The Cattle of Vinland: If the New World Conquest Were a Fairer Fight

[stevecharb]

This is a story I've been working on for some time now. I would love some feedback on it. Basically, cows spread throughout Pre-Columbian North America and it throws the timeline for a loop! Thanks to some biological and socioeconomic butterflies, the Conquest of the New World happens on "hard" mode. Expect the Aztecs, Inca, Mississippians, Iroquois, Sioux, and Navajo to stick around a while. Expect intercontinental wars! Expect alternate maps and other visual aids! And please, give feedback.

Background Knowledge:
In the OTL, Thorfinn Karlsefni went to colonize Vinland (in modern Newfoundland) with a couple hundred people and a good bunch of livestock. Later, during a meeting with the native Beothuks, a bull somehow startled the natives, who attacked the Vinlanders. A Beothuk at one point picked up an iron axe, tried it, decided he didn't like it, and threw it away. The Norse offered milk during peace talks, which made the natives sick, resulting in further attacks. Thorfinn gave up on the colony, rather than face perpetual war with the natives.
Contracting cowpox inoculates an individual's immune system against smallpox. When a large group of a population is immune to a disease, according to the theory of herd immunity, that acts as a firewall and prevents the disease from spreading to the non-immune parts. The premise of the story is that Pre-Columbian America acquires cattle herds 500 years before Columbus, suffer a population setback from cowpox mutating into human-to-human smallpox, and other European diseases, and then recovers in time to be significantly more resilient against the smallpox brought by the Spaniards, French, and English.

To this end, in this timeline, the Icelandic cows' milk wouldn't make the natives sick, and the Beothuks would enjoy the beef provided by the cattle. The desperate Vikings would give the Beothuks part of their herd, as a peace offering, and show them how to make cheese and butter.


---

POD: ~1000: The Beothuks end up the happy owners of a herd of cattle given to them by the Vinland colonists.
POD: ~1010: a second shipment of cattle lands at Vinland.
1030: The Beothuks have grown a substantial herd of cattle, and begin to trade them with other peoples in the region.
1000-1150: Through trade and by accident, cattle slowly, eventually spread to the Great Lakes region, and then spread moderately quickly across the midwest and plains.
Some bison-hunting nomads settle down and begin dividing the land. The Sioux, especially, flourish-- eventually their nation becomes much more like a nation-state.
1000-1500: Viking-introduced diseases and a human-to-human variant of Cowpox spread across the Americas. These diseases evolve similarly to the viruses in Europe. Much of the mainland native American populations become significantly more resistant to such diseases by the time of First Contact with the Europeans.
1142: Iroquois Nation is founded, thanks to Deganiwada and Hiawatha.
1250: Even the Aztecs have cattle, and with it, cheese, butter, and beef. The cows don't spread much farther than central America, but the diseases travel further.
1500: Gaspar Corte-Real rediscovers Newfoundland-- he finds a mildly prosperous island nation. The Beothuks have used their trade advantage to build up their island, although now they are on a slight decline. Their skin is lighter than other Amerindians.
1519: Hernan Cortez's expedition to Mexico proceeds mostly as in OTL, until hostilities break out.
The Aztec fight against Spain is bolstered by centuries of exposure to European diseases-- disease will give the Conquistadores little advantage, especially with tropical diseases for them to worry about. The Aztec empire still falls.
1528: Huayna Capac lives through the Smallpox epidemic.
1531: El Gran Error del Pizarro. Pizarro's expedition of one hundred arquebusiers and thousands of local Quechua rebels finds Huayna Capac and his army.
1. Huayna Capac sends Huascar, his son, with an armed detachment to meet the Spanish at Cajamarca. At the negotiation, the Spaniards spill out the sacred cacao and demand Huascar convert to Roman Catholicism. He tosses aside the Bible. Tensions flare, and Huascar is taken prisoner during a skirmish.
2. Against his father's wishes, Atawallpa gathers a force of eight thousand warriors and charges the Spaniards-- they slit Huascar's throat as the Kichwa advance. Three thousand are killed as they battle through their indigenous auxiliaries until they reach the Spaniards. They kill many of them, and take 20 prisoner-- including the Pizarro brothers (except for Juan, who is killed in the battle.) The arquebuses, cannon, and melee equipment are taken as spoils of war-- but the technology is too advanced for the Inca to reverse engineer for many years.
3. Atawallpa brings Pizarro and his brothers before Huayna Capac in the mighty gold palace at Cusco. They had met years before. Now, Huayna burns with hatred and lust for vengeance for his son's death. He has heard tales of the superior Spanish weaponry. He demands a demonstration. Impressed, he demands to know the secret to their replication. Loyal Spaniards and proud Catholics, all the brothers refuse to submit to the 'barbarians.' Atahualpa personally slits Gonzalo Pizarro's throat, cuts out his heart, and forces Francisco to eat it.
4. During months of torture, Francisco and Hernando Pizarro, along with various other captured Spaniards, begin to reveal secrets of European technology to the best of their ability.
1540: Panama City is established, several years late thanks to the Spaniards being slowed down (compared to OTL) in the Yucatan.
1541: Frustrated by the disappearances of several armed expeditions, the Spaniards send a moderately sized army into Colombia. They find an army of Kichwa warriors equipped with a good number of iron axes and crude, reverse-engineered bronze arquebuses, and plenty of gunpowder and ammunition (who would have had more guano for saltpeter than the Inca?) They even have cannons-- on wheels!
A meek and sullen Francisco Pizarro (believed long dead by the Spaniards) acts as translator for Inka Atawallpa, the master of Inkasunyuntin ("the United Realms of the Inka") and living incarnation of the Sun. Via his subservient emissary, Atawallpa demands that Cortes renounce Christ and worship the Sun.

Central/South America in 1600​

1564: The First Hispano-Kichwa War is resolved by the Treaty of Salvador, mediated by the Portuguese. Hostilities had all but ended over a decade sooner, but language differences prevented a formal treaty until this point. In order to avoid conflicts in the Pacific, the Spanish are made to relinquish control of Panama, Pacific Costa Rica, and the Pacific coast of the Mayan territory; unable to control the Sierras, and finding it difficult to reach the capitol city of Antigua Guatemala, the Spaniards have little need for the jungle in the Yucatan and abandon their gains in the Mayan Empire beyond what is required by treaty.

1550-1600: Kichwas begin colonizing the upper Amazon river, and establish a trade route all the way east to its delta in Brazil. Portugal/Brazil and Inkasunyuntin have a blossoming friendship, trade relationship, and alliance. The Portuguese establish a port city here, Belem, one hundred years early. This city, Belem, will become much more significant than its OTL counterpart would ever be. Over the next thirty years, the Kichwas will subjugate some of the tribes along the Amazon, slaughter or drive out the cannibals, and will settle trade cities at critical junctures, beginning with the great city of Chimpayllaqta (the city of the crossing).

1531-1600: Wheels and iron tools have increased tin, copper, and especially gold mining production significantly within the Incan empire. They are better able to pay off tributaries and suppress rebellions and hostile minor tribes, and the investment opportunities have led to better state-led advances in technology. By 1600, the Inkasuyuntin are as powerful as some European nations.

Soon: the bullion crisis creates need for Peruvian silver and strengthens Portuguese reliance and alliance with the Kichwa. Will the Spanish and Portuguese crowns merge as in the OTL? Or will their relations with the Inka be enough to stabilize them?
The American settlers encounter significantly more difficulty in expanding west, first with a resilient Iroquois Confederacy and then with the various Mississippian nations.
Don't bet on English still being the first or second language of everybody north of Rio Grande.

North America.
The Mississippian Culture has survived the Little Ice Age-- the OTL had them collapse due to the a bad harvest of maize agriculture-- and is still going strong thanks to cattle herding. Cahokia is still a great city, but the Middle Mississippian Culture of which it acted as a capitol is not the strongest. The Oneonta of Wisconsin/Iowa/Northern Illinois are the most powerful in the region at the time. The Northeast is split between the Iroquois Confederacy and the Central/North-Eastern Cahokia.

 

[stevecharb]

This is a story I've been working on for some time now. I would love some feedback on it. Basically, cows spread throughout Pre-Columbian North America and it throws the timeline for a loop! Thanks to some biological and socioeconomic butterflies, the Conquest of the New World happens on "hard" mode. Expect the Aztecs, Inca, Mississippians, Iroquois, Sioux, and Navajo to play a bigger role in world history. Expect early intercontinental wars! Expect alternate maps and other visual aids! And please, give feedback.

Edit: In the face of criticism of the premise's viability, I've done more research into the epidemiology of smallpox, cowpox, and vaccinia. I was encouraged by what I found, as the scenario seemed even more plausible the more I learned about the science of it all. I've updated the following information according to my results, and I hope it will be more acceptable on its face.


Background Knowledge:
In the OTL, Thorfinn Karlsefni went to colonize Vinland (in modern Newfoundland) with a couple hundred people and a good bunch of livestock. Later, during a meeting with the native Beothuks, a bull somehow startled the natives, who attacked the Vinlanders. A Beothuk at one point picked up an iron axe, tried it, decided he didn't like it, and threw it away. The Norse offered milk during peace talks, which made the natives sick, resulting in further attacks. Thorfinn gave up on the colony, rather than face perpetual war with the natives.

OTL, the main smallpox outbreaks were:
Hispaniola - Tenochtitlan - Latin America - Tiwantinsuyu (20%-60% mortality, higher among soldiers)
Chile (50% mortality)
Massachusetts natives (90% mortality)
Overall, first peoples suffered as high as 90% mortality rates from European diseases.

Other European diseases were also often costly, but according to my research, none of them were so dangerous to the native populations as Smallpox was; I don't think other diseases would have thrived and spread to fill its place.

Vaccinia:
Significantly less fatal than Smallpox, live Vaccinia was confused with Cowpox for a long time. Vaccinia, cowpox, and smallpox evolved from a common ancestor; Vaccinia was cultured and used to produce the vaccine that eventually eliminated its dangerous cousin. Vaccinia is theorized to have evolved in horse populations, but the evidence has been lost to history. It can spread human-to-human, cattle-to-cattle, human-to-cattle, and cattle-to-human. While diseases like smallpox would have attracted attention to the patient and likely disqualified them from boarding the ship in the first place (one single person aboard a single ship infected and plagued Hispaniola with Smallpox; one single conquistador brought it from Hispaniola to Tenochtitlan, ravaging the Aztec and Incan empires), a Vaccinia/cowpox infection would have been more likely to escape detection, since it usually appears as a singular localized blotch instead of across the entire skin.

Lactose Tolerance
Lactose intolerance is the norm for humanity, and lactose tolerance-- the ability to ingest milk products after puberty-- is the mutation. But it's a beneficial mutation that significantly increases the genebearer's chances of survival, so it spreads well over time. There's not enough time here for the gene to spread so that all of native american civilizations may enjoy the benefits of near-universal dairy tolerance, but the benefits of dairy do not stop there.
Children are generally tolerant of dairy products, and the ability of a tribe to feed its young during times of hardship, bad harvests, and starvation will be of great benefit.


ITTL, slightly prolonged Viking contact and introduction of cattle creates a pandemic of the Vaccinia virus, spreading across the continent's intricate trading network via human-to-human contact.

To this end, in this timeline, the Beothuks would enjoy the beef provided by the cattle rather than getting themselves sick from milk. The desperate Vikings would give the Beothuks part of their herd, as a peace offering, and show them how to make cheese and butter. Icelanders would lose interest in Vinland, and the Vinlanders would intermarry into the Beothuks.
Vaccinia would spread quietly like wildfire across the complex Native American trade routes. For peoples who received cows, dairy products would prove useful for feeding children during times of famine. (Lactose tolerance would spread during the next 500 years, but the adult population would still remain largely lactose intolerant.)

---

POD: ~1000: The Beothuks end up the happy owners of a herd of cattle given to them by the Vinland colonists.
POD: ~1010: a second shipment of cattle lands at Vinland.
1030: The Beothuks have grown a substantial herd of cattle, and begin to trade them with other peoples in the region.
1000-1150: Through trade and by accident, cattle slowly, eventually spread to the Great Lakes region, and then spread moderately quickly across the midwest and plains. The buffalo population interbreeds with the cow population. Some bison-hunting nomads settle down and begin dividing the land. Sioux and Comanche civilizations become more sedentary.
1000-1500: Viking-introduced Vaccinia spreads across the Americas via the trade networks, which were more advanced than most people think. Much of the mainland native American populations becomes significantly more resistant to such diseases by the time of First Contact with the Europeans-- smallpox outbreaks spread slower, to less people, and with lower mortality rates than in OTL.
1142: Deganiwada and Hiawatha found the Iroquois Nation.
1250: Even the Aztecs have cattle, and with it, cheese, butter, and beef. The cows don't spread much farther than central America, but Vaccinia spreads through the jungle-dwelling population through to the Andean civilizations. Vaccinia spreads from Mesoamerica to the Maya, to the Chibchan, to the Caribs.
1450: The Caribs invade Arawak/Taino islands, and bring with them the mild disease of Vaccinia.
1492:

Columbus- Hello, Indians!
Taino chief- Actually, we're not Indians...
Columbus- YES YOU ARE.

1500: Gaspar Corte-Real rediscovers Newfoundland-- he finds a mildly prosperous island nation. The Beothuks have used their trade advantage to build up their island, although now they are on a slight decline. Their skin is lighter than other Amerindians.
1519: Hernan Cortez's expedition to Mexico proceeds mostly as in OTL. A short war leads to an alliance with the Tlaxcalans, the Spaniards are greeted peacefully into hostilities break out, thousands are massacred in the temple, Moctezuma is killed, and the Spaniards are driven out of Tenochtitlan during La Noche Triste. The one difference is that the single conquistador does not contract smallpox on Hispaniola, and it never spreads to the mainland.
The Aztec fight against Spain is bolstered by centuries of exposure to European diseases-- disease will give the Conquistadores little advantage, especially with tropical diseases for them to worry about. The Aztec empire still falls, but the Siege takes longer.

1528: Huayna Capac lives. The mainland smallpox epidemic never happens.
1531: El Gran Error del Pizarro. Pizarro's expedition of one hundred arquebusiers and thousands of local Quechua rebels finds Huayna Capac and his army.
1. Huayna Capac sends Huascar, his son, with an armed detachment to meet the Spanish at Cajamarca. At the negotiation, the Spaniards spill out the sacred cacao and demand Huascar convert to Roman Catholicism. He tosses aside the Bible. Tensions flare, and Huascar is taken prisoner during a skirmish.
2. Against his father's wishes, Atawallpa gathers a force of eight thousand warriors and charges the Spaniards-- they slit Huascar's throat as the Kichwa advance. Three thousand are killed as they battle through their indigenous auxiliaries until they reach the Spaniards. They kill many of them, and take 20 prisoner-- including the Pizarro brothers (except for Juan, who is killed in the battle.) The arquebuses, cannon, and melee equipment are taken as spoils of war-- but the technology is too advanced for the Inca to reverse engineer for many years.
3. Atawallpa brings Pizarro and his brothers before Huayna Capac in the mighty gold palace at Cusco. They had met years before. Now, Huayna burns with hatred and lust for vengeance for his son's death. He has heard tales of the superior Spanish weaponry. He demands a demonstration. Impressed, he demands to know the secret to their replication. Loyal Spaniards and proud Catholics, all the brothers refuse to submit to the 'barbarians.' Atahualpa personally slits Gonzalo Pizarro's throat, cuts out his heart, and forces Francisco to eat it.
4. During months of torture, Francisco and Hernando Pizarro, along with various other captured Spaniards, begin to reveal secrets of European technology to the best of their ability.
1540: Panama City is established, several years late thanks to the Spaniards being slowed down (compared to OTL) in the Yucatan.
1541: Frustrated by the disappearances of several armed expeditions, the Spaniards send a moderately sized army into Colombia. They find an army of Kichwa warriors equipped with a good number of iron axes and crude, reverse-engineered bronze arquebuses, and plenty of gunpowder and ammunition (who would have had more guano for saltpeter than the Inca?) They even have cannons-- on wheels!
A meek and sullen Francisco Pizarro (believed long dead by the Spaniards) acts as translator for Inka Atawallpa, the master of Inkasunyuntin ("the United Realms of the Inka") and living incarnation of the Sun. Via his subservient emissary, Atawallpa demands that Cortes renounce Christ and worship the Sun.

Central/South America in 1600​

1564: The First Hispano-Kichwa War is resolved by the Treaty of Salvador, mediated by the Portuguese. Hostilities had all but ended in a stalemate over a decade sooner, but language differences prevented a formal treaty until this point. In order to avoid conflicts in the Pacific, the Spanish are made to relinquish control of Panama, Pacific Costa Rica, and the Pacific coast of the Mayan territory; unable to control the Sierras, and finding it difficult to reach the capitol city of Antigua Guatemala, the Spaniards have little need for the jungle in the Yucatan and abandon their gains in the Mayan Empire beyond what is required by treaty.

1550-1600: Kichwas begin colonizing the upper Amazon river, and establish a trade route all the way east to its delta in Brazil. Portugal/Brazil and Inkasunyuntin have a blossoming friendship, trade relationship, and alliance. The Portuguese establish a port city here, Belem, one hundred years early. This city, Belem, will become much more significant than its OTL counterpart would ever be. Over the next thirty years, the Kichwas will subjugate some of the tribes along the Amazon, slaughter or drive out the cannibals, and will settle trade cities at critical junctures, beginning with the great city of Chimpayllaqta (the city of the crossing).

1531-1600: Wheels and iron tools have increased tin, copper, and especially gold mining production significantly within the Incan empire. They are better able to pay off tributaries and suppress rebellions and hostile minor tribes, and the investment opportunities have led to better state-led advances in technology. By 1600, the Inkasuyuntin are as powerful as some European nations.

Soon: the bullion crisis creates need for Peruvian silver and strengthens Portuguese reliance and alliance with the Kichwa. Will the Spanish and Portuguese crowns merge as in the OTL? Or will their relations with the Inka be enough to stabilize them?
The American settlers encounter significantly more difficulty in expanding west, first with a resilient Iroquois Confederacy and then with the various Mississippian nations.
Don't bet on English still being the first or second language of everybody north of Rio Grande.

 

[stevecharb]

--This Space Reserved--

 

[Hierophant]

Native Americans are lactose intolerant. Not to say that they could'nt enjoy the other benefits of cattle.

 

[Umbral]

A couple of points, if I may:

I'm not sure, but I think Thorfinn had a couple of score people at most, not a couple of hundred. The latter number sounds more like Eric the Red.

Native American inabity to digest milk was genetic. You'd need to mess around a lot with the POD to change that. May I suggest that the Norse just do not offer milk to the natives on the first meeting instead? Maybe they were out, it was all chrned to butter or something.

While smallpox was by far the biggest killer, the Europeans brought with them a lot of other dieases that were big killers in a virgin field. Measles, croup, flu...its a long list. They'd average 20-30 % mortality in a virgin field. Each. Whats more, I don't think cowpox did person-to-person transmission, so it only protected the people who worked with cow directly. That'll be good for the North American tribes, bad for the urban civilizations. Maybe a mutation?

Also, while the Norses long voyages offer some protection against disease, they burn through the crew on long voyages, maybe they could trickle through occasionally?

Several waves of diseases over the centuries, may mean the natives develop effective ways to handle epidemics.

Finally, the Norse really overestimated the Beothuk population. Seems the netire Newfoundland was less than 1500 natives.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Cattle would be huge. Sheep as well.

However, Iceland and Greenland were far enough from Europe, and had small enough populations that none of the major diseases were endemic. So things like smallpox, cowpox or measles would have to come direct from Europe, which, considering the length of the voyage, is tough.

Domestic animals provide meat and CLOTHING, as well as manure for fertilizing your fields.

As for lactose tolerance. That only happens in pastoralist/agriculturist societies, and the mutation only happened four times. The spread of the Indo-Europeans, Semites and Bantu could be labelled 'The Attack of the Milk Drinking MUTANTS!!'


Also, butterflies. Adding the north European agricultural package is going to cause massive social upheaval. By 1500 or so, there probably wont be Iroquois and Aztecs.

 

[Dunning Kruger]

subscribed. I might suggest you add a small herd of horses too, which is reasonable enough on a boat big enough to transport some cows. Regardless, I like it.

 

[Coyote Knight]

One nitpick: the Beothuk people were natives of the island of Newfoundland, not Nova Scotia. Also, there's no concrete evidence of Viking settlement and voyages to Nova Scotia unlike L'Anse aux Meadows.

 

[stevecharb]

A couple of points, if I may:

I'm not sure, but I think Thorfinn had a couple of score people at most, not a couple of hundred. The latter number sounds more like Eric the Red.

Native American inabity to digest milk was genetic. You'd need to mess around a lot with the POD to change that. May I suggest that the Norse just do not offer milk to the natives on the first meeting instead? Maybe they were out, it was all chrned to butter or something.

While smallpox was by far the biggest killer, the Europeans brought with them a lot of other dieases that were big killers in a virgin field. Measles, croup, flu...its a long list. They'd average 20-30 % mortality in a virgin field. Each. Whats more, I don't think cowpox did person-to-person transmission, so it only protected the people who worked with cow directly. That'll be good for the North American tribes, bad for the urban civilizations. Maybe a mutation?

Yes, I thought of that...

1000-1500: Viking-introduced diseases and a human-to-human variant of Cowpox spread across the Americas. These diseases evolve similarly to the viruses in Europe. Much of the mainland native American populations become similarly resistant to diseases by the time of First Contact with the Europeans.

...but maybe I should emphasize it more. I'll go back and bold it.

Also, while the Norses long voyages offer some protection against disease, they burn through the crew on long voyages, maybe they could trickle through occasionally?
Several waves of diseases over the centuries, may mean the natives develop effective ways to handle epidemics.

I'm confused, could you clarify what you mean?

These diseases normally gestate within the human body, right? I was thinking, once the Beothuks caught the diseases, they would spread them to the mainland, and the native american populations would all continue catching the diseases from each other. Including measles and croup.

 

[Dave Howery]

cattle would be a boon to a lot of the natives, giving them a source of protein and animal power. Cattle, combined with corn and other native crops, would be a pretty good agricultural package. Even the plains tribes could make use of them, becoming herders with a much more reliable source of food (although they are really going to have to be careful when those prairie blizzards strike). However..


...like any other Vinland POD, I think this is just too late to do much good. Europe is just so far ahead at this time. They've had steel for generations, and are just a couple centuries from starting out with gunpowder. The Americas are still mostly in the Stone age, with a few places in the Bronze age (or comparable). Getting cattle 500 years before Columbus comes looking around isn't going to do all that much to even the odds. Now, getting those cattle to the Americas way back in prehistory will do more...

 

[stevecharb]

Posted a map of the Native American tribes in "Januna", and a brief overview of the immediately Pre-Columbian state of Janunan geopolitics.

I'm not saying it's the most likely scenario, but I hope you'll find it interesting enough to suspend disbelief once the main story gets rolling.

Ha-Nu-Na is the Iroquoisan word meaning the World Turtle, which can be (and sometimes has been) interpreted as an alternative name for North America.

In this TL, "Januna" is a European bastardization of Ha-Nu-Na, possibly from Spanish contact with the Iroquois, although this theory is controversial. In English, it is pronounced with a soft J. North America is "Januna," and South America is known as "Amazonia".

 

[altwere]

A couple of things. Lactose tolerance in Europe seems to have started once in the area of Bohemia and spread quite quickly to Northern Europe. So once the gene is introduced along with a source of lactose it will quickly spread.
As to giving more time before the major European contacts 500 years is a long time. Some ideas to delay contact could be anything that depopulated Europe, such as a more wide spread Mongol invasion and conquest, a more virulent black plague or things that decreased the incentives for exploration.
If the spread of islam had been less, or if the ERE had become more reenerigized and expansive. What would the results of a failed reconquestia in Iberia be. What about if after throwing the Moors out of Spain the Spanish followed them into North Africa.

 

[stevecharb]

North America.
Thanks to cattle herding, the Mississippian Culture has survived the Little Ice Age-- the OTL had them collapse due to the freezing devastation of maize agriculture-- and has recovered. Cahokia is still a great city, but the Middle Mississippian Culture of which it acted as a capitol is not the strongest. The Oneonta of Wisconsin/Iowa/Northern Illinois are more powerful.

Spurred by tales of the Mississippians' power, the Iroquois Confederacy has engaged in its conquests a couple centuries early, especially eager to become powerful in order to stand a chance against them. They're motivated as rivals. The Iroquois have a pipe-dream of conquering Cahokia for themselves.

Wars between Iroquois and Ohio River Mississippians have resulted in greater military technological advances for both sides. They both have developed copper-tipped spears and arrows, light round wooden shields, and various forms of armor.

1607- Jamestown is founded by the Virginia Company of London; Popham is founded by the Virginia Company of Plymouth.
Problems with the (ITTL, more resilient) Powhatan near Jamestown make Maine and New England, with mostly inland, decentralized, unpopulous woodland tribes, better for prospective colonization.
(Popham also had a less harsh winter than Jamestown, and suffered only one casualty, versus the 50% mortality rate of the Jamestown settlers).
For various reasons, Popham becomes THE clearly viable choice for new settlement.
The Society for Merchant Ventures, dissuaded from Newfoundland by Corte-Real's description of "surprisingly dangerous and numerous" Beothuks, would instead send settlers to other parts of OTL British Colonial America, including various settlements along the Maine coast.

Overall, the stronger resistance from Mid-Atlantic Natives makes the lands of the north-eastern Woodland peoples an easier target for colonization and conquest by the British settlers. British colonies wind up concentrated more heavily in New England and Nova Scotia than OTL. The islands of the Virginian and Carolinian coasts make for low-key settlements.

 

[stevecharb]

(I screwed up and accidentally edited the wrong post... apparently there's a one-month limit on editing I never knew about. Could a Mod please clean up by deleting the first and third posts?)

 

[othyrsyde]

You got a lot the locations of the Native tribes in this time in the wrong area.

For instance. The Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota tribes were a woodlands people living in what would become Minnesota and Wisconsin, and it wasn't close to the period of the Seven Years War and the ARW that they entered the plains with any great force. The Ojibway lived much more east, and it was a huge historical moment for them when they moved west in OTL's early colonial period (and contributed to the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota moving onto the plains). I think the same applies to the Cree, they really didn't start moving out west until the fur trade picked up.

There were also lots of other Iroquoian groups too around the Haudenosaunee and Wendat (our modern names of Huron and Iroquois were based off French, so if different white folks wander into the scene, we're going to be known by different names)

 

[stevecharb]

You got a lot the locations of the Native tribes in this time in the wrong area.

Butterflies of 500 years of alternate history.

ITTL, Cherokees are the Mississippians who went across the Appalachians and managed to survive the southeastern collapse. Aside from that, the early Iroquoisan expansion, and the survival of the Oneota and Mississippia cultures, are there any other inaccuracies?

 

[othyrsyde]

Butterflies of 500 years of alternate history.

ITTL, Cherokees are the Mississippians who went across the Appalachians and managed to survive the southeastern collapse. Aside from that, the early Iroquoisan expansion, and the survival of the Oneota and Mississippia cultures, are there any other inaccuracies?

I just added some in an edit.

Also I'm not sure if the Comanche would exist. They broke off from the Shoshone, and if I'm remembering this right, it was a lot sooner than 1000 CE. The same goes for the people who became the Navajo and the Apache, they migrated from up in Northern Canada around your POD too; in their case though, they might not be affected enough by the butterflies to alter where they ended up.

 

[stevecharb]

You got a lot the locations of the Native tribes in this time in the wrong area.

For instance. The Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota tribes were a woodlands people living in what would become Minnesota and Wisconsin, and it wasn't close to the period of the Seven Years War and the ARW that they entered the plains with any great force. The Ojibway lived much more east, and it was a huge historical moment for them when they moved west in OTL's early colonial period (and contributed to the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota moving onto the plains). I think the same applies to the Cree, they really didn't start moving out west until the fur trade picked up.

Hmm. Well, I'll have to move the Ojibwe over so they're more centered around the big lake they call Gitche Gumee.

This map seems to show Cree in more or less the same place, though...

Thanks for the corrections. Do you know enough about Woodlands civilizations to help me out with figuring out the colonization-era timeline?


Edit:

Also I'm not sure if the Comanche would exist. They broke off from the Shoshone, and if I'm remembering this right, it was a lot sooner than 1000 CE. The same goes for the people who became the Navajo and the Apache, they migrated from up in Northern Canada around your POD too; in their case though, they might not be affected enough by the butterflies to alter where they ended up.

I had no idea about that! Their migration might even be sped up by the advent of cattle and the need to find better grazing lands, which could introduce cattle to Mesoamerica much quicker than I thought.

 

[othyrsyde]

Hmm. Well, I'll have to move the Ojibwe over so they're more centered around the big lake they call Gitche Gumee.

This map seems to show Cree in more or less the same place, though.

Thanks for the corrections. Do you know enough about Woodlands civilizations to help me out with figuring out the colonization-era timeline?

Yeah. My specialty is more around the Great Lakes, but yeah I can help. Let me dig up some sites and books too.

 

[The Majesty]

The (pre-)Beothuk were, as mentioned above, not very populous, and also didn't really make a whole lot of contact with the mainland. At that time they were pretty intensely nomadic hunter-gatherers living off the caribou, so I don't know how plausible it is that they would be able to introduce such devastating diseases to the mainland without just all dying out themselves.