What if the American Indians had never given up?

What if the native americans, instead of giving up, had fled into the mountains and rugged areas of the west and decided to continue a struggle for freedom and liberation of their lands? Their targets could be settlers and the various railroads. Eventually they could learn to use bombs to blow up things like bridges.

Question 1. What could they have accomplished?

Question 2. How would they be looked at today?

Thing is right now while their lives can suck on a reservation, they are still alive and their culture mostly intact. They can even attend college at their own Universities.

Now if they had resorted to bombings like the IRA had their might not be so much compassion towards them.

What do you all think?

Personally, I think that they learned to accept the fact they were indeed beaten and had no choice but to leave their old ways of life, but kept their heritage, is the reason they are still around and kicking today.
 
Ask Ian to move this to pre-1900 where it belongs. As for the OP: then the US uses methods even less likely to endear them to Amnesty than they did IOTL.
 
Man, I wish AIHA were still around...now that would be some epic fun.

On topic: Guerillas and terrorists need a civilian population to hide in and to provide recruits and supplies. You can't hide and support a civilian population in the mountains, and the OTL U.S. government already used tactics that would make impossible for a guerilla band to gain access to surrendered Indian bands.
 
I really was unsure whether to make it before or after 1900 since Wounded Knee took place in the 1890's and some of the problems with the FBI on indian lands involving people like Leonard Peltier took place in the 1960's.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
The Native American population of the Western United States would have been wiped out as effectively as the wolf or buffalo population was, and with about as much concern.

White Americans back then didn't much care how the "Indian Problem" was solved, and the opion of anyone except the White Americans didn't mean a damned thing.
 
All of them die, and forever American fathers will have to explain to their children where all of the Indians went. The end.
 

Roy Batty

Banned
What if the native americans, instead of giving up, had fled into the mountains and rugged areas of the west and decided to continue a struggle for freedom and liberation of their lands? Their targets could be settlers and the various railroads. Eventually they could learn to use bombs to blow up things like bridges.

Question 1. What could they have accomplished?

Question 2. How would they be looked at today?

Thing is right now while their lives can suck on a reservation, they are still alive and their culture mostly intact. They can even attend college at their own Universities.

Now if they had resorted to bombings like the IRA had their might not be so much compassion towards them.

What do you all think?

Personally, I think that they learned to accept the fact they were indeed beaten and had no choice but to leave their old ways of life, but kept their heritage, is the reason they are still around and kicking today.

They didn't have the technology to engage in "bombings" the way the IRA did and the military they faced was considerably more rutheless than the British army in Northern Ireland or the American army in Vietnam. The American army of the 19th Century had no problem massacring Indian civilians.

Furthermore, by the time the Plains Indian tribes surrendered they'd been completely overrun and conquered and refusing to surrender would have meant death.

There is a dramatic difference between dying bravely and dying stupidly.
 

Blair152

Banned
What if the native americans, instead of giving up, had fled into the mountains and rugged areas of the west and decided to continue a struggle for freedom and liberation of their lands? Their targets could be settlers and the various railroads. Eventually they could learn to use bombs to blow up things like bridges.

Question 1. What could they have accomplished?

Question 2. How would they be looked at today?

Thing is right now while their lives can suck on a reservation, they are still alive and their culture mostly intact. They can even attend college at their own Universities.

Now if they had resorted to bombings like the IRA had their might not be so much compassion towards them.

What do you all think?

Personally, I think that they learned to accept the fact they were indeed beaten and had no choice but to leave their old ways of life, but kept their heritage, is the reason they are still around and kicking today.
This really needs to go in the Pre-1900 section.
 
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