I wonder how history might have unfolded if, instead of Columbus sailing westward to reach the East, an Indian sailor had sailed eastward and discovered the West coast of America first.
I wonder how history might have unfolded if, instead of Columbus sailing westward to reach the East, an Indian sailor had sailed eastward and discovered the West coast of America first.
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Might have resulted in the residents being called “Indians.”
Pastwach: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus (1996)
So immigrants from Asia finding and settling the Americas first? I could see that.
There are interesting differences between the coastal and open water abilities of different nations and their fleets.
It’s an interesting thought experiment to consider who else had the capabilities and the motivation to sail off the edge of the known world
Ain’t some conspiracy stories that claim that the Zheng He lost fleet landed in America about 60 years before Columbus?
Would be a good premise for a movie like Yesterday
For all we know, it’s possible that it could have happened yet they got gunned down by the superior military on the other side.
Without the beaver-based fur empire of the Hudson’s Bay Company and the French voyageurs, Canada might not even exist in its current form, we’d be rocking coins with sea otters on them
Quite a bit of other factors that would most likely drastically change the dynamic of 16th century Asia would need to be very different for that scenario. So it’s difficult to really say.
If your look at a map, from the subcontinent of India they would hit modern Myanmar, Malaysia and Indonesia. If they sail Southeast they could hit Australia.
Crossing the Pacific is a feat. Honestly even with modern technology it seems pretty miraculous. For context all landmass on earth makes up like 25% of the surface. The Pacific Ocean by itself makes up like 30%
So the simpler rout would be to hug the coast, up along modern China, Korea, Russia. However Eastern Russia itself has very few occupants. it’s arguable that they could progressively explore further north, making port along the way to hunt and recover fresh supplies and then following along the coast and land bridge. But it would take a long time and not be economically profitable navigating past all the different kingdoms with different languages could prove difficult and dangerous. Japan for example is and was extremely xenophobic, so would not really tolerate any ships landing for resources.
This route would also run afowl of the ocean currents. Basically to catch the winds they’d need to sail due west from roughly northern Japan. They could get lucky and hit random islands but it would be a while to hit the Pacific Northwest.
Basically Europeans sort of got lucky that the Atlantic was smaller and sailing due west would hit the trade winds directly to the Caribbean where they curve north along the East coast.
An alternate history where Native Americans developed metallurgy and Imperial ambitions would be fascinating. North America is well suited to build massive populations, they’d easily be able able to overwhelm Feudal Europe.
It’s like four times the distance so it probably wouldn’t have been all that feasible
Europeans were still the masters of the ocean around this time, so I’m not sure it would’ve made much difference as soon as they’d found out about it.
Didn’t Ramanujan stated he wouldn’t cross the sea because Hindu forbids it?
I’ve heard they found evidence that Vikings had been here sooner. Idk why they would leave though and idk where in America they hit. They’ve found alot of stuff to suggest that we have no clue what we’re talking about with human history. I know for a fact I don’t.
I don’t think the trade wins work like that.
I read an interesting book called “Civilizations”: about Envisioning a South American Conquest of Europe
There’s a book called “The Years of Rice and Salt” by Kim Stanley Robinson that isn’t this, but explores an alternate reality where the black death kills pretty much all of Europe, so instead of Europeans going and colonizing everything, expansion comes from North Africa and Asia, along with Native Americans not all being genocided and remaining the biggest presence on the continent. It covers multiple generations through the narrative. I highly recommend checking it out if you’re into exploring ideas like that.
The East Coast would have remained an undeveloped swamp, ‘cause who would live there when you could live in the West?
There’s an Alt history novel called Civilizations envisions Columbus dying in the americas, leaving the Inca to discover their ships, weapons and navigational materials to invade and colonize Europe.
Polynesians actually did this and reached California among other places.
What motivation? The Europeans were looking for trade alternative routes to get more spice, tea, and silk. India had no need for such exploration.
What if north and or south America went out to discover Europe, China, or even befriend africa creating a very different power dynamic today?
I love these thoughts
One of my favorite alternate history books to recommend is The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson. Basic premise is that the Black Death takes 95% of the population of Europe instead of 30%. Other cultures fill the vacuum.
Why the Indians? They are so much further than the nations of the Pacific rim.
If Indian has such industry power and naval fleet, we will have the West Europe Trading Company instead.
Do you think the Indians would have tried to kill the (NA) Indians?
Polynesians and Norse both arrived in the Americas about 400 years before Columbus.
But they didn’t enslave and kill the native population. So…
There’s a joke in California about this scenario. (Suspend disbelief about geography, distance, etc.)
What if the Pilgrims landed in Santa Monica? The U.S. would never have settled east of the 5.
Picture this, Instead of Columbus Day, we’d have Samosa Day. I can just see all those explorers trading spices instead of gold. Now that’s a history lesson I’d sign up for.
They were the source of traded materials, not the people seeking materials to trade.
The natives would have been called Europeans.
Instead of the clarifying question: “dot or feather” ?
It would be: “feather or sun burn” ?
Because of the Earth’s spin and orbit sailing east and west are totally different and these aren’t the same oceans either.
There are some challenges to consider when thinking of a hypothetical Indian new world expedition
-Technological difference, europeans of the time had more sophistacted sailing technologies.
-Economic challenges, there was financial incentive for europeans to establish new trade routes with the resource rich East.
-Religioua/Cultural challenges, there was a desire among christian europeans to spread christianity across thr globe, whereas indians had the Kala pani taboo that forbid devout hindus from travelling the seas.
-Utilisation of colonisation. The triangular trade form of colonialism that we are familiar with was established due to various socio economic factors in europe at that time, low manpower, demand for slaves, lack of fertile soil etc. If india were to do their own colonisation, its unlikely for them to use a similar strategy.
There is evidence of Chinese and/or Japanese landing on the west coast of North America, and Polynesians landing on the west coast of South America. Neither group seemed to have found the area interesting enough to settle to any appreciable degree.
Probably a lot less “Columbus Day” and a lot more curry in the Americas.
There are theories that the Polynesians settled and traded within the Chilean coast
There would have been a massive slave trade.
We would have a different east India company I think
They did. Polynesians sailed across the Pacific to South America.
Well, it was the Vikings who found America 500 years before Columbus did.
They would’ve been killed by Chinese pirates.
Indian culture had a taboo about crossing large bodies of water and leaving behind their religious ties
Didn’t the Polynesian’s do this? Like thousands of years before Columbus?
China did have Zheng He, who sailed around the Indian Ocean. I think that it’s only a little outside the realm of possibility to think he could have sailed to the Americas before Columbus.
Even if he had though, I think it’s unlikely that China (or any other Asian power) would have been able to establish colonies in the Americas. The Pacific Ocean is a lot bigger than the Atlantic, and supplying colonies across the Pacific would have been significantly harder
It’s believed that this happened to Austronesian peoples who sailed eastward to South America and Easter Island.
Fun fact. The Chinese had enormous exploratory fleets that went as far as Africa. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/ancient-chinese-explorers/
Oh, that story was bullshit. They were already well aware of the North American continent.
wild to think about how different everything would be. would the americas even speak english or spanish? would europe still dominate global trade or would india have been the main power instead? history classes would be totally unrecognizable lol
How does one say “knarly waves, dude!” in Hindi?
Honestly anyone discovering the americas was a mistake. We’re a powerhouse run by an absolute mad man, and the way we got here is filled with the death and murder of the people who “got in the way”.
What if an indigenous American sailed east to discover Europe? Hmmm?
For one, American Indians might be called American Europeans.
I wonder more about how the world would be different if Hannibal Barcus had just wiped Rome off the face of the Earth when he had the chance.
same thing imo. indian shows up on europe, runs away, gets chased into america, same thing happens.
Entertaining sci fi read: Pastwatch, the redemption of Christopher Columbus explores a different but similar train of thought.
If an Indian sailor discovered America first, we’d probably be celebrating Thanksgiving with samosas and chai instead of turkey and pumpkin pie. Talk about a culinary twist.
People from Asia did sail west and discover America first.
They’re called Native Americans.
Supposedly there is a small village in Mexico near the coast of Acapulco that is made up of descendants that sailed over from Malaysia hundreds of years ago
To this day, there is controversy on whether to call them “native new Indians” or “Portuguese” (or whatever the equivalent location India would be trying to reach)
The Pacific Ocean is half of our entire globe. There was no realistic way this could’ve been achieved in the 15th century.
Closest possibility is a suicide trip up to the Arctic first and then back down North America, seeing present-day Alaska.
Native Americans would be called “Brits” or something, probably.
Then we’d call the natives english or something