What if North & South America were never colonized?

[glenn67]

Remember when the British decided to expand its empire to Canada and the original 13 colonies in what would become the USA?

The cost of administering the colonies and establishing military posts cost a lot of money. A few colonial governors did not even bother to move to the territories they were appointed to govern. They delegated their authority to their underlings.

The original pilgrims decided to settle in the new world to seek religious freedom from the Church of England. We all know how that turned out. Their children and grandchildren were still subjects of the British crown.

As for the Spanish, they were unhappy that a few of their soldiers became human sacrifices of the Aztecs so they sent their navy, defeated the Aztecs and put an end to their empire, which was renamed Mexico.

Centuries before, the Norse experiment with Vinland was a colossal failure.

Suppose the British, French and Spanish chose not to repeat the mistakes of the Norse and decided just to trade with the natives and leave them alone instead of forming permanent settlements and living space for their people. They could focus their attention to Africa instead.

What would have to happen for England, France and Spain to decide that it was not worth it to settle the Americas?

 

[Anaxagoras]

ASB in the extreme. The economic motives were too great. The Americas were eventually going to be colonized no matter what.

 

[David S Poepoe]

Remember when the British decided to expand its empire to Canada and the original 13 colonies in what would become the USA?

No, I don't remember. I'm not sure what you are talking about. Everybody knows, since Columbus' great voyage westward, that China is just a five hour flight beyond the Azores. Are you talking about some lost continents?

 

[rcduggan]

Suppose the British, French and Spanish chose not to repeat the mistakes of the Norse and decided just to trade with the natives and leave them alone instead of forming permanent settlements and living space for their people. They could focus their attention to Africa instead.

What would have to happen for England, France and Spain to decide that it was not worth it to settle the Americas?

You really need to re-learn your history. AFAIK the powers in the 16th century had little knowledge of the Norse expeditions. Those who did not did not seem to care too much.

There is no way possible for the nations to decide that it is not worth it. They will always be afraid of another country settling the land, and using it to become more powerful than them. Ex: Spain does not colonize Mexico. France moves into the region, which prompts England to colonize Mexico too to prevent France from getting the upper hand.

Not to mention that Basques and Englishmen had been fishing off the Americas for decades before Columbus had even sailed.

 

[Tocomocho]

As for the Spanish, they were unhappy that a few of their soldiers became human sacrifices of the Aztecs so they sent their navy, defeated the Aztecs and put an end to their empire, which was renamed Mexico.

Actually Mexico is the native name. "Aztec" and such are neologisms invented in the 19th century that the so called "Aztecs" never used to speak about themselves - much like "Byzantine", "Phoenician", etcetera.

 

[the Apple Man]

never is along time.
Only way this would happen is if the whole wold is flat thing was belived 100%. I imagine nothing would ever be the same with out the colonization of America.

 

[hopper2cool]

I can see some scenarios where Europe did not colonize the Americas. However someone would have done it in the last 500 years. China, Japan, Korea, or even India (that's kind of ironic) would have got here eventually even with the larger Pacific in the way.

 

[nolafia]

first though, let's take a look at what the european countries can gain from colonies in the americas and africa, shall we?

Americas:
Pros:
Huge tracts of land
gigantic forests... filled with nice trees for lumber, maple syrup trees, exotics meats and skins, bear, deer, beaver etc.
huge schools of cod (new foundland)
COAL
gold, silver, copper all that stuff from the incas, aztecs and all
Cons:
clever indians and incans to fight
large tracts of land compared to small armies make the continent hard to control

Africa:
pros:
ivory from elephants
exotic meats and skins
huge tracts of land
diamonds, gold and silver
cons:
extreme weather (droughts in the summer and floods in the winter)
large tracts of land compared to small armies make the continent hard to control
deserts and such to avoid

as you can see, the pros far outweigh the cons in both cases, but the americas would be much more profitable to colonize and the competitive nature of the europeans would push them to colonize anyway to gain an upperhand at home in europe

 

[Atom]

There really is no way that the European powres wouldn't colonize the Americas given the chance. It might be much slower, but over time they would still do it. The only way to stop this is to do something vaguely ASB. I did a TL about the ASB-ish option which I made here: 5500 Years.

 

[King Thomas]

Rampant disease might do it, at least until the 19th century. Anything else is ASB.

 

[Taikun]

There really is no way that the European powres wouldn't colonize the Americas given the chance. It might be much slower, but over time they would still do it. The only way to stop this is to do something vaguely ASB. I did a TL about the ASB-ish option which I made here: 5500 Years.

Yes, the chances are that they would still do it. However, any change in the way and time they colonize the continent would have resulted in big differences in history as we know, specially in those areas where advanced civilizations flourished. Even the cultures would be very different, more Amerindian than Latin-American perhaps?

F.E. right now, most of the Mexicas' and Incas' descendants are Latin-American, they don't even dress and organize their societies the way their ancestors did, or have been assimilated to the european culture nd don't speak their own languages anymore, unless they live in small communities, in really isolated places. When Europeans arrived, there was not such a thing as a unified empire anywhere. In ancient Peru, every kingdom and group had their own identity and ambitions, and the Inca empire was too recent (less than 100 years old, 10 or even 5 years in some places) to make Peruvian culture unified. Even Incas were seen as foreigner conquerors almost everywhere, that's why the other cultures joined the Spanish (And after the mess, they never fought united against the invaders).

Besides from division, the other main reason why those civilizations fell apart was because of the diseases the Europeans brought with them. It wasn't intended of course, and it was going to happen sooner or later anyway. But had the Europeans decided to invade after the population recovered, things would have been extremely difficult for them, probably resulting in a slow and unfinished conquest.

 

[rcduggan]

Rampant disease might do it, at least until the 19th century. Anything else is ASB.

Rampant disease keeping Europe from expanding for 300 years is not ASB?

 

[Umbral]

You're really going to need to either knock Europe out totally. (Mongol invasion turns into a long and ugly ruination, followed by plague, followed by the little ice age, etc)

Or use a POD somewhat futher back (Phoenicians/Tatessians/Minoans etc. drop a colony in the Carribbean, seeding the americas with a few techs they lacked)

Or something like Vikings last a bit longer, transferring cattle and ship tech. Some native genius hits on variolation, and half a millenium later the europeans encounter aggressive maritime powers struggeling for dominance, with a means of blunting the disease advantage available.

Europe just deciding not to pick up the riches offered is not going to happen.

 

[King Thomas]

In OTL it was the 19th century before Europe could take over Africa because of diseases, you need something like that for the Americas.