WI: Cortes vs. Babur

Hendryk

Banned
Inspired by Krall's AH challenge: Hispanic India.

The POD: in 1474, Portuguese explorer Joao Vaz Corte-Real is blown off-course while on a trip to the Azores and ends up, after drifting for weeks, in sight of the coast of Brazil. He sails home and tells King Afonso V of his discovery. This sets major butterflies in motion that others are free to explore, but here I'd like to focus on a specific consequence: in TTL, Portugual shifts its attention to the New World and largely preempts Spanish expansion into Cortia (the continent's official name from 1507 onwards), a situation formalized with the Treaty of Alcaçovas in 1479. Instead, Spain, having liquidated the Muslim presence on the Iberian peninsula in 1492 with the fall of Grenada, decides to take over African circumnavigation where Portugal left off. In 1495, Alonso de Ojeda's expedition doubles the southern tip of Africa (naming it Cape Trinity) and reaches the Indian Ocean. Two years later, an expedition led by Juan Ponce de Leon reaches India itself, and founds Esperanza, a trading outpost near Calicut (on the site of Pondicherry in OTL).

In the following years, Spanish trade with India increases exponentially, and Esperanza grows into a boomtown. In 1506, a 21-year-old Hernan Cortez disembarks from a galleon and realizes that nowhere as much as in India does the motto "Audaces fortuna juvat" holds true.

Meanwhile, in the North, a growing power is asserting itself, which in a few years will become the Mughal empire under the leadership of Zahir ud-Din Mohammed a.k.a. Babur.

What next?
 
I liked it!;)

But I think that Cochin or Calicut would be better places for the Spanish arrival than Pondicherry (they would be easier to reach from East Africa).
 

Hendryk

Banned
But I think that Cochin or Calicut would be better places for the Spanish arrival than Pondicherry (they would be easier to reach from East Africa).
Gah! :eek: :eek:

I've made a ridiculous geographical mistake. I thought there was another Pondicherry on the Western coast of India. Forget about that, obviously if the Spanish arrive from around Africa, let's make them set up shop near Calicut. Of course, in TTL, Goa isn't claimed by Portugal and is therefore available.

See, this is why I made the mistake:

cia-map-india-wheeler-island.jpg
 

Keenir

Banned
Babur wins.

...and gets a Spanish princess as a reward.
(who will make him wish he'd lost)

:D
;):cool:
 
Gah! :eek: :eek:

I've made a ridiculous geographical mistake. I thought there was another Pondicherry on the Western coast of India. Forget about that, obviously if the Spanish arrive from around Africa, let's make them set up shop near Calicut. Of course, in TTL, Goa isn't claimed by Portugal and is therefore available.

One thing that would help the Spanish is bring gifts really valuable... OTL when the Portuguese arrived they had already spent all their valuable gifts in African ports, and where not prepared to deal with a sofisticated society as the Indian courts. The Samorim of Calicut didn't give them much attention due to it, and the relation with the Portuguese already started shifting from indiference to resistance. If the Spanish bring something really valuable with them, maybe the initial relation can be better.
 
Portugal very likely HAD discovered the Caribbean and Brazil before Columbus. The Spanish threw the full weight of their empire behind New World colonization, which Portugal was too spread out and too established in their existing trade routes to do. I think what would be better is to have an alt-Columbus plant a bug in Isabella's ear about India in 1492.

The Caribbean would be much slower in developing, as the Spanish treasure fleets wouldn't be a magnetic attraction for the French, English, and Dutch. I think North American colonization would be slower and more peacemeal, with OTL also-rans like Courland, Scotland, and the Scandinavian countries more successful in establishing colonies. The northern part of North America would be much like OTL due to the fur trade.

Anyway, sorry to hijack, but I don't think it's very likely that we can just handwave a Portuguese New World as easily

Inspired by Krall's AH challenge: Hispanic India.

The POD: in 1474, Portuguese explorer Joao Vaz Corte-Real is blown off-course while on a trip to the Azores and ends up, after drifting for weeks, in sight of the coast of Brazil. He sails home and tells King Afonso V of his discovery. This sets major butterflies in motion that others are free to explore, but here I'd like to focus on a specific consequence: in TTL, Portugual shifts its attention to the New World and largely preempts Spanish expansion into Cortia (the continent's official name from 1507 onwards), a situation formalized with the Treaty of Alcaçovas in 1479. Instead, Spain, having liquidated the Muslim presence on the Iberian peninsula in 1492 with the fall of Grenada, decides to take over African circumnavigation where Portugal left off. In 1495, Alonso de Ojeda's expedition doubles the southern tip of Africa (naming it Cape Trinity) and reaches the Indian Ocean. Two years later, an expedition led by Juan Ponce de Leon reaches India itself, and founds Esperanza, a trading outpost near Calicut (on the site of Pondicherry in OTL).

In the following years, Spanish trade with India increases exponentially, and Esperanza grows into a boomtown. In 1506, a 21-year-old Hernan Cortez disembarks from a galleon and realizes that nowhere as much as in India does the motto "Audaces fortuna juvat" holds true.

Meanwhile, in the North, a growing power is asserting itself, which in a few years will become the Mughal empire under the leadership of Zahir ud-Din Mohammed a.k.a. Babur.

What next?
 
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