Not to mention the Norse will likely assimilate the "corn based agricultural" crop package as well. Sooner or later. They were good at taking useful bits of culture / tech from other peoples...
Vinland (and Greenland) without Lief Erikson
- Thread starter Kerney
- Start date
Not to mention the Norse will likely assimilate the "corn based agricultural" crop package as well. Sooner or later. They were good at taking useful bits of culture / tech from other peoples...
Good on the spot and maybe shipping some dried back to Greenland, but that is about it. Shipping basic food stuffs hundreds of miles does not make sense in a pre-industrial economy. The Romans only shipped grain for political reasons.
Unfortunately, like other Medieval Europeans they would have scorned the Skraelings and sooner or later got into a conflict with them. It is on record that a band of them killed some Inuits to find out what colour their blood was. Not wise behaviour is you are heavily outnumbered and don't have too much of a technological advantage.
Later Europeans were more canny as well as having that great equaliser, disease. It is going to be harder for the Norse to acquire that because their boats hop from one island to another and sojourn between voyages. In contrast, smallpox came straight from Spain. Without it, it would have be harder to Cortes and his band to subdue the Aztecs.
Given how small local trees were as well as the poor quality of driftwood going to Markland for timber was a no brainer. In fact, you could argue that they did not go there frequnetly enough.
Unfortunately, they never had the numbers. The lords of Greenland had no incentive to uproot and back in Scandanavia there were other attractions: Kiev and England to name two of them.
Dried fish was in fact the only export good for late medieval Iceland, though supposedly the Greenland colony sporadically exported luxuries like narwhal ivory and live polar bears.
So I wouldn't completely write off fish, and if furs are discovered, that could be a major boost to the attractiveness of the place.
Furs certainly would be. To meet European demand the Russians were pushing farther and farther eastwards because they were "harvesting" animals so unsustainability. In fact one reason why the French went to Canada was for the same reason.
The trick though with the fur trade would be for the Norse to do what the French and Russians did and that is not trap/kill the animals themselves but to buy the pelts from the natives. You can get more that that way with your limited manpower.
Obviously you need trade goods and Greenland being poor is the not best source of them. However, one load back to Europe and the profits should be so high that the ship owner so easily finance another voyage. No doubt he will have to sail via Greenland, but the peasants there will sell his crew the supplies he needs to get to and from "Peltland".
The difficulty is getting things set up so the Skraelings are out there trapping for the Norse and not making a nuisnace of themsleves by attacking your colony.
I don't think that's true. Grain was shipped in classical Greece, and foodstuffs were shipped in the medieval period as well. But I agree Vinland won't work for that.
Not hundreds of miles even by sea, which is the point that I was making.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Heinrich_von_Thünen
I'm just being a nitpicking jerk now, but there was bulk shipment of grain across hundreds of miles in the medieval period. How do you think the Italian cities were being fed?
IIRC, the Greenlanders' Saga says that the bull's bellowing spooked the Skraelings, but didn't start the fight... what did that was one of them trying to sneak off with one of the Norse weapons, and getting killed by the owner. That might be a bit harder to POD out, since the settlers likely didn't have all that many to start with, and probably not enough to trade them away...
I think you'll find it would be more than a few weeks for most of those. It'd require some penetration inland for the costal Norse. Bog iron though, you could probably get in the first generation with a little luck.
Well, I could be wrong, but if it is anything like here in Lofoten, the great cod run fishing is seasonal, a few weeks in spring. The Banks probably has good fishing round the year, but the spectacular opportunity might not be obvious until you have a bit of time there.
Yes, moving to North America was tempting in terms of climate. It was discussed among the Greenlanders, and when the western settlement vanished, it was assumed that this is exactly what happened, and in Europe an expedition to North America was commissioned to search for them.
The problem is simply that they were too few. They, didn't believe they had enough people to deal with the hostile natives.
Erroneously, as it turns out. Apparently the Greenlanders outnumbered the Beothuk of Newfoundland by a fair bit. If only they'd known.
Stockfish keeps extremely well. You could export that. The problem is the length of the voyage. The more days at sea, the bigger your chance of something going wrong and everybody dying. I don't think the profit margin on fish and pelts was sufficient to justify the risk of a voyage that length. Not with the loading capacities and sailing skills of the time.
Narwhal horn would be worth it. Throw in the best pelts because it is a low-volume item. Greenland is in need of a large number of things. Trade food and timber to the Greenlanders in exchange for seal and bear pelts, as well as narwhal horn. Take that to Europe and buy luxuries for Vinland. That is a good triangle trade.
You wouldn't do it often until ship tech matched the new demands put on it, but during the first decades or century of colonization, I could see it being how young men got established.
Personally, I saw Vinland as more of an end of the line settlement. You go there to get away from something. A reputation for being rich in food and land, but poor in trade goods... initially.
I'm not saying they export the fish, I'm saying is that it is an enormous food source. When most people spend most of the day working to produce food something like that many fish would be extremely attractive to many people.
And there were more than enough people in Greenland and Iceland that needed more and better land that could have started up a colony.
Greenland historically brought over cast bells and stained glass for the church in Gardar, so they certainly had the same idea already. It's possible, but the question remains about whether it's sustainable.
Pelts would have a profit margin worth it if they are good enough quality. As I said in an earlier posting the French traded a lot for furs. Narwhal horn is uncommon and walrus ivory (which Greenland also exported) is only saleable if there there is unsufficient elephant ivory on the market. In addition, the Norse need control of North Greenland and on OTL the Innuit ran them out.
The problem with Greenland is that it is a marginal colony which only survives as long as there is a warmish climate and no hostiles. On OTL the climate turned cold and the Innuit turned up.
To survive a Vinland colony really needs to cut loose from Greenland and become self-sufficient in food. It then buys in the luxuries from Europe. That means say sailing direct to and from the Hebrides. OK, so there is no triangle, but if it is profitable then merchants will take a look at it. After all it is not much more crazy than sailing between the Netherlands and the East Indies.
At the time Pelts were not as much of a big deal in terms of value, Russia, Sweden, and Finland were producing enough of them to satiate any pelt needs in Europe. The only buyers of Vinland Pelts would be people in Iceland and Greenland.
And a Vinland colony would not have a hard time finding food at all provided they lived near the Grand Banks, and even if they didn't live at the Grand Banks there had been no fishing in the area at all. Combined with Hunting, Herding, and Farming means if they keep good relations with Skraelings they'll get on just fine.
Aye, you have to wait for events like the depletion of the European beaver before new world pelts become valuable enough, and an encompassing enough market share, to be worth bringing across.
Vinaland as a colony just has such a hard time existing. One of the best locations for vinland, the L'Anse Aux Meadows, only had a settlement for about a year before they packed up and left. Sure they could exist there but the received little of the creature comforts that they could otherwise experience in Europe.
Also in terms of adopting native techniques, despite being in contact with the Inuit people for centuries the colony of Greenland failed to adopt anything from the clothes, the harpoon, the kyak, or the diet of the Inuit people. One of the best explanations for the Norse settlement in Greenland ending wasn't starvation, or disease, but that they just left. Digs currently find no increase in death rates that were already present when they left, as well as remarkably little in terms of "precious items" and family heirlooms and items. The Norse didn't want to adapt, and they were free to leave so they decided to leave back for the home country because they didn't want to loose the Norse identity.
To get Vinland, and most early colonies, to work you would need a government interested in making it succeed, which would involve exporting people. The problem is most Scandinavians already "exported people" in mercenary bands, and pilliaging. To get Vinland to succeed you'd need to remove the coolest part of the Norse
Also in terms of adopting native techniques, despite being in contact with the Inuit people for centuries the colony of Greenland failed to adopt anything from the clothes, the harpoon, the kyak, or the diet of the Inuit people. One of the best explanations for the Norse settlement in Greenland ending wasn't starvation, or disease, but that they just left. Digs currently find no increase in death rates that were already present when they left, as well as remarkably little in terms of "precious items" and family heirlooms and items. The Norse didn't want to adapt, and they were free to leave so they decided to leave back for the home country because they didn't want to loose the Norse identity.
To get Vinland, and most early colonies, to work you would need a government interested in making it succeed, which would involve exporting people. The problem is most Scandinavians already "exported people" in mercenary bands, and pilliaging. To get Vinland to succeed you'd need to remove the coolest part of the Norse
They also had a hostile native problem as well as being on the end of a "suppy" line.
Not necessarily, but it does help.
In every situation the Skraelings attacked the Norse the Norse won, they just saw it as not worth it and the most important resource Vinland had that was trees didn't need a standing settlement to exploit and there is much evidence for this.
However, like I said the reasoning for a colony would be it's not worth it but what if something happened that had people in Iceland and Greenland wanting to move?
Well just save the ships that got lost with Erik when he tried to settle them in Greenland and have them live so that there is more of a population in Greenland to send colonists from and deplete resources more quickly. Soon enough the people from Iceland settling in Greenland will want better land and if people come across Vinland every once and a while they're gonna try a whack at it even if not immediately.
And if it starts producing a large surplus of Grain that would be cheaper to people in Greenland than grain from Europe then that alone could support a small colony. Now if you add around 35-60 immigrants to the new settlement a year for five years then new settlements will take root and then Norse Presence will be permanent.
Just an idea, but do you think Norse Gaels or perhaps Bretons could become the settlers? Both were seagoing, and were either Vikings or had decent contact with? I can imagine both being pushed out.
On the other hand, I would die to see a TL where a sizable group of Jews during the 400s moves to Scandinavia, and as Christianize becomes inevitable, island hop along the Atlantic staying only until Christians follow, until they reach North America and settle along the St. Laurence, either remaining a distinct ethnic group or mixing with the natives and proselytizing to create the Jewish Iroquois.
On the other hand, I would die to see a TL where a sizable group of Jews during the 400s moves to Scandinavia, and as Christianize becomes inevitable, island hop along the Atlantic staying only until Christians follow, until they reach North America and settle along the St. Laurence, either remaining a distinct ethnic group or mixing with the natives and proselytizing to create the Jewish Iroquois.
But they still took casualties. So did the later Europeans, but less per se because they used ranged weapons. The difference in technology between the Norse and Skraelings is low enough that the Norse really needed to avoid fights.
The geology is against it, but gold would do the trick. Greenland and Iceland are really too poor to sink wealth into a colony. You need Norway and Denmark to do that. The issue here is why when you can go avikinging in Britain or Russia?
Unfortunately two bad harvests and the value of Vinland goes to the wall. It may be that on OTL the Norse did the best that is possible.