AHC: Create the 1908 Arapaho War made up by the Russian in the film Red Dawn

For those who have seen the 1984 movie Red Dawn but need a reminder I am talking about this part of the film in which a Russian soldier with terrible English reading skills misunderstands the founding of the Arapaho National Forest and tells his comrades that it was the sight of a peasent uprising!:rolleyes:

Your challenge is to make a TL in which the events stated by this character occur as close as possible to what he states in the movie.

HAVE FUN!!!:D
 
Actually, it doesn't seem so hard. Lots of small changes that amount to a lot, but as described you basically need the indian wars to last about a decade or two longer than OTL, and for them to end in something on a far larger scale than the wars ever actually were. You've also got some trouble getting the location right, but I'll ignore that for now. I'm thinking one thing or another delays the railways, so western settlement takes longer than OTL (remember, it doesn't have to be by that much).

In any case, when OTL's Sioux Wars wrap up there is some sort of grand coalition of the big western tribes in an attempt to make a big last stand; helps a lot if you can find some outside power looking to stir up trouble in the US. Hostile Canada or Mexico seems most reasonable, Mexico is rather hard to make stable and coordinated enough in this era, so lets say there's Canadian backing for tribes (fallout from a war over Oregon maybe?) in the willing to make trouble and things get out of hand. I'm thinking that the coalition would have been building over at least a decade, and when the rebellion comes there's a core of fighters with real training and fully modern equipment. The US Army loses a battle or two, not having expected more than any other native uprising, supporters flood into the region and when the Army arrives in force it turns into a (more than OTL) genocidal catastrophe with massacres all around. 35,000 is still a bit high, but let's chalk that up to our friends miscomprehension shall we?

Long storey short though, the hard part is the size described, not having a significant battle that late or getting Roosevelt involved.
 
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