A lengthy discussion of "Empty America"

[raharris1973]

Have you heard of the original of the original scenario by long time what-iffer (25 years+) Doug Hoff? Here’s the summary in the AH.com wiki: timelines:empty_america [alternatehistory.com wiki]

It is a nifty old AH timeline, that I think is worthy of some renewed discussion.

First of all, although it is never spelled out in the original, but I would think that any “Empty America”, ie, no Amerindians, scenario, would have to be an ASB scenario, where basically the OTL Americas are replaced with an ISOT of a pre-human wilderness version of the Americas just prior to the arrival of old world discoverers?

Why? Because I figure that if if you do not use ASBs, and just otherwise contrive to block the main historical migrations down the Pacific coast and across the Bering land bridge, you would end up just having some alternate, somewhat later, migratory wave of northeast Asian people, porto-Aleuts, or Inuits, or Chuckchis, or Yakuts, or even Polynesians, reach out to the “Empty America”, and *POOF*, they would expand across the continents and become the new “Amerindians”. [And that is not even getting into the accumulating butterflies in the old world that would wipe out all known Eurasian cultures like Chinese, Vikings, Portuguese, and Spaniards, from a geologic/climatological PoD over 10,000 years ago as drastic as removing the Bering land bridge from history]

So, with that said, I would have to suggest that the hidden, unspoken ASB event in the original Doug Hoff timeline would have been the ISOT’ing of a pre-human Americas to a year shortly (ie within just a couple centuries) before the Viking discovery of North America , circa 1000 AD.

Now in OTL, where Vinland wasn’t “empty” of humans but had the so-called “Skraeling” people, it was marginal and not sustainable for the Norse. It was ultimately abandoned, and people have pointed out the challenges to actually get it to survive and grow. The original “Empty America” TL, at least in an indirect fashion, too the view that the Amerindians were an obstacle, because Vinland prospers in the TL and becomes permanent. I think it was not just related to the absence of mammoths, and the harvesting of mammoth tusk ivory for profit.

Do we all think this is the most likely outcome to transpire, thorough Norse colonization?

Or would a wholly untamed and uncleared wilderness be *more* difficult for the Norse, so far from home, to permanently colonize, without Amerindians to clear the land, grow suitable native crops, learn from, and trade with?

Has anyone done a timeline playing with the premise of an “Empty America” staying empty past the Viking era, until Columbus and his age of exploration? There’s Turtledove’s “A Different Flesh, but that doesn’t count, because it has hominids” and was not at all rigorously realistic.

It would be easy enough to save an “Empty America” for the Columbian era using a well-timed ISOT trick as your PoD, brining a pre-human Americas (including Caribbean) to a 1492 world.

What implications would this have?

I think it would slow interest in the New World, as gold wouldn’t be visible on the surface of the land, and land in the tropics would tend to be more difficult jungle, and there would not be people to enslave or trade with. The most interesting things to be found upon landing could be some completely strange plants and animals. Way less interesting than gold. If Columbus is lucky he will have some guys competent at taxidermy or preserving animal hides. I think keeping any wild animal specimens alive through a trip back across the Atlantic is pretty hopeless.

There would be interest over time in looking around the place to see if there is a way around it to Asia or see if there are places further on with people or interesting things.

The earliest colonial use for American land I see being viable for Europeans is fish drying, sort of a low-medium end activity not of that much interest to Kings. The second activity, of somewhat more interest to Kingdoms and great institutions like merchant houses that would be viable would using tropical islands for sugar plantations worked by prisoners or slaves.

The Americas will not provide unique edible crops or domesticated animals, because there will not have been native people to have developed them from the wild over time. Another colonial venture Europeans will eventually find useful and profitable will be fur-hunting. But that will be slower to develop than OTL, because they won’t be able to learn it from the natives or just buy pelts from natives with the needed tracking, stalking, hunting, trapping skills for the available fur-bearing game. Gardening, livestock raising, and release of pigs and cows and goats, and grain farming will start off as minor sidelights of other activities like sugar growing and fishing and logging. However eventually, don’t know exactly when, people from Europe will come to the temperate regions of the Americas to use the vast amounts of land for farming and pastoralism.

Assuming there's major religious strife and dissatisfaction in 1600s Europe and England for example, do we think by that point Europeans seeking to escape persecution will have conceived of mass permanent agricultural settlements on the Atlantic coast of North America? By 1700 would they have started any such settlements that have started to survive and grow in a serious way?

[raharris1973]

The first Columbus voyage will be disappointing in not finding gold.

But land and freshwater should be found.

Columbus will no doubt say that these wild islands should be used as bases to keep exploring just a little further, where surely, the orient must be.

He should at least have some novel animals or remains of animals to show when he gets back to Spain.

He and his crew will find these,  imgur.com/vsb7fgz
The giant ground sloth - on the islands. No way is one of those going to be dragged on a ship and kept alive for the trip back to Spain. Even a full corpse if preserved or stuffed would take up too much cargo space and be too heavy, but the royals are going to get one or more hell of a giant "bearskin rug" made out of these beasts.

Unless there's nobody with taxidermy skills, there should be some examples of some large, colorful birds and monkey, unknown in Europe, like the three foot owl: imgur.com/klAuyet giant barn owl imgur.com/Yjs5LjH. Caribbean version of giant Haast eagle imgur.com/Dr2UUEi. Terror bird and Ibis imgur.com/1ccHHFK. Flightless crane imgur.com/13zzCKo

And if there's no competent taxidermists, they'll at least get feathers and beaks or heads and talons.

Instead of Conquistadores, some of the first Spanish adventurers on the mainland, trying to find and take down giant beasts like the mastodon with their ivory tusks, might be called the Cazadores - hunters.

[575]

Haven't heard or read the original TL.
About the first part of Vikings/Norse - they came from a marginal land in Norway and Iceland as well as the Faeroe, Shetland and Orkney's on the Atlantic coast; they would be able to survive here and better than in Greenland perhaps even attract more settlers from Iceland which would be the main issue - numbers.
The other thing would be absence of Inuit and their predesessors in Greenland leaving all to the Norse.
Problem is there never was a real impetous in Scandinavia or the British Isles to go across the North Atlantic in numbers. Settling Iceland was the real great go.
Perhaps, just perhaps once the Bishop goes to Vinland 1121 he may spread the word of the Virgin lands awaiting hard working Christians to till the lands. Without any such it may remain the tales of lost Journeys End across the North Atlantic.
Even if the few Norse expeditions to NA should decide to stay and build some farms it would take centuries for it to prosper.
Just maybe come alt-Columbus they may get renewed breath with the Scandinavian Kings deciding to expand and have the room for it far away from the Spanish/Portuguese.

That brings us to alt-Columbus; if he is a focused on Asian gold like in Marco Polos tale of Zipango/Japan of gold tiled roofs he will be sorely disappointed and the Spanish royalty too as well the Church.
The Spanish/Portuguese may just want to carry the Crusades into North Africa and leave the Americas to itself.

It may end up Inuit and other East Siberians to colonize the Americas and perhaps a few blown off course Polynesian sailors.

[raharris1973]

Jun 20, 2022 16:01:07 GMT 575 said:

That brings us to alt-Columbus; if he is a focused on Asian gold like in Marco Polos tale of Zipango/Japan of gold tiled roofs he will be sorely disappointed and the Spanish royalty too as well the Church.
The Spanish/Portuguese may just want to carry the Crusades into North Africa and leave the Americas to itself.

It may end up Inuit and other East Siberians to colonize the Americas and perhaps a few blown off course Polynesian sailors.

Very interesting theory and potential alternative. Columbus and the Iberians just find the human-free Caribbean and American tropics so boring and worthless they neglect it for centuries, its resourcing in the circa 1492-1692 just are too uninteresting to West Europeans of that day. However, Inuit peoples and Polynesians, looking for sea mammals or simply space to live end up migrating into the Americas into that time, and once on the lands or coasts of the Americas, just spread out very quickly across the continents following herds of game - hey mammoth and mastodon short ribs for dinner every night!

The Polynesians in particular would bring pigs and chickens with them.

Even by 1692, they would not necessarily develop any societies as sophisticated as the Aztec and Inca, but they may come across and make use of gold and silver for decoration, and should be able to build monuments in stone at least as impressive as the Easter Island/Rapa Nui statues.

I figure eventually the advance of technology, global trade, industry, and science in Eurasia will mean that some states in Eurasia will think of some uses for the resources in the Americas, and greater population density may create a desire for the land by then, and the advance of tech and science will make more thorough exploration both more convenient and the curiosity more irresistible.


When European (or Asian?) colonization/conquest comes it resembles more the conquests of Australia, New Zealand, Alaska, and Oceania than that of OTL Americas.

[stevep]

   Well with the lack of the potato northern Europe especially will have a lower population peak, at least unless and until some alternative is found.  Both in terms of simply less food and also because root crops are a lot more secure against marching armies, both in terms of being trampled by forces and being less likely to be looted by soldiers.  That is likely to reduce its political and economic power but might mean that at least some populations/states in the region look towards those empty lands.

[575]

Jun 21, 2022 10:34:38 GMT stevep said:

   Well with the lack of the potato northern Europe especially will have a lower population peak, at least unless and until some alternative is found.  Both in terms of simply less food and also because root crops are a lot more secure against marching armies, both in terms of being trampled by forces and being less likely to be looted by soldiers.  That is likely to reduce its political and economic power but might mean that at least some populations/states in the region look towards those empty lands.

Ever heard of the Potato War?

[stevep]

Jun 22, 2022 14:30:13 GMT 575 said:

Jun 21, 2022 10:34:38 GMT stevep said:

   Well with the lack of the potato northern Europe especially will have a lower population peak, at least unless and until some alternative is found.  Both in terms of simply less food and also because root crops are a lot more secure against marching armies, both in terms of being trampled by forces and being less likely to be looted by soldiers.  That is likely to reduce its political and economic power but might mean that at least some populations/states in the region look towards those empty lands.

Ever heard of the Potato War?

  Yes.  Part of the reason for that name was it was pretty much a phony war with no actual armed clashes so the soldiers had the time to dig up spuds to break the boredom as much as anything else I think.  This was shortly before the French Revolution and since the 30YW in west/central Europe military actions by the major nations had become a lot more restrained in response, at least by most of the reports I've read.  Of course the French Revolution was to change that a lot.

[575]

Jun 21, 2022 10:34:38 GMT stevep said:

   Well with the lack of the potato northern Europe especially will have a lower population peak, at least unless and until some alternative is found.  Both in terms of simply less food and also because root crops are a lot more secure against marching armies, both in terms of being trampled by forces and being less likely to be looted by soldiers.  That is likely to reduce its political and economic power but might mean that at least some populations/states in the region look towards those empty lands.

As I understand the potato didn't play that much of a role untill rather late as it originally was used for animal fodder and considered poor's food.

One interesting thing is that Denmark have been more or less agricultural since neolitic times though NE Sjælland didn't get cleared since late bronzeage - which is at odds with the Royal Bronzemaker workshop found in the center of that area.

Another is the isles of Lolland and Falster which actually was fought over by Danes and Wends since at least the 10. century. What I'm getting at is that we "know" relatively little of yesterday.

Then marching armies have been around since the Bronzeage in Northern Europe as the battlefield of Tollense attest to.

Also Denmark had the population the size of 1800 in some regions at least during Neolitic, Bronze and Viking Ages while at a low during the times of the TYW and following - 17-18 C.s!

Seems much more to me that population have waxed and waned much more than previously thought.

[stevep]

Jun 22, 2022 19:57:38 GMT 575 said:

Jun 21, 2022 10:34:38 GMT stevep said:

   Well with the lack of the potato northern Europe especially will have a lower population peak, at least unless and until some alternative is found.  Both in terms of simply less food and also because root crops are a lot more secure against marching armies, both in terms of being trampled by forces and being less likely to be looted by soldiers.  That is likely to reduce its political and economic power but might mean that at least some populations/states in the region look towards those empty lands.

As I understand the potato didn't play that much of a role untill rather late as it originally was used for animal fodder and considered poor's food.

One interesting thing is that Denmark have been more or less agricultural since neolitic times though NE Sjælland didn't get cleared since late bronzeage - which is at odds with the Royal Bronzemaker workshop found in the center of that area.

Another is the isles of Lolland and Falster which actually was fought over by Danes and Wends since at least the 10. century. What I'm getting at is that we "know" relatively little of yesterday.

Then marching armies have been around since the Bronzeage in Northern Europe as the battlefield of Tollense attest to.

Also Denmark had the population the size of 1800 in some regions at least during Neolitic, Bronze and Viking Ages while at a low during the times of the TYW and following - 17-18 C.s!

Seems much more to me that population have waxed and waned much more than previously thought.

  That might be the case although I have read fairly frequently about the importance of the spud as a food able to sustain large populations, often with relatively low maintenance and also being more immune to the passage of armies.  At least from the 18thC anyway.

[raharris1973]

Jun 23, 2022 10:48:16 GMT stevep said:

Jun 22, 2022 19:57:38 GMT 575 said:

As I understand the potato didn't play that much of a role untill rather late as it originally was used for animal fodder and considered poor's food.

One interesting thing is that Denmark have been more or less agricultural since neolitic times though NE Sjælland didn't get cleared since late bronzeage - which is at odds with the Royal Bronzemaker workshop found in the center of that area.

Another is the isles of Lolland and Falster which actually was fought over by Danes and Wends since at least the 10. century. What I'm getting at is that we "know" relatively little of yesterday.

Then marching armies have been around since the Bronzeage in Northern Europe as the battlefield of Tollense attest to.

Also Denmark had the population the size of 1800 in some regions at least during Neolitic, Bronze and Viking Ages while at a low during the times of the TYW and following - 17-18 C.s!

Seems much more to me that population have waxed and waned much more than previously thought.

  That might be the case although I have read fairly frequently about the importance of the spud as a food able to sustain large populations, often with relatively low maintenance and also being more immune to the passage of armies.  At least from the 18thC anyway.

. Heard the same- this was discussed in one of the Robert Crowley edited “What If?” Volumes. A contributor credited it with effects by the 1600s. Among the effects, keeping the Irish alive through the English Civil War, Confederate Wars, Cromwells wars and Glorious Revolution. In other words, sustaining the Gaelic population, which would have otherwise been much smaller and “replaced” by English and Scots, to the point that it later could be devastated by the 19th century potato blight.

[575]

Jun 23, 2022 10:48:16 GMT stevep said:

Jun 22, 2022 19:57:38 GMT 575 said:

As I understand the potato didn't play that much of a role untill rather late as it originally was used for animal fodder and considered poor's food.

One interesting thing is that Denmark have been more or less agricultural since neolitic times though NE Sjælland didn't get cleared since late bronzeage - which is at odds with the Royal Bronzemaker workshop found in the center of that area.

Another is the isles of Lolland and Falster which actually was fought over by Danes and Wends since at least the 10. century. What I'm getting at is that we "know" relatively little of yesterday.

Then marching armies have been around since the Bronzeage in Northern Europe as the battlefield of Tollense attest to.

Also Denmark had the population the size of 1800 in some regions at least during Neolitic, Bronze and Viking Ages while at a low during the times of the TYW and following - 17-18 C.s!

Seems much more to me that population have waxed and waned much more than previously thought.

  That might be the case although I have read fairly frequently about the importance of the spud as a food able to sustain large populations, often with relatively low maintenance and also being more immune to the passage of armies.  At least from the 18thC anyway.

Well yes - but still it took some 200 years from introduction to become a food stable at least among the poor - rural population and have only been a stable for the past 300 years.

We still have a VERY long span of time from Neolitic peoples becoming farmers to introduction of potato during which the Danish pop. possibly others hit 1800 level at least twice prior to 1800.. the interesting thing those early large pop numbers attained pre-history (written)

[575]

The introduction of the potato at least in a Danish context didn't have the impact it did in the British Isles - let us agree so much? Though of course over time in 19. cent. it did feed a lot of peoples around here and is a stable of Danish daily foodstuffs nowadays.

It semeed to have sustained troops during the calm of the Potato War - some impact in central Europe.

Some other fruits/vegetables - corn: animal fodder, popcorn, veggi addings - tomato: almost the entire cuisine of the Med!!! not to forget English Breakfast (at least to a continental )

[575]

Oi; just remembered about potatoes the real issue - Scandinavian/German "Snaps" - Slav "Vodka"..

[575]

Have given the Norse possibilities some more thought as the possible larger numbers;

though first a look at Irish and English which could/would be having Roman/Phoenician/Greek inspired sailing vessels – Papar were in Iceland according to Norse Saga’s when the Norse arrived there! Somebody - Papar/Celts/Picts/Inhabitants of Shetland and Orkney Isles reached the Faeroe Islands around 500 AD. Sometime during 500 - 874 they went on to Iceland since they were there when the Norse/Vikings arrived.

Others than the Norse had the capability early on to navigate the North Atlantic to some extend - rather large extend actually!

A later possible Irish influx could be because of the Norman conquest during the 12. cent.


The Norse/Vikings had well established navigation, perhaps had a magnetic compass (mentioned in Gregor of Tours 1100) – were able to go to Vinland to establish small settlements OTL.

I think it may be a possible for having even more than the 5000 Norse in Greenland by 1300 or rather the prospect of gaining unsettled unclaimed land in Vinland - Northern New England/New Brunswick/St. Lawrence Bay area as the land is so large that You don't have to feud the neighbour every other day like in Iceland over trivialities.

The attempts by Norwegian Kings to Christen their lands by 1000 and the subsequent flight of Asa-believers happened served to increase the population of Iceland but the large volcanic eruption Katla/Eldgja 934-40 and later other eruptions could make peoples decide to go to virgin soil over the Sea.

Markland/Vinland was a source of timbers for the Norse and not having to fend off Natives would be a damn good arguement for building your hall and ship there instead of shipping the lot to Greenland or Iceland. At least if You have some shards of common sense.

By 1300 and severely deteriorating weather in Greenland the Norse may migrate en masse to Vinland because of no Natives - if they haven't done so already. 5000 Norse from Greenland may flourish very well. This figure be the result of the early Medieval optimum with stagnation setting in post Vinland migration – however without Natives in Vinland the Norse may start migration around 1050 and may benefit from the migration to Iceland from Norway due to Christinization at the time. Thus the numbers in Vinland may much exceed 5000.

Demografic article: Medieval Population


Plague absent post the 6. Century (Fimbul winter – pop too low for spread) and doesn’t rebound till 1347. If Norse go into much better living conditions expect Danish growth not Norwegian/Icelandic!
And they may just be lucky not having the Plague – Iceland didn’t until 1400 at which time the last leg to Vinland through Greenland may not be possible due to bad weather thus the Vinland Norse will continue growing opposite the European pop depleating! And the Vinlanders will be bringing their Norwegian package of farm animals - horse, cattle, sheep, goat, pig, dogs - one like the Norwegian Buhund other possibly the Scottish Deerhound and cats.
That would give the Vinland Norse a kickstart populating North America – with ample supplies of timbers they would even be able to continue seafaring and able to go back to Europe around 1500? At least Saga's of the Old Land would have been written.

Denmark had a pop of 950,000 at 1350 which according to the above link would give it 475,000 in 1000 so by 1650 the Vinland Norse would number some 10,000 though if we could include some more settlers that number would grow.