WI: North American Native Nations

[althisfan]

You could probably swing something with Coast First Nations in the Columbia District/Oregon Country if you end up with a United States that remains constrained to the east. Certainly you could get a Coast First Nations-flavoured country out there, at least - the French and British fur traders and early settlers in the area were much more receptive to Indian culture and language than later American settlers, and many British officials in the area spoke chinuk wawa fluently - in fact many white settlers spoke it at home in preference to English, and it was widely used in court testimony, newspapers and everyday conversation. By 1875, more than 100,000 people spoke it. But there was a huge influx of English-speaking settlers after a certain point (the railroad was a big factor), which moved the wawa-speaking group north into British Columbia and effectively led to the sunset of the wawa as the trade language, along with factors like residential schools. (Elements of it still survive today, mind, like the terms "potlatch" and "muckity-muck.")

Have an east-coast-oriented America and give it some time for the existing group of settlers to intermarry more heavily with the locals, and you'd end up with a smaller country with a dialect of English heavily laced with terms from the wawa and probably a large population of Métis-type people who speak it.



This is one of those ideas I'd love to do as a TL but don't have the gumption to pull the trigger on, incidentally.

Given that what is called that Oregon Country/Columbia District was claimed by Spain (which Mexico would inherit that claim), Russia, and Great Britain, I don't see an American Indian nation forming. One of those nations is going to occupy. Most likely Mexico south of the Columbia River and Britain north. British area becomes Canadian. For all the "Americans treat natives so bad pushing them out and Manifest Destiny to the Pacific Ocean", Canada did the same thing. And to be clear- Chinook jargon (or wawa) is a pidgin or creole of Chinook with English and is the language the Chinook used to speak with the English and Metis traders from the East. It started around the Columbia River in Oregon and Washington.

 

[Planet of Hats]

Given that what is called that Oregon Country/Columbia District was claimed by Spain (which Mexico would inherit that claim), Russia, and Great Britain, I don't see an American Indian nation forming. One of those nations is going to occupy. Most likely Mexico south of the Columbia River and Britain north. British area becomes Canadian. For all the "Americans treat natives so bad pushing them out and Manifest Destiny to the Pacific Ocean", Canada did the same thing.

Manifest Destiny isn't inevitable, though, especially if you have a constrained United States that doesn't go east for whatever your POD is. Joining Canada was also likely but not inevitable and is contingent on having a central government in Canada that wants to not only build the railroad, but assume the colony's debt. Put some more Eastern-oriented people into positions of power and leave the Columbia Territory hanging, and you're golden.

There aren't enough people in Russian Alaska to make a serious play for BC practical.

 

[althisfan]

Manifest Destiny isn't inevitable, though, especially if you have a constrained United States that doesn't go east for whatever your POD is. Joining Canada was also likely but not inevitable and is contingent on having a central government in Canada that wants to not only build the railroad, but assume the colony's debt. Put some more Eastern-oriented people into positions of power and leave the Columbia Territory hanging, and you're golden.

There aren't enough people in Russian Alaska to make a serious play for BC practical.

Fort Ross disagrees. You don't need large numbers of your own people in a region to have the geopolitical power over the region. Large swaths of Siberia have little in the way of Russians.

 

[Planet of Hats]

Fort Ross disagrees. You don't need large numbers of your own people in a region to have the geopolitical power over the region. Large swaths of Siberia have little in the way of Russians.

They could put Fort Ross literally on Vancouver Island and there still wouldn't be enough Russians in the Columbia Territory to exercise control over the region. The population of Russians was too small and the area was too difficult and expensive to defend. The Bear was just really, really unlikely to control the area; it was lucky to hold Alaska for as long as it did. Boots on the ground matter and the British had more of them, and any Gold Rush would just put more English-speakers (future Chinookan-speakers) on the ground and swamp the Russians. The hard part about an independent BC is keeping it from being annexed to the Canadas or the United States; keeping Russia out is just a matter of waiting for them to kill all the sea otters and realizing they have a bunch of hard-to-reach money pits with a lot more Chinookan-speaking British subjects in them than Russians.

Russian interest in the region probably dries up ITTL once the sea otter is gone. Then they sell. As OTL, Fort Ross gets sold before Alyeska does.

 

[WilliamOfOckham]

None of the ideas here have managed to address the absolutely massive population imbalance between the natives and the European settlers. The Iroquois for example had 10000 people at their height compared to the 2.5 million of the 13 colonies at around the same time.

Source for that? I seriously doubt that Iroquois population number.

 

[Planet of Hats]

None of the ideas here have managed to address the absolutely massive population imbalance between the natives and the European settlers. The Iroquois for example had 10000 people at their height compared to the 2.5 million of the 13 colonies at around the same time.

This is true.

Any surviving First Nations culture that stands to become a country is going to likely get a demographic boost from an influx of settlers who will have to have incentive to adopt or adapt native ways and traditions. Hence why I think a Métis-style thing with an Indigenous-flavoured trade language or creole is more likely than an outright First Nations, uh, nation.

 

[Ogrebear]

What about right at the start of European colonisation? Where there not some settled, organised countries among the Natives on the East coast? What sort of POD is needed for them to survive?

 

[Deleted member 67076]

Have the US fall into a Mexico like state of over centralization, succession, coups, warlords, banditry, and population stagnation in its early decades which allows Native states enough time and capital flight to reorient their societies and states to a modern footing.

 

[water123]

The Cherokee were an independent nation. Just have Cherokee authorities end up finding Georgia gold before the whites do, and the Cherokee will be shitting so much money that nobody would dare mess with them.

The Sioux were an independent nation. Have the Civil War drag on longer, along with not quite as many massive massacres of Sioux villages (maybe no Anglo-American detente means that troops have to stay in the east instead of out pillaging in the west) and the Sioux could consolidate themselves into a powerful, independent nation.

The Seminole are an independent nation. That's right, the Seminole actually never truly surrendered to the authority of the United States gov't. Have Andrew Jackson's ethnic cleansing of Florida and the states east of the Mississippi not happen, and when the Slavery crisis boils over, the Seminole could become a valuable US ally in Florida, perhaps in return for a Seminole state to be created.

 

[Ogrebear]

I know the OP said Independent Indian nation, but what if an attempt to create an Indian State happened earlier?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Sequoyah

 

[Arkenfolm]

The Sioux were an independent nation. Have the Civil War drag on longer, along with not quite as many massive massacres of Sioux villages (maybe no Anglo-American detente means that troops have to stay in the east instead of out pillaging in the west) and the Sioux could consolidate themselves into a powerful, independent nation.

There were maybe 20,000 Lakota at their height, spread out over a ton of land, how are they going to not be kicked around by the United States when the United States demands their land? They don't even have that great of resources.

 

[althisfan]

Source for that? I seriously doubt that Iroquois population number.

The number is correct.The Iroquois (or Haudensaunee) were not very numerous. But they were better organized and had European weapons earlier than other Native Americans and whooped their butts almost depopulating the Old NorthWest area north of the Ohio River and east of the Illinois River before Europeans got there, because the Iroquois wanted it as their personal beaver hunting ground to trade with the Dutch/English of New Netherland/New York. The Iroquois could have gone on to do something along independence, or a giant reservation in western NY, BUT it requires the Sullivan Expedition to not happen, which requires either- the British win the ARW or the Iroquois join full-heartedly the American side in the ARW.

 

[Strategos' Risk]

Palmerston meddles too much in US affairs during the civil war. The US respon by supporting Louis Riel's Red River Rebellion (assuming Riel is convinced to accept US aid.)

The rebellion defeats Canada and the prairies are dominated by a Metis state.

Simple, underrated suggestion. And maybe if there's a Red River state a sovereign equivalent to Nunavut to the north also happens.

 

[Wendell]

Simple, underrated suggestion. And maybe if there's a Red River state a sovereign equivalent to Nunavut to the north also happens.

Maybe indigenous peoples from the U.S. flock there as well?

 

[Ogrebear]

Would a surviving merged Native-Norse state last longer against the Europeans and thus teach modern times?

 

[Wendell]

Would a surviving merged Native-Norse state last longer against the Europeans and thus teach modern times?

Depends, but probably not.

 

[Arkenfolm]

Would a surviving merged Native-Norse state last longer against the Europeans and thus teach modern times?

Depends where it is. Imagine a Mississippian state somewhere west of the Appalachians with Norse influence (crops, animals, metallurgy, shipbuilding), which avoids the depopulation of the Late Mississippian period. Europeans would likely never expand west of the Appalachians.

 

[phx1138]

What if the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) became an independent sovereign state?

I picture it being invaded by the U.S. in fairly short order, for the reasons behind the Barbary Wars. Indian Territory in the mid- to late-19th Century was rife with criminals & fugitives. How long do you suppose DC would allow a foreign nation, in the very center of the U.S., to harbor them? Which presumes intrusions by Texas Rangers (or something) didn't provoke a war on its own...