What is the earliest date America can be successfully colonized?

Yeah. I do look forward to his next book, 1447: The Year a Supremely Fantastic Chinese Starfleet Reached the Moon, Colonized Mars and Built the Canals.

I do love Fantasy/Science Fiction.

Sadly that is not his next book. His next book is 1545: The Year China built the first Atomic Bomb
 

Maur

Banned
Ok, after thinking about it a bit i came to conclusion that the earliest date is about 1600-1650 :D


Seriously, even in 1700, America is basically empty. It needs reliable oceanic travel and reasonable reasons for people to go there.
 
Hanno the Mariner of Carthage c. 500 BC is my favorite candidate.

Hero of Canton

Stupid question, since I really don't know squat about Carthaginian non-military ship types. All I know about are galleys, that can't go more than a couple days without stopping for water refills.

Did the Carthaginians build ships capable of conducting long open-ocean voyages and carrying enough people/cargo to make colonization practical?
 
Given that Zheng He's fleet had ships a dozen times the size of the Santa Maria, I'm quite certain the Chinese would have the capability to build large ships by the time the Honorable Chairman takes power. ;):p

Chinese colonies are more difficult, as they lack a reason to go. Why bother sending fleets 5,000 miles across open water? The best a China-Colony-fan can hope for is Chinese Australia.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but let me expand a little.

Presuming that some Emperor or dynasty gets a serious yearning for exploration (I'm not going to speculate on cultural changes that would be necessary for this to really happen) . . .

The Chinese know where India is, and where the Phillipines are, and Indonesia as well. So that's the logical starting point. They keep sailing to the next island over, based on reports from merchants.

I can see Chinese fleets sailing from island to island in Polynesia, where the inhabitants of one island tell them, "Yes, the next island is over the horizon, about this far away and in that direction". So they could end up in Australia or New Zealand no problem. What I don't see is them making the jump to Hawaii, and if they did, why would they go from Hawaii to North America?

Few people in their right mind get in a ship and head "out there" in an indeterminate direction with no indication that there is anything out there to find. Most of the European explorers were looking for something that they had some evidence was there.

For the Chinese to find North America, they would have to sail north, past Korea and Japan, up to Siberia, and then decide to keep exploring that icy hell further and further east until they get to some place where they would be willing to settle.

Or you'd have to posit a burning desire to get to Europe bypassing something bad in Central Asia (Timurids? Worse?) and with the same crummy mathematics and ability to sound convincing that made Columbus convince someone you could get to the Indies sailing west before you ran out of supplies (wouldn't have happened even if the Americas weren't in the way). Part of the problem is that the 'get rich by bypassing the Ottomans and Italians' motive doesn't exist for China, because they don't go somewhere to buy luxury goods to bring back to target markets, instead foreigners go there to buy luxury goods. Essentially, they were too rich and comfortable economically speaking to really want to explore.
 
Ok, after thinking about it a bit i came to conclusion that the earliest date is about 1600-1650 :D

Seriously, even in 1700, America is basically empty. It needs reliable oceanic travel and reasonable reasons for people to go there.

I think the several million Native Americans on the continent in 1700 might question that comment.

As for who might colonize North America again, the Vikings had the best chance, of course. English and Basque fishermen were reportedly fishing the Grand Banks and hunting whales off the Labrador coast well before Columbus; he allegedly heard about land to the west during a visit to Bristol, England, whose fishermen had already defied the King by refusing to identify where they caught the cod they were bringing back by the boatload despite the decline in local cod stocks. There was evidence that someone had a fishing station on Matinicus Island off the coast of Maine in the mid-1400s and perhaps on the mainland at Pemaquid. Even if true, those seasonal settlements don't really qualify, I suppose.
 

Maur

Banned
I think the several million Native Americans on the continent in 1700 might question that comment.

As for who might colonize North America again, the Vikings had the best chance, of course. English and Basque fishermen were reportedly fishing the Grand Banks and hunting whales off the Labrador coast well before Columbus; he allegedly heard about land to the west during a visit to Bristol, England, whose fishermen had already defied the King by refusing to identify where they caught the cod they were bringing back by the boatload despite the decline in local cod stocks. There was evidence that someone had a fishing station on Matinicus Island off the coast of Maine in the mid-1400s and perhaps on the mainland at Pemaquid. Even if true, those seasonal settlements don't really qualify, I suppose.
Several million people on continent so big means it's basically empty ;) (anyway, it's about colonization, so i guessed settlers count, only)
 
Stupid question, since I really don't know squat about Carthaginian non-military ship types. All I know about are galleys, that can't go more than a couple days without stopping for water refills. Did the Carthaginians build ships capable of conducting long open-ocean voyages and carrying enough people/cargo to make colonization practical?

Here's what I got from the BBC website @ http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1029313

"The the Carthaginians had originally come from Phoenicia in the Eastern Mediterranean. They were great sailors and inherited their seamanship from their Phoenician ancestors. As well as sailing throughout the Mediterranean, it is known that they went through the Straits of Gibraltar and explored the Atlantic coasts of Spain and North Africa. The Greek historian Herodotus records that they eventually sailed the whole way around Africa. Another Greek historian, Diodorus, reported in 100 BC that the Carthaginians knew of a large island far out in the Atlantic which had many mountains and large navigable rivers. This island was a great source of wealth to them but they kept its location secret. They had discovered it by accident when a ship sailing down the coast of Africa was blown off course by a storm."


Hero of Canton

 
Here's what I got from the BBC website @ http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1029313

"The the Carthaginians had originally come from Phoenicia in the Eastern Mediterranean. They were great sailors and inherited their seamanship from their Phoenician ancestors. As well as sailing throughout the Mediterranean, it is known that they went through the Straits of Gibraltar and explored the Atlantic coasts of Spain and North Africa. The Greek historian Herodotus records that they eventually sailed the whole way around Africa. Another Greek historian, Diodorus, reported in 100 BC that the Carthaginians knew of a large island far out in the Atlantic which had many mountains and large navigable rivers. This island was a great source of wealth to them but they kept its location secret. They had discovered it by accident when a ship sailing down the coast of Africa was blown off course by a storm."

Hero of Canton

I'll believe a ship getting blown off course from the coast of Africa and discovering Madeira, or the Canaries. Saying 'mountains and rivers' does not mean necessarily that we are talking of a continent -- Madeira has both, and it's just over 300 miles from the African coast. I'm not sure I buy going all the way across the Atlantic that way, because the second they got control of the ship, they would start heading back east. Any marginally comptent sailor can tell which way he's going once the cloud cover breaks. And that begs the question of fresh water. Most Carthaginian ships I'm familiar with were galleys, which required regular stops for supply of water. Galleys can explore nearly indefinitely if they are hugging a coastline and stopping to resupply -- all the way around Africa, or up the Atlantic coast to Normandy and thence to Britain. They can't cross open ocean that takes 2+ months to sail across.

But discovery isn't the question, it was colonization. That requires sailing ships large enough to transport enough settlers for a viable colony and to take goods back to the mother country. And I am not aware of Carthaginian ships large enough to fill that requirement. I may be wrong.
 

Cook

Banned
Gavin Menzies is not a credible source.


Menzies is living proof that if you are going to Bullshit, make sure you Bullshit Big!

The man has made a small fortune from claiming as truth a story that would have been rejected by Analog or Azimov’s SF Magazine.
 
See the topic name: Is it plausible for the Americas to be discovered (for the last time) around 1200? What are the conditions for that? What powers might be able to colonize the continent at that time?

Well, the thing is, the Americas were actually known in Europe at that time. As Vinland. Which means they in general thought of it as a large island southwest of Greenland with about Russian climate and natives.
But Vinland was at the end of a long supply chain, where each step reduced the resources that could be applied to a colonization severely.

As for which power were best set for colonization, it is undoubtedly Norway. Norway was getting powerful at the time as well. I think it was about 1240 that Iceland, Greenland, the Faroes and the Shetlands were all Norwegian possesions. A maritime realm with Vinland abutting it.

Your problem is finding a reason for a sufficiently large number of people to want to go to Vinland. As far as they knew back then, there was nothing there that you could not have closer and easier.
I started a TL once where the mongol attack on Europe did not stall, and caused considerable emmigration westwards once. Around that time too.
 

DISSIDENT

Banned
I give the Phoenicians or Carthaginians a good claim as earliest possible settlement.

If they really tried or had some compelling reason, (winning the Punic Wars, fleeing losing them, etc.) they could find the New World.

At that time, I think the technological gap would be much less between the Native civilizations and the Carthaginians.

You'd probably end up with hybrid city-states.

The suffetes of Mayapan.
 

Maur

Banned
Well, the thing is, the Americas were actually known in Europe at that time. As Vinland. Which means they in general thought of it as a large island southwest of Greenland with about Russian climate and natives.
But Vinland was at the end of a long supply chain, where each step reduced the resources that could be applied to a colonization severely.

As for which power were best set for colonization, it is undoubtedly Norway. Norway was getting powerful at the time as well. I think it was about 1240 that Iceland, Greenland, the Faroes and the Shetlands were all Norwegian possesions. A maritime realm with Vinland abutting it.

Your problem is finding a reason for a sufficiently large number of people to want to go to Vinland. As far as they knew back then, there was nothing there that you could not have closer and easier.
I started a TL once where the mongol attack on Europe did not stall, and caused considerable emmigration westwards once. Around that time too.
Well, actually Scandinavians were one of the few people that had possible reason to cross the Atlantic for settling - land hunger. Or at least western, Swedes had all of easter Europe closer. And western had British Isles... And even if, Scandinavians don't make sufficiently large number of people...
 
No, 1) kumiss is a steppe thing, the Icelanders do skyr (sort of, but not quite, yogurt)
2) if it HAD been fermented, the skraelings wouldn't have gotten sick, and thought they were poisoned.

I was thinking of skyr, which I thought was basically kumiss. Sorry. But why would they not think they were sick? If you wre getting drunk for the first time...
 
as a descendant of leif erikson, i like the idea of scandinavians holding onto vinland and markland. i think actually, if the vikings had post-poned their adventure to the new world to a time where other nations were more willing to expand and convert the heathens of this new land rather than converting the heathens next door, and not having to worry about, you know, the vikings, i think a more complete discovery of the americas could happen.

i could bet irish missionaries would be the first ones on a boat over :cool:
 
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