Lands of Red and Gold

[Workable Goblin]

One question, where does the name Aururia come from? IIRC you also used it for a US state's name in DoD.

I know Jared posted about this--it means "Land of Gold" in Latin, IIRC. Fitting for Australia, no?

 

[Thande]

I know Jared posted about this--it means "Land of Gold" in Latin, IIRC. Fitting for Australia, no?

Ah, that makes sense. I presume that ties in with the title, with the "red" referring to the red yams. Certainly a better title than that "For want of a yam" he used in the planning stages...

 

[Jared]

Well, I've just finished reading this more or less in one go.

That's dedication right there... LRG isn't quite the length of DoD, but this still means that you've read over 140,000 words in one go.

I must add to the chorus of praise for the level of research and the original ideas here. While DoD was obviously known for its depth, it stands out even more here due to the more esoteric subject matter.

Thanks. This timeline is obviously a case of Shown Their Work (aka Did Do the Research And Not Afraid To Show It), but I figure it's better to err on the side of too much information rather than too little, since I'm dealing with some rather obscure periods here. Especially in terms of how what everyone thought they knew (or rather, what Messr Diamond thought he knew) turned out to be wrong.

While things have been made favourable for the Aborigines to make the TL more interesting, I see encouraging signs that this avoids the good old wank clichés.

I hope I've avoided that trap. The Aborigines (and Maori, incidentally) have a different fate than in OTL, but I don't think that it's going to turn into a wank. While the ultimate outcome of TTL is still something to be determined, it probably won't involve a vengeful fleet of Gunnagal conquering Constantinople and then handing it over to the Greeks...

Exhibit A: These Aborigines are, naturally, thanks to butterflies due to the introduction of agriculture, barely comparable in language and culture to OTL's. Thus an aversion of the usual native-wank butterfly shield. Exhibit B: The fact that the disease exchanges hurt Africa and especially the Americas more than Eurasia, you wouldn't see that in a White Man's Frigging timeline a la The Years of Rice and Salt.

Indeed. Tempting though it was to simply use OTL Aboriginal cultures (especially borrowing language wholesale), plausible it wasn't, so I refrained. And with the disease exchanges, I didn't set out to achieve any particular outcome, other than see how a disease-swapping version of the Columbian Exchange might plausibly play out.

You've already mentioned some Eurasian diseases hitting Australia like mumps, but what about bubonic plague? At this point in OTL Europe and China were suffering the last throes of the Black Death from centuries before, with the outbreaks of plague that hit the Ming dynasty during the collapse, Italy in the 1630s, Spain in the 1640s and England in the 1660s. These outbreaks got started before European contact with Australia, so while their infection rate might be slowed down by the fact that the Australian diseases are reducing the population of potential carriers, I would still expect the plague to reach Australia before it finally burned out at the start of the 18th century.

I thought that bubonic plague would be likely to end up in *Australia, but oddly enough, it turns out that won't be showing any time soon.

This comes back to (again) shipping distances. While rats are reservoirs of plague, the disease does kill them eventually - it just takes longer than with humans. The shipping times to Australia are long enough that infected rats die of the plague before a ship would reach Australia. This is likely to last even into the early days of the steam, by the way - sailing ships just don't get here fast enough.

In OTL, Australia remained plague-free for over a century after European settlement; the first outbreak was not until 1900, 112 years after Europeans arrived. This was not just a coincidence; twelve more outbreaks followed in the next two decades, thanks to imported rats, where before there had been none. This is because ships were now fast enough to bring plague with them before the rats died.

It may not take quite that long in the LRG TL, since there will be more ships coming from Asia rather than from Europe, but still, there was shipping between Asia and Australia during the nineteenth century in OTL, and it never brought across plague until 1900.

The long shipping times will keep a number of diseases out, incidentally. In OTL, epidemic typhus has never been established in Australia. Even smallpox never became endemic; there were outbreaks caused by visitors, but it never became a permanent feature within Australia. (Australia and New Zealand never bothered to routinely vaccinate their children against smallpox).

(Also, I did find it sort of darkly amusing that you managed to kill off pretty much the entire cast of the 1632 series in one fell swoop )

If I missed anyone, let me know and I'll fix it in the next post on the *30 Years War.

One wonders whose hands North America will end up in in TTL. At this point in OTL you had the Dutch in New Amsterdam, the English in Virginia and New England, and the French in Quebec (the Swedes would also colonise Delaware in the 1630s, but that might be butterflied away).

'Tis a damn good question, and I haven't yet worked out a complete answer. As well as the nations you mention, there's also Spain in Florida at this point - St Augustine and a few missions - and they may want to expand into places like *Texas, too.

The Dutch may well be stronger in the New Netherlands. Quebec, incidentally, might be very vulnerable to butterflies. In OTL, virtually the whole of the French population was descended about 5000 colonists who were sent in about five years during the reign of Louis XIV, before he lost interest in sponsoring further immigration to Quebec. If that gets butterflied away, Quebec will probably remain a thinly-populated area of a few French fur traders, mixed-blood descendants, and some native allies.

As for the Swedish, well... who knows what a Marnitja-infected Gustavus Adolphus will do to secure his legacy? Nya Sverige, anyone, or just decide to go for death or glory in Germany or Poland?

And while I don't want to give too much away at this point, the spread of Aururian crops is going to have some macro-economic consequences and effects on settlement and colonisation patterns around the world, including some considerable implications for North America.

In particular, there are two major changes coming:

- Agricultural productivity is going to be significantly enhanced in semiarid regions, arid regions with access to irrigation, or anywhere with exhausted soils. Aururian crops will transform techniques of dryland agriculture in semiarid regions, and will need considerably less water for irrigation in arid regions that have some rivers available (eg Tigris and Euphrates). This will transform agriculture in large swathes of the globe.

- As perennials, Aururian crops will be of incredible value anywhere that the limit on agriculture is a shortage of labour, not a shortage of land. In many of the colonial areas of the world at this point (especially North America), the problem was usually a shortage of workers, rather than a shortage of land. Aururian crops allow the same number of workers to be more productive, since they can be used to supplement other crops (eg plant Aururian crops to be harvested at different times to more familiar European crops, and they won't cut into the main harvest times for other crops). Farms will be larger and more productive with the same number of workers. This is going to change settlement patterns and the economic structure of settler colonies throughout the Americas (and some other areas).

Everyone is presumably affected equally by the Australian diseases so it leaves them on a level footing again. I could see the Dutch benefiting from Australian trade in a similar manner to the shot in the arm the Spanish got from Aztec gold (and the Dutch themselves got earlier from the East Indies) which might fuel the Dutch West India Company to expand their colonial ventures and leave the Netherlands with a big chunk of North America.

The Dutch wealth might help, although the Dutch West India Company was a separate entity; I'm not sure how much the VOC will be trying to reinvest the profits in the East Indies at this point. Of course, there will be more wealth floating around, so it's quite possible.

Especially since they'll have a lot fewer Indians to worry about thanks to the effects of the Australian diseases.

Oh, yes. This will have positives and negatives for their colonial efforts (and for other Europeans). There was a fair amount of native resistance around this period - see eg the Powhatan resisting English encroachment around Virginia - and this will make things easier. On the other hand, the fur trade will take a big hit since there will be fewer Amerindians to go out and collect the furs and then want to trade them, so that will reduce the profitability of those enterprises.

Re the bit with the Dutch and the human sacrifices - given the VOC's reputation for bending any rules to guarantee trade (see Dejima) I wouldn't be surprised if some unscrupulous VOC captain acceeded to the native's request and "volunteered" some convicted criminals or white captives from Dutch enemy nations.

The VOC could certainly make all sorts of accommodations to ensure trade access, but I suspect that handing over Christians to pagans for human sacrifice would probably trouble even their conscience. Especially since if word of it got out, the reaction of the people and government in the Netherlands would probably be abhorrence sufficient to dissolve the VOC.

Whether this would be accepted seeing as how the natives do insist on willing volunteers, I don't know.

That would be another big problem, too. The volunteers are expected to go calmly to their deaths - they have accepted them, after all, and expect to be reborn in time. I'm not so sure that European POWs or convicted criminals would have quite the same attitude.

One question, where does the name Aururia come from? IIRC you also used it for a US state's name in DoD.

As truth is life mentioned, it means "land of gold" (from the Latin). I used it in DoD as well, yes - it was actually used (with a different spelling, Auraria) in OTL for a couple of gold regions in the USA - one in Georgia, one in Colorado.

Once more, great work and look forward to seeing more.

Thanks. Another post is in the pipeline. Hopefully with a shorter turnaround than the last instalment.

I know Jared posted about this--it means "Land of Gold" in Latin, IIRC. Fitting for Australia, no?

Ah, that makes sense. I presume that ties in with the title, with the "red" referring to the red yams.

It does partly tie in with the title, although there were other reasons for it. ITTL, the Australian gold mines will be even more notorious than they were in OTL - and Australia does have a lot of gold.

Incidentally, the name Aururia is just one name for the continent - some countries use different names for the continent.

Certainly a better title than that "For want of a yam" he used in the planning stages...

I think I went through about four names for this TL before settling on the current one.

 

[sahaidak]

Oh, yes. This will have positives and negatives for their colonial efforts (and for other Europeans). There was a fair amount of native resistance around this period - see eg the Powhatan resisting English encroachment around Virginia - and this will make things easier. On the other hand, the fur trade will take a big hit since there will be fewer Amerindians to go out and collect the furs and then want to trade them, so that will reduce the profitability of those enterprises.

The Russians encountered this problem in the Siberia in the 17th century and again in Alaska in the mid-18th century. Native population was killed off to a significant extent by new diseases, vodka, plundering of their foodstores and (less often) outright mass murder. Left without sufficient numbers of willing hunters, the Russian traders-cum-soldiers made following choices:
a. Pressured the Natives to get more furs from less men (pressure included virtual enslavement, as with some Aleut tribes, but could be as 'mild' as public whipping of the non-complying chieftains);
b. Started to hunt on their own, acquiring after several years of hard (and sometimes deadly) learning enough knowledge of the country to become independent of the Natives.
I doubt that the European traders in the 17th-century North America had enough resources (men and ammunition, as well as united political leadership) to pursue Russian path in full, but something could be done in this spirit.
Sounds very similar to Leopold's policy in Congo, I'm afraid.

 

[Thande]

And while I don't want to give too much away at this point, the spread of Aururian crops is going to have some macro-economic consequences and effects on settlement and colonisation patterns around the world, including some considerable implications for North America.

In particular, there are two major changes coming:

- Agricultural productivity is going to be significantly enhanced in semiarid regions, arid regions with access to irrigation, or anywhere with exhausted soils. Aururian crops will transform techniques of dryland agriculture in semiarid regions, and will need considerably less water for irrigation in arid regions that have some rivers available (eg Tigris and Euphrates). This will transform agriculture in large swathes of the globe.

- As perennials, Aururian crops will be of incredible value anywhere that the limit on agriculture is a shortage of labour, not a shortage of land. In many of the colonial areas of the world at this point (especially North America), the problem was usually a shortage of workers, rather than a shortage of land. Aururian crops allow the same number of workers to be more productive, since they can be used to supplement other crops (eg plant Aururian crops to be harvested at different times to more familiar European crops, and they won't cut into the main harvest times for other crops). Farms will be larger and more productive with the same number of workers. This is going to change settlement patterns and the economic structure of settler colonies throughout the Americas (and some other areas).

That is a very interesting point. My own thinking is that the regions in which Aururian crops will really change the world are not so much the Americas but in certain regions of the Old World: northern Africa, the Middle East (which you mention) and Central Asia. Ottoman Mesopotamia could once again be the green and pleasant land it was before the destruction of its old irrigation system...

 

[Thande]

Oh, and one other thing - as far as European diseases are concerned, what about smallpox? What sort of incubation time does that have? It certainly made the crossing to America IIRC...

 

[Jared]

The Russians encountered this problem in the Siberia in the 17th century and again in Alaska in the mid-18th century. Native population was killed off to a significant extent by new diseases, vodka, plundering of their foodstores and (less often) outright mass murder. Left without sufficient numbers of willing hunters, the Russian traders-cum-soldiers made following choices:
a. Pressured the Natives to get more furs from less men (pressure included virtual enslavement, as with some Aleut tribes, but could be as 'mild' as public whipping of the non-complying chieftains);
b. Started to hunt on their own, acquiring after several years of hard (and sometimes deadly) learning enough knowledge of the country to become independent of the Natives.
I doubt that the European traders in the 17th-century North America had enough resources (men and ammunition, as well as united political leadership) to pursue Russian path in full, but something could be done in this spirit.
Sounds very similar to Leopold's policy in Congo, I'm afraid.

Unfortunately, that sounds like exactly the sort of ugliness that certain fur-trading companies would do to secure their profits. Especially since even if Europeans learned how to hunt furs on their own, it would require dealing with any natives who tried to interfere.

The only bright side, from the Amerindian point of view, is that an under-populated Europe would have less demand for furs, and also less profits to pour into funding the training for whichever European adventurers want to go to the New World to learn.

That is a very interesting point. My own thinking is that the regions in which Aururian crops will really change the world are not so much the Americas but in certain regions of the Old World: northern Africa, the Middle East (which you mention) and Central Asia. Ottoman Mesopotamia could once again be the green and pleasant land it was before the destruction of its old irrigation system...

Northern Africa and much of the Middle East will both be regions which are really changed by the spread of Aururian crops. So will places like southern Italy, much of Spain and Portugal, perhaps parts of Greece, too. The Aururian crops are better at dealing with the poor, depleted soils of those regions (not surprising since they've evolved to deal with even poorer Australian soils), not to mention needing less water than any other crops which are grown there.

Ottoman Mesopotamia is an intriguing possibility. The crops would need less irrigation than anything else which is grown there, but much of Mesopotamia is so dry that even Aururian crops won't grow without irrigation. So if the Ottomans or the locals are able to organise getting the irrigation systems restored, it will give them huge dividends in the long run - but that assumes that things can get started in the first place.

Oh, and one other thing - as far as European diseases are concerned, what about smallpox? What sort of incubation time does that have? It certainly made the crossing to America IIRC...

The incubation period is around 12 days (sometimes less), with symptoms appearing around the 12th day, and the infection running its course in another week or so at the maximum (usually less).

Sailing time across the Atlantic was longer than that; usually at least six weeks. Smallpox infections were carried across the Atlantic in one of two ways: either the infection jumped from sailor to sailor throughout the voyage, and/or the virus itself lingered somewhere on board ship (in blankets, say, or other sheltered places) and someone caught it on route. Even then, the virus needed to island hop - it made it to Hispaniola in 1507 - 15 years after Columbus's first voyage - and crossed into Mexico from there.

If the sailing time to the nearest Caribbean islands had been a couple of weeks longer, smallpox may not have made the jump across the Atlantic at all, or at least not for decades or centuries. (Of course, if the sailing time was a couple of weeks longer, Columbus and his crew would have died on the outbound leg of their first voyage, but that's another story).

By comparison, the sailing time from Europe to Australia was any time up to a year. Smallpox will not make the leap from Europe to Australia in one go - the distances are far, far too long.

What is bound to happen, sooner or later, is that the disease will come from somewhere in India or the East Indies to Australia. The sailing times even for that are marginal, but a ship sailing with favourable monsoon winds (which last most of the journey) and then a fast trip further south will probably be enough to carry the disease. But it may take decades for that to happen.

In terms of which other major Eurasian diseases are likely to make the jump into *Australia, I'd expect that the Eurasian forms of influenza will be quick to follow. Chickenpox has a recurring phase in adults (shingles), so with ongoing contact that's bound to show up pretty quickly too. Whooping cough and diptheria will show up at some point, too. The other big killer, measles, doesn't have an asymptomatic carrier state, so that will take longer, too, but given time it will make the jump from Asia.

 

[Thande]

So the impression I get is that while the Old World and New World are going to get all the Aururian diseases all in one go and then recover from them (as you haven't mentioned any others with a longer incubation time), Aururia is going to get Old World diseases in waves as the crossing time shortens with advancing technology and progressively lets more and more diseases make the crossing.

I don't know what the end result of that will be but, as I said before, it's certainly not something you'd expect in a traditional Nativewank/White Man's Frigging...

Oh, and if I can ask a self-interested question for my own TL: do you intend to write about the Maori in more detail anytime soon? Reading this I've realised that I really need to look at the impact of European crops in Autiaraux [New Zealand] in LTTW sometime soon...in OTL I understand the Maori transition to a more agricultural lifestyle (they already grew some limited crops) happened over a period of decades and helped contribute to the Musket Wars and Land Wars as more men were now freed up from hunter-gathering...however in LTTW things are altered by the fact that there are renegade French advisors freely giving two particular Maori factions all the European knowledge they need, meaning that musket wars rage across the islands before agriculture has really set in...

 

[Geekhis Khan]

Oh, and congratulations to Geekhis Khan for being the first person since 1981 to come up with a Spanish Inquisition Python reference that is actually amusing

Thankyou, thankyouverymuch. I'll be here all week, folks. Try the veal!

 

[Thande]

One other point I forgot to mention before: Jared mentions a lot of political and religious figures of Europe killed by the Aururian diseases, but there's another group of hugely significant people at risk here: the 1620 were the dawn of the Scientific Revolution. Galileo could die before the whole earth round the sun thing really flared up, and William Harvey has at the very least lost his royal patronage even if he survives the plagues: in OTL he wouldn't publish his great work on the circulation of the blood until 1628.

Also, a lot of very significant scientific figures were born in the late 1620s and early 1630s. Even if their parents aren't killed off, the sheer chaos caused by the diseases is going to unleash a horde (flock?) of butterflies that surely can only cause the next generation to be totally unrecognisable. What happens next with the Scientific Revolution does, I guess, depend upon the veracity or otherwise of the Great Men view.

 

[Hendryk]

William Harvey has at the very least lost his royal patronage even if he survives the plagues: in OTL he wouldn't publish his great work on the circulation of the blood until 1628.

By then the Jesuits are already in China. Given their scientific training, one of them would sooner or later pick up a medical treatise and realize that blood circulation has been known for centuries. In fact I'm sure Arab and Ottoman medicine was aware of it as well, and it could percolate into the European scientific scene that way.

 

[Geekhis Khan]

One other point I forgot to mention before: Jared mentions a lot of political and religious figures of Europe killed by the Aururian diseases, but there's another group of hugely significant people at risk here: the 1620 were the dawn of the Scientific Revolution. Galileo could die before the whole earth round the sun thing really flared up, and William Harvey has at the very least lost his royal patronage even if he survives the plagues: in OTL he wouldn't publish his great work on the circulation of the blood until 1628.

Also, a lot of very significant scientific figures were born in the late 1620s and early 1630s. Even if their parents aren't killed off, the sheer chaos caused by the diseases is going to unleash a horde (flock?) of butterflies that surely can only cause the next generation to be totally unrecognisable. What happens next with the Scientific Revolution does, I guess, depend upon the veracity or otherwise of the Great Men view.

By then the Jesuits are already in China. Given their scientific training, one of them would sooner or later pick up a medical treatise and realize that blood circulation has been known for centuries. In fact I'm sure Arab and Ottoman medicine was aware of it as well, and it could percolate into the European scientific scene that way.

Hmmm...combined with the potential Ottoman "renaissance" spurred by the dry agricultural revolution of Auraurian crops, could we not see the Middle East once again the center of learning and industry?

 

[Aranfan]

I'm wondering what happens with China. If the right people die things could turn out much better for it TTL.

 

[Jared]

Lands of Red and Gold #29: Shards of Pangaea

Something of a change of pace this time...

* * *

“For all mankind that unstained scroll unfurled,
Where God might write anew the story of the World.”
- Edward Everett Hale

* * *

From: “Three Worlds in Collision: The Globe in Upheaval”
By Shimon Grodensky

Step back in history for a millennium, and the blue-green globe we call Earth was not, in truth, one world. Mankind had reached all of the habitable portions of the globe save for a few scattered islands, but the planet remained divided. Not one world but three, each following separate paths.

The Old World, with the four united continents of Europe, Asia, India and Africa and outlying islands, contained the bulk of the world’s area and population, the earliest agriculture, the earliest civilizations, and the most advanced technology. With their common geography, the fates of these four continents had been entwined since the emergence of the human species.

The New World, with the continents of North and South America joined at the Isthmus of Panama, accompanied by the isles of the Caribbean, reached from the tropics to the poles. While smaller in area than the Old World, and only reached by mankind ten or so millennia before, it still provided a third of the world’s habitable land surface and supported substantial human civilizations.

The Third World, the island continent of Aururia and the then-uninhabited islands of Aotearoa, held only a small fraction of the world’s area and an even smaller fraction of its population. In its flora and fauna, though, it had followed an independent path for so long that the first explorers who saw its plants and animals believed that it was the product of a separate creation.

One thousand years ago, these three worlds had developed largely according to their own destinies, with only occasional contact which did not significantly affect their isolation. The Old World and the New saw limited crossings of peoples across Broch Strait [Bering Strait]; the Old World and the Third encountered each other in hesitant interactions across Torres Strait.

In the course of the last thousand years, these three separate worlds were forged into one globe with a unified destiny. Still, the first efforts at fusion were abortive. Pioneering Austronesians had anticipated the joining of the worlds, visiting Aururia long enough to leave behind dogs, and visiting South America to swap chickens for sweet potatoes. Yet these landmark contacts were not sustained. Norse settlers colonised Greenland and landed on North America, only to be driven out by the indigenous inhabitants. The ancestors of the Maori colonised empty Aotearoa and then crossed the Tethys Sea [Tasman Sea] to encounter the Aururian peoples, but then lost contact with their relatives in Polynesia.

Sustained contact, and the global unification which this would produce, awaited the birth of more determined explorers. Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the Caribbean islands set in motion a course of events which would join the Old World to the New. While Columbus was not the first to discover the Americas [1], his accomplishment was in making sure that this contact would endure. A century and a quarter later, Frederik de Houtman created a place for himself in history when he achieved a similar feat in discovering Aururia. Again, de Houtman was not the first discoverer of the island continent, but he was the first man to ensure that Aururia would not return to its isolation.

The three paths of human existence came together in a crossroads forged by two men. The expeditions first of Columbus and de Houtman started to bring the three worlds together; two voyages which marked the first tremors of exchanges that would shake the globe.

The Columbian Exchange and the Houtmanian Exchange were the most significant events in human history. They transformed the globe over the course of the last five centuries; no corner of the planet was untouched by the events set in motion by Columbus and de Houtman. The modern world as we know it was in large part created by the consequences of these two exchanges.

The Exchanges marked an immense transfer of people, diseases, plants, animals, and ideas between the three previously separate worlds. These exchanges had massive effects on every human society on the globe. New diseases spread around the world, devastating many societies. Large-scale migrations transformed or replaced many cultures. The spread of new plants and animals marked a more beneficial aspect of the Exchanges; more productive or more resilient crops allowed increased human populations...

Of all the changes to human ways of life which the Exchanges brought, none were more profound than the spread of crops and livestock. New staple crops transformed the diets of peoples on every continent, as much larger growing regions were opened up for cultivation. The spread of domestic animals revolutionised transportation, farming practices, and entire ways of life of peoples around the globe.

Consider, for instance, that maize and cassava, when introduced into Africa, replaced the former dietary staples to become the premier food crops on much of the continent. Red yams and cornnarts [wattles] became the highest-yielding crops around most of the Mediterranean. South American potatoes had never been seen in Europe before 1492, but within three centuries they became so important in Ireland that potato blight threatened mass starvation on the island; the dire situation was only averted by expanding cultivation of another imported crop, this one from the other end of the globe: murnong.

Horses had never been seen in the New World before Columbus, but they spread throughout the North American prairies, leading entire cultures to abandon farming and turn to a nomadic lifestyle. Coffee and sugar cane were native to the Old World, but the Columbian Exchange saw their cultivation expand to massive plantations in the New. Rubber was native to the New World, but its greatest use has now become in plantations in the Old. Kunduri was native to the Third World, but during the Houtmanian Exchange it became widely cultivated in plantations in both the Old and New Worlds, while cultures throughout the globe were transformed by the influence of kunduri...

Some crops and animals which spread during the Exchanges have become so iconic to distant regions that it is hard to imagine that five hundred years ago, the peoples of those regions had never seen or heard of them. Who can imagine Tuscany without tomatoes, Ireland without potatoes, Sicily without red yams, Thijszenia [Tasmania] without apples, Tegesta [Florida] without oranges, West Africa without peanuts, Costa Rica without bananas, Maui [Hawaii] without pineapples, or Tuniza without quandongs? What would Bavaria be without chocolate, South Africa without kunduri, or France without the klinsigars [cigarettes] produced from it? Or who can picture Tejas without sheep, the Neeburra [Darling Downs, Queensland, Australia] without horses, or Argentina without wheat and cornnart and the immense herds of cattle they sustain?

Indeed, the list of exchanged plants and animals that have become naturalised in new regions could be expanded almost endlessly. Before de Houtman, Ethiopia had no nooroons [emus] and no murnong, Brittany had no sweet peppers [2], Portugal had no lemon verbena [lemon myrtle], and Persia had no lutos [bush pears]. Before Columbus, there were no chilli peppers in Siam and India, no coffee in New Granada, no vanilla in Madagascar, no sunflowers in Daluming, no avocados in Ceylon, no rubber trees in Africa, and no oca in Aotearoa...

Nothing offers greater testament to the agricultural benefits of the Exchanges than a comparison of the origins of the modern world’s major crops. The world’s agriculture is dominated by a mere twenty crops. They are the titans of the plant kingdom, which between them contain the best-suited staple crops for all of the diverse climes around the globe. Together, these crops account for around nine-tenths of the tonnage of all crops grown under human cultivation.

Six of these foremost crops come from the New World (potato, maize, cassava, sweet potato, tomato, chilli & bell pepper), eleven are from the Old World (rice, sugar cane, grape, wheat, soybean, barley, orange, onion, sorghum, banana, apple), and three are from the Third World (red & lesser yam, cornnart, and murnong). Today their cultivation is global, but a millennium ago each of these crops was confined to one of the three worlds, and often had restricted range even within their native world...

The two Exchanges have much in common in their effects on the globe: they transformed agriculture and cuisine, and made each world’s resources available to a much larger area. Still, the two Exchanges had distinctly different characters, particularly in their relative effects on the Old World, and in the fates of the peoples and cultures in the two smaller worlds.

In the Columbian Exchange, many major crops moved in both directions, and Eurasia swallowed many of the New World’s resources. In most other aspects, however, the Columbian Exchange was in effect unidirectional. In the movement of diseases, Old World epidemics devastated the populations of the New World, while not a single significant human disease made the reverse journey back across the Atlantic to Europe or elsewhere in the Old World. The Americas did not provide a single major domestic animal that greatly transformed Old World societies – cavies, turkeys and muscovy ducks were only of minor importance – while Eurasia provided horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, and chickens which all transformed life in the New World. The shifts of language and peoples in the Columbian Exchange were all cases of Old World peoples expanding at the expense of the native languages and peoples of the New World. And while the resources of the New World would feed the burgeoning commerce and ultimately manufacturing of Europe, no significant changes to Old World religion or science came about as a result of Columbus’s contact...

In the Houtmanian Exchange, as in its Columbian predecessors, major crops were exchanged in both directions. Yet the Third World did not provide as many resources to feed Europe’s growth, mostly because of the much smaller size of Aururia and Aotearoa.

De Houtman’s legacy saw a true exchange of diseases between the Old and Third Worlds, although the character of this interaction was markedly different from that which followed Columbus. Aururian diseases were much swifter in their effects on the Old World (and the New), due to their individual nature and the facts of geography which made them easier to transmit around the globe. The effects of Old World diseases on Aururia were slower, more insidious and ultimately much more destructive.

In the exchange of domestic animals, the Old World again provided many more kinds of livestock which would transform the societies of the Third World – horses, camels, donkeys, pigs and chickens. Nonetheless, the Third World provided one domestic animal, the nooroon, whose arrival changed human ways of life in a substantial part of the Old World.

In the transfer of peoples and language, the Houtmanian Exchange was more complex than the Columbian, but ultimately bidirectional. Likewise, while the flow of ideas was largely a tide flowing from the Old World, contact with Aururia did lead to significant developments in the history of religion and science...

* * *

From: “Europe’s Assault on the Globe”
By Hans van Leeuwen

Chapter 7: Drive to the East

Europe’s interest in the East began long before Columbus inadvertently began the European assault on the West; indeed, the misguided Genoan had intended to reach the East by sailing west. The lure of spices had inspired the Portuguese to explore Africa and round the Cape before Columbus set foot on the isles of the Caribbean, and even those intrepid explorers were merely seeking to gain easier access to Eastern goods which had previously passed through Muslim and Venetian hands.

Vasco de Gama reached India a handful of years after Columbus’s wayward voyage led him to what he had fondly believed was the Spice Islands. In this era, Spanish conquistadors followed in Columbus’s wake, pursuing gold and visions, and delivered the first blows in what would become Europe’s assault on the Americas. With Spain thereby distracted from Eastern ambitions, it fell to Portugal to become the vanguard of Europe’s drive to the East...

While the East held and holds many diverse regions, the early aims of the Powers were focused on four prizes that held the greatest rewards to match Europe’s interests. Cathay, then the most advanced nation on the globe, source of much silk and porcelain (and later tea), and an endless sink for bullion. The East Indies, politically divided and often unwelcoming, but the source of many of the most valuable spices in the world. India, dominated by the expanding might of the Great Mughals, had long been the emporium of the world, attracting many other goods even from the prizes of the East, and which offered cotton, dyes, silk, and saltpetre. Aururia, isolated, divided and primitive, but with supplies of gold to rival the resources of the West, home to and at first the exclusive supplier of kunduri, and a source of new spices, some of which offered new markets, and others which would ruin the market for what had until then been the most valuable spice in the world.

These were the four prizes which lured the Powers to explore the vastness of the globe, and whose wealth drew individual Europeans to make long voyages even at the risks of privation, disease, and far too common death. Unlike in the West, where military might was quickly aimed at the native inhabitants, in the East, the early Europeans came as traders more than as conquerors. To be sure, European powers fought in the East where it suited their purposes, but their aims were not conquest, but access and ultimately control of trade markets. Commerce was their aim, military force merely their tool. In the East, when Europeans turned to force of arms, as often as not their targets would be other Europeans, not the Eastern peoples...

Chapter 10: In Pursuit of Gold and Spices

In Aururia, as elsewhere in the East, the early Powers who descended on the continent were the Dutch, Portuguese and English. Unlike the other Eastern prizes, in the South Land the Dutch were the pioneers, and the other Powers were the ones seeking to unseat them.

As in the rest of the East, though, the Powers were competing for wealth. There was not yet any thought of major settlement, even though parts of this island continent were as empty as much of the Americas. Lucre drew them, not land, for the shipping distances were far longer and the diseases much more formidable, even in those parts of the continent where the natives were not yet any more advanced than the Red Indians. For those Europeans who wanted land, the Americas were closer and more welcoming. Those who were prepared to travel across half the world wanted something much more rewarding for their endeavours...

The Dutch, in the guise of their trading company, had little difficulty establishing the first European trading outposts in western Aururia. Mutual trade suited both Dutch and natives, profitable enough to thrive despite the first ravages of Aururian plagues across the world and the first of many Eurasian epidemics in Aururia.

The problems which the Dutch faced would derive from their rival Powers, not the natives. Rumours of gold spread even faster than the dying cough [Marnitja]. The Portuguese were the Power keenest to heed these rumours, and with the fortunate capture of a Dutch ship, received access to excellent charts, and were informed of the unprotected Fort Nassau. The temptation was overwhelming, the lust for gold insatiable, and Portugal launched the first strike in the European struggle for control of Aururia. There could hardly be a more telling omen of the fate that awaited the Land of Gold than that this blow had been delivered by one European power upon another...

* * *

[1] Of course Columbus was not the first to discover the Americas; for a start, they had already been discovered by the Americans themselves.

[2] The plants which are here called sweet peppers are pepperbushes (Tasmannia spp) from *Australia. They are not the OTL plants which are called sweet peppers, bell peppers or capsicum (which ATL are usually called bell peppers or pimentos). Also unlike them, Tasmannia is very “hot”; the name “sweet pepper” came into use because the plant has an initially sweet taste, but an intense, hot aftertaste.

* * *

Thoughts?

 

[mojojojo]

I like this style, Keep it up! I noticed that sheep were not mentioned as one of the important animals introduced into Australia. Considering how important they are in OTL what are your reasons for this?

 

[Geekhis Khan]

I noticed that sheep were not mentioned as one of the important animals introduced into Australia.

Nope...instead:

Or who can picture Tejas without sheep...?

To which this native-born Texan must say:


Blasphemy!!!!







Seriously, though, great chapter! I like the new style. This balanced with the narrative should give us readers both the macro and micro view of the ATL. "May I have some more, sir?"

 

[mojojojo]

Also, given the big problem the Aborigines are having with rats it would seem even more likely that ferrets will be introduced. All it would take is one Australian Ship captain to look at the little Mustelidae and think "I could make a bundle if I tell the locals these animals are better for killing rats than cats and quolls combined" even if that is not strictly true.

 

[Kriegdämmerung]

Before de Houtman, Ethiopia had no nooroons [emus]...

Finally! My dream realized! RASTAFARIAN EMU CAVALRY!

Arriving in a mystifying haze, riding down all those who doubt Haile Selaisse's divinity underneath their avian talons!!! Tally-ho!
---
But in all seriousness, excellent update Jared. Have you decided where you plan on wrapping up this TL? Becuase I think this would be interesting continuing into the modern day.

 

[Workable Goblin]

Finally! My dream realized! RASTAFARIAN EMU CAVALRY!

Arriving in a mystifying haze, riding down all those who doubt Haile Selaisse's divinity underneath their avian talons!!! Tally-ho!
---
But in all seriousness, excellent update Jared. Have you decided where you plan on wrapping up this TL? Becuase I think this would be interesting continuing into the modern day.

Don't make Jared's head explode! He won't be able to write anymore!

 

[Thande]

Good summary peppered with hints of the future. I like the way you turn the usual meaning of "Third World" on its head.

Re the fact that Aururia produces gold and China as you say was a sink for it due to it being just about the only trade good they desired, perhaps we could see a new Triangular Trade in the Indian Ocean rather than the Atlantic? Workers hired or enslaved from India or East Africa (if only because the natives at this point will be dying of European diseases, albeit not as dramatically as the native Americans did to fuel the slave trade), transported to Aururia where they mine gold, gold to China, and then Chinese goods to India and Africa as well as Europe (and possibly Aururia itself as well).

The effects of Old World diseases on Aururia were slower, more insidious and ultimately much more destructive.

I repeat my earlier point about this clearly not being your average nativewank. Also ties in with our discussions about the fact that the Old World diseases have varying incubation times meaning Aururia will get hit with a fresh wave every time ships get faster and different diseases can reach it, whereas it looks like the Old World will just get hit once by everything Aururian and then recover. Unless perhaps a new Aururian virus mutates into existence in the modern era, which is possible.