Where the River Flows: The Story of Misia: A Native American Superpower
- Thread starter JSilvy
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Chapter 8: Shunapi's Head
Chapter 8: Shunapi's Head
The eight generals sat around a large low table. Painted directly onto its surface was a large, detailed map of blue oceans surrounding the eastern half of the North American landmass, complete with labels and borders that had been updated following what was known to those in the Great Kingdom as the treaty of Sente Chansa several years prior. The map also featured the continent’s many rivers, the most prominent being the Great River into which the others flowed, which itself flowed southward to the Near Southern Sea at the city of Shawasha. On the southern end of both the map and the table sat the Emperor of the Kilsu.
“We have confirmed, according to the smoke signals from the south, that Mapila has fallen. As for the troops we have sent southward, we are unsure what to expect, although considering the size of the divisions we have sent I am not optimistic of their success. My suggestion is that we send another force, this time a larger one, to Mapila. We must divert troops to Mapila immediately. As many waves as possible. If we can wear them down we can defeat them.”
“Thank you General Atekawah. General Patanewah, your response?”
“Your majesty, if we keep sending waves of men we would be sending them into the millstones. If they control the city they will be able to defend it. The best we could do is set up a siege campaign and starve them out at Mapila.”
“Starve them out how?” said another aggravated general. “With what siege? Their navy destroyed ours, and who's to say how many more will come? Besides the sailing merchants, there are maybe a thousand Ihnelish situated in the Great Kingdom and Eastern Lands, maybe a few thousand more on Takamkuk. There are tens, hundreds of thousands of Isapanoles on the Southern Seas if not millions.”
“The question of how many more may come is exactly why we can’t concentrate our entire army on Mapila. What about Shawasha? What about the fact that they already rule Pikate? We cannot divert men away from the south.”
“What about the east? The Eastern Lands are at peace now, and we are shielded by the Awansachi Mountains.”
“And what happens if another war breaks out? What happens when we’re not able to keep our end of the Treaty of Sente Chansa and the Ihnelish do all of the peacekeeping? What if the Haudenosaunee go back on the warpath and come for us next?”
“Forget the Ihnelish and the Haudenosaunee! We can deal with them later. Right now we have a war in this country!”
“What about the north or west?”
“You want some barbarians to swoop in and finish us off while we’re busy?”
“Hey, the Ashinabe to the north are a Midewin people.”
“Well when you have to deal with those primitive raccoons to the north you realize they are no better than the heathen barbarians to the west.”
At this point all of the generals were shouting over each other.
“Silence!” Mamantwensah shouted. All of the men suddenly stopped and turned towards their emperor. “Everyone shouting over each other will get us nowhere. Any action will have its benefits and drawbacks, but we must–”
“Excuse me your majesty.”
Mamantwensah shifted his gaze as a servant in a crimson robe entered the room.
“I know you are in a war meeting, but a messenger arrived from Mapila. It seemed that whatever information he may present would be relevant.
“Bring him in here, then.”
A sweaty, skinny young man just slightly younger than Onequah entered the room and sat before the throne. Mamantwensah’s thoughts were with the previous messenger boy who he had sent back down to Mabila in silk robes only to be slain alongside the Sipikapia. How many more men would die from his failures?
The young man opened a rolled-up piece of parchment.
“Well? Can you read it?”
“No.”
“Then bring it to me.”
The boy walked around the table towards the emperor, handing him the letter.
“To he who calls himself the Emperor of Kilsu, Ruler of all of Misiwahk. My name is General Enan Kotehs, an Isapanol commander of soldiers in the Southern Seas. During our most recent attempt at a diplomatic mission to your kingdom, we were deceived and assaulted by your men. In the following battle at the city of Mabila, my men have swiftly and completely subdued your forces and declared the city to be part of our domain. Should you continue to send more soldiers to attack us, we will continue to push north until your kingdom falls.
I therefore lay out the following choice– you may surrender now in peace, only if you accept the lord Hesus Keristo as the son of the one true God and subject your domain as subservient to Isapanol crown. Should you fail to surrender, we shall purge your heathen domain of its pagan ways, Kahoquah will be burned to ash, and you and all of your heirs shall go the way of your riverkeeper, your previous messenger, and the mayor of Mapila.”
Mamantwensah looked up and saw that the young man had been carrying a large leather sack.
“Is that also a delivery for me?”
“Yes your majesty.”
“Bring it forward.”
The man placed the bag down on the table and opened it. He pulled out a well-preserved severed head. He could still see the feelings of both fear and hope in his eyes.
“Shunapi,” he said. “I met him when I visited Mapila on my most recent trip to the south.”
He looked back up at the messenger.
“Please take that with you and ensure a proper burial for him.”
“Yes your majesty.”
Both the servant and the messenger left the palace. The generals could see the solemn expression on the emperor’s face, his eyes sinking into his soul.
“Your majesty, what should we do?”
“This war is not just about us,” Mamantwensah said. “Or about me. Empires and Dynasties come and go. The Great Hileni Dynasty was just one of many that had to exist before ours could arise. This is not simply a matter now of who rules or how we maintain a balance of power. This war is about everything– the Great Kingdom, the Hileni people, the Midewin tradition. If we lose, thousands of years of culture, of history, of civilization are gone.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that this is the people’s war. Sure, we may not be able to promise them massive land redistribution, but now we can rally the masses behind the protection of everything they have ever known. We can put in place a draft, demand every able-bodied man fight, bring together an army a million strong. We can put guns and horses and arrows in the hands of normal men trying to protect their land and their livelihoods. The Eastern Lands? The Northern Lands? Who cares how many soldiers we have to pull from those frontiers? We’ll have countless more, and then some. If the Isapanoles destroy us, the Great Kingdom, what do the rest of the Midewin nations think will happen to them? We can rally together an army of all peoples to resist this threat. We can bring the fight to the Pikate peninsula and the east coast, forcing the Ihnelish to join us at sea. Maybe our numbers aren’t as strong as they were during the rule of my father, but we will build something never seen before– an army of all people and of all peoples, all unified, all fighting for our shared destiny.”
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I’m glad to see this back. Hope the Great Kingdom and Midewin people drive every single last conquistador and Spanish settler, if there are any at this point, into the sea.
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The only place with Spanish settlers on the mainland is Pikate (Florida) in the Christian Calusa vassal kingdom, and that is actually still mostly demographically native.
Is there any chance that the Calusa will attempt an uprising? I really want to see the Spanish driven from North America (the Mexica not included).
I can't say what the future holds, but the Calusa nobility are basically Christian Spanish collaborators. Large portions of the population are being converted to Christianity, with most resistance at this point being subdued.
The Mexica? Well, I'll have to get to that point. My plan is to start to discussing OTL Mexico followed by the OTL Western US in the next updates after the war. But oh boy, do I have plans for the Mexica…
Oh, I didn't notice any glossary on the first post when I started binge-reading this, just a few days ago. OTOH I didn't feel a lot of need for one, since the author has in fact been largely using words that are close cognates to modern place names, presumably because Spanish, French and English explorers adopted native names, to a degree that surprises me actually. "Mablia" was clearly Mobile as I read it. But of course I am a USAian. I might not have recognized the ATL version of "Tombigbee" for instance except that sometime in the past couple of years the OTL modern canals connecting the Tombigbee to the Mississippi system came up on some thread or other--probably a space travel related one since it is relevant to how big rocket parts were transported from Huntsville to Cape Canaveral, on a surprisingly indirect route westward to the Mississippi and thence to the Gulf of Mexico, Intracoastal Waterway and then across the Florida peninsula on large canals there.
So winging it with cognates worked pretty well for me, but some of that was happenstance; a few times the author has been extra clear where a more obscurely named site is.
I do agree a glossary is especially useful even so; I have some confusion for instance whether a city that appears to be where Chicago is OTL is actually that city or one much farther east with a similar name.
Most useful of all would be a periodically updated map post. Unfortunately one of the best uses of maps in this TL has been to lay out where the various tribal-nations are and their borders--"borders" I for one have been assuming are rather tenuous--perhaps the central Empire itself has pretty firm borders based on enforcers fining it down to specific landmarks and/or some kind of fence or series of border markers in line of sight of each other, but by and large despite the much greater development of North American Native peoples I suspect many an entity drawn with firm borders on these maps are actually kind of diffuse, with towns and peoples in the borderlands shifting their practical allegiances and playing them off against each other. Anyway, however things were before Cabot's men showed up, in the subsequent wars which simplified the Atlantic seaboard to three powers I suppose their post-war borders are at least intended to be firm and finely delimited.
So what is unfortunate is that any of the existing maps would depict a particular era, and become obsolete when some set of major powers goes to war with each other and shift them around, whereas presumably most towns (those not subjected to a Carthagenean "final solution" of utter devastation) will stay put, and in this ATL a total demographic revolution whereby a people like the English wipe out, displace, and supplant the native people completely seems less likely.
To be sure, when the Spanish take and hold a territory, they go about renaming everything (not quite, one still finds Native names for places, including OTL say Mexico itself) with "holy" names. But even in that case, the Spanish would have to be holding it for generations for the old Native place names to go out of living memory; the Tano exodus from the Antilles would be an exception due to their near total devastation in their homelands. This probably applies about as well everywhere outside the North American continent as it did OTL, more or less, actually, certainly in the Caribbean generally unfortunately. North America of course suffered the devastating plague that slashed the central Empire down to a quarter its pre-plague population, which seems to have since recovered. Now unfortunately even if all survivors have total immunity to that first disease, Eurasia has dozens to assail the Native people with--but first of all it is generally true that OTL the devastation these cause was multiplied by the simultaneous efforts of various conquerors to seize territory and dismantle the Native social system, then ruthlessly exploit the conquered people; where this is not happening, we can expect a higher recovery rate. Also, the first plague is more devastating than later ones in part because survivors tend to have better immune responses generally but mainly because society has learned to adapt to suffering these onslaughts.
Therefore in North America at any rate, if any European invaders want to totally eradicate any Native predecessors from the landscape, they have to do it the hard way. OTL this is not what even quite brutal invaders have a strong tendency to attempt.
I got tired of fudging the name of the great inland empire and looked to the Glossary which I now see is under a spoiler tag, and indeed that Glossary is helpful with lots of clarifications where cognates would either not help us or mislead, but it is not comprehensive--no listing of various terms for the great empire for instance! Regionally speaking it is Misia, much the way we might refer to Iraq as "Mesopotamia" as I trust the term derives from the long accepted general variant on OTL "Mississipian" as in "Lands of the Great River," which I suppose has a name similar to Mississippi, probably much worn down after thousands of years. (The author can settle whether the southeast salient covering OTL Alabama, west Florida, Georgia and South Carolina is geographically speaking included in Misia the way that say Sinkiang is today considered properly "China," or whether the ATL imperials have a distinct name for it taking note it is outside the Mississippi watershed!)So it could be the "Misian Empire."
Or it could be Ileni/Hileni, I name I suspect is meant to derive from a cognate for Illinois, much as we might refer instead of Iraq (itself I think derived from "Uruk") or Mesopotamia, as "Sumeria," that is we name it after the core of the ancient imperial people who first made a big empire of it, probably getting most of the actual Mississippi-Missouri watershed and the south shore of the Great Lakes but maybe not every peripheral extension.
Or finally nowadays, for quite some time, a thousand years or more, the current dynasty ruling is "Kilsu" and under its rule I gather many major cultural watersheds were crossed, such as adoption of a northern religious tradition doing away with human sacrifices that might have prevailed generally earlier, or in some region (probably the south). So, the current correct imperial name referring to the current dynasty would be Kilsu Empire I guess, except that clearly the Kilsu seek to embed their legitimacy as a continuation of prior Hileni glory much as the various Sumerian successor kingdoms sought to ground themselves in ancient tradition while renaming things in their more Semitic/Akkadian language--or others, the "Chaldean" Neo-Babylonians were speaking some Indo-European language I gather--but their priests were of course proficient in a variation of cuneiform on basically Sumerian roots.
Some nitpicks and quibbles:
I don't think we can reasonably accelerate the spread of the "Sisters" group of crops from its Mexican origins a lot faster than OTL, in which the peoples of New England had only adopted most of them quite recently before circa 1500 CE "Columbian" contact--in fact canon makes reference to the Nordics reaching Newfoundland/"Takamcook" before that island went over to agriculture. This latter bit makes sense, well sort of (Newfoundland is very marginal for crops of any kind I think, whereas Prince Edward Isle is much richer despite not being too far away).
But on the other hand, we don't actually need the Sisters to have dominated North American agriculture for most of the ancient time span of the generically named Misian system! As canon already indicates, a great many pre-Sisters crops were developed natively in the northern latitudes--this was true OTL actually, a great many peoples who only recently had adopted maize/beans/squash/peppers of Mexican lineage at the time of European contact had been previously agricultural, at least somewhat, on the basis of more local crops.
What we need is to assert that somewhat more of these crops were developed, and that some of them, including both OTL known and perhaps some undeveloped OTL, were heavily cultivated in ancient times. That should be sufficient to tip the balance of societies in the Misian core region toward agriculture and higher population densities, and this would tend to encourage spread of both the crops and civilization patterns to the Atlantic seaboard and into other peripheral zones outside the Mississippi Valley itself--uphill into the Appalachians (this range, and the Rockies to the west, both had pretty cool names not cognate to anything I am aware of, and that should definitely go in the glossary, as the Europeans are likely to adopt these names being introduced to North American geography via Kilsu cartography--edit, the east range is Awansachi, the west range is Assinwati), west to Assinwati then, north into OTL central Canadian crop lands--sort of; the Great Plains as OTL are liable to be very difficult to cultivate in general, being a "desert" in that sense though the prairie is better watered and much more covered in biomatter, largely the infamous sod grasses themselves, then modern Americans think of when we hear "desert." As a "desert" to agriculture though it has its "oases" which in this case are the tributary river valleys flowing into the Mississippi-Missouri system, or the Great Lakes or the northwestern Lakes such as Winnipeg or Great Slave Lake--I believe these ultimately drain into Lake Superior though I should check that, the latter especially might drain north to the Arctic Ocean instead. The southern limits of Misian agriculture I suspect are the parallel rivers southwest of the Mississippi tributaries such as the Sabine, Pecos, and Rio Grande, whose upper reaches will segue from ancient southern Misian crops toward increased reliance on the Sisters in the Pueblo area of "Oasisamerica." Which surely has some other name in Misian cartography! I don't think Misian crops would be highly likely to stimulate additional civilized zones in the Great Basin though they just might; if they can, it seems likely to raise the probability of agriculture in California and the Williamette/Columbia and Puget Sound regions. The Wasatch zone (between the steep Wasatch western edge of the Rockies("Assinwati") and Great Salt lake, that has the majority of OTL Utah's population) would be a candidate for an extra civilized zone based on a mix of ATL Misian crops transplanted and adapted, something or other local, and perhaps Sisters.
When I say the Sisters ought not arrive much earlier than OTL, first of all I mainly mean to gainsay that they could arrive very anciently, but I certainly think they could move faster and be more diverse and better adapted to colder and more seasonal climates earlier, being accelerated as it were by partial adoption by already deeply agricultural civilizations. They definitely can be justified arriving at a given latitude or other climatic variant from their heartland hundreds or even thousands of years earlier, just not preempting a prior set that has to be developed natively in the higher latitudes to justify this more rapid spread. All evidence is that the Sisters, once adapted, were a very advantageous mix that tended to displace local crops--here I suspect the Misian native stuff is better developed and not as displaced, and yet when adopting the Sisters the outcome is a net improvement overall. Still, I suspect we can account for stronger development in Mesoamerica and perhaps even to a limited extent in the Andes due to a few stray Misian cultivars adapting to more tropical climates and being incorporated into Central American and "Spanish Main" (northern Caribbean shore of South America) and perhaps a few cool climate types leapfrogging past the tropics completely to be adopted in the higher Andes--which would justify some Andean crops leapfrogging the other way.
The upshot being that all American cultivation packages are even richer than OTL, with therefore somewhat higher net population counts pre-Columbian contact, and with even more New World crops spreading to the Old World sooner.
Not a lot sooner, but perhaps for instance some marginal but significant crop, developed on the north shore of the Great Lakes and extending the cultivation-based civilization zone somewhat farther up the Canadian Shield, perhaps to the shores of Hudson's Bay and in spots in Labrador, might account for the canon remark about Takamcook belatedly going agricultural--with I am guessing, a very marginal mix of crops more typical of the better lands south and west, but supplemented by this peculiar "taiga forest" zone crop.
If such a crop exists--it could have revolutionary effects versus OTL in such European countries as Scotland, Norway, northern Sweden, Finland, and northern Russia, perhaps make life less terribly marginal in Iceland, barely feasible in Svalbard, and someday make the extreme east Asian zones north beyond Korea and Manchuria a bit more viable for eventual development, by improving locals, by Manchurian promoted Chinese colonists, by Korean expansionists or by Japanese colonists, and if these are all delayed, eventually by Russian settlers. (Or some ATL expansion of American west coast powers to be developed later). It might also make life a bit more sustainable in marginally higher populations in places like Switzerland or Tibet, and the higher parts of the South American Altiplano.
Given the nature of the English presence centering on Takamcook, such a crop seems likely to spread rapidly to Scotland first of all, and quite likely to the Danish Crown lands. I figure Cabot OTL took a westward route that went far north, merging into the routes the Vikings took earlier, and therefore England's American colonial activities overlap Danish sea routes. Going back east, I suppose they hit on the Gulf Stream pretty early on and can sail home to the British isles well south of Danish patrols, but the same is not so true of getting to America by the northern route in the first place.
Granted, instead the English could veer south (something they were doing long before 1500, it was English sailors who first reported the Azores though Portuguese enterprise took control of these islands quite rapidly) which would instead entangle them with Spanish traffic. Assuming the English can evade any Spanish interference well enough, they will loop over to the Americas in Spanish controlled zones but either seizing or evading the northerly reach, find themselves coasting North America around the same latitudes the southeast salient of the Kilsu Empire concedes control to the western Chesapeake based power(expanded Tsenecommacah--hey, is that a cognate of "Seneca"?), and thence up the coast past or to the Haudenosaunee Atlantic claims to the rival centered in OTL Maine-New Brunswick-Nova Scotia(Wabanaki) and thus back to Takamcook. For Takamcook and--darn it the Glossary doesn't record the ATL native name of the St Lawrence yet, that is apparently Wepistuk--anyway for English activity focusing on expansion along the Wepistuk gulf, the sensible route to prefer is probably the northern one going west, though perhaps seasonal weather conditions might favor the southern route regardless of political considerations--the English being free to navigate either freely would be their goal of course. The southern route draws their attention to activities involving the three coastal powers.
Because of the juncture the story has arrived at geopolitically and narratively, I believe that the Haudenosaunee have the power to block English communications with the Kilsu imperium completely if they have a mind to, though the English could try finding their way into Hudson's Bay and make contact on the north border--that's chancy, having conquered the Wendat with English help, the English would have to cross peripherally civilized or perhaps even hunter-gatherer tribe territory labeled "Oji-Nehiyaw Tribes" then cross either Lake Superior or the Huron-Michigan compound. Or they could much more reasonably go coastwise south of Tsenecommacah (or via that more or less client state of the empire).
So I am just taking note--hitherto the English presence is centered at the town of St John's on Takamcook, and have actively aided the Haudenosaunee in getting a firm grasp of the eastern, Lake Ontario, zone of the Great Lakes which also controls their approach to the whole Misian inland zone as the Hauden also control the Wepistuk river itself, or at least its upper course from Lake Ontario. (We ought to add the Native names, at least as the Kilsu choose to render them, of the entire Great Lakes system, and settle whether as is traditional but hydrographically questionable Lakes Michigan and Huron are considered two different lakes, or whether, noting they share a common lake level and water circulates back and forth between these lakes, so that some sources today describe the pair as a single lake, which by the way would be larger than Superior if so defined. The geography suggests they'd be traditionally regarded as different lakes since the strait connecting them is small, whereas their traditional naming and definition would go back thousands of years to a time when no single political entity spanned both).
Now, in addition to controlling the Wepistuk approach from Atlantic to the Misian imperial interior, the Haudenosaunee state also occupies the trail from Manhattan to the Lakes as well. The Native North Americans are great canal builders so possibly a canal analogous to the Eire canal might be built someday fairly soon, but that too runs through Hauden control, as things stand.
The English have been cultivating good relations with both the Hauden and Kilsu states--the latter is the biggest prize long term, but in the short run if conflict forces the English to choose, they have to run all the way coastwise southward from OTL Newfoundland all the way to the Chesapeake, or farther south to about where Charleston SC is OTL to get into direct contact with Kilsu territory, which would be a point a long way from the capital in OTL Ohio.
Either the English manage to mediate friendly terms keeping both Hauden and Kilsu in friendly relations with each other, or aid one or the other against the other. With all the focus on the Kilsu state, this bodes ill for ongoing good relations with the Hauden unless indeed they can be kept civil. Achieving that, we have in effect a block of four independent but interdependent nations comprising between them a region somewhat larger than the OTL USA as of the Louisiana Purchase, with a net population between the four of them much larger than France at this time.
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Speaking of maintaining good relations, the other quibble I have, other than noting that I can't believe the Sisters crop set moved northward a whole lot faster than OTL, is that I don't find the dialog between Cabot and Columbus very credible. Basically, if Columbus gets the notion that Cabot is looking down on him from a moral high horse, nothing stops the "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" from clapping Cabot in irons and having him executed on the spot. Now I find it credible enough that Cabot, confronted with the ugliness of Columbus's notions of how to run colonies for fun and profit, might be outraged indeed. But I think he would be astute enough to dissemble somewhat with Columbus, to avoid triggering the tyrant or having exposed a bit of bad conscience on his part, to diplomatically flatter him enough to be allowed to leave on what Columbus assumes are friendly terms, one Italian hired navigator to another. I am not sure what pronouncements about English activity in the north being hostile to the rights and interests of the King of Spain Columbus would have heard, but I daresay that the conflict of interest is plain enough that Cabot is lucky not to have been seized and held hostage on sight, on the authority of the Kingdom of Spain. Of course such a high handed action would put a strain on relations between Spain and England, whereas OTL I gather it was early Tudor policy to seek alliance with Iberian powers, with marriages set up with both the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies of the day--obviously before Henry VIII decided to break with the entire Continental Catholic establishment and set himself up as Caesaropapist head of the Church of England.
Here neither Henry VIII's reign nor the rupture between Anglican and Catholic communions are set in stone yet. I gather Henry had an older brother Arthur, and butterflies could mean Arthur and not Henry survives to become King; Cabot himself was contracted by Henry VII, whose accession to the throne ended the War of the Roses and settled the Welsh-origin Tudor dynasty in place for the next century. Arthur might have more luck siring a male heir and Henry the younger's whole line becomes more and more distant from a direct claim to the throne. OTL Henry 8 reorganized the English claims over Ireland to become a sweeping claim to reign over a Kingdom of Ireland in personal union, and it seems likely to me that under any particular successor to H7, something like that would happen, especially if there is no religious breach, or the nature of one is less alienating to the Irish Catholics. (Then again, I suspect one reason the Irish so fanatically kept to Catholicism as part of their core identity was precisely to resist English rule; if England stays orthodoxly Catholic, we might see a wildcat form of Protestantism appropriate to the subordinated condition of common Irish, something like Anabaptism perhaps, or something quite unique to the Irish, sweep the island in defiance of Catholic orthodoxy--associated with English rule). Meanwhile, if the Tudor line runs through Arthur and not Henry, and Arthur manages to father a couple healthy sons so that the succession is not in doubt, there might or might not be some kind of Protestant breach at all. Especially in retrospect many British people seem to think Protestant secession from Roman Catholic authority was inevitable, and there were in fact many reasons why H8's move which seemed superficially to be all about his power to get divorced until he finally managed to have a male heir actually tied his reign to major vested interests highly favoring the Anglican schism. But I have ideas about other ways that might go--for instance, there might be a papal schism as happened many times in the Middle Ages, where two men (or sometimes even more) claimed to be the proper Pope and heir of St Peter who ought to preside in Rome, and these "Pope/Anti-Pope" schisms were across European political fault lines, the monarch or other government of one nation adhering to one and their rivals adhering to the other. What if the general drift of Reformation spirit lines up with such a schism with the "northern Pope" coming to terms permitting a certain degree of Lutheran/Calvinist practice under a nominal central Papal authority, and the states that lined up with Luther and Calvin OTL align to back this reformist Pope (who is reformist because his claim to the Papacy is predicated on the backing of these reformist powers) while those that remained Catholic OTL back the more conservative one, who probably would in fact have residence in Rome? Mind, the radicalism of OTL Protestantism would tend to challenge the authority of any Pope whatsoever, however reformed and moderate to them, and if precedent for a standing schism builds up, yet more schisms might be the outcome with the difference from OTL in England being that the English monarch appoints a puppet Pope in Canterbury instead of just saying he himself is automatically Pope as king. Meanwhile one reason that H8 could prosper from having thrown off Roman ties was that he ruthlessly purged the established Catholic monasteries, giving their rich and extensive lands and other wealth over to favored supporters (who tended to handle these opportunities very entrepreneurially, laying some of the foundation of English capitalism as we know it OTL). Any nominally separate Papacy, however much a creature of Royal favor, is going to have to object to that, limiting the monarchy's ability to dole out former Church lands as patronage--or leading to the same ultimate king=pope solution as OTL. Vice versa if Arthur, or a butterflied H8 with better luck getting heirs, decides not to favor a major breach, the social development of England might be quite different. Meanwhile also, there is the fate of Scotland to consider; OTL it softened the blow of being in effect absorbed as an appendage of the English system for the Scots to see their own monarch given the English kingdom in personal union too, though this honeymoon did not last long--by the reign of Charles First, the nominally Scottish Stuart king was behaving pretty much like an anti-Reformation English king and badly out of line with the Calvinist dominant sectors of Scottish society. Whether union with Scotland is either inevitable or unlikely depends on who you ask.
The details of who reigns in England and what these monarchs do next are entirely in the author's hands of course. I just wanted to draw attention to the European context in which kings in London and Madrid will be reacting to the conflicts emerging in America.
So winging it with cognates worked pretty well for me, but some of that was happenstance; a few times the author has been extra clear where a more obscurely named site is.
I do agree a glossary is especially useful even so; I have some confusion for instance whether a city that appears to be where Chicago is OTL is actually that city or one much farther east with a similar name.
Most useful of all would be a periodically updated map post. Unfortunately one of the best uses of maps in this TL has been to lay out where the various tribal-nations are and their borders--"borders" I for one have been assuming are rather tenuous--perhaps the central Empire itself has pretty firm borders based on enforcers fining it down to specific landmarks and/or some kind of fence or series of border markers in line of sight of each other, but by and large despite the much greater development of North American Native peoples I suspect many an entity drawn with firm borders on these maps are actually kind of diffuse, with towns and peoples in the borderlands shifting their practical allegiances and playing them off against each other. Anyway, however things were before Cabot's men showed up, in the subsequent wars which simplified the Atlantic seaboard to three powers I suppose their post-war borders are at least intended to be firm and finely delimited.
So what is unfortunate is that any of the existing maps would depict a particular era, and become obsolete when some set of major powers goes to war with each other and shift them around, whereas presumably most towns (those not subjected to a Carthagenean "final solution" of utter devastation) will stay put, and in this ATL a total demographic revolution whereby a people like the English wipe out, displace, and supplant the native people completely seems less likely.
To be sure, when the Spanish take and hold a territory, they go about renaming everything (not quite, one still finds Native names for places, including OTL say Mexico itself) with "holy" names. But even in that case, the Spanish would have to be holding it for generations for the old Native place names to go out of living memory; the Tano exodus from the Antilles would be an exception due to their near total devastation in their homelands. This probably applies about as well everywhere outside the North American continent as it did OTL, more or less, actually, certainly in the Caribbean generally unfortunately. North America of course suffered the devastating plague that slashed the central Empire down to a quarter its pre-plague population, which seems to have since recovered. Now unfortunately even if all survivors have total immunity to that first disease, Eurasia has dozens to assail the Native people with--but first of all it is generally true that OTL the devastation these cause was multiplied by the simultaneous efforts of various conquerors to seize territory and dismantle the Native social system, then ruthlessly exploit the conquered people; where this is not happening, we can expect a higher recovery rate. Also, the first plague is more devastating than later ones in part because survivors tend to have better immune responses generally but mainly because society has learned to adapt to suffering these onslaughts.
Therefore in North America at any rate, if any European invaders want to totally eradicate any Native predecessors from the landscape, they have to do it the hard way. OTL this is not what even quite brutal invaders have a strong tendency to attempt.
I got tired of fudging the name of the great inland empire and looked to the Glossary which I now see is under a spoiler tag, and indeed that Glossary is helpful with lots of clarifications where cognates would either not help us or mislead, but it is not comprehensive--no listing of various terms for the great empire for instance! Regionally speaking it is Misia, much the way we might refer to Iraq as "Mesopotamia" as I trust the term derives from the long accepted general variant on OTL "Mississipian" as in "Lands of the Great River," which I suppose has a name similar to Mississippi, probably much worn down after thousands of years. (The author can settle whether the southeast salient covering OTL Alabama, west Florida, Georgia and South Carolina is geographically speaking included in Misia the way that say Sinkiang is today considered properly "China," or whether the ATL imperials have a distinct name for it taking note it is outside the Mississippi watershed!)So it could be the "Misian Empire."
Or it could be Ileni/Hileni, I name I suspect is meant to derive from a cognate for Illinois, much as we might refer instead of Iraq (itself I think derived from "Uruk") or Mesopotamia, as "Sumeria," that is we name it after the core of the ancient imperial people who first made a big empire of it, probably getting most of the actual Mississippi-Missouri watershed and the south shore of the Great Lakes but maybe not every peripheral extension.
Or finally nowadays, for quite some time, a thousand years or more, the current dynasty ruling is "Kilsu" and under its rule I gather many major cultural watersheds were crossed, such as adoption of a northern religious tradition doing away with human sacrifices that might have prevailed generally earlier, or in some region (probably the south). So, the current correct imperial name referring to the current dynasty would be Kilsu Empire I guess, except that clearly the Kilsu seek to embed their legitimacy as a continuation of prior Hileni glory much as the various Sumerian successor kingdoms sought to ground themselves in ancient tradition while renaming things in their more Semitic/Akkadian language--or others, the "Chaldean" Neo-Babylonians were speaking some Indo-European language I gather--but their priests were of course proficient in a variation of cuneiform on basically Sumerian roots.
Some nitpicks and quibbles:
I don't think we can reasonably accelerate the spread of the "Sisters" group of crops from its Mexican origins a lot faster than OTL, in which the peoples of New England had only adopted most of them quite recently before circa 1500 CE "Columbian" contact--in fact canon makes reference to the Nordics reaching Newfoundland/"Takamcook" before that island went over to agriculture. This latter bit makes sense, well sort of (Newfoundland is very marginal for crops of any kind I think, whereas Prince Edward Isle is much richer despite not being too far away).
But on the other hand, we don't actually need the Sisters to have dominated North American agriculture for most of the ancient time span of the generically named Misian system! As canon already indicates, a great many pre-Sisters crops were developed natively in the northern latitudes--this was true OTL actually, a great many peoples who only recently had adopted maize/beans/squash/peppers of Mexican lineage at the time of European contact had been previously agricultural, at least somewhat, on the basis of more local crops.
What we need is to assert that somewhat more of these crops were developed, and that some of them, including both OTL known and perhaps some undeveloped OTL, were heavily cultivated in ancient times. That should be sufficient to tip the balance of societies in the Misian core region toward agriculture and higher population densities, and this would tend to encourage spread of both the crops and civilization patterns to the Atlantic seaboard and into other peripheral zones outside the Mississippi Valley itself--uphill into the Appalachians (this range, and the Rockies to the west, both had pretty cool names not cognate to anything I am aware of, and that should definitely go in the glossary, as the Europeans are likely to adopt these names being introduced to North American geography via Kilsu cartography--edit, the east range is Awansachi, the west range is Assinwati), west to Assinwati then, north into OTL central Canadian crop lands--sort of; the Great Plains as OTL are liable to be very difficult to cultivate in general, being a "desert" in that sense though the prairie is better watered and much more covered in biomatter, largely the infamous sod grasses themselves, then modern Americans think of when we hear "desert." As a "desert" to agriculture though it has its "oases" which in this case are the tributary river valleys flowing into the Mississippi-Missouri system, or the Great Lakes or the northwestern Lakes such as Winnipeg or Great Slave Lake--I believe these ultimately drain into Lake Superior though I should check that, the latter especially might drain north to the Arctic Ocean instead. The southern limits of Misian agriculture I suspect are the parallel rivers southwest of the Mississippi tributaries such as the Sabine, Pecos, and Rio Grande, whose upper reaches will segue from ancient southern Misian crops toward increased reliance on the Sisters in the Pueblo area of "Oasisamerica." Which surely has some other name in Misian cartography! I don't think Misian crops would be highly likely to stimulate additional civilized zones in the Great Basin though they just might; if they can, it seems likely to raise the probability of agriculture in California and the Williamette/Columbia and Puget Sound regions. The Wasatch zone (between the steep Wasatch western edge of the Rockies("Assinwati") and Great Salt lake, that has the majority of OTL Utah's population) would be a candidate for an extra civilized zone based on a mix of ATL Misian crops transplanted and adapted, something or other local, and perhaps Sisters.
When I say the Sisters ought not arrive much earlier than OTL, first of all I mainly mean to gainsay that they could arrive very anciently, but I certainly think they could move faster and be more diverse and better adapted to colder and more seasonal climates earlier, being accelerated as it were by partial adoption by already deeply agricultural civilizations. They definitely can be justified arriving at a given latitude or other climatic variant from their heartland hundreds or even thousands of years earlier, just not preempting a prior set that has to be developed natively in the higher latitudes to justify this more rapid spread. All evidence is that the Sisters, once adapted, were a very advantageous mix that tended to displace local crops--here I suspect the Misian native stuff is better developed and not as displaced, and yet when adopting the Sisters the outcome is a net improvement overall. Still, I suspect we can account for stronger development in Mesoamerica and perhaps even to a limited extent in the Andes due to a few stray Misian cultivars adapting to more tropical climates and being incorporated into Central American and "Spanish Main" (northern Caribbean shore of South America) and perhaps a few cool climate types leapfrogging past the tropics completely to be adopted in the higher Andes--which would justify some Andean crops leapfrogging the other way.
The upshot being that all American cultivation packages are even richer than OTL, with therefore somewhat higher net population counts pre-Columbian contact, and with even more New World crops spreading to the Old World sooner.
Not a lot sooner, but perhaps for instance some marginal but significant crop, developed on the north shore of the Great Lakes and extending the cultivation-based civilization zone somewhat farther up the Canadian Shield, perhaps to the shores of Hudson's Bay and in spots in Labrador, might account for the canon remark about Takamcook belatedly going agricultural--with I am guessing, a very marginal mix of crops more typical of the better lands south and west, but supplemented by this peculiar "taiga forest" zone crop.
If such a crop exists--it could have revolutionary effects versus OTL in such European countries as Scotland, Norway, northern Sweden, Finland, and northern Russia, perhaps make life less terribly marginal in Iceland, barely feasible in Svalbard, and someday make the extreme east Asian zones north beyond Korea and Manchuria a bit more viable for eventual development, by improving locals, by Manchurian promoted Chinese colonists, by Korean expansionists or by Japanese colonists, and if these are all delayed, eventually by Russian settlers. (Or some ATL expansion of American west coast powers to be developed later). It might also make life a bit more sustainable in marginally higher populations in places like Switzerland or Tibet, and the higher parts of the South American Altiplano.
Given the nature of the English presence centering on Takamcook, such a crop seems likely to spread rapidly to Scotland first of all, and quite likely to the Danish Crown lands. I figure Cabot OTL took a westward route that went far north, merging into the routes the Vikings took earlier, and therefore England's American colonial activities overlap Danish sea routes. Going back east, I suppose they hit on the Gulf Stream pretty early on and can sail home to the British isles well south of Danish patrols, but the same is not so true of getting to America by the northern route in the first place.
Granted, instead the English could veer south (something they were doing long before 1500, it was English sailors who first reported the Azores though Portuguese enterprise took control of these islands quite rapidly) which would instead entangle them with Spanish traffic. Assuming the English can evade any Spanish interference well enough, they will loop over to the Americas in Spanish controlled zones but either seizing or evading the northerly reach, find themselves coasting North America around the same latitudes the southeast salient of the Kilsu Empire concedes control to the western Chesapeake based power(expanded Tsenecommacah--hey, is that a cognate of "Seneca"?), and thence up the coast past or to the Haudenosaunee Atlantic claims to the rival centered in OTL Maine-New Brunswick-Nova Scotia(Wabanaki) and thus back to Takamcook. For Takamcook and--darn it the Glossary doesn't record the ATL native name of the St Lawrence yet, that is apparently Wepistuk--anyway for English activity focusing on expansion along the Wepistuk gulf, the sensible route to prefer is probably the northern one going west, though perhaps seasonal weather conditions might favor the southern route regardless of political considerations--the English being free to navigate either freely would be their goal of course. The southern route draws their attention to activities involving the three coastal powers.
Because of the juncture the story has arrived at geopolitically and narratively, I believe that the Haudenosaunee have the power to block English communications with the Kilsu imperium completely if they have a mind to, though the English could try finding their way into Hudson's Bay and make contact on the north border--that's chancy, having conquered the Wendat with English help, the English would have to cross peripherally civilized or perhaps even hunter-gatherer tribe territory labeled "Oji-Nehiyaw Tribes" then cross either Lake Superior or the Huron-Michigan compound. Or they could much more reasonably go coastwise south of Tsenecommacah (or via that more or less client state of the empire).
So I am just taking note--hitherto the English presence is centered at the town of St John's on Takamcook, and have actively aided the Haudenosaunee in getting a firm grasp of the eastern, Lake Ontario, zone of the Great Lakes which also controls their approach to the whole Misian inland zone as the Hauden also control the Wepistuk river itself, or at least its upper course from Lake Ontario. (We ought to add the Native names, at least as the Kilsu choose to render them, of the entire Great Lakes system, and settle whether as is traditional but hydrographically questionable Lakes Michigan and Huron are considered two different lakes, or whether, noting they share a common lake level and water circulates back and forth between these lakes, so that some sources today describe the pair as a single lake, which by the way would be larger than Superior if so defined. The geography suggests they'd be traditionally regarded as different lakes since the strait connecting them is small, whereas their traditional naming and definition would go back thousands of years to a time when no single political entity spanned both).
Now, in addition to controlling the Wepistuk approach from Atlantic to the Misian imperial interior, the Haudenosaunee state also occupies the trail from Manhattan to the Lakes as well. The Native North Americans are great canal builders so possibly a canal analogous to the Eire canal might be built someday fairly soon, but that too runs through Hauden control, as things stand.
The English have been cultivating good relations with both the Hauden and Kilsu states--the latter is the biggest prize long term, but in the short run if conflict forces the English to choose, they have to run all the way coastwise southward from OTL Newfoundland all the way to the Chesapeake, or farther south to about where Charleston SC is OTL to get into direct contact with Kilsu territory, which would be a point a long way from the capital in OTL Ohio.
Either the English manage to mediate friendly terms keeping both Hauden and Kilsu in friendly relations with each other, or aid one or the other against the other. With all the focus on the Kilsu state, this bodes ill for ongoing good relations with the Hauden unless indeed they can be kept civil. Achieving that, we have in effect a block of four independent but interdependent nations comprising between them a region somewhat larger than the OTL USA as of the Louisiana Purchase, with a net population between the four of them much larger than France at this time.
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Speaking of maintaining good relations, the other quibble I have, other than noting that I can't believe the Sisters crop set moved northward a whole lot faster than OTL, is that I don't find the dialog between Cabot and Columbus very credible. Basically, if Columbus gets the notion that Cabot is looking down on him from a moral high horse, nothing stops the "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" from clapping Cabot in irons and having him executed on the spot. Now I find it credible enough that Cabot, confronted with the ugliness of Columbus's notions of how to run colonies for fun and profit, might be outraged indeed. But I think he would be astute enough to dissemble somewhat with Columbus, to avoid triggering the tyrant or having exposed a bit of bad conscience on his part, to diplomatically flatter him enough to be allowed to leave on what Columbus assumes are friendly terms, one Italian hired navigator to another. I am not sure what pronouncements about English activity in the north being hostile to the rights and interests of the King of Spain Columbus would have heard, but I daresay that the conflict of interest is plain enough that Cabot is lucky not to have been seized and held hostage on sight, on the authority of the Kingdom of Spain. Of course such a high handed action would put a strain on relations between Spain and England, whereas OTL I gather it was early Tudor policy to seek alliance with Iberian powers, with marriages set up with both the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies of the day--obviously before Henry VIII decided to break with the entire Continental Catholic establishment and set himself up as Caesaropapist head of the Church of England.
Here neither Henry VIII's reign nor the rupture between Anglican and Catholic communions are set in stone yet. I gather Henry had an older brother Arthur, and butterflies could mean Arthur and not Henry survives to become King; Cabot himself was contracted by Henry VII, whose accession to the throne ended the War of the Roses and settled the Welsh-origin Tudor dynasty in place for the next century. Arthur might have more luck siring a male heir and Henry the younger's whole line becomes more and more distant from a direct claim to the throne. OTL Henry 8 reorganized the English claims over Ireland to become a sweeping claim to reign over a Kingdom of Ireland in personal union, and it seems likely to me that under any particular successor to H7, something like that would happen, especially if there is no religious breach, or the nature of one is less alienating to the Irish Catholics. (Then again, I suspect one reason the Irish so fanatically kept to Catholicism as part of their core identity was precisely to resist English rule; if England stays orthodoxly Catholic, we might see a wildcat form of Protestantism appropriate to the subordinated condition of common Irish, something like Anabaptism perhaps, or something quite unique to the Irish, sweep the island in defiance of Catholic orthodoxy--associated with English rule). Meanwhile, if the Tudor line runs through Arthur and not Henry, and Arthur manages to father a couple healthy sons so that the succession is not in doubt, there might or might not be some kind of Protestant breach at all. Especially in retrospect many British people seem to think Protestant secession from Roman Catholic authority was inevitable, and there were in fact many reasons why H8's move which seemed superficially to be all about his power to get divorced until he finally managed to have a male heir actually tied his reign to major vested interests highly favoring the Anglican schism. But I have ideas about other ways that might go--for instance, there might be a papal schism as happened many times in the Middle Ages, where two men (or sometimes even more) claimed to be the proper Pope and heir of St Peter who ought to preside in Rome, and these "Pope/Anti-Pope" schisms were across European political fault lines, the monarch or other government of one nation adhering to one and their rivals adhering to the other. What if the general drift of Reformation spirit lines up with such a schism with the "northern Pope" coming to terms permitting a certain degree of Lutheran/Calvinist practice under a nominal central Papal authority, and the states that lined up with Luther and Calvin OTL align to back this reformist Pope (who is reformist because his claim to the Papacy is predicated on the backing of these reformist powers) while those that remained Catholic OTL back the more conservative one, who probably would in fact have residence in Rome? Mind, the radicalism of OTL Protestantism would tend to challenge the authority of any Pope whatsoever, however reformed and moderate to them, and if precedent for a standing schism builds up, yet more schisms might be the outcome with the difference from OTL in England being that the English monarch appoints a puppet Pope in Canterbury instead of just saying he himself is automatically Pope as king. Meanwhile one reason that H8 could prosper from having thrown off Roman ties was that he ruthlessly purged the established Catholic monasteries, giving their rich and extensive lands and other wealth over to favored supporters (who tended to handle these opportunities very entrepreneurially, laying some of the foundation of English capitalism as we know it OTL). Any nominally separate Papacy, however much a creature of Royal favor, is going to have to object to that, limiting the monarchy's ability to dole out former Church lands as patronage--or leading to the same ultimate king=pope solution as OTL. Vice versa if Arthur, or a butterflied H8 with better luck getting heirs, decides not to favor a major breach, the social development of England might be quite different. Meanwhile also, there is the fate of Scotland to consider; OTL it softened the blow of being in effect absorbed as an appendage of the English system for the Scots to see their own monarch given the English kingdom in personal union too, though this honeymoon did not last long--by the reign of Charles First, the nominally Scottish Stuart king was behaving pretty much like an anti-Reformation English king and badly out of line with the Calvinist dominant sectors of Scottish society. Whether union with Scotland is either inevitable or unlikely depends on who you ask.
The details of who reigns in England and what these monarchs do next are entirely in the author's hands of course. I just wanted to draw attention to the European context in which kings in London and Madrid will be reacting to the conflicts emerging in America.
If it is not clear, the items I highlighted in bold in my general response seem like appropriate candidates to add to the glossary, plus as I mentioned, perhaps we should be told the names of the Great Lakes and any other lakes or rivers of great importance to the narrative. I think you've been doing a good job of being clear one way or the other (by evident cognate, clearly referring to a given site in context) or by specific mention of enough cues to identify which site or river or whatnot has a name very obscure or totally alien to OTL. As we go along though it is good to include these all in the glossary anyway.
Ideally there would be a parallel cumulative map, with sites updated as added--that runs into the problem though that you'd want different maps for different eras; the reference map might omit all state boundaries whatsoever and if any major sites or other objects get renamed as might still happen (in Spanish held territory in particular) the later prevailing name might be added over the old one in parentheses--I expect in this ATL no matter how many centuries pass under Spanish control with generation after generation born there referring to the "Santa this" or "Sangre de Christo" that and being largely unaware it ever had another name, outside the Spanish domains interests will support continuing to call them by the old names anyway; the exilic Taino for instance seem likely to preserve such memories in irredentist fashion.
Meanwhile as noted, we are going to be hitting European history with barrages of butterflies and the map of Europe as of say 1700 might be strikingly different, with the map of 1900 downright weird.
Smeagol always helps!
Proposed extension of glossary up to date thus far (mostly, the Great Lakes have been partially named for instance) with my proposed additions in italics:
Assinwati--Rocky Mountains
Awansachi-- Appalachian Mountains
Cahoqua– Cahokia Mounds, across the river from St. Louis, MO
Cheektowaga– Buffalo, NY
Chesapeake– Norfolk, VA
Ileni/Hileni--traditional name of imperial zone based on ancient first imperial nationality
Kilsu--current imperial dynasty ruling Misia, contemporary (1500 CE and on) imperial state.
Mabila– Mobile, AL
Manhattan– if you’re looking this one up please get help
Mashowomuk– Boston, MA
Misia--Mississippi watershed or more generally, the long established zone of central imperial control
Osachit– Jacksonville, FL
Sakimauchin– Philadelphia, PA
Shawasha– New Orleans, LA
Shicaqua– Chicago, IL
Takamcook– Newfoundland
Tanpa– Tampa, FL
Tekesta– Miami, FL
Tsenecommacah--a national group expanding to take control of the west Chesapeake and southwest to Kilsu boundaries, bordering in the north on expanded Haudensaunee
Wabanaki--northern tribal confederation spanning OTL Maine and Maritimes, bordering on expanded Haudensaunee.
Wepistuk--St Lawrence River, perhaps used for the gulf to the east as well?
Yamacraw– Savannah, GA
Places and persons that might merit their Kilsu or other relevant ATL name here based on narrative thus far or general importance and likelihood to be well known to the Kilsu authorities, political and academic:
Prince Edward Isle
Mississippi River
Great Plains
Missouri River
Great Lakes
and their individual names--some have been given such as Eire's ATL name. Most seem to be cognates?
Lake Winnipeg
Sabine R
Pecos R
Rio Grande R
Oasisamerica
Pueblo peoples
"Spanish Main" (northern Caribbean shore of South America)
Andes mountains
Hudson's Bay
Chesapeake Bay (might or might not take the name of the recently conquered city state?)
Proposed extension of glossary up to date thus far (mostly, the Great Lakes have been partially named for instance) with my proposed additions in italics:
Assinwati--Rocky Mountains
Awansachi-- Appalachian Mountains
Cahoqua– Cahokia Mounds, across the river from St. Louis, MO
Cheektowaga– Buffalo, NY
Chesapeake– Norfolk, VA
Ileni/Hileni--traditional name of imperial zone based on ancient first imperial nationality
Kilsu--current imperial dynasty ruling Misia, contemporary (1500 CE and on) imperial state.
Mabila– Mobile, AL
Manhattan– if you’re looking this one up please get help
Mashowomuk– Boston, MA
Misia--Mississippi watershed or more generally, the long established zone of central imperial control
Osachit– Jacksonville, FL
Sakimauchin– Philadelphia, PA
Shawasha– New Orleans, LA
Shicaqua– Chicago, IL
Takamcook– Newfoundland
Tanpa– Tampa, FL
Tekesta– Miami, FL
Tsenecommacah--a national group expanding to take control of the west Chesapeake and southwest to Kilsu boundaries, bordering in the north on expanded Haudensaunee
Wabanaki--northern tribal confederation spanning OTL Maine and Maritimes, bordering on expanded Haudensaunee.
Wepistuk--St Lawrence River, perhaps used for the gulf to the east as well?
Yamacraw– Savannah, GA
Places and persons that might merit their Kilsu or other relevant ATL name here based on narrative thus far or general importance and likelihood to be well known to the Kilsu authorities, political and academic:
Prince Edward Isle
Mississippi River
Great Plains
Missouri River
Great Lakes
and their individual names--some have been given such as Eire's ATL name. Most seem to be cognates?
Lake Winnipeg
Sabine R
Pecos R
Rio Grande R
Oasisamerica
Pueblo peoples
"Spanish Main" (northern Caribbean shore of South America)
Andes mountains
Hudson's Bay
Chesapeake Bay (might or might not take the name of the recently conquered city state?)
A lot of names are spelled differently based on languages (although sometimes it is admittedly due to my inconsistency). Shicaqua and all of its variants (Shikaqua, Shikakwa, etc.) all refer to the same place. As an example, the city of Cahoqua as it is spelled in English is referred to as "Kahoquah" from the Misian perspective and "Cajocua" by the Spanish. Another example is Mabila, which is know as Mabila to the English, Spanish, and local Southern Misians, but is referred to as Mapila in the imperial court. Misia itself is the name of the land used by the English and the Spanish, although when Columbus first heard the name he wrote it as "Misihua". The Misians (who consider themselves Hileni people) refer to their land as "Mihsiwahk", meaning "The Great Land/Kingdom", sort of like how China is referred to as Zhong Guo, and although I haven't written this one yet, the Lenape, whose suffix for land is -hoken, refer to the land as Misihoken. Not sure how much this relates to that particular question, but I hope that helps.
It's basically what you would expect from borders around that time. Particularly between smaller states in denser areas lines of control were a bit clearer, but often it's not entirely perfectly delineated. A lot of border regions, particularly in the more mountainous areas, are quite fluid and just inhabited by hill tribes. The treaty of St. John's (Or "Sente Chansa" in Hileni) created more solid borders for the purpose of maintaining peace. The Misian western border is the most fluid, with villages teetering off into the great plains where settled Hileni Misians live near nomadic bison hunters, although the region is also fairly fortified. The exact northern border is also kinda fuzzy.
The terms Misia and Mississippi are related, but Misia does not just mean "Lands of the Great River", although the Great River is a key part of Misian identity. "Misia" derives from "Mihsiwahk", meaning "Great Land". The term is definitely like China/Zhong Guo and changes over time. The southeast is generally considered part of the Misian heartland although it does have some cultural differences, sort of like southern China compared to the North China Plain. Florida and much of Texas are generally considered part of Greater Misia that the most powerful dynasties tend to expand into, as are regions further out west along the Missouri and other regions.
In response to the whole section on crops, I did butterfly a quicker spread, which was in part helped by the massive farming population in southern Misia early on to make the crop more widespread and propagate its spread. At the same time, there are other crops still present, such as better-domesticated versions of the OTL EAC, as well as Manoomin, which is a really big one that has versions that work particularly well in cooler climates. I do also in the chapter about Cabot's journey south allude to the fact that corn and a lot of other crops are less commonly grown further north, with the northernmost groups especially trading for a good portion of their food. They, in turn, have comparative advantages in lumber, fur, certain types of grapes and berries (and therefore wine as well), certain mineral resources, and of course, some cooler-weather crops such as northern varieties of manoomin. I'll probably at some point do a food chapter to elaborate further on crops used where.
As for the Haudenosaunee, they control the bulk of trade between the English and Northern Misia. The English also have some trade with Southeastern Misia around the Carolinas and Georgia (although of course given Misia's interconnectedness, you can buy at least some goods from any region of the empire at any port). The Haudenosaunee generally benefit economically from English trade with northern Misia (as well as trade with any other coastal state desiring to use the Wepistuk). Several ports on the east coast offer alternative access over land, but Manhattan, basically the best coastal port for its access to the Hudson also offers a route through the Haudenosaunee. With the Haudenosaunee now possessing control over this entire route as well as some control now over the coastal trade route, it is definitely in the interest of themselves, the Misians, and the English to build a canal, although of course the labor to do so now would be fairly expensive given the recent decline in population.
While Anglo-Spanish relations aren't incredible, they are by no means horribly strained. Columbus, while an asshole, wouldn't have risked war over a diss. As the Protestant Reformation comes out in full-swing and the Spanish are more firmly established as an adversary towards the English and their allies on the mainland, that will of course create further conflict between England and Spain over the New World. The question for that of course is where Spain will find an ally capable of going toe-to-toe with that of the English…
Thanks! I updated some of the stuff. Some of these extra things I've already mentioned but haven't added (Oasisamerica is known to the Misians as "Ashipewahk"). I'll definitely add more names as I get to them.
I'm still figuring out exactly how to handle the next phase of the Spanish invasion storyline. In the meantime, here's a work-in-progress map of major (or small-yet-significant) North American cities with current or near-future relevance to the story, including some that I haven't mentioned yet.
