WI: Europeans colonized America 1000 years earlier

What if a Byzantine or Frank or someone in the late 5th century decided to see what's across the ocean? And what if they then made it back to tell everyone about what they found? Would this lead to Europe advancing much faster than in OTL and an early rise of the west occurring?
 
No. There would need to be some kind of reason for Europeans to be interested in the Americas.

When Colombus landed in America, he had promised his backers a lot of gold. So he vastly exaggerated what little gold he found. Only dumb luck (for him, not the Americans of the time) led to vast amounts of gold and silver being found later. Then Spain pulled in enormous wealth from the Americas, and everyone else in Europe wanted in on it. Before that lesson, there was not that much interest in faraway lands, they just weren't seen as especially valuable.
 
The fifth century is a bad time for anyone to try colonising America. Europe is on the brink of demographic collapse through epidemics, population shifts and worsening weather. Even if you found someone willing to go (and as Umbral pointed out, why would they want to?), the colonists woulds be few in number and endangered by the same factors that threatened them at home. It's unlikely they would be organised or powerful enough to take on the big native polities, and there are as yet no large-scale settled communities on much of the northern East coast.

Realistically, you would be looking at a few Irish monastics embracing the most extreme form of white martyrdom on the shores of America.

Now, if you had regular - however tenuous - contact across the Atlantic still going on by the time Europe's population recovers and its political structure solidifies, that could have interesting implications. By 1200, colonisation is possible. It would look very different, though, especiaslly if the first comers had already brought over diseases and the Native American communities have had time to recover from the impact.
 

jahenders

Banned
It's not too likely because (as others have noted) that was a rough time for Europe. However, I could see a few (remote) possibilities:
- The Scotti: Around this time the Scotti came from Ireland and became the dominant power in Scotland. You could potentially have a few Scotti leaders (unable to get a place in Scotland) instead sail West and set up something in NE Canada (perhaps on the scale of the Viking settlements, but with more luck).
- The Vandals: By this time, the Vandals were primarily focused on a kingdom in NW Africa. They did have a fairly strong naval tradition (using ships against Rome decades before) and they were in one of the geographically closer areas to S. America.
- The Suebi or Visigoths: Both were settled in modern Spain and they were often on good terms. Either could potentially sail across to Cuba or some such.
- The Franks: They were a powerhouse in W. Europe at the time and could potentially have tried. However, they probably had their hands full with everyone they were fighting.

As noted, they'd need a reason. Exploration could be a possibility to start, but then if they got lucky with where they landed, they might maintain a trading colony.

One other possibility could be a response to religious persecution. Several of these groups were Christian, but held heretical views (Arianism, etc.). When the Catholic church started pressing them, some might have fled to a colony in the New World.

Again, any of these is unlikely, but at least remotely possible.

If one of these did this and was able to maintain a colony, it could have substantial impacts:
- Introduction of European diseases to the New World at a different place and rate might allow diffusion over time and eventual resistance without the same level of loss of life or bad timing (right as lots of colonists were coming).
- Earlier knowledge of (portions of) the Americas might prompt some later powers to try colonizing before 1492 ..
- Since a few of these were 'heretical' Christians, this could potentially create a non-standard Christian presence in the Americas before big settlements from Catholic Spain, Portugal, etc. They might arrive to find colonies and nearby natives devoted to Arianism.
 
Was naval technology in Europe even capable of reliably reaching/supplying North America at this time? I'm pretty sure you'd need some stepping stones first, like the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland in the north, and in the south, Cape Verde and probably the Canary Islands. For the Canary Islands, that would mean whoever wants to colonise the Americas needs to conquer them first. I don't think Columbus's route could even reliably be sailed--you'd need to go down by Brazil or follow the route taken by the Vikings to Vinland.

With this in mind, I don't think anyone in 5th century Europe could do it or ever would, since the biggest question is why. They should just colonise Northern Europe instead, since they'd encounter about as much resistance, have about as difficult supply lines, and get the same amount of resources and agricultural land.
 
I want to point out that even if diseases get introduced earlier the Natives still would suffer somewhat later when European contact gets stronger because they obviously wouldn´t get the full package and later Eurasian diseases.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
I want to point out that even if diseases get introduced earlier the Natives still would suffer somewhat later when European contact gets stronger because they obviously wouldn´t get the full package and later Eurasian diseases.

It all depends on how contact and European presence develop. If we accept the idea that disease was by far the biggest killer of the contact era (which I do believe), and actual conquest etc. only played a secondary role when it comes to the number of native Americans' dying, then any European presence is going to lead to a huge "dying off" anyway. So, yeah... if we're dealing with temporary contact around 500 or so (only to be re-established around OTL's moment of contact), that's actually worse for the native Americans. They get hit with terrible disease around 500, take a huge hit from that, and then go back to isolation. No resistance is built up to constantly adapting disease in Europa, so a thousand years later... it all happens again. Net effect: it's one more vast wave of epidemics around 500 that they have to recover from, which only weakens their later developmental position when it's time for "round two", while giving them no benefits at all.

On the other hand, if contact is sustained... then it's easy to see the vast epidemics around 500 being terrible, and a wave of disease gradually burning its way trough the "New World"... but after that's over and done with, the lasting contact eventually does result in a resistant population. That requires pretty intense contact, though. And the risk of that scenario - for the native peoples - is European powers starting to colonise as in OTL, just way earlier. Of course, back in 500 large-scale colonisation is less likely...

A situation where some European power establishes lasting trade posts on the eastern seaboard, but not much beyond that, is not terribly unlikely... once you've gotten past the POD and actually established reasons and means to get to America. Initial contact then leads to disease, if the trade is profitable it leads to more trade posts, which leads to European diseases basically burning trough the Americas in a number of waves... and after that, resistance to those European diseases becomes a fact. Over the next hundreds of years, the native population numbers gradually recover, and maybe trade with European powers (coupled with a lack of mass settling) could result in greater technological parity by the time European powers get to the point where mass settlement becomes realistic.

It's perhaps not the most likely outcome, but it is a possibility.
 
It all depends on how contact and European presence develop. If we accept the idea that disease was by far the biggest killer of the contact era (which I do believe), and actual conquest etc. only played a secondary role when it comes to the number of native Americans' dying, then any European presence is going to lead to a huge "dying off" anyway. So, yeah... if we're dealing with temporary contact around 500 or so (only to be re-established around OTL's moment of contact), that's actually worse for the native Americans. They get hit with terrible disease around 500, take a huge hit from that, and then go back to isolation. No resistance is built up to constantly adapting disease in Europa, so a thousand years later... it all happens again. Net effect: it's one more vast wave of epidemics around 500 that they have to recover from, which only weakens their later developmental position when it's time for "round two", while giving them no benefits at all.

On the other hand, if contact is sustained... then it's easy to see the vast epidemics around 500 being terrible, and a wave of disease gradually burning its way trough the "New World"... but after that's over and done with, the lasting contact eventually does result in a resistant population. That requires pretty intense contact, though. And the risk of that scenario - for the native peoples - is European powers starting to colonise as in OTL, just way earlier. Of course, back in 500 large-scale colonisation is less likely...

A situation where some European power establishes lasting trade posts on the eastern seaboard, but not much beyond that, is not terribly unlikely... once you've gotten past the POD and actually established reasons and means to get to America. Initial contact then leads to disease, if the trade is profitable it leads to more trade posts, which leads to European diseases basically burning trough the Americas in a number of waves... and after that, resistance to those European diseases becomes a fact. Over the next hundreds of years, the native population numbers gradually recover, and maybe trade with European powers (coupled with a lack of mass settling) could result in greater technological parity by the time European powers get to the point where mass settlement becomes realistic.

It's perhaps not the most likely outcome, but it is a possibility.
I think they will be better off relatively because they will have a smaller shock effect because of a smaller disease. With my post I meant to say that it will not mean the end of Old World diseases even if the main part went.

I kinda doubt we can have a 5th century contact so I was more speaking about Viking times and such.
 
It all depends on how contact and European presence develop. If we accept the idea that disease was by far the biggest killer of the contact era (which I do believe), and actual conquest etc. only played a secondary role when it comes to the number of native Americans' dying, then any European presence is going to lead to a huge "dying off" anyway. So, yeah... if we're dealing with temporary contact around 500 or so (only to be re-established around OTL's moment of contact), that's actually worse for the native Americans. They get hit with terrible disease around 500, take a huge hit from that, and then go back to isolation. No resistance is built up to constantly adapting disease in Europa, so a thousand years later... it all happens again. Net effect: it's one more vast wave of epidemics around 500 that they have to recover from, which only weakens their later developmental position when it's time for "round two", while giving them no benefits at all.

On the other hand, if contact is sustained... then it's easy to see the vast epidemics around 500 being terrible, and a wave of disease gradually burning its way trough the "New World"... but after that's over and done with, the lasting contact eventually does result in a resistant population. That requires pretty intense contact, though. And the risk of that scenario - for the native peoples - is European powers starting to colonise as in OTL, just way earlier. Of course, back in 500 large-scale colonisation is less likely...

A situation where some European power establishes lasting trade posts on the eastern seaboard, but not much beyond that, is not terribly unlikely... once you've gotten past the POD and actually established reasons and means to get to America. Initial contact then leads to disease, if the trade is profitable it leads to more trade posts, which leads to European diseases basically burning trough the Americas in a number of waves... and after that, resistance to those European diseases becomes a fact. Over the next hundreds of years, the native population numbers gradually recover, and maybe trade with European powers (coupled with a lack of mass settling) could result in greater technological parity by the time European powers get to the point where mass settlement becomes realistic.

It's perhaps not the most likely outcome, but it is a possibility.

1,000 years is not enough time to recover. Not even remotely. We've had threads asking this same question many times and consensus has been clear regarding what would happen.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
1,000 years is not enough time to recover. Not even remotely. We've had threads asking this same question many times and consensus has been clear regarding what would happen.

I agree that full recovery would not occur within that timeframe. But full recovery of numbers is not needed. Getting hit a thousand years earlier and having those thousand years to at least recover to some extent, while also gaining a better position in regards to technological parity, would in all likelihood still be better for the native Americans than OTL.

"Better than OTL" is not the same as "perfect situation for them", but I didn't think or claim that it would be.
 
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I doubt the tech exists at this point in time to get a ship to America. Europe at this point is just too divided and too torn up by the decline of the Roman Empire to have much interest in sailing off the western edge of the map, even if the technology to do so existed. There are lateen sails bouncing around in the period, sure, but mostly in the eastern Mediterranean - and the Persians and Greeks probably care more about their immediate neighbourhood than on looking to the ocean.
 
I agree that full recovery would not occur within that timeframe. But full recovery of numbers is not needed. Getting hit a thousand years earlier and having those thousand years to at least recover to some extent, while also gaining a better position in regards to technological parity, would in all likelihood still be better for the native Americans than OTL.

"Better than OTL" is not the same as "perfect situation for them", but I didn't think or claim that it would be.

Can you elaborate on how they would gain a better position in regards to technological parity without horses and when this demographic decline would almost certainly not result in the sudden epiphany of bronze or iron metallurgy.
 
For it to work, you'd probably have to have contact sooner. Around the time of the Phoenicians who did have the tech,ships and navigation skills to make to the Americas, definitely the Caribbean at the least and then come up with trade items that people in Europe and Africa would be interested in. If they made it to Mesoamerica, they could run into the Mayan civilization and get some trade going there.And the Mayans were about in their Classic Period as well. Maybe use parts of the Caribbean as a source of piracy like later on in 1500's thru 1700's. Even then it's a stretch. But for colonization or even trade to happen a millenium sooner, I'd go even earlier to the Phoenicians.
 
For it to work, you'd probably have to have contact sooner. Around the time of the Phoenicians who did have the tech,ships and navigation skills to make to the Americas, definitely the Caribbean at the least and then come up with trade items that people in Europe and Africa would be interested in. If they made it to Mesoamerica, they could run into the Mayan civilization and get some trade going there.And the Mayans were about in their Classic Period as well. Maybe use parts of the Caribbean as a source of piracy like later on in 1500's thru 1700's. Even then it's a stretch. But for colonization or even trade to happen a millenium sooner, I'd go even earlier to the Phoenicians.
With the Phoenicians you have less number of different diseases, but still some disease differences. Consider that the Phoenicians set up independent colonies in the Caribbean, a la Carthage OTL in the Med. then you'd the Phoenicians not have much contact back home, you don't need two-way trade established. Later Euroasian contact could still be devastating from a point of diseases. And I doubt the Phoenicians are bringing horses and may lose any knowledge of horses other than in religious/historical stories. Though we would have relatively advanced metallurgical knowledge and shipbuilding coming into the Americas and diffusing through the continent; this could give the Americas an ability to keep up... but without horses and still being vulnerable to diseases history may not be repeating itself with OTL but it sure will rhyme.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Can you elaborate on how they would gain a better position in regards to technological parity without horses and when this demographic decline would almost certainly not result in the sudden epiphany of bronze or iron metallurgy.

Well, in a situation where mass settlement is neither a goal, nor very achievable at first, the purpose of European outposts would mostly be to trade. Technology has a way of spreading through trade and other ways of interaction. It's not as if Europeans went up and decided "let's keep this particular technology a secret". In OTL, the Spanish made it law (for a time) to forbid natives from owning a horse or a gun. It was rather ineffective, and both still spread to the natives rapidly. Sure, it took some time, but it's not as if native Americans didn't start using horses and guns and whatever the hell else they could get their hands on when it proved useful.

That's in OTL, where colonialist rulers at least had a notion that spreading useful means to a potential enemy might be strategically unwise. Even then, it didn't work, because private parties saw profit in selling guns and horses etc. to natives, or in using natives as cheap labour (which often acquainted said natives with certain technologies, and with horse-riding etc.)

In a scenario with trade-based and presumably largely non-hostile relations between the Europeans and the native population, why wouldn't technology spread? Lacking the motivations particular to a colonial ruler, traders wouldn't even bother with laws to attempt to hinder such a spread. On the contrary: they'd want to sell anything that could get them a profit. OTL shows that a not inconsiderable number of native Americans quickly understood the value of horses, guns etc. ...so why would that be different in this ATL?

This is still not saying that the native Americans are going to end up in a strong enough position to fend off eventual colonisation, but I'm banking on a better situation than what we saw in OTL. It's not as if the native population was somehow intellectually incapable of embracing useful technologies and techniques.
 
For it to work, you'd probably have to have contact sooner. Around the time of the Phoenicians who did have the tech,ships and navigation skills to make to the Americas, definitely the Caribbean at the least and then come up with trade items that people in Europe and Africa would be interested in. If they made it to Mesoamerica, they could run into the Mayan civilization and get some trade going there.And the Mayans were about in their Classic Period as well. Maybe use parts of the Caribbean as a source of piracy like later on in 1500's thru 1700's. Even then it's a stretch. But for colonization or even trade to happen a millenium sooner, I'd go even earlier to the Phoenicians.

Getting to the Caribbean? Wouldn't the easiest route just be to Brazil, since that's the one the Phoenicians are most likely to find?

In a scenario with trade-based and presumably largely non-hostile relations between the Europeans and the native population, why wouldn't technology spread? Lacking the motivations particular to a colonial ruler, traders wouldn't even bother with laws to attempt to hinder such a spread. On the contrary: they'd want to sell anything that could get them a profit. OTL shows that a not inconsiderable number of native Americans quickly understood the value of horses, guns etc. ...so why would that be different in this ATL?

This is still not saying that the native Americans are going to end up in a strong enough position to fend off eventual colonisation, but I'm banking on a better situation than what we saw in OTL. It's not as if the native population was somehow intellectually incapable of embracing useful technologies and techniques.

It didn't OTL, since for the most part, all that trade just created a dependence on European goods rather than making the goods themselves. And why not, since even if the natives did get their own blacksmiths or what have you, they'd make inferior quality goods to what European blacksmiths were making, PLUS that means that that individual was no longer available to do other tasks since he was now spending all his time blacksmithing, so why not just get the white man to do it for you? Only more organised societies would be able to truly adapt metalworking, and there weren't a lot of those outside the East Coast.

But I don't know, if there's no real supply of European goods due to huge distance, poor supply, etc., maybe in that case you'd see more of an effort. But then there wouldn't be any real influx of European goods to begin with, and they'd be rather rare and possibly just used as status symbols and not actually used for their intended purpose.
 
I want to point out that even if diseases get introduced earlier the Natives still would suffer somewhat later when European contact gets stronger because they obviously wouldn´t get the full package and later Eurasian diseases.

Not on the cities (People and People proximity would allow said plagues to remain mutating) and if the Europeans come back, I bet Europe would suffer with epidemics.
 
Not on the cities (People and People proximity would allow said plagues to remain mutating) and if the Europeans come back, I bet Europe would suffer with epidemics.
The reduced population density of the Americas can´t possibly keep the pace in epidemics with the Old World.
 
The reduced population density of the Americas can´t possibly keep the pace in epidemics with the Old World.

Let's place 90% of a death toll (where the survivors, with germs, multiply, generating people with immunity, then, people and people contact...)

1000 years pass.

How much people would have?

Also you don't figured, I do spoke about germs mutating.

If they came 1000 years later, Europe would suffer a epidemic because said germs would be totally different of the germs Europeans would have immunity.
 
Let's place 90% of a death toll (where the survivors, with germs, multiply, generating people with immunity, then, people and people contact...)

1000 years pass.

How much people would have?

Also you don't figured, I do spoke about germs mutating.

If they came 1000 years later, Europe would suffer a epidemic because said germs would be totally different of the germs Europeans would have immunity.
Point is that the Americas already had their disease going IOTL, they didn´t affect Europeans much because of their more robust immunity system(brought up through heavy exchange/trade with other civilization and domestical animals use for millennia). You have syphilis but I´m not sure how you are gonna find something bigger. We should ask those question to people more expert on this.
 
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