AHC: An Amerindian group in the US or Canada analogous to Chechens in 20th or 21st century?

raharris1973

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The impact I am looking for is post-1900, but, this thread is more appropriate for the pre-1900 because I believe the PoD would probably have to come well before 1900 for this to happen.

The challenge is to have an Amerindian group in the US or Canada become analogous to the Chechens in Russia, and remain so into the 20th century.

By analogous, I mean have a sustained violent separatist organization that sparks major US or Canadian military operations, perhaps they even win independence for a period.

Even when not possessing independence this group and its core territory should be largely ungovernable and make life extra dangerous for communities up to a few hundred miles around the groups core territory.
 
I mean, this is possible with a post-1900 POD. An America with sustained leftist revolutionary fervor stemming from the Great Depression could spark a longer-lasting equivalent to AIM which is more willing to use violence, and Native American groups did fight against the US government with guns well into the 20th century.

Another possibility is the Ghost Dance religious movement surviving due to Wounded Knee not occurring or occurring without a Ghost Dance-following shaman present, and coalescing in the American Southwest from an apocalyptic movement to a more cemented religious/cultural movement that maintains its anti-colonialist base but provides stable religious institutions through which different tribes can peacefully resolve conflicts.

Why the southwest? Because the Navajo nation is huge and relatively isolated, and if its neighboring tribes are working with it against the Federal Government instead of appealing to the Federal Government against it...you have the base from which a very nasty guerrilla movement could be fought, well into the 20th century. Towns put up monuments to conquistadors, and the monuments are met with kidnappings and bombings instead of vandalism; pipe bombs and snipers drive out miners; Pueblo towns agree to let Hollywood bigwigs come in to film westerns, and then let the militants know exactly where high value kidnapping assets are parking their trailers; there is a lot that could go down in this scenario, but it can't go down with the Hopi and the Navajo (among others) lawyering up to fight each other in Washington DC.
 
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