WI: Large Native State on the West Coast

Sorry meant if they fooled them to think there was nothing good here not to say there no cities just no gold
The Spanish spent decades fighting in the Yucatan, long after it was clear to any reasonable observer that there was nothing there remotely worth the cost. They spent decades searching for rumors of a fountain of youth, seven cities of gold, a guy who bathed in gold dust every day, etc despite a remarkable lack of success.

There's no way they were going to believe "no really, we have no cities or gold, honest; don't bother looking."

Besides, how are you going to prevent their neighbors from spilling the beans? Why should the people the Cali Inca have probably been fighting/enslaving go along with their prescient conspiracy (and again, why are the Cali Inca going to know to implement this literally as soon as they see Spaniards showing up; one advantage that the Spanish ships give them is that they have much better communication)?
 
But, no problem, let's assume that Mesoamerican agriculture had reached California millennia ago. That, combined with the high carrying capacity of California's environment, the Sacramento/San Joaquin river systems, and the abundant coastal resources, could result in a very high population by ATL 1500 - perhaps nearly as dense as Mexico's at that point - and with a few more developments in societal organization, there could be a large imperial state occupying most or all of California.
Except Mesoamerican crops are all warm-weather crops and require water during the summer, which is precisely when most of California does not have water. Adoption of Mesoamerican crops was possible in Arizona due to the North American monsoon bringing plentiful, if sporadic, summer rainfall. The only part of California that semi-regularly gets any moisture from the monsoon is the extreme southeastern part of the state. Agriculture at a scale big enough to feed a large urban population in most of the rest of the state would have to rely on infrastructure to bring water to the fields from the rivers large enough to continue flowing in the summer. This would require a population large enough to build and maintain irrigation systems in the first place. The tendency for California's rivers to routinely flood and change course makes it even more difficult to have permanent settlements. You could maybe see some farming happening in the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta or the shores of Tulare Lake and Lake Cahuilla (until it dries up), but I don't see any large-scale societies forming without crops that can be grown in the winter-spring wet season.
 

Lusitania

Donor
I was thinking of a civil war in the Inca resulting in a splinter group sailing north past the Mayans and what other group and finally settling in Oregon on San Francisco Bay. They subjugate one tribe and take over and slowly grow. They have potatoes and other crops. Later on they trade with Mayans and get corn. Slowly increase size north to Columbia River and south to the San Diego area. Over time even develop irrigation.

Maybe they raid other tribes for slaves to build cities and other stuff.
 

Chimera0205

Banned
I was thinking of a civil war in the Inca resulting in a splinter group sailing north past the Mayans and what other group and finally settling in Oregon on San Francisco Bay. They subjugate one tribe and take over and slowly grow. They have potatoes and other crops. Later on they trade with Mayans and get corn. Slowly increase size north to Columbia River and south to the San Diego area. Over time even develop irrigation.

Maybe they raid other tribes for slaves to build cities and other stuff.
Isnt that basically what the aztecs did?
 

Lusitania

Donor
Isnt that basically what the aztecs did?
To some extent. Just trying to bring to pacific coast a group that has experience in empire building and building cities to settle in the general area and start ball rolling. Not sure one of the existing tribes would have the insight or ability to do so.
 

Chimera0205

Banned
Isnt the word California a Native word? So it is theoretically possible that if the state is formed by inca refugees that they may actually call themselves the California Inca or i guess california tawatinsuya if we wanna be technical.
 
Isnt the word California a Native word? So it is theoretically possible that if the state is formed by inca refugees that they may actually call themselves the California Inca or i guess california tawatinsuya if we wanna be technical.
"California" is Spanish. It was the name of a mysterious island (populated by Amazons!) in an early 16th century Spanish romance (basically the equivalent of modern pulp fiction) that the Spanish discoverer was a fan of.

And Inca refugees would be far more likely to go further south into the Andes, north into Colombia, or east into the Amazon (which is where the actual Inca refugees from the Spanish conquest ended up) than to head an entire continent away and plop themselves down in California.
 
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