Ways to make parts of the Americas densely settled earlier

As the title says. There are several TLs where this happens, for example having the Huguenots forcefully relocated to New France, the Huguenots emigrating from France to the New Netherlands, the Spanish colonizing the East Coast along with the Caribbean and Mesoamerica, etc.

What are some other ways to do this?
 
What about simply having America settled earlier? Perhaps the Bristol fisherman trading furs with the locals when drying fish on shore from the 1480s, within 50 years a permanent colony is established and by the time of OTL Mayflower the colony is a century old and the first of many.
 
vinlands aside, there could possibly be a basque settlement along the labrador coast, or newfoundland
 
vinlands aside, there could possibly be a basque settlement along the labrador coast, or newfoundland
Vinland would actually cause the Americas to not be as densely settled.

They'd be more densely populated than OTL by the modern day due to the natives recovering from Vinland-caused smallpox and never being afflicted by European smallpox when Columbus arrives, but the Europeans wouldn't settle as many areas as they did in OTL because they couldn't just push the natives aside after killing them accidentally with disease.

EDIT: Well, I guess what I mean is densely resettled.
 
Last edited:
What about having the parts of the Americas which were densely settled not be ravaged by war, famine, disease and societial collapse? I don't know how to go about it it, but have the Conquistador era butterflied away, IOTL it only lasted about 50 years. Contact would be through traders and Missionaries, who would bring disease but not the war and famine so leaving Americans to recover from outbreaks in their own ways.
 
Well, when I say densely settled I mean densely resettled. Meaning existing cultures are still ravaged by disease, but parts of the Americas are colonized by the Europeans (or, hell, maybe the Arabs or Japanese or Chinese or Mongols) more heavily than OTL. Because it's easy to make the native cultures survive--just have Vinland spread smallpox, and then they will recover by the time the Europeans arrive.
 
Last edited:
I'm actually skeptical you can do it much earlier. Take New England, for instance. People were aware something was this since the 1490s. Yet there was no settlement until the PIlgrims. Why bother? Europe had furs and fish of its own.
 
I'm actually skeptical you can do it much earlier. Take New England, for instance. People were aware something was this since the 1490s. Yet there was no settlement until the PIlgrims. Why bother? Europe had furs and fish of its own.

Well, yes, but as soon as there was a basis for further settlement (as opposed to jumping into the wilderness) immigration became extremely consistent. I would argue that what was really lacking was a starting point to provide security; after that people became willing to make moves for religious purposes or otherwise. I don't think you can get settlement much faster though, once it starts, and the earlier it starts the fewer will be coming.

It may not be what you mean, but I do think that an earlier cotton gin would have this result. It created a vast labor shortage in the colonies, exacerbating what was already there. Since wage labor wasn't really a factor and indenture was unpopular, it isn't likely to change much in terms of European settlement, but it would increase the value of slaves relative to the Caribbean. Over 50 years or so, that would mean dozens of slave ships sailing north to sell cargoes left-over from the Caribbean markets. And while slaves in the Caribbean were usually dead inside 5 years, those in North America would regularly live long enough to raise a family.

End result: A much more heavily settled south (the difference being all black and mostly slave) and a slightly more settled north (more slaves to go around means more up north, eventually).
 
-Chinese desire for furs pushes seaotter traders up to the Aleutians, with the occasional ship getting wrecked down the coast. With no interest in colonies, the natives still get exposed to diseases regularily from about 400 AD.

-The potato somehow makes it from South America to Cascadia and the great lakes.

-Slightly greater Vinland presence than OTL. Still fails, but introduces crops, horses and cattle. Cowpox is common. Possibly a slightly more contagious mutation of cowpox develops.
 
I'm actually skeptical you can do it much earlier. Take New England, for instance. People were aware something was this since the 1490s. Yet there was no settlement until the PIlgrims. Why bother? Europe had furs and fish of its own.

There were attempts at colonisation almost 50 years before the Pilgrims, at least one of which was aborted by the vagaries of wind and current. I've often wondered what would have happened if the supply ship arrived before Drake took the colonists away when he did.
 
Top