AH Challenge: Native American Empire Powerful enough to deter European Colonialism

Underpinnings for successful resistance

Fascinating discussion already.

Way back factors that could readily have gone differently and made resistance much more robust:
1. Horses and camels in North America don't die out 12,000 years ago so a mounted society, beasts of burden, plowhorses, ready travel across the Great Plains/Deserts would have actually given some development advantages indeed and given mobile warfare and long-distance trade big boosts.
2. Mississipian civilization and Anasazi don't die out between probably plagues, certainly drought, probably the New Madrid earthquake's 1300's event, and warfare. Carrying those forward so they were thousand-year old by the time of the Europeans instead of long gone and scattered would make a substantial difference as they were already working with copper from the Great Lakes. Relatively dense cities and trade networks throughout the U.S. already existed, i.e. Cahokia, with millions of population, just like the Amazon basin and pre-Inca, pre-Aztec civilizations. Don't disrupt those and allow them to continue, cross-fertilize ideas/trade and it would be far different. They were already ahead of Europe in agriculture, medicine, astronomy, political structure, nutrition, etc. while close in mathematics, irrigation, roadbuilding, masonry, etc....we make too much of the metallurgy advantages and the European conquerors relied on diseases far more than gunpowder in their invasions. Population densities maintained over long periods would have also sustained more disease incubation for counter-epidemics for the Europeans. The lack of stable nation-states that could marshall sizable forces and sustained campaigns is the biggest flaw and when alliances could be maintained as they were for hundreds of years in the middle of North America balancing French, English, Spanish, and American interests, the tribes did well.

Other factors that could well have changed things that are less generally accepted (the folks that don't accept them are the ones I want on my jury when all of the evidence is stacked against me.)

1. Chinese visits whether during the Fu Sang period or Zheng He's 1420's colonizations spread bronze and iron metallurgy, cannons, rockets, crossbows, matchlock muskets, horses, tactics, etc. a century or two ahead of the main European invasions. The Chinese were many hundreds of years in advance of Western European technology, organization, warfare, etc. so it would have been far more of an challenge since the Chinese crews landed or stranded during Zheng He's would be similar in numbers to European crews based in caravels. I find Gavin Menzies' facts compelling.

2. Another scholar, Mertz?, did a lot of research on the very odd idea that the last migration of Native Americans to North America was far later, Asians fleeing the Mongol Hordes and pursued here by the Mongols who become many of the Plains Indian tribes who methods and technology match up quite a bit. Haven't read the book. Assume it's true, as Jack Wetherford's recent book on the Mongols points out, these are the folks who were mixing and matching technologies from all over Eurasia and probably are where gunpowder weapons substantially advance. Mongol tactics would at the least have caused tremendous trouble for North American invaders.

3. One can also see iron-working methods, metal smelting, iron and bronze weapons/plows/armor etc. along with horses coming from the long Viking and Irish presence. Arlington Mallery found small ancient iron smelting operations in the interior that reflected medieval Viking methods so assuming it was knowledge that endured rather than flickered out isn't much of a jump in alternate history. There are lots of iron ore deposits across North America and many quite accessible while you can work it with campfire and open hearth temperatures from wood charcoal. It doesn't counter European disease but iron swords, arrowheads, spear points,lances, pikes, battleaxes, helmets, cuirasses, shields would go a very long way to negating Europeans with a few gunpowder weapons and mostly edged weapons/body armor. The Vikings carried sturdy Icelandic ponies on most voyages, for horse-borne attacks on villages, so that would also be devastating given the rare cavalry in anything but some Spanish settlements.

Regular contact with Asia and Europe throughout the periods prior to the European Age of Exploration so that the Americas had the same general disease resistance to smallpox, measles, rubella, mumps, etc. is probably the key since that's what kills off maybe 80-90% of the population by recent estimates. A lot of successful invasions in history as William MacNeil points out are actually healthy people attacking shattered, fragmented societies reeling from the deaths and deterioration of major plagues, not the brilliant military tactics or technology advantages too often attributed to that success by the victors.
 
Simple. Have the Spanish not be as lucky as they were in OTL. Seriously, it's almost ASB how lucky Cortez and Pizarro were in conquering the Aztec and Inca Empires respectively.
 
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