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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.


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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.
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