WI: Columbus's voyage is held up 3 days

And disease immunity is built up over time. The Incas could lose a half or even three quarters of their population, but if the Spanish are held up enough they'll build up immunities and rebuild their population and empire.

Its also important to remember that since the Inca where the most populous group on the continent a third or more of them dying in an epidemic leaves more of them alive to defend themselves (and keep that immunity going long term) long term. It may "only" be as bad as the Black death was for Europe.
 
And disease immunity is built up over time. The Incas could lose a half or even three quarters of their population, but if the Spanish are held up enough they'll build up immunities and rebuild their population and empire.

Disease from the original Columbian Exchange killed between 80% and 90% of the American natives. The comparisons to the Black Plague are not really useful.
 
Disease from the original Columbian Exchange killed between 80% and 90% of the American natives. The comparisons to the Black Plague are not really useful.

90% leaves over a million Incas who are ready to hold up the Conquistadors of TTL, who I believe are held up with the Aztecs or something. They can easily rebound, if maneuvered right.
 
90% leaves over a million Incas who are ready to hold up the Conquistadors of TTL, who I believe are held up with the Aztecs or something. They can easily rebound, if maneuvered right.

It leaves a completely devastated people who will have to rebuild their entire society from the ground up. Trade, farming and infrastructure will completely collapse, as it did in real life. There are not even enough people to dispose of all the bodies.

It will take a century at least for the Incas to return to a standard of living comparable to what they experienced before.
 
Well considering in all likelihood Mr. C. got his "knowledge" of lands across the ocean from his trip/visit to Iceland... *cough, cough norse*... sooner or later someone else would have "followed the rumours" (heck, at this time the Greenland colony was still alive).
 
It leaves a completely devastated people who will have to rebuild their entire society from the ground up. Trade, farming and infrastructure will completely collapse, as it did in real life. There are not even enough people to dispose of all the bodies.

It will take a century at least for the Incas to return to a standard of living comparable to what they experienced before.

Well, rebound enough to maintain mountain holdings and repel the Spaniards somewhat.
 
Disease from the original Columbian Exchange killed between 80% and 90% of the American natives. The comparisons to the Black Plague are not really useful.

Actually its not that clear cut, it killed anywhere from 64% of the population to 94,%, given how there are still Inca alive today who are a majority in atleast two countries I'm willing to bet it was in the lower percentages there. And again that is "only" about as serious as the black death which while it caused tremendous upheval did not utterly collapse society.
 
Well considering in all likelihood Mr. C. got his "knowledge" of lands across the ocean from his trip/visit to Iceland... *cough, cough norse*... sooner or later someone else would have "followed the rumours" (heck, at this time the Greenland colony was still alive).

Actually its probably the Basque, they had gone there too. Along with Scots and various other fishing groups.
 

Mathuen

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I was actually just thinking about the Inca. Without the great dying happening at the exact time it did chances are that the succession crisis doesn't happen.

Also, what about the Malinche? This POD is before she was even born and 27 years before she actually became of historical significance. Not to mention that all of that is butterflied if the Aztecs collapse.
 
And disease immunity is built up over time. The Incas could lose a half or even three quarters of their population, but if the Spanish are held up enough they'll build up immunities and rebuild their population and empire.

I seriously doubt that disease immunity can be built up easily. Continental USA was having virgin-population epidemics among some American natives all the way into the early 1900s i.e. right up to vaccination era.

In fact, the less ongoing Spanish presence in Peru, the less resistance the Quechua will have. If contact is infrequent, it's far more likely that every time there IS contact, it's followed by an epidemic.

Seriously, I think people are really overestimating the effect of a few years here and there and really underestimating systemic differences between the populations on the two shores of the Atlantic. The Inca civil war was triggered by uncertainty in succession following the Inca's sudden death (possibly from the very same smallpox).

The Aztecs were putting a lot of pressure and isolating the few remaining powers in central Mexico, without having the manpower to finish them off forever. I bet one of two would gladly jump at the chance to ally with just about anyone else to overthrow the Aztec dominion.

And there could easily be other Malinches, there's always people who fall outside their society's protection and must make their own way to survive and prosper.

While none of these things necessarily WILL happen, any and all of them CAN happen, regardless whether the first contact will be in 1492, 1500, 1521 or even 1600 on the dot. I'd even say I'd expect the writer who decided to save Mesoamerican civilisations using Columbus' non-arrival as a POD to put a fair bit of explanation as to why it made such huge difference.

And I'd almost expect the reasons to have to do more with Africa, Asia, and Indian Ocean trade than America itself. If Spain misses out, the Portuguese discover the place first, and find nothing much more fancy than brazilwood, Spain might decide to focus on Algeria instead. Portugal by itself is too small to pull off as much settlement as Spain did, so that gives you time to change things. You'd also have to keep England out, Portugal alone might not be able to...things like that, basically.
 
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What might make sense is that IF Columbus's voyage doesn't do it, the butterflies mean that specific circumstances giving us Cortez as the guy to land in Mexico don't arise, so when the actual guy lands a little later or earlier, he doesn't get quite as lucky, and so forth.

But I suppose that's another "not so much to do with America itself".
 
Disease from the original Columbian Exchange killed between 80% and 90% of the American natives. The comparisons to the Black Plague are not really useful.

actually in certain areas in china the black death caused the same amounts of fatalities.
 
Actually its not that clear cut, it killed anywhere from 64% of the population to 94,%, given how there are still Inca alive today who are a majority in atleast two countries I'm willing to bet it was in the lower percentages there. And again that is "only" about as serious as the black death which while it caused tremendous upheval did not utterly collapse society.

Aufderheide supports the 80-90% estimate and I cannot find issue with his methodology. Even if we assume the exchange kills only between 64-94% of the natives, you are still left with a disease twice to three times as deadly as the Black Plague. There will be survivors, certainly, but they will not be able to support the society they lived in prior. The human infrastructure is not there.

This happened in the original timeline. There are accounts of early explorers sailing down the coast and seeing completely deserted cities and giant bonfires. The Incans will be weak and scattered. They could possibly hold off the initial wave of conquistadors but they will fall.

actually in certain areas in china the black death caused the same amounts of fatalities.

You are operating on too small a scale. This information by itself is not possible to analyze. Think bigger. How many were killed across China as a whole? What percentage?
 
Just out of curiousity, what actual evidence is there that Basque and Scottish etc fishermen reached the New World? I can't find any credible sources through a quick search.

As it has been said, Portugal won't be able to colonise it all on its own, and Spain will focus more on Algeria etc, so you might see a stronger Inca. I'm not saying they'll take over South America or anything, but they might just manage to hold out, though they'll probably lose quite a bit of territory. Of course, the different attitude taken by a country like Portugal, which doesn't really have the manpower for colonisation, could mean a radically different interaction between natives and *conquistadors. As has been said, England might get more involved in the Caribbean, but I can't speculate much beyond that.
 
Just out of curiousity, what actual evidence is there that Basque and Scottish etc fishermen reached the New World? I can't find any credible sources through a quick search.

As it has been said, Portugal won't be able to colonise it all on its own, and Spain will focus more on Algeria etc, so you might see a stronger Inca. I'm not saying they'll take over South America or anything, but they might just manage to hold out, though they'll probably lose quite a bit of territory. Of course, the different attitude taken by a country like Portugal, which doesn't really have the manpower for colonisation, could mean a radically different interaction between natives and *conquistadors. As has been said, England might get more involved in the Caribbean, but I can't speculate much beyond that.
I think it is likely that they will vassalize the Incas and Aztecs like what they did in Congo.
 
Just out of curiousity, what actual evidence is there that Basque and Scottish etc fishermen reached the New World? I can't find any credible sources through a quick search.

We know for a fact that the Vikings reached "Vinland" which is probably today's Newfoundland. I think it's assumed that groups of sailors ventured over to fish and stuff. I don't know of any credible solid evidence though.
 
Just out of curiousity, what actual evidence is there that Basque and Scottish etc fishermen reached the New World? I can't find any credible sources through a quick search.
Yes, everyone always mentions this when people talk about the New World discovery, but they don't say where they got the info from.
 
Colombus discovery seems to have set in motion a number of worst-case scenarios for the Natives.

Colombus was highly motivated, by which I mean desperate, to find gold for his sponsors. What little he found, he exaggerated and overreported massivly.

Colombus landed in the Caribbean, which gave the Europeans bases with limited numbers of Natives on each island. Take over one island, and the Natives won't recover. Also, short distances from the mesoamericans, without the mesoamericans being able to project power back.

And from which the Europeans could hit the mesoamericans at the same time as the diseases did.

Thats without the flukey luck some of the Conquistadors seemed to have. Which should be butterflied away.

Conversly, if the Americas is discovered from Brazil and Newfoundland, contact working its way north and south, it may be a considerable amount of time before gold fever ignites. There may be a considerable grace period when the new discoveries don't seem to have much worth the trip.

Meanwhile, the diseases will burn through the populations, and the mesoamericans will have some opportunity to retrench before Europeans even get there. And they will hear of Europeans before contact. So they'll have stories of ships, guns, horses etc. rather than all of it just landing on the coast one day.

Basically, a slow expansion of contact from the north and south seem more favorable to the Native Americans than a sudden shock of aliens-with-diseases and goldfever just piling in.
 
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