The New Land: Portugal discovers the new world.

The POD: Columbus made his proposal to Portugal, England, Genoa, and Venice. All of these are interesting PODs, but the one I want to explore is Portugal. Let's say that in Columbus first proposal to Portugal, in 1485, John II decides on a whim to support the adventure. Portugal sends Colombus to sail in 1485

December 19, 1485, Tobago: The young boy sat on the beach. Sunlight touched the boy's face. He watched the ocean, and saw something strange. A wooden island was sailing towards him.
 
I was under the impression that the Portuguese DID make landfall in Brazil?

Yes, but they did not discover it, so when the treaty of Torestillas *spelling?* and made the line of Demarcation in the new world Portugal got the short end of the stick.
 
Yes, but they did not discover it, so when the treaty of Torestillas *spelling?* and made the line of Demarcation in the new world Portugal got the short end of the stick.

There are historians that do believe that Portugal knew about Brazil many years before it was "officially" discovered. Reason why Portugal pushed for changing the Tordesillas Treaty.

And Portugal was right about not sponsoring Columbus, since Portugal knew that India wasn't reachable going West.
 
If Portugal discovered the New World,then most of Central and South America would be speaking Portugese,and Brazilians would speak Spanish.:eek:
 
Portugal got the short end of the stick because it was the weaker of the two countries, and because it had interests in Africa which it wanted to keep. Columbus changing allegiance does not change this.
 
England and Portugal team up to engage in our mutual love of fucking over the Dons and divide the New World between us?
 
John II was a clever man. He would bring much of the new world under Portugese control, and would make Portugal the capital of European power and prosperity. But, when compared to OTL's colonization of the America's, the Portugese colonization of the americas was cautious. The result was a new world ruled by many different countries.
Columbus's first landing on Tobago was carefully planned. Shortly after receving the commission from King John, he developed the obssessive conviction that much of the Indie's riches were in the Southern part. Not everyone agreed, but King John still allowed him to sail southward.
Colombus's time in Tobago was short lived. Several attacks from the natives, although easily matched, were costly, forcing Colombus and his men to skiddaddle on home.
 
I argued it elsewhere but I'll just summarise here: it's a white elephant, believing that Spain became fantastically wealthy from conquering the Americas. This did not happen until a century later, when countries were mass-producing sugar, tobacco, etc. The primary import of the Spanish was gold and silver, and this was bad for the Spanish economy. Simply put, the European economies were not robust enough to allow for the import of gold and silver. What happened was the Spanish currency massively inflated, with coins losing value entirely. As a shipment of gold came in, the extant gold in Spain lost value until all the gold in the government's hands before the shipment was devalued to the same amount in terms of other goods as all the gold in the government's hands plus the new gold. So in fact, the Spanish did not gain any wealth from importing gold, and Portugal wouldn't here either. Indeed, Spain started defaulting on loans and regularly declaring bankruptcy in this period. Portugal would be the same. Ever wondered why the country with the greatest sum of land in the Americas, including all those gold mines, became one of the weakest states in Europe by 1700?

However, this wouldn't be enough to force Portugal to pull out - for one, their economy would become dependent on the gold, and secondly, there was too much potential in the New World and too many ways of securing new loans for this to stop them. So do please continue with your TL :eek:
 
England and Portugal team up to engage in our mutual love of fucking over the Dons and divide the New World between us?

Hello, England? It's the Dons. Hi. How're you doing? Listen, I know you and the Portuguese like expressing your mutual appreciation through the physical act of love at the earliest oportunity, but, really, do you have to do it over us all the time?

Just yesterday, we'd just had a nice lunch -oh, you don't know what nice food is? Ask Portugal, really- and while we were having a siesta you two barged in and started going at it like rabbits on top of our sofa!

I'll say, it was rather annoying, the noise kept us up and we didn't dare say anything, it was quite embarrassing.

If you really need a room that desperately, could you at the very least let us know you're coming over? That's all right, then. I know trying to get a mixture of Cristiano Ronaldo and David Beckham is hard, but if we don't get our siesta we're likely to throw something off a clock tower.

Oh, and talking about children, when is Gibraltar coming back home? No, she isn't old enough to make her own decisions just because she's got a country top level domain, she barely is big enough to have a postcode?

... yes, Catalonia, I know you have several postcodes and an Internet domain for your own, now get off the phone, the grownups are talking... Sorry about that. Well, I suppose we must get some mediation for this one of this days...

...CATALONIA! NO MEDIATION FOR YOU! GET OFF THE PHONE! GO BACK TO WORK OR WE WON'T MAKE THE RENT!-... Sorry, England, we'll talk later, the children are being annoying. See you in the World Cup next year!

Landshark: not that I want to be the PC brigade, but isn't "fucking over the Dons" a bit too much?
 
Hello, England? It's the Dons. Hi. How're you doing? Listen, I know you and the Portuguese like expressing your mutual appreciation through the physical act of love at the earliest oportunity, but, really, do you have to do it over us all the time?

Just yesterday, we'd just had a nice lunch -oh, you don't know what nice food is? Ask Portugal, really- and while we were having a siesta you two barged in and started going at it like rabbits on top of our sofa!

I'll say, it was rather annoying, the noise kept us up and we didn't dare say anything, it was quite embarrassing.

If you really need a room that desperately, could you at the very least let us know you're coming over? That's all right, then. I know trying to get a mixture of Cristiano Ronaldo and David Beckham is hard, but if we don't get our siesta we're likely to throw something off a clock tower.

Oh, and talking about children, when is Gibraltar coming back home? No, she isn't old enough to make her own decisions just because she's got a country top level domain, she barely is big enough to have a postcode?

... yes, Catalonia, I know you have several postcodes and an Internet domain for your own, now get off the phone, the grownups are talking... Sorry about that. Well, I suppose we must get some mediation for this one of this days...

...CATALONIA! NO MEDIATION FOR YOU! GET OFF THE PHONE! GO BACK TO WORK OR WE WON'T MAKE THE RENT!-... Sorry, England, we'll talk later, the children are being annoying. See you in the World Cup next year!

Landshark: not that I want to be the PC brigade, but isn't "fucking over the Dons" a bit too much?

This is a very interesting post, it brings up many questions for me. Like, how come the internet is so weird?
 
Hello, England? It's the Dons. Hi. How're you doing? Listen, I know you and the Portuguese like expressing your mutual appreciation through the physical act of love at the earliest oportunity, but, really, do you have to do it over us all the time?

Just yesterday, we'd just had a nice lunch -oh, you don't know what nice food is? Ask Portugal, really- and while we were having a siesta you two barged in and started going at it like rabbits on top of our sofa!

I'll say, it was rather annoying, the noise kept us up and we didn't dare say anything, it was quite embarrassing.

If you really need a room that desperately, could you at the very least let us know you're coming over? That's all right, then. I know trying to get a mixture of Cristiano Ronaldo and David Beckham is hard, but if we don't get our siesta we're likely to throw something off a clock tower.

Oh, and talking about children, when is Gibraltar coming back home? No, she isn't old enough to make her own decisions just because she's got a country top level domain, she barely is big enough to have a postcode?

... yes, Catalonia, I know you have several postcodes and an Internet domain for your own, now get off the phone, the grownups are talking... Sorry about that. Well, I suppose we must get some mediation for this one of this days...

...CATALONIA! NO MEDIATION FOR YOU! GET OFF THE PHONE! GO BACK TO WORK OR WE WON'T MAKE THE RENT!-... Sorry, England, we'll talk later, the children are being annoying. See you in the World Cup next year!

Landshark: not that I want to be the PC brigade, but isn't "fucking over the Dons" a bit too much?

:D I would sig this if it were short enough. Quite witty...
 
Colombus's second voyage had a greater impact on the New world than his first voyage did. He stopped in Tobago again, only to find that the island was now uninhabited. He established a small fort there and then continued onward. Some of the Islands that he went by were hostile towards Colombus, while others made him and his crew welcome. He up the coast sailing farther and farther north. The discovery of Saoterra(Bermuda) is usually attributed to Columbus.
While America's colonization was beggining, an important developement was occuring in Iberia. Spain finally invaded Granada. This had reverberations across the world...
 
Well, without Spain discovering and proclaiming on ad on about how much gold they found in the New World, I doubt there will be a lot of settlement in this world in the early stages. I think that whats most likely to happen is for England and Portugal to slowly, very slowly spread out from from their newly discovered places (The Grand Banks and Brazil respectively) and then maybe other Atlantic powers might get in on the act, but it will be definitely a sideshow to the Africa and Asia.

This does give the Native Americans much longer to adapt to European diseases, so depending on when they're introduced we could see, by the time of contact with Mesoamerica and especially the Andes (They're both quite far from the centers of European influence in ATL) civilizations which are already adapted to European diseas (Perhaps a bit like the Cherokee or Choctaw, both groups probably made from a lot of other Tribes and refugees which were taken in. I doubt we ill se the Aztecs, or the Tarascans, or the Inca in ATL, after having 80% of their population depleted) which through trade with other tribes closer to the Europeans are perhaps getting better at metallurgy, and have a some guns and more importantly horses (in Mesoamerica at least. I highly doubt we will see horses in the Andes, but they'll probably have ante horse tactics by then, unlike in OTL), which will make them much stronger vis a vis the Europeans, and less like targets.

In the end I doubt we'll see a surviving Mesoamerican state, but perhaps we'll see and Andean state.

Oh, and I doubt North and South America will be called repated names. Both we'll probably be independent of Each other as it might take a while for the Europeans to realize they're connected and not some really big islands.
 
On April 12, 1486,Spain defeated Granada in the battle of Almeria. The town had been the final stronghold of the moors, and disease had decimated their numbers. Spain wanted to get rid of the Muslims and Jews in the former nation. John II of Portugal had his own problems. The Carribean had proved itself profitable for sugar cultivation, and Portugal needed settlers to grow the crop. In the winter of 1486, John made a proposal. Portugal would ship the Muslims to the new world. Spain accepted, and the entire Muslim population left Spain for the Carribean.
 
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