Why didn't the Vikings colonize North America?

After Christopher Columbus’s first voyage across the Atlantic in 1492, Spain and other European countries conducted large-scale colonization that resulted in European settlers and their descendants colonizing most of the Western Hemisphere.

However, they were not the first Europeans to make the journey to North America. After establishing settlements in Iceland and Greenland in the 9th and 10th centuries AD, the Vikings reached what is now Newfoundland in Canada around 1900 1000 AD. They established an outpost at L’anse aux Meadows and used it for exploration other areas in northeastern North America, with historical records indicating that they established another outpost called “Hop” Somewhere in what is now the province of New Brunswick.

However, that is Vikings did not colonize North America on a large scale, at least not compared to what the Europeans did after 1492. So why didn’t the Vikings colonize North America?

In short, it is unclear whether the Vikings wanted to expand their outposts into colonies, and the Viking outposts were sparsely populated when they came into conflict with indigenous Americans, causing them to leave everything behind. But other factors also played a role, including the difficult sea route and the level of urbanization in both Europe and North America at the time.

Related: What is the earliest evidence of humans in the Americas?

Were the Vikings interested in colonizing North America?

The Vikings may not have had much interest in colonizing North America. Birgitta Wallacea senior archaeologist emeritus at Parks Canada who has conducted extensive research on the Vikings in North America, told Live Science in an email. “The Norsemen were not interested in colonizing North America at this time, as the Greenland colony was new and expanding, but still very small.”

When the Vikings explored an area south of Newfoundland they called “Vínland” (which translates to “wine country”), they were more interested in finding natural resources to exploit. “Their real interest was finding resources that could support the new Greenland colony,” Wallace said. “Vinland was explored because it had been discovered and offered potential resources.”

Kevin P SmithA research fellow at the Smithsonian Institute who specializes in Vikings had a slightly different opinion. He said that Norse texts indicate that “there was interest in establishing a colony in the area known as Vínland in the first decades of the 11th century AD.” The texts indicate that some Vikings believed it provided “opportunities for ‘second sons’ of the chief who founded the Greenland colony to establish their own territories where they could be leaders/chieftains rather than ‘second sons.’ ” Smith told Live Science in an email.

Christopher CrockerA research grant officer at Memorial University in Newfoundland who has studied the Vikings extensively said he believes there is insufficient evidence to determine whether the Vikings wanted to establish permanent settlements in North America.

“Whether they were trying to establish long-term/permanent settlements there and exert some sort of economic and political control over the area.” [is] “Given the evidence we have, this is not at all clear,” Crocker told Live Science in an email.

Defeat in North America

Smith said that medieval Norse sagas “make it entirely clear that they abandoned the attempt to establish a colony in Vínland because the land already had many more inhabitants than the Norsemen had brought with them.” By the time the Vikings made contact with the indigenous peoples When North America took over, conflict quickly arose.

The “Saga of Erik the Red“Mentions a clash between the Vikings and the natives that ended with the Vikings retreating to their ships after a defeat in which some Vikings died. Choice and good, they would always be overwhelmed by war and terror, from which, who lived there before them. They therefore prepared to depart, intending to go to their own country [Greenland]”, says the text (translation by John Sephton).

The Vikings, “who attempted to establish a colony in North America, were defeated, retreated, and saw no possibility of conquering or establishing a stable colony in these lands.” [were otherwise] “Perfect for colonization,” Smith said.

Related: Columbus “discovered” the New World…so why isn’t America named after him?

Replicas of Nordic dwellings at L’anse Aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada. (Image credit: Wolfgang Kaehler via Getty Images)

Not enough Vikings

The number of Vikings who lived in Greenland was small, and even the total number of Vikings was relatively small, the scholars found. “The total population of the Scandinavian countries was probably less than a million in the late Viking Age,” Jan BillCurator of the Viking ship collection at the University of Oslo’s Cultural History Museum, Live Science told Live Science in an email. Greenland, meanwhile, “initially only had a population of 400 to 500” Vikings, Wallace said. “At its peak around 1300 AD, the maximum population was perhaps 2,000-3,000.”

It is unclear how large the indigenous population of Vínland was at the time of the Viking visit, but it would have been significantly larger. An article published in the journal in 2010 American antiquity It is estimated that the indigenous population in eastern North America was between 500,000 and 2.6 million people around 1500.

The North Atlantic route used by the Vikings also posed an obstacle. “Relatively speaking, the cold and storms of the North Atlantic made this sea a higher barrier than the more favorable conditions further south,” Bill said.

The distance between “Vínland” and Greenland also posed a major problem for the Vikings. “It took Greenland weeks to bring the goods to market [in Europe]which made the trading network difficult to operate,” Kevin McAleese, curator at the Rooms Provincial Museum in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, told Live Science in an email.

In addition, Scandinavia in the Viking Age was less urbanized than Europe in the period following Columbus’ voyage, and the states ruled by the Vikings were less developed. “In the 15th century, state formation was much more advanced than in the 11th century, especially if you compare Scandinavia to the Iberian Peninsula,” said Bill, who noted that “more advanced states could invest more in colonization than the very young states of Denmark .”, Norway and Sweden.”

Other factors against colonization

After the voyages of Columbus numerous epidemics swept across the Western Hemisphere and decimated Indian populationwhich made it easier for European colonists to conquer land and natural resources. In 2009, researchers Dr. William Agger And Herbert Maschner published an article in the book “The Northern World: 900–1400 AD(University of Utah Press, 2009) suggests that diseases caused by the Vikings may have caused an epidemic among an Arctic people that archaeologists now call the Dorset, but this epidemic did not spread widely across North America.

In addition, historical records indicate that there were also internal disagreements among the Vikings who traveled to North America, McAleese said. The saga of Erik the Red mentions disputes over religion, travel directions and tactics in the fight against the indigenous peoples. Given all the problems the Vikings faced, it could be that they left L’Anse Aux Meadows after about two decades. Any Viking hopes of colonizing North America proved to be “a bridge too far,” McAleese said.

Why didn’t the Vikings colonize North America?

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