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What If More Vikings or the Chola Empire Colonize the Americas?

A

AltonCarroll

Member
Video 3 from What If Natives Won.
Briefly, Viking steel makes later European conquest of the Micmaq, Inuit, and Iroquois more difficult, as does them introducing far less disease far earlier, with 3-5 centuries to recover. Chola invasion would do similar for Pacific Northwest and California tribes, or the Mapuche in Chile.

 
Actually, can we go for that? I kind of want to see what happens to SE Asia with a Chola overseas empire.
 
Regarding the Vikings in North America, the main problems for the tentative thrust into 'Vinland' and the Newfoundland settlement shown in the sagas seem to have been the lack of 'committed' Scandinavian personnel, the insecure nature of the first settlement due to the unexpectedly large amount and military skill of local (Athabascan?) resistance, and the lack of a major commercial product to acquire and sell off profitably back in Greenland/ Iceland/ Norway. There was just not enough profit or security, or long-term commitment by capable leaders, to keep up a presence in L'Anse aux Meadows or to move on South via Nova Scotia to Maine and Massachusetts. At this point, the climate on the W coast of Greenland appears to have been equable enough to enable the settlers there to keep large herds of stock and the Inuit presence small enough to avert any major danger of raids and reconquest, so it was safer to keep the Westernmost Viking outposts in the Americas in Greenland. (NB: did any adventurous but now forgotten voyagers go seeking trade up the North-West Passage islands around the N of Canada before the climate worsened and the ice was covering it all year round in the 'Little Ice Age', and stories of a navigable Passage were passed down through the generations and duly inspired the Elizabethan searchers and Henry Hudson?)

A larger and viable Viking settlement in the Americas might be possible on the basis of larger numbers of landless personnel involved and no room for them in Greenland - where crops could probably not be grown anyway even around 1000. I propose that possibility in my 2011 Pen and Sword book 'If Rome Had Survived' on the timeline of a surviving Roman Empire being infuriated by Viking attacks on Britain, Ireland and Gaul and attacking and overunning Denmark and raiding Norway in retaliation, using a technologically advanced navy with 'Greek Fire', the OTl naptha-like secret weapon used by the Byzantines against the Arabs. That way, those Danes and Norse who don't want to submit to Rome move en masse to Iceland and thence the Americas and settle in Massachusetts and Connecticut - where the forests would look familiar to the Scandinavians and a mass of war-ready Vikings with swords and axes could overwhelm the locals. Another group of Vikings explore up the St Lawrence, do portage round the Niagara Falls like they did in OTL on the Dnieper, and start fur-trading W of the Great Lakes.A few centuries later the Romans arrive in the 'Old South' of the US via the Caribbean and start fighting them over land, and as the Romans push North we have war in the New England area...

This motivation for a larger-scale and self-sustaining settlement of farming lands in the NE United States or up the St Lawrence would need a major demographic 'push' by a European power to shift personnel out of Scandinavia and induce them to head NW, not to divided and land-rich Ireland to settle. In OTL it seems that the unification of Norway and expulsion of his warlord enemies by King Harald 'Finehair' in the later C9th drove some of the exiles to settle in the Shetland, Orkneys and Hebrides and possibly the Isle of Man. So if we have something similar on a larger scale in slightly later Scandinavia, when the Americas have been discovered and rumours of its riches (exaggerated by spin?) as 'Vinland' are being circulated by visitors, we could get a reasonable-sized expedition there - there is no room for the exiles in smallish and partly infertile Iceland. At this point, Norway is only precariously united and frequently breaks up or suffers civil wars. Perhaps if there is a major war or purge there, the 'loser' faction could have to leave en masse to avoid massacre or starvation. One possibility is if the regional strongman Cnut 'the Great' ( ruled England 1016-35, Denmark 1014/18-35),is able to take Norway back by force after his unwelcome conquest of 1028/30 and imposition of his son Swein as its puppet-king leads to a major revolt in 1035. in OTL the exiled prince Magnus is welcomed back by anti-Cnut plotters and Swein's regime is expelled, then Swein dies (or at any rate disappears from the record) and Cnut, aged at most around 45 and possibly only 40, dies later in 1035 and cannot invade. A civil war in England between Cnut's other sons then stops any reunification of his empire and his surviving son by Aelfgifu of Northampton, Harold 'Harefoot' (Swein's full brother) secures England in 1036 while Cnut's son by Emma of Normandy, Harthacnut , secures Denmark and fights Magnus of Norway. But if Cnut is in full health and as ruthless and bloodthirsty as he was in his wars in England in 1014-16, he could use his Anglo-Danish fleet to reconquer Norway by force and kill or expel all his foes there, driving many elite warlords and their warriors out into exile. There is no room in the Orkneys or Iceland, and if we have a stronger Gaelic victory over the Irish/ Orkney Vikings at the battle of Clontarf in 1014 (and aged national unifier King Brian Boru succeeded by his capable son Murchad as High King) the Vikings have no secure lands in Ireland either. So a Norse expedition - under deposed king Magnus or his senior jarls? - could head off as a suitably huge gamble to the 'empty' lands in North America to settle there. Then if that settlement is large enough to be self-sustaining and can export timber, furs etc back via Greenland to Iceland and Europe it could survive long-term as a chain of settlements down the coast from Newfoundland to the Cape Cod region, and as the ice thickens the Greenlanders move there.

For that matter, given adequate information about the routes and regular trade there are other bodies of exiles from NW European military catastrophes that could head off to this region, In OTL a large group of Anglo-Saxon warriors from conquered England after 1066 headed off to Constantinople to join the Emperor's Varangian Guard and in 1081 were found fighting as a regiment for Emperor Alexius Comnenus against invading Normans (from Italy) at the Battle of Durazzo in modern Albania. (Now there's a theme for a series of adventure novels...) In reality, after King William put local revolts down in N England in 1068-9 a lot of the Anglo-Saxon resistance and their pretender to the throne, Edgar Atheling, went off to Scotland where E's sister (St) Margaret married king Malcolm/ Mael Coluim III. What if they had headed off via Orkney to the Americas instead of to Byzantium?
 
heraclius said:
Regarding the Vikings in North America, the main problems for the tentative thrust into 'Vinland' and the Newfoundland settlement shown in the sagas seem to have been the lack of 'committed' Scandinavian personnel, the insecure nature of the first settlement due to the unexpectedly large amount and military skill of local (Athabascan?) resistance, and the lack of a major commercial product to acquire and sell off profitably back in Greenland/ Iceland/ Norway. There was just not enough profit or security, or long-term commitment by capable leaders, to keep up a presence in L'Anse aux Meadows or to move on South via Nova Scotia to Maine and Massachusetts. At this point, the climate on the W coast of Greenland appears to have been equable enough to enable the settlers there to keep large herds of stock and the Inuit presence small enough to avert any major danger of raids and reconquest, so it was safer to keep the Westernmost Viking outposts in the Americas in Greenland. (NB: did any adventurous but now forgotten voyagers go seeking trade up the North-West Passage islands around the N of Canada before the climate worsened and the ice was covering it all year round in the 'Little Ice Age', and stories of a navigable Passage were passed down through the generations and duly inspired the Elizabethan searchers and Henry Hudson?)

A larger and viable Viking settlement in the Americas might be possible on the basis of larger numbers of landless personnel involved and no room for them in Greenland - where crops could probably not be grown anyway even around 1000. I propose that possibility in my 2011 Pen and Sword book 'If Rome Had Survived' on the timeline of a surviving Roman Empire being infuriated by Viking attacks on Britain, Ireland and Gaul and attacking and overunning Denmark and raiding Norway in retaliation, using a technologically advanced navy with 'Greek Fire', the OTl naptha-like secret weapon used by the Byzantines against the Arabs. That way, those Danes and Norse who don't want to submit to Rome move en masse to Iceland and thence the Americas and settle in Massachusetts and Connecticut - where the forests would look familiar to the Scandinavians and a mass of war-ready Vikings with swords and axes could overwhelm the locals. Another group of Vikings explore up the St Lawrence, do portage round the Niagara Falls like they did in OTL on the Dnieper, and start fur-trading W of the Great Lakes.A few centuries later the Romans arrive in the 'Old South' of the US via the Caribbean and start fighting them over land, and as the Romans push North we have war in the New England area...

This motivation for a larger-scale and self-sustaining settlement of farming lands in the NE United States or up the St Lawrence would need a major demographic 'push' by a European power to shift personnel out of Scandinavia and induce them to head NW, not to divided and land-rich Ireland to settle. In OTL it seems that the unification of Norway and expulsion of his warlord enemies by King Harald 'Finehair' in the later C9th drove some of the exiles to settle in the Shetland, Orkneys and Hebrides and possibly the Isle of Man. So if we have something similar on a larger scale in slightly later Scandinavia, when the Americas have been discovered and rumours of its riches (exaggerated by spin?) as 'Vinland' are being circulated by visitors, we could get a reasonable-sized expedition there - there is no room for the exiles in smallish and partly infertile Iceland. At this point, Norway is only precariously united and frequently breaks up or suffers civil wars. Perhaps if there is a major war or purge there, the 'loser' faction could have to leave en masse to avoid massacre or starvation. One possibility is if the regional strongman Cnut 'the Great' ( ruled England 1016-35, Denmark 1014/18-35),is able to take Norway back by force after his unwelcome conquest of 1028/30 and imposition of his son Swein as its puppet-king leads to a major revolt in 1035. in OTL the exiled prince Magnus is welcomed back by anti-Cnut plotters and Swein's regime is expelled, then Swein dies (or at any rate disappears from the record) and Cnut, aged at most around 45 and possibly only 40, dies later in 1035 and cannot invade. A civil war in England between Cnut's other sons then stops any reunification of his empire and his surviving son by Aelfgifu of Northampton, Harold 'Harefoot' (Swein's full brother) secures England in 1036 while Cnut's son by Emma of Normandy, Harthacnut , secures Denmark and fights Magnus of Norway. But if Cnut is in full health and as ruthless and bloodthirsty as he was in his wars in England in 1014-16, he could use his Anglo-Danish fleet to reconquer Norway by force and kill or expel all his foes there, driving many elite warlords and their warriors out into exile. There is no room in the Orkneys or Iceland, and if we have a stronger Gaelic victory over the Irish/ Orkney Vikings at the battle of Clontarf in 1014 (and aged national unifier King Brian Boru succeeded by his capable son Murchad as High King) the Vikings have no secure lands in Ireland either. So a Norse expedition - under deposed king Magnus or his senior jarls? - could head off as a suitably huge gamble to the 'empty' lands in North America to settle there. Then if that settlement is large enough to be self-sustaining and can export timber, furs etc back via Greenland to Iceland and Europe it could survive long-term as a chain of settlements down the coast from Newfoundland to the Cape Cod region, and as the ice thickens the Greenlanders move there.

For that matter, given adequate information about the routes and regular trade there are other bodies of exiles from NW European military catastrophes that could head off to this region, In OTL a large group of Anglo-Saxon warriors from conquered England after 1066 headed off to Constantinople to join the Emperor's Varangian Guard and in 1081 were found fighting as a regiment for Emperor Alexius Comnenus against invading Normans (from Italy) at the Battle of Durazzo in modern Albania. (Now there's a theme for a series of adventure novels...) In reality, after King William put local revolts down in N England in 1068-9 a lot of the Anglo-Saxon resistance and their pretender to the throne, Edgar Atheling, went off to Scotland where E's sister (St) Margaret married king Malcolm/ Mael Coluim III. What if they had headed off via Orkney to the Americas instead of to Byzantium?
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Similar to what I proposed. I suggested an attack on Iceland driving several thousand colonists west. But I argued for a hybrid state developing. Since the Vikings adopted in or kidnapped North Africans, Turks, and many others, then Natives as well.
 
Regarding the arrival of Vikings from Schleswig and the Danelaw in South America, evidence for which was offered in his book El Rey Vikingo del Paraguay by the archaeologist Jacques de Mahieu, any such possibility naturally being discarded by the "scientific-historical" community, nevertheless I note with some disappointment that no mention has been made of it one way or the other in the preceding material.
 
Der Mecklenburger said:
Regarding the arrival of Vikings from Schleswig and the Danelaw in South America, evidence for which was offered in his book El Rey Vikingo del Paraguay by the archaeologist Jacques de Mahieu, any such possibility naturally being discarded by the "scientific-historical" community, nevertheless I note with some disappointment that no mention has been made of it one way or the other in the preceding material.
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Because Neo Nazi propaganda has no place in actual historical discourse. I have real problems with Altons work but, I mean, Jesus, De Mahieu?
 
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Ah yes, I thought we might hear first from a true member of the "scientific historical community".

Professor Mahieu, a Frenchman, fought as an artillery officer with the French Waffen-SS-Division Charlemagne during the war. Possibly he hated the Bolsheviks or the North Americans so much that he felt compelled to do so. After the capitulation he came to Argentina and resumed his work as an archaeologist, working with the Paraguayan Government. As I see it, there is no connection between the Nazis and Vikings.

The actual reason for the Danish Vikings being in Paraguay and near Lake Titicaca in the 12th-13th centuries was for a purpose which was not political. In Paraguay they even intermarried with the local friendly Indians. The professional investigations of Mahieu and the Paraguayan Government, who enlisted the help of various actual scientists and historians, real ones, was for a purpose which had nothing to do with "Neo-Nazism".

It would be much appreciated, as a matter of interest, if the knowledgeable major contributors to this thread would provide such reasons as they may have, one way or the other, that Vikings did not penetrate this far south.

One does, of course, bear in mind the Columbus Rule that under all circumstances whatsoever it is an impossibility for Europeans to have arrived this far south in the Americas before 1492.
 
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Der Mecklenburger said:
Ah yes, I thought we might hear first from a true member of the "scientific historical community".

Professor Mahieu, a Frenchman, fought as an artillery officer with the French Waffen-SS-Division Charlemagne during the war. Possibly he hated the Bolsheviks or the North Americans so much that he felt compelled to do so. After the capitulation he came to Argentina and resumed his work as an archaeologist, working with the Paraguayan Government. As I see it, there is no connection between the Nazis and Vikings.

The actual reason for the Danish Vikings being in Paraguay and near Lake Titicaca in the 12th-13th centuries was for a purpose which was not political. In Paraguay they even intermarried with the local friendly Indians. The professional investigations of Mahieu and the Paraguayan Government, who enlisted the help of various actual scientists and historians, real ones, was for a purpose which had nothing to do with "Neo-Nazism".

It would be much appreciated, as a matter of interest, if the knowledgeable major contributors to this thread would provide such reasons as they may have, one way or the other, that Vikings did not penetrate this far south.

One does, of course, bear in mind the Columbus Rule that under all circumstances whatsoever it is an impossibility for Europeans to have arrived this far south in the Americas before 1492.
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Well for starters, literally any place I can find someone making a claim about this only reference a few 70 year old claims, and then usually follow it on with 'oh this is clearly far more plausible than some nonsense about advanced civilizations just waiting to be discovered by a few Spaniards.' Plus a large element of 'no it was white people who were running things.' And the usual sort of thing of 'here's the original image, and here's the normalised runes so we can see what it actually says- the sort of utter bollocks in terms of 'scientific' practice that the archaeological profession largely discarded in the 30s'

Which, yeah that automatically puts it in the 'crank' pile for me.

And the Nazis were massively into Norse mythology and glorifying the Vikings- just look at, um, literally everything Himmler ever wrote. So yeah it's eminently plausible for a member of the SS to make up a load of crap about Vikings in South America.
 
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Here is an example of the "utter bollocks" which passes for scientific practice in an archaeological profession which does not have an ex-Waffen-SS officer amongst its numbers who is not hidebound by 1492 at all costs, and honest.

No laughing, you can't make this stuff up.

It was the custom of the pre-Conquest Incas to be mummified with their dogs. A study of the graves at Ancon/Chile by N.Nehring in 1885 distinguished a variety of dog known as Cannis Ingae pecuaris (sheepdog).

The analysis by French scientists Madeleine Friant and H.Reichlen in the 1950's determined that pecuaris could not possibly be a descendant of the wild dogs of South America, and they matched it to the description of Cannis Familiaris L.palustris Rut of which numerous skeletal remains have been discovered, all on the Danish island of Als/South-east Jutland, at Bundsö.

The anatomical coincidence is perfect. The French scientists were in no doubt that the mummified pre-Conquest Inca dogs must be descendants of the Danish sheepdogs from Bundsö.

That was the easy part, but bearing in mind the Golden Columbus 1492 Rule quoted in my earlier posting, the difficult bit was how to account for these dogs having got to South America from Denmark before Columbus got to the West Indies. There are two possible explanations:

(1) the scientific-historical explanation offered by Friant and Reichlen and
(2) the common sense theory

(1) Friant and Reichlen postulated: "The Danish Vikings must have given some of their Bundsö sheepdogs to Norwegian Vikings. These Norwegian Vikings must have taken the dogs with them to the North American colony at Vinland. When the Norwegians were ejected from there by the natives, they must have left the dogs behind. The native Indians did not want to keep the dogs, but instead of killing them they took across the water from Vinland to modern Canada where they would have given the dogs to other tribes. These other tribes must also not have wanted to keep the dogs and so must have passed them to yet more tribes to the south, the process being repeated down through the thousands of miles from the present United States and onwards to Mexico, and then from tribe to tribe through Guatemala to Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and then Panama from where they would have been conveyed by balsa raft to Venezuela, then along the coastal strips of Columbia and Ecuador and up into the mountain heights of Peru where the Incas adopted the entire strain."

This preposterous scientific theory naturally has nothing to substantiate any of it, but it gets the dogs to Peru without any Vikings being involved except at the start.

(2) The common sense theory is that several centuries before Columbus, the Danish Vikings coming to Brazil and Paraguay brought Bundsö sheepdogs with them in their boats.

Sources:
Friant, M: Du chien néolithique de Bundsö au chien des Vikings et au chien des Incas, Zúrich 1955.
Friant,M et Reichlein, H: Deux chiens prehistoriques du désert d'Atacama, Chili: Lima, Peru, 1950.
Friant,M: Le chien des Incas précolumbien et la découverte de l'Americque, Paris 1964-1965.
 
Well, I'm still working on parsing the French, but in the meantime I would point out that I can only actually find the first article in Google Scholar, and even that one doesn't actually appear to have been cited by anyone. Which considering it's now 65 years old is concerning.

What is more concerning is that (unless I'm mistranslating something @Redolegna could I have hand here?) this particular article only has a table comparing the Incan dog skull to European ones and doesn't ever actually give a comparison to any South American wild dog species.

***

(about 20 mins later)

Right well I found one textbook that cites any of those articles, and scanning/searching through I can't initially find any discussion on the origin of dogs there- in fact based on one footnote I have a suspicion that the article was only used as a reference for a commentary by one of the authors on the Patagonian Wild horse.

This really is not filling me with confidence.

I'd also say calling the archaeological profession 'hidebound' by 1492 considering that it's considered incontrovertible fact that the Vikings did, indeed, briefly settle in Newfoundland and people usually add ephemeral visits by at the very least the Basque if not the Irish and/or English to the Grand Banks for fishing shows a really outdated understanding of where things currently are. Frankly if there was any evidence for the Vikings actually making it that far south we'd have the usual 'these guys were amazing and really misunderstood' crowd all over it.
 
Der Mecklenburger said:
(1) Friant and Reichlen postulated: "The Danish Vikings must have given some of their Bundsö sheepdogs to Norwegian Vikings. These Norwegian Vikings must have taken the dogs with them to the North American colony at Vinland. When the Norwegians were ejected from there by the natives, they must have left the dogs behind. The native Indians did not want to keep the dogs, but instead of killing them they took across the water from Vinland to modern Canada where they would have given the dogs to other tribes. These other tribes must also not have wanted to keep the dogs and so must have passed them to yet more tribes to the south, the process being repeated down through the thousands of miles from the present United States and onwards to Mexico, and then from tribe to tribe through Guatemala to Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and then Panama from where they would have been conveyed by balsa raft to Venezuela, then along the coastal strips of Columbia and Ecuador and up into the mountain heights of Peru where the Incas adopted the entire strain."
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Friant makes no such claim in your first source. That source is just "so, they look similar" anyway. I would ask you for the source of the quote, but it seems you just got this second-hand off a French conspiracy site, assuming you didn't get it from Geoffrey Brooks. That or it's the other way round and they got it from him. But you're probably him, given that you claim to be a "profesional translator of German wartime material". In which case I actually can ask you for the source.

1576966907734.png

But nah I'm not going to because we all know what this is

Der Mecklenburger said:
It would be much appreciated
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if you fucked off.
 
Alex Richards said:
What is more concerning is that (unless I'm mistranslating something @Redolegna could I have hand here?) this particular article only has a table comparing the Incan dog skull to European ones and doesn't ever actually give a comparison to any South American wild dog species.
Click to expand...

He dismisses it so:

Notons que les Canis sauvages d'Amérique du Sud, avec les sous-genres: Chrysocyon, Cerdocyon et Notocyon, très différents de notre Loup [Canis
(Canis) lupus L.], s'éloignent considérablement, aussi, par leur aspect général, a la fois du Canis Ingae et des Chiens domestiques d'Europe. De teile sorte qu'il n'est pas possible d'admettre que le Chien des Incas provienne de Chiens sau- vages sud-americains.
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Saying that they're very different from Canis Ingae and domestic dogs of Europe. But does not detail further.
 
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

I have to point out that whether or not Jacques de Mahieu was a literal Nazi is entirely orthogonal and irrelevant to the discussion here.

Case in point: Hugh Nibley was there, in the American army, on D-Day, one of the soldiers in the convoy, doing the landing in Normandy, bravely risking his life to save Europe from the Nazi menace. The man was a hero, and he is worthy of my respect and admiration and appreciation.

His voluminous work to establish and defend the historicity of the Book of Mormon and Jews establishing a civilization in America 600 B.C. is still bullshit, though.

Same goes for Jacques de Mahieu. I don't care what he did during WWII. His theories about Vikings in Paraguay are bullshit even if you could prove that he was literally Oskar Schindler.
 
Makemakean said:
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

I have to point out that whether or not Jacques de Mahieu was a literal Nazi is entirely orthogonal and irrelevant to the discussion here.

Case in point: Hugh Nibley was there, in the American army, on D-Day, one of the soldiers in the convoy, doing the landing in Normandy, bravely risking his life to save Europe from the Nazi menace. The man was a hero, and he is worthy of my respect and admiration and appreciation.

His voluminous work to establish and defend the historicity of the Book of Mormon and Jews establishing a civilization in America 600 B.C. is still bullshit, though.

Same goes for Jacques de Mahieu. I don't care what he did during WWII. His theories about Vikings in Paraguay are bullshit even if you could prove that he was literally Oskar Schindler.
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It's relevant because we're discussing the Vikings, a subject that the Nazis took a great deal of interest in. We should be extra dubious of anything a Nazi claims about the Vikings, because Nazis and Neo-Nazis have a habit of making shit up about them.
 
Makemakean said:
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

I have to point out that whether or not Jacques de Mahieu was a literal Nazi is entirely orthogonal and irrelevant to the discussion here.

Case in point: Hugh Nibley was there, in the American army, on D-Day, one of the soldiers in the convoy, doing the landing in Normandy, bravely risking his life to save Europe from the Nazi menace. The man was a hero, and he is worthy of my respect and admiration and appreciation.

His voluminous work to establish and defend the historicity of the Book of Mormon and Jews establishing a civilization in America 600 B.C. is still bullshit, though.

Same goes for Jacques de Mahieu. I don't care what he did during WWII. His theories about Vikings in Paraguay are bullshit even if you could prove that he was literally Oskar Schindler.
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Its relevant because Neo Nazis spent a great deal of time and effort trying to claim an ancestral claim to South America in the decades following WWII so as to legitimize the flight south of so many German exiles. Ideas of secret Nordic ruling populations to this day makes appearances in Nazi claims about South America.
 
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