WI Shipwrecked Culture Found in New World

WI the Spanish or another nation came upon a Native American population that had integrated with a previously shipwrecked crew during the exploration of the New World? Exempting the possibility that the crew has integrated to the point where they would be unrecognizable, what would happen?
 
WI the Spanish or another nation came upon a Native American population that had integrated with a previously shipwrecked crew during the exploration of the New World? Exempting the possibility that the crew has integrated to the point where they would be unrecognizable, what would happen?

Not much - some captain or officer makes a footnote in his log/report that he encountered a few dozen people who appear to be the crew of a ship that must have been shipwrecked somewhere in the area at least a few years earlier, and the said crew was living with local Indians.

At best, the fate of this shipwrecked crew becomes the source of a few interesting stories and legends - and that's about it, really.
 
They get treated much the same as OTL natives were I would have thought, unless they were recognisably Christian and preferably European looking too, in which case things might get more complicated.

Other than that, I suppose it depends on where they are and how soon they get contacted.
 
When?

It also depends upon how long before 1492 the ship crew lands there, whether it's from a relatively advanced country or a backwater, whether there are some skilled people or mainly unskilled people on board, and more.

With a highly advanced and skilled medieval people (think of Spanish Muslims or an exceptional crew from around the North Sea or the British Channel), America could have gone through some Eurasian diseases and developed pretty much on par with Europe.

Agriculture was starting to develop in some southern parts. It would probably spread much faster with some agricultural knowledge from Europe, thus leading to a population explosion.

The Spanish arriving in 1492 would still be superior, but not enough to achieve what they did IOTL. The Euramericans would quickly learn to produce guns, gun powder, larger ships, and so on. Even with another catastrophic wave of disease running through the Americas again, America would not be considerably weakened - it might actually be a motor for development, as was the plague for Europe.

Europe had a lot of difficulties with the original inhabitants of America. A more advanced and numerous people would likely be more of a problem. So there would probably only be a few Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the south and in the Carribean (areas to which the knowledge of the shipwrecked Europeans did not progress), while northern parts of America go through difficult but more or less independent phases, similar to China.

As with China and some more independent minded countries resisting colonialism, trade would probably quickly be established, colonies might come up and go down, and so on. America would be introduced to modern developments in Europe, like different economic policies, different government systems, and so on.

Spain and Portugal would still loose grand power status, which would probably mean independence for the south as IOTL, or conquest by the north.

All in all, I'd see an America strong enough to stay independent, but a backwater even today, even with all the ressources - similar to Africa or India, though probably on a higher or lower level.
 
IIRC one of the Reasons the Mayans did so well against the spanish is the presence of several Shipped wrecked Sailors that had become Chiefs during the 1510's
 
IIRC one of the Reasons the Mayans did so well against the spanish is the presence of several Shipped wrecked Sailors that had become Chiefs during the 1510's

According to wickipedia, "some of the ship's crew were sacrificed almost immediately, while the rest were put into cages. They managed to escape but were captured by other Mayan lords, who enslaved them. By 1519, the year Hernán Cortez began his conquest of Mexico, only two from the original shipwreck were still alive:
Gonzalo Guerrero, who by this time had become famous in the Mayan world as a war leader for Nachan Kaan, Lord of Checktumal, and Geronimo de Aguilar, who had taken holy orders in his native Spain. Guerrero had by then married a rich Mayan woman and was the father of Mexico's first mestizo children."

Guerrero was probably important in instigating the Mayans to resist and fight against the Spanish. Yet this whole episode probably shows that a single shipwreck crew isn't going to change anything significantly. A bunch of smelly shipwrecks begging for food and clothes aren't going to impress any New World civilization or tribe. They might help them or enslave them, but they won't certainly adopt any of their "innovations".

Only if they come after a "First Contact" might the inhabitants of the new world show some willingess to adopt some of the tecnologies of the shipwrecked crew. But even if this case, the most likely outcome would be the shipwreckers adopting the ways of the locals, and not the other way round.

Guerrero tattooed his face and pierced his ears. Aguilar had had his hair cut, had almost forgotten his Spanish and Cortez an his camarades mistook him for an Indian. There was a Spanish who was left in Florida duting an expedition, and was "recovered" by a second one: when they found him, he was living exactly as the Indians did. And, finally, there are the Spanish (9, I think) who took refuge in Vilcabamba during Manco Inca's reign: the one thing they tought the Incas was how to play a Spanish game (not religion, writting nor how to make gunpowder).

You'd need a lot of shipwrecks to produce a significant change (or one big enough, as the Chinese Treasure ships). There's a theory that states that some of the natives of Pate Island, near the Kenyan Coast, were descendants of one of Zheng He's Ships. Yet they ended marrying local woman and assimilating to the local culture. The traces of their original culture that did survived were
"a practice a kind of basket-weaving that is common in southern China but unknown on the Kenyan mainland"; a style of playing drums, a few Chinese words and the knowledge of how to make silk.

So, I think that we shouldn't overestimate the effect a shipwrecked crew can have over the inhabitants of the New World
 
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Keenir

Banned
At best, the fate of this shipwrecked crew becomes the source of a few interesting stories and legends - and that's about it, really.

either way, it would just reinforce the European prejudice: "Savages never carved these stones."
 
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