What if the Vikings had brought disease to the New World?

[SlickerVyn]

Okay, let's set the scene; Vikings show up on the shores of Canada. They bring with them some diseases which infect the native populations but are still driven out. What ensues is much like in our own timeline when Europeans arrived in the Americas, resulting in a brutal epidemic.

However, in the aftermath, as the native populations rebound, they are now more resistant to the diseases of the Old World. And so, when the Europeans show up, the diseases which decimated the Natives aren't as devastating. What happens to the world now?

 

[Nephi]

They probably did just not small pox, it's too bad they didn't stick around long enough to deliver a breed able population of horses, some ironworking, and domestic animals.

That was enough time to change things enough that the natives could have stood a better chance.

 

[faddllz]

my question is : what kind of diseases ?

remember, black death occur in 1300s, so if vikings brought the european disease with them, the amerindian aren't safe either.

 

[SlickerVyn]

They probably did just not small pox, it's too bad they didn't stick around long enough to deliver a breed able population of horses, some ironworking, and domestic animals.

That was enough time to change things enough that the natives could have stood a better chance.

my question is : what kind of diseases ?

remember, black death occur in 1300s, so if vikings brought the european disease with them, the amerindian aren't safe either.

Let's say smallpox is brought over and some breedable population of horses.

 

[iddt3]

It doesn't help as much as you might think. As it was, smallpox burned through populations so quickly that it didn't have the opportunity to become endemic, and thus give a chance to build immunity. You need large scale, sustained interchange to have any meaningful impact, and for that to happen, the Europeans need to be there in force.

 

[rfmcdonald]

I think it important to note that northeasternmost North America is not only relatively remote from the major population centres of the pre-Columbian Americas, the region itself was very sparsely populated. Assuming that the very long distances traversed by the Vikings—Europe to Iceland, Iceland to Greenland, Greenland to Vinland—would not limit the diffusion of disease, the widely separated populations of Beothuk and Inuit and Naskapi of Vinland etc would not conduct disease well. For all we know, the Vikings did take one disease or another over and it burned out in an isolated population.

To change this, not only would you have to intensify Norse trade west across the Atlantic, you would have to bring the resulting culture into direct contact with major population centres. The Iroquoians of the St.. Lawrence and the Mi'kmaq of the Maritimes would be good.

One of the key factors behind the post-Columbian depopulation of the Americas was the way in which European colonialism radically destabilized indigenous cultures and made things worse. A hemisphere where plague is not worsened by wars of imperial conquest and forced labour and the appropriation of land is one where populations will not crash as much.

 

[thatsagoodpoint]

A breedable horse and draft animal population along with metal working would have more of an impact than resistance to diseases as it was the European technological advantage that allowed Europeans to colonize so easily. Disease resistance would play a part to be sure but native populations would still have to face superior weaponry, tactics, agriculture, logistics etc.

 

[kholieken]

It wouldn't affect any differently than OTL.

Disease is not static thing, it constantly change, population hit by smallpox would still hit hard again 30 years later. Japan repeatedly hit from disease from mainland.

That not even considering multiplicity of disease that Eurasia have over America. Or that NE America is not exactly deeply connected with rest of America.

 

[Lalli]

Agree that it wouldn't change anything. Modern day Canada was really fafr from major centers of pre-Colombian Americas and extremely sparsely populated region. It wouldn't reach Mexico or even Rio Grande region. Many diseases just would kill too effectively that natives could bring that much further than their own home village.

And diseases changes rapidly. Even if natives would had still genetic immunity against whatever vikings brought to North America, European diseases would had genetically changed and immunity of natives wouldn't work anymore. Check for example how COVID-19 has changed through last two years. Just imaginate how it would change in 500 years.

 

[Slime_blob]

Canada is unpopulated, Central America and South America are the population centers

 

[iddt3]

I think it important to note that northeasternmost North America is not only relatively remote from the major population centres of the pre-Columbian Americas, the region itself was very sparsely populated. Assuming that the very long distances traversed by the Vikings—Europe to Iceland, Iceland to Greenland, Greenland to Vinland—would not limit the diffusion of disease, the widely separated populations of Beothuk and Inuit and Naskapi of Vinland etc would not conduct disease well. For all we know, the Vikings did take one disease or another over and it burned out in an isolated population.

To change this, not only would you have to intensify Norse trade west across the Atlantic, you would have to bring the resulting culture into direct contact with major population centres. The Iroquoians of the St.. Lawrence and the Mi'kmaq of the Maritimes would be good.

One of the key factors behind the post-Columbian depopulation of the Americas was the way in which European colonialism radically destabilized indigenous cultures and made things worse. A hemisphere where plague is not worsened by wars of imperial conquest and forced labour and the appropriation of land is one where populations will not crash as much.

The places where they were directly worsened was the Caribbean, Central America and the Inca. The Amazon and North America had their own apocalypse once sustained disease interchange started.

 

[Admiral_Zann]

To echo several of the posters here, it probably would not help much at all, if whatever form of disease the Norse bring is even able to reach the major population centers further south. Eurasian populations have dealt with smallpox since at least 1100 BC and even longer with the plague (oldest found strains date back to 2000 BC iirc). And yet, new outbreaks regularly killed millions. Diseases change all the time and it takes time and specific circumstances for Humans to be able to adapt to even one variant. The natives probably wouldn't be able to develop a strong enough immunity in a few centuries to weather the next wave come the Age of Exploration and Colonization. In OTL Americas you could see the same thing, with native populations still having higher death rates during outbreaks in the 19th and 20th centuries (even taking other factors that contributed into account, resistance still played a major role).

And thats not even taking the other factors into account that made conquest of the Americas possible: differences in technology, political instability of native American entities (especially in case of the Inca Empire), climate and good old fashioned luck on the side of the Europeans. Even if the Norse introduce other things like iron working and horses, they aren't going to change the Americas over night. Especially since the area they had the most contact with was rather removed.

 

[Arkenfolm]

I approached this topic in this chapter of my Amerindian-themed TL. To summarise, the issue is the Norse are so far from Europe (the source of plagues) that it would be incredibly hard to transmit illnesses except for those with a very long incubation period, high contagiousness, and asymptomatic transmission. That's pretty much just chickenpox (via shingles), mumps, and whooping cough. IIRC typhus and other flea-born illnesses could spread similarly but introduced rats will spread very slowly, especially since the Norse will bring cats along with them too (although to be fair, cats prefer to munch on native rodents instead of introduced rats/mice). I disagree with the idea other diseases could spread given the history of epidemics in medieval/early modern Iceland. If they did, they'd be very local and burn out quickly. Even my own TL is pushing things with diseases, which relies on larger populations, mobility, and connected economies brought about by from domesticated caribou and mountain goats.

These diseases will be lethal, in particular chickenpox since it's fairly dangerous to adults who contract it. Whooping cough increases infant mortality and mumps mostly causes infertility in men (and to a lesser degree women) along with occasionally killing. This has an obvious effect on demographics. Amerindian knowledge of disease is vague--archaeology suggests that some towns appear to have been abandoned because they were too large and the population had insufficient knowledge of sanitation. While they suffered from colds and spread forms of mild Treponema diseases (akin to yaws and pinta) and in some regions tuberculosis, there were no real diseases both easily spread and very dangerous. So these diseases arriving would be quite a shock, and they very well could spread across the Americas given they spread from Iceland or Greenland to the New World.

The effect is the natives may culturally re-evaluate diseases and epidemics. Chickenpox will likely be endemic in most of the Americas because of shingles, although the other two diseases only in isolated parts (Mesoamerica to the Andes, maybe the Mississippian heartland) thanks to lack of population density. This is still good in the sense it gives some cultural mechanisms to respond to an epidemic and gives the population resistance to at least one disease that OTL they had none. OTL many people in the Americas died of starvation because multiple diseases struck at once and disrupted seasonal hunting/gathering/fishing. We could expect to see the same TTL, but without European interference. Hunter gatherers will suffer the most, leading to huge population shifts.

Culturally this will lead to major changes. It would not be pleasant to be in a major city of 12th/early 13th century North America TTL, given it's likely half-starved semi-nomads in nearby areas will be up in arms, spurred on by prophets and religious revival. These people will bring warfare and destruction out of the sheer need for survival. To compound, in Western North America and much of Mesoamerica there was a major drought in the middle of the 12th century. Historians would reflect that epidemic disease helped bring down Cahokia, Chaco Canyon, Tula/the Toltecs, El Tajin, Chichen Itza, etc.

They probably did just not small pox, it's too bad they didn't stick around long enough to deliver a breed able population of horses, some ironworking, and domestic animals.

That was enough time to change things enough that the natives could have stood a better chance.

If they brought disease, then it never spread beyond a few indigenous villages in Vinland/Markland/Greenland.

 

[Hugh Third of Five]

Let's say smallpox is brought over and some breedable population of horses.

Better for the natives would be to bring over horsepox (or cowpox). Also chickenpox was an issue. It's much deadlier if adults contract it.

 

[rfmcdonald]

I am inclined to think indigenous populations and societies will be safer if transatlantic contract is established not in the modern period but in the medieval one. That would be enough to ensure that you would have contact without creating a situation where a European polity could easily conquer vast territories. In a best-case scenario, this might allow the Americas to look mostly like sub-Saharan Africa, where outside of the Cape indigenous populations survived colonialism basically intact.

 

[solarwitch]

I agree that you’d need sustained contact, not only for the diseases to be spread in the 1000s, but for there to be enough exchange to connect the Americas with the Eurasian disease pool. Devastating initially, but not as much as when someone is actively trying to kill and conquer you on top of a bunch of plagues.

The reason the Vinland base was abandoned was because there was nothing there that the Vikings couldn’t get closer to home. Or so they thought. Thing is, there’s gold in Newfoundland, the Vikings just didn’t find it. If they did? They or others who heard about it might have developed an interest in the Americas much sooner, and before the technological disparity was quite as extreme.