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The original exploration leading to the discovery of the Americas wasn't looking for any kind of resources, it was looking for a better route to transport spice
by CWuestefeld 10y ago
The original exploration leading to the discovery of the Americas wasn't looking for any kind of resources, it was looking for a better route to transport spices from the East. Finding a continent in the way ruined that goal, but accidentally yielded all kinds of resources that we didn't even know we wanted.
Stuff like coconuts, tobacco, sweet corn, potatoes were unknown in the "old world", so the original explorers couldn't have known to look for them. Later on, it was also found that the new world contained significant silver, gold, oil, etc., even though that wasn't known at the time.
So working from historical precedent, there's good reason to expect that something unexpected would come out of it.
- maxerickson 10y agoI think in that framing, we've been to Mars, we are past accidentally sailing there. We know it is a dusty barren rock.
- ZoeZoeBee 10y agoI'm pretty sure you have coconuts backwards, as they're native throughout the Pacific and Indian Oceans and had been known by the West since before the time of Romans. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110624142037.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110624142037.h... Of course there are active theories that coconuts may have migrated or been transported by swallows to Western Europe. Also gold was known to be in the New World according to Columbus on his initial voyage. >The convenience of the harbors in this island, and the excellence of the rivers, in volume and salubrity, surpass human belief, unless on should see them. In it the trees, pasture-lands and fruits different much from those of Juana. Besides, this Hispana abounds in various kinds of species, gold and metals. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/exploration/resources/columbus-reports-his-first-voyage-1493 https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/exploration/res...
- CWuestefeld 10y agoRe: coconuts, I'll beg off on having copied that list from a web source without cross-checking. Re: gold, sure, but they didn't have any inkling about Sutter's Mill, etc. It clearly existed in some amounts, but they had no idea they'd find vast untapped veins.
- dagaci 10y agoLet me interject .. lets not forget most significantly that it was the cotton trade which fueled the early industrial revolution in the United Kingdom and at that time many years of boom in the United States and elsewhere.