The Bubonic Plague OTL reached Norway in the late summer of 1349. At this time, the King of Norway held domains in Greenland and Iceland. OTL, the Black Plague did not reach Iceland until 1402-1404 and it is debated whether or not it reached the Norse settlements in Greenland. What if, as a point of divergence, a ship full of goods leaves the port of Bergen in 1349 to collect walrus tusk and taxes from the Norsemen in Greenland. Let's say they unknowingly carry some little rodent stowaways and when the ship lands in Greenland, these rats infect the local population with the Bubonic Plague and the disease is then transmitted to the Inuits via trade. Inuits in Greenland spread the plague to other Arctic peoples in North America, and from there it ravages its way through the continent(s). What would the long-term effects be? Would the civilizations of the Mississippi, Mesoamerica, and South America collapse, or would their immune systems be strengthened? Would 1492 go differently?
WI: The Black Plague reaches the Americas through Norse Greenland
- Thread starter Z00M3R
- Start date
This requires an extreme unlikely chain of events connecting Norway to Iceland and then Iceland to Greenland and then Greenland to Newfoundland/Labrador and then Newfoundland/Labrador to more agricultural North America and even there the evidence we have would suggest that it wouldn't spread a lot.
So literally nothing would happen in virtually all cases.
So literally nothing would happen in virtually all cases.
It would probably not spread that much even if it got there. The plague needed trade and urban civilisation to spread, there were isolated areas even in Europe that didn't suffer it.
It's true Native America was more urbanised than normally imagined, but even then I'm not sure if it's possible. If there was direct Greenland-Mississipian contact then maybe, but beyond that
It's true Native America was more urbanised than normally imagined, but even then I'm not sure if it's possible. If there was direct Greenland-Mississipian contact then maybe, but beyond that
If I am correct, the Mississippians had trade networks that stretched from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. It might be possible for the disease, if it did not spread to the Americas via Newfoundland/Vinland, to spread through animals or Arctic fishermen/hunters and make its way down the hemisphere. The ancestors of the Native Americans made their way from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego and settled everything in between, so my thought process is that a highly contagious disease would be able to make this North-South journey even faster, especially if they can latch onto trade networks in Mesoamerica, the Mississippi, and the Andes Mountains.
It's unlikely that the Bubonic Plague would've gotten far if it ever reached the Americas, especially from Vinland or Newfoundland since North America was a lot more sparsely populated then Eurasia, whose highly dense populations and consistent trade networks made the people living there highly susceptible to such a pandemic.
Even if the Bubonic Plague did ravage populations in the entire American continent, they would still be susceptible to a lot of Old World diseases like smallpox, measles, diptheria, and etc. These Old World diseases managed to kill 80-90% of the total Native American population alone, so if the Bubonic Plague managed to reach the Americas, then there's a chance that we could see the Native Americans be almost completely wiped out due to Old World diseases and pressures from European colonists.
Even if the Bubonic Plague did ravage populations in the entire American continent, they would still be susceptible to a lot of Old World diseases like smallpox, measles, diptheria, and etc. These Old World diseases managed to kill 80-90% of the total Native American population alone, so if the Bubonic Plague managed to reach the Americas, then there's a chance that we could see the Native Americans be almost completely wiped out due to Old World diseases and pressures from European colonists.
No it's not going to, European diseases seem to have proper contact in the later periods only when Europeans actively went region by region outside some cases, Artic people were isolated so they couldn't spread anything and the Atlantic coast of Canada also wasn't exactly densely populated or connected.
The population of Europe didn't reach its pre-Black Death peak until around the time of Columbus, so you can assume that in the unlikely event of plague spreading throughout the Americas, Native populations would have been similarly affected. Ironically, this may have benefited Native peoples, since with a less dense population overall, and potentially fewer trade networks, the diseases brought by Columbus would have spread more slowly. There's also the potential for the plague to establish an animal reservoir in the Americas and infect European colonists or even spark new outbreaks in Europe.
I don't get this, why do people think postponing diseases or slowing them down is in any way good? It's not, Europeans did not need diseases to spread far and wide prior to their effective arrival to take advantage of the demographic void created or instability. It did Californians no good to get hit by diseases in the late 18th century and early 19th century instead of the 16th.
What's good to natives is absorbing those diseases, growing back through high enough birth rates and be in very stable political situation under states large and solid enough to slowly absorb new technologies and practices, which is actually very hard to have and even where there were such states it didn't exactly stop the Spanish with "sheer luck" to take over everything in decades.
How's 150 years enough for that?
Even if the Greenlanders were infected with Bubonic Plague, the chances of person-to-person contact through trade is essentially nil. The key point would be if enough infected rats could find a way to North America to allow Y. Pestis to establish, over time, some endemic foci in the Americas, as happened during the Third Pandemic. Even then the most that would happen might be local outbreaks due to contact with infected rodents. These could be locally and temporarily devastating but no more. This would have no impact on the Columbian Exchange, in either direction. However, should Y. Pestis becomes endemic among the borrowing rodents of the American Great Plains by 1750 that could have some interesting side effects on the fur trade and for the emigrants on the Oregon and California trails. Throw in Bubonic Plague to go with cholera in the 1840's and 50's and the way west would look even more threatening.