) is: a) larger territory and population ( and now they have that ) and b) safe home base ( so like Britain, having not too big and too dangerous competitors/enemies to the home country ) so that they dedicate to colonial expansion and portugalisation of overseas territories.
 
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Hmm, Japanese and Maori, didn't you have biten too much?

portuguql gonna be a monster soon

I've already hinted in the Prologue that New Zealand will be Portuguese territory by the 19th century TTL, and that Japan will be more open to Western influences (via a stronger Portugal as their most favored nation for European trade and technology TTL) than OTL, the latter will take multiple PODs in the Sengoku Jidai period (the Tokugawas obviously being butterflied away, for example) for it to happen.

And yes, it's in the making. With its size and population base doubled and João II and his TTL successors being more enlightened by the ideas of the Renaissance, Portugal's path to becoming a world superpower is inevitable.

If I remember right John II was a King that preferred to establish protectorates peacefully instead of conquering land in Morocco. He did this with Safim and Azamor when the two cities voluntarily submitted to him for protection. He was a pragmatic ruler more interested in commerce but I guess that with a larger army and population he can get more aggressive. Don't know what your plans are for Granada, I have seen the maps you posted before and there is really no land connection to Portugal so I wonder if it's advantageous for Portugal to take it...Gibraltar could be interesting since it would make Portugal control the Strait...

As for the military orders, well as you wrote, the Crown absorbed them and took control of their revenues, they still existed afterward but not with the power they once had, nevertheless, I think they can still provide trained troops to fight against the "infidels".

Lastly, it was a good update considering the lack of information on the subject, it seems military knowledge is really lacking especially in Portugal...

The idea of a possible war in Granada and Morocco in 1500 was an idea Lusitania brought up earlier, where the Castilians invade Granada and the latter convinced the Ottomans to intervene, leading to a huge mess in North Africa that Portugal, Castile and Aragon are able to make use of, preventing the Ottomans from making further gains in coastal North Africa for the time being and ending the Wattasid dynasty in Morocco much earlier. Except in this case Granada will still end up being part of Castile in the end, and probably Portugal taking the area around Malaga to further secure its hold over the Gibraltar strait, as the Portuguese already have Gibraltar since 1477 after the War of Castilian Succession.

And I think it's a good idea for the main role of the military orders TTL is to provide training for troops to fight against adversaries in the Ultramar.

About Gibraltar and control of the Strait, considering that Portugal AFAIK has not and will have not posessions in the Mediterranean, I really don't think that's so important for Portugal. It just makes conflicts with Castille ( or other European countries, like the UK ) more probable.
Same thing with Morocco, having territories there will not help Portugal so much, but it will pull them in never-ending conflict with Morocco and other N. African states. Especially because I think that such area ( especially if large- so no few coastal enclaves ) will not become cristianised or even portugalised, so they will have problems like the French in Algiers.

What Portugal needs, if it wants to become a big power ( amongh other things OFC ) is: a) larger territory and population ( and now they have that ) and b) safe home base ( so like Britain, having not too big and too dangerous competitors/enemies to the home country ) so that they dedicate to colonial expansion and portugalisation of overseas territories.

Other than Gibraltar and possibly the area around Malaga, I don't think the Portuguese will take anything further than that, and the Castilians are tamed for the most part since it's ruled by a branch of the Avis family, but I don't rule out any possibility of a prominent anti-Avis conspiracy in the next few decades.

Historically, the Portuguese had a grain deficit and had to rely on imports from other parts of Europe, in particular Castile and Aragon. Conquering coastal Morocco in the upcoming war would provide a source of grain for Portugal as its breadbasket (emphasis on the coastal part, the interior parts of Morocco will come much later), although the process of integration between the 16th and 18th centuries will be a slow one, with some internal problems and settlers from Portugal and Leão coming in waves.
 
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Lusitania

Donor
The Portuguese reconquista mentality and military orders along with religious elements will Continually demand intervention in Morocco. If we look at France it moved in the 18th century when religious conversation was secondary to control. Here Portugal could capture and control the coast not just enclaves and establish several vassals in the interior such as Marrakech and Fez. Then allowing it to integrate the coastal areas which could be 500-200 kilometers was hike the interior is peaceful and protected from further attacks.

The issue with Mediterranean is the Ottoman Empire and it’s control if support if the Barbary states. Therefore alliance with other Mediterranean countries even Muslim to temper ottoman power. An independent Egypt is good. Control if Malta even vassal of Tunisia. All nice side endeavors without taking away from its pursuit of colonialism
 
Chapter 10 - The Granadan War, Act I
Chapter 10 - The Granadan War, Act I

- The last remnant of Al-Andalus -

624px-Coat_of_Arms_of_the_Emirate_of_Granada_(1013-1492).svg.png

ACM_Muhammad (1).jpg

The coat of arms of the Emirate of Granada and its last Sultan, Muhammad XII
The last Muslim state in left standing in the Iberian Peninsula, known to them as Al-Andalus, was the Emirate of Granada, ruled by Sultan Muhammad XII of the Nasrid dynasty, better known by the Castilians as Boabdil. Technically, the emirate is nothing more than a tributary state to Castile since the mid-13th century, as the Sultans pay tribute in the form of gold from the Mali and Songhai empires that was carried to Iberia through the merchant routes of the Sahara.

For the next two centuries, the Emirate enjoyed cultural and economic prosperity as a trade hub between the Maghreb and the Iberian Peninsula, heavily financed by Genoese bankers, not to mention that most of the famed Alhambra palace was built during the period. By the time of the Portuguese discoveries in Africa in the 15th century, Granada’s role as a trade hub had waned, with its economy weakened and its world-famous porcelain trade disrupted by the Aragonese in Manises in Valencia. Heavy taxes were imposed on ordinary Granadans to support its extensive defenses and a large army to defend the Emirate.

Internally, Granada has suffered from constant succession struggles, with the Sultan’s rule limited to the city of Granada, and rival emirs emerging from the Alhambra and the Albayzín district. Slowly but surely, various towns fell to the Castilians over time as a result of frequent border skirmishes, from Algeciras in 1344, to Antequera in 1410 and Gibraltar in 1462 (until it was lost to the Portuguese in 1477). The prior dominance of Castile meant that Granada’s existence was a precarious one, but the sudden victory of the Portuguese forces and La Beltraneja’s supporters in the War of Castilian Succession merely guaranteed its existence… for now.

- The Wattasid Dynasty -

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Fez, the main city of the Wattasids
Across the Strait of Gibraltar lies Morocco, ruled by the Wattasid dynasty, established by Abu Abd Allah al-Sheikh Muhammad ibn Yahya, who was of Berber descent in 1472. Originally, they had been the autonomous governors of the eastern Rif region since the late 13th century, forging close ties with their predecessors, the Marinids and providing many bureaucratic elites for the prior ruling family. Over time, when they began to accumulate power through political maneuvering, which caused most of the family to be slaughtered in 1459, with only Muhammad ibn Yahya being the only surviving one. He then fled to Fez, where he established himself there as the main Moroccan dynasty.

Diplomatically, the Wattasids tried to take a more pragmatic approach to the Iberian countries and at the same time, protect Morocco from foreign incursions. The only notable event of this short-lived dynasty’s former policy prior to their downfall was an agreement with Castile in 1485, in which Morocco agreed not to assist Granada in return for the Castilians to not capture Moroccan ships in the Alboran Sea. The latter promise to defend Morocco eventually failed, with the Portuguese taking both the small towns of Safim in 1481, and Azamor in 1486 as vassals. The former would especially become an important port for the Portuguese during the process of integration of coastal Morocco after the Granadan War.

- Provocation at Archidona -

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Granadan soldiers in the late 15 century (Image source)​

The war began in December 1499 when Granada launched a surprise attack in the small town of Archidona [1] near the border with Castile, which was in the latter’s hands since 1462. This was in part due to a Castilian raid into Granadan territory that took place earlier. The town was sacked and its population was enslaved, creating a massive provocation that led to a wider war in both Iberia and the Maghreb Coast. Aragon, under King Enrique I, who succeeded Juan II upon his death in 1479 also joined the war by sending a small contingent of forces while focusing on the Hafsids in the coast of Ifriqiya, out of finally expelling the Moorish remnants from Iberia altogether. Although the results of the first few battles near the border of Granada were inconclusive due to the terrain, several small towns in Granada near the Castilian border began to fall, starting with Loja, Iznájar and Alhama by 1500.

Duarte_Pacheco_Pereira.jpg

In addition to his journeys into Africa and India, Duarte Pacheco Pereira was also known for leading the Portuguese army in the early stages of the Granadan War

Meanwhile, seeing the war lingering next door to Granada from Gibraltar, 15,000 Portuguese troops (10,000 footmen, with a significant portion being handgunners and 5,000 knights, plus 30 artillery pieces) led by Duarte Pacheco Pereira, known for being one of the Portuguese crown’s official geographers and his subsequent journeys into India, began to march from Gibraltar to the western part of Granada known as the Takurunna Core. In the later half of 1500, the Portuguese seized the towns of Ronda and Marbella, the latter being one of the bases for the Granadan fleet. The rapid movement of the Portuguese troops opened the way to the city of Málaga, which was the main seaport for Granada’s maritime trade.

- The siege of Málaga -

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The Alcazaba of Málaga

Málaga itself was the main target of the joint Portuguese-Castilian campaign of 1501 in the Takurunna Core. Juana of Castile was accompanied by one of the main Castilian generals of the war, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, known as El Gran Capitán (The Great Captain) [2] with 35,000 troops (30,000 Castilians, made up of footmen and knights and a 5,000 strong Aragonese contingent) and 50,000 laborers. The Portuguese army under Pacheco Pereira joined in from the west of the city. Before reaching Málaga, the Castilian army seized the town of Vélez-Málaga with little resistance, with the addition of smaller places along the road to the city.

The city itself was prosperous, filled with elegant Moorish architecture with its countless gardens and fountains. The citadel above the town lies the Alcazaba, connected via a causeway to another fortress that is higher in altitude, the Gibralfaro castle. The city’s suburbs were protected by a wall, and towards the sea lay orchards of various fruits, especially vineyards where the famous Málaga wine was made. The town was well-defended with a regular garrison with artillery, as well as volunteers from neighboring parts of the Emirate and Berber mercenaries from the Rif known as the Gomeres.

The city’s access to the sea was blockaded by Portuguese and Castilian ships. The first attacks toward the city were in the landward suburbs, with both the Portuguese and Castilian forces breaching the western and eastern walls. The Granadan forces then retreated back to the city, where they tried to make stiff resistance against both armies as much as possible. The city walls were then successfully mined by Castilian siege engineers, and the Portuguese successfully took the Alcazaba in the west with little losses. Seeing the Portuguese and Castilian forces approaching into the main citadel, the Granadan garrison commander surrendered, throwing themselves on the mercy of the Christian Iberian kingdoms, allowing for most of the population of the city to be spared [3]. It took from mid-June to the end of July of 1501 to take the city.

The conquest of the city was a harsh blow to Granada, which has lost its chief seaport. Frustrated at the loss of Málaga, Muhammad XII had no choice but to appeal to the rising Muslim power to the east - The Ottoman Empire.

[1] The OTL Granadan War began in 1482 when the Granadans launched a surprise attack on the town of Zahara. The war began much later TTL due to the Castilian recovery from the loss of its territories and the downfall of Queen Isabel after the War of Castilian Succession.
[2] Since TTL's Italian Wars are limited to a Franco-Austrian conflict, we'll begin to see more of him in the Granadan war. Fernández de Córdoba's tercio tactics will become observed during the war and eventually adopted by the Portuguese sooner than OTL.
[3] The result of the OTL Siege of Málaga in 1487 led to most of its population being either killed or enslaved. Given that the Granadan War took place later than OTL and Juana being more sane here, this is not the case.


Note - we're now beginning to see the early stages of the Granadan War. The Portuguese and Castilians are now enjoying their early successes in the western part of Granada, taking the Emirate's main seaport. Granada, now frustrated by the Portuguese intervention in the war, is now reaching out to the Ottomans for help. As a result, over the next few years, the war will spill over to the rest of the Maghreb coast, from Safi to Tripoli. Any suggestions and/or feedback for this chapter?
 
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Another outstanding chapter! The way you're involving Portugal in these conflicts where they're able to gain critical territories and internal reforms is always interesting to read, I'm also fascinated by the intervention of the Ottomans and what the rest of Europe are doing, keep up the good work!
 
Certainly interesting update, you gave a few interesting points that could lead to interesting things like a Portuguese expansion in coastal Morocco and Aragon under a different King that seems like is interested in expanding in North Africa too.

Looking forward to see the rest of the war and it's consequences.
 

Lusitania

Donor
Great update. Really like how you building up the suspense. If you can after next update give readers an updated Iberian peninsula map.
 
My apologies for the late response, got a bit busy with work-related stuff over the past week and a half and inquiring on joining either the US Army or Air Force in the future (although unlikely to enlist just yet due to the pandemic).

Another outstanding chapter! The way you're involving Portugal in these conflicts where they're able to gain critical territories and internal reforms is always interesting to read, I'm also fascinated by the intervention of the Ottomans and what the rest of Europe are doing, keep up the good work!

Certainly interesting update, you gave a few interesting points that could lead to interesting things like a Portuguese expansion in coastal Morocco and Aragon under a different King that seems like is interested in expanding in North Africa too.

Looking forward to see the rest of the war and it's consequences.

By having a stronger population base, more diverse economy, and more meaningful internal and military reforms the Príncipe Perfeito has made, Portugal is more prepared to take on Morocco, as well as contributing to supporting the Castilians in Granada.

The Portuguese expansion and integration of coastal Morocco is a top priority for João II in as the 16th century kicks in, although it will take a long process for the latter, given the traditional Moroccan hostility towards the Portuguese and the their reconquista mentality, and the Saadis in the Southern part will most likely launch frequent incursions to harass the Portuguese in the coastal parts, although they will be later dealt with. One way of integrating closer to Metropolitan Portugal is bringing in not only Portuguese, Galician and Leonese settlers, but also Italians, Greeks, Jews and some Spaniards along the way in addition to converting Arabs and Berbers and assimilating them to Portuguese society, and granting charters to settlers to turn coastal Morocco into Portugal's breadbasket.

Regarding Castile and Aragon, since they are not tangled up with European affairs since the Catholic Monarchs are butterflied away, they are solely focusing on their internal politics and obtaining territories in North Africa. Aragon, under Enrique I (the OTL Duke of Segorbe) has interests in reestablishing the old Siculo-Norman Kingdom of Africa as part of his domains in addition to Naples and Sicily, which would eventually be inherited once the French run out of steam to reinforce its Angevin claim to the former.

The Ottoman intervention will certainly be guaranteed, but with Portugal, Castile and Aragon's Jewish populations being safeguarded and enjoying more rights and privileges than OTL and the Sephardic migration to the Ottoman Empire being butterflied away, they are going to have a hard time in North Africa.

great chapter as usual portugual kind of a beast right now

Great update. Really like how you building up the suspense. If you can after next update give readers an updated Iberian peninsula map.

Portugal's military might will be unleashed once they invade Morocco and the Wattasid Sultan's army gets crushed. We'll see more of João II next chapter as he will lead an army of Portuguese knights and mercenaries, while Infante Afonso leads a contingent of knights in his army. I'll provide a map in the next chapter too.

Also a side note, I was thinking that by using Newfoundland as a starting Portuguese settler colony in the north, there can be an opportunity for the Portuguese to expand into the Canadian Maritimes and New England (Nova Lusitânia could potentially be a name for a Portuguese Maritimes + New England) as another population base besides Brazil, South Africa and Australia, not to mention that historically Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island have large Portuguese communities that work in the fishing industry.

I would like to give a special thanks to the my readers on this TL for giving me a lot of feedback and suggestions (especially @Lusitania, @RedAquilla, @Joao97, @Nasei, @Mister Mister, @kasumigenx and @isabella). Also a special shout out to the Portuguese friends and acquaintances I've made during high school, as well as to my sophomore Honors English teacher (she's an Azorean). And as a Filipino Catholic, after getting acquainted and intrigued with Portuguese history and culture, I am currently saving up money to go to Portugal (mostly around Lisbon) in 2023 for World Youth Day and see Pope Francis in person.
 
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Your ideas for Morocco are viable, the Portuguese elites always saw the country as the logical continuation of the Reconquista thus they needed to be integrated into the Algarves meaning Portugal itself. Making a breadbasket will reduce Portugal's expenses too.

Your plans for a Portuguese North America do sound interesting and Nova Lusitânia sounds good but if I'm not mistaken the whole area was called Terra do Lavrador ou Terra Nova already...I don't know they all sound good.

Finally, Portugal will certainly welcome you, especially if the COVID pandemic is better controlled around the world...
 
In relation to the name of Nova Lusitânia probably should be used later when elevated to the status of Vice-Kingdom.

About Newfoundland Pietro de Pasqualigo, Venetian ambassador in Portugal, wrote several letters to Venice in which he states that in the late 1490s, early 1500s several minor nobles from the Azores went to explore the North Atlantic.

They found a land that was longer then 600 miles, with its North full of snow and ice.

There were people there with wood houses covered with fish skins, a land with great number of fish; salmon, herring and cod.

It also has many kinds of wood, mainly great pines useful to build ship masts (something Portugal had to import from the Baltic Sea and not always available when there was a war in that region)

And that its people would make excellent slaves.

Alberto Cantino also write a letter to his lord the Ferrara´s Duke says that the Portuguese found islands of ice that when the sun melted provide good water to drink, the land had many trees, rivers and fish, with beautiful people some of which wore sold as slaves in Lisbon.

By 1506 D. Manuel I claim to the crown the tax of the fishing of Newfoundland in the ports of Viana do Castelo e Aveiro.

But all these attempts to establish a colony wore from minor nobles from the Azores, an archipelago whose settlement started in 1439, so they didn´t have many resources and from the king only have the permit to explore and claim the new lands.

In OTL D. Sebastiáo in 1574 created the Captaincy of Terra Nova, at time it was only fishing summer camps, but he was planning in send a colonization expedition this time with full royal support, but the war in Morocco shelved all that plans.



About the expansion of Portugal in Morocco it was propelled among other things by the need of Portugal to obtain grain to feed its population, this lead in OTL to a long sequence of wars to get the wheat regions of Morocco.

Now in here Portugal did increased its cereal production area but also its population, so the chronical cereal deficit will be even worst then in OTL.

That would lead to even more attempts to conquer Morocco, but also just like OTL to find other areas outside Europe to produce cereals to send to Lisbon.

In OTL when a Portuguese settler arrived at a new land, the first plant he tried to grow was wheat, in most places it failed, one place where it succeeds was in Southern Brazil.

But even that in OTL was only produce enough to support the needs of the colony.

OTL the expedition of Martim Afonso de Sousa to Brazil managed to get most of its goals:

  • Mapping and exploration of the Brazilian coast until the Plata (where he had problems with his ship and return to his captaincy)
  • Funded the first European style village in Brazil São Vicente
  • Introduced the cultivation of sugar cane in that village
  • Created alliances with several groups of Native Brazilians
  • Led an expedition to the interior that in time lead to foundation of the city of São Paulo
  • Fight the French that wore in region
  • Among his group of +/- 400 settlers there weas an iron smith that establish the first iron works in Brazil
  • But failed in establish a colony in the Plata, with the good climate and a few hundreds of settlers the region could supply a lot of grain to the empire.


On a side note D. José I order to be station on the Gibraltar Strait a squadron of the Portuguese Navy; “A Frota do Estreito” to protect the Portuguese coast of attacks from pirates from Northern Africa, its port was in Gibraltar, but here the corps of the Portuguese Navy will be created even earlier due to the proximity of pirate ports of Northern Africa and the fact that Gibraltar is Portuguese.
 
In relation to the name of Nova Lusitânia probably should be used later when elevated to the status of Vice-Kingdom.

About Newfoundland Pietro de Pasqualigo, Venetian ambassador in Portugal, wrote several letters to Venice in which he states that in the late 1490s, early 1500s several minor nobles from the Azores went to explore the North Atlantic.

They found a land that was longer then 600 miles, with its North full of snow and ice.

There were people there with wood houses covered with fish skins, a land with great number of fish; salmon, herring and cod.

It also has many kinds of wood, mainly great pines useful to build ship masts (something Portugal had to import from the Baltic Sea and not always available when there was a war in that region)

And that its people would make excellent slaves.

Alberto Cantino also write a letter to his lord the Ferrara´s Duke says that the Portuguese found islands of ice that when the sun melted provide good water to drink, the land had many trees, rivers and fish, with beautiful people some of which wore sold as slaves in Lisbon.

By 1506 D. Manuel I claim to the crown the tax of the fishing of Newfoundland in the ports of Viana do Castelo e Aveiro.

But all these attempts to establish a colony wore from minor nobles from the Azores, an archipelago whose settlement started in 1439, so they didn´t have many resources and from the king only have the permit to explore and claim the new lands.

In OTL D. Sebastiáo in 1574 created the Captaincy of Terra Nova, at time it was only fishing summer camps, but he was planning in send a colonization expedition this time with full royal support, but the war in Morocco shelved all that plans.



About the expansion of Portugal in Morocco it was propelled among other things by the need of Portugal to obtain grain to feed its population, this lead in OTL to a long sequence of wars to get the wheat regions of Morocco.

Now in here Portugal did increased its cereal production area but also its population, so the chronical cereal deficit will be even worst then in OTL.

That would lead to even more attempts to conquer Morocco, but also just like OTL to find other areas outside Europe to produce cereals to send to Lisbon.

In OTL when a Portuguese settler arrived at a new land, the first plant he tried to grow was wheat, in most places it failed, one place where it succeeds was in Southern Brazil.

But even that in OTL was only produce enough to support the needs of the colony.

OTL the expedition of Martim Afonso de Sousa to Brazil managed to get most of its goals:

  • Mapping and exploration of the Brazilian coast until the Plata (where he had problems with his ship and return to his captaincy)
  • Funded the first European style village in Brazil São Vicente
  • Introduced the cultivation of sugar cane in that village
  • Created alliances with several groups of Native Brazilians
  • Led an expedition to the interior that in time lead to foundation of the city of São Paulo
  • Fight the French that wore in region
  • Among his group of +/- 400 settlers there weas an iron smith that establish the first iron works in Brazil
  • But failed in establish a colony in the Plata, with the good climate and a few hundreds of settlers the region could supply a lot of grain to the empire.


On a side note D. José I order to be station on the Gibraltar Strait a squadron of the Portuguese Navy; “A Frota do Estreito” to protect the Portuguese coast of attacks from pirates from Northern Africa, its port was in Gibraltar, but here the corps of the Portuguese Navy will be created even earlier due to the proximity of pirate ports of Northern Africa and the fact that Gibraltar is Portuguese.

I think Terra Nova would the TTL Portuguese name for Newfoundland and the Canadian Maritimes while Nova Lusitânia is for OTL New England and some parts of New York state. The Azores would be used as a springboard along with Newfoundland to establish a successful settler colony in North America like in Viriato's Portuguese North America TL, but limited just to Newfoundland, Canadian Maritimes and New England. Unlike in Viriato's TL there will be additional settlers from Galicia and Catholic dissidents from Scandinavia coming in shortly after the Reformation, mostly from Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Islands.

With the rumors of abundant resources as you've mentioned and the power of the nobles divested under João II's much longer reign and TTL, the settlement of the Eastern Seaboard of North America would be a more of a royal venture to raise a new population base to expand the Portuguese Empire, and certainly the settlers who would land on what used to be Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts OTL would be the Portuguese.

Regarding Morocco, the Portuguese can't rely on just that to solve its cereal deficit. There are sources of grain in South Africa, Paraguay and northern Argentina where the Portuguese can narrow their deficit. A city in the mouth of La Plata similar to Buenos Aires as suggested would be a great start as one of Portugal's main grain ports.



Other than that, I am stuck in a bit of a writer's block on the Ottoman intervention in the Granadan War, and some personal circumstances beyond my control are exacerbating that a bit. Here's a draft of what the next chapter would look like; any suggestions and feedback would be good. I was thinking that the Ottoman defeat would lead to a much earlier decline of the Empire to a rump state in Anatolia due to the lack of Sephardi Jewish refugees from Spain and Portugal.

- Sultan Muhammad XII meets with Bayezid II to intervene on the behalf of Granada, which he accepts
- 3 Ottoman armies are deployed to Valencia, Granada and Morocco to help both Granada and Morocco
- Valencia gets sacked by the Ottomans, but the Aragonese fight back and regain the city
- The Ottoman army in Granada wins a pyrrhic victory against the Castilians, and were defeated in a subsequent battle
- The Ottoman army occupies Tânger and Ceuta, causing Portugal (with the blessing of the Pope) to invade Morocco, crushing the joint Moroccan-Ottoman army at Alcácer Quibir (not to be confused with the OTL one) and occupying most of coastal Morocco
- The Aragonese, Castilians and Portuguese launch a joint invasion of the Hafsid and Zayyanid kingdoms, overrunning most of the Maghrebi coast as a result
- An alliance was made between the Iberian powers and the Mamluk Sultanate to weaken the Ottomans, the latter resuming border raids and Venice joins in later to regain the lands they lost to the Ottomans. Seeing the empire attacked from all sides, the Ottomans sued for peace.
 
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This map shows much of North America as Terra Nova:
Now I don't know enough of the Ottoman Empire but I don't believe it would collapse after a failed intervention in Granada or North Africa nor without the Jews. They are expanding and are very strong for that to happen. Maybe they could be halted by Hungary but I don't think they would collapse. Unless the Mamluks invade Anatolia and go all the way to Constantinople to the point of taking it which I doubt they would manage. Everything else seems fine...The Iberians could technically overrun the Maghrebi Coast but I figure they would set up protectorates and vassals of sorts because they don't have the power to hold it.

Nice ideas.
 
This map shows much of North America as Terra Nova:
Now I don't know enough of the Ottoman Empire but I don't believe it would collapse after a failed intervention in Granada or North Africa nor without the Jews. They are expanding and are very strong for that to happen. Maybe they could be halted by Hungary but I don't think they would collapse. Unless the Mamluks invade Anatolia and go all the way to Constantinople to the point of taking it which I doubt they would manage. Everything else seems fine...The Iberians could technically overrun the Maghrebi Coast but I figure they would set up protectorates and vassals of sorts because they don't have the power to hold it.

Nice ideas.

The continents won't be called the Americas TTL, and since the Portuguese will become the first main colonizers to North America, Terra Nova would be a suitable name for the entire continent as mentioned, while I am still going for Cabralia as the name for South America.

The Ottoman Empire certainly wouldn't be powerful as what it was OTL, it will probably be a regional power in both Anatolia and the Balkans. I can see Hungary, with Poland and Bohemia doing a repeat of the failed Varna crusade of 1444 to liberate at least Bosnia and Serbia from Ottoman rule, and Venice at least retaking parts of Greece they have lost earlier, and a Safavid wank where they still keep most of Mesopotamia and Eastern Anatolia.

In North Africa, the Iberians would control key cities like Tunis, Algiers, Oran and Tripoli and most of the coast, with the interior parts becoming vassals.
 
IMHO, Ottomans sending 3 big armies so far away seems too much. Power projection of that size requires: a) many ships and b) Being free of other threats.
Ottomans at the time aren't yet so powerful.
 
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In 1453 the Ottoman fleet participated in the historic conquests of Constantinople, Gökçeada, Lemnos and Thasos. The conquest of the Duchy of Athens and the Despotate of the Morea was completed between 1458 and 1460, followed by the conquest of the Empire of Trebizond and the Genoese colony of Amasra in 1461, which brought an end to the final vestiges of the Byzantine Empire. In 1462 the Ottoman fleet conquered the Genoese islands of the northern Aegean Sea, which were administered by the Gattilusio family, including their capital Mytilene in the island of Lesbos. This was followed by the Ottoman-Venetian War of 1463-1479. In the following period the Ottoman fleet gained more territory in the Aegean Sea, and in 1475 set foot on Crimea on the northern shores of the Black Sea. Until 1499 this was followed by further expansion on the Black Sea coasts (such as the conquest of Georgia in 1479) and on the Balkan peninsula (such as the final reconquest of Albania in 1497, and the conquest of Montenegro in 1499). The loss of Venetian forts in Montenegro, near the strategic Castelnuovo, triggered the Ottoman-Venetian War of 1499-1503, during which the Turkish fleet of Kemal Reis defeated the Venetian forces at the Battle of Zonchio (1499) and the Battle of Modon (1500). By 1503 the Ottoman fleet raided the northeastern Adriatic coasts of Italy, and completely captured the Venetian lands on Morea, the Ionian Sea coast and the southeastern Adriatic Sea coast.


That's about the extent and capabilities of Turkish naval operations at the time.
Granada is too far away that the Turks mght do something meaningful at the time, not to mention send 3 large expeditionary armies.
 
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