The Nations of Hahnúnah

thanks

That is a really nice map though.

It was the map that was my real motivation after I found out there had been a region that the Comanche dominated that is referred to as "Comancheria."

It turns out I erred in using some names for the tribes, by which they never would have been labeled, if the Europeans had remained on the fringe. It's somewhat ironic I went to the trouble to find the actual Iriquois word for Turtle Island but didn't think of getting their actual name for themselves.

It also turns out that the POD I came up with to make such a map possible, (ie Native nations that had time to incorporate what they wanted from European culture without becoming dominated by it,) don't pass the scrutiny of more informed alt historians.

My map of Iroquois territory and my idea of them being aggressive wasn't invented by me; I got both by reading about them. I figured that the Five Civilized Nations of the SE would have become more aggressive if it was possible for them to really be sovereign over themselves and that the Cherokee would dominate except over the Chocksaw who'd be just too far away, especially if the Iroquois were threatening from the north.

If anyone can come up with better POD to explain a map like this of North American (with proper names for the tribes) I'd love to hear them. Maybe it's totally impossible and the map oughta be in ASB. Oh well.

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Hrm....

Well I'm afraid in the sense you mean it, it is literally impossible. It's on the order of asking how the Soviets would have gotten along with a Roman Empire than never fell: If Empire survived, there might not be Slavs, much less Soviets.

It is possible to have a similar map, but the lengths required would render the peoples of North America entirely unrecognizable.

Basically, the issue is twofold. Firstly, that you can't really eliminate the diseases coming from the Old World.

It's really ASB to eliminate domestication of pigs, cattle, and poultry, which would be a prerequisite to even start. That would make the disease issue smaller, probably, but several major diseases probably crossed from non-domesticates. Even if not, the Europeans would still be bringing the Black Plague, Malaria, and Yellow Fever - which were enormous killers all on their lonesome. And to top things all off, all these divergences would mean that nothing remotely resembling the cultural-linguistic entities "English, Spanish, and French" would ever exist.

The other side of the coin is getting a disease environment in the Americas that "strikes back" so intensely that Eurasian civilization receives a nearly equal setback. Then both sides rebuild while technology exchanges.

That necessitates a large-scale forgotten settlement of the New World in the Classical or Pre-Classical Era. Say.... Punics settle the Canaries, Carthage takes over when their focus shifts west after the first war with the Romans, then some diehards flee there after the second. The community gets caught up in the third Punic War and, expecting to be sacked, several ships flee west as Roman sails appear on the horizon. By necessity they carry sheep, goats, cattle, pigs, horses, chickens, cats, and seed crops on board. By luck they bring smallpox, malaria, and rats infected with a noninfectious relative of Ursina pestis.

They arrive in the Caribbean and set up shop on Cuba and Santo Domingo. They survive by virtue of native goodwill, establish themselves with native slave labor, and dominate the islands after a native apocalypse. It's still better than the OTL impact, so the islands develop a mixture of Punic and local culture. By the time the Roman Empire breaks up around 500, the diseases, crops, and livestock have been dispersed across large parts of the Americas. Five centuries after that, the American rat plague has crossed to humans, causing several mass epidemics. By 1500, the America's are host to cultures with larger populations.... and burdened by a variety of nasty infectious diseases that have diverged dramatically from their Old World relatives. The divergence is so pronounced that there is incomplete immunity to New World diseases, even in those that have suffered from Old World equivalents.

The resulting die-off, stretching over a century and a half, reduces the world's population by roughly two-thirds. The worst hit areas are the Americas and Europe.

Of course by this time, only the most distant linguistic relatives to the Iroquois, Cherokee, or Comanche exist. They speak languages that would be mutually unintelligible, live differently, practice different social structures and religious systems, and probably reside in completely different places. Some don't exist. It's not so much that they were killed off. They simply never were.
 
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Hrm....

Well I'm afraid in the sense you mean it, it is literally impossible. It's on the order of asking how the Soviets would have gotten along with a Roman Empire than never fell: If Empire survived, there might not be Slavs, much less Soviets.

It is possible to have a similar map, but the lengths required would render the peoples of North America entirely unrecognizable.

Basically, the issue is twofold. Firstly, that you can't really eliminate the diseases coming from the Old World.

It's really ASB to eliminate domestication of pigs, cattle, and poultry, which would be a prerequisite to even start. That would make the disease issue smaller, probably, but several major diseases probably crossed from non-domesticates. Even if not, the Europeans would still be bringing the Black Plague, Malaria, and Yellow Fever - which were enormous killers all on their lonesome. And to top things all off, all these divergences would mean that nothing remotely resembling the cultural-linguistic entities "English, Spanish, and French" would ever exist.

The other side of the coin is getting a disease environment in the Americas that "strikes back" so intensely that Eurasian civilization receives a nearly equal setback. Then both sides rebuild while technology exchanges.

That necessitates a large-scale forgotten settlement of the New World in the Classical or Pre-Classical Era. Say.... Punics settle the Canaries, Carthage takes over when their focus shifts west after the first war with the Romans, then some diehards flee there after the second. The community gets caught up in the third Punic War and, expecting to be sacked, several ships flee west as Roman sails appear on the horizon. By necessity they carry sheep, goats, cattle, pigs, horses, chickens, cats, and seed crops on board. By luck they bring smallpox, malaria, and rats infected with a noninfectious relative of Ursina pestis.

They arrive in the Caribbean and set up shop on Cuba and Santo Domingo. They survive by virtue of native goodwill, establish themselves with native slave labor, and dominate the islands after a native apocalypse. It's still better than the OTL impact, so the islands develop a mixture of Punic and local culture. By the time the Roman Empire breaks up around 500, the diseases, crops, and livestock have been dispersed across large parts of the Americas. Five centuries after that, the American rat plague has crossed to humans, causing several mass epidemics. By 1500, the America's are host to cultures with larger populations.... and burdened by a variety of nasty infectious diseases that have diverged dramatically from their Old World relatives. The divergence is so pronounced that there is incomplete immunity to New World diseases, even in those that have suffered from Old World equivalents.

The resulting die-off, stretching over a century and a half, reduces the world's population by roughly two-thirds. The worst hit areas are the Americas and Europe.

Of course by this time, only the most distant linguistic relatives to the Iroquois, Cherokee, or Comanche exist. They speak languages that would be mutually unintelligible, live differently, practice different social structures and religious systems, and probably reside in completely different places. Some don't exist. It's not so much that they were killed off. They simply never were.

I like this idea, but I have some nitpicks...

Due to higher population in the old world, there should be more diseases and hence better immunity. That won't prevent a large-scale die-off, naturally, but my guess is that the old world has a smaller death-ratio due to this. Another point is that technological development in the old world would quite likely still surpass that of the Americas. For once, that gives them relative military superiority, but that also gives them medical advances that likely reduce the death toll of the old world as well.

As a result, you'll have them meet, you'll have a massive die-off around the world, and after that Europe will still be stronger than the Americas. The main difference will be that colonialization of the Americas will follow patterns in Asia, with a large and developped native population and no settlers available due to Europe being resettled. But IMHO Europeans will still conquer the lands that ITTL are much more valuable than IOTL.
 
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