Retread alert: This first appeared in the June 2002 edition of my AH Newsletter. And, fair warning, unfortunately I have yet to take it past this first installment.
If somehow the American Indians had continued to develop relatively independently of the Europeans, how would they have developed? It’s impossible to know that of course, but it is possible to make some reasonable speculations.
I won’t concern myself with why European influence is absent. The focus is purely on what might have happened in the absence of that influence. I’ll eventually go from 1492 to present day though I probably won’t even get to 1600 for every area I want to in this issue.
1492 to 1600: The big American Indian empires of the Incas and Aztecs probably still have some years of expanding left in them. They will do that expanding during this period.
The Aztecs of Mexico are approaching the natural limits of their expansion. They can expand to the northeast to some extent, and they do. They take control of more and more Huaxtec territory. Independence-minded Huaxtecs are forced north, but the climate and soil to their immediate north allow very limited agriculture. The Huaxtecs have been in very tenuous indirect contact with the fringes of the Mississippian Mound Builders. As the Aztecs push north, the Huaxtecs that remain independent are forced to orient their economy to the north and trade with the Mississippians becomes more important and direct. They develop coastal trade routes that eventually reach the mouth of the Mississippi.
To their northwest, the Tarascan Empire makes Aztec expansion difficult. The Tarascans have a smaller, but much more cohesive empire than the Aztecs. The two empires have bumped heads several times before 1492. They continue to do so, but with inconclusive results. The Tarascans continue to expand, but they expand at the expense of poorly known groups to their north and west.
To their south, the Aztecs run into the unfamiliar ecology of tropical rainforests. That doesn’t stop them from extorting tribute from economically important areas, but it does limit their interest in the area to some extent.
The Aztecs also press against the Tlaxcallans who form a hostile island of independent territory inside the Aztec empire. The Tlaxcallans are excellent fighters and it takes many years to wear them down, but the Aztecs are able to do that and are able to force the Tlaxcallans to pay tribute by 1550. The Tlaxcallans revolt a time or two after that, but are as firmly under Aztec control as most of the rest of the Aztec Empire by 1600.