# Why didn't the vikings conquer America? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 8, 2010, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531 "2010-10-08T20:44:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2010, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531/21 "2010-10-09T03:35:49Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Probably several reasons. > > First, the Vikings never really got to America. They did even less than Columbus on his first voyage, making a small settlement on [one island offshore of Canada](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Anse_aux_Meadows). Since I live on that island, I should point out that it is not offshore of Canada, but rather that it is part of Canada, and offshore of the Canadian and North American mainland. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2010, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531/22 "2010-10-09T03:44:57Z")
Maybe the travel time it took the Norse to reach America was effectively a quarantine period. By the time you got there you were either healthy or had died on the voyage. The Greenland colonies were possibly too small and scattered to maintain a reservoir of many infectious diseases. ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2010, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531/23 "2010-10-09T04:34:15Z")
I’m quite surprised that there has been no previous mention of the gradual ending of the Medieval Warm Period that allowed the Vikings to found prosperous settlements in Greenland and from there move on to islands closer to mainland North America. As the weather cooled, the in-between settlements slowly became depopulated, leaving no ability for settlements in Vinland to connect back with the main source of new settlers. Recall that the first few colonies of English settlers didn’t do so hot either; it took a lot of time and determination to found settlements that lasted. If the warm weather had lasted, the Vikings could quite easily have slowly poured into North America through what is now a way-too-cold route. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2010, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531/24 "2010-10-09T04:55:13Z")
> [@](#): > > They also had little need to conquer. The NA natives there had little loot of value and no “souls to save” (although most of the Vikings of that period were likely Christians, they didn’t have the same fervor as the Conquistadors, and there were still plenty of local pagans back in the homeland to save.). The vikings certainly liked to raid and loot, but that section of NA had little of that sort of wealth. > > When the Spanish and Portugese got to America, there was gold and loot by the shipload, and they had a religous mandate, too. Motive was far better. Don’t forget the original motive: trade. Spain and Portugal weren’t trying to go to America - they wanted to go to Asia and buy spices. The Vikings had no interest in trading with Asia. For them, L’Anse aux Meadows was just a remote small island on the route to nowhere. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2010, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531/25 "2010-10-09T05:56:10Z")
The Vikings seem to not have had much of a cultural desire to conquer other lands. They didn’t even seem to start colonies or settlements very often. Despite all their travel to England, France, and the Mediterranean (Spain, southern France, North Africa), they seemed to simply do raids & looting, and then head home, without any effort to found permanent settlements. Contrast that with the Romans, who nearly always held onto any land they conquered, and made it part of the Roman Empire. Or even later European powers, like the British, French, or Spanish – they conquered lands and created colonies all over, most of which stayed under their control until about WWII time. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2010, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531/26 "2010-10-09T06:23:12Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > The Vikings seem to not have had much of a cultural desire to conquer other lands. They didn’t even seem to start colonies or settlements very often. Despite all their travel to England, France, and the Mediterranean (Spain, southern France, North Africa), they seemed to simply do raids & looting, and then head home, without any effort to found permanent settlements. Actually the Vikings conquered and settled a lot of land in Ireland, England, France, Russia, and even Sicily. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2010, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531/27 "2010-10-09T06:38:44Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > > [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > > > The Vikings seem to not have had much of a cultural desire to conquer other lands. They didn’t even seem to start colonies or settlements very often. Despite all their travel to England, France, and the Mediterranean (Spain, southern France, North Africa), they seemed to simply do raids & looting, and then head home, without any effort to found permanent settlements. > > Actually the Vikings conquered and settled a lot of land in Ireland, England, France, Russia, and even Sicily. The Normans, for instance, with 1066 and all that, were descended from a Viking settlement in Northern France. Vikings were, really, much more concerned with trading and much less concerned with raiding than is popularly supposed. They founded Dublin and York because they found things to trade for profit there. They stayed in Normandy and Russia for the same reason. But they found nothing worthwhile to trade for in Greenland or that one island of North America, so those colonies were always living on borrowed time. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2010, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531/28 "2010-10-09T16:02:52Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > The Vikings seem to not have had much of a cultural desire to conquer other lands. They didn’t even seem to start colonies or settlements very often. Despite all their travel to England, France, and the Mediterranean (Spain, southern France, North Africa), they seemed to simply do raids & looting, and then head home, without any effort to found permanent settlements. > > Contrast that with the Romans, who nearly always held onto any land they conquered, and made it part of the Roman Empire. Or even later European powers, like the British, French, or Spanish – they conquered lands and created colonies all over, most of which stayed under their control until about WWII time. The Romans were on the far end of the scale, so comparing the Vikings to them isn’t really meaningful. As note already, the Vikings did plenty of conquering, and the specific Vikings we’re talking about here (Eric the Red et al) were famous colonizers-- Iceland and Greenland. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531/29 "2010-10-09T16:21:31Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Another explanation I’ve heard given is that they refused to adapt; they neither learned from the locals nor changed on their own. They tried to live just like back home, where everything from the climate to the wildlife was different and it didn’t work very well. And in the end of course they died out. That’s a hypothesis about why the Greenland colony eventually died out, but I don’t think it really applies to the Americas. As far as we can tell, their footprint here was tiny. They were in Greenland, though, for hundreds of years. And, of course, the Iceland colony never went belly up. The Americas would have been much more similar to Europe than either Iceland or Greenland were. Anyone interested in a fictionalized account of this should read _The Greenlanders_. Very enjoyable book. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2010, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531/30 "2010-10-09T17:57:18Z")
It’s a bit of a shame for the Indians that the Vikings didn’t actually infect them with European diseases. Even if 90% of the population had died, the Norse still wouldn’t have been able to hold on to their colony, and by the time the Spanish reached the continent 500 years later the population would probably have reached its former levels - and it would have been much more resistant. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531/31 "2010-10-10T05:58:25Z")
> [@Khadaji](#): > > Two words: Brett Favre So… they came to the new world, turned around and went home, said they were coming back but then planned a press conference to say they were still undecided but then cancelled the “still undecided” press conference, then texted some of their teammates to say they couldn’t wait to come back but told a call-in show that they really weren’t up for it. Then the harvest season starts, and hey, no Viking hordes. Does that mean they’re not coming? But the latest rumor was that they were negotiating with the natives, and someone had seen them sneaking off of a longboat, and maybe it’s just that they hate harvesting, so they’re laying low until after all the grain’s in and working on that rotator cuff so maybe in a week or two we’ll see a phalanx of Viking shields descending on us for some serious pillage/rapage, but by then none of us will care any more about the big drama queens. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531/32 "2010-10-10T07:10:56Z")
There was nothing to pillage. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531/33 "2010-10-10T11:09:20Z")
The vikings didn’t have firmly established nation states with kings sending them out to gain colonies and power. Most of the pillaging was private enterprise and even when it was the king and his forces going out, conquering established land in Europe was what was attractive. Establishing colonies far away in unsettled land was barely enough to keep the settlements alive, much less an unrealised profit opportunity. Large scale colonisation just wasn’t technologically or politically viable. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531/34 "2010-10-10T14:58:01Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > my cite is Old One-Eye being an evil sumbitch. Consider the affair with Hrungnir, for instance. Mere propaganda. He’s always been nice to me. The bottom line was that it was just too far away and didn’t have the resources, trade or wealth (to steal) to support any great colony. Now if there had been a Skraeling Kingdom with gold and gems to loot, they would have come flooding over in the hundreds and thousands. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531/35 "2010-10-10T15:19:20Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > The bottom line was that it was just too far away and didn’t have the resources, trade or wealth (to steal) to support any great colony. Now if there had been a Skraeling Kingdom with gold and gems to loot, they would have come flooding over in the hundreds and thousands. So, what you’re saying is that they just didn’t go far enough south? Because there was plenty of Skraeling loot to be had in some parts of the Americas. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531/36 "2010-10-10T17:04:25Z")
I want to second Jared Diamond’s book **“Collapse”** and it’s chapter on Greenland/ Iceland, which mentions the several problems - lack of iron, supply chain problem, end of warm period - in details and with cites. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531/37 "2010-10-10T17:10:10Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > So, what you’re saying is that they just didn’t go far enough south? Because there was plenty of Skraeling loot to be had in some parts of the Americas. Only if you extend the word to mean all Amerindians, not just the Inuit and Beothuk that the Vikings were in contact with. In any case, regions with major loot to be had were thousands of miles away from the areas the Vikings knew. It took even the Spanish almost 30 years to reach these areas from their Caribbean base. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531/38 "2010-10-10T17:20:20Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > No, it’s not. The Vikings never came in the numbers- or exposed themselves to the numbers of natives- enough to spread such diseases. They met as little as a single tribe, maybe a few more, in a limited area. Also that area was hunting & Gathering, not civilized agriculture, it would have been hard for disease to spread in such a sitrep. > > And of course, the 90% figure is just a estimation > > As colibri sez, Smallpox had not spread widely in Europe. According to most cites, it was the single highest killer of natives. Influenza is hard to prove, the symptoms are hard to separate, and it wasn’t a pandemic in Europe until 1580. The Vikings may have only had a very mild form. Typhus wasn’t pandemic until 1489. Etc. The Vikings did not seem to be yet infected with any of the major killers, and even so, many of those spread and kill best in crowded conditions, large towns and the like. Of course, the Meso-Americans had such populations. Not that it’s nessesary to have such crowded conditions, it’s just way easier. A lot of the discussion of disease is taking place in the context of the 20th Century “giving smallpox blankets to the Indians” meme/myth in which the colonizers intentionally take advantage of disease, differing resistance, etc. I highly doubt that the Vikings would have recognized or even implicitly been able to take advantage of a differential-disease-resistance factor, given that Western Europeans (I mean the doctors and scientists, not the rough-hewn longboat captains) didn’t really figure out the definitive relationship of what caused diseases and how they were and weren’t transmitted until the late 1800s. It’s more than a bit of a stretch to imply that the Vikings “should have” taken advantage of a hypothetical disease-resistance advantage to conquer a continent that posed plenty of other cost:benefit challenges given their logistics. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531/39 "2010-10-10T18:03:22Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > > [@John\_Mace](#): > > > > So, what you’re saying is that they just didn’t go far enough south? Because there was plenty of Skraeling loot to be had in some parts of the Americas. > > Only if you extend the word to mean all Amerindians, not just the Inuit and Beothuk that the Vikings were in contact with. In any case, regions with major loot to be had were thousands of miles away from the areas the Vikings knew. It took even the Spanish almost 30 years to reach these areas from their Caribbean base. They used that term for the natives they encountered in North America, so I’d say it’s reasonable to extend to all of the Americas. But the point being that the post I was responding to implicitly assumed that there was no “kingdom” with gold and gems to be plundered in the Americas. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2010, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531/40 "2010-10-10T18:18:15Z")
Sure, if you go down to Central America, but that requires many more thousands of miles past large areas of inhabited land and you have to go the right direction to find it. Then you’re half-way around the world from your own lands and there aren’t enough of you to conquer the place. I meant there was no kingdom of wealth and populace within the bounds of the territory they were exploring, which meant there was no reason for thousands of them to come over and attempt to conquer it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-vikings-conquer-america/556531.md?page=3)