What countries/regions could have survived European colonization?

Maybe if the Mississippians were less heavily wrecked by diseases, they could have staved off colonization.
 
The Inca could have survived. Its amazing they did not, as they had everything. Huge population, territorial depth, defensible terrain and advanced infrastructure, advantageous geographical location (away from the Atlantic and the european's immediate reach), and a good administration.

Aztecs by contrast had a very unstable political system, it wasn't even really one state, but rather one city having subjugated dozens others through military might and keeping them under forceful vassalization. Their infrastructure wasn't that great beyond the amazing Tenochtitlan, and they happened to have a very desirable geographic location... for the Spanish.
 
So we have
-Inca
-Ethiopia
-Iroquois
-Cahokia/Mississippian
-Swahilia
-Azteca
-India
-also probably all of mainland Asia and North Africa
 

katchen

Banned
Let's not forget Vietnam (Tonkin and Annam). It would take some very modest butterflies (BEIC opens up ports of Haiphong and Hue after the Opium Wars, creating a "treaty ports" situation in Vietnam--and maybe even Cambodia and Thailand that keeps the French from getting into Da Nang. The French are forced to look to Korea or even the Ryukyus for a back door into China.
 
I think Luzon or rather Selurong would not be completely conquered by the Spanish if Tondo was not sacked by Brunei, decades before the Spanish arrived, it would be on a similar scenario as Mindanao during the Spanish colonization era, I think Japan can take advantage of that scenario as well using the Tondo's successor state as their pawn.
 
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I'm not an expert on diseases and how they transfer, so I'm not sure if there's a chance to avoid that mess, but if it's there, then absolutely a POD in the Americas themselves would be awesome indeed.

I'm moderately knowledgeable about diseases. In essence, there is no way that the native Americans could cope with European diseases without actually contracting the diseases and the 'weak' dying out - or - avoiding getting the disease in the first place - or - getting a weaker or similar disease that gives you a form of immunity (cow pox to fight small pox for example).

In very basic terms (with virus'):

1 - you get the disease;
2 - your natural immunity will attempt to fight off the disease. This is made a LOT easier if your body has had that (or a similar) disease before.
3 - You get sick. Dependant upon your ability to fight off the diseaese you will not even know that you're sick or you will die, or somewhere in between.
4 - At point 3 you are able to pass on the disease. If the people around you have a low ability to fight the disease the area will end up being affected by a pandemic.
5 - You get better - or you die.
6 - At point 5 you now either have an increased chance of fighting off a mutated version of the disease - or you're dead.

Given the above, the ONLY way the native population of the Americas can deal with European diseases is to catch the disease. The only way this can have a less effect than it did historically is for ASB's to give them some kind of immunity, or you somehow give them an ability to fight off the disease via point 2 (cows with cowpox in the case of Small Pox). The trouble is, these also come from Europe. Unless somehow the native population get a whole bunch of cows with cow pox without also getting in contact with Small Pox it's a bit of a forgone conclusion.

I'm also unsure of how cowpox would affect the native population. Probably sick but not dead... which is a good thing if you want to stop European colonisation.
 
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Somewhat reversed, somewhat straight - could the kingdom of Siam/modern Thailand would have survived full on colonial attempt? (Did it, like from France from Indochina?)
 
Somewhat reversed, somewhat straight - could the kingdom of Siam/modern Thailand would have survived full on colonial attempt? (Did it, like from France from Indochina?)

They did well enough when given/sold enough weaponry by France's rivals before/during WW2. It's not out of the question at all.

At the same time, I'm gonna drone on about grand movements etc. and contradict Hummingbird a bit there. While every individual expedition depended on something going right for the Europeans and something going wrong for their opponents, the fact that it kept happening so consistently when faced with the widest possible variety of opponents really makes me think there was something systemic to all this.

In the 1500-1600 period, besides the Spanish conquest of the Americas, there's the Portuguese colonies in Africa and Arabia and India, Portuguese and Dutch and Spanish colonies and conquests in East Indies, Russian expansion all the way east, and minor colonial efforts by Sweden and France and Britain and Denmark. European mercenaries destroyed Songhai and won and lost the Algerian coast several times. European mercenaries fought for Ethiopia against the Somalis, and successfully. By land, sea, and colonial effort, this is either a real trend or something that looks a lot like a real trend.
 
They did well enough when given/sold enough weaponry by France's rivals before/during WW2. It's not out of the question at all.

At the same time, I'm gonna drone on about grand movements etc. and contradict Hummingbird a bit there. While every individual expedition depended on something going right for the Europeans and something going wrong for their opponents, the fact that it kept happening so consistently when faced with the widest possible variety of opponents really makes me think there was something systemic to all this.

In the 1500-1600 period, besides the Spanish conquest of the Americas, there's the Portuguese colonies in Africa and Arabia and India, Portuguese and Dutch and Spanish colonies and conquests in East Indies, Russian expansion all the way east, and minor colonial efforts by Sweden and France and Britain and Denmark. European mercenaries destroyed Songhai and won and lost the Algerian coast several times. European mercenaries fought for Ethiopia against the Somalis, and successfully. By land, sea, and colonial effort, this is either a real trend or something that looks a lot like a real trend.
It was a trend, but earlier on, you had soldiers who easily took on European soldiers (Mughals in the 16th to early 18th century). Not to mention many attempts to recruit and train troops according to European standards when that became a mainstay of military training. But it is still easily butterflyable. The trends may remain, but if you have another power become more interested in actual trade and exploration like the Mughals, said power actually has the capability to challenge and upheave the entire Indian Kcean trade.

EDIT: also, a lot of early colonialism was through luck in negotiating. So, yeah. A heck of a lot of room to move around in. The Brits didn't even get their hands into full Indian trade til Farrukhsiyar, one of the exceptionally weak emperors of the crumbling Mughal dynasty.
 
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The Navajo manage to avoid having their language wiped out, to the point that it's one of few living Native American languages (especially in North America), because of their geographic location. Is it possible that they could have found a way to resist colonization?
 
I have a big post about infantry doctrine in 18th C south india and how some changes in the TL could lead to the south indian states resisting direct colonisation and existing like Thailand as independent clients. I'll try and dig it up
 
The Inca could have survived. Its amazing they did not, as they had everything. Huge population, territorial depth, defensible terrain and advanced infrastructure, advantageous geographical location (away from the Atlantic and the european's immediate reach), and a good administration.

The arrival of the Spanish coinciding with their civil war certainly wasn't helpful. Butterfly that away somehow and you could have some resistance to the Spanish.
 

Sulemain

Banned
I have a big post about infantry doctrine in 18th C south india and how some changes in the TL could lead to the south indian states resisting direct colonisation and existing like Thailand as independent clients. I'll try and dig it up

Weren't some Indian states (Mysore and the Sikh Empire?) about *this* close from becoming equal to any European power?

No matter how many times and different things I read about the European (not just British) rule over India, I'm amazed that a) we got it and b) we kept it. We couldn't keep the 13 American Colonies, god knows how we kept India.
 
The Navajo manage to avoid having their language wiped out, to the point that it's one of few living Native American languages (especially in North America), because of their geographic location. Is it possible that they could have found a way to resist colonization?

It's interesting to note that some amerindians nations of Canada got an easier deal too - the british columbian nations had fared better and had some more avantageous treaties I heard, and some of Quebec's and maybe related nations up the colder north regions like Crees didn't got any real colonial effort at start, only feeling the white men's pressure in the 'nation building' era.
 

Flubber

Banned
The Navajo manage to avoid having their language wiped out, to the point that it's one of few living Native American languages (especially in North America), because of their geographic location. Is it possible that they could have found a way to resist colonization?


Unlikely because, among many other things, they lacked the political sophistication for a successful or even long term resistance.

Look at the nearby Pueblo for example. In the late 1600s, they rose and quickly drove the Spanish out. In the immediate aftermath of the uprising, the leader of the revolt utterly failed to unite the various settlements in any manner. Later, in response to rumors of French explorations and land claims in region, the Spanish returned with little effort. Later, around 1700, the Pueblo rose again. This time the Spanish had a reason to stay and put down the revolt with alacrity.

While the ability of any Amerind people to resist European colonization is going to depend on many factors, the most important factor will be geography. Do the peoples in question inhabit territory shitty enough or remote enough for Europeans to ignore? If yes, those peoples may have the time needed to develop the other factors a successful resistance requires.
 
Weren't some Indian states (Mysore and the Sikh Empire?) about *this* close from becoming equal to any European power?

Not really. They managed to copy some European techniques. But politically they were hopelessly unstable in the long term.

As noted, once is an accident, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. There are far too many British victories over native Indian armies to be explained as a run of good luck; far too much political weakness and division among Indians to be explained as bad luck.

No matter how many times and different things I read about the European (not just British) rule over India, I'm amazed that a) we got it and b) we kept it. We couldn't keep the 13 American Colonies, god knows how we kept India.

It took a fair amount of incompetence and bad luck to lose the American colonies. (And good luck for the Americans: how many countries just starting out have a squad of geniuses like Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams?)
 

katchen

Banned
Even more difficult than surviving European political colonization and conquest was surviving European economic colonization and conquest. Particularly the British and the Americans often preferred to dominate countries through local elites rather than rule directly (the Dutch preferred this option up until the Napoleonic Wars too).
Those elites were free to enrich themselves, but God help them if they attempted to help their countries grow or advance in any way. The British, for example, forbade the Qajar shahs of Iran from building any railroads out of fear the Russians might benefit from them.
It took a Japan, a nation able to both send young people abroad to learn technical skills for Japan and impenetrable enough to foreign business to build up it's own business elite, to challenge the West at it's own game. Even then it was hardly treated fairly.
And we can't even get into the continuation of these "beggar thy neighbor" policies aimed at fostering dependency by local elites without shifting to the post 1900 forums.
 
Not really. They managed to copy some European techniques. But politically they were hopelessly unstable in the long term.

As noted, once is an accident, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. There are far too many British victories over native Indian armies to be explained as a run of good luck; far too much political weakness and division among Indians to be explained as bad luck.)

I don't think it was bad luck either. It was a combination of South India being affected by various instances of political turmoil combined with superior military doctrine on the part of the Company (the short answer is disciplined line infantry) I'll keep this as a placeholder- I've been too busy today but in another thread I have a long and detailed post about the difference between Indian and European military doctrine. I'll also develop my thoughts on the political situation. For what it's worth I don't think the South Indian states (Mysore, Hyderabad and Travancore) can resist British (or other European) hegemony. There are, however, scenarios where they can be balance of power playing independent states like Siam.
 
It took a fair amount of incompetence and bad luck to lose the American colonies. (And good luck for the Americans: how many countries just starting out have a squad of geniuses like Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams?)
That same amount of luck transferred over to actually get India. Then skill came into it to keep it.

I wouldn't necessarily say Mysore was too unstable politically to last, but the Sikh Empire really was, what with the autonomous misls. At the same time, however, if one counts the Afghans, they were definitely stable (if you count centralised around one dynasty stable).
 
The Maori could have survived I think, due to being colonised far later than most. It would be unlikely, but it might happen.

My favourite scenario is one where the British take Australia, as per usual, but for reasons (?) end up not claiming all of NZ, or at all. The French do, but for various reasons of distraction, policy and over-reach never really put a lot of effort into the colonisation project and instead run the easy route of colonising the South Island but leaving the North Island.

But because there is no pressure from *Australia like in OTL for settlement of the North Island, the North Island Maori, representing the vast majority of Maori, may have more ability to retain sovereignty, even if local. IOTL, it took a decade or so of Imperial/Settler warmaking, with substantial Maori assistance to break the 3-4 big groupings/alliances and even then, the Settler government didn't really break the Maori properly till the late 19th century (land alienation, cultural attack etc). There were many people on the Imperial or Settler side who were relatively humane by the day's standards too.

With a less expansive colonial power (in direct rule), one without OTL economic pressures and with a more humane late colonial viewpoint, it is almost possible that the Maori could retain substantive control, almost like a form of protectorate into the 20th century.
 
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