Vikings In North America

History tells us that over the course of 500 years from 1000 CE to the 1500s, Norse presence in North America dwindled to nothing. And ultimately, their impact on the history of North America is fleeting. 

But What If the Vikings grew their settlements over the first five centuries here. What If they ultimately grew their presence to 30,000 or more in warmer areas like New York, Massachusetts, or even the Carolinas?

Historians agree that their impact on Native American, European, and even our American history would be profound. It is not a very far stretch of the imagination to envision an aggressive Viking migration to a milder and more temperate climate hundreds of miles further south along the Atlantic Coast.

With the Little Ice Age, both land and rations, and resources in Iceland, Greenland, England, and many parts of Europe were stretched beyond their ability to support local populations. A stable, growing settlement in Vinland would be attractive to many of these seafarers and peasants. We know this for sure because the migration repeats itself hundreds of years later with the Dutch, French, and English settlers.

In our What If scenario we imagine what life would be like in a large Viking settlement in North America. We are not thinking about New Amsterdam, the Dutch settlement that later became New York. We will imagine Bjorn Buo, a town translated to mean “Bear Shelter”. 

In our story, Bjorn Bour is not the traditional Viking settlement of farms centrally located around longhouses and a stone church. Rather, it is a vibrant, bustling city of thousands of fishermen, boat builders, iron craftsmen, traders, farmers, hunters, butchers, bakers, and even a bishop. And we are about to walk its streets.

Transcript

 Introduction
Hello, my name is Mark Bouffard. Welcome to What If World History?

Like you, I share a passion for civilizations, cultures, and stories of the past. This show looks at the epic events that sewed the fabric of our history and sculpted the world we now know. And it imagines: What If they happened a little bit differently?

Would it change the outcome? What might the “new history” look like? 

I invite you to explore the possibilities with me. 

Let’s take a trip.

Our episode today is:
What if Vinland Was Your Land? 
We will walk the streets of a thriving 13th Century Viking city on the shores of what is now Manhattan. And we will ponder how a successful Viking colonization of North America could reshape American history.



Guerilla Warfare
Abooksigun
Long Island, New York
August 22, 1263 CE

Abooksigun, which means “wildcat” in Algonquian, peers from behind the cover of thick forest out into the pastoral meadow. Over the low, thick stone wall he can see 15-20 sheep grazing near him, a small number of goats, about 10 pigs in a pen in the far corner of the meadow, and a small herd of brown, black and white cows. 

Abooksigun was tall for a Thule native at about 5 feet 8 inches in height. Compared to the Norse intruders though he was short. Many of these settlers were closer to six feet in height and broad shouldered from rowing oars and back-breaking farm work. 

He blended invisibly into the surrounding brush. Sinewy of muscle and lean in stature, he wore moccasins made of tough walrus hide, breeches of leathered elk skin, and a brown fur beaver vest. Normally he would adorn his outfit with necklaces of shark teeth, brightly colored beads, and polished ivory. But his mission was one of stealth, so he traveled lightly in dress and armaments. He carried only a razor-sharp stone dagger set into an ornate bone hilt.

Abooksigun watches as the various animals bury their heads in the verdant, green grass as they eat. The cows are oblivious to any danger around. But, he notices a big, thick spotted bull looking around apprehensively along the treeline that is currently his cover.

Abooksigun is not worried about the animals picking up his scent. He is downwind on a breezy day so his only concern is getting spotted. And then, as he watches, the bull too buries his head in the grass to fill his stocky, muscular belly.

The sun is beginning to set low into the thick forests that surround the little Norse seaside village. In addition to the acrid smell of smoke from cooking and work fires in the buildings, Abooksigun can smell the salty scent of the ocean water.

From his position at the edge of the woodline, he can see cloaked and armed men and women walking among the low, long sod huts. Some are carrying wood for a fire, hay for feedstock, and others are carrying children to keep them out of the way. Abooksigun can hear wooden mallets pounding the planks of a dry-docked ship. And when he really concentrates, he can discern the sharp clank of the metalsmiths pounding iron on their work stones.

Until the time of his father, these woods, shores and shoals belonged to his people. Over the last dozen years, more and more of these bearded and surly settlers have taken over land that was once exclusively Thule territory. War parties have skirmished during that time, drawing to a standstill at the expense of many of his friends and relatives. 

Originally, the number of Thule tribesmen had provided an advantage, but the iron shields, thick leather and steel-tipped arrows and axes, were deadly at close range. And that evened out the death toll for both sides. For the last couple of years, there has been no war. Abooksigun had even traded some walrus tusks and beaver pelts for a small ax, which he kept back at camp.

Abooksigun has been to this spot before. Each time he peers at the meadow and considers which of the prized animals he will steal. Property is an arbitrary concept to the local natives so there is no consideration for whom the animals belong to. 

Cows and pigs are best for food, but absent a large war party, their size and weight do not make them practical targets. Goat milk is great, but the meat is too stringy and the hides too thin to make leather. 

He has winter clothing and blankets made of fox, mink, marten, beaver, and even grizzly bear, but sheep’s wool is something his wife can fashion into a greater variety of summer clothing. It has to be the sheep. A swift swipe of his knife and a plump sheep’s throat would be cut, which means it won’t fight him during flight, and more importantly, it won’t make any noise. A quiet, quick getaway would be assured. 

Unlike other times he has spied on the village, there appears to be no one on guard over the pasture, except for the aggressive and vigilant bull. But, Abooksigun knows if he keeps a wide circle along the edge of the pasture, he can stay away from the charging horns and secure his woolen prize.

Silently, Abooksigun slides out of the forest to crouch along the sod wall of the pasture. A few feet away he can hear the bleating of sheep as they graze near his hiding spot. In one fluid step, he is over the wall, and his sharp stone knife is in his hand. 

But Abooksigun is quick and purposeful in his actions. He grabs the nearest sheep, and in one swift movement slits its throat and throws the dying animal over his shoulders. His advance has stirred the animals in the pasture who sound the alarm with a cacophony of bleating, mooing and braying. He now has only moments to make his escape.

With a quick turn, a silent leap, and a steady run, he is soon moving deep into the forest. He hears shouts behind him, and the wild, loud whipping of bushes and branches as the Vikings try to give chase into the forest.

He is aware of the whistle of arrows moving through the air around him, but none find a mark in his lean body. The dead sheep is wrapped around the back of his neck and he can feel warm blood running down his body under his wool vest.

Less than five minutes after he first jumped the wall, Abooksigun is lost to his pursuers. His family will feast on lamb meat tonight. And he will soon have new clothes and a soft blanket to keep the cold nights at bay.


Vinland
The history books teach of Columbus sailing the ocean blue and discovering America in 1492. It’s a nice nursery rhyme but the truth is far more complex. In fact, Columbus, on his first voyage, stayed primarily in the Caribbean. In European history, it was John Cabot, in 1497, who made his way to Canada to formally discover the North American continent.

Our story, however, starts more than 500 years before that when the brave seafarers known as Vikings discovered North America by landing in the Canadian Arctic near present-day Newfoundland. Today, the mythology of Vikings is much more popular than decades past. Successful shows like the History Channel’s “Vikings” and even the video game “Skyrim” have brought their culture into the forefront of our zeitgeist.
 
Eugene Linden in a Smithsonian magazine article titled “Did the Vikings Discover North America?” highlights that: “All the detail about Norse trips to Vinland (as the Norse called North America) comes from two accounts: The Saga of Erik the Red and The Saga of the Greenlanders.” 

“These epic Viking tales were probably first written down around 1200 or 1300 by scribes who either recorded the oral stories of elders or worked from some now-lost written source, says Thor Hjaltalin [Josh-ta-leen], an Icelandic scholar who oversees archaeological activities in northwest Iceland.” 

This gap of a few hundred years makes the sagas fairly contemporary to the events. They have been supported or partly verified through known family lineages, recorded weather events, and archeological evidence unearthed in North America, Greenland, and Iceland.

According to the sagas, in 985, while sailing from Iceland to Greenland with a migration fleet consisting of 400–700 settlers and 25 other ships, a merchant named Bjarni Herjólfsson was blown off course, and after three days' sailing, he sighted land west of the fleet. Only 14 ships survived the journey to Greenland and Bjarni was only interested in finding his father's farm, but he described his findings to Leif Erikson, son of Erik the Red.

Even though the Greenland settlement was fairly new, Bjarni’s discoveries excited a lot of interest. When Bjarni decided to give up trading, Leif Erikson bought his Knarr, or ship, and set off with a crew of 35 on a follow-up expedition. 

Leif and others had wanted his father, Erik the Red, to lead this expedition and talked him into it. However, as Erik attempted to join his son Leif on the voyage, he fell off his horse when it slipped on wet rocks near the shore. His injuries kept him from joining his son.

John Harwood continues the story in an excellent piece on Historyextra.com titled “Who Discovered America”. He says: “Leif began by reversing Bjarni’s course. Using the routes, landmarks, currents, rocks, and winds that Bjarni had described to him, Leif sailed from Greenland westward across the Labrador Sea. Sailing north-west, Leif came to a land of bare rock and glaciers which he called ‘Slab Land’. Turning south, Leif next came to a low forested land with white sand beaches which he decided to call ‘Forest Land’.”

Harwood goes on to detail: “Sailing south-west for two days Leif discovered a land where the rivers teemed with salmon and grapes grew wild. This Leif called Vinland or ‘Wine Land’. The party built houses at a place afterward called ‘Leif’s booths’, where they spent a comfortable winter. The country seemed to them so kind that no winter fodder would be needed for livestock: there was never any frost all winter and the grass hardly withered at all.”

According to the sagas, the Norse found the Vinland weather to be much milder than the harsh Greenland winter. At this lower latitude, the days were much longer, and they described “on the shortest day of the year, the sun was visible in the middle of the afternoon as well as at breakfast time”. 

In his book, “The Seafarers: The Vikings”, Robert Wernick details why, perhaps, the settlement was known as Vinland. He said: “Leif wintered in 1001, probably near Cape Bauld on the northern tip of Newfoundland. One day his foster father Tyrker was found drunk, on what the saga describes as "wine-berries." Squashberries, gooseberries, and cranberries all grew wild in the area. There are varying explanations of Leif apparently describing these fermented berries as "wine."

In the Spring, Leif and his men filled their boat with timber, which was non-existent in Greenland, and sailed for home. At that time there was no direct contact or conflict with the natives.

War Party
The sagas also detail the voyage of Leif’s brother, Thorvald Ericson, who sailed with 30 men in 1004 back to Leif’s camp in Vinland and spent the winter there. 

In Wernick’s telling, Thorvald and his men were exploring a headland at the mouth of a fjord when they spotted three humps on a sandy beach. On further investigation, the humps turned out to be canoes, and under them were nine frightened men. 

A quick side note. The Norse called these Native Americans Skraeling, which could refer to the dried pelts they wore, their war screams, or just a generic term for “barbarian” depending on which translation you use. Most likely these cowering men were Dorset or Thule tribesmen, who are Paleo-Eskimo ancestors of the Inuit tribe. 

Moving on, the Norsemen captured and killed eight of them but the ninth escaped and raised the alarm to his tribe.

According to Harwood for Historyextra.com, later the same day, Thorvald and his men saw a swarm of canoes sailing down the fjord towards them. Outnumbered, they took refuge in their ship and, with the advantage of iron weapons, beat off the attack. However, during the fight, Thorvald received an arrow wound in the armpit and died shortly afterward. 

At his request, Thorvald’s men gave him a Christian burial on the headland, marking his grave with crosses at his head and feet. Leif had been the first European to set foot on the American continent; his brother Thorvald was the first to be buried there.

The first true attempt at colonization over exploration was led by Thorfinn Karsefni. He set sail in 1009 with three ships, livestock, and 160 men and women. Staying in the same settlement as both Lief and Thorvald, Thorfinn developed peaceful relations with the natives. 

It was believed they traded beaver, squirrel, and seal skins for milk and cloth. Interestingly, the Vikings refused to trade any iron weapons or tools with the locals. They viewed iron technology as a distinctive advantage over the wooden, bone and stone weapons of the Skraeling.

Linden, in his Smithsonian magazine article, believes Thorfinn never went back to Vinland, but other Norse did. Modern excavations along the Atlantic coast have found evidence that Norse traded with both Thule, Dorset and southern tribes for skins. Furthermore, they regularly brought back wood and other items from Vinland. 

Over the years, various accounts have placed Norse colonies in Maine, Rhode Island, and elsewhere along the Atlantic coast. But, the Viking presence in North America had dwindled to nothing long before Columbus began island hopping in the Caribbean.

The Little Ice Age
With better weather than Greenland, more abundant food, and timber resources, it’s hard to imagine why the Norse didn’t stay longer and find greater success in Vinland. The answer comes down to two simple reasons: the natives didn’t want them there, and there were never enough settlers to develop any significant presence to keep hostile tribes at bay. Despite the technological superiority of their weapons, tools, and boats, there were simply too many warlike Skraelings to sustain a long-term settlement.

Keep in mind, there were only about 2,500 Norse in Greenland at the time, so the pool of available nearby colonists was small. In addition, the weather became significantly colder globally in a period known as the Little Ice Age. 

According to Linden in Smithsonian magazine: “The great sailing trips of Leif and Thorfinn took place in the first half of the 11th century, during a climatic period in the North Atlantic called the Medieval Warming. It was a time of long, warm summers and scarce sea ice. 

Beginning in the 12th century, however, the weather started to deteriorate with the start of the Little Ice Age. Tom McGovern, an archaeologist at Hunter College in New York City, has spent more than 20 years reconstructing the demise of a Norse settlement on Greenland. McGovern says the Norse ate their livestock and dogs before turning to whatever else they could find in their final winter there. The settlers might have survived if they had mimicked the Thule, who hunted ringed seals in the winter and prospered during the Little Ice Age.

Between 1275 and 1300 summers in the North Atlantic were much cooler and winters longer and harsher. Starting around 1300 through the 17th century, ocean-going travel was significantly hampered. Sea and pack ice advanced aggressively southwards and glaciers grew in Greenland. Harbors became closed to shipping and trade. 

Vikings who settled on the European continent and England also were facing harsh, ongoing winter weather that would have kept them from migrating to Western lands across the sea. Lands they may have been familiar with from sagas told around longhouse hearths and feasting tables. But Europe was in the icy grips of climate change so mass cross-Atlantic migration was not possible at the time.

The Baltic Sea froze twice in the early 1300s, villages in the Swiss Alps were destroyed by creeping glaciers, and rivers were frozen from Great Britain to the Netherlands. Famine, hypothermia, and bread riots became common over the next three hundred years.

In Greenland and Northern Canada, the icy grip of winter peaked between 1430 and 1455 when the Norse in North America essentially abandoned their settlements from lack of support. The large settlement in Iceland lost thousands of settlers to migration, and lack of food and shelter.

The weather had sealed the fate of Vinland and settlement of North America. It won’t be until the 16th century that seafaring nations take greater interest in the New World and cross-Atlantic migration would gain any momentum.

Paleo-Indian Life
The hostile natives were another reason for the demise of the Norse settlements. Let’s take a quick side journey away from Europeans and look at the ecosystem that the Paleo-Indians have created in North America during the preceding centuries. It’s a way of life they will defend aggressively, and fiercely, for the next 1,000 years against the intrusion and influence of the Norse, Spaniards, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and English. 

Vine Deloria Junior writes in his book “Red Earth White Lies”: “Numerous Paleoindian cultures occupied North America, with some arrayed around the Great Plains and Great Lakes of the modern United States and Canada, as well as adjacent areas to the West and Southwest. According to the oral histories of many of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, they have been living on this continent since their genesis, described by a wide range of traditional creation stories.”

The tribes along the Great Lakes and Atlantic Coast thrived and fought each other for centuries leading up to the introduction of Vikings, and eventually, Europeans. They were well trained in making weapons of sharp stone, and later, copper. While mostly nomadic hunter-gatherers, these tribes supported their migratory meat and fish diets with nuts, berries, and wild grains harvested semi-annually from the surrounding woodlands and coastline.

The Vikings would have difficulty establishing a large-European settlement because the technological advantage was significant but not overwhelming, compared to their manpower disadvantage. The Vikings might have had weapons made from iron, but they still had to largely fight hand-to-hand with hostile Skraelings. When the Europeans arrived a few centuries later, they had the technological advantage of metal armor, gunpowder, muskets, and cannon. 

Unlike Europeans who settled in the 15th century onward, Vikings did not live in fort-protected villages that could be easily defended by a determined, smaller group of armed colonists. A typical Viking settlement had low, stone or sod walls that were meant to delineate property and keep animals in fields. They were not meant for defense.

So the Vikings could win set battles but would be badly disadvantaged during sustained guerilla-like warfare that the natives would wage over the long term. Most people don’t realize that the success of European colonies was based on sustained support, in terms of arms, people, and supplies from kings and corporations like the Dutch West India Company.

Norse kings were not interested in distant settlements--in need of constant aid--that delivered little to nothing in return back to the crown. After a time, even the Catholic church gave up on early settlements in Greenland, and probably North America. 

The natives were eager traders and short-tempered warriors. The colored cloth fabrics of the Vikings would be especially attractive barter items, and iron tools or weapons would be highly prized. Differentiating themselves in appearance and technological superiority over  neighboring tribes would be the primary trading motive for natives.

In exchange for ongoing access to land or hunting rights, the Norse would have had to trade much more expansively than they did during the early part of their settlements. Iron weapons, tools, and perhaps even boat-building techniques wo uld have to be offered to entice the locals to part with their ancestral lands.

With thousands of native Americans for each man, woman, or child settler, trade relations and careful diplomacy among the warring tribes would be the key to long-term success. It would take hundreds of years, and thousands of dangerous boat trips before the Norse built up any population that would rival the numbers of local tribes.

Norse Life
To imagine what a North American Norse city would look like, it’s important to review the average village in Iceland or the L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. While some of the hardships, inherent to Iceland, won’t be an issue in our scenario, it is instructive to see how the Norse villages are run.

Stable Norse settlements were located along the coast, typically among large, open flatlands. This geography provides ready access to the sea and ample farmland for animals and crops.
At L’Anse aux Meadows, an archeological site on the northern tip of Newfoundland, there is extensive evidence on how the Norse lived around 1000 CE.

The eight buildings there were constructed with sod over a wooden frame. In addition to a longhouse, there were workshops for carpentry, iron smithing, and boat building and repairs. Some historians believe this particular Viking settlement, the only confirmed one in North America, was a support facility for a larger interior settlement. If so, no evidence of another settlement has been found.

To these Newfoundland settlers, farming and animal husbandry was an essential part of their everyday lives. There is evidence of hunting that suggests they ate a diet of caribou, wolf, fox, bear, lynx, seal, whale, walrus, and a variety of birds and fish.

What If?
History tells us that over the course of 500 years from 1000 CE to the 1500’s, Norse presence in Vinland dwindled to nothing. And ultimately, this led to a fleeting impact on the history of North America. 

But What If the Vikings grew their settlements over the first five centuries here. What If they ultimately grew their presence to 30,000 or more in warmer areas like New York, Massachusetts, or even the Carolinas?

Historians agree that their impact on Native American, European, and even our American history would be profound. It is not a very far stretch of the imagination to envision an aggressive Viking migration to a milder and more temperate climate hundreds of miles further south along the Atlantic Coast.

With the Little Ice Age, both land and rations, and resources in Iceland, Greenland, England, and many parts of Europe were stretched beyond their ability to support local populations. A stable, growing settlement in Vinland would be attractive to many of these seafarers and peasants. We know this for sure because the migration repeats itself hundreds of years later with the Dutch, French, and English settlers.

In our What If scenario we imagine what life would be like in a prosperous Viking settlement in North America. We are not thinking about New Amsterdam, the Dutch settlement that later became New York. We will imagine Bjorn Bour, a town translated to mean “Bear Shelter”. 

In our story, Bjorn Bour is not the traditional Viking settlement of farms centrally located around longhouses and a stone church. Rather, it is a vibrant, bustling city of thousands of fishermen, boat builders, iron craftsmen, traders, farmers, hunters, butchers, bakers, and even a bishop. And we are about to walk its streets.


City Life
Arne Halfdan
Bjorn Bour Harbor, Vinland
May 12, 1455 CE

Arne crowds the rail of his small wooden ship to see the harbor. His crewmates gather around to admire the sight. It’s been five tough, cold weeks since his knarr left the familiar waters of Iceland. 

Like most other Viking knarr ships used for trading, Arne’s boat was low and wide with a crew of eight hardy men. The knarr was about 53 feet long and 16 feet wide with a stout central mast holding a wide, sturdy cloth sail. The boat design was hundreds of years old and had stood the icy, roiling waters of the Arctic and North Atlantic in journeys along the European and North American coasts.

Technically it’s the warm season, but the last weeks have felt like anything but warm. The pack-ice did not recede so the seagoing journey had been treacherous, slow, and exhausting. At last, though their voyage is coming to an end. Arne’s pilot eases the boat into a slip as dockworkers fasten the rope and secure the ramp.

The stability of the ground takes a few steps for Arne to get used to. It’s tough getting land legs back after five weeks of rough seas. He talks to the dockmaster about his berth and motions for his men to follow him down the pier. Each is assigned a task to enlist repairs, find rations, and negotiate the sale of their cargo, which is primarily sulfur, iron, and other metals.

Along the pier, fishermen hang their catches for purchase. Large walrus tusks and seal carcasses hang from hooks behind open stalls arrayed with pink salmon; large, red tuna; blue-tinged clams; bright red lobster; and white, spindly octopus. Large barrels of whale oil are stacked along the pier to be sold for lighting lamps and cooking food. 

Arne walks the streets of Bjorn Bour with increasing steadiness. The small city resembles a wooden forest of towering longhouses, squat workshops, and sod-covered huts. Scattered into every opening between houses and narrow, stone-covered streets are wooden pens holding bleating sheep, braying goats, and oinking pigs. 

His senses are assaulted by the earthy scent of sod, the cedar-tinted odor of burning wood, and the musty, and pungent smell of animals and manure. Arne rumbles past broad-shouldered, blond men like himself, dressed in flowing cloaks topped with fur collars, thick wool breeches and shirts, and large leather boots. The women he passes are bundled in fur-lined cloaks covering shapeless, heavy cotton dresses.

But Arne also sees strangely dressed men, darker in complexion than his own white skin. These men are dressed in bulky, colorful furs that cover their exposed skin. Their pants are lightly tanned hides adorned with blue and white beads and brightly colored feathers. These Skraeling hold their gaze in front of them as they walk carts loaded with fur pelts and skins, dried meat, clay jars of wine, baskets of berries, and ingots of copper slag. Like Arne, they too are in town to trade.

As Arne emerges into the center of town, he sees a small stone church, with a thick wooden cross that overlooks a large, circular town square. Wooden booths cram the outer ring and stone footpaths that criss cross the square. In the center, a broad, carved pole marks the founding of the growing town.

At each booth an expectant vendor eyes each passerby and invites them in barking Norse to buy colored swatches of cotton cloth, iron shovels and pitchforks, animal pelts, and leather armor. A low, wispy cloud of smoke hovers above the town square from the food vendors along the ring. Open, wooden fires roast a feast of different animals, including venison steaks, slabs of pig meat, slices of whale tongue, and large cuts of beef steak.  

Arne is famished and eagerly spends his money buying meat from a variety of booths and washing it down with flagons of dark, red wine. The air crackles with the electricity of commerce, industry, and people.

Arne will take the next few weeks to explore the full range of enticements this city has to offer. Then, with a ship laden with timber, wine, meat, and whale oil, he and his men will head back out to sea for the long and rough journey home. 

This voyage will make him and his men quite wealthy. Perhaps on his next trip back here next year, he will buy a small homestead outside of town. The land here is abundant, and so are the possibilities.

Historical Impact
A large population, of about 30,000, Norse in America would have a huge impact on the course of our history. The flood of Europeans fleeing religious persecution and the social caste system would still overwhelm populations of both Native Americans and Norse. In a broad sense, there would still be a Revolution, and ultimately the United States of America. 

All that being said, the Norse would significantly transform the genetic make-up, beliefs, and technology of the New World that the Europeans eventually find in the 16th Century. More than likely, Vinland would become forgotten and isolated as millions died during the Black Death that ravaged Europe in the 1300s. With cities, villages, and settlements in Europe, Greenland and Iceland wiped out, there will be little contact for hundreds of years.

But at this point in time, there would have been enough settlers to maintain, and even grow a North American population. Historians believe that a stable agrarian population with access to new land would double in population every 25 years. Every 50 years the population would quadruple. If 1000 CE represented the start of an aggressive Norse migration, by 1200 CE settlements would range from the St. Lawrence river down to Long Island and even Massachusetts. 

Some historians believe by 1400 CE Viking settlements could have reached as far south as Florida, which would put them in direct conflict with the European explorers who will arrive in about a hundred years.

Interestingly, the ocean exploration of the Europeans might have started much earlier in this What If scenario. Columbus faced years of scorn and ridicule by the scientists of European courts. Many of these leading scientists felt his calculations were inaccurate and a trip of 2,500 nautical miles would put him in the middle of nowhere, not on the shores of Asia like he believed. 

If, through the study of ancient history, Medieval Europeans were aware of successful transoceanic travel, their skepticism may have evaporated, and the courts might have been much more willing to quickly back his proposal.

By the time Columbus and others arrive in the late 15th and early 16th century, they will find a patchwork of Nordic chiefdoms and kingdoms extending into the Great Lakes and the Great Plains along the Mississippi River. These towns would be interspersed among tribes of native Americans that have been pacified in some areas, and the source of ongoing wars in other regions.

For Europeans, they might be good trading partners who can speak with natives and provide maps of the New World. But, they would also be a formidable foe if they are looking to conquer their lands. Given the aggressive expansion goals of the European sea powers of the time, a large-scale war for control of the New World would be inevitable.

Since these Norse settlements were isolated from the technological advances of gunpowder manufacturing and metal working, they would have a significant disadvantage against a large European presence. European boats could roam the rivers and coasts bombarding towns at will until the fighting spirit was sapped from their Norse adversaries. 

Many scientists believe that 500 years of contact with the Vikings might have built up the immunity to smallpox and measles that wasn’t present when the Europeans landed in North America. With thousands of more warriors, the fight for internal migration over Indian, and Norse, lands would be bloodier, longer, and more vicious.

As our colonies became the United States, westward migration from the Atlantic would accelerate. Colonists would not be overtaking wild, native american lands, but would assimilate Norse towns, farms and other territories. And our history books would acknowledge the role the Norse and Vikings played in founding our civilization and fostering our fierce spirit of independence.


Conclusion
Thank you for joining me, Mark Bouffard on this trip. I’d like to thank my editors, including Clint Buehle, my twin brother Matt Bouffard, my retired journalist uncle Kevin Bouffard. The music you hear is Shane Ivers of silvermansound.com.

This has been What If World History? In our next episode, we will look at the consequences of a Rebel victory at Gettysburg, Ulysses S. Grant’s ascension to Union military leadership, and why this would cause the Civil War to end a year earlier than our current history dictates.