Best outcome for Native Americans

Sounds like you're thinking of the romantic image of "Hollywood Indians". While what you say might be true of a few Plains tribes, and the hunter-gatherers in the Far West, most Native Americans in what is now the US were always settled farmers. Ever hear of the Five Civilized Tribes? They could have meshed nicely with the US economy, if the US had been willing to respect their property rights. The problems here are 1.Racism and 2.Legal limbo (are they citizens of foreign sovereign states, conquered subjects, assimilable citizens, or what).
The people of the plains were also farming folk prior to the arrival of horses, which made living simply off of buffalo more convenient. And yes, the main problems were racism and legal issues.
 
Well, one way they could have likely done better for themselves would be different choices for allies during the French&Indian war, the Revolutionary war, War of 1812?, and the US Civil War. Choosing a different side in the F&I war is probably pretty ASB, but maybe siding with the colonists in the Revolutionary war could happen. Being on the wrong (i.e, the losing) side of these wars hurt their position quite a bit. Also, perhaps a strongly enforced taboo against strong drink would help as well. Young drunken hotheads engaging in low-level raiding activities tended to draw extremely harsh responses (raiding is pretty common in a lot of cultures, especially nomadic ones, but it frequently draws a near-genocidal response from most of England's seed).
 
OTL was the best that they could have. There's no way their situation could improve. AT ALL.

A stronger/better-funded central government might help. Compare Canada to the USA.

I also think its possible in the Civil War/pre-Civil War era to have the colonization idea mutate into a western state (or South Carolina) that's legally reserved for ex-slaves. If the idea of ethnic "refuge" states takes hold, and if the Oklahoma tribes aren't widely seen as in bed with Confederates, then you might end up with an 'Indian' state or two out on the plains also. NDak? Parts of OTL Oklahoma? Shoot, add Deseret as a "Mormon" state and all you need now is airships.
 
Your question contains a contradiction the best outcome would be for the United States not to become a great power and would lie with the Iriquois confederation remaining united and Britain winning the revolutionary war. The next best outcome would be for Isaac Brock to survive and for Tecumseh to build a western buffer state. Independence would have come for the American colonies but maybe more like the Canadian model. The best outcome would have been m ore achievable if inter nation conflict could have been prevented so that the white man couldn't play divide and rule
 
You would need to eliminate a lot of the hatred for the natives.

and you could start that with the French & Indian Wars... that was the main thing that put sharp hatred of the natives in the English settler/American minds. The natives had some abominable practices they carried out on captives (both sides suffered from this). Either change this, or have the French and English not use native allies in the wars, and there's a small chance the whites won't develop such a fear and hatred of the them...
 

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As others have pointed out, the lot of the Native Americans could be ameliorated significantly if they had done more foresighted alliance choices and avoided to side with the enemies of the settlers in the various wars. This hardened the attitude of the settlers considerably.

If the tribes that were deemed civilized (the Iroquois, the FCT) had sided with the Americans, it is quite possible that American culture in its formative stages would have embraced a rather more assimilationist attitude towards "civilized" indians. I.e. the natives that more or less had a lifestyle loosely similar to the settlers and did not openly oppose white colonization would be deemed worthy members of American society, perhaps second-class citizens, but citizens nonetheless. Anything more than racism-tinged assimilationism would be ASB, however. The very best that the natives could manage to achieve is that they are able to set up some states with a native majority. And tribes that would cling to traditional lifestyles and oppose white penetration would still be earmaked for destruction and crushed like bugs.
 
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So if assimilation was the best outcome, how long would the Native Americans have remained a distinctive ethnic group? Their population would be larger without the wars/relocations killing a good number of them, but they would still be greatly outnumbered by european immigrants. If they where to assimilate enough that intermarriage between white settlers and natives were common, you would reach a point where most natives would be decedent of a interracial marriage. Would this point have been reached by 2000? And how would intertribal relations affect the time that point is crossed? Or am I not understanding demographics correctly here?:eek:
 
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