How could a faster settlment of the American West benefit Native Americans?

I recall reading in one forumn some time ago about how the situation of an independent CSA might cause the US to settle its western territories faster. One poster commented that this could end up being beneficial to the Native populace by avoiding the reservation system as it was post ACW. I have failed to find that forumn again though and I cannot recall who made the post and what further details they provided. Could anyone hear please expand on how this could work and how a faster settlement of the American west could somehow lead to situations and agreements that would be beneficial to the Native American populace in the long run. Thank you.
 
I see no reason why a speedier ethnic cleansing would benefit Natives. The only positive outcome is instead of the tribes being confined to reservations, is there's more of an effort to transform them into a proxy force to guard the west from CSA expansion. Perhaps a giant reservation along the border?

Aside from just the Union government going into a panic over the possibility of CS laying claim to the southwest and great plains, there's not much of a probability of them being able to hold onto any such claims if another war resulted. Most likely the US would be more aggressive against the tribes in some effort of boosting national moral with military victories, leading to worse massacres than OTL.

There's my two cents on the topic.
 
I would think it would be WORSE for Native Americans. Think of it, you have guys like Grant (since he would have probably been an Indian fighter if the C.S. won) Sherman and Sheridan who were all vicious Indian killers pissed off they lost the war. They'd probably go balistic on most tribes like the SIoux. Granted those tribes that were in alliance with the government like the Crow (Crow scouts were especially common in the U.S. military).

I really don't see how faster settlement benefits them.
 
It could be a mixed bag - Some, including Turtledove had the USA go full genoicide. Some have the US be much more freindly with the Native Americans.

I personally think it would be much more mixed, and a lot of it would depend on little details.

In my Communist CSA work for example, the Souix, Lakota and Cheyanne get a much more favorable settlement with the US government, where there is no Souix Wars, and where there is still a large Native American presence in the region. The reason? The territorial governor is General Lew Wallace, who in OTL had a very favorable view of Native Americans, and had he not been negotiating with Apache, he may have done something similar in the Southwest where he was in charge of in OTL.

In contrast, with the Arizona territory much more militarized in TTL, thanks to CSA Texas across the border, so rather than Lew Wallace, Sherman gets put in charge, with the Custer brothers making a name for themsleves wiping out the Apache.
 
I just don't see how this could be better for Native Americans, especially given that many in the Five Civilized tribes in Indian Territory sided with the Confederacy. The purpose of western settlement was to people the West with "American" settlers (meaning European-Americans), If the US wanted to fill these areas with more US citizens, faster, to contain possible CSA expansion, "ethnic cleansing" aimed at the American Indians would be more thorough and far worse than OTL.
 
the main problem with the USA's treatment of the native population was that it was a chaotic affair with no real clear idea of how it was to be done. The Federal government basically wanted them to stay quietly on their reservations and was perfectly willing to bear the cost of feeding them, but they also managed to hire an incredible number of absolutely corrupt Agents who didn't do their jobs; far too many times, the natives 'went off the reservation' because they were starving. Far too many whites wanted all the natives dead, sad as it is to say. There were several Christian missionary groups who actually cared about the natives' well being but hated their cultures and did their best to 'educate' them out of it.
In the aftermath of a lost ACW, it's not really clear if the west would be settled all that much faster; in OTL, quite a few of the western settlers were from the south. OTOH, in OTL, some of that settlement after the war actually went to the south, which had a lot of unsettled land inside it's borders. So, in this scenario, the rate of settlement might be about the same; no settlers from the south, but no 'distraction' from settling the west and going south instead. As far as the natives are concerned... it really depends on what the Federal government does. If they do a better job of hiring Agents, things might be better for the natives (for a while; eventually, the best of their lands are still going to be coveted by the whites). If not, then there will be the same old sad conflicts...
 
Don't know about speed, but if the US needs to defend the border with the Confederacy on the cheap or use "deniable" means to screw with the CSA, I could imagine the more powerful or warlike tribes could make useful proxies. That would mean not screwing with them TOO much.

The Comanches would be particularly threatening to Texas given how powerful they were (I'm reading "Empire of the Summer Moon" now and they come off to me as North American Mongols whupping up on everybody). The Union supplying them safe havens, more guns, etc. would make them even more dangerous.
 
(I'm reading "Empire of the Summer Moon" now and they come off to me as North American Mongols whupping up on everybody).

I really love that book. That said, I think that Gwynne does try to oversell the Comanche's military ability. They were good at launching raids far from their territory, and they were good at defending themselves on their own turf, but unlike the Mongols they could not sustain long term warfare against an enemy for a variety of reasons*.

However, Native buffer states could potentially work-it's how the Seminole thrived in Florida before the Spanish were kicked out, and it's how the Kickapoo and other tribes have survived in North Mexico. Especially since the Great Plains are awful to farm on, if the government doesn't encourage heavy settlement on them and supplies and arms the Natives against potential Confederate encursions, that would work.

In the Confederacy, Indians could do very well. Slave states tend to attract less immigration, so there would be less settlers looking for land. The Confederacy could grant some of the already established reservations in Oklahoma greater autonomy and support in exchange for their acting as a bulwark against potential Northerner invasion.





*said reasons being: no professional soldiers, so every man leaving to fight was a man unable to get food, a need to build consensus to carry out military actions so no ability for a general to direct a campaign, a population collapsing due to disease, and, of course, the precursors of machine guns.
 
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