| November 14 |  |
Editor says, what if the Pre-Columbian plague never happened? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the December 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1527, on this day the Spanish Explorer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca became the first European to set eyes upon the great American city of Cahokia [1].
Mississippians welcome de Vaca ExpeditionAlthough a chief officer in name, originally, his role was simply that of treasurer of the Narváez expedition of six hundred men. But only four made it ashore at Tampa Bay in La Florida and the raft of Narváez himself was lost during a hurricane at the mouth of the Mississippi River.
The tiny party was joined by indigenes of the upper Gulf Coast. About forty men including the three Spaniards made it to
Cahokia with de Vaca at the head. By that stage he had developed such a remarkable reputation as a faith healer that his indigenous companions regarded the companions as "children of the sun", endowed with the power to both heal and destroy. For now it was unclear which of the those two powers would prevail. And their sense of awe was surpassed by the spectacle of the great plaza, larger and more sophisticated than any comparable metropolis in Europe.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Generals Source: Wikipedia Labels: Cabeza de Vaca, Cahokia, America, Spain, Mississippi. Editor says, in authoring this post with Mike McIlvain we have repurpose content from Wikipedia. In reality the city was abandoned, and the party actually traveled to Texas. In this AH we imagine that the Pre-Columbian plague never happened.
~ The true power of the central Americas can finally be revealed...
~ I've often wondered what history might have been like had the Native Americans had a disease or two that could have decimated the Europeans instead of the other way around.
~ Wonder if they got any Ole Miss football season tickets while they were in town? ;)
~ Certainly, Cabeza de Vaca would have been much better known than he became, and maybe eventually gotten a better gig later on than he did in South America. And, we would have probably known more about the native Americans than we do. It is one of those "it would have been better" things that just did not happen that way.
And yes, things could have been very different had it not been for just a few germs, and bacteria...
~ "Today at the tsung-kee World Cup Tournament..."
~ If there was gold there, the Spaniards would be back...
~ Still, the question of firearms remains. North America could've ended up carved up like India, Africa, or China.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
