WI: Amerindian Guncotton

[SinghKing]

Based on a possibility which arose to me upon reading SPJ's recent WI thread- What if, in an ATL, the Native Amerindians managed to discover Guncotton prior to Columbus' arrival in the New World? It isn't as far fetched or ridiculous as it sounds- Nitric Acid (/'aqua fortis') can be produced by using extremely primitive chemistry. And as for the discovery of guncotton itself, it's difficult to see how it wouldn't be discovered swiftly afterwards, in those regions where they already used cotton for virtually all of their cloth, by the same accidental means as Christian Friedrich Schönbein discovered it IOTL. By simply spilling a batch of their aqua fortis, cleaning it up with a cotton cloth, and then hanging the cloth somewhere warm to dry (where it'll subsequently explode).

How much would the discovery of low-grade guncotton (back in the 14th or 15th century), and the subsequent development of weapons to utilise the, have an impact on proceedings, both prior to the Columbian Exchange and after it? Proper firearms seem a bit far-fetched, but fire-lances, utilising the South American varieties of Bamboo which were being already used by the natives to make spears and lances IOTL, seem plausible enough. And hand grenades (a high-explosive version of the bolas?) would also be extremely simple to produce and use in battle. How much would this shift the balance of power?

 

[Mekajiki]

Unfortunately for what could be a cool POD, I don't think this changes much. The military arm of the Amerindian powers wasn't the weak link, it was the diseases that did them in. Making them stronger military may allow them a little more wiggle room, but they are still going to suffer what amounts to an apocalypse when the Europeans arrive regardless.

 

[Flashman]

What he said. It may slow things down, but it doesn't really change Amerindian lack of resistance to disease. Since so much Aztec history will be butterflied away they may not be so divided b the time of Spanish arrival.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

There's a reason guncotton took as long as it did to be developed. You need really pure nitric and sulfuric acids or the stuff is highly unstable.

To get those acids that pure, you need 19th century chemistry, or equivalent, which means a much more technical society than any one had in the Americas.

 

[SinghKing]

There's a reason guncotton took as long as it did to be developed. You need really pure nitric and sulfuric acids or the stuff is highly unstable.

To get those acids that pure, you need 19th century chemistry, or equivalent, which means a much more technical society than any one had in the Americas.

Wasn't medieval gunpowder highly unstable as well? Sure, you'd need purer, more concentrated nitric acid for stable, high-grade explosives; but shouldn't regular aqua fortis be enough to create lower-grade guncotton, roughly on a par with contemporary gunpowder (albeit smokeless)?

 

[Sir Chaos]

Wouldn´t you need some serious metalworking anyway, in order to build gunpowder weapons?

 

[SinghKing]

Unfortunately for what could be a cool POD, I don't think this changes much. The military arm of the Amerindian powers wasn't the weak link, it was the diseases that did them in. Making them stronger military may allow them a little more wiggle room, but they are still going to suffer what amounts to an apocalypse when the Europeans arrive regardless.

Why is this always the default answer when we talk about Native Americans in an ATL? That nothing that ever happens in the Americas prior to the Europeans' arrival can ever matter, because the Native Americans are all going to die when the Europeans and their diseases arrive anyway? You might all well argue that the conquest of Europe was inevitable, because they were still always going to suffer what amounted to an apocalypse, and get done in by the Black Death when the Mongols arrived.

 

[SinghKing]

Wouldn´t you need some serious metalworking anyway, in order to build gunpowder weapons?

The Chinese used bamboo first- no reason why that wouldn't work in the Americas. Hand grenades and bombshells were the next gunpowder weapons to be developed in the old world IOTL- as fragmentary devices, it was more effective to use ceramics rather than metals for their casings. And by the time that Columbus arrived, plenty of larger Amerindian empires were using bronze, from which they'd have been able to cast the barrels of hand cannons.

 

[Sir Chaos]

Why is this always the default answer when we talk about Native Americans in an ATL? That nothing that ever happens in the Americas prior to the Europeans' arrival can ever matter, because the Native Americans are all going to die when the Europeans and their diseases arrive anyway? You might all well argue that the conquest of Europe was inevitable, because they were still always going to suffer what amounted to an apocalypse, and get done in by the Black Death when the Mongols arrived.

One thing would matter: If the natives had domesticated animals to the degree that the Europeans did, and in the process diseases had developed that "jumped" from these animals to humans, then at the very least I suppose European would have been hit as hard by American diseases as America was hit by European diseases - plus they´d have had a higher population to "soak up" the population loss from disease.

Also... if there´d been more extensive contact between Europeans and Native Americans when the Vikings discovered Vinland, extensive enough for European diseases to hit the natives, maybe these diseases would have swept the Americas back then, and by the time of Columbus, the Native American population would largely have recovered and grown resistant to the Europeans diseases.

 

[Roger II]

I mean, part of the reason the diseases were as devastating as they were was the widespread social disruption of the conquest; something that changes the balance of power even somewhat is going to substantially affect this social disruption and probably the spread of disease.

 

[yulzari]

Wasn't medieval gunpowder highly unstable as well? Sure, you'd need purer, more concentrated nitric acid for stable, high-grade explosives; but shouldn't regular aqua fortis be enough to create lower-grade guncotton, roughly on a par with contemporary gunpowder (albeit smokeless)?

Medieval gunpowder was fairly stable. Careless handling and the need for a lighted slow match in the vicinity to set it off were a problem. When expensive flintlock types began to be made they were a priority for those guarding the ammunition train before the infantry, purely for these safety reasons.

Badly made gun cotton is horribly unstable both in the making and use. I think it could have been done but the learning process would soon put you off. This is not a substance for learning by trial and error!

Using gun cotton in a gun is definitely not on. The barrel will blow up, literally in your face. It took 40 odd years of informed chemical science to go from gun cotton to smokeless powders in guns. For example, the first service issue bolt action rifles of both the UK and Austro-Hungary in the late 1880s had to revert to gunpowder at first until they had reliable supplies of a nitro cellulose propellant.

I am sure there must have been an Amerindian blackpowder thread here and this is a far more likely alternative. Quite possibly using their plentiful sources of sodium nitrate instead of our preferred potassium nitrate.

 

[wietze]

not just badly made guncotton, but all guncotton really.
the stuff tends to degrade of time and selfignite.
only later they handled that problem by adding stabilisers.