Alternate European Colonization

Supermanboy

Hello everyone!

So I saw a post for a "TL ideas" thread that read "alternate scramble for Africa". It got me thinking about that. What about a different european colonization? I mean everyone knows OTL European colonization, and its exciting stuff but what about some new players to the original mix? Maybe some more internal struggle in the OTL big players (France, Britain, Spain, Portugal) causing them to be less prevalent? What about some new players like the Netherlands more early on, a unified Italy (I know its "impossible, but this is an alternate universe, anyone can have Italy unified if desired, or, another state fragmented, maybe Spain?) or Italian state? Genoa or Venice getting Columbus?

Basically something different as opposed to OTL colonization. I'm not sure if I'm asking this totally correctly but I know you all get the gist of it. also, bonus points if one shakes of stereotypes and changes countries economic/ political status (ex. Italy can be rich and stable country whereas Spain can be a poor fragmented nation).

Post away!
 

HistorianofAlt

Any Italian colonization would have to focus around North Africa. Remember, the Strait of Gibraltar bottles up Italian ambition as whoever controls those straits can decide whether or not Italy can move beyond the Med.
 

Supermanboy

HistorianofAlt said:
Any Italian colonization would have to focus around North Africa. Remember, the Strait of Gibraltar bottles up Italian ambition as whoever controls those straits can decide whether or not Italy can move beyond the Med.
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Yes, but this is YOUR alternate universe! You're in charge! Ok, your talking Italy, lets talk. You can have it so maybe theres no Ottoman empire and an earlier version of the Suez? Ok thats more ASB but maybe a fractured Spain sees Christian Grenada controlling the straight of Gibraltar. They can allow Italian access. :D
 
Lusitania

Lusitania

Donor
I could see several possibilities:

1) An independent Scotland that began colonization of Atlantic Canada
2) Denmark/Viking colonizing NewFoundland, Labrador and the Hudson Bay
3) Independent Aragon also as a colonial power
 

Supermanboy

Lusitania said:
I could see several possibilities:

1) An independent Scotland that began colonization of Atlantic Canada
2) Denmark/Viking colonizing NewFoundland, Labrador and the Hudson Bay
3) Independent Aragon also as a colonial power
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about your #1 and 2, where does england go when they colonize? IF they colonize:D

What does Aragon get? I want to see a completely new European colonization! A TL may ensue!
 

Franciscus Caesar

Oh I do like this one!:D

Ok, lets see here:

How about the British Roanoke colony surviving and being the main British colony. Britain, however, is not Britain. At least not 100%. Scotland does as Lusitania says above and begins to colonize Atlantic Canada.

Meanwhile France can focus on its antartique colony in Brazil as to not be in North America. The colony is successful and therefore, causes a real competition to the Portuguese colonization in the North.

Italy is a terrific subject!:D I'm sticking with this fractured Spain idea for the most part. Leon and Castile are together but maybe navarre and Granada aren't. Let's see a unified Italy being really cozy with Christian Granada and be allowed to use the straight of Gibraltar. If they ever get jealous, Italy can be really close with the Ottomans (being their "friend among enemies in Europe") like in IDF!:D Anyways, lets then have Columbus not be refused by Italy and his voyage and lands claimed are for Italia! Italy will then go off to colonize Mexico.

The ottomans can begin a colonization of India? Or maybe even Aceh?

Castile and Leon can land in Florida? Maybe some competition for Italy and England.

Denmark can land in present day Quebec and slowly try to control the St. Lawrence.

Netherlands... Northern Brazil?

I think that all sounds good!:D hope it gets TLized!
 
Lusitania

Lusitania

Donor
Supermanboy said:
about your #1 and 2, where does england go when they colonize? IF they colonize:D

What does Aragon get? I want to see a completely new European colonization! A TL may ensue!
Click to expand...

Okay here goes:

1) Viking/ Danish in the north, the control Vineland (Newfoundland and Labrador) but #2 and #3 have stopped from going inland so they have jumped around them and established colonies along the Eric the Red Bay (Hudson Bay)

2) Scots in Atlantic Canada, they have been boxed in by #1, #2 and #3, this was due to them being preocupied byat home by war with England.

3) Brittany in the St. Lawrence Valley, they control all of northern France shoving the French to the Orleans area and south. They also have been preocupied at home with their neighbours and have not been able to make huge headway inland controlling the St. Lawrence river basin but the furthest east is the Ottawa/St. Lawrence.

4) Germans (Bremmen) in New England they are the smallest of the of the colonizers and have been boxed in by Scotts to the northeast, Brittany in the Northwest and most importantly the English along the Hudson River.

5) English from Virginia to the Hudson River(which is fortified to keep the Germans at bay), they have recently began moving north in earnest in an attempt to also block Brittany their Channel rivals.

6) Aragon from Florida to the Carolinas, they also hold some of the smaller islands in the Carribean including Trinibad and also have colony in Caracas

7) Castille in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Espanhola and Jamaica. On the mailand the control from Panama north to the Aztec Empire in Mexico.

8) The Dutch have installed themselves south of the Aragonese all the way to the Amazon River

9) The Portguese control Brazil south of the Amazon till Sao Paulo Area

10) The area south of the Portuguese including the Rio de la Plata area is controlled by the Genoans
 
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Lusitania

Lusitania

Donor
Franciscus Caesar said:
[Nationalism] But they have Christopher Columbus! No, we get Mexico! Switch Genoa with you Castile! It makes sense anyways. [/Nationalism :p]
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Who said that anyone would get Mexico remember that with so many players the two largest New world Empires could continue. The Aragonese and Portguese would provide the Aztek and Inca with weapons so that they could keep the other europeans at Bay.

Nothing stopping the Genoans from moving into the Luisiana Area and set themselves up there. Castile will move into Mexico in an attempt to go after Aztek from both north and south. As per my username I am the least Castile backer here.
 

Orioes

Hmm, I don't have the notes on hand but the many versions of my TL have had the Vandejima Shogunate (Not so much a former national colony as a collection of exiled Japanese and like minded Dutchmen), the Confucian Republic of Fusang (Chinese with a significant number of members of the Chinese Catholic Church (which despite its name bears little resemblance to OTL Catholicism)), the Nahua Sultunate (Otto-Granadan/native mix), the Kingdom of New Britain (Formed as the Dominion of New Britain from former Scottish, English, Irish and Welsh colonies with union of their governments), an unnamed Kalmar Rupert's Land and Quebec, an unnamed French Dixie, an earlier and more heavily colonized Russian Alaska as well as a collection of nominally Venetian, Italian, Greek and other colonies under Ottoman hegemony and miscellaneous other states I'm forgetting.
 

nimbletoes

Having been granted a section of land in Moslem territory by King James I and VI, on condition that he and his men conquer the area and drive out the Arabs, Captain John Smith lands on the coast of North Africa in 1607 instead of Jamestown, Virginia; in 1620, John Smith's English settlers are reinforced by the arrival the Pilgrim Fathers in the same area...
 

LordKalvan

Italy (or an Italian state) taking and holding Ceuta nd maybe Tangiers would obviate to the prolem of the Straits of Gibraltar. Matter of fact, a couple years ago I cooperatd with Shadow Knight in an 11th century TL (Tuscan Sons) and had an almost-unified Italy (although still in the HRE) taking the Balearics, Oran and Ceuta (as well as looking at the Canaries islands - which ITTL were called Insulae Fortunatae - and at the gold traffic along the western African coast.

An obvious alternative would certainly be an early Suez: two possibilities here.
Either a Crusader kingdom is established in Egypt in the 12th century and Venice or Genoa fund a channel or Venice realises a bit earlier that there is no profit in head butting with the Ottomans after the fall of Costantinople and looks for an alternative by allying with the Mamelukes in Eypt, and again funding an early canal.
 

HistorianofAlt

Supermanboy said:
Yes, but this is YOUR alternate universe! You're in charge! Ok, your talking Italy, lets talk. You can have it so maybe theres no Ottoman empire and an earlier version of the Suez? Ok thats more ASB but maybe a fractured Spain sees Christian Grenada controlling the straight of Gibraltar. They can allow Italian access. :D
Click to expand...

This may be an alternate universe, but some common sense is needed in order to avoid ASB territory. The Suez Canal was a MASSIVE investment by the British. The only reasons why it was done were: I) the British had a massive interest in India at the time and wanted to cut down on travel time to India by avoiding having to sail around Africa. II) the British had both the technological superiority, military might, and political stomach to force the Egyptians to accept them as nominal overlords allowing them access to the land used for the Canal. III) the British had the capital to finace the project in the first place.

Point III is concevable in an alternate timeline for a unified Italy. Point II is also possible, though unless the Egyptians have a massive dieoff due to plague we'd be looking at the 'new' colonization period (post 1850s) verses the 'old' colonization period (pre 1850s). The real stickler is Point I. How is any Italian state going to get a strong enough interest in Asia to both merrit the idea of the canal and justify the costs of both holding Egypt and building the damn thing in the first place.

One could argue that the Italians in this AU are already holding Egypt. But, brings up the question of 'how did Italy get control of Egypt in the first place'? Egypt, in any state similar to its original timeline, is a hard nut for the Europeans to crack and hold before the Industrial Revolution. Just as Napoleon and his Egyptian Campaign.

Now, lets go across the med to Gibraltar. I will readily admit to the possibility of the Christian kingdoms of Iberian Peninsula breaking up and concevably a Christian kingdom holding the territory associated with historical Granada. However, you yourself stated Supermanboy that this Christian Granada could 'allow Italian access'. This is just the same situation for an Italian kingdom as if Spain was around: any transoceanic (mediterranean is a sea) colonial empire of Italy is at the whim of another country.

This is a geographic fact and is the same situation as the Aragon suggestion. Same situation up north for any nation with just access to the Baltic sea. Of course, in that area you also had the discuragement against overseas territorial grabs due to the lure of the Eurasian plains. Two things that this AU suggestion is apparently ignoring are geography and politics. England, Portugal, Spain, and France all became big colonizers geographically because they had acess to oceanic ports that were open most of the year (major problem for Norway) and exccept for France they didn't have many real options for colonial expansion/conquest nearby via a land connection like Hungary and Poland had. Politically, these were strong states that both offered incentives for colonizing via the state (desire to spread Christianity by Portugal and Spain, way to get rid of religious dissent by England, and source of profit/prestige for France) and allowed people to get the funds needed (via governmental support/private finance) to fund a colonial venture.

Any AU colonial nation will need open access to the oceans, incentives against expaning in Europe, the financial resources to start a colonial venture, and the security to intertan such ideas by not worrying over whether or not a bigger nation is going to squash them. I'm all for hearing people's suggestions, but unless these criteria are met alternate European Nations having wide scale and sucessful colonial ventures is about as believable as Ethiopia conquring all of Africa with just the expliantion of it being an AU.
 

LordKalvan

HistorianofAlt said:
This may be an alternate universe, but some common sense is needed in order to avoid ASB territory. The Suez Canal was a MASSIVE investment by the British. The only reasons why it was done were: I) the British had a massive interest in India at the time and wanted to cut down on travel time to India by avoiding having to sail around Africa. II) the British had both the technological superiority, military might, and political stomach to force the Egyptians to accept them as nominal overlords allowing them access to the land used for the Canal. III) the British had the capital to finace the project in the first place.

Point III is concevable in an alternate timeline for a unified Italy. Point II is also possible, though unless the Egyptians have a massive dieoff due to plague we'd be looking at the 'new' colonization period (post 1850s) verses the 'old' colonization period (pre 1850s). The real stickler is Point I. How is any Italian state going to get a strong enough interest in Asia to both merrit the idea of the canal and justify the costs of both holding Egypt and building the damn thing in the first place.

One could argue that the Italians in this AU are already holding Egypt. But, brings up the question of 'how did Italy get control of Egypt in the first place'? Egypt, in any state similar to its original timeline, is a hard nut for the Europeans to crack and hold before the Industrial Revolution. Just as Napoleon and his Egyptian Campaign.

Now, lets go across the med to Gibraltar. I will readily admit to the possibility of the Christian kingdoms of Iberian Peninsula breaking up and concevably a Christian kingdom holding the territory associated with historical Granada. However, you yourself stated Supermanboy that this Christian Granada could 'allow Italian access'. This is just the same situation for an Italian kingdom as if Spain was around: any transoceanic (mediterranean is a sea) colonial empire of Italy is at the whim of another country.

This is a geographic fact and is the same situation as the Aragon suggestion. Same situation up north for any nation with just access to the Baltic sea. Of course, in that area you also had the discuragement against overseas territorial grabs due to the lure of the Eurasian plains. Two things that this AU suggestion is apparently ignoring are geography and politics. England, Portugal, Spain, and France all became big colonizers geographically because they had acess to oceanic ports that were open most of the year (major problem for Norway) and exccept for France they didn't have many real options for colonial expansion/conquest nearby via a land connection like Hungary and Poland had. Politically, these were strong states that both offered incentives for colonizing via the state (desire to spread Christianity by Portugal and Spain, way to get rid of religious dissent by England, and source of profit/prestige for France) and allowed people to get the funds needed (via governmental support/private finance) to fund a colonial venture.

Any AU colonial nation will need open access to the oceans, incentives against expaning in Europe, the financial resources to start a colonial venture, and the security to intertan such ideas by not worrying over whether or not a bigger nation is going to squash them. I'm all for hearing people's suggestions, but unless these criteria are met alternate European Nations having wide scale and sucessful colonial ventures is about as believable as Ethiopia conquring all of Africa with just the expliantion of it being an AU.
Click to expand...

The Suez canal was a massive investment by the French Compagnie de Suez an the khedive. The British got in in 1876 when the khedive was in dire financial staits and was forced to sell cheap the majority of his shares.

A Suez canal built in the first half of second millennium would not necessarily require the same kind of investment (ships are much smaller, and some portage can be acceptable). After all there was a canal in Ptolemaic times, and a later around 800 AD (even one built by Cambys, IIRC).
 

Saepe Fidelis

Venice, when it hears of the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope, launches an expedition to take Granada and Gibralter, founds an arsena lthere and uses it to colonise Africa, thereby keeping her maritime empire.

The Ottomans take Egypt and march south into Sudan, annexing Ethiopia.

James of Scotland funds cabot to go to America, Scottish colony founded in New England (aka New Caledonia). This expands into the six colonies of New Caledonia, New Argylle, Maria (named for Mary Queen of Scots, Empress of Cabotland), Wallacia (named for the Wallace), Brucia (named for the Bruce) and James Country (named for King James VI of Scotland and Ulster).

The Danish colonise the St. Lawrence area, forming an alliance with the Scots that leads ot the marriage of Queen Mary to the Crown Prince of Denmark resulting in the United Kingdom of Scotland/Denmark. This is followed on by Sweden and Norway bound in personal union. This later evolves into a single nation state, caleld by different names, 'Scotland' by the Scots, 'Nordia' by the Norwegians and 'Kalmar' by the Swedes.

Later on, Tsar Peter the Great of Russia signs an alliance with the Northen Kingdom and send a colonising fleet to America founding Ivanograd (OTL Charleston) leading to a Russian Carolinas (they hate the heat but nonetheless carve out swathes of the Atlantic seaboard).

The Dutch, having broken away from Spain, send fleets south colonising Brazil, West Africa and S. Africa. They war against the Portuguese who appeal to Castille for aid (Castille & Aragon aren't united). The Castillians send an armada tothe Netherlands which is defeated and driven back. Castille is doomed tobe a second rate power from then on.

England, meanwhile, has colonised Gabon and Nigeria. She has also sent colonists to Cuba and the Bahamas. Venice, meanwhile, has colonised Vucatan, setting up friendly relations with the Maya and Aztecs.

Aragon allies with Venice and gains passage through Gibralter. THe first Aragonese colony is planted in OTL Venezuela.

The Barbary pirates as well get organised, and Barbarossa in the service of Suleyman the Magnificent, sails to America and plants colonies in the Antilles before sailing and putting moer colonies in Mexico and Mississippi.

I'm enjoying this.
 

nimbletoes

Employed by the Dutch East India Company, Captain Abel Tasman explores the west coasts of the North and South Islands of a country, which he calls Niew Zeeland, in 1642. Some of his men are killed by dark-skinned savages in a bay at the northern tip of the South Island; Using his cannons to drive off the attackers, Tasman forces a landing in the bay, because his ships need fresh water. While his men are collecting the fresh water from one of the creeks, they discover flakes of gold in the river-gravel. Tasman had been thinking of calling the area Murderer's Bay because of the earlier attack on his boat crew; instead he marks the place on his new map as Golden Bay.

Taking with them a sample of gold, Tasman immediately sails back to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies to report the finding to his superiors. In 1643 the Dutch East India Company claim the islands as their newest colony, and send down a large, well-armed fleet of warships to guard the place. To populate Niew Zeeland, 1000 Dutch colonists have been selected. All are sturdy and well armed, and prepared to do battle with anyone who denies them the chance to become rich...
 

Emperor-of-New-Zealand

nimbletoes said:
Employed by the Dutch East India Company, Captain Abel Tasman explores the west coasts of the North and South Islands of a country, which he calls Niew Zeeland, in 1642. Some of his men are killed by dark-skinned savages in a bay at the northern tip of the South Island; Using his cannons to drive off the attackers, Tasman forces a landing in the bay, because his ships need fresh water. While his men are collecting the fresh water from one of the creeks, they discover flakes of gold in the river-gravel. Tasman had been thinking of calling the area Murderer's Bay because of the earlier attack on his boat crew; instead he marks the place on his new map as Golden Bay.

Taking with them a sample of gold, Tasman immediately sails back to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies to report the finding to his superiors. In 1643 the Dutch East India Company claim the islands as their newest colony, and send down a large, well-armed fleet of warships to guard the place. To populate Niew Zeeland, 1000 Dutch colonists have been selected. All are sturdy and well armed, and prepared to do battle with anyone who denies them the chance to become rich...
Click to expand...

Read up, gentlemen! New Zealand alternate history right here! :D

God bless you, Nimbletoes.
 
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