Where the River Flows: The Story of Misia: A Native American Superpower
- Thread starter JSilvy
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I will say that I was planning to explore this line of thought somewhere in my TL when I rewrite it. After all, my Jewish Empire's a lot more distant from the thought of Jerusalem than any other community.
And I hope to see you update soon. Welome back.
You know it took me a little while to realize how you made españolas.
Sounding it out, it makes sense. Granted I was only on the second chapter that I finally realized that. I knew it was Spanish. It just took a while to get the actual pronunciation. Liking the story so far
Sounding it out, it makes sense. Granted I was only on the second chapter that I finally realized that. I knew it was Spanish. It just took a while to get the actual pronunciation. Liking the story so far
Chapter 26: The Lynx's Den
Chapter 26: The Lynx's Den
Since before the arrival of Columbus and Cabot, the North American continent had been growing colder, and perhaps nowhere was this felt as much as in the boreal forests of the north. The people who lived there were used to cool winters, but the increasingly cool temperatures meant a greater desire for furs as well as a less bountiful harvest of the manoomin they frequently collected from the nearby lakes. During this time, there were several attacks southward against the Misians and eastern tribes from northerners seeking greater resources, with some taking up piracy on the Great Lakes. The Lake Wars, as they were called, resulted in the Kilsu Dynasty seizing the city of Makina and the nearby holy island of Makinak in the strait between Lakes Karegnondi and Michigami by the Kilsu Dynasty, an area which already held a significant Ileni Misian population and had been under the control of previous dynasties.
Among the people known by the exonym Anishinabe, the plague passed rather slowly, although the damage it had done was significant, leaving behind less than one in five people. While the mass death caused a crisis of faith for many, it also eased the standard of living, with the comparative amounts of manoomin, furs, and wild berries becoming all the more plentiful. The increase of surplus food in Misia also meant that the Anishinabe were able to trade for excess grain from the south. Still, as the population rebounded, the worst years of the Little Ice Age were yet to come, and would come full force with the North American coldsnap of 1641. That autumn, many noticed that it started to get cooler more quickly than in previous years, and many of the local leaders feared the worst was to come.
Of the Anishinabe ogimas, the most powerful was one by the name of Bizhiw, who effectively ruled the entirety of the Menomi Peninsula from the large village of Munising and held sway among the smaller Anishinabe chiefdoms. His land was effectively an island from his brethren, surrounded on one side by the Great Kingdom and on the other by the Great Lakes. Still, great men, women, and those of other spirits would come to him. He would sit on his throne in his great wigwam adorned with moose antlers, wearing the skin of a lynx with the skin of a bear stretched out before him as a carpet, atop which sat a small oak table and behind which sat a cushion. Here, he would meet minor chieftains, ambassadors, and others. Today, he would be meeting with…
“Andeg,” said the mighty ogima, “please enter.”
Andeg stepped inside.
“Please, drink,” he said, pointing to the clay kettle on the oak table and the cups next to it. “It’s shukwa with maple.”
He sat upon the buckskin pillow, poured the shuqua into a cup, and took a sip.
“You have a mission for me?”
“Indeed I do,” Bizhiw replied. “Tell me, how has your dinner table been looking?”
“Not excellent,” Andeg answered. “We have to conserve our manoomin supplies and we can barely import maize from the south. Hunting has been okay, but the hunting grounds have been running thin.”
“And you say this as a diplomat from a prominent clan,” Bizhiw said.
“The situation is dire, sir. A number of clans have already clashed with the Kilsu forces on raids to the south.”
“Those clans have the right idea. It’s either starve or fight. And that is why I want to send you to the Dakota.”
“The Dakota sir?”
“Yes, the Dakota. I want to propose not merely an alliance, but a coordinated attack. If they can work with our western bands to recapture Pateota, we will be able to march south and retake the holy island.”
“Are you suggesting a holy war?”
“Exactly. We take Makinak and every clan not yet rallied to the cause will join. Northern Mihsiwahk is already in disarray. If we can simply break through, we will have all that we need. We’ll never go hungry again.”
This timeline is excelent!
So good to have you back.
Regarding the post it is always a sign of a great TL when historical weather events are part of the story.
How is the technological advancement relating to plows and other agricultural tools like for the Misians?
Three sisters agriculture is quite hard to mechanise but it could be a huge advantage to have horse pulled plows for example.
So good to have you back.
Regarding the post it is always a sign of a great TL when historical weather events are part of the story.
How is the technological advancement relating to plows and other agricultural tools like for the Misians?
Three sisters agriculture is quite hard to mechanise but it could be a huge advantage to have horse pulled plows for example.
Tbh this section I’ve been sitting on for some time but couldn’t figure out how to write it. I just decided to say “fuck it, might as well just roll through this chapter so I can get to the good stuff”. I have some pretty good ideas for the 1600s, and some absolutely whacky shit for the 1700s-early 1800s planned that I have been itching to get to for over a year, so I figured I’d come back and keep writing.
Thanks!
Livestock have been basically fully incorporated in most native societies by this point. Technologically the states on the Atlantic are pretty much on a similar level as Europe due to close contact. That includes the Meshica (although the advancement is mostly concentrated among the elites). Military technology and print have been the most significant, as well as anything involving the horse, but aside from incorporating animals as well as new crops such as wheat and potatoes and using horses and oxen to plow, agricultural practices didn’t need to change that much simply due to how bountiful the land is.
It’s not WTRF without wars for fertile lands and resources (except for Mesoamerica where there are wars for Yesu and Ketzalcoatl instead)
Perhaps, this could help in regards to this particular topic.
That said - I believe that if they won't integrate seasonal labour at least for its harvest, they would resort either to slavery, or abandon this altogether in favour of monoculture.
I'm still dead-interested with the butterflies on the Far East, if you know what I mean; there would certainly be no Philippines, for one.
Also - this is quite belated for everyone involved, both from Doyle and Watson's POV - but won't (I'd assume they haven't) they also domesticate Moose? It's often more powerful than horses, which can facilitate for the transport of heavier freight. I suppose that the Mississippi basin had been enough for Misia's needs, though it would not be the same for the northern peoples north of them.
I just remember this from reading the other North American TL centring on the Northwest.
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For other colonial ventures, that’s something I’m gonna cover in coming chapters. I covered the events of the coldsnap in Meshica (the Josephan Revolt). Next I’m focusing on the coldsnap in Misia, followed by events unfolding along the coast, and then I have plans to discuss changes in Europe, including how they deal with the coldsnap, including the settlement of Argentina and other colonial ventures.
As for moose? I don’t really have anything planned. They’re not really social creatures, so domestication is hard.
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Pardon me for bugging you so much with this - but the Philippines getting butterflied away is a huge gaping hole that would have made the Portuguese dominate the region for the meantime. Mexican silver would also have a way harder time making its way into China without it being put into focus by the Galleon Trade, making the Southern Chinese economy more moribund. The butterfly effect would also be big enough in the form of Portuguese missionaries in Japan that there's a significant chance that Japan will not close itself to the same extent the Tokugawa Shogunate did IOTL.
If Ambassador Huntsman's TL is any indication - not to say nothing of other TL's, even the ones that had Oda Nobunaga dying - it's not too far off seeing unified Japan as a major seafaring power that colonised Taiwan (and without Spain, Luzon) and gained supremacy over Southeast Asia against the Portuguese ITTL. Aside from securing Siberia up north - they would have got the wind of the news about Mexico and the other Californian polities, likewise starting relations with them alongside the French.
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Chapter 27: The Governor Wars
Chapter 27: The Governor Wars
In 1633, his daughter Mimia was born. Although he had several other children with his concubines, they all either died shortly after or were banished with their mothers and disowned. Mimia was different. She was the first child he had with his wife, and she softened his heart, at least on the personal and familial level. On a political level, Maquah still wanted blood. Fortunately for him, war was not far away.
Like elsewhere on the continent, the winter of 1641 to 1642 was rather brutal. It was not particularly uncommon for there to be bands of Anishinabe raiders attacking the northern settlements, particularly during the winter when resources were more scarce. Usually, any raiding that did occur could be dealt with by armed civilians while the army mostly stayed in the Inoka Plain to protect the imperial core, in the south to protect the empire from the Spanish and Meshica, and a small force in the Awansachis to keep the peace on the Eastern Seaboard. This year, the raids were like nothing seen before. The Anishinabe Ogima Bizhiw led a series of successful raids on large portions of the empire’s northern territories. That January, he allied with several Dakota chiefs to take over the city of Pateota, a northern city where the Dakota and Anishinabe populations were nearly equal to those of the Hileni Misians. The following month, they seized the holy island of Makina. Meanwhile, raids from the west into the Inoka plain had also increased, keeping the army busy, and forcing Maquah to send more soldiers from the south and east. General Alewa, a southern general, was sent north in March to beat back Ogima Bizhiw and his allies.
When Alewa arrived in the north, he found that up to that point most of the fighting had been done by militias and through efforts led by the local governors, who had grown resentful of the empire taking so long to come and help. In a matter of a few weeks, General Alewa was able to liberate Pateota, which by that point had been under Anishinabe and Dakota occupation for three months. Having achieved that initial success in May, he set out east with imperial forces, governor’s forces, and local militias to take Makina, which fell to the Misian force that July. By the end of summer, Ogima Bizhiw’s camp was raided by Lake Nipigon, during which he was captured by Alewa’s forces. Bizhiw was taken alive, in accordance with the demands of Maquah, who wished to bring him to his court to be executed (although some also suspect he may have wanted to castrate the Anishinabe Ogima).
Although it had warmed up during the spring and summer months, it was still chillier than usual for that time of year, and food was in a relatively shorter supply in the north. In late April, word had reached Cahoqua of the worsening famine in the north as food saved for the winter was running low and the spring crop was proving unbountiful. In response, Maquah implemented heavier taxes on the southern provinces, hoping to redistribute southern maize and manoomin to the north. Other crops such as yaupon, tobacco, and cotton were also taxed, hoping that the revenue from their sales could help pay for excess grain from Meshica. Although the south did have more available food than the north, it was still less than usual, and many southern farmers began to oppose the new taxes. This resulted, most prominently, in the Tipiwik rebellion, a large rebellion that started with attacks on tax collectors in the city of Tipiwik and spread across the southern manoomin country of the Mississippi alluvial plain from June through July. Once more, soldiers were recalled from the southern coast and the western frontier to put down the rebellion, which had mostly been subdued by the end of August. Still, throughout the summer months, revolutionary doctrines had spread throughout the south. As local leaders organized the community against imperial power, the words of Tafit Sacuto’s With Regards to Federation and Democracy became increasingly popular, spreading the idea that greater local autonomy and popular rule.
Meanwhile, although the imperial government was limited in its ability to secure more food, Alewa and the local governors who led local militias against the Ojibwe and Dakota were able to secure food supplies captured from the invaders. While the imperial authority was weak and ineffective, General Alewa and the governors of the northern provinces were growing increasingly popular with the locals. When Bizhiw was captured, rather than being directly taken to Cahoqua, he was first paraded around Makina in a local victory parade. Around the same time, word was also reaching Alewa of the defeat of the Tipiwik Rebellion and the growing discontent in his native south. Believing that a prime opportunity presented itself, he made Bizhiw an offer that he could go free if he led his forces alongside Alewa and the governors to seize Cahoqua and make him the new emperor. To the governors, he made the additional promise of greater autonomy.
This was the beginning of the Governor Wars. Renegade imperial forces led by Alewa, Ojibwe and Dakota forces led primarily by Bizhiw, and the militias of the Machikato, Kikapowa, Winepa, and Patowa provinces united to march south towards Milioke and demanded that the governor in Shicaqua join their cause. With his refusal, Milioke came under siege. Outnumbered by Alewa’s army, the local imperial force was quickly defeated, and on October 10th, Milioke fell to the rebellious army. Just thirteen days later, Shicaqua fell to the same fate. The governor was executed in the local square, and Alewa ordered that all major food stores should be raided and distributed to those loyal to him. While it was a stunning victory, the brutality of this first major battle led several of the governors to question Alewa’s promise of respect towards local provinces.
Throughout the autumn, Alewa’s forces made their way south along the Inokaspi River, fighting for control over the Inoka plain. Alewa was held off between Peorua and Cahoqua, but at the expense of removing troops from the Alluvial Plain. By late December, much of southern manoomin country had once again fallen into rebellion. Alewa and the northern governors sent a letter to the southern governors, offering for them to join Alewa’s campaign, prompting them to march north and attack Nicota in mid February, only to be pushed back by imperial forces. However, the attack subsided when a series of messengers from Cahoqua began to reach both the front lines as well as the local populations of the Tunica, Catowa, Akansa, and Nalumen provinces. In the message clearly designed to undermine the power of the rebellious governors, Maquah decreed that he would be reforming the empire to allow for the elections of provincial sachems who would both run the provinces and form a rotating council in Cahoqua.
Almost immediately following the Sacuto Decree (as it came to be called), significant portions of the southern militias, many of which were ideologically driven, began to turn against their governors, allowing Maquah’s forces to reroute them and end the battle for Nicota by the end of March. In the north meanwhile, Alewa was continuously nearing Cahoqua, expecting the southern forces to come to his aid. However, as the southern rebellion collapsed and the counter-rebellion joined Maquah, Alewa was completely unprepared for the Battle of Cahoqua in March. After his first attack was repelled following heavy casualties, he retreated north to his camp and regrouped. Believing Alewa was a failure and not trusting his intentions, Patowa governor Entonamawi assassinated Alewa and declared himself the new leader of the force.
Rather than engage Maquah directly at Cahoqua, Entomamawi opted to retreat and rally the other governors in the east against Maquah’s attempt to strip them of their power. In the ensuing fighting, Maquah pursued the rebel governors eastward into the Miyamia province, and also rallied the governor of Shawanokia to their side. However, counter rebellions quickly developed in both provinces. In Irirona, the governor declared support for the rebellion. The locals, who were perhaps some of the most well-connected to the Haudenosaunee due to proximity, stormed the governor’s palace in Santusti and reorganized their own militia, which stormed into nearby Washtanoqua on May 2, taking away from some of Entomamawi’s legitimacy. As fighting continued throughout the other two provinces, the other governors came to see Entomamawi as a failure and assassinated him. Apequa, the governor of Miyamia, took over as the new leader of the rebellion. However, after assassination by members of his own militia killed him in August following the capture of Wiatenon, each of the governors declared themselves leaders and began to fight amongst themselves.
Throughout the war, several other governors would rebel and clash with each other, but by January of 1644, the fighting was mostly over, ending when the people of Kakinam handed over their governor to Maquah. Bizhiw had already been dead for the past month, assassinated by his own troops as well.
I figured now would be a good time to add sort of a retcon that I wanted to include that I haven't gotten around to editing in yet:
In chapter 21, I describe the architecture of Yenecami as being largely mud brick (loosely based on the architecture of the Mali Empire and similar West Sahelian states". This is not accurate if we're going off of what the local building materials would have been. The southern tip of the Baja California is known for having large deposits of stone, and particularly diorite, which would most realistically be the primary building block of any notable civilization in that area. Diorite would most likely be the staple material of Pericu architecture.
In chapter 21, I describe the architecture of Yenecami as being largely mud brick (loosely based on the architecture of the Mali Empire and similar West Sahelian states". This is not accurate if we're going off of what the local building materials would have been. The southern tip of the Baja California is known for having large deposits of stone, and particularly diorite, which would most realistically be the primary building block of any notable civilization in that area. Diorite would most likely be the staple material of Pericu architecture.
Chapter 28: The Maquah Constitution
Chapter 28: The Maquah Constitution
In order to understand the political structures of East America, it is necessary to first understand the history of the local clan structures. Prior to the 16th Century, local family clans held most of the power in the non-Misian portions of eastern North America. While men were sachems, these family units were often defined by clan mothers, who would often be the ones casting votes on local sachems. In larger federations, such as Haudenosaunia and Tsenacommacah, these local sachems would then also choose representatives to serve in the Grand Council, which led the entire federation. Misia also had a clan structure, albeit one where women held less power, but power primarily rested with the emperor and his bureaucracy. However, the bureaucracy was not free of clan interference and familial ties. Often, rather than heavily interfere, the emperor would allow governor positions to be passed around the members of particularly prominent local aristocratic clans as a way of ensuring local support.
The clan structure, however, was largely killed by the mass deaths from the plague, as family units were cut down to size and people moved into the newly freed lots of vacant land. In the Seaboard states, political power still rested with the heads of households, but these households had in many cases become much smaller. Households of twenty often transformed into houses of four from disease alone, and families were even split up geographically as land was distributed. In Misia, people moved entire provinces away for new plots of land. As birthrates skyrocketed across the continent following the mass death, these clan structures never made a full comeback. While children continued to revere their parents, the previous generations had created an expectation that they would all be able to carve out their own niche and create their own families independently. The one place where clan structures remained was among aristocratic families, both among old aristocrats who supported Mamantwensah during the Plague Wars of the 1490s thus holding onto their power as well as the new aristocrats who rose to power as Mamantwensah’s most valiant supporters and thus inherited the largest portions of land and bureaucratic positions.
To Emperor Maquah, remnants of this clan structure and the entrenched aristocratic families that dominated provincial bureaucracy were his biggest threat, and following the Governor Wars, he knew that once and for all he needed to destroy this threat. As such, the Maquah Constitution as it came to be called sought to use popular rule and limits on the powers of local rulers to ensure that imperial power would not be threatened by any overly ambitious individuals.
Using the Seaboard System as a guide, Maquah declared that all provinces would elect local councils of sachems in which each Misian family unit cast one vote. This rule excluded Tainos, Europeans, Jews, Ojibwes, Dakotas, and other groups considered to be foreigners. This rule was also to be the case regardless of family size, and thus was meant to undermine the powers of larger clans. Each local council of lesser sachems would elect four great sachems, who would act both as governors and as representatives of the Imperial Assembly. At any given time, two sachems would be leading the province from the provincial council, while the other two would be in Cahoqua. One sachem would arrive in Cahoqua to take the place of another on every solstice and equinox, ensuring that any two great sachems will only be working together for three seasons at a time, making conspiracy more difficult.
As for the Grand Assembly, its power remained limited. While it could raise taxes, build infrastructure, and handle a wide variety of economic matters, veto power for any policy or any election or appointment still rested with the emperor, who also remained the head of the military. However, placing economic matters in the hands of the assembly would ensure that sachems would be responsible in the case of a crisis rather than the emperor himself. Additionally, term limits were applied to each of the sachems. One could only serve as a grand sachem for one consecutive four-year term, and one could only serve as a sachem in general for four two consecutive terms. This provision was again meant to ensure that sachems would not achieve significant power to challenge the emperor.
Meanwhile, as Misia was racked with internal divisions, the states along the coast saw an opportunity. Following the cold snap, both the Haudenosaunee and Wabanaki were pushing north into Ojibwe territory to try to dominate the fur trade. Along the Wepistuk River in territories ostensibly controlled by the Wabanaki, the local population was largely made up of ethnically and linguistically Haudenic peoples, who began letting Haudenosaunee hunters and traders into their land to establish outposts. In 1642, skirmishes between Wabanaki forces and Haudenosaunee militias at Haudenosaunee outposts in Wabanaki territory combined with Misia’s inability to enforce the Treaty of St. John’s led to the outbreak of war, as the Haudenosaunee launched a full-scale invasion into the lower Wepistuk valley. Thus began the Fur War.
Due to the alliance between Cadeskit and Wereocomoco, the Tsenacommacah garrisoned its position along its northern border before crossing the Chesapeake Strait and attacking the Akomak peninsula, successfully making a landing and slowly advancing north. The English, who were the primary European power trading with all three, intervened on the side of the Haudenosaunee, while the French and the Dutch began to attempt to send support to the Wabanaki and Tsenacommacans, although the English blockade made such a venture difficult. It is also worth noting that most of this fighting was done by local companies rather than the European nations in question, with England embroiled in its own civil war. Still, the Misia-Takamcook company remained the largest European force in the region, and was able to, for the most part, maintain power. However, aid to Tsenacommacah managed to sneak through via land due to the French and Dutch presence on Misia’s Atlantic coast. The diversion of Haudenosaunee troops to the southern front freed up Wabanaki resources. However, rather than being used to march north to reclaim territory along the Wepistuk, the Wabanaki marched south and successfully occupied Mashowomuk in the spring of 1643. This success inspired Lenape uprisings in Manhattan and Saukamachin, which were quickly put down, but not without significant riots against the English, Jewish, and Haudenosaunee quarters. The Haudenosaunee however, with their more numerous and well-trained forces, were able to push back the Wabanaki in a matter of months.
As soon as fighting ended in Misia in January 1644, Maquah marched east with his forces, declaring that the war was to end immediately, with any state not obliging being invaded by the massive Misian force. That March, all sides met in Sandusti. In the resulting treaty, the Haudenosaunee were allowed to keep all Haudenic lands along the Wepistuk, while the Wabanaki were guaranteed their right to pass through these lands to access hunting grounds further north. To the south, the city of Akomak was granted to Tsenacommacah, while the borders otherwise saw little change. Most notably, however, was Maquah’s decree that no European power could forcefully monopolize trade at any North American port, establishing the same policy in the Seaboard states that had already existed in Misia. In practice, the English would still remain Haudenosaunia’s main European trading partner, but now French and Dutch ships could not be prevented from trading at any harbor.
Just before Misia’s first elections in the autumn of 1644, Maquah added what came to be known as the Sandusti Doctrine to his constitution: no European power would be allowed to hold any coercive power over Misia or its neighbors or prevent each other from trading. Misia and Misia alone was the rightful hegemon of North America.