Sucessful US Amerindian-African-American Alliance?

[othyrsyde]

I can think of several possibilities for this alliance to occur with specific tribes or alliances of tribes; and many of the reasons raised on why they didn't occur are very valid too. I could add a lot to either having really studied this, but I'm not going to get into it on here because of the astounding level of racism and ignorance I've seen other posters make in this thread and numerous others like it. Beyond making suggestions for an actual TL instead of debate, I really don't feel like exposing myself to it anymore.

If anyone would like to explore these matters, I'd look into colonial Louisiana, the Seminoles, the Muskogee Nation that was established just after the ARW, and even a loyalist alliance of sorts that clings together in the face of losing the war. In the later you could have a Native, black, and *gasp* a white alliance and develop a hella tight tri-racial society.

If you're serious about a TL, you can PM me, but I won't respond to anymore posts here.

Have a good day.

 

[The Admiral Hook]

I've scanned through most of this, honestly, but has anybody mentioned an influx of other smaller populations of downtrodden or oppressed individuals?

If the concept is a state of Muskogee surviving and a swelling population of escaped slaves, freedmen, and displaced Amerindians; there might be an influx of say, Catholics, Jews, Irish, Latin and Asian Americans.

Not to mention sympathetic abolitionist whites, which I haven't seen mentioned.

Florida is also a prime location for exiles, refugees, escaped convicts, etc. from the U.S., Mexico, the Caribbean, and Europe. Not to mention white settlers just looking for land or opportunity.

A couple of generations later I wouldn't be surprised to see a strong, unique, independent nation arising with each individual having a strong self identity first as a proud member of his or her tribe or tribes, race or races, etc. with a romantically defiant pride as a citizen of Muskogee (similar to my perhaps inaccurate view of Australians as proud, patriotic rogues*) as a secondary identity.

The population will grow and quickly.

If it later becomes incorporated into the U.S. it dramatically changes the national discourse (definitely for the better). If not, I can see European immigrants facing the choice between the U.S. and Muskogee.

An interesting thing to imagine (and something that's anyone's guess) is how much will the government and the populace respectively see immigrants. Either with the compassion that comes from shared past experiences with oppression; or with the distrust that same oppression can breed towards outsiders and non-minorities.

If there's not a TL on this yet, I'd love to see one. Anything that at the very least alleviates and at best eliminates the suffering of some, all, or most of the oppressed minorities on the continent of North America would be a hugely enjoyable read...

...and as an Irish American, an African American, and a Native American I'd love to imagine the strong and rebellious nature of a small young nation composed of my people. I'm picturing a libertarian Amero-Austro-New Zealander type identity in attitude and that's intriguing...

*I've known very few Australasians, but the impression I've gotten from American media is that their heritage as frontier people and outlaws is that they've got badass in the blood. Thus the comparison to ttl's Muskogians...

 

[Strategos' Risk]

I'm busy this week so I'm not working on my not-TL, but I'm going to have to partly disagree with that idea. European persecuted refugees, especially urban types such as the ones you mentioned, are unlikely to flee to create a harmonious rainbow anti-imperialist state in the 19th century. Things won't work out that perfectly. However, certainly they can get by simply with escaped slaves, freemen, displaced Native Americans, and at the beginning, Loyalists and former Brits. Weird white adventurer types who assimilate and create a Metis population of the South.

On the other hand, perhaps you can relocate your idea elsewhere, further west... what if instead of Utah being populated by some weird Abrahamic offshoot, you have a multiethnic refugee state there instead, something something Gold Rush? Or you can have both the multiculturalists and the Mormons, and have something like this project.

Obviously the tricky part is what happens when white settlers decided they want Florida.

I'm working on that idea. I think it would take long-term perceptions to shift, coupled with some regional distractions, and some orders from the top (no less a figure than Andrew Jackson, perhaps, reining in state governments) to keep Muskogee from being flattened too quickly.

But that's the weird machinations I had previously thought up. More mundanely, I think if the Floridian natives had banded together and waged a long-running guerrilla war against federal encroachment (not that they didn't, historically!), they might make the U.S. feel that the peninsula is more trouble than it's worth. And why would white settlers want Florida, anyway, besides the land? I'd think they'd desire access to the coast the most, perhaps to build bases or ports.

until the U.S. federal government changed its mind...

Yeah, but that didn't happen until 1905, when Oklahoma was created. That's after the era when settlers would attempt to exterminate Native Americans. True; the Indian Territory was continuously chipped away by infringing settlers, becoming a fraction of its original size, but they still retained autonomy in some parts.

I also have an idea where the Lower Creeks (the pro-American modernizers who the Red Sticks hated on) manage to come out on top in their struggle, and live peacefully in their areas, becoming a buffer state between Muskogee and the United States proper. Until the white settlers gets expansionist and pushes them out, whereupon their remnants flee to join the Seminole and the rest of the Muskogee. And then the U.S. stops expanding because idk they get plum tired or something, this is where my idea falls flat.

 

[Elfwine]

I've scanned through most of this, honestly, but has anybody mentioned an influx of other smaller populations of downtrodden or oppressed individuals?

If the concept is a state of Muskogee surviving and a swelling population of escaped slaves, freedmen, and displaced Amerindians; there might be an influx of say, Catholics, Jews, Irish, Latin and Asian Americans.

A couple of generations later I wouldn't be surprised to see a strong, unique, independent nation arising with each individual having a strong self identity first as a proud member of his or her tribe or tribes, race or races, etc. with a romantically defiant pride as a citizen of Muskogee (similar to my perhaps inaccurate view of Australians as proud, patriotic rogues*) as a secondary identity.

The population will grow and quickly.

Let's see, land of opportunity even allowing for discrimination vs. land of swamp no one wants.

Muskogee's one advantage of the original people Strategos' Risk mentioned is that it isn't worth pursuing for the land hungry white settlers. It doesn't offer much that would make it attractive to those who don't have to worry about being enslaved or exterminated.

There's very little that would make it appealing to those who can work and rise - even with "no Irish need apply" signs in places, the Irish did considerably better in North America than the natives.

Arguably, the Chinese even did better than the natives.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

Scattered ideas from the later parts of my not-TL:

* Second Great Awakening leads to earlier Abolitionist movement leads to regional divisions during President Andrew Jackson's campaigns against the Seminoles, with both Northerners decrying atrocities done against freemen and maroons, while Deep Southerners responding angrily.

* Jeremiah Evarts lives and goes all William Wilberforce, creating a lasting religious-inspired movement for the rights of Native Americans.

* Bleeding Kansas-type violence happens as John Brown types sneak in down south to attempt to help the Seminoles in their guerrilla warfare.

* Muskogee ends up being spared as a compromise that only Jackson could make. It ends up being a larger, more cohesive Indian Territory in this timeline, which the U.S. federal gov't to expels its Native American population to. It is also its Liberia, where many freemen and escaped slaves move/flee to. And also its Australia, because sometimes convicts would go there.

Its effects on slavery and role in the alt-Civil War (if there is one) would be TBD, depending on any of this is plausible or not.

I'm a little bit less enthused about this scenario now, since I feel like I'm essentially rewriting Eric Flint's 1812: Rivers of War series, except setting it in Florida instead of Arkansas.