What if columbus never discovered america

Since time immemorial, they had diversified so greatly in terms of culture that they spoke approximately different languages. But that all changed when Columbus and the European colonizers arrived.

The study attributes the deaths to factors including introduced disease, such as smallpox and measles, as well as warfare and societal collapse. If the Americas had never been colonized by the Europeans, not only would many lives have been saved, but also various cultures and languages. Through colonization, the Indigenous populations were labeled as Indians, they were enslaved, and they were forced to abandon their own cultures and convert to Christianity.

Modern-day California would be the most densely populated region, but the entire continent would be divided into different nations, much like Europe and Asia. Smaller tribes would get swallowed up by larger ones and borders would continue to change throughout history. But one group that may have emerged as a dominant culture over the others would be the Iroquois. They were known as one of the strongest nations due to their successful agricultural practices, and their ability to invade other nations.

Wheat would not have been a staple in the American continents, as this is something introduced from Europe. And American foods like corn, tomatoes, and potatoes would not have been introduced to the Europeans. The Age of Exploration, beginning in , had many nations looking for new lands to conquer and goods to exploit. So eventually, someone would have stumbled upon it. Nowadays, the only new worlds yet to be discovered are in outer space. Scroll down for the quiz! There is an invisible force protecting us, keeping our atmosphere in place.

Without it, life on Earth would be over very quickly. Take a deep breath. We take 23, breaths a day; trying to get oxygen to our brain and cells. Oxygen is essential to our survival. Would you ever venture into the ocean if you knew this creature could be lurking beneath you? Millions of years ago, the megalodon shark was one of the scariest creatures to ever lurk in our seas.

And even before that, the mosasaurs reigned supreme, terrorizing In the time it would take you to order an extra larger everything pizza and have it delivered to your front door you could theoretically jump through that tunnel This is the world million years ago.

The Ottomans laid siege to Vienna twice in the early modern period. Both times, the Habsburgs were able to turn back the invaders. But things would have looked different without the Habsburgs' allies in Spain, who controlled a massive empire in the New World. By , the Ottoman Empire dominated much of the international trade flowing into Europe.

Their navy sailed the Mediterranean nearly unchallenged. Without a strong rival in Central Europe, the Ottomans might have continued their march into Central Europe, conquering Vienna much like they conquered Constantinople.

Spain unified a couple decades before Columbus's voyage, when Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon shared their crowns. In , the Catholic Monarchs expelled Spain's Jewish population and conquered Granada, ending the last Muslim kingdom on the Iberian peninsula.

With the discovery of the New World, gold and silver poured into Spain, propping up the newly united kingdom. But without wealth from the New World, Spain might easily have crumbled back into competing kingdoms. A poorer Spain might not have successfully pushed out Muslims and Jews from their country, creating a more diverse, less united Iberia.

In the 15th century, Italy's city-states flourished during the Renaissance. They spread cultural, political, and social ideas to the rest of Europe. However, Columbus's voyage and the emphasis on New World colonization eclipsed the Italian Renaissance. None of the Italian city-states could compete in the race for colonies, thanks in part to their smaller size compared with the dominant powers of the Age of Discovery.

However, without the discovery of the Americas, the Italian Renaissance might have continued. In the early 16th century, Italy may have fought off invasions from France and Spain, extending Italy's Renaissance well into the early modern period.

If Columbus hadn't made it to the Americas, some European voyage would have eventually reached the New World. The Portuguese might have discovered Brazil and concentrated their efforts on colonizing South America.

Another European power would have risked the voyage across the North Atlantic to land in North America and found new colonies. The most likely European country to colonize North America in the 16th century would have been France. In fact, France did found a massive colony in North America. Instead of competing with the Spanish, France would have colonized much of the East Coast, fighting off Dutch rivals. Instead of winning independence from the British, the United States might have grown out of a French colony, like Canada, or even a Dutch colony.

Christopher Columbus struggled to find a backer for his voyage. He visited the Portuguese, seeking royal patrons, but they turned him down. Columbus also offered to sail for the French or the English, but both declined.

By the time Spain funded Columbus's westward journey, the project was barely still alive. Imagine if Columbus, after pleading with every major court in Europe for money, simply sailed off and never returned. It's very likely that Europeans would have invested their wealth into discovering an eastern route to Asia, as the Portuguese did, instead of sending more fruitless voyages west.

It might have taken decades for another explorer to convince Europe's royalty to bet on Columbus's failed route.

In the 15th century, West Africa was dominated by the Mali Empire. Before Columbus's voyage, Mali dominated a territory larger than Western Europe, applying a sophisticated political system to control its empire.

He had found the Indies. And not only that. He had found a land over which he would have no difficulty in establishing Spanish dominion, for the people showed him an immediate veneration. He had been there only two days, coasting along the shores of the islands, when he was able to hear the natives crying in loud voices, "Come and see the men who have come from heaven; bring them food and drink. Columbus made four voyages to America, during which he explored an astonishingly large area of the Caribbean and a part of the northern coast of South America.

At every island the first thing he inquired about was gold, taking heart from every trace of it he found. And at Haiti he found enough to convince him that this was Ophir, the country to which Solomon and Jehosophat had sent for gold and silver. From aboard ship it was possible to make out rich fields waving with grass. There were good harbors, lovely sand beaches and fruit-laden trees.

The people were shy and fled whenever the caravels approached the shore, but Columbus gave orders "that they should take some, treat them well and make them lose their fear, that some gain might be made, since, considering the beauty of the land, it could not be but that there was gain to be got.

Although the amount of gold worn by the natives was even less than the amount of clothing, it gradually became apparent that there was gold to be had. One man possessed some that had been pounded into gold leaf. Another appeared with a gold belt. Some produced nuggets for the admiral. Here he began the European occupation of the New World, and here his European ideas and attitudes began their transformation of land and people. But they spent most of the day like children idling away their time from morning to night, seemingly without a care in the world.

Once they saw that Columbus meant them no harm, they outdid one another in bringing him anything he wanted. It was impossible to believe, he reported, "that anyone has seen a people with such kind hearts and so ready to give the Christians all that they possess, and when the Christians arrive, they run at once to bring them everything.

To Columbus the Arawaks seemed like relics of the golden age. On the basis of what he told Peter Martyr, who recorded his voyages, Martyr wrote, "they seeme to live in that golden worlde of the which olde writers speake so much, wherein menne lived simply and innocently without enforcement of lawes, without quarreling, judges and libelles, content onely to satisfie nature, without further vexation for knowledge of things to come.

As the idyllic Arawaks conformed to one ancient picture, their enemies the Caribs conformed to another that Columbus had read of, the anthropophagi.

According to the Arawaks, the Caribs, or Cannibals, were man-eaters, and as such their name eventually entered the English language. This was at best a misrepresentation, which Columbus would soon exploit. The Caribs lived on islands of their own and met every European approach with poisoned arrows, which men and women together fired in showers. They were not only fierce but, by comparison with the Arawaks, also seemed more energetic, more industrious and, it might even be said, sadly enough, more civil.

After Columbus succeeded in entering one of their settlements on his second voyage, a member of the expedition reported, "This people seemed to us to be more civil than those who were in the other islands we have visited, although they all have dwellings of straw, but these have them better made and better provided with supplies, and in them were more signs of industry.

Columbus had no doubts about how to proceed, either with the lovable but lazy Arawaks or with the hateful but industrious Caribs. He had come to take possession and to establish dominion. In almost the same breath, he described the Arawaks' gentleness and innocence and then went on to assure the king and queen of Spain, "They have no arms and are all naked and without any knowledge of war, and very cowardly, so that a thousand of them would not face three.

And they are also fitted to be ruled and to be set to work, to cultivate the land and to do all else that may be necessary, and you may build towns and teach them to go clothed and adopt our customs.

So much for the golden age. Columbus had not yet prescribed the method by which the Arawaks would be set to work, but he had a pretty clear idea of how to handle the Caribs. On his second voyage, after capturing a few of them, he sent them in slavery to Spain, as samples of what he hoped would be a regular trade. They were obviously intelligent, and in Spain they might "be led to abandon that inhuman custom which they have of eating men, and there in Castile, learning the language, they will much more readily receive baptism and secure the welfare of their souls.

This plan was never put into operation, partly because the Spanish sovereigns did not approve it and partly because the Cannibals did not approve it. They defended themselves so well with their poisoned arrows that the Spaniards decided to withhold the blessings of civilization from them and to concentrate their efforts on the seemingly more amenable Arawaks. The process of civilizing the Arawaks got underway in earnest after the Santa Maria ran aground on Christmas Day, , off Caracol Bay.

Once again Columbus was overjoyed with the remarkable natives. They are, he wrote, "so full of love and without greed, and suitable for every purpose, that I assure your Highnesses that I believe there is no better land in the world, and they are always smiling. Guacanagari "was greatly delighted to see the admiral joyful and understood that he desired much gold. He decided to make his permanent headquarters on the spot and accordingly ordered a fortress to be built, with a tower and a large moat.

What followed is a long, complicated and unpleasant story. Columbus returned to Spain to bring the news of his discoveries. The Spanish monarchs were less impressed than he with what he had found, but he was able to round up a large expedition of Spanish colonists to return with him and help exploit the riches of the Indies.

These creatures of the golden age remained generous. But precisely because they did not value possessions, they had little to turn over. When gold was not forthcoming, the Europeans began killing. Some of the natives struck back and hid out in the hills. But in a punitive expedition rounded up 1, of them, and were shipped off to the slave markets of Seville. The natives, seeing what was in store for them, dug up their own crops of cassava and destroyed their supplies in hopes that the resulting famine would drive the Spaniards out.

But it did not work. The Spaniards were sure there was more gold in the island than the natives had yet found, and were determined to make them dig it out. Columbus built more forts throughout the island and decreed that every Arawak of 14 years or over was to furnish a hawk's bell full of gold dust every three months.

The various local leaders were made responsible for seeing that the tribute was paid. In regions where gold was not to be had, 25 pounds of woven or spun cotton could be substituted for the hawk's bell of gold dust.

The pieces that the natives had at first presented him were the accumulation of many years. To fill their quotas by washing in the riverbeds was all but impossible, even with continual daily labor. But the demand was unrelenting, and those who sought to escape it by fleeing to the mountains were hunted down with dogs taught to kill. A few years later Peter Martyr was able to report that the natives "beare this yoke of servitude with an evill will, but yet they beare it.