Highest possible Native American population in North America?

[King Jasper]

As we all know, North America has a very small amount of native americans, only adding up to around 1% of the US population, and about 5% of the Canadian population. But how could this have been changed? What would you need to have large and thriving Native populations today, and maybe even independent Amerindian nation-states? No Trail of tears? America-screw? And how would native americans be viewed in society if they had much higher populations?

 

[manitobot]

Immunity to Old World diseases, domesticable animals like ox and horse, cereal crops like grain. We can begin to see the rise first of city-states in river valleys and eventually bigger settlements and nations.

 

[King Jasper]

Immunity to Old World diseases, domesticable animals like ox and horse, cereal crops like grain. We can begin to see the rise first of city-states in river valleys and eventually bigger settlements and nations.

Could you elaborate? How would natives get immunity to old world diseases and old world animals?

 

[manitobot]

Could you elaborate? How would natives get immunity to old world diseases and old world animals?

Plenty of ways. Shipwrecks, early contact with Vikings or ATL Zheng He, or the Mali. Maybe some animals like the horse are able to remain in the Old World. Maybe the bison can be domesticated. Or when the Europeans come to colonize, they get some diseases back. A combo of everything?there are a lot of ways AH'ers have developed.

 

[ramones1986]

Here's my idea, although I admit that the plausibility would be murky at best:

The Yeniseian ancestors of the Paleo-Eskimos, which means the second wave of prehistoric pre-Columbian migrations to the Americas, were nomadic pastoralist clans, bringing with them tools such as Chalcolithic weapons, domesticated reindeer/caribou (later other ruminants) and relatively elaborate pottery.

 

[Dorozhand]

This analysis awkwardly ignores Latin America. Five million people in Mexico speak Nahuatl IIRC and there's radio and TV broadcasts in it. Much of the population has indigenous ancestry. Then there's the Quechua in Peru, the Mapuche in Chile/Arg, the Guarani in Paraguay, and the innumerable extant peoples of the Amazon, although possibly not for long. The genocide is ongoing in many places, but in others populations are finally starting to recover.

EDIT: Just registered that you specified North America, but my point on Mexico and Centroamerica still stands.

 

[Dorozhand]

Immunity to Old World diseases, domesticable animals like ox and horse, cereal crops like grain. We can begin to see the rise first of city-states in river valleys and eventually bigger settlements and nations.

Wait, do you think that didn't happen IOTL? What about the Mississippians or the Hopi, to name two of many just in the OTL USA?

 

[Optical_Illusion]

When we consider the low population of Native Americans in what is today the United States (and to a lesser extent Canada), there's not really one cause in the form of disease*, but we have to consider a combination of:

1) Relatively low population at time of contact, 2) Disease causing immediate restriction in population and slower growth / stagnation over time after that, 3) Higher mortality rate caused by violence and instability and economic disenfranchisement after contact, 4) European migration and demographic boom.

So you can tackle all these causes one at a time and build something from between them: Boost the population at time of contact by earlier agricultural innovations and stable state building with less war between NA groups. Limit violence and disenfranchisement by building stronger alliances between Europeans and Natives under different political regimes such that Europeans have more interest in growing Native populations than driving off and warring with them. At time of contact make Europe further from its carrying capacity and North America otherwise less attractive to migrants (perhaps its a seat of political oppression there?), and large families less attractive to the European settlers that do arrive.

Disease itself is probably the "hardest" and least negotiable element to fiddle with and a scenario where political relations and the European situation are unchanged, but NA are just more disease resistant is the hardest to imagined being brought about.

To some degree the above does mean a likely "darker" era of colonization from the perspective of Europeans and a more grey one from the perspective of Natives where some groups do well, but are closely integrated into alliances and culture with arriving European people (which means some change and loss), and in any case the cultural and ethnic groups before contact are probably not recognizable from our history (being transformed by further pre-contact innovations in this timeline). The current balance of NA ancestry in the US is inescapably associated with how a combination successful and attractive the English colonies were to Europeans (mainly British) and how culturally separate and traditional NA people remained, and you need to diminish both somewhat...

*And there certainly is a genetic ancestry effect on contracting diseases - see: https://eventpilotadmin.com/web/page.php?page=IntHtml&project=ASHG19&id=1923229 "Higher Native American Ancestry is associated with TB Progression Risk in the Peruvian Population" - but it can't all be that.

 

[UnaiB]

@Alexander Helios

 

[Blorg]

No one gets the idea to cross the ocean.
done

 

[manitobot]

Wait, do you think that didn't happen IOTL? What about the Mississippians or the Hopi, to name two of many just in the OTL USA?

No I am well aware that happened. In this scenario, they would probably be the basis of Proto-states.

 

[Dorozhand]

No I am well aware that happened. In this scenario, they would probably be the basis of Proto-states.

A scenario like our own? The indigenous peoples of the Americas produced cities, states, religions, militaries, and complex systems of agriculture and economic specialization.

 

[manitobot]

A scenario like our own? The indigenous peoples of the Americas produced cities, states, religions, militaries, and complex systems of agriculture and economic specialization.

I mean yes, but in this context, but through no fault of their own it wasn't as advanced as the Europeans they encountered. I believe I have been respectful enough of Native culture and their civilizations; the point of this being we are trying to answer OP's prompt not needlessly diving into semantics.

 

[SenatorErnesto]

As many have pointed out, below the Rio Grande we see thriving examples of native peoples, languages, and cultures surviving. Now, this is largely due to a couple things:

1. These were the most densely populated areas of the Americas.
2. The existence of bureaucratic governmental systems the Spanish could co-opt.
3. Survival through assimilation, and isolation. (Adoption of Catholicism with many native influences, and the unforgiving environment protecting large scale incursions by settler colonies)

Thus, either one can (as others have stated), make a Pre-contact point of divergence whereby North America sees the same level of urbanization and state building as Central and South America. Or, I'll propose a post contact POD.

Would earlier exploration, and settlement of the North American continent provide for an increased chance at survival? I want to say yes, maybe, hopefully if things go a certain way.

When Cortes and Pizarro conquered their respective foes, not only were they incredibly lucky, they also were not that advanced in technology and ability as most people like to project. It was the early 1500s, Europe was not the world conquering beast that it turned into by the time the North American colonies really got going (almost 100-200 years later).

If the Iroquois, Huron, Alqonquin, Cherokee, Cree, and plenty of other indigenous groups were being contacted with 100-150 years prior then they were by the East Coast settler colonies we could see:
1. Increased failure in those colonies, forcing the Europeans to cooperate with natives more
2. More contact, more guns, more time for the Natives to acclimate with these new comers, but not be behest to the explosion the early Industrial Revolution caused.

But, that is just one possible, but maybe not probable way to do this with a post contact POD.

 

[Dorozhand]

I mean yes, but in this context, but through no fault of their own it wasn't as advanced as the Europeans they encountered. I believe I have been respectful enough of Native culture and their civilizations; the point of this being we are trying to answer OP's prompt not needlessly diving into semantics.

That's fair I have no argument against initial material disadvantages leading to subjugation, with some possible advantages that could have been introduced in an ATL that might have salvaged more, but perhaps not to such a degree that a horrific depopulation and cultural annihilation sequence could have been held off perpetually in the short and medium term. I meant to respond to any whiggish notion that the indigenous peoples of the Americas did not use their environment to their advantage as well as the colonialists, or possessed less "advanced" institutions.

 

[Lampiao]

The religious orders also played an important role in "integrating" Native population and the Jesuits did provide decisive help to the Guaranis from the Missions against agressions of the Portuguese and Spanish colonists. With more Jesuits, I can see the Mississipi basin evolving to be more like Parana/Plate basin with a lot of strong independent communities like the South American missions.

 

[manitobot]

That's fair I have no argument against initial material disadvantages leading to subjugation, with some possible advantages that could have been introduced in an ATL that might have salvaged more, but perhaps not to such a degree that a horrific depopulation and cultural annihilation sequence could have been held off perpetually in the short and medium term. I meant to respond to any whiggish notion that the indigenous peoples of the Americas did not use their environment to their advantage as well as the colonialists, or possessed less "advanced" institutions.

Ok glad we cleared that up.