WI Columbus Failed?

fernerdave

Maybe the British or Dutch get there via iceland/greenland and how early were the Basque and others that just came to fish?
 

Stephen

Banned
Cabot becomes the one famous for discovering North America now called Cabotia. Britain slowly begins colinising the East Coast until southward exploration reaches the Aztecs in the mid sixteenth century leading to a gold rush of Conquerers.
 

the Apple Man

If he has to come back, maybe he gets another chance latter, but I find that unlikely. If he and his crew are lost at sea, that may scare people away from the sea for awhile, but eventually someon will discover America. I like the idea that Stephen had, about Cabot being the one to find it.
 

OneUp

The thing though, if Cabot discovers it other then whales and fur there's no gold. Is there any real effort to push for heavy colonization? I'm seeing more of a French style colonization of trapping settlements and stuff...
 
Michel Van

Michel Van

if Columbus Failed

then the Portuguese had found America

Explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral landed on April 22, 1500 on coast of today Brasil.

the Protugese Language used all over south america
no use Of Word Columbus or Columbia but Cabral or Cabralia

mabye the Inca empire had survived under the Portogese

and Spain ? they hab problems !
the Reconquista ended 1492 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista
alot of Mercenaries and soldiers were without job
the Discovery of America "Solved" that problem, they conquered the new world.

under a Protugese colonisation of America things happen different.

so wat gona happen ?
we got those option
Spain has a rebellion by dissatisfied Mercenaries => Civilwar
Spain start conquest of North Africa
Spain start conquest of Portugal
 

Umbral

I think it means that we don't get Conquistadors going straight for the jugular of the Mesoamericans while the plagues are rampaging over the area.

The americas are discovered from Brazil/the Amazon and Newfoundland. Not having the benefit of our maps, it takes a considerable amount of time before it is realized that these are not just islands.

There is no gold initially, and by the time contact is made with the mesoamericans, the plagues are through, and the Mesoamericans get intel on the Europeans before they meet.

The Incas have a consolidated goverment again, and the tottering edifice of the Aztecs are gone, replaced by some less bloodthirsty/more effective tribe.
 

bastian

Michel Van said:
and Spain ? they hab problems !
the Reconquista ended 1492 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconquista
alot of Mercenaries and soldiers were without job
the Discovery of America "Solved" that problem, they conquered the new world.
Click to expand...
That´s not exactly what happens. Spain get mercenaries, that´s true, but only a few hundreds of them conquered the new world. Many of the conquerors were not even spanish and the conquest of, mexico for example, was more than twenty years of after Granada so I think that the Mercenaries of Spain were to busy with France and the turks to cause any problems in Spain. I think that these fronts were what really kept busy mercenaries
 

hewhocaves

Smewhere i'd learned that the late summer in 1492 was one of the worst for storms in the Atlantic. I cant remember where I read it, but if true, theres a good chance columbus dies on the way back.

I wrote a mediocre story years back where columbus gets kicked off his ship by mutiny just a couple of days before landfall. the remaining crew turn home and get destroyed in a hurricane off portugal. columbus makes his way to the new world and gets 'in' with the natives. Over the next couple of decades he makes his way south to Mexico where he becomes an advisor for the Aztecs. Thus, the mesoamerican nation states are not surprised when the europeans show up ~50 years later.
 

GeneralHouston

I doubt it makes a difference considering he thought he had found a western path to Asia rather than a new continent.

Someone else (maybe Vespucci) would do as Columbus did and the continent would go on as the same, maybe with less Spanish dominance.
 

Michael B

Urusai[InFi];2315441 said:
The thing though, if Cabot discovers it other then whales and fur there's no gold. Is there any real effort to push for heavy colonization? I'm seeing more of a French style colonization of trapping settlements and stuff...
Click to expand...
It has been suggested that Cabot knew what he would find because fishermen had been there, but kept quiet because they did not want any trouble from the KIng.

As for the heavy colonisation, you have "empty" lands a mere 3000 miles from Europe (an easy voyage for a caravel), large numbers of footloose people plus kingdoms more than happy to invest in building colonies. It is going to happen even if a few colonies go to the wall, and a few did.

To slow it down at the very least you are going to need more aggressive natives as the Vikings faced. That did not happen because the locals were nice and the European duplicitious.

In contrast South America and Africa were tougher propositions because of the distance.
 

Umbral

On the other hand, you had about the same resources, locals and conditions much closer, in northern Russia. And there was little interest.

I believe that the Spanish experience created a lesson for european powers: Colonization can bring enormous monetary rewards.

Absent that lesson, interest would be much less. Of course, they would encounter the mesoamericans sooner or later anyway...
 

rewster

rcduggan said:
No, America is just discovered a few years later, by someone else. The Portuguese in Brazil, or the English in North America.
Click to expand...

Cabot is most likely influenced by Columbus. Cabral's fateful trip would be butterflied enough that it is likely not to have hit the same storm. The Basques aren't about to tell anyone where they get all the fish. It could be half a century or more before someone who would have reason to announce it finally stumbles upon either Brazil or Newfoundland.
 

Stephen

Banned
Cabots voyage was launched when they probably did not know wether Columus's voyage was a sucess yet. And if he was getting information from cod fisherman he might just conclude that Columbus was going the wrong way.
 
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