Here’s another Columbus whatif for you: What if Columbus’s voyage wasn’t successful?  Let’s say he gets sunk in a storm or lands on a less hospital coast and gets himself and his crew killed or enslaved by the locals.  The New World would still be discovered, and probably within five to ten years at most, but Spain might well lose interest, at least for a time.  Spain had ambitions to continue the process of pushing back the Moors into North Africa.  They also had an ongoing rivalry with France over Italy.  Without Columbus, chances are that they would simply devote more energy to those two causes.

Let’s say Portugal discovers Brazil on schedule or within a few years of when it did historically.  English and Basque fishermen, among others, discover the big fishing grounds around Newfoundland, and then the good fur-trading areas along the northern coast of North America.  Traders and adventurers gradually expand exploration and trade along the Brazilian and North American coasts.  This is a reasonably lucrative business, but without the mountains of gold from the Aztecs and Incas it doesn’t capture the imaginations of Europeans.  It’s just another series of coasts inhabited by ‘savages’ where a man can become reasonably wealthy if he’s a smart trader and happens to be lucky.  It’s sort of like Africa without the African gold trade and without the African diseases.

Diseases do reach the New World from time-to-time in this early stage.  The various strains of the common cold make it across the Atlantic, and flu epidemics follow, especially once pigs and chickens became common among the Indians.  That historically happened rather quickly most places around European settlements.  Tuberculosis probably spreads more gradually where Indians had direct contact with Europeans.  The big killers like smallpox, measles, and malaria would take considerably longer to make it across, just as they did historically.

How long would it take before the Europeans discovered the civilizations of Mexico and Peru?  What would have changed during that time? Historically it took the Spanish twenty-six years from the time of Columbus’s first voyage to the time they discovered the Aztecs.  Presumably it would take somewhat longer for the equivalent discovery to happen in this time-line because the potential discoverers were starting from a considerably more distant base, and they wouldn’t be looking for the same things.  Most voyages would be designed to pick up a cargo of fish or furs in the case of northern voyages or valuable wood in the case of the Portuguese in Brazil, and then head home.  Exploration up and down the coasts would be a gradual thing, probably happening by accident or when existing sources of valuable goods started getting depleted or the competition for them became too great.

European goods and diseases make it to Mexico and probably Peru quite some time before the Europeans do.  European goods are very high-status items for tribes in the interior of North America, and a few class beads and pieces of metal make it through the trade routes of the continent and fall into the hands of the Aztecs, who value them but don’t know quite what to make of them.  The same process happens in South America, where Portuguese trade goods make it to Peru in small and tantalizing numbers.  The availability of these new goods pulls Mexican and Peruvian Indian traders north and east respectively, as previously uninteresting regions become much more important.  Aztec and Inca trade goods become more common in the areas on the trade routes leading to the sources of the European goods, and the Indians along those routes get more of a taste of Mexican and Peruvian customs and technology.

The Aztecs and Incas get some preliminary looks at what diseases can do as cold and flu epidemics sweep through from time-to-time, with the flu epidemics actually killing a considerable number of people.

The patterns of trade and settlement in Brazil and North America follow approximately their historic patterns for the next hundred or so years. There is a long period of slow European creeping along the coasts and up rivers for trade.  While trade is their main motivation, individuals take advantage of the lawless nature of the coasts to kill, rape, or enslave Indians, and Indians sometimes attack ships, either in retaliation for attacks or to steal trade goods.  Hundreds, if not thousands of Indians are kidnapped or lured away on trading and fishing vessels.  Some of them are sold as slaves.  Others are taken back to Europe where they are taught the local language so that they can be used as interpreters.  A few survive European diseases and make it back to their homelands, where they usually go native and advocate attacking Europeans, though a few do act as interpreters for the Europeans or do menial jobs on their ships.

Mixed race populations show up around the areas where Europeans trade regularly, and the lines between Europeans and Indians start to get a little blurry around the edges.  Indians near the centers of trade tend to look down on their neighbors further inland, and those neighbors often respond by trying to push coastal tribes aside so that they can have more direct access to the trade goods.

European settlement attempts do happen during this period.  The ones in North America fail quickly because of the hostility of the Indians and of the traders that regularly come to the coast.  The ones in Brazil are somewhat more successful, just as they were historically.  Portuguese settlements are established in Brazil by maybe 1550, with rival French settlements following a few years later.  Traders from the two countries are competing for various tropical products and their countries attempt to use settlements to exclude their competitors.

In North America, rivalries between European traders and Indian tribes trying to control trade routes become increasingly brutal, but the early attempts to establish colonies and assert ownership fail quickly.  As of 1600, there are still no permanent European colonies in North America, though there are almost always individual Europeans on or around the continent.  Some individual Europeans have long term relationships of various kinds with Indian women and some even become accepted as members of the tribes involved.

The lack of a Columbus has had a huge impact on Europe.  Spain is weaker as a political and military power because it hasn’t had Aztec and Inca gold to help it maintain armies and navies, but Spanish industry is more advanced because that gold hasn’t been around to fuel inflation and make Spanish industries less competitive.

France is relatively stronger than it was historically, and that greater French power has fueled a tight alliance between England and Spain, just as it did historically in the early part of the 1500s.  The Turks are more powerful than they were historically, because Spain is weaker and because the Turkish gold and silver stocks are more valuable in the absence of New World gold.

So where does this go from here?  Should I continue it?