Vinland Superpower

Big "problem" might be assimilation.

Even OTL, you got a lot of whites who preferred the Indian way of life, took Indian wives and generally resembled their Redskin neighbours more than the folk back in Boston. OTL it didn't last, because the "civilised" element were being continually reinforced from back east, but in Vinland they won't be. 500 years on, will there be much to show for it all beyond a lot of fair haired and blue eyed Iroquois?
 
Big "problem" might be assimilation.

Even OTL, you got a lot of whites who preferred the Indian way of life, took Indian wives and generally resembled their Redskin neighbours more than the folk back in Boston. OTL it didn't last, because the "civilised" element were being continually reinforced from back east, but in Vinland they won't be. 500 years on, will there be much to show for it all beyond a lot of fair haired and blue eyed Iroquois?

horses, ironworking, etc. - you might end up with a powerful _native_ empire as a result.

Bruce
 
In L. Sprague deCamp's "The Wheels of If," he imagines a Bregatenwald (IIRC) of Vinland in which Nordic whites are the majority and the leadership, but Native Americans and mestizos are a powerful underclass (still known as skraelings). I believe that this Vinland only occupied Eastern North America.
 
Was there a disaster or military campaign that could have failed so that the Viking launch somekind of exodus to NA?
 
Was there a disaster or military campaign that could have failed so that the Viking launch somekind of exodus to NA?

Plenty of possible failed campaigns or disasters, but there's no reason they'd lead to a mass exodus to the barren wilderness thousands of miles away.
 
Maybe:
1. Initial Vinland settlement goes marginally better than IOTL but not well enough to be self-sustaining. Perhaps better location.
2. Bunch of people get exiled from Norway to Iceland. That's not too hard.
3. Shit goes down in Iceland. There's plenty of starvation of Icelandic history, you've just got to time this right.
4. Bunches of hungry people head west since they can't go back to Norway.
5. Throw enough warm bodies at Vinland. Have them land in a place that's good for coastal fishing.
6. ???
7. Profit.

6. is a bit of a weak link.
 
Too much of one.

A bunch of hungry refugees flooding the place is going to hurt.

I don't think there's enough to get this off the ground, really.
 
Were the natives growing corn in that area 1000 AD? The Vikings need to adapt some of the local food plants: wheat or rye tended to suffer from local plant infections rather badly in the NE and the adoption of corn was important in getting a "critical mass" of settlers fed, IIRC.

Which "NE"?

Virginia and even Massachusetts are hot in summer compared to England. Newfoundland, not so much - warmer summers than Greenland or Iceland, but not warmer than Norway.

Yes, North America is not warmed by Gulf Stream. But on the other hand, even Newfoundland is rather lower latitude than Scandinavia. So, not cold for the Norse.

Some real numbers:
St. John´s - 47°34´; February average -5,4; August average +15,5
Boston - 42°21´; January average -1,5; July average +23,2
Richmond - 37°32´; January average about +3; July average about +26
Newcastle upon Tyne - 54°58´; January average about +5; July average about +15
Trondheim - 63°25´; January average about -3; July average about +14

I expect that the Norse initially settle in Newfoundland - warm summers compared to Greenland and Iceland, but not too warm for their crops. Too cold for maize, whereas barley and rye would do fine. (And much of Newfoundland and Labrador would be too cold for wheat, too).
 
There native homeland was upstate New York, with other tribes living as far as Montreal Island and the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec. By about 1000 CE, they're settled and practising agriculture.
Settled where? French in 16th century found maize growers as far north as Stadacona in Quebec and Georgian Bay... but were they already that far in 11th century?
And being close to the Great Lakes, they would be amongst the first societies trading with the Norse and at some point, would have the concentration of numbers to oppose them.
Yes - but they also might be among the first societies to become allied or subject to Norse. It is exactly their concentration of numbers which would attract Norse traders.
 
Too much of one.

A bunch of hungry refugees flooding the place is going to hurt.

I don't think there's enough to get this off the ground, really.

OK, let's try to refine things a bit.

The POD could be some random shipload of Europeans get washed up ashore in North America a short while before the Vinland expedition. The locals would be unlucky enough to pick up some epidemic diseases from that first boatload which takes a severe bite out of their population numbers before Erik the Red gets to Vinland. This die-off results in a boom in the deer population and coastal fish/shellfish stocks.

Then, thanks to butterflies and a slice of good luck, Erik the Red lands somewhere with a lot of easy to gather coastal shellfish and where the die-off of the locals has been especially severe. That should keep them alive side gathering coastal shellfish is pretty idiot-proof as a way of providing food, provides food for a lot of people in a small area (until the stocks start getting depleted) and isn't vulnerable to attack (enemies can't burn your fields or steal your livestock).

So the coastal shellfish (and fishing and hunting the burgeoning deer population) keeps the *Vinlanders alive with perhaps a bit of farming on the side. Eventually they get the hang of farming that works well in the *Vinland climate but that might take a while. Sheep herding would probably work well as well in the middle-term.

Also once the coastal shellfish stocks start getting depleted the *Vinlanders could start sailing out and fishing for cod. Cod would exist in pretty massive numbers off the coast (and not too far off the coast, at least to start with, although eventually they'd have to sail farther afield to the Grand Banks etc.) and cod are pretty damn easy to catch.

While dried cod isn't that best trade good in the world, the amount of protein per pound you get if you dry it down is pretty awesome and Iceland is often hungry so that's at least something.

That might keep the people fed long enough to get them over the initial hump. Once they're established they can make some money selling furs which might catch on in Europe as IOTL which'd bring more immigration over later. For early immigration, they'd be able to get at least a trickle from Iceland since Scandinavian farming practices lead to a lot of erosion of the fragile Icelandic soil so after the initial colonization of Iceland the yields they were able to get from farming and herding fell off so if Vinland gets established with even a few hundred people they could probably attract at least a small amount per year due to Iceland being a pretty hungry place. Also the *Vinlanders could raid the locals and take kids as thralls to boost their numbers. They might be able to get away with that if we kick the poor locals in the gut hard enough with disease to make it hard for them to fight back effectively, especially if we stick the *Vinlanders in islands off the coast, perhaps PEI or coastal Maine or Martha's Vinyard or something.
 
Big "problem" might be assimilation.

Even OTL, you got a lot of whites who preferred the Indian way of life, took Indian wives and generally resembled their Redskin neighbours more than the folk back in Boston. OTL it didn't last, because the "civilised" element were being continually reinforced from back east, but in Vinland they won't be. 500 years on, will there be much to show for it all beyond a lot of fair haired and blue eyed Iroquois?

Fair hair and blue eyes will not last long. Whereas a distinctive way of life is something that does give the Norse an advantage.

Sure, many outlaws and some traders will simply join Indian tribes. But then their Metis children are simply Indians and not advantaged over other Indians.

But I expect that in Norse emporia at Hochelaga and elsewhere - yes, most of the merchants will take Indian wives (some Norse women accompany them, but most Norse women stay back in Newfoundland farming settlements). But then they will teach their Metis children the Norse language, and the Norse activities of farming, animal keeping, ironworking, shipbuilding... In a few generations, you can have settlements where the people are more than 3/4 Indians by blood and appearance, but speak Norse as mothertongue (and lingua franca between Indians speaking different languages) and practice much of Norse culture.
 
Fair hair and blue eyes will not last long. Whereas a distinctive way of life is something that does give the Norse an advantage.

Sure, many outlaws and some traders will simply join Indian tribes. But then their Metis children are simply Indians and not advantaged over other Indians.

But I expect that in Norse emporia at Hochelaga and elsewhere - yes, most of the merchants will take Indian wives (some Norse women accompany them, but most Norse women stay back in Newfoundland farming settlements). But then they will teach their Metis children the Norse language, and the Norse activities of farming, animal keeping, ironworking, shipbuilding... In a few generations, you can have settlements where the people are more than 3/4 Indians by blood and appearance, but speak Norse as mothertongue (and lingua franca between Indians speaking different languages) and practice much of Norse culture.
IOTL this happened neither in Russia nor in Normandy nor really anywhere else, where Norsemen overwhelmingly married local women. It instead led to the disappearance of the Norse language within no more than 3 to 4 generations, which isn't really that surprising, the language you grow up with isn't called mother tongue for no reason after all.
 
True but, The Norse in France and Russia did not have any technological advantage over the locals. The Saint Lawrence river valley is on the Border of 2 language families, so norse could easily have made a compromise linga franka<br>
 
True but, The Norse in France and Russia did not have any technological advantage over the locals. The Saint Lawrence river valley is on the Border of 2 language families, so norse could easily have made a compromise linga franka<br>

I wonder if that is key; *Norse wasn't a prestige language in Russia all that long (maybe 2-3 generations, and very possibly not a prestige language at all but a caste language for mercenary warriors), and I don't think it was a prestige language in Normandy, ever.

If in some universe (skeptical here) the Norse do get good numbers into *Vinland, maybe their technological advantages would give them the clout to establish their own prestige language and start assimilating.

Provided they get over their own xenophobia and of course first don't die of hunger and thirdly be able to maintain their own crafts in absense of any human capital or infrastructure.
 
Provided they get over their own xenophobia and of course first don't die of hunger and thirdly be able to maintain their own crafts in absense of any human capital or infrastructure.

Total population of Norse Greenland was under 4000, and so was the population of Faroes. Western Settlement of Greenland was under 1000 souls.

Unlike Iceland and Greenland, even a few hundred souls in Newfoundland are going to be self-sufficient in timber, grain and iron. They are not going to give up these crafts.
 
Settled where? French in 16th century found maize growers as far north as Stadacona in Quebec and Georgian Bay... but were they already that far in 11th century?

If they were living close to the Great Lakes and the St Lawrence, they may well have used them as a highway for their range of settlement.

Yes - but they also might be among the first societies to become allied or subject to Norse. It is exactly their concentration of numbers which would attract Norse traders.

If more than one tribe forms a confederacy akin to the Haudensaunee, then the St Lawrence could be a source of conflict to either side that wishes to invest a certain amount of control over it.
 
The idea they'd take a huge swathe of OTL USA and Canada seems extremely unlikely to me. The relatively few settlers coming over means very slow population growth, giving the natives plenty of time to both recover from the disease hit and also to learn Viking technologies and any superior warfare practices. It's not like they will have guns any point soon.
 
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