American colonists treat Indians as human beings, w/ small changes.

And that's the challenge, many of the early colonists are still very religious persons, just things work out differently.

For example, some religious persons take the view, I'm comfortable sharing what works for me, but it's not my job to decide someone else's ultimate destiny.

Or, some other way. Your ideas, and please be creative.

GeographyDude said:

And that's the challenge, many of the early colonists are still very religious persons, just things work out differently.

For example, some religious persons take the view, I'm comfortable sharing what works for me, but it's not my job to decide someone else's ultimate destiny.

Or, some other way. Your ideas, and please be creative.

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Some actually *did* IOTL, however; no, not everyone was looking for people to murder just for the fuck of it(interracial marriages, and even relationships in general, between whites and Native Americans, though somewhat rare, kinda proves that by itself!).

If you're looking for better Native-European relations, however, including more egalitarianism, it's not that hard to get the ball rolling, at least.....though, admittedly, I'm usually not that good at explaining things without visual aids, so I'll leave the details for others if they'd like to fill that in.

That's a hard one. I think you'd be best off changing the power dynamics to be more equal. At the very beginning, English colonists allied with and got along very well with some tribes. But when they grew in power and strength until they were the strongest and most populous force in their respective regions, they started getting more aggressive, and the Indian tribes started worrying about their expansion more than they worried about their traditional enemies. So, if the colonists remained of a similar strength to the largest tribes in the region, but not stronger, they would have to maintain diplomatic relations and keep up alliances. Necessity would force them to treat the tribes like equal powers.

And really, anything that slowed down the speed of colonization would help, as the two sides would have more time to become familiar to each other, and to the colonist would seem less alien and "savage" over time.


On a completely different track, I suppose the French and English not using Native Americans as mercenaries to murder each other for years and years might have helped relations early on. After all, colonists were terrified of Indian raids, and they took out their fear and hatred on Indian populations (sometimes not even the same tribes!)

If the English colonies didn't have so many people coming in, many the colonists would be forced to have a much more equal relationship with the native population. It would help if the nature of English colonization was similar to the approach taken by the French who were hands off and didn't look at their colonies as a place to dump undesirable religious minorities. Telynk's TL Donnacona's Dream looks to be achieving this.

Cuāuhtemōc said:

If the English colonies didn't have so many people coming in, many the colonists would be forced to have a much more equal relationship with the native population. It would help if the nature of English colonization was similar to the approach taken by the French who were hands off and didn't look at their colonies as a place to dump undesirable religious minorities. Telynk's TL Donnacona's Dream looks to be achieving this.

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France's undesirable religious minorities usually went to England or the Netherlands' colonies instead.

Sucrose said:

France's undesirable religious minorities usually went to England or the Netherlands' colonies instead.

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Or North America, where many of my own Huguenot ancestors ended up.

franks france

Were they taught the native americans how to throw tomahawks and scalp.

KeeCoyote said:

franks france
Were they taught the native americans how to throw tomahawks and scalp.

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Qué?

CaliBoy1990 said:

Or North America, where many of my own Huguenot ancestors ended up.

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Mine too high-five (Borat)

That's what I meant.

The following book has the edifying bit of information:

https://books.google.com/books?id=f...&sa=X&ei=QJmRVLeaK8mJNsS6gfgC&ved=0CAoQ6AEwAA

"forms of beheading and scalping have been practiced by societies all over the world"

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Now, the Indians weren't saints. They were just regular people.

But yes, there is a case to be made that the specific practice of scalping was introduced by Europeans.

Sucrose said:

On a completely different track, I suppose the French and English not using Native Americans as mercenaries to murder each other for years and years might have helped relations early on.

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And the French and Dutch not doing so...

The power dynamics were a lot more equal than you would think. It wasn't a form of racism that was really the problem, at least not until the outcome of the struggle has been decided quite a while ago, when Victorian paternalism spread throughout the west and across the Atlantic, which is when you started seeing Indian Schools pop up with possible kind motives but culturally destructive practices, but more the same problem that societies throughout the course of history have, and that is seeing land that they want and have to displace others for.

The problem also came down to a blood feud of sorts that developed in many areas of the frontier. An Indian or Colonist is murdered in a trade dispute or land dispute, and retaliation occurs on both sides until outright war breaks out. This is how the Pequot War, Lord Dunmore's War, Black Hawk's War, and many others broke out that led to the destruction of a tribe through a grinding war of annihilation that the side with less military sophistication and technological advancement loses.

All I am trying to say is that the group dynamics between Americans and Natives is not at all unique to history and is something that should be judged in a case by case manner rather than a grand sweeping declaration of human treatment when the nuances were far more detailed.

One issue that I think was more prevalent was the case of conflation on both sides, however. When a single tribe or a single settler posse commits a heinous act, and it is conflated through tribal or civil rhetoric into a war against the evil white or red man, that is when things got out of hand.

I think you're largely right -- the xenophobic view and tendency to want to take what some "other" has (especially if they're not using it "right" or you generally don't like them) isn't confined to different races. It can occur between religious groups (catholics/protestants, muslims/sikhs, etc), national groups (English/Scots), and others.

The Indians did fair better when the power dynamic was more stable and worse when power got less "equal." However, the Indians were also hurt by their simple population density and land usage model. Many colonists, looking at (notionally) Indian land would see a large, almost empty area, with plenty of room to spare. If, instead, the Indian population density was higher, and there were more permanent structures/dwellings (than most Indians the colonists met used), the colonists would have been less likely to view the land as "available" for their use.

Redhand said:

The power dynamics were a lot more equal than you would think. It wasn't a form of racism that was really the problem, at least not until the outcome of the struggle has been decided quite a while ago, when Victorian paternalism spread throughout the west and across the Atlantic, which is when you started seeing Indian Schools pop up with possible kind motives but culturally destructive practices, but more the same problem that societies throughout the course of history have, and that is seeing land that they want and have to displace others for.

The problem also came down to a blood feud of sorts that developed in many areas of the frontier. An Indian or Colonist is murdered in a trade dispute or land dispute, and retaliation occurs on both sides until outright war breaks out. This is how the Pequot War, Lord Dunmore's War, Black Hawk's War, and many others broke out that led to the destruction of a tribe through a grinding war of annihilation that the side with less military sophistication and technological advancement loses.

All I am trying to say is that the group dynamics between Americans and Natives is not at all unique to history and is something that should be judged in a case by case manner rather than a grand sweeping declaration of human treatment when the nuances were far more detailed.

One issue that I think was more prevalent was the case of conflation on both sides, however. When a single tribe or a single settler posse commits a heinous act, and it is conflated through tribal or civil rhetoric into a war against the evil white or red man, that is when things got out of hand.

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jahenders said:

I think you're largely right -- the xenophobic view and tendency to want to take what some "other" has (especially if they're not using it "right" or you generally don't like them) isn't confined to different races. It can occur between religious groups (catholics/protestants, muslims/sikhs, etc), national groups (English/Scots), and others.

The Indians did fair better when the power dynamic was more stable and worse when power got less "equal." However, the Indians were also hurt by their simple population density and land usage model. Many colonists, looking at (notionally) Indian land would see a large, almost empty area, with plenty of room to spare. If, instead, the Indian population density was higher, and there were more permanent structures/dwellings (than most Indians the colonists met used), the colonists would have been less likely to view the land as "available" for their use.

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You know, I can't say I'd heard that bit about the "empty space" before. It's kind of interesting.

But I think that might have been partly the fault of Old World diseases being brought to the Americas.

Because the walking wounded tend to spread diseases more readily than those prostated and laid out, diseases often become more mild over time. of course not always.

Maybe if the Native Americans just had more time overall, with colonization of all types happening with bigger time gaps.

The original colonists respected and allied with native Americans in battle and trade. There's the thanksgiving story, of course, but there are also tales of Pennsylvanians and Natives babysitting each other's kids, all kinds of alliances, and religion frequently standing up for the natives.

The problem was always on the frontier. Take 17th century Virginia: Full of poor former indentured servants who went to the frontier to get away from the rich plantation owners. Now, the government along the coast (the elite) got along fine with the natives, but these frontiersman did not, and inevitably started conflicts. This process repeated itself throughout early American history, with more frontiersmen coming and stealing more land.

This is a hard problem to get around, especially east of the appalachians. One should also consider the Natives were constantly dying off in droves to the colonists' diseases, which was unpreventable by either side. English and Native ways of life inevitably clashed, leading to OTL.

Perhaps the frontier is somehow better organized, or smaller?

Imperator Maximilianius said:

You know, I can't say I'd heard that bit about the "empty space" before. It's kind of interesting.

But I think that might have been partly the fault of Old World diseases being brought to the Americas.

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Oh, it was incredibly the fault of Old World diseases being brought to the Americas. It reduced the population density by as much as 9/10ths. Naturally, the Europeans/Americans overlooked this, noted that sometimes areas the size of entire states had less than 50,000 people living in them, and used "poor land usage" as an excuse for seizing land from Native Americans. "A white man can feed as many people with an acre of land as an Indian can with a square mile" was a settler slogan from the 1840s. Of course, as I say, prior to the Europeans having arrived, that same area may have held up to ten times the number of people.


Population loss aside, the ways of Europeans and American Indians clashed in other ways. Tribes would sometimes go on seasonal hunting trips, only to find that squatters had moved in and built cabins while they were gone. Most Eastern Native American tribes kept large open hunting grounds that could be as large as thousands of square miles, as hunted meat was a major part of the diet and the traditional food-gathering task of adult men. Women meanwhile did the farming. Shifting to European-style intensive agriculture involved a reversal of gender rolls for many farming tribes, which was no doubt another roadblock to its adoption.

And keep in mind, the American Indian way of doing things made perfect sense for the environment. They were both farmers and hunters. They didn't have heavy plow animals or livestock, so meat had to be hunted. Hunters were also expected to be warriors, and hunting honed their skills. In contrast, a European farmer, whose farm typically consists of a husband-wife team, has limited military uses, as he cannot go on a long military campaign or there'll be nobody to harvest the crops. So in order to supply any troops other than simple defensive militia, the settled farming society has to produce enough surplus food to feed professional or at least temporary soldiers, who during a military campaign are able to do nothing but soldier.

Disease is huge. It's almost like a good writer could write a medical history of N. and S. America over the past 500+ years, and everything else is just a footnote.

Maybe if the Europeans had stumbled upon an ethic of quarantine, for purposes of politeness if nothing else.

And like we've talked about with smallpox, maybe if you simply get lucky and the more minor form is introduced first. And maybe getting lucky with measles and influenza, too. This would basically involve getting the lucky side of a 50-50 draw several times in a row. Now, things could have worked out this way. But they didn't. We did not end up with an interesting confederation of large and vibrant cultures.

GeographyDude said:

Disease is huge. It's almost like a good writer could write a medical history of N. and S. America over the past 500+ years, and everything else is just a footnote.

Maybe if the Europeans had stumbled upon an ethic of quarantine, for purposes of politeness if nothing else.

And like we've talked about with smallpox, maybe if you simply get lucky and the more minor form is introduced first. And maybe getting lucky with measles and influenza, too. This would basically involve getting the lucky side of a 50-50 draw several times in a row. Now, things could have worked out this way. But they didn't. We did not end up with an interesting confederation of large and vibrant cultures.

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Quarantine really wouldnt have helped very much because pretty much all of the people who were in contact woth the natives had some kind of sickness when they first arrived and it wouldnt have helped because the second there was any contact much of the population was doomed unless the Europeans or natives had modern medical abilities, procedures and knowledge.

thoughts regarding British relations with native americans vs USA relations?

Everyone used and abused the NA, but it seems that the Brits had the best intentions of recognizing NA rights (although that may be a factor of they were kicked out of USA, so they backed those that could be a pain in the ass). Americans (post revolutionary war) seemed to have a penchant for totally abusing NA, and that penchant grew and grew as time went on. Was there any real alliance with the NA after 1783 as opposed to pushing them further and further? There are a lot of trails of tears.

What are the positives (or even neutrals) for the NA in their relations with USA?

unprincipled peter said:

thoughts regarding British relations with native americans vs USA relations?

Everyone used and abused the NA, but it seems that the Brits had the best intentions of recognizing NA rights (although that may be a factor of they were kicked out of USA, so they backed those that could be a pain in the ass). Americans (post revolutionary war) seemed to have a penchant for totally abusing NA, and that penchant grew and grew as time went on. Was there any real alliance with the NA after 1783 as opposed to pushing them further and further? There are a lot of trails of tears.

What are the positives (or even neutrals) for the NA in their relations with USA?

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Americans were most likely never going to have good relations with the NA because they wanted the land that the NA had and as the population grew they just got pushed away from the population centers and homesteads of the people who moved onto the land. Unless there is a complete change for why most of the frontiermen moved to the frontier than there will almost always be bad relations.