New Reality Seeds

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by robkelk

There were plenty of others would would happily have sent the natives on their trails of tears. Specifics might change, of course.

I've occasionally wondered whether having Sir Isaac Brock survive the Battle of Queenston Heights and then Tecumseh survive the Battle of the Thames would have made a difference for the Native Americans. Brock saw Tecumseh as an actual ally, not a convenient source of front-line troops - if both had survived the war, would the Treaty of Ghent have included the terms to return lands in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan to the natives?

Brock would have ended up like T.E.Lawrence admired and ignored. Britain only wanted a Native American state so that it could keep the USA out of the Ohio Valley and grab it for themselves later. You must remember the interior of North America was up for grabs no matter what the maps said. Both Mexico and the Indians were going to be robbed. The US was only one contender, France, Britain, and Russia, all wanted that land too. Russia saw all lands West of the Mississippi and north of San Francisco as theirs alone. Mexico claimed all of North America to the North Pole. Mexico saw both the Mississippi and Ohio valleys as rightly theirs. Spain saw Florida as stolen from them and part of Cuba. Some of Castro's people have demanded the return of Florida (mere rhetoric but it makes the case).

The competing land claims were settled in favor of a multi-ethnic democracy. The world is still bitter.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Gedrin

I honestly don't see how things turn out well for native American culture. Imagine a culture with 1000 years of technological advantage appeared next door and they're not some sort of "future saints". About the same thing happens.

As the book cited above, (The Other Trail of Tears) says, other outcomes were possible. Indian culture was going to be defeated, but less brutal outcomes were possible. Still, the Indian's loss was a lifeline for millions of European immigrants.

Picture an America that made the Native Americans part of the culture/nation but then could take in the vast swarms of European immigrants in the late 19th early 20th century. What happens to Europe? Was everybody that got a second chance because of Indian clearance and Indian land worthless?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

...
Picture an America that made the Native Americans part of the culture/nation but then could take in the vast swarms of European immigrants in the late 19th early 20th century. What happens to Europe? Was everybody that got a second chance because of Indian clearance and Indian land worthless?

No group of people is worth more or less than another. Unless it's a group of animal abusers. They can pound sand.

The powerful ALWAYS abuse the weak. That's human nature for groups. Individuals may buck that rule, of course.

With accurate knowledge of native American culture more widely known, we wouldn't get as much noble savage nonsense or commercials showing Italians crying in "red face" over pollution.

Would that make 20th century westerns more morally complex, nearly absent, or what?

[Gedrin]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Picture an America that made the Native Americans part of the culture/nation but then could take in the vast swarms of European immigrants in the late 19th early 20th century. What happens to Europe? Was everybody that got a second chance because of Indian clearance and Indian land worthless?

In 1830? Nope. Remember, this is a point in time when abolitionists, arguably the leading edge of moral understanding regarding race in the US, are collecting money to send slaves back to Africa.
You'd have to find an earlier point of change, and develop the "moral/cultural technology" needed to support such a society. The idea is present in the Declaration, but there's no stable implementation at that time. much less the concept of various races living side by side as good neighbors.

Setting aside all possible changes on the US side, there's no reason, other than overwhelming and proven force, to believe that the natives would accept the interlopers. Each side gets a veto on peace.

If you did have a more enlightened view of "race", on both sides, you'd probably still need a "Great Peacemaker" type figure or other circumstance (common enemy?).

Suggestions:
American Wilberforce: A figure similar to William Wilberforce is born in the colonies, and meets success during the ratification of the Constitution. He becomes a powerful figure, with wide moral and political authority, and mediates several treaties with the natives. (There are huge hurdles here, and a radical departure for US history)

Invasion France: Napoleon, or whomever, attempts to conquer the New World and the British are happy to see him do it. The natives and US throw in together over a long war. (Eventual US victory. Isolationism is weakened in the long run.)

[cptbutton]

Not quite what is being asked for, but, plagiarizing myself:

Originally Posted by cptbutton

Not Iroquois, but Eric Flint has written two novels in a timeline with a less bad Cherokee expulsion.

1812: The Rivers of War

1824: The Arkansas War


tl;dr: The Cherokee move voluntarily to Arkansas and set up an independent nation, which bans slavery and welcomes free blacks. There is a war with the US in the second book.

Andrew Jackson lives, but the Cherokee get a better deal.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

No group of people is worth more or less than another. Unless it's a group of animal abusers. They can pound sand.

Make that bullies generally, okay.

The powerful ALWAYS abuse the weak. That's human nature for groups. Individuals may buck that rule, of course.

With accurate knowledge of native American culture more widely known, we wouldn't get as much noble savage nonsense or commercials showing Italians crying in "red face" over pollution.

Would that make 20th century westerns more morally complex, nearly absent, or what?

The settlement of the West caused a worldwide literary movement that predated America gaining the Louisiana territory. Westerns have to include films like Northwest Passage which takes place in New England in 1759. The Western both created a pop culture phenomena and give high culture a new way of dealing with the themes of the Utopia that didn't require building a perfect society, just the struggle of others to build a society/community period.

[Astromancer]

Both Franklin and Washington wanted the integration of the Native Americans into American society (which is what will likely happen in the end, two or more centuries late and far to much pain in the making.). Thus Americas where the Native Americans are brought in like Maori in New Zealand were possible. You'd probably need a major Native American leader during the American Revolutionary War with the vision to ally with the Americans and the diplomacy to get his tribe and some others brought in as states by the time of the Constitution.

[ericthered]

The maori probably integrated nicely because of the timing of european settlement in respect to disease. The classic epidemics that wipe out huge portions of a population not used to old world diseases hit the maori at the same time the europeans were settling -- in large and comparatively sudden numbers. This meant the colonization was more akin to the settlement of plymoth than the settlement of the ohio: the maori didn't have the strength to fight back, didn't have the will to fight back, had negative population pressure and as a consequence were incorporated into the new comers.

The native americans west of the apilachians had recovered from their earlier population crash, and were experiencing positive population pressure as they expanded their numbers. When the new comers came, they felt strong, put up a fight, and they were killed and displaced rather than being incorporated.

[Astromancer]

Which suggests that a new round of diseases would have helped. However, the Native Americans of the 19th century weren't fully adapted to European diseases yet. It's a commonplace complaint though out the 19th and early 20th centuries, right up to the Spainish Flu, that Whites bring disease. Period reports seem to confirm the Native America view. White folks, even the cleanest ones, brought plagues to the Native Americans until only those with disease resistance were left.

Yes the Maori were demoralized by disease, so also the Native Americans. Others factors where still important.

[Flyndaran]

It's more that large population densities allow new diseases to evolve and those new to the group suffer badly.
If native Americans had enough time with their own dense populations, then the Europeans would have suffered just as badly to those new diseases.