The point is, in countries such as Mexico, there was/is a trend to displace the identity of predominately indigenous peoples as mestizo. Thus, the erasure of peoples who while not entirely indigenous, are significantly more indigenous than European or African. My view is not that these countries are as if the Mesoamerican civilizational complex never ended, but to place more nuance on the view that everyone became mestizo and a new cultural identity was borne as a mixture, that is spoken of by Mexican national policy and even by other countries, such as Peru, Ecuador and others.

Regarding these states you asked me to mention, states that require more nuance to this question include,

Mexico
Bolivia
Peru
Ecuador
Guatemala
Honduras
El Salvador
Panama
Belize
Parts of Colombia
Parts of Venezuela
Parts of Argentina (north)
Parts of Chile, Mapuche lands in the north

For simplicity's sake I propose the "mestizo" identity could easily mean they are Indigenous, with or without mixed ascendance, with their cultural identity co-opted by "European" institutions, No one could argue that a Mexican,Peruvian, Guatemalan,Honduran, Salvadorean, Ecuadorian´s Mestizo don´t have a lot of Indigenous admixture in his blood,and that in these cases, with different socio-cultural dynamics in the build of their State-nations, I Argue that in the new world first come the State and they then build the Nation unlike in the old world, is possible they prefer to exalt their Indigenous past and disregard, officially, their European origin, and this is easier to do as in those lands historically thete were pretty advanced and powerful civilization were to extract their identity.(Aztec, Maya, Zapotec, Toltec, Tarascan, Inca).

The other countries mentioned have more difficult they don´t have a big indigenous population (Argentina ,Uruguay) or have relative speaking minor civilizations, (Colombia, Venezuela, Panamá) Chile as Ever is a strange case they have a big powerful native population, but relatively "minor" civilization with powerful and warlike empires, is strange
 

SaucePlease

Banned
The point is, in countries such as Mexico, there was/is a trend to displace the identity of predominately indigenous peoples as mestizo. Thus, the erasure of peoples who while not entirely indigenous, are significantly more indigenous than European or African. My view is not that these countries are as if the Mesoamerican civilizational complex never ended, but to place more nuance on the view that everyone became mestizo and a new cultural identity was borne as a mixture, that is spoken of by Mexican national policy and even by other countries, such as Peru, Ecuador and others.

There are no clear boundaries when race is concerned (especially in Latin America where most people are mixed-raced), but if the "Mestizo" identity is a lot stronger than the "indigenous" identity, than Native American culture will probably take a backseat when it comes to national identity.

Regarding these states you asked me to mention, states that require more nuance to this question include,

Mexico
Bolivia
Peru
Ecuador
Guatemala
Honduras
El Salvador
Panama
Belize

Parts of Colombia
Parts of Venezuela
Parts of Argentina (north)
Parts of Chile, Mapuche lands in the north

Isn't Belize a British colony that was like 40% Black? Also why does Honduras and Panama count as "Native states" but Paraguay and Nicaragua does not?
 
That doesn't completely fix the issue though, seeing as 400 years is more than enough for new strains of the diseases which the North American natives have no immunity to to pop up. That's not to mention altogether newer diseases, like the 2nd plague outbreak. European populations had acquired resistance against the plague but they still had recurrences that killed millions of people from Spain to Russia for centuries, despite there only being a few years between such outbreaks. None quite as bad as the Black Death but plague wasn't a 'one and done' affair and having hereditary immunity against diseases from 400 years prior probably won't help the North Americans all that much, unless they regularly get diseases from the Old World that would introduce newer strains and diseases.
It also took the norse a lot longer to get to NA then the spanish ships. A samll boat full of sick people might not even survive the journey.
 
I think the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) are a likely best bet, if it can make a couple of reforms.

1) Relatively early on, it could afford to centralise and try and build a unified identity with out Iroquoian language peoples, focused on the original territory of the 5 nations and the St.Lawrence. This would give them a larger population before and after the smallpox epidemics hit, but also reduce conflict post-colonisation, in exchange for earlier conflict.

2) Get. European. Experts. We saw it in Japan, and then Japan became one of the most gun-laden places in the world. If the Iroquois can import some of that technical expertise, even to make lower-quality weapons on their own, then the dependency on the fur economy is radically mitigated and the Haudenosaunee (or another ATL name) could be armed in opposition.

3) More kindness in Mourning Wars - by all means capture people and bring them back, but minimise death, and use it as a way to not just replace, but inflate the Nation.

The reason I chose them is their proximity makes them very relevant to minimising the sie of the USA/BNA/FNA which is vital to a nation in this area. THey were also one of th emost organised, and IOTL already impressively efective. If they can become less reliant on European trade, and set their own agenda rather than responding to the fur trade, they could likely unify the Great Lakes region and the western Appalachia territories, affectively a First Nations containment that can react harshly against people who break the diplomatic agreements, AND protect themselves against colonists.

The problem is that they're going to need to increase their population in a situation that enables the opposite. Perhaps this means capturing Europeans and adopting them, or even going so far as to accept them, but ensure they're loyal to the Haudenosaunee (perhaps by adding them to councils, as a new nation for the French, new one for the English, etc). Melding the practices.

But as they were IOTL? Without somehow building a massive alliance against the Europeans, I think they need to adopt and adapt, rather than simply win a battle.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
That doesn't completely fix the issue though, seeing as 400 years is more than enough for new strains of the diseases which the North American natives have no immunity to to pop up. That's not to mention altogether newer diseases, like the 2nd plague outbreak. European populations had acquired resistance against the plague but they still had recurrences that killed millions of people from Spain to Russia for centuries, despite there only being a few years between such outbreaks. None quite as bad as the Black Death but plague wasn't a 'one and done' affair and having hereditary immunity against diseases from 400 years prior probably won't help the North Americans all that much, unless they regularly get diseases from the Old World that would introduce newer strains and diseases.

This is very important to keep in mind. The best scenario would be for Europeans to set up trading posts in various locations, but no settler colonies. The Europeans in question must also have ships that are adequate for sustained Atlantic crossings within a reasonable travel time (so that various diseases can actually make the trip successfully). This would allow the Native population to face fairly consistent exposure to Old world diseases. The mass dying (which would occur in multiple waves) would occur, but the virgin soil vulnerability would eventually cease being a factor.

Another great boon would be if in the specific case of smallpox, the European happen to spread variola minor first. They spread variola major in OTL. Minor is far less lethal, and surviving it renders you immune to variola major as well. That would cut the death toll back by a significant percentage, since smallpox was a big killer in OTL.


ETA: I neglected to mention that part of the susceptibility of the Native Americans to Old World diseases derived from their immune system, particularly the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) of Native American individuals. There are countless MHC types, and a foreign element that gets past some will not get past others. Most human populations contain many MHC types, yet Native Americans are very homogenous in this regard. Francis L. Black (of Yale) compared native South Americans to Sub-Saharan Africans on this count: whereas one out of three native South Americans have similar MHC types, it is one in 200 for the Sub-Saharan Africans. (And the latter are fairly 'normal' in this regard.)

The fact that Native Americans derive from a relatively small ancestral population has simply painted a target on their backs, immunity-wise. Their absurdly low number of MHC types simply has major consequences when it comes to the deadliness of epidemics. This factor should not be underestimated, and reveals why even diseases that were very dangerous to Europeans - like smallpox - were even more dangerous and detrimental to the Native Americans. Bottom line is that any disease simply had a much greater chance of being deadly for a much greater number of Native Americans than it was ever deadly to Europeans. Even without settler colonialism, and even if a stroke of luck spread variola minor ahead of variola major, the vulnerable MHC of the Native Americans will still ensure that they'd be hit much harder than the Europeans.

The obvious way to deal with this is... intermarriage with Europeans. Mestizo populations simply had a better immune system, basically borrowing all those extra European MHC types, and thrived as a result. Problem is that, as has been discussed in this thread already, vast mestizo populations may be more likely to embrace a european culture and identity, thus going against the very premise of the OP.
 
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There are no clear boundaries when race is concerned (especially in Latin America where most people are mixed-raced), but if the "Mestizo" identity is a lot stronger than the "indigenous" identity, than Native American culture will probably take a backseat when it comes to national identity.



Isn't Belize a British colony that was like 40% Black? Also why does Honduras and Panama count as "Native states" but Paraguay and Nicaragua does not?

The list is not exhaustive, just listing as examples...

You seem to have not understood my point regarding ‘mestizo’ or ‘indigenous’. It has to do with the supposed national narratives of these lands, not necessarily in who is ‘mestizo’ and who is not. It is that due to policy of say Mexico, what otherwise is or would be defined as indigenous is defined as mestizo due to strict political control over these narratives and attempts at dismissing the colonial and racial placement system that Mexico possessed and possesses to this day, just not formalized as heavily as 1700.
 
What's needed is writing/literary traditions to preserve culture and knowledge better, a higher population with more complex polities spread around the continent and a prevention of the 90% die-off coinciding with first European contact.

I've been thinking about a multi-POD timeline with multiple pre-1492 contacts. Early Medieval Irish/Norse establish colonies in Newfoundland. West Africans stumble upon the terra preta makers in Amazonia and establish trade. Chinese treasure fleet blown off course towards Mesoamerica. Antiquarian Japanese winding up in the Pacific Northwest for some less plausible reason. Etc, all at multiple points between 500AD and 1200 AD.

This would be unleashing a storm of butterflies onto the New World. But I'm sure what would come out would be polities that were larger, more resilient to disruption, more familiar with the plagues that would inevitably spread from Columbus contact, and more resistant to European combat methods of the time. Even if colonization did happen (it would be much less likely) it's doubtful that there'd be as many European settler states as OTL as there simply wouldn't be room for settlers in most places. African or South East Asian model of colonialism would be more likely, with European elite minorities ruling over a large Native majority population. And that's a recipe for rebellions and eventual decolonization one the Native population have caught up on what's happening.
 
There was a proposal to give the Delaware tribe of Native Americans statehood in return for their support in the revolution but it never came to fruition/never taken seriously by the American negotiators. Not exactly a free Advanced Native American Civilization but it’s better than the current affairs.

Honestly if at some point you get the fledging United States to admit a Native state where that state’s government is the formal tribal one, and is respected and represented in the Federal Government, it could set a precedent to continually do it as the country settles the West. It’s a hard and radical change but I do not see it as impossible.
Where? Do you have a source for this?
 
Where? Do you have a source for this?

See the “Treaty of Fort Pitt 1778” between the fledging United States and the Delaware Indian tribe, specifically with chief White Eyes. I haven’t done a ton of research into it but always thought it’d be an interesting POD.
 
See the “Treaty of Fort Pitt 1778” between the fledging United States and the Delaware Indian tribe, specifically with chief White Eyes. I haven’t done a ton of research into it but always thought it’d be an interesting POD.
Where would the state have been located?
 
Where would the state have been located?

I’d guess somewhere in present Ohio territory if it got any traction it’d be hard pressed to actually be created, but considering the main point of the treaty was for American troops to be able to pass through Delaware Indian land, it’d have to be in the Ohio frontier area.
 
Bolivia is majority Indigenous American (it's literally the only country that can say that). A Bolivia wank involving the Incans could see it flourish as a Native American state.

Isnt otl Paraguay majority native?

While both Paraguay and Bolivia have a lot of people of Amerindian descent, and they have preserved pre Columbian Amerindian languages and some other aspects of native cultures, I wouldn't call them modernised native american nations, since in both nations the elites are still the descendants of Europeans, the dominant language (even in Paraguay) is an European one, the main religion is one brought to these lands from Europe and, more importantly, because the Spanish conquest and the centuries of European dominance chanded the pre existant human landscape so much that postulating any continuity between pre 1500 polities and modern ones would be a purely artificial construction.

Geneticaly speaking, modern Turkey probably includes a lot of the descendants of the inhabitants of the Eastern Roman Empire in 1200 AD, but you cannot ligitamtely call modern Turkey a modernised version of the Eastern Roman empire. In the same way, you cannot call modern Paraguay a modernised version of the Guarani chiefdoms that existed along the Paraguay river in 1500, because there is no historical continuity, and because the current Paraguayan culture is far too solidly influenced by the culture of the conquerors of those very chiefdoms, who have uterly disapeared centuries ago.

To have a modernised narive american state, you would need a native american polity to survive at least as a semi independent entity, an to modernize on its own accord. An Incan empire that survived the Spanish attack in the XVI century, or a surviving Mapuche entity past the XIX century may do the trick, even if they survive with the help of some European great power.
 
Actually I’m surprised no one has brought up the Mapuche. They only lost their independence in the 1880s when Chile annexed their territories.
The Spanish before actually had recognized their independence.

Having the Mapuche stay independent and in the process industrialize should be possible. Yes, we are not talking Europe-Level here, but South America average should be doable.

Good potential scenario.
 

jocay

Banned
I'll do one earlier than everyone else.

Guacanagarix, the cacique of Marien, is slightly more smarter and sees the arrival of the Spaniards as an opportunity of a lifetime. He converts to Christianity, citing that his kingdom's worship of the goddess Iermao is a corrupted form of the Christian veneration of Mary. The Spaniards are given permission to establish a settlement in La Navidad and mine gold in exchange for military assistance against his traditional enemy Caonabo, the cacique of Maguana.

Columbus returns to Hispaniola in 1493 to find the political situation drastically changed - the chiefdom of Marien had annexed Maguana. Notably the Spaniards of La Navidad had trained the locals to use gunpowder weapons and fight in an European manner. The other caciques soon make demands on Columbus, starting a race to acquire European arms and training. Within a decade, the Taino people of Hispaniola are united under the Kingdom of Quisqueya, a semi-Christianized and rapidly modernizing island kingdom allied to the Crown of Castile and Aragon.

Chances are that Quisqueya will fall to Spanish rule but a few decades of breathing room would allow for the Taino language to be written down, among other things. But it could survive.
 
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