Plausibility Check: Native American Nation

An opinion poll

  • A Native American Nation would be a positive thing despite detracting from the OTL US

    Votes: 40 69.0%
  • The United States has been a positive force for the world, more so than a native nation could be

    Votes: 18 31.0%

  • Total voters
    58
Well, the Inuit aren't as native as most Native Americans, having arrived thousands of years later, even though they're more native than Europeans et. al.

And in the southern tip of Greenland, weren't Viking settlers actually the first people living there? So I don't think Greenland qualifies as a native state.

Paraguay and Peru are sort of native states, though.

I think there may have been people in Greenland before the vikings, but they died out before the Vikings got there, so the Icelanders probably have a better claim to being natives than the Inuit.
 
One of the TL-ideas I toy with but never write is inventing a Native empire POD's around 1000AD in the "East-North-Central", probably on the Ohio river. I would try not to model it on the Roman Empire as closely as Turtledove's CSA is OTL's Germany, but the general idea is:

- have a coherent, well-managed empire with Urban centres, a good degree of technological, economical, scientific [medical!] and military potential and a population of (even after the European diseases rush through the continent) several million.

-it needs to have a good deal of cohesion. Of course, most of the realm would have been conquered, but like Rome it would have an ability to integrate those regions in the following decades

-it is an "Inland Empire", its naval abilities restricted to rivers (which are its main lifelines) i.e. when the Europeans arrive on the seaboards, these regions will not belong to this empire. But its existence and importance would be known throughout North America.
I imagine a steady, "organic" growth of the empire and its culture until, when in the early 18th century, the European "Frontier" is at more and more places a "Border".
At this point of time, this Empire might basicallz reach from the Tennessee to the Great Lakes, from the Appalachians to the Missouri.

-they are technologically inferior to the Europeans to a degree, but adaptable enough that they would never be more than a step behind, a gap which would even close as time progresses.
 
Somewhat related to the OP: what is the likelihood of having multiple *Oklahomas, in other words Native-run and majority-populated states? I imagine there'd need to be a serious POD or two to make it happen, but could such a thing exist within the US?
 
The best PoD might be something in British history. Something on the order of ten times the number of British than French immigrants settled in North America. The comparatively tiny French colonies had to rely on Native Americans to survive. A North America where, for whatever reason, far fewer Britons arrived would be very different. There would not be the population pressures on the eastern seaboard driving the land lust. I don't know what that PoD could be.
 

birdboy2000

Banned
No Alaska gold rush? Other regions that far north, like Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and Greenland, never got that much in the way of foreign settlement - if Alaskan gold can somehow stay undiscovered, or if its discovery happens in circumstances which don't lead to everyone flooding in in hopes of getting a piece, perhaps it could maintain an indigenous majority. OTL at 19.1% native it's still the highest in the country.
 
Well, maybe the POD could be that there's no Trail of Tears and no relocating of the natives to Oklahoma.
 
Somewhat related to the OP: what is the likelihood of having multiple *Oklahomas, in other words Native-run and majority-populated states? I imagine there'd need to be a serious POD or two to make it happen, but could such a thing exist within the US?

Their establishment, while unlikely, is within the realm of plausibility, given the right set of pre-1800 (or there about) PODs. The difficult and near impossible part would be of course keeping them native majority much past the 1840s (baring of course the usual shatter the US scenario coming to pass) due to the influx of white settlers into the heartland of the continent. I did establish some native majority provinces in my CoHE TL and in the end ran into this very barrier.
 
This is only possible in Mesoamerica and South America, this can happen if the Native Americans in OTL USA have enough population density just like Mesoamerica and South America
 
Where is the variant "A native American Nation would save us from the Evil Empire USA, but I don't believe Native Americans could overcome European colonizers"?
 
Have the anti-Federalists win and the US disintegrates a few years later under the articles of confederation. The British would probably prop up a Northwest Confederacy-type state. While white settlement would be a problem, it could be possibly be slowed down and any newcomers integrated to create a metis-like culture.
 
What about during a staranger 1848?
If you want to include Mexico, then you can have a 1848 POD of the Yucatecan Army having even less success in holding back the Maya rebels, and the drive to Merida is completed sooner than IOTL, allowing for a Maya takeover over the former Republic of Yucatan. Or alternatively, Jacinto Pat and Cecilio Chi succeed in holding the army together at Merida to make the final drive. From there you've got a Maya nation, therefore a Native American nation with a good chance of surviving up to the present day.
 
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