Plausibility Check: Columbus at the Pacific?

January First-of-May

As you might probably know, at his fourth voyage, in early 1503, Columbus' expedition stayed for several months at pretty much the place that would IOTL be the entrance to the Panama Channel (maybe a few kilometers away at most).
POD: the local Indians tell Columbus about the ocean on the other side; Columbus, intrigued, sends a scout party, which returns with news of the other ocean. What happens?
Almost certainly implausible if not outright impossible, and that's what I'm (also) asking you about: maybe someone crazy enough decides to take the da Gama letter, go to the Pacific side, make a boat there (KonTiki-style, presumably, as they won't be able to take much of their tech, if 15th century tools can even be called tech) and just try to find India anyway? And if so, what are their chances of actually getting anywhere near actual India in time to meet da Gama? (Hint: I have no idea whether currents are anywhere near favorable for that - not even after consulting a map. :))



...So what, how? :):)
January First-of-May
 

January First-of-May

Beedok said:
Wouldn't Columbus just think it was the Indian Ocean?
Click to expand...

Why not?
Unlike the other two ocean pairs, there's no continent serving as an obvious divide between the Pacific and Indian oceans. It might as well be one big Indian (or Pacific) ocean with lots of islands in it. ;) (Makes sense actually, what with most of East Indies being in the OTL Pacific anyway. :))
If the whole thing is successful, maybe ITTL Pacific and Indian would be united into one big Indian ocean. No, really, why not? :):)
 

Falecius

January First-of-May said:
As you might probably know, at his fourth voyage, in early 1503, Columbus' expedition stayed for several months at pretty much the place that would IOTL be the entrance to the Panama Channel (maybe a few kilometers away at most).
POD: the local Indians tell Columbus about the ocean on the other side; Columbus, intrigued, sends a scout party, which returns with news of the other ocean. What happens?
Almost certainly implausible if not outright impossible, and that's what I'm (also) asking you about: maybe someone crazy enough decides to take the da Gama letter, go to the Pacific side, make a boat there (KonTiki-style, presumably, as they won't be able to take much of their tech, if 15th century tools can even be called tech) and just try to find India anyway? And if so, what are their chances of actually getting anywhere near actual India in time to meet da Gama? (Hint: I have no idea whether currents are anywhere near favorable for that - not even after consulting a map. :))



...So what, how? :):)
January First-of-May
Click to expand...

De Gama had made his first voyage on the Cape route something like six years earlier. But Columbus may get on Moluccas and maybe China or Japan, IF he is extremely lucky.
 

tormsen

January First-of-May said:
If the whole thing is successful, maybe ITTL Pacific and Indian would be united into one big Indian ocean. No, really, why not? :):)
Click to expand...

I can certainly see "East Indian Ocean" and "West Indian Ocean" emerging. In a completely Eurocentric sense, with the East Indian Ocean ending up lying on the west of the West Indian Ocean...
 

January First-of-May

Falecius said:
De Gama had made his first voyage on the Cape route something like six years earlier. But Columbus may get on Moluccas and maybe China or Japan, IF he is extremely lucky.
Click to expand...

Well, yeah, the first voyage was in 1497. The second (Wiki calls it 4th Portuguese India Armada) was, as it turns out, in 1502 - i.e. by the time Columbus reached Panama, da Gama was already leaving India. No luck here. :(:( (Next time da Gama got to India IOTL was 1524 - much too late and maybe even butterflied away.) I wonder, though, whether the Portuguese who do see the letter in (say) 1506 would accept it, even though it was supposed to be for da Gama specifically... :)
For that matter, until Diogo Lopes de Sequeira in 1509, no Portuguese ships left the OTL Indian Ocean, and your assessment of Columbus' capabilities basically equates with OTL Pacific Ocean; of course, by the time any member of the Columbus expedition would get there, it might well happen already. Moluccas, though, were not Portuguese until 1513 IOTL... :):)
(I'm still not sure whether the POD might butterfly away any of that - IMHO at that point events in the West Indies are unrelated to those in the East Indies except through Europe, but Portuguese might get stories of white men sailing from the west... and by that point they have probably heard of the da Gama letter. ;) An expedition to (say) the Moluccas to meet them is certainly no less probable than the POD itself... :))



...So what, how? :):)
January First-of-May

PS: As for the seas, I imagined TTL Indian Ocean being basically OTL Indian and North Pacific and OTL South Pacific (i.e. the place Magellan sailed through IOTL) being something along the lines of "Southern Ocean" (as doing otherwise would make an Indian Ocean over two-thirds of the world). However, that second name is from OTL Mar de Sur, named that by Balboa in 1513 in circumstances nearly identical to the proposed POD - and Columbus is indeed goind to call it Indian Ocean...
As for tormsen's division of oceans, this can certainly happen early on (especially if we go with the "lite" version of only having Columbus discover what Balboa did IOTL, without a major attempt to sail further west), but IMHO the only way this can survive is an early definition of the border (something like OTL Treaty of Zaragoza).
Any other suggestions? :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top