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Say there's a timeline where, for whatever reason, the Europeans don't colonize the Americas extensively, limiting contact to trade and missionaries. Perhaps the medieval period continues longer and peasants remain tied to the land, or maybe there's more depopulation from the plagues which encourages people to stay on the continent. Maybe there's no Protestant reformation so there aren't as many religious minorities seeking a new home in the west. The point is that there's a few centuries between the discovery of the Americas and European attempts to conquer them. If there's no European large scale colonization and conquest, could the native populations recover and reform into states that could remain independent from later European attempts to conquer them? Would two centuries be enough for the population to rebound? Even if they don't remain independent, could they at least get a fate like the African and Asian colonies where they are eventually returned to native rule?
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