AH Challenge: Native American Nation

Hashasheen

Banned
A Native American Nation capable of withstanding the United States expansion, and not a puppet state. that is the challenge. bonus points if done around time of the ACW
 

Keenir

Banned
A Native American Nation capable of withstanding the United States expansion, and not a puppet state. that is the challenge. bonus points if done around time of the ACW

does Riel count as native, given that most of his followers were "creoles" as some call them?
 
In my timeline, linked in my signature, I created an Indian Nation. Its purpose is twofold: 1. create a homeland for Native Americans and 2. prevent the existence of the most arrogant piece of property in the world, Texas. Indian Nation came about after the Civil War when the USA and CSA agree to its creation and sovereignty. A former US territory used to house many tribes (similar to OTL Oklahoma), it becomes an independent nation in the immediate post-ACW North America.
 
Here's a scenario from Earthprime (the Sliders fan site).

The Confederate Army stunned the Union forces in the Battle of Gettysburg, temporarily swinging momentum in their favor. By 1866, the war had severely weakened the United States and the European nations made their move. The British allied with the South forcing the North to sign a pact with France. But this deal came with a price. For reasons both altruistic and self-interested, France forced the North to turn over the West Coast to the Native Americans. Even then, France could see that America had the resources to become a burgeoning world power and thus it was a potential threat to French hegemony. By cutting them off from the West Coast, they could stem America's global influence. And by handing the territory over to the indigenous people, fiercely loyal to France of course, they looked like liberators instead of conquerors.

Those living there already were none too pleased with President Lincoln's arrangement. Many refused to depart when the Natives took over, and the two peoples have been fighting ever since in an endless cycle of violence that rivals our troubles in the Middle East. The squatters have been barricaded into reservations of sorts. Though their environments are pristine, they remain at the mercy of the Californians.

As for Canada, they could see which way the wind was blowing. In 1867 they declared their independence from Britain and promptly allied with France and the North. Together they crushed the British/Confederate alliance and ended the Civil War in 1869. With the United States in desperate straits, they relied primarily on Canadian industry to rebuild. This planted the seeds to the world's largest economy today.

The United States is a weakened nation. Its endless atrocities on its western border have sullied its reputation in the international community. Sympathies are clearly with the nation of California, a common name agreed to by all the tribes that makes their homes there. Both France and Canada heavily support California, which also comprises what we know as Oregon and Washington. An attack on it is considered an attack on the French-Canadian Alliance. Tread with care.

http://earthprime.com/travelogue/sitting-moose-world.html
 
Nothing like this happens until the Indian's stop being a neolithic people.

They lost in OTL because they came to desire and depend on the technology that they could only get from the invading European culture.

Without their own industry and technical infrastructure they're dancing to somebody else's tune.
 
A Native American Nation capable of withstanding the United States expansion, and not a puppet state. that is the challenge. bonus points if done around time of the ACW

There's several issues with this challenge that need to be overcome: first, that the region that is today's US had at most the Mississippians at the time of contact, the Anasazi having long-ago collapsed. The Mississippians were devastated by De Leon's rampage through their territory, and then by the epidemics he brought. With the most powerful native society then that weak, there's no power-base to provide resistance to the US when it comes along, and a society that was that strong would alter the pattern of colonization enough that a US may never have even come into existence.

Second, assuming the events leading up to the founding of all 13 colonies come, you've got to remember that Indians were not a homogenous group any more than the US of that era. The US was starting a Great Sectional Split into the Capitalist North and Slavocratic South at the time, and that division, of course, led the White Man to kill himself in carload lots for four years. Indians were no more united than the pre-1860 US, and sometimes would wage war against each other as much as against the US. It would require an ASB to unite the Indian tribes of the East against the US, because by the time you reached the period of the creation of California and the expansion of the US through the West, the Indians were basically doomed to the poverty and nastiness we've left them in today, as the US was just too large, the Indian tribes too small, and too weak to resist.

A successful Indian resistance in the chain of events that we know IOTL is as likely as a Japanese victory in WWII.
 
There's a Shawnee/Sioux Nation in my Imperial TL. Although it has had to sacrifice quite a bit in terms of independence from British inteference and its own cultural heritage to do so.
 
Here's a scenario from Earthprime (the Sliders fan site).

The Confederate Army stunned the Union forces in the Battle of Gettysburg, temporarily swinging momentum in their favor. By 1866, the war had severely weakened the United States and the European nations made their move. The British allied with the South forcing the North to sign a pact with France. But this deal came with a price. For reasons both altruistic and self-interested, France forced the North to turn over the West Coast to the Native Americans. Even then, France could see that America had the resources to become a burgeoning world power and thus it was a potential threat to French hegemony. By cutting them off from the West Coast, they could stem America's global influence. And by handing the territory over to the indigenous people, fiercely loyal to France of course, they looked like liberators instead of conquerors.

Those living there already were none too pleased with President Lincoln's arrangement. Many refused to depart when the Natives took over, and the two peoples have been fighting ever since in an endless cycle of violence that rivals our troubles in the Middle East. The squatters have been barricaded into reservations of sorts. Though their environments are pristine, they remain at the mercy of the Californians.

As for Canada, they could see which way the wind was blowing. In 1867 they declared their independence from Britain and promptly allied with France and the North. Together they crushed the British/Confederate alliance and ended the Civil War in 1869. With the United States in desperate straits, they relied primarily on Canadian industry to rebuild. This planted the seeds to the world's largest economy today.

The United States is a weakened nation. Its endless atrocities on its western border have sullied its reputation in the international community. Sympathies are clearly with the nation of California, a common name agreed to by all the tribes that makes their homes there. Both France and Canada heavily support California, which also comprises what we know as Oregon and Washington. An attack on it is considered an attack on the French-Canadian Alliance. Tread with care.

http://earthprime.com/travelogue/sitting-moose-world.html

The plausibility ended at about the blue, and entered ASB when it entered the red.

Primary reason no plausibility, France was friendly to Britain under Napoleon III and France was pro-Confederate. If they wanted to keep the USA divided, don't go to WAR with the Great Power of the day (Great Britain who is also right next door) but support the CSA. France would not go to war with Great Britain when GB is supporting the same nation that France is.

And why would America give up the West Coast. That's the whole part of Manifest destiny their giving up, decades of policy, wars, and purchases. No way in hell their going to give up the West Coast.

Now for the red. Oh god the red. Canada waiting to see which way the wind blowed?:eek: Canada was so pro British it wasn't even funny. Just because Canada got autonomy in 1867 didn't mean that she was independent. It would take a few more decades for that to become clear. If you think just because the Quebecois like the french, the anglo-majority will, you've got something coming.

Finally, CANADIAN INDUSTRY HELPING USA REBUILD?! WHAT INDUSTRY? Canada nearly bankrupted herself building a railway (CPR), how exactly are we Canucks supposed to help our neighbour to the South. The north won the civil war because of her massive industry. In you timeline from what I can gather, the CSA is crushed. Why would American industry be in shambles. It would be in top form.

To quote Abdul Hali Pasha: "Geez."
 
It would probably work best with a more antagonistic Britain helping some large plains tribe. The Sioux would work very well, for this purpose, but the most likely scenario is Zachs, that the USA wil create some kind of National Indian Preserve.
 
What about a surviving Iroquois Confederacy? Maybe they stay on better terms with the USA, don't ally with the British, and avoid the Sullivan Expedition, and survive that way?
 
What about a surviving Iroquois Confederacy? Maybe they stay on better terms with the USA, don't ally with the British, and avoid the Sullivan Expedition, and survive that way?
But they had to ally with the British, otherwise they wouldn't have gained acces to their guns. It might be better if the Dutch staid around and the Iriqouis were able to contain them, while playing the British French of against each other and wiping out/conquering other tribes with Ductch guns.
 
Honestly, an independent Native American nation around the time of the Civil War is a bit late. The early era of colonization in North America would be much easier, prodiving a burgeoning Native nation more European powers to play against each other and remain independent.
 
I think the Early Republic Era (1800-1850) is about as far as you can go to create an independent Indian nation. Eric Flint's 1812 series I think did a very nice job with the Five Tribes in the Confederacy of the Arkansas.

Not exactly an Indian nation per se, but I think it's relevant: I have a TL somewhere where Washington is shot but only wounded in 1777. Congress' conspiracy to replace Washington with Horatio Gates almost passes through until Washington endorses Nathaneal Greene to become his successor. Greene becomes Commander-in-Chief, leads the Continental Army to an arguably cleaner victory than in OTL and becomes first President. He runs for three terms all the way up to 1801 when Aaron Burr is elected President. President Burr becomes consumed with power. He runs for a fourth term in 1812, assassinated his opponent James Madison and took complete control of the country.

Long story short. Butterflies do a number on William Crawford. In 1822, he becomes the figurehead of an alliance between the Adams Family (no pun intended) who are the head of the underground organization: the Federalists, black Freedmen, runaway slaves, abolitionists, rebellious American citizens (taken up the name of "Eagles") and thanks to a defecting army officer, Sam Houston, the Cherokee.

Crawford's rebellion eventually leads to Burr's overthrow and exile. He commits suicide in 1826 in Paris. Crawford has of course, been unanimously elected President and grants universal suffrage while freeing the slaves.

Since Cherokees and other Indians who helped overthrow Burr are now citizens of the United States, Crawford signs land deals with them. When the Georgians start to expand west and encounter the Indians, the Cherokee petition to the Supreme Court. As IOTL, the court rules in favor of the Cherokee. Unlike Andrew Jackson (executed at the firing squad for war crimes. He was Burr's right hand general) Crawford grants the Cherokee protection and even carves out their own state in the southeast with smaller outcroppings of the state in other locations where Indians resided.

Sam Houston is later elected President. Of course, based on his young experience with the Indians, his policy is even more favorable towards them.

By the 1860s, I think we can expect a Cherokee President being elected.

That said, working as late as the 1800s, Indian nations that aren't as impoverished as OTLs are doable, but a whole nation is really stretching it to the limit of ASB. Nez Perce might be possible. Maybe a land grant from Canada eventually becoming their own state in the 1900s, but eh. Stretching it.
 
Black Hawk Up

I had a TL called Black Hawk Up that started with some multiple POD (starting with Brock being unleashed early) which let the British win the War of 1812. One of the results is the establishment an Indian protectorate west of the Mississippi led by Tecumseh with Black Hawk as his number two. Tecumseh becomes something of a tyrant and in 1822 the British regard him as a pain in the arse esp. after he massacres a Prussian force sent to Mexico as a result of the Monroe-Metternich Treaty between the US and the Holy Alliance. They tell Black Hawk to relieve Tecumseh of command with extreme prejudice. I haven't worked the TL in detail beyond that but my basic vision is the more moderate Black Hawk would slow (but not stop) American migration for a decade but eventually the protectorate would collapse.
 
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