Balkanized America's Impact on Native Americans

Tecumseh, however, ultimately would be a British proxy, since there's nothing in the tribal toolkit that provides them with firearms and gunpowder other than the good offices of the British...

Ah but no! A balkanized North America leads to more factions to play off against each other and take tribute/bribes/aid from, not less.

Also, how big is the advantage granted by 1810 gunpowder against Native warfare? I suspect it is much less than the 1870s advantage.

A balkanized North America may also lead to Tecumseth winning more allies than OTL, as his cause is seen as more winnable. Possibly including the "civilized" tribes that rebuffed him OTL.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Guns and ammo don't grow on trees

Trade in most parts of the world did not depend on you tying yourself politically to the trader. N America of OTL was different as the traders were imperial rivals, but if there had been a balkanisation, more independent states etc, then the Indian Nations would have been able to get guns without it implying a political subservience

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Guns and ammo don't grow on trees; and whoever the supplier is will want something from the end user. Nobody gives away weapons for free.

Given that nothing + nothing pretty much ends up as nothing, what exactly do the various tribal societies - none of which have much - have to offer except the bodies of their young men? Who, after all, are not particularly numerous, in comparision to the shiploads of Europeans walking down the gangplanks in various Atlantic ports?

Again, the native societies didn't exactly thrive in South America, which was about as balkanized as any conceivable North America (even including New England, New France, New Spain, New Netherlands, etc. and all their possible daughter colonies) could be...

They didn't do real well in Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, for that matter.

Best,
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Well, it was good enough to get Tecumseh killed,

Ah but no! A balkanized North America leads to more factions to play off against each other and take tribute/bribes/aid from, not less.

Also, how big is the advantage granted by 1810 gunpowder against Native warfare? I suspect it is much less than the 1870s advantage.

A balkanized North America may also lead to Tecumseth winning more allies than OTL, as his cause is seen as more winnable. Possibly including the "civilized" tribes that rebuffed him OTL.

Well, it was good enough to get Tecumseh killed, who was pretty much it as far as early Nineteenth Century "local" empire builders for the British or whoever.

Unless someone can actually lay out the scale and scope of the "balkanization" it's really pretty much impossible to make any informed judgment as to where alliances and policies might synch up.

But the bottom line is the numerical differential between Europe (+Africa) on one side of the Atlantic, and the Americas on the other, and basically they were against the native cultures from about Day One of the encounter.

Best,
 
Ah but no! A balkanized North America leads to more factions to play off against each other and take tribute/bribes/aid from, not less.

Also, how big is the advantage granted by 1810 gunpowder against Native warfare? I suspect it is much less than the 1870s advantage.

A balkanized North America may also lead to Tecumseth winning more allies than OTL, as his cause is seen as more winnable. Possibly including the "civilized" tribes that rebuffed him OTL.

I think you are over-emphasiing the ability of Tecumseh or any Native leader to do this, given the fact that all of the sucessor states of the failed USA will be expansionist settler nations, aimed not at trade advantages with quasi-independent native chiefdoms, but at taking and living on their land. Any one of the American colonies with legitimate interest and ability to spread westward will have a bigger population, the industrial ability, and more unhindered access to "modern" weaponry than any native opposition, no matter how united under a dynamic leader.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Even the Boer states, as marginal as they were in terms

Even the Boer states, as marginal as they were in terms of industrialization, were able to sustain their forces throughout the Nineteenth Century and so take advantage of any "native" state/society/culture/tribe they basically engaged.

Add artillery and repeaters, and it got even worse for the "natives" as the Maori and Zulu found out.

Best,
 
Depends on the nation of the Balkanization and the eventual Nations we would deal with.

The Native Americans will always have a rough go of it - too much land, too few of them, huge gap in technology ensuring they'd need an outside backer. You may have some success stories in the far Northern plains or the Southwest, but by and large, time is not on their side.

One thing I could see is some getting better treatment from different nations. An independent Republic of Georgia for example, might have a sizable Muskogee minority.
 
Guns and ammo don't grow on trees; and whoever the supplier is will want something from the end user. Nobody gives away weapons for free.

The same as the British did I expect. He'd just have a much larger pool of entities to deal with. Note that getting guns wasn't a insurmountable problem in OTL, with less suppliers and less leverage.

Given that nothing + nothing pretty much ends up as nothing, what exactly do the various tribal societies - none of which have much - have to offer except the bodies of their young men? Who, after all, are not particularly numerous, in comparision to the shiploads of Europeans walking down the gangplanks in various Atlantic ports?

I think you are confusing the strategic problem with the tactical one. In other words, the long-term problem of immigration to the US with the immediate one of the number of men available in this war.

However, it is pretty irrelevant. A Tecumseth vs. the US fight with no Canada or Britain in the mix can have only one outcome. Even if he'd gotten all the tribes to join his confederacy, he'd have had a population base of about 100 000 vs the US seven million.

Again, the native societies didn't exactly thrive in South America, which was about as balkanized as any conceivable North America (even including New England, New France, New Spain, New Netherlands, etc. and all their possible daughter colonies) could be...

They didn't do real well in Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand, for that matter.

Actually, they didn't do that badly in New Zealand. Or Hawaii, Ethiopia, Japan, New Guinea, Tibet, etc. Every setup is different.

Well, it was good enough to get Tecumseh killed, who was pretty much it as far as early Nineteenth Century "local" empire builders for the British or whoever.

I don't really see the point here? Washington had two horses shot from under him. Davy Crockett died at the Alamo. It happened back when leaders fought in battles.

I think you are over-emphasiing the ability of Tecumseh or any Native leader to do this, given the fact that all of the sucessor states of the failed USA will be expansionist settler nations, aimed not at trade advantages with quasi-independent native chiefdoms, but at taking and living on their land.

I don't see how that is possible, given that 8-9 of the states seem to have land borders with other states or British land.

The point I am trying to make is that Tecumseth OTL was never going to win. But he still did far better than you'd expect under his circumstances. If the United States balkanizes as he is assembling his coalition, his circumstances change. A lot.

OTL he worked with the Canadians and the British. If he had the strategic vision to play the balkanized US nations against each other (There would have to be some bad blood there, 18th century nations didn't do velvet divorces much) he could go quite far. Not the least because he could present himself as the least threatening option, a potential ally and the tiebreaker.
 
don't sell the Native Americans short. they did a lot of trading, both with other tribes and with whites. everything west of the mississippi was originally explored by whites for trade, and I suspect that was true of east of the mississippi, too. It's american lore that Lewis and Clark were the original explorers of the west, but they were merely following in the footsteps of thousands of mountaineeers. they could attain a supply of weapons, especially if they're playing off various balkan countries. Ultimately, I think their numbers and structure are too sparse to hold off the foreign invaders. It's numbers disadvantage and style of fighting that did them in OTL. they routinely kicked butt well into the early 1800's.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
But the OP hasn't even offered a summary on what

The point I am trying to make is that Tecumseth OTL was never going to win. But he still did far better than you'd expect under his circumstances. If the United States balkanizes as he is assembling his coalition, his circumstances change. A lot.

OTL he worked with the Canadians and the British. If he had the strategic vision to play the balkanized US nations against each other (There would have to be some bad blood there, 18th century nations didn't do velvet divorces much) he could go quite far. Not the least because he could present himself as the least threatening option, a potential ally and the tiebreaker.

But the OP hasn't even offered a summary on what "balkanization" is supposed to mean, much less how it happens - I mean, a Rhode Island-centered Thalassic empire is possible, I guess, but it seems fairly unlikely.

Given the above, it's all so theoretical one could postulate almost anything; my point is simply that Tecumseh's biggest problem is he was trying to hold back the tide, and - like Cetshwayo, in a similar situation - his enemies were more than willing to unite to defeat him.

Despite their own history, Britons and Boers were quite happy to work together to crush the Zulu, Mashona, etc - and then go back and have a "white man's war" a few years later.

Best,
 
But the OP hasn't even offered a summary on what "balkanization" is supposed to mean, much less how it happens - I mean, a Rhode Island-centered Thalassic empire is possible, I guess, but it seems fairly unlikely.

For the sake of discussion let's say that we get a Unified New England, A unified Deep South, a Unified Upper South, a Union between Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, and an Independent New York.
 
Ultimately, I think their numbers and structure are too sparse to hold off the foreign invaders. It's numbers disadvantage and style of fighting that did them in OTL. they routinely kicked butt well into the early 1800's.

And this is the key point. Taking TFSmith121's reasonable presumption of 5 sucessor states to the failed USA, each of these will be settler states with a growing population, state-level socio-political military organizations, and far greater access to to locally produced modern weaponry and other technological advances than any native tribe or combination thereof.

Possibly other colonial powers will effectively hem these nations in -perhaps limiting their expansion to the Mississippi River - but I fail to see how this will automatically benefit native tribes east or west of the Mississippi who will simply be faced with a variety Europeans with access to the global economy ultimately seeking to dominate them. The key element is that the native tribes will always be dependent on outside resources (modern weapons, etc) they will lack the infrastructure to produce themselves.
 
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