1. What if the Vikings had been able to make a better go of colonizing America? Could the colony have grown beyond logging camps for Greenland?

2. What if they had been able to better acclimitize tot he new foods, make better allies with the locals and spread down through the east coast?

3. Considering travel methods of the time, would this have affected anything but the Greenland colony and maybe Iceland and the Hebrides? Would Vinland goods made it all the way back to Europe?

4. Is it even feasible to consider such a possibility or were the Vikings doomed to be unable to support a colony in Omerrike?

Thanks,
Bill

William H. Stoddard ..over on the SJG Forums was hoing to a start a campaign with this very premise - or something close to it. He was using the alternate Timeline setting where Viking/Norse-style civilization had conquered a nig chunk of the world.

 His group of players were going to be the Viking equivalent of Police detectives in the settlemenmt on the western edge of Lake Michigan - what we think of as Chicago in our timeline.

- Ed C.

Quote from: HinterWeltWhat if the Vikings had been able to make a better go of colonizing America?  

Well, they did establish a colony in Newfoundland.  It eventually failed because of the hostility of the natives (called 'skraelings' by the Vikings) and their inability to adapt to the new environment.

More generally, though, it's hard to see how they could have pulled it off for at least two reasons: (a.) they just didn't have the necessary population; and (b.) there was no real incentive, given that it was much easier to raid/conquer nearby parts of Ireland, Britain, and Europe.

I'm by no means a historian, but I think one possible problem is whether this Viking colony in America would have made the transition to a kingdom, away from the raiding roots. Would the local situation (mostly the native threat) be sufficient enough, without being totally overwhelming? (The latter should probably assumed for such alt history musings).

1. What if the Vikings had been able to make a better go of colonizing America? Could the colony have grown beyond logging camps for Greenland?
I doubt it.  A colony in Vinland at that time would still suffer from the logistical nightmare that is traveling the North Atlantic.  Shit it is still a nightmare.

2. What if they had been able to better acclimitize tot he new foods, make better allies with the locals and spread down through the east coast?
I think that the only way this could work is some sort of amalgam of the  cultures springing from the interaction.

3. Considering travel methods of the time, would this have affected anything but the Greenland colony and maybe Iceland and the Hebrides? Would Vinland goods made it all the way back to Europe?
If it survived I think it would be a certainty that goods would arrive in Europe. Considering the archeological evidence that has been found in places like Novogorod, people have been trading over ridiculous distances for ever if there is money to be made.

4. Is it even feasible to consider such a possibility or were the Vikings doomed to be unable to support a colony in Omerrike?
Like I said above, I think it was doomed because of the logistical issues as much as anything else.  For a colony to grow it needs the support of the mother country, and with that support being hard to come by, unless they had a LOT of luck, there is no way they could have sustained themselves longer than they did historically.

O.k. So, a follow up. Is there another culture from the same period that might have handled a distant colony better? The Vikings seemed colony oriented but also more a raid and forget or trade sort. They also did not have a large government to back what would have to be a major undertaking. Were the Danes more on top of it? Someone from the British Isles? I think they all had their own problems at the time and ambitions.

It just seems that most of the Northern European countries at the time were not well disposed to such an undertaking. Am I missing something or someone?

Thanks,
Bill

Not exactly a great seafaring age. I think the chances of a trans-pacific settlement would be higher than anything coming from the European mainland. The Mediterranean doesn't exactly spawn the ships suitable for such a travel, nevermind Thor Heyerdahl.

Alt-history civilisations could change that, of course. A huge Egyptian empire for example. Or a huge flock of Irish monks

Quote from: HinterWeltO.k. So, a follow up. Is there another culture from the same period that might have handled a distant colony better? The Vikings seemed colony oriented but also more a raid and forget or trade sort. They also did not have a large government to back what would have to be a major undertaking. Were the Danes more on top of it? Someone from the British Isles? I think they all had their own problems at the time and ambitions.

The noted Canadian author Farley Mowat wrote a book called The Farfarers in which he theorized that a pre-Celtic people colonized Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland before the Vikings.  Pretty interesting idea, but there is only very scant evidence to support it.  It should be said, however, that Mowat was one of the first people to popularize the notion of Viking settlement in Newfoundland before there was proper archaeological evidence to support that contention.

Could be an interesting twist on the colonization saga.  Maybe the Skaelings weren't Native Americans, after all, but rather the remnants of the first wave of European immigration to the New World?


TGA

At an AltHist site I frequently lurk on, there was an excellent Viking colonization scenario. The thread can be found here.

Quote from: KoltarWilliam H. Stoddard ..over on the SJG Forums was hoing to a start a campaign with this very premise - or something close to it. He was using the alternate Timeline setting where Viking/Norse-style civilization had
conquered a nig chunk of the world.

John Kim ran a game of Vikings in the New World that he's talked about in various online forums.

Quote from: John MorrowJohn Kim ran a game of Vikings in the New World that he's talked about in various online forums.

Yup, that's here:

http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/vinland/

My campaign took some liberties with history -- it being more of a dramatic saga than an alternate history.  (There were some ghosts and omens and such.)  

Realistically, I felt the biggest leap of my campaign's history was the Icelanders being able to learn the local languages and establish trade and relations.  It's a huge culture gap that the Icelanders were not well suited to overcome.  

And even given the leap and a successful Vinland colony, I didn't project that their presence would have a huge influence on history.  They were a small colony that would inevitably be rather backwards compared to the later English settlers.  There would still be later English colonization that would dominate them, and a United States after that.  However, they would change a lot of the names in the New England area, had a philosophical impact on the English settlers, and an influence on the Iroquois and other indians.

The really important thing, macrohistorically, would be whether the four hundred year interim period between Viking colonisation and further European exploration would be enough time for the native population to build up an ecological immunity to the most common and deadly European diseases (tuberculosis and smallpox, mainly). Rather than the mass graveyard of early 17th century North America, the English and French settlers might've encountered significantly larger and more powerful aboriginal nations and confederacies capable of challenging their hegemonic ambitions.