Throwing back the Europeans

Is it possible for the Native Americans to fight off the Europeans? And if so what would America look like today?

(The America's can be taken over at a different date, but perferrable at a date at least 50 years off.)


one of the things that constantly held back the natives was politics and culture

if the Aztec state, was more stabile, and unified, say if there was a diferent more decisive outcome of the flower wars, or less emfasis on state cults and human sacrifice, better organised "federal" sistem, but most importantly if there was peace instead of civil war when Cortes lands, the Aztec have a fighting chance
they had an numerous, and disciplined military, and could no doubt owercome Cortes if he didnt have the help of Aztec enemies

but the whole Aztec empire was faling apart at the time and natives were actually helping the Spanish fight the Aztec


there are similar examples in North America, where the native culture and traditions often prevented them from coming out of a fight alive, and even do they had manny advantages ower the invasive white population they newer seemed to take these advantages in full, and more importantly newer sucesfully united for a longer period of time, or formed a diferent sistem of goverment(there were exeptions such as the Five nations)
also the tribal sistem and mentality seemed to have a lot of problems with intense prolonged warfare, not olnly was there a need to go back home and get food for the winter, but also there were numerous traditions that made sence in longterm inter-tribal wars but had nothing to do with the new situation, the necesity to prove pride or social position got people killed for no reason, the individual reasons for going on warparties were often more important than oweral startegy, and wariors had a habit of going home when they had enough loot and recreation, not to mention tactics were often based on taking revenge for individual deaths, shoving theyre not afraid by charging into rifle fire, or prowing some other point not easily understandable from a western point of view(corect me on any this if it is wrong)

this realy held them back more than any potential lack of gunpowder or initial cultureshock

50 years on or off could do a lot for the mesoamericans, wichever state controls most of the region at that point, but for the north americans not much would change in 50 years
 
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@Abdul hadi Pasha: Removing the Tlaxcallans would definately have cause the initial Spaish invasion to fail. like the idea of having them be the initial source of contamination.

@Broz: That was fairly typical of early societies, especially American ones. Its hard to centralize an empire when the fastest you can go is on foot. And there will always be some group who hates the group in power.
 
@Abdul hadi Pasha: Removing the Tlaxcallans would definately have cause the initial Spaish invasion to fail. like the idea of having them be the initial source of contamination.

@Broz: That was fairly typical of early societies, especially American ones. Its hard to centralize an empire when the fastest you can go is on foot. And there will always be some group who hates the group in power.

Also, the Aztec conquests were recent - more time to consolidate their rule could have made a large difference.

Your comment about going on foot is kind of what I was getting at with a colonial failure. In OTL horses spread pretty fast across America - it would have been nice if that could have happened without conquest.
 
It has occured to me that one POD that could help the Americans quite a bit would be independent discovery of variolation. They did have some infectious diseases and epidemics, and there is really nothing requiring a high tech level in it.
If at least one of the mesoamerican civilisations had that before Colombus, it'll blunt the impact of the empidemics, and they might even gain territory at the expense of their neighbours afterwards.
I've thought about this before too, and it is definitely an intriguing possibility. However, would variolation work for native viruses? What viruses are even known for certain to have originated in the Americas?
 
These conversations are often near sighted. Cause-and-effect can reach very far. Killing Cortes is not the only (or best) way of stopping the Spanish.

It is interesting that the New World Conquistadors were veterans of the Reconquista and that early successful English settlements were taken on by veterans of the English Civil War. Without these violent solders to make a beachhead, the European advance would be much more costly. Perhaps the way to change things in the New World is to change them in Europe. If the Reconquesta was slowed then the Conquistadors would stay in Spain and North Africa.

Instead of having a POD where Cortes fails, how about having it so Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile never get married and the Kingdom of Spain is not formed? The New World might then be developed by Portuguese who may try more trade and much slower conquest. Slower conquest gives the locals time to adapt to new technologies and recover from the massive die offs.

By the time a strong European power tries to muscle in on Central America, a strong local power may be there to defend itself.
 
Instead of having a POD where Cortes fails, how about having it so Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile never get married and the Kingdom of Spain is not formed? The New World might then be developed by Portuguese who may try more trade and much slower conquest. Slower conquest gives the locals time to adapt to new technologies and recover from the massive die offs.

By the time a strong European power tries to muscle in on Central America, a strong local power may be there to defend itself.
Thats a good idea, althouhg i imagine that the various other European powers would arive fairly quickly. I wonder if we can inoculate Central America before the other Europeans arrive?
 
I thought it was more that Cortez co-opted other members of the Mexica Confederacy because those members felt rather oppressed and wanted to get even.

The Cañari, Huanca and Huayla kingdoms (in the Andes) also coopt. with the Spaniards to thwart Manco Inca II's plans to throw the invaders away. Had they not arrived to the siege of Lima in time, history would have changed, with all the conquistadors annihilated (But the Spaniards might have sent another expedition, if it's possible for them). The chances are that they would find a different scenario, where the Incas (And those kings/curacas loyal to them) would have taken control again, or with their former empire once again divided into kingdoms, fighting each other for supremacy. And dying from diseases.
 
These conversations are often near sighted. Cause-and-effect can reach very far. Killing Cortes is not the only (or best) way of stopping the Spanish.

It is interesting that the New World Conquistadors were veterans of the Reconquista and that early successful English settlements were taken on by veterans of the English Civil War. Without these violent solders to make a beachhead, the European advance would be much more costly. Perhaps the way to change things in the New World is to change them in Europe. If the Reconquesta was slowed then the Conquistadors would stay in Spain and North Africa.

Instead of having a POD where Cortes fails, how about having it so Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile never get married and the Kingdom of Spain is not formed? The New World might then be developed by Portuguese who may try more trade and much slower conquest. Slower conquest gives the locals time to adapt to new technologies and recover from the massive die offs.

By the time a strong European power tries to muscle in on Central America, a strong local power may be there to defend itself.

Totally agree. The best possibility is to change something in the European political scenario. What about a POD that causes the Spanish "reconquista" to slow down/stop?

EDIT: I just thought of another possibility. What if the Inca and Aztec empires (or at least one of them) never formed?
 
All this talk of ASBs is nonsensical. The Tuareg fought of the late 19th c French until the turn of the 20th c, and that's with their center of power diectly adjacent and with an ovewhelming technological advantage. Early and expensive failures against the Native Americans would have had many important effects:

-It could have led to high-level decisions to stop wasting money on profitless ventures

-Time could have been bought to recover from disease

-Natives could have adopted European military technology (it's not that hard - sub-Saharan Africans could reproduce rifles and gunpowder)

-Weapons could have been acquired from traders ala Feudal Japan.

-Horses.

The enormous distance makes a huge difference. Given 50 years, the natives could have developed the means to make European conquest too expensive or difficult. In many ways, the centralized Inca and Aztec empires were more vulnerable, not less. They could be much more easily disrupted by disease and war than the more mobile North Americans, who with horses and firearms would be extremely deadly to settlers in the context of the 16th c.
 

Thande

Donor
All this talk of ASBs is nonsensical. The Tuareg fought of the late 19th c French until the turn of the 20th c, and that's with their center of power diectly adjacent and with an ovewhelming technological advantage. Early and expensive failures against the Native Americans would have had many important effects:

While that is an excellent example, there is the counter-corollary that the Tuareg were on the frontier of the French Empire on a different continent to the centre of French power, whereas the Native Americans faced an expanding United States which had continental contiguity, and not that great a distance, between its centres of power and the areas in question.
 
Sure, if for some reason the natives

were more resistant to old world diseases. I'm not sure exactly how or when the Europeans would be 'thrown back', but if you look at Africa and Asia - where the native populations didn't just drop of and die - they eventually got their independence.


Short of that, though, I doubt it. But you have five times as many native Americans around, I'm betting things like the American revolution, ect, at the least get significantly delayed.
 
While that is an excellent example, there is the counter-corollary that the Tuareg were on the frontier of the French Empire on a different continent to the centre of French power, whereas the Native Americans faced an expanding United States which had continental contiguity, and not that great a distance, between its centres of power and the areas in question.

I'm talking about the initial contact with the Europeans. By the time the United States was established it was wayyyyy too late. In the 16th c I think it could have turned out differently.

The Tuareg were adjacent to actual French possessions, which were themselves a day's sailing time from Marseilles. There were also around 50,000 Tuareg total at the turn of the 20th c, yet they managed to resist the French until after WWI.

North American Indians would be operating with the same advantages (except resistance to diseases) plus the technological advantage of Europeans would be much, much smaller, and the disparity in numbers reversed.
 
Well, throwing the Europeans entirely back into the sea would be pretty difficult, but with the exception of the Spanish, I think it's possible. Not that likely though since Amerindians were pretty happy to trade with Europeans (with the exception of the English and Spanish who were less interested in trading and more interested in building an empire).

IOTL there were two really great opportunities for the British to be thrown out of America. In 1622, an Indian Chief named "Opechancanough" launched an attack with a unified alliance of Indian nations against the Virginians and Chesapeake Bay, and managed to wipe out a third of the colonists. IOTL, the Virginians were tipped off by a young Indian boy who wanted to warn an English family he knew, and that allowed the English to rally at Jamestown and face down Opechancanough's forces (Who decided not to engage). If the Virginians are not warned, it is possible for the Virginia Company to be effectively eradicated.

Then, in 1637, the Pequot War broke out in New England. The Pequot wanted to form a grand alliance like Opechancanough, but weren't liked at all by their Indian neighbors. Then in 1675, the Indian known as King Phillip actually managed to create this alliance and wipe out a large number of the English colonists, but by this time numbers were against them. If this alliance and attack could have happened in 1637 like the Pequot wanted, the English settlers wouldn't have the benefit of the "Great Migration." Twenty thousand settlers came between 1630-1640 alone. The smaller number of English colonists would be a huge benefit.

These two events would get rid of a lot of Europeans in North America, and the French, Dutch, and Swedes never really got into colonization, focusing instead on small numbers of Europeans trading goods. Those traders could make the Amerindians much more able to develop with more independence.
 
One way I can see for the Native Americans to become more reistant to local diseases by the time that any European colonials arrive is if in the 1000's or so, the Vikings make it to say... New England or so, and are thus far south enough so that they come into contact with Native Americans to spread technology and diseases.

So by the time the 1500's roll along, the Native Americans would have already lost the 90% of the population and then be able to recover it to the point where they can create civilizations again. And when the hypothetical European power arrvies in the New World they would be more resistant to Old World diseases, and lose only say, 15-20% of their population, and also possess Middle Age Weaponry. With those conditions I think whatever Meso-American civilization present would be more than capable of beating back the expedition and then perhaps maintaining their independance.
 
One way I can see for the Native Americans to become more reistant to local diseases by the time that any European colonials arrive is if in the 1000's or so, the Vikings make it to say... New England or so, and are thus far south enough so that they come into contact with Native Americans to spread technology and diseases.

So by the time the 1500's roll along, the Native Americans would have already lost the 90% of the population and then be able to recover it to the point where they can create civilizations again. And when the hypothetical European power arrvies in the New World they would be more resistant to Old World diseases, and lose only say, 15-20% of their population, and also possess Middle Age Weaponry. With those conditions I think whatever Meso-American civilization present would be more than capable of beating back the expedition and then perhaps maintaining their independance.

I'm not sure the Europeans wouldn't still win out, if the natives were somehow resistant to disease. But I'm pretty sure settlement patterns would be different, and I'm not sure long-term 'settler-colonies' would be as numerous, or as successful. Either way, come the next few centuries, you could see 'anti-colononization' movements by remaining, large if subjugated Native Americans populations like you saw in Asia and Africa.

You'd also probably see a lot less importation of Africans into the New World, since there would be more native labor to exploit.
 
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