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I don't think it works like that. There seems to be a need for a minimum primary settler population and a decent amount of native assistance- it's fairly easy

I don't think it works like that. There seems to be a need for a minimum primary settler population and a decent amount of native assistance- it's fairly easy to build a new town 10 miles from your last but I am not aware of any long distance unsupported settlers. So if the natives around the Mayflower had all died, so would the Founding Fathers. If the Norse diseases had killed off the locals they might not have made it through winter.

vintermann 5y ago
I agree with this. It's about economic and social support. Leif Eriksson was the son of the notorious murderer Eric the Red. Eric was twice outcast, first from Norway to Iceland, then from Iceland to Greenland. On top of that, Leif was an enthusiastic convert to Christianity, which somewhat alienated him from his still pagan father. They lived on a fringe of a fringe of the European economic, cultural and religious community. They didn't even really have the economic support to sustain a settlement on Greenland (where they were more by necessity than opportunity, due to Eric's crimes), let alone Nova Scotia.
eesmith 5y ago
> long distance unsupported settlers There were 18 years between the European settlement of Pitcairn island and the next visitors - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_Islands#European_settlement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_Islands#European_sett... . Your constraints are pretty strict. There aren't many places which could be settled (in recorded history) where there weren't already people living there, and where there was a reason for not continuing contact with the place of origin. Another possibility is Te Pito O Te Kainga / Rapa Nui / Easter Island. The first explorers met one person already there (Nga Tavake), then they go back to Hiva, and a double canoe returns to Easter Island carrying the settlers. They left "because a rising tide was destroying their land" and/or a power struggle with the Hanau Eepe, if I read http://archive.hokulea.com/rapanui/hotu.html http://archive.hokulea.com/rapanui/hotu.html correctly. In either case, the oral history suggest little continued connection with Hiva.
adolph 5y ago
Some interpretations of the socio-political context of what is now New England see tribes more affected by disease presumably spread by earlier European contact as aiding incoming Europeans in order to ward off other tribes. The Narragansetts were the most powerful tribe in the southern area of the region when the English colonists arrived in 1620, and they had not been affected by the epidemics. Chief Massasoit of the Wampanoags to the east allied with the colonists at Plymouth Colony as a way to protect the Wampanoags from Narragansett attacks. In the fall of 1621, the Narragansetts sent a sheaf of arrows wrapped in a snakeskin to Plymouth Colony as a threatening challenge, but Plymouth governor William Bradford sent the snakeskin back filled with gunpowder and bullets. The Narragansetts understood the message and did not attack them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narragansett_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narragansett_people
BurningFrog 5y ago
This is very far from my expertise, but surely you can also live off the land? Hunting and fishing shouldn't be very different in Newfoundland compared to Norway/Iceland. Bring a few chickens along, and you have another food source. I assume/guess the vikings were better at this stuff than the Mayflower crowd.
- vintermann 5y ago
  They didn't want to live like that. It's one of the things Jared Diamond argues in Collapse: sure, they could have survived longer in Greenland if they adopted more of the customs of the Inuit, but this went against everything they considered important and valuable in life. They wouldn't be themselves any more if they did (and for all we know, a few of them may have been assimilated into the native population and stopped being Norse in any sense recognizable to us). Not least of all, Leif Eriksson was a Christian, a Catholic in modern terms. It's reasonable to assume most of his followers were, too. He had gained the epithet "the lucky" due to his habit of coming across and rescuing castaways at sea. To the Norse, luck was evidence the cosmos was on your side, and one of the most important attributes a leader offered to potential followers was a share in this cosmic luck. This probably helped Leif the missionary securing a lot of conversions! But the heart of Christianity at the time was in Rome. They were already profoundly cut off from the mystical fellowship of believers, the communion. How much worse wouldn't it be for their sense of self if they were not only to go off in an impossibly distant land, but to live as the savages there?
  - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    I think you're giving the connection to Rome too much weight. Consider: [ ] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansgar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansgar
    - vintermann 5y ago
      I don't quite understand. Ansgar was quite connected to Rome, as much as you would expect from a missionary in a foreign country. There was, as I understand it, correspondence between Ansgar and the pope, at the very least there had to be a letter appointing him as bishop. Think of how much harder it would have been to send a letter from Vinland.

vintermann 5y ago

I agree with this. It's about economic and social support. Leif Eriksson was the son of the notorious murderer Eric the Red. Eric was twice outcast, first from Norway to Iceland, then from Iceland to Greenland. On top of that, Leif was an enthusiastic convert to Christianity, which somewhat alienated him from his still pagan father. They lived on a fringe of a fringe of the European economic, cultural and religious community. They didn't even really have the economic support to sustain a settlement on Greenland (where they were more by necessity than opportunity, due to Eric's crimes), let alone Nova Scotia.

eesmith 5y ago

> long distance unsupported settlers There were 18 years between the European settlement of Pitcairn island and the next visitors - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_Islands#European_settlement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitcairn_Islands#European_sett... . Your constraints are pretty strict. There aren't many places which could be settled (in recorded history) where there weren't already people living there, and where there was a reason for not continuing contact with the place of origin. Another possibility is Te Pito O Te Kainga / Rapa Nui / Easter Island. The first explorers met one person already there (Nga Tavake), then they go back to Hiva, and a double canoe returns to Easter Island carrying the settlers. They left "because a rising tide was destroying their land" and/or a power struggle with the Hanau Eepe, if I read http://archive.hokulea.com/rapanui/hotu.html http://archive.hokulea.com/rapanui/hotu.html correctly. In either case, the oral history suggest little continued connection with Hiva.

adolph 5y ago

Some interpretations of the socio-political context of what is now New England see tribes more affected by disease presumably spread by earlier European contact as aiding incoming Europeans in order to ward off other tribes. The Narragansetts were the most powerful tribe in the southern area of the region when the English colonists arrived in 1620, and they had not been affected by the epidemics. Chief Massasoit of the Wampanoags to the east allied with the colonists at Plymouth Colony as a way to protect the Wampanoags from Narragansett attacks. In the fall of 1621, the Narragansetts sent a sheaf of arrows wrapped in a snakeskin to Plymouth Colony as a threatening challenge, but Plymouth governor William Bradford sent the snakeskin back filled with gunpowder and bullets. The Narragansetts understood the message and did not attack them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narragansett_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narragansett_people

BurningFrog 5y ago

This is very far from my expertise, but surely you can also live off the land? Hunting and fishing shouldn't be very different in Newfoundland compared to Norway/Iceland. Bring a few chickens along, and you have another food source. I assume/guess the vikings were better at this stuff than the Mayflower crowd.

vintermann 5y ago
They didn't want to live like that. It's one of the things Jared Diamond argues in Collapse: sure, they could have survived longer in Greenland if they adopted more of the customs of the Inuit, but this went against everything they considered important and valuable in life. They wouldn't be themselves any more if they did (and for all we know, a few of them may have been assimilated into the native population and stopped being Norse in any sense recognizable to us). Not least of all, Leif Eriksson was a Christian, a Catholic in modern terms. It's reasonable to assume most of his followers were, too. He had gained the epithet "the lucky" due to his habit of coming across and rescuing castaways at sea. To the Norse, luck was evidence the cosmos was on your side, and one of the most important attributes a leader offered to potential followers was a share in this cosmic luck. This probably helped Leif the missionary securing a lot of conversions! But the heart of Christianity at the time was in Rome. They were already profoundly cut off from the mystical fellowship of believers, the communion. How much worse wouldn't it be for their sense of self if they were not only to go off in an impossibly distant land, but to live as the savages there?
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  I think you're giving the connection to Rome too much weight. Consider: [ ] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansgar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansgar
  - vintermann 5y ago
    I don't quite understand. Ansgar was quite connected to Rome, as much as you would expect from a missionary in a foreign country. There was, as I understand it, correspondence between Ansgar and the pope, at the very least there had to be a letter appointing him as bishop. Think of how much harder it would have been to send a letter from Vinland.