What if the Vinland Colony Survived? | Alternate History

In this video we explore a world where the Norse colony in North America, Vinland, survived and kickstarted the European colonization of the Americas, making Denmark-Norway and later Scandinavia the first colonial power in the Americas, rather than Spain.

[duyduc]

Alternate title: "What if Thorfinn had no enemies since season 1"

[ladahieno]

-Disappears for a month
-Randomly posts some AI generated video
-Doesn't elaborate
-Comes back after another 3 months
-Posts another Vinland video
-Doesn't elaborate (again)
-Leaves

[euanstokes]

Question: would Britain in this scenario even emerge? France and Scotland had an alliance, if Scandinavia was to ally France and wished to reign in England, might they also ally Scotland, preventing the Scottish Economy being strangled in the same way and allowing them to play off England and France more effectively than in real life.

In my view, the following would happen:

- Caithness and Sutherland would still be returned to Scotland as in real life. Norway would not have been much richer than irl at this stage and so the counties would probably still have been returned. However

- Norway would keep Orkney and Shetland, these weren't given to Scotland until much later, and since Vinland is a thing the North Sea trade route would remain important, therefore there is no way Norway would offer the islands as a dowry to Scotland.

However

- by the time colonialism was in full swing, Scotland would be closely connected to this North Sea trade route, and would likely seek to establish colonies of its own at the same time as England. Initially, Scandinavia would not wish to allow Scotland to gain access to the Americas, but this would change as soon as England becomes Scandinavia's main rival

3. Scotland would become essentially a second Netherlands of this world, establishing a moderately sized Empire under the wing of France and Scandinavia. Perhaps Scotland would focus on colonising Africa whilst everyone else focuses on America?

- I don't see Scotland becoming much richer than it did in real life, the main difference would be that it would do so on its own steam rather than as part of the British sphere.

[LeDoctorBones]

While the plagues in North America weakened the tribes which called it home, this happened a century or two before the major colonial push by the USA into the interior. As long as a major North American settler colony gains independence, perhaps Vinland in this timeline, I see this expansion towards the interior as partly inevitable. I am a bit more unsure about the Aztec and Incan civilisations if the plague had arrived to them earlier, though, I would not be surprised if the colonisers managed to conquer them in the end, much like Africa and Asia.

[felipelima]

"What if Rome never fell" part 3💪💪💪💪

[KameroonEmperor]

you could've easily made this into an hour long video and id still watch all of it, great content

[KameroonEmperor]

Danemark would replace France's role in the mississipi and would definetly have sailed trough it centuries before most of europe, like imagine a great viking conqueror exploring north america and its cultures like marco polo and Ibn Battuta. Also the fact that theres no USA is also pretty world changing

[dashofsalt]

I love that instead of trying to draw the HRE borders, you just pasted a map over it!

[andrasbalogh]

This needs an update on the Americas and how this would change the colonisation of Asia and Africa.

[Mattiacino]

I really like this scenario but here’s a couple things I would change:
-Diseases would not be spread as easily throughout America as they had in our timeline because Vinland was already sparsely populated and hard for plagues to spread, unlike the densely populated islands and cities like Tenochtitlan that Cortes conquered.
-Because of this, I still think it is likely that the Incans don’t experience a plague earlier, and may fall similar to our timeline creating essentially the same Latin American identity.
-I really think you’re understating how important the horse is for natives, specifically the Great Plains nomads like the Dakota Sioux and others. You kind of skipped over the period in between Vinland and the rest of the European powers and I think that these peoples would be extremely important since they are essentially the same thing as nomadic horsemen from Central Asia and could basically parallel the mongols.
-The natives already had sophisticated agriculture and cities in our world, but I think adding more livestock, specifically beasts of burden would give the natives in the American south a head start in terms of agriculture, we could probably see Cahokia become a really big city because they would be able to feed lots of people, and unlike the Incans I think they would probably experience plague earlier and develop immunity. This means that the American south would be a lot more capable of resisting European occupation or at least develop an extremely distinct identity.

[hatman]

Vinland's Coat of Arms - Plowing the land
Motto: We have no enemies

[bqzqicv]

If it survived, we would all have NO ENEMIES!

[noahgreer]

I love viking America ideas. I also imagine that even if the norse still didn't fully link Europe and the Americas that woukd still have an astonishing impact if they stayed long enough or had enough influence on the local native population to pass on metallurgy, live stock, sailing, or enough genetic mixture to give some immunity to old world diseases.

[Liethen]

I don't think a longer warm period was necessary for this scenario. Instead if they Vinland colony had held on and became permanent I think the Greenland colony would have moved to Vinland when the cold period hit. This would have added a few thousand more people to the small colony. With Greenland vacated the colony would probably be cut off from Europe for awhile. The influx of people would incentivize expansion and the cooling weather would encourage them to spread southward.

[planetarystargazer]

What If the planet Venus was habitable

[hs]

Also the Aztec empire was always going to collapse the Aztecs were hated by those they conquered and it was the alliances with Aztec subjects that helped the Spanish defeat them, but i think a European power would most definitely take advantage of the power vacuum

[gavinlgaming]

OMGGG LOVE THIS SO MUCHH!!! not to mention scandinavian/nordic stuff is always so cool to me, I always loved how you made the maps look

[TheHatersarebad]

What if China permanently collapsed during the Three Kingdoms Period and never reunited? What affect would it have throughout Asia and Europe? What would culture and language be like in the Europe-like region of China?

[KameroonEmperor]

great scenario, turns on my last my brain cells

[mrkrazy_kng]

I love your videos so much, this just made my day, thank you