The long-term geo-political consequences of Vinland's survival?

[chornedsnorkack]

I don't think a significantly larger "seed" for Vinland is plausible, so I'll focus on them working things out with the Skraelings.

In the short term, there would be some immigration from Europe to Vinland.

In the short term, there was hardly any immigration from Europe to Greenland. Almost all settlers of Greenland came from Iceland, not Norway or Scotland.

The Norse would inevitably launch further expeditions, and would soon find that there were better lands to the south. But even with the attraction of new lands, the sheer distance would limit the flow. It wouldn't take long for locally-born Vinlanders to outnumber immigrants.

I agree that the idea of Vinland being anything but a nominal subject of a European king is implausible. The question is, what would the local government look like? I think the original Vinland colony would probably follow the Icelandic model, but I imagine that some adventurers might found kingdoms of their own elsewhere.

Where?
There are certain things with Icelandic model:
1) Iceland was uninhabited all around. The first settlers of Iceland, 435 of them, were free to settle anywhere around the empty coast.
Newfoundland is almost exactly as big as Iceland - slightly bigger - but possesses the Skraeling populations. Settling in an outport involves dealing with neighbouring Skraelings... for which the newcomers from Iceland and Greenland do not have experience.

Therefore there is a strong incentive for the new settlers to NOT found new outports with no experience - a safer move would be to join an existing Norse settlement and rely on the old settlers for protection against Skraelings, interpreters and intermediates for trade etc. It would be years later, when they have got the feel of the geography and Skraeling language and acquired Skraeling friends and trade partners at the proposed new outport that they would be safe to move there.
And the dependent relationships from living for years in the settlement of an existing chieftain would tend to last - if the peace and trade agreements with Skraelings are made under an existing chieftain then settling new lands under protection of these existing agreements would tend to carry over a dependence from the chieftain whose agreements they were.
2) Icelanders had few ships of their own. Much of the trade was carried out by ships that sailed from Norway, and then around Iceland.
Since the settlers were scattered all around the coast, most of them could trade directly with a ship that sailed around Iceland. There was little reason for any place to be intermediary for trade. There was one region of Iceland that DID, however, have concentrated trade: on the southwestern plains, there was a large inland population, and sandy coast poor for landing which directed trade to a more suitable spot at Eyrarbakki. It is no coincidence that this region did already in early 11th century power the rise of Haukadalur clan, and then See of Skalholt.

So: Icelandic model was changing in 11th century, too. Vinland could evolve away from 10th century Iceland model for similar reasons... plus additional ones, causing the development to be faster, earlier and further.

And the Skraelings would quickly hit the Iron Age, so the Norse would lose their tech advantage.

Sami used iron, but did not adopt all Norse technology.

The Little Ice Age would probably kill the Greenland colony sooner - the Greenlanders would probably choose to move to Vinland. There might still be a fishing outpost or two, possibly dominated by the Inuit rather than the Norse. This would probably cut off regular contact between Europe and Vinland, although there would still be the occasional ship making the crossing. Any nominal fealty would end.

Trade with Vinland would support Greenland better than the OTL trade with Norway did.

 

[altwere]

Most of the men come from small coastal farm and had all of the needed skills.

 

[Driftless]

I've been off on vacation for a few days.....

One of the essential points for the original success of Vinland would be a source of European colonists. I'm thinking there's a practical limit to those who would migrate from Greenland or Iceland; at least if the political/economic conditions of the OTL held true. What other realistic sources of emigres to Vinland? Because of the existing cultural and political connections, what circumstance would have Norway contribute more emigres', that would pass through or bypass Iceland/Greenland alltogether? What other cultures might supply emigres in that time period? (1000 AD+/-) Irish missionary's & settlers? Scots fleeing unrest? Bretons? I'm just fishing here.

I think you need a steady influx of settlers to make Vinland take off.

 

[Peter]

With their toolkit and the magic of exponential growth the Vinlanders would conquer North America in just a few centuries, given that they intitally managed to establish a settlement large enough to be self-sufficient in food-production and is large enough for them to have all the know-how (i.e. enough specialists such as smiths, boatmakers, etc) to reproduce said tool kit.


What would happen would be this: Every norse yeoman-farmer would have enough land by himself to produce food only at his maxium marginal productivity with a minimum disease load, hence he would have the maximum number of surviving children. When these children grew up the oldest son would inherit the farm, while they rest of his sons would set out to conquer new farmlands from technologically inferior and dispersed skraeling population. This process would repeat for every generation and you would essentially get the same dynamic as in the historical British colonies. Immigration would not be an important factor (just as it wasn't historically: the US have never had a higher foreign born share of its population then it does today) after the first generation or two. The process would be self-driving.

Or:

1000*1.02^500=19956569

This is not as cool as ideas of Viking-Skraeling hybrid cultures or whatever, but we know from history that that's how it goes. For example, it is now widely accepted (due to genetics) that the pots-not-people paradigm was incorrect. The early Anatolian farmers wiped out most of the European hunter-gatherers who - despite the much smaller technological gap - never managed to adopt agriculture. Same with the Indians and the pilgrims, the Slavs and the Fenno-Ugrians, the Bantu and the and Bushmen, etc. Paleolithic peoples are generally not capable of tech-jumping unless the superior tool-kit peoples are actively trying to get them to tech-jump (i.e. later day European colonial powers). If you don't believe me, just look at the Sami. They lived in close quarters with the Norse, yet never established farming communities in northern Scandinavia and did not tech-jump.

So if we get a late Iron Age people - unrestrained by humanism and Christian ethics - established in whats it to them (once they get the neccesary population density to be military superior) an un-inhabited temperate area we should expect their population to balloon.

The initial colony will be in Vinland, but pretty soon we would expect them to establish secondary colonies in New England and around the great-lakes and great rivers. Probably the establishment of new colonies will happen in a rather anarchic way: Great men gathering around them younger sons, sailing upriver or down the coast until they find a land that satisfies their need, whereupon they would massacre local inhabitants that did not flee, and set up their colony. (Kind of how viking raids happened historically). European diseases will help in this process.

Probably also this would set of chain-migrations, with decimated peoples fleeing West, in turn disrupting other tribes, etc. (Just like historically.)

In five hundred years North America would be Norse-speaking, and Mesoamerica probably ruled over by a Norse warrior caste.

 

[Umbral]

With their toolkit and the magic of exponential growth the Vinlanders would conquer North America in just a few centuries, given that they intitally managed to establish a settlement large enough to be self-sufficient in food-production and is large enough for them to have all the know-how (i.e. enough specialists such as smiths, boatmakers, etc) to reproduce said tool kit.

Well, I think that is a slight overestimation.

What would happen would be this: Every norse yeoman-farmer would have enough land by himself to produce food only at his maxium marginal productivity with a minimum disease load, hence he would have the maximum number of surviving children. When these children grew up the oldest son would inherit the farm, while they rest of his sons would set out to conquer new farmlands from technologically inferior and dispersed skraeling population. This process would repeat for every generation and you would essentially get the same dynamic as in the historical British colonies. Immigration would not be an important factor (just as it wasn't historically: the US have never had a higher foreign born share of its population then it does today) after the first generation or two. The process would be self-driving.

I made a somewhat similar estimate myself in my own Vinland timeline. I assumed however, that maximum growth conditions would only exist while the natives suffered from the disease-shock, and that they would eventually resist the expansion. At this point the spread of the Norse would not stop, but other factors would increase in importance.

This is not as cool as ideas of Viking-Skraeling hybrid cultures or whatever, but we know from history that that's how it goes. For example, it is now widely accepted (due to genetics) that the pots-not-people paradigm was incorrect. The early Anatolian farmers wiped out most of the European hunter-gatherers who - despite the much smaller technological gap - never managed to adopt agriculture. Same with the Indians and the pilgrims, the Slavs and the Fenno-Ugrians, the Bantu and the and Bushmen, etc. Paleolithic peoples are generally not capable of tech-jumping unless the superior tool-kit peoples are actively trying to get them to tech-jump (i.e. later day European colonial powers). If you don't believe me, just look at the Sami. They lived in close quarters with the Norse, yet never established farming communities in northern Scandinavia and did not tech-jump.

Well. I believe the best current estimates for the speed of the original spread of agriculture in Europe is 0,6 -1,3 km/year. Which gives you 300-650 km in 500 years.

Now, TTL is not precisly equivalent to the spread of agriculture in Europe. First off, the superior navigational package of the Norse means that agriculture will start to spread from a large number of sites along the coast, not from a single point in Newfoundland. Also, as you pointed out, the vikings have more of a tech advantage than the early Anatolian farmers. Horses, iron, stirrups, a better agricultural package and above all, ships.

However, as the Norse spread, they are going to run into native agricultural societies. Corn farming had reached Illinois a couple of hundred years before the Norse landed in North America, and they were having their own population boom.

On the subject of populations adopting agriculture, the genetics of Europe is a bit of a mess, but the frequencies of the clades considered to represent middleeastern farmers drop the further northwest you get.

There are indications that the populations that had the most time did adopt farming.

As for the Saami, they have overlapped with the Norse for thousands of years. In colder periods, the Saami expands, as the agricultural package of the Norse finds itself beyond the climatic limits where it can compete with the reindeer-hearding strategy. In times of warmer climate it expands. The Saami have not adopted the agricutiural strategy because they inhabit areas where that package is not competitive with their own. Northwards, agriculture only pays off so far. And reindeer heardings economic range extends further northwards.

In any case, I'd expect Norse agricultures/Vinlands best case spread in 500 years with only Norse tech to be the eastern seaboard to the Appalachians, and Newfoundland up past OTL Montreal and around the Great Lakes.

A few extra plagues will boost it further though.

Long mountain ranges will slow the spread, and it'll spread more easily along an east-west axis untill it hits native agricultural societies. Im uncertain on how far it'll spread in Canada, the package is well suited for the environment, but I suspect the Norse would prefer to move south.

The initial colony will be in Vinland, but pretty soon we would expect them to establish secondary colonies in New England and around the great-lakes and great rivers. Probably the establishment of new colonies will happen in a rather anarchic way: Great men gathering around them younger sons, sailing upriver or down the coast until they find a land that satisfies their need, whereupon they would massacre local inhabitants that did not flee, and set up their colony. (Kind of how viking raids happened historically). European diseases will help in this process.

Thats going to work for the kind of natives that inhabit the Northwestern corner of North America, where the Norse landed. However, North America was not static. As I understand you have migrations of people with larger pouplation densities pushing up from the southeast. The peoples encountered much later by the English and Dutch where the Norse only found nomads..

Thats going to stop any small chiftains dead. So to speak.

Probably also this would set of chain-migrations, with decimated peoples fleeing West, in turn disrupting other tribes, etc. (Just like historically.)

I suspect that was already going on, with the people coming from the southeast pushing tribes ahead of them. Towards the Norse.

 

[Sirius]

Umbral, can you link me to your Vinland timeline?

 

[chornedsnorkack]

With their toolkit and the magic of exponential growth the Vinlanders would conquer North America in just a few centuries, given that they intitally managed to establish a settlement large enough to be self-sufficient in food-production and is large enough for them to have all the know-how (i.e. enough specialists such as smiths, boatmakers, etc) to reproduce said tool kit.


What would happen would be this: Every norse yeoman-farmer would have enough land by himself to produce food only at his maxium marginal productivity with a minimum disease load, hence he would have the maximum number of surviving children. When these children grew up the oldest son would inherit the farm, while they rest of his sons would set out to conquer new farmlands from technologically inferior and dispersed skraeling population. This process would repeat for every generation and you would essentially get the same dynamic as in the historical British colonies. Immigration would not be an important factor (just as it wasn't historically: the US have never had a higher foreign born share of its population then it does today) after the first generation or two.

Compared to historical British colonies, the Norse would have slightly less of technological edge (no firearms for one) and less new immigrants. Compare the historical British colonies with historical French colonies, or historical Dutch one.

The process would be self-driving.

Or:

1000*1.02^500=19956569

This is not as cool as ideas of Viking-Skraeling hybrid cultures or whatever, but we know from history that that's how it goes.

But would the Norse actively avoid hybridization?

The initial colony will be in Vinland, but pretty soon we would expect them to establish secondary colonies in New England and around the great-lakes and great rivers. Probably the establishment of new colonies will happen in a rather anarchic way: Great men gathering around them younger sons, sailing upriver or down the coast until they find a land that satisfies their need, whereupon they would massacre local inhabitants that did not flee, and set up their colony.

Why massacre? This sets up vulnerability to raiding by the surviving locals. Which is survivable for a big colony constantly on high alert, but this restricts colonization to large bands willing to tolerate that vigilance.

Also, gather around them younger sons... how about daughters? Will daughters marry the younger sons before sailing to colonize, or be brought afterwards? And would younger sons have fundamental objections to marrying surviving Skraeling girls?

So how about a different anarchic settlement scenario? A younger son sails upriver each year for some years. Finds and visits seasonal campsites of local Skraeling bands. Trades with them - iron tools, flour, cheese, butter, woollen cloth from him, maybe fish, game and furs in return. Learns their language if he did not already do it at home. Gets to know the Skraeling families, their names and their daughters, and be known to them. Considers a site which might be better for a farm, and where he gets along with the local Skraeling band, and where he likes a Skraeling girl who is available and likes him.
And then moves to establish his farm and marry the Skraeling girl. He needs to clear some land, sure. The Skraelings cannot exactly hunt in his cowpasture as they used to. But in part he is receiving the land as his wife´s dowry/inheritance, in part he is paying for it with grain, cheese etc. over and above what he used to pay in trade when he was just visiting. The immediate local band is keeping the bulk of their forest hunting grounds away from the farm infields on the riverbank, and now they have an useful in-law. And if/when the hunting is poor in the forest, a Skraeling brother-in-law might move to the Norse farm as a farmhand for his brother-in-law.

Could this work?

In five hundred years North America would be Norse-speaking,

Even if not Norse-looking. If the Norse younger sons have the prestige and trade connections, their Metis sons and daughters would be fluent in their Norse fathertongue, even if they also learn the local Skraeling tongue that remains useful when hunting and trading around the forests.

 

[Driftless]

Beothuk & Newfoundland

I found this interesting info on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beothuk

The more developed culture came some time later, but the archaelogical info gives some pointers to earlier situations. Here's some of the points that are part of our discussion:

About 1000 AD, Norse explorers encountered natives in northern Newfoundland who may have been ancestors of the later Beothuk or Dorset inhabitants of Labrador and Newfoundland. The Norse called them skrælingjar ("skraelings" or barbarians).

The Beothuk lived throughout the island of Newfoundland, particularly in the Notre Dame and Bonavista Bay areas. Estimates vary as to the number of Beothuk at the time of contact with Europeans. Scholars of the 19th and early 20th century estimated about 2,000 individuals at the time of European contact in the 15th century. Recent scholarship suggests there may have been no more than 500 to 700 people. They lived in independent, self-sufficient, extended family groups of 30 to 55 people

The point above I think has extra value for our discussion. Based on some of additional info on the website, that points to starvation conditions and migration/extinction; this gives a population density push-point for a primarily hunting culture on a very large island.

Unlike some other native groups, the Beothuk tried to avoid contact with Europeans; they moved inland as European settlements grew. The Beothuk visited their former camps only to pick up metal objects. They would also collect any tools, shelters and building materials left by the European fishermen who had dried and cured their catch before taking it to Europe at the end of the season. Contact between Europeans and the Beothuk was usually negative for one side,...

In 2010, a team of European researchers announced the discovery of a previously unknown mitochondrial DNA sequence in Iceland, which they further suggest may have New World origins. If the latter is true, one possible explanation for its appearance in modern Iceland would be from the capture and removal of a Native American woman, possibly a Beothuk.

As this culture seems to be primarily hunters, competing for limited resource on Newfoundland, there would have been difficulty in developing a "good neighbor" relationship with the Vinlanders. This may have lead to either the Vinlanders battliing the proto-Beothuk for supremacy on Newfoundland, or for the Vinlanders to focus on other locations for settlement.

 

[Driftless]

Christianity in Vinland?

The Vinlanders of OTL, I beleive were nominally Christian; in the "I'll turn the other cheek after I've split your skull" line of belief. Certainly, it does not appear that religion played a role in the original moves to Markland, Helluland, or Vinland.

Erik the Red, back in Greenland, was old school Norse, not Christian.

I beleive that IF missionary's of some flavor were part of the early Vinland startup, North American Christianity would have a unique dogma from Europe. At the time of original Vinland settlement, the nearest bishops would have been in Iceland? From there, it's another long hop to Norway, or Ireland, and even a much longer hop in miles and authority, back to Rome. If you are a missionary, greatly removed in both distance, time, and reach from your dogmatic authority, you probably adapt your message to local needs.

 

[mrmandias]

On the rate of Norse expansion and disease shock, a lot depends on when and where the aboriginal inhabitants take up agriculture. A lot also depends on the frequency of Norse contacts with European disease pools and how large the Norse population gets and how quickly. If the Norse do continue as a source of disease, than any widespread native source of resistance requires a large population, both large enough to survive the initial disease shock and still have enough numbers to resist Norse encroachment. The likely result is something like a Norse Settler N. America above the Mason-Dixon line, say.

 

[Faeelin]

This is not as cool as ideas of Viking-Skraeling hybrid cultures or whatever, but we know from history that that's how it goes. For example, it is now widely accepted (due to genetics) that the pots-not-people paradigm was incorrect. The early Anatolian farmers wiped out most of the European hunter-gatherers who - despite the much smaller technological gap - never managed to adopt agriculture. Same with the Indians and the pilgrims, the Slavs and the Fenno-Ugrians, the Bantu and the and Bushmen, etc. Paleolithic peoples are generally not capable of tech-jumping unless the superior tool-kit peoples are actively trying to get them to tech-jump (i.e. later day European colonial powers). If you don't believe me, just look at the Sami. They lived in close quarters with the Norse, yet never established farming communities in northern Scandinavia and did not tech-jump.

I suspect there are reasons people living in the Artcic Circle didn't adopt farming. And we know that the Native Americans did adopt metalworking. Look at the Navajo, for instance. Similarly, we also know that Native Americans adopted European crops (and more commonly) domestic animals. Pigs and cattle were very common in the 18th century transappalachia. I'd check out The Middle Groun if you want an interesting look at this (as well as how Native Aemricans debated whether farming was "women's work.")

So if we get a late Iron Age people - unrestrained by humanism and Christian ethics

::Falls over laughing::

Yes, we must presume that the Vikings will be no more merciful than, say, the Puritans.

(Kind of how viking raids happened historically). European diseases will help in this process.

Which diseases? Iceland wasn't hit by smallpox until the 13th century, and it killed about a quarter to a third of the island.

Compared to historical British colonies, the Norse would have slightly less of technological edge (no firearms for one) and less new immigrants. Compare the historical British colonies with historical French colonies, or historical Dutch one.

Especially in population size. The Dutch, with a better toolkit and gunpowder, had a lot of trouble with the Native Americans given their initial population size.

The Skraelings cannot exactly hunt in his cowpasture as they used to. But in part he is receiving the land as his wife´s dowry/inheritance, in part he is paying for it with grain, cheese etc. over and above what he used to pay in trade when he was just visiting.

This is basically (save the marrige) how the 18th century Iroquois tried to use settlers; they wanted long-term leases, where they'd receive produce or money in exchange for loss of hunting grounds.

The primitive Iroquois, who never adopted ironworking or notions of property rights, naturally were ignored by American and New yOrk government. But in ATL? Yea, this seems likely.

The Vinlanders of OTL, I beleive were nominally Christian; in the "I'll turn the other cheek after I've split your skull" line of belief. Certainly, it does not appear that religion played a role in the original moves to Markland, Helluland, or Vinland.

By the time Vinland was settled, Iceland was Christian. Lief Erikson, who actually discovered Vinland, was Christian. And we know that the Greenlanders had a church up until the end. So I think this will not be a hidden elf village, but a far flung outpost of Christendom.

But ya, a lot of religious practices will diverge.

Oh, and the woman who gave birth to the only Norse child in OTL Vinland ended up making a pilgrimage to Rome. So I don't think we should presume distance will keep Vinland cut off.

 

[Peter]

Well, I think that is a slight overestimation.

Well, I agree. I do however think they would settle the parts of North America friendly to their form of agriculture. They would probable be way slower though then historical settlers to adopt maize-growing and any other (?) native crop, lacking the kind institutions that would facilitate those kind of changes (i.e. a literary class, centralized power, etc).

And once they hit the great plains individual farmers would quickly figure out that its more profitable to decrease planting and increase hunting and herding, leading to the development of a warrior-rancher culture, sort of like Scythians or Cossacks. Here though they would face native tribes of horsemen (since we know that historically horses spread quickly) and I do think some of them might eventually adopt husbandry (this seems like a much smaller and more logical leap then hunter-gatherers switching to agriculture).

A pretty cool scenario would be mongolian-like Skraelings fighting Iron age cowboys. The cowboys would have the advantage of technology and population density, but the skraelings would benefit from the mobility of nomads. Especially after a few centuries of adoption to the new life-style the skraelings would form a very formidable opponent and could quite possible block further expansion, reclaim the great plains and be a scourge on more settled, agricultural lands.

On the subject of populations adopting agriculture, the genetics of Europe is a bit of a mess, but the frequencies of the clades considered to represent middleeastern farmers drop the further northwest you get.

Well yes, but the newest evidence suggests that the other components are mainly not from the native populations of northern Europe but from later arrivals of related peoples from the east. Kind of how Mexicans in California are not descendants of native Californians, even though they carry a lot of Amerindian ancestry.

http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2013/12/23/001552.figures-only

As for the Saami, they have overlapped with the Norse for thousands of years. In colder periods, the Saami expands, as the agricultural package of the Norse finds itself beyond the climatic limits where it can compete with the reindeer-hearding strategy. In times of warmer climate it expands. The Saami have not adopted the agricutiural strategy because they inhabit areas where that package is not competitive with their own. Northwards, agriculture only pays off so far. And reindeer heardings economic range extends further northwards.

Well sure, but the driving force here is the climatic limits of the Norse package. When my ancestors colonized the Bay of Bothnia it wasn't because those areas were suddenly unfit for reindeer hunting, but because they were now fit for agriculture.

Thats going to work for the kind of natives that inhabit the Northwestern corner of North America, where the Norse landed. However, North America was not static. As I understand you have migrations of people with larger pouplation densities pushing up from the southeast. The peoples encountered much later by the English and Dutch where the Norse only found nomads..

Thats going to stop any small chiftains dead. So to speak.

Yup, but by that time they will have a larger population to draw from. Though certainly there will be temporary setbacks I do expect the iron age to win out against the neolithic.

I suspect that was already going on, with the people coming from the southeast pushing tribes ahead of them. Towards the Norse.

True.

 

[Peter]

So how about a different anarchic settlement scenario? A younger son sails upriver each year for some years. Finds and visits seasonal campsites of local Skraeling bands. Trades with them - iron tools, flour, cheese, butter, woollen cloth from him, maybe fish, game and furs in return. Learns their language if he did not already do it at home. Gets to know the Skraeling families, their names and their daughters, and be known to them. Considers a site which might be better for a farm, and where he gets along with the local Skraeling band, and where he likes a Skraeling girl who is available and likes him.
And then moves to establish his farm and marry the Skraeling girl. He needs to clear some land, sure. The Skraelings cannot exactly hunt in his cowpasture as they used to. But in part he is receiving the land as his wife´s dowry/inheritance, in part he is paying for it with grain, cheese etc. over and above what he used to pay in trade when he was just visiting. The immediate local band is keeping the bulk of their forest hunting grounds away from the farm infields on the riverbank, and now they have an useful in-law. And if/when the hunting is poor in the forest, a Skraeling brother-in-law might move to the Norse farm as a farmhand for his brother-in-law.

Could this work?

I find this unlikely for two reasons:

1) I don't know of any case where this happened, and the Norse seem like an unlikely candidate to be the first.

2) I would suspect there would be a cultural preference for marrying their own. After all, why not marry the second-daughter?

Of course there would be mixing, probably on the scale of French-Canadians or British settlers. That is, it would be peripheral and culturally one-sided with the percentage of Skraeling admixture increasing slowly as you go West. But I doubt a warrior bringing a women home would raise his child to be multicultural. That does not appear to have happened historically during the Viking age, even though surely many Vikings would surely have brought women home.

 

[Driftless]

I'm considering this prospect as an activity driver, rather than the religious content....

What role would the church likely play in the development of Vinland? In Norway, Iceland, and other previously pagan societies, the church served to provide secular authenticity and standing to leaders converted to Christianity. If the Vinlanders were Christian, would the church serve as another common tie between clans & communities separated by some distance in North America? I'm thinking more of the secular & political impact.

Again, coming back to the point of missionary's; what could their impact be in developing the colony? The French developed a fairly successful format of combining missionary's, explorers, & traders; six hundred years later than our starting point. One function helps carry the other.

 

[Driftless]

Peter:

And once they hit the great plains individual farmers would quickly figure out that its more profitable to decrease planting and increase hunting and herding, leading to the development of a warrior-rancher culture, sort of like Scythians or Cossacks. Here though they would face native tribes of horsemen (since we know that historically horses spread quickly) and I do think some of them might eventually adopt husbandry (this seems like a much smaller and more logical leap then hunter-gatherers switching to agriculture).

IF they got to the Great Plains, an issue for farming is the thickness of the turf. Prairie grasses tend to have extraordinarily deep roots, that weren't friendly to old time plows. It took the John Deere developed steel mold-board plow to help crop farming really take off on the plains.

 

[Driftless]

Some info on thralls in general and slaves in Viking society. Those customs may have become a part of Vinland as well; considering both eventual economic stratification & conflict between Vinlander & Vinlander, or Vinlander & native Americans

http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/thralls.shtml

 

[Faeelin]

Of course there would be mixing, probably on the scale of French-Canadians or British settlers.

Just want to point out that these are very, very different.

I'm super skeptical of this being so easy for the Norse, because: 1) they didn't successfully colonize Vinland in OTL; 2) attempts to settle NOrth America prior to disease epidemics didn't end well; and 3) a lot of early settlements were disasters in OTL, which seems to contradict the inevitable triumph of the Norseman.

 

[Umbral]

Just want to point out that these are very, very different.

I'm super skeptical of this being so easy for the Norse, because: 1) they didn't successfully colonize Vinland in OTL; 2) attempts to settle NOrth America prior to disease epidemics didn't end well; and 3) a lot of early settlements were disasters in OTL, which seems to contradict the inevitable triumph of the Norseman.

The primary Norse problem was the settlement being at the end of a very long supply chain with decreasing pools of potential settlers for every link. With some kind of draw, pulling in more than a few families as settlers I suspect the situation would have been very different.

As to the other early settlements, they were made by peoples who had an almost legendary lack of climate coping skills. The British were reduced to cannibalism during exceptionally mild winters. The Norse, on the other hand, had climate coping skills for areas that vere very similar, if somewhat more harsh. And, uniquely, they had real colonization experience from Iceland and Greenland in very recent to living memory!

Umbral, can you link me to your Vinland timeline?

Here you go:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/Discussion/showthread.php?t=34545

An early effort, I keep thinking about redoing it. Briefly, Ogedei Khan does not die at the time he did in OTL, and the Mongol invasion of Europe proceeds on schedule, albeit with some diffculties.

Millenial panic ensues in parts of urope, and for the Norwegians, the remotness of Vinland is suddenly seen as an advantage. A large intital pulse of settlers causes a diseaseshock to the natives, and the notion that Vinland has a large amount of empty land keeps immigration up for a few years.

I find this unlikely for two reasons:

1) I don't know of any case where this happened, and the Norse seem like an unlikely candidate to be the first.

2) I would suspect there would be a cultural preference for marrying their own. After all, why not marry the second-daughter?

The Norse were pretty good at integrating with the locals though. Didn't they end up doing something similar to that in Russia and the British Isles?

 

[chornedsnorkack]

This is basically (save the marrige) how the 18th century Iroquois tried to use settlers; they wanted long-term leases, where they'd receive produce or money in exchange for loss of hunting grounds.

The primitive Iroquois, who never adopted ironworking or notions of property rights, naturally were ignored by American and New yOrk government. But in ATL? Yea, this seems likely.

And the Iroquois ended up facing these populous and well-organized governments. New France and New Netherlands could not so easily ignore them.

But North America did OTL have appreciable areas of scattered white activity. Coureurs de bois of New France. Hudson Bay Company. Mountain Men of Rocky Mountains.

These people could NOT just ignore the property rights of the Indians they were dealing with. Even if large bands of company men with guns could fight their way home, their profits depended of the willing cooperation of the Indians they were trading with. And lone free agent traders were especially vulnerable, and knew it.