WI: Medieval colonization of the Americas

We now know that the Vikings explored North America, and there are even traces of colonization efforts. Could other European nations (Christian or Muslim) have the will and tools to colonize the Americas? If we consider an Europe with a still very developed feudal system, what kind of settlements and societies could we expect in the colonies? How would the relationships with the natives develop?
 
I don't think it would have ended up changing history too much, other than specifics of nation names, I think in the end European colonization over Native Americans would have been very similar in results. Massive slavery, disease, destruction, forced conversion, etc.

"History might not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme" would be how this ATL would develop. Remember that the Spanish conquests and rule was not much different than a transportation of Medieval feudal land ownership. Even the Dutch attempted a semi-feudal landownership scheme in New Netherland in the 1600s, with Rensselaerswyck, et al.
 
Maybe Breton, their fishermen knew about OTL Newfoundland from fishing its great bank, so maybe they could build some installation for smoking or salting the cod. Later, after learning about it, their king/queen could build a small outpost to protect their interest in the region. Being 'natural' sailor, I think if they have a clear destination in head they could reach it.

Brittany being a poor region for agriculture, some Breton individuals could decide to try their chance in this new virgin land, creating the first permanent population. Due to low population I don't think their will be migration 'en masse', so contact with native could be relatively peaceful and be restricted to exchanging favour, tips and information. Maybe even interbreeding.

Its only when the settlement will be large enough that royal officials, upperclassmen and maybe small nobility could be interested in maintaining closer contact and more economic development such as exploitation of fur and wood. Maybe a motte-and-Bailey castle to provide protection against possible hostile tribes but not true feudal system with great defensive stronghold. Their is too much free farmer to create a serf class and too much great distance with Brittany to incentive important noble.

Religious would also follow to convert native and create missions.
 
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I don't think it would have ended up changing history too much, other than specifics of nation names, I think in the end European colonization over Native Americans would have been very similar in results. Massive slavery, disease, destruction, forced conversion, etc.

"History might not repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme" would be how this ATL would develop. Remember that the Spanish conquests and rule was not much different than a transportation of Medieval feudal land ownership. Even the Dutch attempted a semi-feudal landownership scheme in New Netherland in the 1600s, with Rensselaerswyck, et al.

While i agree on the economic side, i don't know, the notion of nation state and monarchic absolutism are not present in the Middle Ages. The cultural paradigm in the XII-XIII centuries, for example was the one of the Christian Empire, and of the Papal supremacy over secular rulers.

I think that, given the opportunity to colonize America say, in the XII century (assuming ocean faring technology), we will see a different pattern in colonization:

-pre-eminence of christian missions once civilization is found: what's the first thing to do, in the middle ages, when you find a pagan land? Christianize, of course, and given the decentralization of such maritime adventures (medieval monarchies are not complex or centralized enough to have a say in this), maybe with aristocratic capitals and merchants' fleets, and the lower military sophistication (middle ages tactics vs renaissance ones?). While technology is not that different, military tactics are the real change.

-demographics: while in the XVI-XVII centuries the colonists were from the persecuted social strata, in the high middle ages we will see peasants and cadets making their way to the only thing that mattered at the time: land. Once natives are found, the Papacy would be fast to declare another crusade, like it did in the Baltic. This is important, because you would probably butterfly away the XIV centuries famines and maybe even the Black Death. This means a slower rise of the middle class and a longer feudal lords' hegemony on the lower classes.

While i agree with your "I don't think it would have ended up changing history too much, other than specifics of nation names, I think in the end European colonization over Native Americans would have been very similar in results", you should consider that Natives treatment would be at least moderately imperialist, instead of the Native-screw of OTL, because of the logistical difficulties listed above.

Also, opening the Atlantic in the high middle ages would make the decline of the Mediterranean trade pre-eminence slower. In the end, you would get a slower/earlier Renaissance (just another way to spell "Rise of Europe").

And, if Byzantium dies slower (if it even dies at all), or the Crusades manages to get Egypt (unlikely, but who knows, maybe the fourth crusade goes straight to Egypt?), and thus access to the Red Sea, you would have the Italian maritime-republics on steroids (Venetian Cyprus, just think about it).

A much more interesting world, on the cultural side. Crusader-ideals survive longer, and the medieval ideals would face a slower death, and thus would be more rooted. I'll stop here, before spewing too much ASB :p
 
One thing that could be different is that if it happens in the medieval period, it probably starts in the north and then moves south with new discoveries.

As somebody else suggested, fisherman (Basques perhaps) fishing the Grand Banks start establishing semi-permanent settlements but when they realize that the primary economic benefits are fur, fish, and lumber (not insignificant) they start moving south in search of shinier objects and go from there.

The other thing is word has to leak out. Columbus was not shy about talking about his "discoveries" - if somebody else was their earlier (the Basques or anyone else) they were keeping it a secret for obvious reasons.
 
Well, smallpox will get there sooner, as will Plague.

Which may in act help the natives, earlier exposure would give them more time to recover.

Unless I've gotten it the wrong way round, it might in fact worsen the disease-apocalypse.
 
Which may in act help the natives, earlier exposure would give them more time to recover.

Unless I've gotten it the wrong way round, it might in fact worsen the disease-apocalypse.


Since technology is more even (not by a lot but still) and there's less people in Europe that can move (serfs have little say) and no hugely powerful kings to order colonization, the native population may have a long time to recover before being screwed.

Imagine if Califonria, with its 300,000 natives even AFTER disease, was facing off against men with pikes instead of men with rifles.
 

shiftygiant

Gone Fishin'
Which may in act help the natives, earlier exposure would give them more time to recover.

Unless I've gotten it the wrong way round, it might in fact worsen the disease-apocalypse.

Fairly vague statement, I admit, though my logic was plague would be worse on the population.

But yeah, I agree with you, the natives would have time to recover, maybe even restart civilization on the continent.
 
Wheels of If

The venerable L. Sprague de Camp took this idea in Wheels of If. The year I was born.

Not only would the Americans be able to recover from disease, they would probably be able to absorb European technology better, hardware and methodologies.

By the time the Euros got around to thinking they would take over, the resistance might be pretty steep.

Then, with less "imperial conquest" types, Europeans would probably mingle with the Americans more, and that would lead to interesting developments.
 
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I really want to see someone do an Empty America timeline without the Emptiness - that is, focus on the medieval colonization (and possibly, Mongols conquering Europe) aspects, instead of the lack of Bering Land Bridge leading to prehistoric America bit.

From what I've been able to divine, the main divergences in EA other than no Bering Strait are-

1. Norse settle in Vinland. (minor corollary- Norse paganism survives, as do some Baltic pagan refugees)

2. Hereward the Wake leads Anglo-Saxons to North America thanks to #1, starts English colonies of Niwe Wessex and Niwe Mercia (the latter is later subsumed into the former).

2a. Madoc and his Welsh refugee fleet really do flee to North America, don't really make much of a settlement.

3. The Emirate of Granada is more expansionist, colonizing Madeira and later breaking free from the Almoravids to ally with the Venetians. (corollary- French Catharism survives by settling in Granadan territory and the Caribbean.)

4. Because of #3, the Venetians begin a successful project in building trading posts in the Ursulines (Caribbean), the Iberians and other Italian city-states follow suit.

4a. As a major corollary, they accidentally find the first wheelbow, invented by an eccentric Norse in Florida. This weapon has revolutionary ramifications.

5. On the other side of the world, around 1242 the Emperor Gaozong sends a Chinese expedition to the New World (after hearing reports of giant beavers). Chinese exploration and settlement of the western coast of all of the Americans results.

5a. Lots of technology is exchanged, as well as scientific thinking. Roger Bacon being captured in an English expedition by the Chinese and ending up living among them help this.

6. All of this commerce and exploration eventually leads to the Mongol Great Khan Ogedei not dying. All of continental Europe east of France is conquered.

Then lots of crazy things happen but I really don't think they count as specific divergences so much as they are in-story events.
 
Simply said, not any medieval state or entity up to the XIVth century had the technological capacities to maintain a trans-oceanic link strong enough for regular trade, without even mentioning settlements.
There's good reasons if Vikings, that weren't exactly novices in seafare, never really had motivation to settle down definitively : it was too far, and not that interesting.

Even if seafare blostered up one century before (that alone is really asking for ignoring several issues, anything more goes to implausible territory), and managing miraculously to have as side-effects no Spanish civil wars (and therefore quicker Reconquista) and a shorter HYW, you'd still have to deal with the huge drawback of the Black Death : not only it crushed out most of vital ressources, but survivors managed well enough to improve their conditions (making far adventurers less likely).

Now, let's imagine a discovery made in late XIVth century, instead of late XVth, I could see Atlantic navies crossing earlier than IOTL the Ocean for ponctual contacts.

Basically a slower approach of the continent (which would have the effect to make Europeans considering post-Cahokia North America more clearly) more based on trade and semi-permanent settlements than blunt expeditions.

Mesoamerica would much more look as a gathering of city-states than IOTL, which may favour commercial penetration (while being interestingly more resistant to a conquistador-led expedition would it be trough stronger local solidarities). I don't think it would butterfly Mexica's expansion, but it could impact its growth, trough trade and exchanges of technics with Mesoamericans (especially metallurgy).

Gold trade (if Mesoamericans are ready to do it) may divert much of the first efforts on Africa (that had a lot to do with Sudanese metal) except for establishing trade points to America (meaning Portugal and Spain are going to favour a Guinea/Venezuela/Caribbean road) and eventually lead to a less important european take on Indias (which itself mean a still strong Mameluk Egypt, and states as Venice clearly less hampered by decline of Red Sea/Mediterranean trade : at the contrary of previous posters, I don't think that Mediterranean trade is going to suffer directly from an American trade.

You'd certainly end with a epidemic shock in Americas, but Europeans would be technically less able to abuse it, even if they could use it to reinforce trade and religious presence
 
What if, as in Empty America, a lot of the people who go to the New World aren't states, but states-in-exiles? Anglo-Saxons fleeing the Normans. Madoc and the Welsh. Cathars. Pagan Lithuanians. Yorkists. And some non-EA suggestions: Mudéjars. Sephardic Jews.
 
Massive migrations of non-nomadic peoples were really rare during Middle-Ages. The only exemple I could think of would be Arabs, and that was at the point of the sword.

Without carrying too much on each exemple you gave (only that a lot simply wouldn't have access to needed technology), most of these groups weren't ethnic groups but sub-groups from larger cultural and/or regional ones (the cultural and social difference between Cathars and others being...slim).

Scattered and defeated groups, managing somehow to get their hand on transoceanic ships out of nowhere, while their foes are surprisingly passive during all the process...I'm sorry, but that's seem quite random.

Critically when the few groups that actually formed ethnic ensembles on their own (Jews and Mudejars) migrated on place they knew being more or less hospitable and where they could continue their "way of life" (up to social activities).
Jumping in the big nowhere (or at best, beggining again from really low conditions) is definitely something scarying (actually, it's why some Huguenots preferred to convert rather than being sent to Americas, after the Edict of Fontaineblau)
 
Well for starters the Vinland category is the most popular and in most opinions the most fascinating, Imagine if the small camp Leif had founded was in southern Markland (Labrador/Quebec). Or maybe after exploring due to a storm knocking his ship east finds the Grand Banks and the vast Iron ore in the area? Both of those combined with the better land and exploitation of timber might be able to motivate a colony.
If for example during the 1100's a Greenlander who in his youth had traveled to Normandy and had observed the many Motte and Baily forts, could have then seen the resources of vinland and replicated them, they would have been relatively cheap compared to other fortifications people at the time had been using and would have been very effective at keeping out Skraeling attacks.
I also always wondered how interesting it would be to see Vinlanders interacting with the Mississippian cultures around the great lakes, most Vinland TL's have it where the great lakes are barely explored but there is evidence in OTL that they would have traveled to Lake Huron, you could even say Lake Superior if you want to believe in the kennsington stone.
 
Lots of interesting possibilities on what nations could have a freehold in the New World. If earlier explorers and immigrants had come and prospered, with a later cut of from Europe for Plague or Wars, how might later explorers handle the new/lost people?
 
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