Vikings meet Columbus.

NomadicSky

Banned
Suppose as the Vikings and the Danes began to diverge and the little ice age made travel impossible killing communication.

The Vikings spread across the continent of North America, European diseases and Viking blades spread across killing the native population in the wost disaster to human cultures in the Americas ever.

When Columbus lands in the Indies he and the other ships are greeted with Viking steel.

The Vikings began to study and reverse engineer Spanish technology.
 
Perhaps discovery of America should take place before the year 1000 C.E. Maybe Greenland is totally bypassed by either Erik "the Red" Thorvadson, or by Ulf Gunnbjarnson, the sailor whom actually discovered Greenland. Even then, you might need somethig to encourage a solid amount of emigration from Iceland and the Scandinavian countries.

Lets say the aggressive Christianization of Olaf Tryggvason in Norway causes alot of Norse Polytheists to flee first to Iceland, until King Olaf, with the sons of the major Icelandic families as hostages, and pressuring the Althing to make Christianity mandatory, encourages alot of people to make the trip there. With their knowledge of the Norse colony in America, and their dealings with it's merchants that sail back to Iceland every Spring and Summer, often a good time of the year for cross Atlantic voyages, to sell timber and skins in exchange for livestock, crop seeds, and even iron-ore, America would sound like an attractive option for many people fleeing religious persecution or the centralization of royal power in the Scandinavian countries.

Even with a steady influx of Norse exodites, the initial colonization will be pretty well below the numbers of European settlers that came to America in the fiftenth and sixteenth centuries. And the fact that this all began with a private venture means that if this colony is a refuge for fleeing Norse Pagans, then royal backing is the last thing they need.

Enslavement of natives might potentially boost the colony's population in the long-run, but they had best choose their battles.

Iron ore will be found eventually as long as the American Norse prevail, and their superior science of metallurgy and ship engineering will make up for their relatively small numbers.

Horses, even the small ponies of Iceland or the Shetlands (and whose to say that larger Frankish breeds wouldn't have been sold in either Norway or Iceland), would be an important assett for the American Norse, for war, agricultural, or transport. If used conservatively in the initial decades of colonization, could become something worth trading with the native peoples. That also goes for cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs.

The Norse colony had best remain politically unified, to remain strong in the face of the native American tribes. Trade down the east coast, through the St Lawrence River, and into the Great Lakes region, would be helpful.
 
Suppose as the Vikings and the Danes began to diverge and the little ice age made travel impossible killing communication.

The Vikings spread across the continent of North America, European diseases and Viking blades spread across killing the native population in the wost disaster to human cultures in the Americas ever.

When Columbus lands in the Indies he and the other ships are greeted with Viking steel.

The Vikings began to study and reverse engineer Spanish technology.

Would there be enough Vikings to spread over the continent? Even if disease kills most Indians they'll still outnumber the Vikings.
 
Enslavement of natives might potentially boost the colony's population in the long-run, but they had best choose their battles.


Indeed so. I seem to remember something in Jared Diamond's Collapse about getting off on a bad foot with the natives being part of the reason Vinland
collapsed.
 
Lets say the aggressive Christianization of Olaf Tryggvason in Norway causes alot of Norse Polytheists to flee first to Iceland, until King Olaf, with the sons of the major Icelandic families as hostages, and pressuring the Althing to make Christianity mandatory, encourages alot of people to make the trip there.


Oh, oh, oh, that just reminded me of an old 80s (maybe even 70s) AH novel with a similar premise. Can't remember the name though. I remember there was an Aztec empire as well....

Wasn't the best read, but was fun...
 
Indeed so. I seem to remember something in Jared Diamond's Collapse about getting off on a bad foot with the natives being part of the reason Vinland
collapsed.

I thought Vinland collapsed because the Vikings refused to eat fish so they all died out.

Anyway, I'm not sure Viking technology is sufficiently superior to that of the natives for them to make much progress without any support at all from home. Even in the 16th c Europeans would have gotten their butts kicked if they didn't have access to the resources of the home countries.
 
I thought Vinland collapsed because the Vikings refused to eat fish so they all died out.

The real problem was that Vinland was discovered by people from Greenland, which itself was only colonized in recent years. There was only a few thousand people there at the time, so forays to North America were desperately small. And with the repeated failures, and the stories of aggressive native peoples, the Norse decided in the end that settlement there was just more trouble than it was worth. Also, most people from Greenland were farmers and merchants, rather than warriors, or even seasonal Viking warriors. So the first settlers may have lacked the military ardour of Ragnar Lothbrok, and other of his ilk.

If America was sighted and settled long before Greenland, maybe, just matbe, we might have had a thriving colony there. Also, the best landing sight for the colony to begin would probably be Anticosti Island, which lies in the Estuary of the St Lawrence River. It is 135 miles in lengh and up to 30 miles wide. The closest distance from the mainland is maybe 70 miles, and the island was somewhat sparsely populated in comparison.


Anyway, I'm not sure Viking technology is sufficiently superior to that of the natives for them to make much progress without any support at all from home. Even in the 16th c Europeans would have gotten their butts kicked if they didn't have access to the resources of the home countries.

As sophisticated as the native cultures were, they were still using flint based tools and weaponry. I think iron weapons like swords, axes, and spears, not to mention their iron-embossed shields, helmets and even chainmail coats (for those few that could afford them) would put the Norse at an advantage in warfare. Although until they can find iron deposits in the New World, their reliance on supplies from Iceland should persuade them to avoid warfare whenever they could. Also their smaller numbers compared to the native tribes may have rendered the Norse, in the early centuries in America, in the similar role of a merchant republic, rather than an expansionist culture.
 
If the Norse are still pagan, expect Crusades to be launched against them. Could we end up with a Spanish Great Lakes by 1600?
 
The real problem was that Vinland was discovered by people from Greenland, which itself was only colonized in recent years. There was only a few thousand people there at the time, so forays to North America were desperately small. And with the repeated failures, and the stories of aggressive native peoples, the Norse decided in the end that settlement there was just more trouble than it was worth. Also, most people from Greenland were farmers and merchants, rather than warriors, or even seasonal Viking warriors. So the first settlers may have lacked the military ardour of Ragnar Lothbrok, and other of his ilk.

If America was sighted and settled long before Greenland, maybe, just matbe, we might have had a thriving colony there. Also, the best landing sight for the colony to begin would probably be Anticosti Island, which lies in the Estuary of the St Lawrence River. It is 135 miles in lengh and up to 30 miles wide. The closest distance from the mainland is maybe 70 miles, and the island was somewhat sparsely populated in comparison.




As sophisticated as the native cultures were, they were still using flint based tools and weaponry. I think iron weapons like swords, axes, and spears, not to mention their iron-embossed shields, helmets and even chainmail coats (for those few that could afford them) would put the Norse at an advantage in warfare. Although until they can find iron deposits in the New World, their reliance on supplies from Iceland should persuade them to avoid warfare whenever they could. Also their smaller numbers compared to the native tribes may have rendered the Norse, in the early centuries in America, in the similar role of a merchant republic, rather than an expansionist culture.

An advantage, but only as long as their iron weapons last, and you can still take down someone wearing armor with traps or just throw a rock at his head.

There just aren't enough Vikings.
 

Typo

Banned
The utlimate problem is without regular contact from Europe, Vinland (or any other sort of colony actually) is an unviable state. Any sort of survivors would have gone native very very fast.
 
An advantage, but only as long as their iron weapons last, and you can still take down someone wearing armor with traps or just throw a rock at his head.

There just aren't enough Vikings.

Like I said, if they remained long enough, they'd eventually find places to mine iron ore in North America.

If someone discovered North America before Lief Eriksson, and certainly before the settlement of Greenland, then knowledge of it's existence and location would be widespread. The abrupt political cultural changes in the Scandinavian Kingdoms would also give alot of Norsemen the motivation needed to get out of dodge. For Icelanders, the then unwelcome Christianization, and the shortage of farmland in their country would provoke migration across the Atlantic. In Norway, Sweden and Denmark, some might wish to travel to Iceland, given the sudden availability of land. And once again, if the Church, or the other powerful landowners are giving the new settlers a hard time also, then they'll do what their predecessors in Iceland did, and either buy passage on merchant ships going to Vinland, or obtain their own boats if they have the money. Of course this would in the first or second centuries be a gradual trickle of settlers, but given the right location, and if they stay out of trouble, this colony may survive in the long-run.

As for commercial contact with Europe, they should try to maintain communication with their relatives in Iceland at least. If they could do this by the 1200 to 1300's, sailors from Norway, England, and the German Hanseatic League could get to know about the potential market in Vinland through their trading contacts in Iceland.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Iron isn't a problem in area with swamps and woods, North European rarely mined for iron, they usual used bog iron and charcoal to refine the bog iron. Beside that when settlement is establish they will grow with enourmoushaste even with a small starting population. I could see North America east of the Great Plains and north of the Deep South being majority Norse by 1492, beside that I could also see the Caribbian dominated by Metize state with Norse culture, but I think the Central and South American Native civilisations would survive (through in greatly change form and with lot of norse traits) and likely they would resisdent to most European diseases and have adopted Eurpeans animals and plant by 1492. Likely we would also see that they had adopt lot of European technology. The Great plain would likely be populated by Native and Metize nomadic horsenations.

Beside that Christianity would likely follow the Norse to America*, and we could easily imagine the Spanish would met mostly Christian nations when they travell over the sea.


*It did to Greenland
 
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