Scottish America

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Well, the reason for the failure of the Scottish colony in Panama during the late 17th century was not due to Scottish incompetence, it was due to opposition from the English and the Spanish.

Yahbut, I don't believe that it was exactly brilliantly managed. And when it fell over, it took pretty much the entire Scottish economy with it.

Scotland has a limited population base, not many of them with much of a maritime tradition, and a limited resource base to finance an imperialist start-up. And while it's amusing to imagine Scots traders teaching the natives to say "Yon Sassenachs a' sneaky sons o' daigs", I can't imagine their warnings would really make that much difference. It certainly wouldn't provide much in the way of disease resistance.

A Scots-Irish alliance for this purpose might do marginally better, but working out how that could have been set up would be an exercise in itself. A stronger Scandinavian effort might work better yet, maybe with some Scots younger sons tagging along.

[Astromancer]

Phil seems to agree with my earlier posting. The Scots had the talent, as they proved when they did most of the hands on running of the British Empire. What the Scots lacked was resources and population.

[AlexanderHowl]

Generally why I think that the Scottish would have to reach out to their traditional allies, the French, for funding and support. The French would have been willing to do anything to change the balance of power in their favor, and the new markets opened up by the Scottish would have been a golden opportunity. Since they were too busy fighting the Spanish on the continent to take the time to explore themselves, they would probably have been willing to fund the Scottish in exchange for 75% of any profits gained from any joint mission.

In the case of disease resistance, it comes with exposure, with the survivors of each plague gaining resistance to future pandemics. Without the devestating additions of enslavement and genocide (the Spanish committed genocide through overworking the indigenous Caribbeans because they desperately needed gold in their conflicts with the French), the Native Americans would have recovered their population from the plagues. Without the trans-Atlantic slave trade bringing new diseases, it would have taken longer for new plagues to arrive in the New World, giving more time for people to recover between each plague.

[Phantasm]

I'm always partial to Vinland lasting longer. Let's posit that the Little Ice Age happened either earlier or later than it did in OTL, and the Norse colonization of Greenland and Vinland lasted longer as a result of the encroaching ice not forcing the Norse to abandon Greenland. Tales from Norway a few centuries later lead the Scots to join Norwegian/Icelandic expeditions to Greenland and Vinland. Curious about this country, the Scots travel farther south along the Atlantic seaboard of North America, discovering the St. Lawrence River, Boston Harbor, and possibly the Long Island Sound, giving them suitably Scottish names.

With Scandinavian backing, the Scots build up their northern trade empire.

And then the Scots let their French allies in on the news....

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

I'm always partial to Vinland lasting longer. Let's posit that the Little Ice Age happened either earlier or later than it did in OTL, and the Norse colonization of Greenland and Vinland lasted longer as a result of the encroaching ice not forcing the Norse to abandon Greenland. Tales from Norway a few centuries later lead the Scots to join Norwegian/Icelandic expeditions to Greenland and Vinland. Curious about this country, the Scots travel farther south along the Atlantic seaboard of North America, discovering the St. Lawrence River, Boston Harbor, and possibly the Long Island Sound, giving them suitably Scottish names.

Vikings are over done. I think that a classic Scandinavian effort would be fun to watch, perhaps in the mid-1400's or mid 1500's. Timing it with sweeden's rise to power would be very interesting, and could give themoderately short-lived sweedish empire some staying power (Sweeden lacked manpower and economic depth)


but this is probably the wrong thread for that.



I think a primary Scottish discovery followed by slow penetration of the Caribbean would have a good chance of leaving mesoamerica in better shape. I think north America is still in a load of trouble from disease, but the aztecs (or their successors, which I think is more likely) could have time to hear about white people, get over the initial plagues, and defend themselves a bit better. (note, they did defend themselves, and some of the aztec's rivals did a much better job of doing so than the Aztecs, who had to deal with a theological crisis, a plague, and new technology all at once)

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Vikings are over done. I think that a classic Scandinavian effort would be fun to watch, perhaps in the mid-1400's or mid 1500's. Timing it with sweeden's rise to power would be very interesting, and could give themoderately short-lived sweedish empire some staying power (Sweeden lacked manpower and economic depth)

Well, I'm seeing the Vikings evolving into early modern Norway and Iceland in this particular context; either one may be trying to reestablish contact with their former colonies (whether said colonies lasted long enough to be self-sufficient is still up for grabs). The Scots just tag along with Norwegian and Icelandic traders, though I like the idea of Sweden getting into the act as well.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I was just musing in another thread and had a strange thought. What if Columbus had failed to return from his voyage due to an accident, disease, violence, weather, etc and the first people to stumble upon America and made it back to report their claim had been the Scottish during the early 16th century? How do you think that the Scottish colonization of the Americas would have been different than the Spanish colonization of the Americas?

While the Scots were not terribly kind people, they had a different cultural perspective than the Spanish. First, their cultural enemy was not the Muslims but, instead, the English. Second, they were an ally of France and an enemy of England while the Spanish were an ally of England and an enemy of France. Third, while they had a tradition of warfare, they did not have the traditions of conquest, expulsion, genocide, imperialism, and slavery that the Spanish had evolved during the Reconquista.

Now, I am not saying that things would have gone much better had the Scottish rather than the Spanish been first, but I think that it not have gone much worse for the Native Americans. I do think that such a discovery may have prevented James V from making the raid of England that ended with his death in 1542. With the New World to explore, he may have survived for another 30 to 50 years, depending on his health.

So, what do you think? Would you use such a setting? If so, how would you present the changes that having the Scots being the first nation to claim the New World and attempt to colonize/trade with it?

It would be like much of the US and Canada. Which supplied much of the population and culture.

And of course a number of Texans were descended from Scots.

I am rather dubious though about the claim that Scots did not have traditions of conquest, expulsion, genocide, imperialism and slavery. Or that they would not adopt such charming practices given a prey overwhelmingly weaker then they. Or that being an an enemy of Sassenaches instead of Saracens made them nicer especially when Scots were mostly an enemy of each other. I am flattered by your high opinion of that thread of my ancestral tangle though.

[AlexanderHowl]

The Scots were pretty much a subjugated and traumatized people when they came to the Americas during the major migrations of the 18th century. While they were better off than the other Celtic peoples under English domination, they were still second-class citizens if they were outside of the aristocracy and banking. They had experienced having their royal family overthrown by a Dutch pretender and then German usurper, national bankruptcy, and the outlawing of the majority of their customs. It is not surprising that they copied the bad habits of the English because the English had so thoroughly crushed them and they could do nothing but become English in custom and habit.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In the case of disease resistance, it comes with exposure, with the survivors of each plague gaining resistance to future pandemics.

Unfortunately, not in this case. The usual course of virgin field epidemics is that the first wave kills a lot of people and winnows out a lot of the ones without any resistance. Subsequent waves kill fewer and fewer people as resistance improves.

But that's not what happened in the New World. Successive waves of diseases were just as deadly as the ones before. It has been suggested that this is due to a lack of diversity in the immune system genes in New World populations and a sort of "orientation" towards New World immune systems working better against parasites than bacteria and viruses. At any rate, the history of plagues in the New World suggests that nothing is going to save native populations from Old World pathogens until vaccines are invented.

(I also think you're putting vastly too much faith in both the ability and the willingness of the French to keep everybody out of the New World while simultaneously underwriting the Scots instead of cutting out the middleman and moving in themselves, to say nothing of the ability of the Scots to communicate convincingly with the vast range of native societies. The Spanish, after all, failed to do any of that. But you seem determined to have a solely Scottish New World, so knock yourself out.)

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The Scots were pretty much a subjugated and traumatized people when they came to the Americas during the major migrations of the 18th century. While they were better off than the other Celtic peoples under English domination, they were still second-class citizens if they were outside of the aristocracy and banking. They had experienced having their royal family overthrown by a Dutch pretender and then German usurper, national bankruptcy, and the outlawing of the majority of their customs. It is not surprising that they copied the bad habits of the English because the English had so thoroughly crushed them and they could do nothing but become English in custom and habit.

Ah yes, Scots did not engage in thieving, feuding, religious warfare, political intrigue before the English took over. It's not like they invented the word "blackmail" or anything. And no Scots ever murdered a Queen's secretary. Being evil is just unscottish. No true scotsman would act that way.

And couldn't you just as easily say that English are only evil because Normans were evil, and Spaniards were only evil because Saracens were?

And of course no Scots were descended from Norse, a people who were conspicuous for engaging in conquest and slavery and if they did not often exactly engage in genocide it was because it was impractical.