Farming Californian Natives

Atom

WI the natives of California had been farmers at 1492?

To create this situation I think we'll need to have a period of scarcity in California. A long term drought that doesn't effect the Southwest, so Californians decide to start using agriculture? A blight on acorns in the area (acorns were the main staple food)? Any one have some better ideas. So having convinced the Californians of the value of agriculture (not literally obviously), where will they get their crops from? The closest and most obvious place is the southwest U.S., but thats a bit separated from California, so I think they will first have to spread to Baja and the L.A area and then up north. The only other way I can imagine is for agriculture to spread from the south, but I don't see a lot of difference.


I think it would be more interesting if it happened in say 1000 A.D. or before so we could have established polities and cultures.


Now the effects. An agricultural California would have had far more people, but how many? First we need to establish a Otl baseline. Sherburne F. Cook believed that California pre-contact (specifically 1770, but I would imagine that he believed it was like that previously) had about 300,000 people a figure echoed by other scholars. Recently there has been (in keeping with other trends in Native American studies) a major shake up and some believe that the figure was much higher than 300,000 in 1492, and since most figures are based off of 1770 or later records, these ones would have already show the effects of major epidemics. Since I can't figures for the high end estimates, I'll use the 300,000 for now. unfortunately I don't know exactly how much agriculture will affect the population other than it will increase. Any one have some ideas?


With a higher population base I can see a couple of notable advancements. Fuirst the Chumash and Togva peoples of the OTL L.A. areas had in OTL a very good grasp of boat building, with plank built boats called Toloms. In this ATL I can see them having sails too and bigger boats, creating a trading empire. This in and of itself will have far reaching consequences especially for the mostly fishing peoples of the Pacific NW. Also there will likely be more contact from the West to Mesoamerica with bigger polities up north, so theres more reasons for trade.


Thoughts?
 

Philip

Donor
Am I the only one who thought this was going to be about raising Native Californians on farms?
 

Dave Howery

Not a bad POD, but if you want to have farming NCs, it would be easiest to imagine a POD where CA had some kind of native equivelant to wheat or barley, some kind of large seeded grain that is conducive to being cultivated. That way, you could have them farming from the beginning, instead of having to first import and then acclimatize corn and squash and all that. Throw in some kind of native legume, and the natives have a pretty good diet... but they will still be hampered by the lack of domestic animals. There would be more natives around in this scenario, but they will still live in a Stone Age culture, and die off in massive numbers by that famous trilogy of guns, germs, and steel....
 

NapoleonXIV

Banned
Where will 1450 Californians get water? My understanding is that CA is naturally a pretty good desert, particularly in the summer which is the dry season. CA was actually somewhat sparsely populated until the great irrigation projects of the 1930's brought water down from the North.

Also, how likely is it that people who gather acorns will stay put and learn agriculture when they dry up rather than just moving on somewhere where there are some or something else is available?
 

Atom

Dave Howery said:
Not a bad POD, but if you want to have farming NCs, it would be easiest to imagine a POD where CA had some kind of native equivelant to wheat or barley, some kind of large seeded grain that is conducive to being cultivated. That way, you could have them farming from the beginning, instead of having to first import and then acclimatize corn and squash and all that. Throw in some kind of native legume, and the natives have a pretty good diet... but they will still be hampered by the lack of domestic animals. There would be more natives around in this scenario, but they will still live in a Stone Age culture, and die off in massive numbers by that famous trilogy of guns, germs, and steel....
Click to expand...
Thats a lot of change from OTL, and by adding those crops who have quite conceivably changed all of North America, something I wished to avoid.

NapoleonXIV said:
Where will 1450 Californians get water? My understanding is that CA is naturally a pretty good desert, particularly in the summer which is the dry season. CA was actually somewhat sparsely populated until the great irrigation projects of the 1930's brought water down from the North.

Also, how likely is it that people who gather acorns will stay put and learn agriculture when they dry up rather than just moving on somewhere where there are some or something else is available?
Click to expand...


Well I imagined that most of the population and farming would be going on in the north, but I know less about them, and the Chumash and Tongva are very interesting I put more attention on them. I also assume that the Chumash and Tongva would trade for much of their food and be buoyed by the general increase in population around California. Sorry to have confused you. And to address you're last concern, i would imagine that it would have to around the entire area, so that there isn't anywhere to move. The why is unfortunately the weakest part in this WI.
 

Dave Howery

Atom said:
Thats a lot of change from OTL, and by adding those crops who have quite conceivably changed all of North America, something I wished to avoid.
.
Click to expand...

not really.... the natives still lack domestic animals, and they are hardly going to work up into the bronze/iron/industrial age without them. About all a native food grain would change would be the number of people there, and shift them from nomadic to settled life....they're still going to be spending a lot of their time plowing by hand (no mules or oxen), hauling water by hand, etc....
 

Atom

Dave Howery said:
Not a bad POD, but if you want to have farming NCs, it would be easiest to imagine a POD where CA had some kind of native equivelant to wheat or barley, some kind of large seeded grain that is conducive to being cultivated. That way, you could have them farming from the beginning, instead of having to first import and then acclimatize corn and squash and all that. Throw in some kind of native legume, and the natives have a pretty good diet... but they will still be hampered by the lack of domestic animals. There would be more natives around in this scenario, but they will still live in a Stone Age culture, and die off in massive numbers by that famous trilogy of guns, germs, and steel....
Click to expand...

I think you're underestimating the effect of crops. With this new type the population of all of NA would probably ballon as it would reach other areas with similar climates earlier than corn, and then spread northward. I wan't to keep NA mostly the same, but with Farming societies in California.
 

Dave Howery

Atom said:
I think you're underestimating the effect of crops. With this new type the population of all of NA would probably ballon as it would reach other areas with similar climates earlier than corn, and then spread northward. I wan't to keep NA mostly the same, but with Farming societies in California.
Click to expand...

not really... I only gave them one crop, not a whole European agricultural package. The Aztecs had corn and beans, but no domestic animals, so they stayed in a stone age culture. The NCs would have to work damn hard for that single crop, plowing by hand, diverting water, etc.... but it'd feed them better than acorns would. Besides, if you don't give them some kind of native grain, how else are they going to adopt farming?
 
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