Skraelia: A Vinland Timeline

It's been established at this point that the Norse knew of the North American continent. While evidence of trading posts exist, no permanently occupied settlement has ever been discovered. What if this was different?
The extent of the trade between the European and North American continents is a little-studied area of history. In this TL, we'll manipulate events so that the North American trade route increases in importance drastically. And along the trade route will travel plagues, technology, populations (not necessarily how you'd assume) and faith.

Our POD is mainly religious in nature. ITTL, Christianity spreads over Eastern Europe much faster. This is because Attila (popularly referred to as the Hun) encounters a missionary in his youth and converts. During Attila's rise to power over the rest of the Hun Confederacy, the ruling class adopts Christianity. Over the next few centuries, more and more of Eastern Europe's population will adopt a mix of tengriism and the hun brand of Christianity (referred to as the Scythian Church). This generally leads to their assimilation into what will be Orthodox Christianity. By the dawn of the 9th Century, Eastern Europe is almost entirely Christian.
Though it strains credibility, this doesn't butterfly away most of Europe's political history. This is basically because I don't want to devote the necessary time to Europe; this timeline is at its heart about North America.

The effect of this is that upon their conversion to Christianity the Norse suddenly find themselves bereft of a supply of thralls. As Slavic slaves had been the backbone of the European slave trade, this was very problematic to their economy. Fortunately, an alternate source of non-Christian slaves had been made available. These "Skraelings" should do nicely...
 
Until they get to Europe, encounter influenza or smallpox or a host of other diseases, and die at the same rates as occured in the New World post-Columbus. In a group of 20 Skraeling slaves, you'd consider yourself lucky is 2 of them survived the first year.

Don't mean to rain on your parade, but as the Spanish found out in the 16th century, this is unworkable.
 
Christianity was part of Norse/Scandinavian society since the third century both Catholic and Orthodox Church which surely didn't bar slavetrade. Of course christianity wasn't having a huge following but it was there.
 
Well given the Skraelings' total lack of immunity to commonplace European diseases, using them as slaves will very swiftly become more trouble than it's worth.
 
Christianity was part of Norse/Scandinavian society since the third century both Catholic and Orthodox Church which surely didn't bar slavetrade. Of course christianity wasn't having a huge following but it was there.

I think he means that they couldn't enslave other Christians, so their target market had to be heathens.

To the OP: why exactly don't the Vikings just start raiding Spain for Muslims instead?
 
I think he means that they couldn't enslave other Christians, so their target market had to be heathens.

To the OP: why exactly don't the Vikings just start raiding Spain for Muslims instead?

The question IMHO should be why religion beats economic "necessities" here. Christianity didn't prevent christian slaves IOTL in many cases. Furthermore the Norse could just stay pagan if the local church preaches against taking christian thralls.
 
As I understand, you are looking for a good reason for the Vikings to not give up Vinland and enhance their north-american conquest. Just trade was obviously not worth the hassle longterm.

Well, let just one ship sail all the way south to Mid-America, where these Vikings find the gold of the mid-americans. Here is your reason to never give up America! I expect a flood of nordish "Conquistadores" invading America afterwards via Greenland and Vinland.
 
I think he means that they couldn't enslave other Christians, so their target market had to be heathens.

To the OP: why exactly don't the Vikings just start raiding Spain for Muslims instead?

To answer that question, mostly because those were the people they were selling the slave to. OTL they continue to enslave Slavs to the point that Slave becomes a word, because there's no prohibition on enslaving non Christians.

EDIT: Oh, disease isn't factored out. The people who assume disease is spread by bad smells just don't realize the severity of its effects yet.
 
As I understand, you are looking for a good reason for the Vikings to not give up Vinland and enhance their north-american conquest. Just trade was obviously not worth the hassle longterm.

Well, let just one ship sail all the way south to Mid-America, where these Vikings find the gold of the mid-americans. Here is your reason to never give up America! I expect a flood of nordish "Conquistadores" invading America afterwards via Greenland and Vinland.

I have thought of this for my 'Norse America' thread, but I think it's just TOO FAR. I mean the Vikings did some pretty amazing stuff in their longships, but coasting down the Americas is a LONG way past Vinland with not much to do. At least in Europe they had raids and commerce to conduct. The locals aren't going to have much worth raiding until they get to central America, and at that time there isn't much culture even in central America.

So they travel all that way find a literal goldmine and then go 'crap, we are rich, but have to sail all the way back!'

It's certainly something that could happen with a strong Vinland in say 1200ad, but not in the 10th/11th century I don't think
 
Objects can pass through several hands and travel a log way through trade though. Rather than going all the way to mesoamerica, what if the Norse encounter some gold object thats been traded beyond the normal limits ?

Its made from solid gold!! Where is it from? Far to the south.

The Norse themselves may not manage to find the mesoamericans, but they have valuable trade good themselves in the form of iron objects. And horses. Several layers of native middlemen may make out quite well. And the pressure combined with the introduction of horse and ships may get ltrade to take off in a way it never did OTL.
 
Objects can pass through several hands and travel a log way through trade though. Rather than going all the way to mesoamerica, what if the Norse encounter some gold object thats been traded beyond the normal limits ?

Its made from solid gold!! Where is it from? Far to the south.

The Norse themselves may not manage to find the mesoamericans, but they have valuable trade good themselves in the form of iron objects. And horses. Several layers of native middlemen may make out quite well. And the pressure combined with the introduction of horse and ships may get ltrade to take off in a way it never did OTL.

That won't work - the cultures to the north of the Aztecs simply aren't advanced enough. They can't work iron, so they have pretty much zero the Aztecs might be interested in, and even if some traders from Texas way did find their way to the Aztecs, they'd more likely be enslaved than traded with.

If this was a possibility, then gold would have worked its way north OTL. There's nothing here to butterfly this possibility. Thing is, it didn't.
 
The locals aren't going to have much worth raiding until they get to central America, and at that time there isn't much culture even in central America.

So they travel all that way find a literal goldmine and then go 'crap, we are rich, but have to sail all the way back!'

It's certainly something that could happen with a strong Vinland in say 1200ad, but not in the 10th/11th century I don't think

Yes, the raid potential in North America is not really great about 1000 AD. And so is the trade potential.

However I like to slightly disagree, that there was no high culture in Mid-America this time. Actually my knowledge about early american cultures is very limited. So I just googled a bit and found the information, that no historian actually knows exactly yet. But there are hints that the Toltecs might have ruled this area (Mexico) this time. We don't know if there was one empire, like the later empire of the Atztecs. Perhaps many competing smaller empires of several tribes. But we can assume, that they had cities and gold.

And regarding the challenge to sail all the way back: due to the Gulf-Stream this is easier than sailing south. If just one damn longship comes back with these news about gold, the run will start. And of course Iceland, Greenland and Vinland become very important stations on the way south.

PS: Just a weird sidenote: imagine the roman empire still exists in 1000 AD like in some TLs. It rules entire Britannia & Hibernia and Denmark. The empire has some trouble with these nordish guys coming from Scandinavia. And suddenly they hear about gold in the West :)
 
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That won't work - the cultures to the north of the Aztecs simply aren't advanced enough. They can't work iron, so they have pretty much zero the Aztecs might be interested in, and even if some traders from Texas way did find their way to the Aztecs, they'd more likely be enslaved than traded with.

If this was a possibility, then gold would have worked its way north OTL. There's nothing here to butterfly this possibility. Thing is, it didn't.

Remember, the Aztecs hadn't been invented yet.
 
However I like to slightly disagree, that there was no high culture in Mid-America this time.

Well, don't put words into my mouth. I didn't say NO culture... but many of the civilisations of America (Aztecs, Inca Mixitecs etc) we think of hadn't come about yet.
 
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Remember, the Aztecs hadn't been invented yet.

Correct, you have me there. But I still am dubious of the idea that the native Americans had anything worthwhile trading for gold. Maybe they'd be able to get enough to buy a few bracelets or somesuch, but those kind of possessions aren't the kind of thing that you traditionally sell on repeatedly to the next tribe that comes knocking, and thus disseminate around America. I still think that if the American civilisations were likely to trade gold far enough north for the Vinland colony to come across it, then exactly that would've happened in real life. But it didn't.
 
Well one of the reasons Vinland/Markland weren't colonized this time is because NA was a well kept secrets. The kings/jarls/traders of Scandinavia did not want people to know about north america (greenlanders knew because they were making regular runs there and icelanders knew through direct trade)...is because NA was making them a fortune. Narwhale (SP?) ivory alone was worth anywhere from 4+ times its weight in gold. Other ivories. Furs. Lumber (mainly for greenland/iceland). Meat and fish. Dried fruits (berries and grapes,etc). Nuts. Possibly copper. So it was a secret well worth keeping.

That being said, an interesting arch. find from the Hudson bay area recently arose. Around 1000-1100 AD, a "new" type of clay pots suddenly appear on the scene, unlike anything seen throughout the native cultures of the area before. Me thinks there might have been some norse influence there through direct trading...

But I am rambling on... Norse arctic arch. is a hobby of mine. Any questions, feel free to ask/PM me. Cheers.
 
Correct, you have me there. But I still am dubious of the idea that the native Americans had anything worthwhile trading for gold. Maybe they'd be able to get enough to buy a few bracelets or somesuch, but those kind of possessions aren't the kind of thing that you traditionally sell on repeatedly to the next tribe that comes knocking, and thus disseminate around America. I still think that if the American civilisations were likely to trade gold far enough north for the Vinland colony to come across it, then exactly that would've happened in real life. But it didn't.

This has just given me a thought... it's a thought totally without research, so nobody jump down my throat... what if Leif Ericksson came across a local wearing a pure gold cross? Now a cross is not a particularly large leap as a shape for someone to wear. I'm not sure if there are any 'cross symbology' in mesoAmerica. So, Leif goes a bit 'what the??? I'll trade you this steel axe for that gold cross' The native goes 'deal' and Leif now goes on some kind of religious fueled (not gold fueled, but certainly that would be some kind of factor 'God is showing us where the real wealth of this land is...') journey to locate the source of this cross. Cross country to find out where the person traded it etc. Ends up going down the Mississippi to some of the Mound Builder (you COULD (if you felt like it) even have them be *chortle chortle* founder of the Mound Builders - but that's been done before) then across the Carribean to the Mayans and get sacreficed to the Mayan Gods... or be recognised by the Mayans as the white haired bearded Gods of myth.

I agree with you that a large trade wouldn't have happened, but I can see one such item (if it had some kind of significance, hense the religious side of things in my blurb above) making its way up the 'trade routes' through various cultures to end up in the hands of Leif Eriksson or someone else. I'm more of a fan of small POD's that cause massive changes than large POD's that cause small changes. Who is to say that this item DIDN'T really end up in the north but the Norse never saw it?

If it was a novel, the story could even be written from the perspective of the item!
 
Well, the point I was really trying to establish here is that there were no trade routes at all. The North American civilisations simply didn't have the capacity to make anything advanced enough to be worth trading that their neighbours couldn't make themselves - there were no equivalents of regions of silk-makers, or the English wool centres, etc. By and large the North American tribes rarely exerted influence over more than a few villages, everything they produced was just done in small scale by the family unit. That's not really that conducive to trade routes.

However, for the purposes of your story, that does sound a pretty entertaining story...
 
Well, the point I was really trying to establish here is that there were no trade routes at all. The North American civilisations simply didn't have the capacity to make anything advanced enough to be worth trading that their neighbours couldn't make themselves - there were no equivalents of regions of silk-makers, or the English wool centres, etc. By and large the North American tribes rarely exerted influence over more than a few villages, everything they produced was just done in small scale by the family unit. That's not really that conducive to trade routes.

However, for the purposes of your story, that does sound a pretty entertaining story...

Yes, I understand what you're saying, and my term 'trade routes' was deliberately in inverted comas. My inferrence here was that a 'trade route' can be a literal trade route or it can be a means by which an artefact can make its way up from its point of origin because some adventurer from the Maya goes north to see the frontier. Gets killed by Mr or Mrs savage and has his various bits and pieces devided up. Mr or Mrs savage then migrates East. Eventually the need to cross the mississippi sans canoe. Lucky for him there is a local who happens to have a canoe going so offers him the canoe for the nice shiny cross shaped object. Meh, I need the canoe, I don't really need the shiny cross shaped thing - deal. The shiny cross shaped thing then makes its way up the Mississippi on a fishing trip where the new owner is killed by a bear. 2 years later some guys from the upper Mississippi come across a skeleton with a shiny cross shaped object attached to it. It's pretty gross looking, but it is shiny, so they delve in and grab it. Return home to find some bastard has attacked their home from the tribe to their north. Stuff that for a joke - retaliation time. Up they go and get killed in their northern raid. Wow, look at shiny object this guy has. I might take that. On and on until Leif Eriksson decides wow, I've gotta find out where this cross shaped thing came from (even though it took 50 years to get from the Maya to Canada. It was a 'trade route' without being a trade route (if that makes sense.
 
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