Vinland Superpower

Bavarian Raven

Vinland's location (realistically, somewhere in OTL southern Acadia or northeast US) is not the problem. The problem is they are not that much more advanced then their neighbours - sure iron gives them a big advantage (and they have near complete control of the seas), but its not the same as the gunpowder advantage. IMHO - the best bet for a surviving Vinland is for the colony to be somewhere more northernly, like OTL prince edward's island. It's small enough that they can control it and hold it, and then expand from there. One thing most people don't realize is that the greenland during the era of 1000-1200 was one of the healthiest places to live in europe, mainly due to it's great plethora of food (ironically). So once a location in Vinland is secured, there would be a steady increase in settlers arriving and populations would expand rather quickly imho.

cheers.
 

Bavarian Raven

What's the motivation for settlers to come again?
Click to expand...
second and third and etc sons wanting their own farm and land - instead of heading east as in OTL to go a viking and find a farm of their own, theycould go to Vinland and have their own lands, etc. greenland, while a rich land in the warm period have very little land that could be farmed and within the decade the best lands were already claimed.
 

Elfwine

Bavarian Raven said:
second and third and etc sons wanting their own farm and land - instead of heading east as in OTL to go a viking and find a farm of their own, theycould go to Vinland and have their own lands, etc. greenland, while a rich land in the warm period have very little land that could be farmed and within the decade the best lands were already claimed.
Click to expand...

So why would they pick Vinland over closer and probably safer options?
 

Daztur

Elfwine said:
So why would they pick Vinland over closer and probably safer options?
Click to expand...

Well you don't need a very big percentage of them. There were a hundred colonists that landed in Greenland so if an initial outpost succeeds you should be able to get at least that since, say, PEI (probably a better site than Newfoundland) is probably a more inviting place to go to than Greenland. If you have people landing in PEI instead of Newfoundland and have some random boat heading to Greenland getting blown off course and landing in North America with some nasty diseases to pummel the poor locals with having at least a small outpost should be doable.

Also once the topsoil started getting badly depleted by farming methods that worked better in Norway than Iceland, medieval Iceland was a pretty damn grim place. So it shouldn't be too hard to get a steady trickle from there once an outpost gets established.

One advantage that Icelanders would have over later colonists is that a good source of food for the initial colony would be coastal seafood and that's where a lot of food for Iceland came from so there wouldn't be as bad of a skill mis-match as you had with a lot of English etc. colonists.

Lets say that initial colony works out fairly well and you have about 500 people by the first generation then you have 17 generations or so before 1500. Even if immigration after that is only a small trickle that's plenty of time to spread out over quite a bit of north America if the Norse come anywhere even vaguely close to the natural rates of increase of the historical Quebecois over their first few centuries.
 

Mikestone8

Couple of other points. What domestic animals do they bring? If pigs get loose in America they will soon be swarming all over it, being the great survivors they are. How does that affect the ecology?

Also, the Vinlans expeditions got going about the time Iceland converted to Christianity, so Vinland is liekely to have a sizeable Christian element and may well be majority Christian. Come the Reformation in Europe, it will probably be at least nominally Catholic, though it may have diverged a bit from Rome. Could have interesting political consequences.
 

chornedsnorkack

Bavarian Raven said:
Vinland's location (realistically, somewhere in OTL southern Acadia or northeast US) is not the problem. The problem is they are not that much more advanced then their neighbours - sure iron gives them a big advantage (and they have near complete control of the seas), but its not the same as the gunpowder advantage. IMHO - the best bet for a surviving Vinland is for the colony to be somewhere more northernly, like OTL prince edward's island.
Click to expand...

One big advantage they have is the package of cool summer crops. Which the Indians lack.

And this means that in the north, Norse are farmers and herders competing for land against pure hunter-gatherers. Until they start dealing with Indians that have adopted Norse crops. But this takes time.

Much of the Latin American population is mestizos who are almost pure Indians but who speak Spanish as mothertongue - the relatively modest numbers of Conquistadors were able to assimilate a lot of locals. The Norse will not be having gunpowder, nor a government as centralized as Spanish, and they will not overrun the scattered, headless tribes with the speed Spaniards did - but slowly they would expand.
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

Elfwine said:
So why would they pick Vinland over closer and probably safer options?
Click to expand...
???What closer or safer places?

Norway is full, greenland is full, iceland is full. Even england and ireland are no longer very available for your average norseman. And remember that icelanders were farmers, not vikings. Oh, sure, you had the odd adventuresome soul who hired out, but that wasnt really an option for most. So where else is land available but vinland?
 

Elfwine

Dathi THorfinnsson said:
???What closer or safer places?

Norway is full, greenland is full, iceland is full. Even england and ireland are no longer very available for your average norseman. And remember that icelanders were farmers, not vikings. Oh, sure, you had the odd adventuresome soul who hired out, but that wasnt really an option for most. So where else is land available but vinland?
Click to expand...

Norway isn't full. Neither are the other two kingdoms for what it's worth.

Meanwhile, there's the Baltic to exploit.

Not sure about England and Ireland, since it depends on the year.

Speaking for myself as a hypothetical Norseman, I'm not going to pick having to settle North America over a farm of my own in Norway unless Norway is exceedingly uninviting to me. And if going a viking is an option, the traditional targets are still available.
 

Bavarian Raven

Norway isn't full. Neither are the other two kingdoms for what it's worth.

Meanwhile, there's the Baltic to exploit.

Not sure about England and Ireland, since it depends on the year.

Speaking for myself as a hypothetical Norseman, I'm not going to pick having to settle North America over a farm of my own in Norway unless Norway is exceedingly uninviting to me. And if going a viking is an option, the traditional targets are still available.
Click to expand...

it is full unless you have a lot of money...
 

Bavarian Raven

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bavarian Raven
it is full unless you have a lot of money...
Click to expand...
What makes you say that?
__________________
Click to expand...

because this is one of the factors that led to the whole viking age - it was because norway/sweden lacks a lot of farmland. when the land became crowded/all the good land was controlled, young men went out searching for new lands (ie, iceland, greenland, parts of the english isles and the baltic, etc)
 

Elfwine

Bavarian Raven said:
because this is one of the factors that led to the whole viking age - it was because norway/sweden lacks a lot of farmland. when the land became crowded/all the good land was controlled, young men went out searching for new lands (ie, iceland, greenland, parts of the english isles and the baltic, etc)
Click to expand...

It also lacks a large population.

And if it really was a population problem, one has to wonder why we don't see larger movements as time went on (and the population of the Scandinavian countries grew) - Denmark in 1300 is twice what it was in 900.

Or heck, large movements in the first place.
 

Mikestone8

Small point. If Leif (or Karlsefni) had happened on Notre Dame Bay, they would have found several offshore islands where the native population was probably quite small, so that the Norse could have made themselves a local majority. As their numbers grew, they could have settled other islands and eventually parts of the mainland.

After all, the Skraelings are unlikely to present a united opposition. If the Norse intervene in local tribal wars, they will soon acquire allies, and will soon be beyond dislodging.
 

Elfwine

Mikestone8 said:
Iirc, Karlsefni brough about 150. Would the native population of a place like, say, Fogo Island be much more than that c1000?
Click to expand...

I suspect not. But 150 Norse (all seamen and such I presume, but no women and children on one hand or huscarls on the other) vs. say, 500-1000 skraelings - that might not be an obvious win for the Europeans if it got ugly.
 

Mikestone8

Elfwine said:
I suspect not. But 150 Norse (all seamen and such I presume, but no women and children on one hand or huscarls on the other) vs. say, 500-1000 skraelings - that might not be an obvious win for the Europeans if it got ugly.
Click to expand...


Sorry, should have said circa the year 1000.

Fogo Island's population is only around 2700 today, so is likely to have been very small a millennium ago.
 

Mikestone8

Elfwine said:
Most likely. Although how would the Norse support a more sizable population than OTL?
Click to expand...


Agriculture supports a larger population than hunter/gathering and fishing - unless of course intermarriage with locals results in the Norse being absorbed and adopting the local wol themselves.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top