Blank Slate

''Blank Slate is a Community Timeline, meaning anyone can contribute. ''

On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus made a discovery that would change the world: he found a New World. This "new" world wasn't without habitants, however. The Taíno people who lived in the jungles of the Bahamas would be only the first Amerindian people to encounter the white explorers from the East.

From the Apache to the Arawak, the Cherokee to the Cree, the Iroquois to the Inca, the Maya to the Mapuche, the Zuni to the Zapotec, the millions of Amerindian peoples would be decimated by disease, enslaved, and relegated to second-class citizenship.

But what if Columbus truly discovered a New World, one in which there weren't any natives. What if he found a Blank Slate?

Point of Divergence
Flash back fifteen thousands years. A migratory tribe of would-be future Amerindians is hunting in the cold Siberian wasteland of Beringia. Woolly mammoth are the tribe's primary target, and they have been tracking a large herd heading east for a couple of weeks now. The wind suddenly changes, alterting the mammoths of the tribe's presence. It flees off into the distance, never to be seen again.

The tribe's elders decide to pursue the herd into the east, planning to go where no man has gone before - the New World. But suddenly, a scent comes in from the shifted wind: mammoth. A promising young hunter of the tribe urges his compatriots to pursue the western herd and return to familiar territory. The elders reluctantly agree.

The new world thus remains pristine - that is, until the arrival of Polynesian peoples, followed soon thereafter by Vikings. Almost a millenium later, widespread colonization would take hold of the Americas... See the Timeline to figure out how the Blank Slate ends up settled.

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Content

 * Timeline
 * Amerindians
 * Polynesians
 * Indo-Europeans
 * Vikings