Making things more favorable for First Nations

I'm not so much talking about giving them advantages or anything ASB but more along the lines of Europeans treating them differently after contact. Is a more peaceful coexistence possible?
 
Term for the Native Americans in Canada.
Oh, all right. I'm European and never knew it, thanks. :)

I'm not really an expert here but I would eventually see conflicts of interests arise, that's unavoidable if Canada grows like OTL. Maybe an independent Indian nation, used by Britain to counter a more hostile US could work.
 
I can't remember the details but I asked about the treatment of Native Americans in a CSA victory TL once and some said it would be better. If the CSA kept the Indian Territory they would most likely respect their promise to honor their independence and land claims within it. It was also stated to me that the settlement of the western US would likely occur faster and the Indian Wars would be finished sooner and that somehow that would butterfly the reservations system. I can't remember the specifics though so if anyone could refresh my memory please do.

Also may a hard British Victory in the war of 1812 which lead to the creation of a Native lead buffer state between Canada and the Us could help. If any TL's on this site involve that though I haven't read them.
 
I'm not so much talking about giving them advantages or anything ASB but more along the lines of Europeans treating them differently after contact. Is a more peaceful coexistence possible?

Well, the trouble with that is that the Europeans could be incredibly destructive when they thought that they were doing the Natives a favor (see the Spanish Missions and the US and Canadian boarding schools). Many times, the best things that the colonizers could do for the First Nations is leave them the hell alone.

More colonizers in the game could actually help with this. Competing rival powers could enforce 'neutral zones' between the colonies where settlers would be forbidden. These border areas could become a refuge for Natives, who could play the different powers against each-other, getting promises of autonomy in exchange for volunteering to act as scouts and informants against the other side.
 
Also perhaps changing the cultures of the plains tribes from being War and Warrior based to something else so as to avoid fighting between tribes and settlers. Also many of the negative view on natives came from the natives viewing settlers as invading forces and treating them as such by killing and mutilating them. Other colonizers saw this as undeserved aggression. Of course that is an oversimplification of things.
 
Also perhaps changing the cultures of the plains tribes from being War and Warrior based to something else so as to avoid fighting between tribes and settlers.

If the Plains tribes did not fight, they would have been destroyed if not by violence then by disease. Pacifism was never considered a reason for peace or coexistence by European settlers.
 
One thing is sure - had New France survived and relatively strong (but not too much...), instead of a british OR USA hegemon, maybe things would be in general at least a bit better. It was not ideal, I ain,t going to whitewash - the slavery of amerindian natives may survive some more, by example - but of all the powers around, it was generally the least bad for natives...

Of course, butterflies or changes may make that things take weird or less nice turns...
 
One thing is sure - had New France survived and relatively strong (but not too much...), instead of a british OR USA hegemon, maybe things would be in general at least a bit better. It was not ideal, I ain,t going to whitewash - the slavery of amerindian natives may survive some more, by example - but of all the powers around, it was generally the least bad for natives...

Of course, butterflies or changes may make that things take weird or less nice turns...
Why would the French be better?
 
Why would the French be better?

There is a few factors, but amongst them basically the nature of colonial efforts was different and so less brutality. There was that Peace of Braves, by examples... a certain cooperativity was there, if interested and all, yeah.

You shall note that after Montréal and so the colony(ies) felt, the native leader Pontiac went on a rebelion as a sort of baroud d'honneur...

All in all, I am not saying it was ideal. And in New France had as much manpower, the army and all that the brito-american states had, things may be darker, but... of ALL the (main) colonial powers of Americas, it was the 'least worse'.
 
All in all, I am not saying it was ideal. And in New France had as much manpower, the army and all that the brito-american states had, things may be darker, but... of ALL the (main) colonial powers of Americas, it was the 'least worse'.

Not to poo-poo my own ancestors but I think the fact there were less of them also helped. If you had more settlers, there would probably had been demands for the borders of the "small nations" to renegociated to the french's advantage to open up more land.
 
Not to poo-poo my own ancestors but I think the fact there were less of them also helped. If you had more settlers, there would probably had been demands for the borders of the "small nations" to renegociated to the french's advantage to open up more land.

I actually implied this - 'but not too powerfull...', by example.
 
I think Twovultures has it best. As long as North America was essentially the ground for only one or two European or EuroAmerican states to expand, and these states were essentially English/British in background, the Natives' gooses were cooked.

The only way to give native peoples a chance to (1) exactly figure out the threat Europeans were to their way of life and independence, and (2) have the time to adapt by borrowing elements of European culture (technology, etc) without being either conquered, pushed aside, or paternalistically "civilized" by well-meaning missionaries would be a more diverse and competitive European conquest of North America. Keep New France as a viable entity with its long range trade networks. Limit most English colonies to what became the OTL USA. Keep Louisiana (the "Big Louisisna") a sparsely populated French or Spanish colony. Have Russia be a bigger player competing with Spain in the west.

In such a situation, there would be many nominally colonized but essentially uncontrolled buffer areas where indigenous and displaced native could concentrate, communicate, and learn to play the Europeans off against each other by offering trade, military assistance, etc., with one side or the other. This happened OTL (the Pawnee and Wichita being good examples in the Southern and Central Plains), but once most of North America became essentially a British and US show, these tribes lost their bargaining ability. Had natives retained their value to Europeans longer as trade partners or military surrogates, at a certain point the formal existence of Native buffer states might be recognized by one or more of the colonizers.

Nothing short of a asteroid hitting Europe will save Native Americans from falling under European hegemony once settlement begins. The technological and sociopolitical difference between the two culture sets is just too great. But there might have been ways for some native groups to preserve their independence as partners (junior partners, but at least true partners) to European or Euroametrican powers
 
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