AHC/PC/WI: Larger Mesitzo Populations in US/Canada

Well, weakening slavery would affect this a lot-it would dial back the "one drop" mentality in American thought, meaning that mixed-race persons might be more likely to identify as such and it would slow the rate of Westward expansion without pressure to expand slavery. You might see more for example, white people joining Native American nations and assimilating in to a degree and vice-versa(think instead of "1/32nd Cherokee!" it's more like "well my maternal grandfather was Cherokee and I learned a little Cherokee at home from him"); you might also see larger populations of Native Americans who identify as such in more places(since this would probably affect the reservation system).
 
Well, weakening slavery would affect this a lot-it would dial back the "one drop" mentality in American thought, meaning that mixed-race persons might be more likely to identify as such and it would slow the rate of Westward expansion without pressure to expand slavery. You might see more for example, white people joining Native American nations and assimilating in to a degree and vice-versa(think instead of "1/32nd Cherokee!" it's more like "well my maternal grandfather was Cherokee and I learned a little Cherokee at home from him"); you might also see larger populations of Native Americans who identify as such in more places(since this would probably affect the reservation system).

Actually, I think more intolerance of a certain kind is necessary for a unified, "mixed" identity to form. Native culture would probably have to be destroyed to a large extent, while keeping the native population phenotypically distinct so they couldn't pass as European. If you leave native culture intact, anyone who intermingles with a tribe is going to be assimilated into that tribe.
 
Well, this might be a tad ramble-y, but I think there's a reason for that initial mindset (I'm not going to touch on the knock-on effects you hit on already): the colonization model for the US (and to a somewhat lesser extent, Canada) was quite different from that of Spain and Portugal.

Y'see, the reason those countries have such a mixed population is because the initial settlers there were almost exclusively men, with the same....appetites as men are wont to have. And without any women coming over from Europe any time soon, they had to get accustomed to holding relations (however willing or not) with Native or African-descended women, thus leading to accommodating a "pigmentocracy" which recognized mixed-race persons.

The English, however, did ship entire family units, or even communities, en mass to their colonies from the beginning for the most part. This meant that the entire demographic-cultural bedrock of those countries was set to be distinct from the get-go, which wasn't helped by a much different (i.e. violent and prolonged) broader interaction between those settlers and the Native Americans. Even so, both the US and Canada do have mixed-race communities going back centuries (respectively, Melungeons and the aforementioned Métis), it's just that the different colonization pattern I mentioned meant they were a relatively small group overall, not the norm.

FWIW I don't think the whole Latin-Germanic identity has anything to do with it inherently, since South Africa has a significant mixed population originating from Dutch settlers. Furthermore, the argument that the Iberians were more prone to interacting with persons of different skin color is more than a little spurious to me, since those persons were the OTHER side during the Reconquista and/or Inquisition...I fail to see how/why that would promote racial tolerance at all. I see it it boiling down to a mixture of the aforementioned circumstances with possible religious mindsets on "ethnicity" (such as it was back then) that crystallized over time.

You also have to consider the extant indigenous population density. Those areas with the largest mestizo populations today were also the centers of state-level and complex chiefdom-level societies in the Pre-Columbian era, with systems of agriculture capable of feeding millions of people. Even after the impact of disease burned out, Mesoamerica and the Andes were still quite populous.

Meanwhile, Argentina and Uruguay have minimal mestizo populations despite sharing the Spanish model of male-majority immigration in their early days.
 
something that just occurred to me is that reducing the overall number of europeans might actually help the most.

1- Find a reason to limit immigration to the americas (i.e. conflict or lack thereof, alternate site for colonisation, etc...)

2- create a 3 part division of society between leaser, indentured servants and native with each part being greater in number then the previous.

3- with the indentured servants unable to marry up, they take wives from within the native population.

4- a US revolution equivalent occur with the elite promising eqality to the now thoroughly mixed indentured class.

5- to prevent the elite losing their position to the mesitzo majority following their side's victory in the revolution, large scale immigration is encouraged so that while the mesitzo manage to remain a large enough group, within a generation they are relegated to the status of minority.
 

Benevolent

Banned
The early Brits in India also interbred until the Raj caused women to go over. However while you can get breeding that way, there does seem to be more of a racial antipathy from Northern European powers. The Afrikaans weren't exactly accepting of the coloureds! However I wonder if it's just a matter of skin colour rather than religion. Fair skinned, light haired Brits and Dutch have a much clearer visible distinction to mixed race people than darker French and Spanish people do. That means racism against Mestizos is easier.

The funny part is I've yet to see a dna test of an Afrikaner that doesn't have some Malay and/or Khoisan ancestry, Apartheid is a recent event the mixing of people on all sides has occurred since the beginning.

Coloured is a term that was birthed out of Apartheid, the reality is there are dozens of small and large groups who are creolized Saffers.

If there were good enough factors somehow that encouraged European settlers and natives to intermarry can they create a mestizo group that is at least a visible minority within the US/Canada? What needs to happen? And considering the lower populations of native Americans comparing to Latin America how many can there realistically be?

Easy; decrease migrating women and find a way to lower the European female population.

I'd also like to say Mestizo doesn't just mean mixed white and native, it's a cultural terms as well. In Mexico and Latin America mestizo and Ladino can also include hispanophone assimilated Natives
A good deal of people who identify as "Native American" are already mixed-blood. You'd have to have those people identify with neither their tribe nor their white ancestry. I don't know how plausible that is, considering that "mixed" peoples like the Seminoles ended up becoming a tribe of their own anyway.

Most Seminoles in Florida aren't all that racially mixed, while Billy Bowlegs II and a few other known lines left descendants the Seminoles weren't all that much for mixing save for the traditionalists like Wild Cat who left for Texas and Mexico



I have a theory. If the colonial government's use economic incentives like lower taxes or payments to intermarry would that help bring a mestizo population?

Honestly the major way to increase Mesitzos must come from a codified set of laws that benefit all who are mixed race.

Say, create a law that state those of 1/4 native ancestry are legally white, can't be forced to migrate and cannot be given treaty as a native nation; yet let a societal stigma prevail which impedes the advancement of all but the absolutely most successful and connected.

Also in the US the term is Mustee which is an anglicized version of Mestizo, in Jamaica it was an octoroon.
 
Hmm I did manage it in my French Canada STRONK TL. The extra population allowed them to expand into the Great Lakes and Ohio River area much faster leading to a very large Metis population which would eventually overtake the "White" populatiom by the 21st century.
 
Also in the US the term is Mustee which is an anglicized version of Mestizo, in Jamaica it was an octoroon.

Octoroon doesn't imply mixed indigenous and white ancestry the way mestizo does, it means a person with one black great-grandparent and seven white great-grandparents. In Jamaica, the maroons were those escaped African slaves who joined with the remaining indigenous people in the interior and established hidden communities with them, so today the maroons may be mixed black and indigenous ancestry. Culturally speaking, however, they seem to have maintained more African influence than Taino (specifically, from the Akan-speaking peoples of Ghana).
 
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