Guns, Germs, and Good Intentions - American Indian Reservations ISOTed to 1418

[ScottishMongol]

Guns, Germs, and Good Intentions
or
A History of the Federation of American Peoples

by ScottishMongol​

There are 326 Indian Reservations in the United States of America, with a total population of about 1 million inhabitants. Many reservations are small, but twelve are larger than the state of Rhode Island, and the largest, the Navajo Nation, is comparable in size to the state of West Virginia. The majority of reservations exist west of the Mississippi River, but they are geographically diverse. Several reservations have substantial populations of white residents or are even majority-white.

Due to historical and systemic factors, most reservations experience poverty on par with much of the developing world. Indian Reservations face issue of poor nutrition, widespread alcohol and drug abuse, and corruption. Infrastructure is lacking, and law enforcement has historically been difficult.

On May 2nd​, 2018, all 326 reservations and their inhabitants were instantly translocated 600 years in the past, to that same day in 1418 A.D. The translocation was done with surgical precision along reservation borders, with few exceptions.

At the time, there were tens of millions of Native Americans living in the New World. Many lived in agricultural societies, some of them quite sophisticated and urbanized. Nearly all of them, however, lacked metal tools, large domesticated animals, or resistance to Old World diseases.

This is the history of what happened next.

 

[ScottishMongol]

Chapter 1: Disease​

The most immediate and existential threat that the translocated Indian Reservations posed to the inhabitants of the 15th​ Century Americas was the introduction of Old World diseases. The total population of the Americas prior to 1492 is a matter of speculation, and consequently it is difficult to determine how many Native Americans died as a result of virgin field epidemics, but it is estimated that a die off as high as 90% may have occurred from 1500 to 1700.

However, it is important to note that the medical technology available to Europeans at the time was still in its infancy (though it may be better to describe it as "nonexistent"), and European cities were hotbeds of disease, with destructive epidemics being common occurrences in Eurasian history. While 21st​ Century reservations faced significant health problems, many were not related to infectious diseases, and even the most basic of modern medical procedures – such as sanitation, quarantines, and proper care for the sick – are sufficient to curb most diseases in our modern day.

It is also important to discuss the nature of virgin field epidemics, and why they are so deadly. The goal of a disease is not to kill its host, since that would also kill the disease. Rather, a disease seeks an equilibrium, and over time epidemic diseases become weaker and less threatening to the body. This most commonly occurs over successive generations, and the longer a disease has to propagate the weaker it becomes, and thus less lethal.

The problem comes when the host has no prior immunity to the disease, and the disease is able to kill them very quickly. In a virgin field, even something as innocuous as influenza or chicken pox is lethal. As the disease ravages through a community, its members fall ill one by one, until no one is left to care for the sick. Many will die of dehydration or other related symptoms rather than the disease itself. In some cases, survivors will flee to other communities, carrying the disease with them. In other cases, the entire community may be wiped out – and thus, when the disease reaches the next community, it will not have been weakened by contact with previous hosts. This destruction was only further compounded when an epidemic of a completely different disease swept through the community shortly after.

At this point in history North America had extensive trade routes, and disease could spread across the breadth of the continent under the right conditions.

It would have been impossible for the 21st​ Century reservations to prevent the spread of modern diseases for any length of time. However, by providing even basic medical assistance to their neighbors, they were able to significantly improve the number of survivors, and by teaching the uninfected medical procedures and basic sanitation they improved their odds of avoiding infection themselves. By establishing quarantines, they ensured that diseases would not spread out of control, and thus ensure uncontacted tribes could be approached safely. All of these methods were available to any of the reservations.

However, not all of the reservations were in positions to take advantage of this knowledge. Many reservations were small in size and lacked basic supplies or infrastructure, or were in areas that lacked natural resources or easy access to food or water. Those reservations lowest in population were forced to contact outsiders to sustain themselves, which led to unchecked spread of disease and an inability to provide proper care to those infected. Many reservations would collapse as infighting over scarce supplies exploded, and the survivors would scatter, taking with them their disease. In this way, Old World diseases were released in the Americas, and many 15th​ Century communities would collapse as a result.

The death toll was, after all was said and done, not as high as in our history. In places where reservations were more organized and had more resources, epidemics were checked or even prevented entirely. While nearly every community in the Americas would eventually come to grips with Old World disease, many were able to do so on their own terms with the help of the reservations. Across the Americas, the number of deaths from disease was reduced by an order of magnitude compared to our history.

Finally, there the ultimate tool the reservations could use: vaccines. A vaccine could immunize the 15th​ century natives against a disease entirely, and thanks to herd immunity, the more individuals who were vaccinated the less chance the disease had to spread. While many reservations lacked the resources or knowledge to produce vaccines on their own, as contact was made with other reservations medical supplies and personnel were shared, sometimes over impressive distances.

Those first few years were and still are seen as a time of panic, chaos, and paranoia, as the Pale Horse stalked the land, striking down entire communities. There were some truly heroic efforts by those on the reservations, as well as many failures. This was all the more heightened by the fact that, at the same time that they were working to save the natives from disease, many reservations were working hard to provide themselves with food, energy, and lines of supply and communication with each other and their new neighbors.

Naturally not all attempts to provide medical care were welcomed. Some tribes resisted attempts by reservation medical personnel to interfere, others were hostile to reservation personnel entirely, associating them with the epidemics. In some places modern medical practices were implemented at gunpoint.

Eventually, after many years, a stable state of affairs was reached. The cultural landscape had vastly shifted, and already technology was making waves across the continent. It is worth noting that in our history, populations of Native Americans did recover, slowly over time, and were forced to contest with waves of European settlers intent on forcibly removing them from their lands. However, in our history the Native Americans did not have access to modern crops, livestock, and agricultural practices, which could produce food surpluses far in excess of European agriculture; nor did they have access to modern medical technology which could drastically reduce child mortality rates; nor indeed did they have access to modern technology which could drastically improve their labor output or allow for urbanized society – and create cities that were far more sanitary than most other cities of the time.

Nor did Native Americans in our history have among them nearly 1 million modern people determined to help them survive and thrive at any cost.

 

[ScottishMongol]

Chapter 2: The First Contact Period in the Northeast Woodlands​

The First Contact Period is the name given by historians to the time immediately following the translocation and is considered to have ended with the establishment of the Federation of American Peoples. The period is characterized as a time of upheaval, as reservations struggled to establish self-sufficiency (with varying degrees of success), and 15th​ Century tribes were forced to react to the outpouring of modern diseases, technology, and knowledge.

It is extremely difficult to speak generally about the experiences of either the hundreds of translocated reservations or the thousands of 15th​ Century Native American tribes. However, due to these numbers, recounting them all in detail would be impossible, with tale after tale of supplies requisitioned, lines of communication laid out, and governments expanded. Thus, a certain amount of detail must be simplified.

In the Northeast, the small size of the translocated reservations greatly shaped the nature of the First Contact Period there. None of the reservations were in a position to truly dominate the region, and in fact found themselves outnumbered by their 15th​ Century ancestors. The reservations of the northeast represented the Passamaquoddy (in modern-day Maine), the Lenape (occupying the lower Hudson River, Delaware, Connecticut, and eastern Pennsylvania), the Pequot (Long Island and Massachusetts), the Powhatan (lowland Virginia), and six reservations representing member tribes of the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois Confederacy (in Upstate New York at this time).

Given the small size of these reservations – only a few numbered more than a thousand inhabitants – the situation threatened to be out of their control from the start. The reservations were surrounded by organized agricultural societies, and the region was characterized by powerful multi-tribal confederations. The largest, the Haudenosaunee, had already existed for over three hundred years.

The reservation tribes, rather than taking leadership, instead chose to integrate themselves into Northeast society. Reservation members took on advisory roles in the tribes, combatting disease, teaching 15th​ Century tribes modern agricultural practices, and aiding in diplomatic relations with other tribes. From the rail museum on the Allegany Reservation steam engines were reverse-engineered and constructed using scrap iron (and later iron traded with the Powhatan and Pequot). Rail was laid and primitive steam engines were implemented to link centers of population.

All reservations experienced a period of growth initially, becoming hotbeds of learning and trade, but as modern knowledge disseminated, focus shifted to better-located settlements. Many reservation inhabitants found work off the reservation as doctors, teachers, engineers, or agricultural advisors, while the trade connections with the outside world saw revitalized economies. Emigration away from reservations was common. While the population density allowed for only a few small cities, they did exist. The Passamaquoddy in particular dominated trade by sea, contacting places as far south as Florida.

The reservations would be reorganized and incorporated into the confederations they were now part of. This followed a wave of political consciousness, as former reservation inhabitants sought positions of power within the confederacies and 15th​ Century leaders studied modern political thought.

However, the First Contact period saw its share of violent conflict as well. Within the first decade populations had stopped falling from disease and were growing again, thanks to abundant food surpluses and modern medical technology. While they were able to integrate themselves and their advice was highly respected, the reservation tribes were never considered leaders of the confederations they would end up joining, and the 15th​ Century tribes often had their own agendas.

The Pequot, once the reservation tribes had established a gunworks, used firearms to settle a number of traditional grudges (generously called the Pequot Wars, 1428-29). The Powhatan would use their own firearms to conquer several neighboring tribes from 1431-1434 (encouraged, some said, by former reservation members). A typical incursion by the Mahican against the Haudenosaunee turned into a rout when warriors with firearms appeared to defend their territory. The Mahican would be forcibly annexed and forced to join the Haudenosaunee soon after (1431-1433). This was followed by the Abenaki War (1433-1441).
​

The Abenaki represented the largest rival to the Haudenosaunee in the region, in part thanks to adopting modern agriculture through trade and obtaining some firearms. As the various reservation-backed tribes contacted each other, an alliance was drawn between them to contain the Abenaki, who felt threatened by the annexation of the Mahican and were harassing the Haudenosaunee with raiding parties. The war would see the Abenaki defeated, becoming a joint protectorate of the allied tribes. After the conflict, the Haudenosaunee would go on to incorporate the Delmarva Peninsula and the St. Lawrence River, leading to conflicts with the Huron and Algonquin along their new northern border. Together, these would be one of the factors that led to the creation of the Federation of American Peoples

 

[ScottishMongol]

Chapter 3: White Americans
​

Of the about 1 million reservation inhabitants, a decent number were not members of registered tribes, but white Americans. Some reservations were even majority white, as land not held in trust by the US government on behalf of the tribe could be leased to non-members of the reservation. There was substantial intermixing between the two groups; someone who could be considered "white passing" could in fact be a registered member of an Indian nation. As a result, the translocation affected them as well, and thus they were forced to adapt.

They were not at a particular disadvantage. While in many cases the reservation tribes were dealing with their own ancestors, generations under a dominant Anglo-American culture (as well as Spanish culture, in the case of some Southwest tribes) had erased many connections they may have shared with their heritage. Many native languages were endangered, having only a handful of usually elderly speakers, and many were extinct entirely. Native Americans in the 21st​ Century sometimes followed Christianity rather than traditional faiths, or new religious movements that had appeared since European colonization.

In some cases, whites and reservation tribes were on equal footing, able to cooperate for their mutual survival. Other reservations faced low-level violence as brief breakdowns in government order led to the settling of historical grievances. There was also conflict on reservations that had large numbers of tourists present at the time of the translocation. With no local safety net and often posing a resource burden on local communities (to say nothing of resentment), they were drafted into labor corps and faced poverty in the long-term – and this was on the larger reservations, where order was maintained. The tourists themselves resented their lot, as many of them were affluent and influential in their old lives. In some places, "tourist" became a pejorative word used to refer to all whites.

In most cases the communities acted in their mutual interest. Many whites saw opportunities to establish better lives for themselves, and found work as technical advisors, teachers, and doctors. Others supported tribal governments and later militaries, seeing the survival of government institutions as beneficial to all those who experienced the translocation.

Culturally, things were more complicated. It was immediately recognized by (nearly) all whites that the translocation had affected Native Americans first and foremost, and had seemingly positioned them to prevent the depredations that had been inflicted on them in our history. Seeing a divine plan, many whites would enthusiastically support tribal governments and the long-term success of the Native American people. Others would seek adoption into one tribe or another, either on the reservation or off, sometimes under protest by reservation tribes. Many whites would seek to intermarry with Native Americans. Some did so out of economic concerns – any reservation inhabitant was seen as a truly advantageous marriage, and indeed even under the grinding poverty of some reservations, standards of living could be drastically improved in some regards. Most simply intermarried because, due to being a minority of the population, they were more likely to fall in love with or marry Native Americans.

Some reactionaries, envisioning the death of the white race through demographic pressure (the irony was lost on them), they sought to marry only each other. Such efforts usually fizzled out in a generation as society moved past them, but a handful did persist, largely being seen as cranks or curiosities. Many abandoned the movement in successive generations as inbreeding became a concern. There were few cases of terrorism, including attempts at biological warfare such as intentionally spreading disease to 15th​ Century tribes. Multiple attempts were made by reactionary whites to carve out white settler states in the wilderness – these served the purpose of getting them out of mainstream society, and usually ended in failure, with a few even ending quite violently when the attempted settlers crossed a local tribe and reservation officials looked the other way while the matter settled itself.

In a few fringe cases, whites would seek to create their own "tribes" with embarrassingly stereotypical costumes and "customs", and there was an ill-fated universalist "Church of the Great Spirit". These and other typical efforts were highly discouraged by tribal leaders.

It should be noted that these groups collectively represented minorities among white society and that most whites simply sought to get on with their new lives, although intermarriage remained common and, one could even say, ubiquitous. Save for those who actively avoided intermarriage, eventually, nearly everyone would have Native Americans somewhere in their background family where a mixed heritage did not outright dominate. White culture itself would not be eliminated completely – English was the obvious choice of a lingua franca for the continent, and many 21st Century Native Americans were sufficiently Anglicized that American sports, cuisine, and art survived in various forms as part of mainstream culture.

Notably, some reservations were not only majority-white but highly urbanized and became highly influential urban centers, such as Green Bay or New Tacoma. While initially these places were majority-white, in addition to normal intermarriage these places experienced significant and persistent immigration and thus their majorities were soon undermined or replaced entirely.

Many whites were members of the American Patriot Movement, a group which also included Native Americans who had served in the US military or were employees of the federal government before the translocation. This movement sought the restoration of the United States, typically envisioned as a more ethical and fair institution than in our history. While this movement would always remain small, its members would be among the first to support the creation of the Federation of American Peoples.

 

[ScottishMongol]

Chapter 4: The First Contact Period in the Pacific Northwest​

The reservations of the Pacific Northwest were extremely well-situated to assist the 15th​ Century Native Americans that inhabited the region. In the coastal area west of the Cascades, along Puget Sound and the Olympia Peninsula, there were over twenty reservations, all of them small in size. While many of them had an agricultural base of some sort, the true resource that allowed many to survive while crops were planted were the rich fishing grounds of Puget Sound. All but a handful of reservations were situated on the coast, while those that weren't were easily able to establish sea access, usually through their neighbors. In the interior were fewer, but larger and more populous, reservations who primarily relied on ranching and farming. These interior reservations were able to establish trade routes along the Columbia River to the coast.

The Pacific Northwest region as later Federation histories describe it stretches from modern Idaho to the coast, and from Northern California to the Alaska Panhandle. Annette Island, the only designated reservation in Alaska, was one of the first reservations in the region to have its own shipbuilding industry.

The Annette Islanders were the first to contact the Yurok Reservation in Northern California during their survey along the coast a few years after the translocation. The reservation had provided basic medical assistance to their neighbors and were expanding their agricultural base. Together the two helped to orchestrate an expedition to survey the San Francisco Bay Area in 1428, looking for potential sites of settlement and development.

Perhaps the most important reservation was the Pullayup Reservation, which included part of the city of Tacoma, including portions of the waterfront. With its large population and an enormous surplus of goods, "New Tacoma" became the economic and political center of the region in later years. Of course, the region was already inhabited by numerous tribes of Native Americans, including the Nez Perce in the west, to the Tlingit in the far north, the numerous Coast and Interior Salish tribes, all the way down to the Yurok of Northern California. All of these tribes were bound together by a complex series of trade routes which had its epicenter at what is known in our history as The Dalles, where Native Americans would gather thousands at a time to trade (though in this history it would be called Quenett, after the Chinook name for a nearby stream).

Trade by sea was also important to coastal people such as the Haida, Tlingit, and Coast Salish, though their shipbuilding technology was limited to large canoes. These tribes often resorted to raiding when trade broke down – the Haida in particular were feared raiders along the coast. Many tribes in the area had the common habit of exchanging hostages in order to make peace, and the Pacific Northwest tribes had the common custom of the potlatch, a ceremonial feast that centered on gift-giving which was a primary mode of establishing status and exchanging goods.

The reservations were in a prime position to plug themselves into the existing trade network due to the sheer superiority of their goods. Any food that they could not provide for themselves they could easily obtain from their neighbors. Initial attempts at trade were hampered by outbreaks of infectious disease - while most reservations had the resources to contain them, or at least attempt basic quarantines and sanitation, vaccines were not immediately within these reservations' means. What resulted was not one wave of epidemics, but multiple regional outbreaks, staggered over several years.

It is certainly likely that the complex trade routes through the region allowed for these diseases to proliferate. Though the frequent outbreaks spooked potential merchants and caused trade to freeze periodically, in the end the potential gains to be made by trading with the reservations were too large an incentive for 15th​ Century tribes to completely avoid trading hubs like Quenett or New Tacoma. This was helped by the fact that modern knowledge made these places cleaner and safer from disease overall.

It would not be until at least a decade had passed before regular trade returned, largely due to the dissemination of medical knowledge. Many reservations, particularly the more populous ones, were obliged to send medical missions to contact 15th​ Century tribes, and later to have medical teams on retainer to travel if necessary to a crisis area. New Tacoma founded a Center for Disease Control to coordinate these efforts.

Coastal reservations and 15th​ Century settlements located on Puget Sound and its islands were slowly built up into actual ports, and in addition to New Tacoma there were others that could be considered port cities. Thanks to the help of the Annette Islanders and other coastal reservations, the 15th​ Century seafaring tribes began to build their own ships, though at first they relied on oar power and had only primitive sails.

While fishing and farming were important to sustaining these cities, much of their food was actually shipped from the interior, in the farming and ranching areas of the Columbia Basin. The tribes there had picked up horses and other livestock quickly, and while agriculture was slow to take hold in the interior, agricultural societies promised to outpace pastoral ones in terms of population growth in the long term.

There were conflicts in this period, but nothing like the open wars of the Northeast which occurred at the same time. Rather, the Pacific Northwest experienced intermittent low-level conflicts. Annette Island had to stave off several raids by Haida, and later sent expeditions to target "bad actors" who persisted in raiding. Slavery was a common practice at this time, and while the reservation governments largely tried to eliminate it out through economic pressure (refusing to trade in slaves or with those who took slaves), there were several skirmishes initiated by prospective abolitionists.

There were also conflicts over trade routes. At first the reservations were unable to prevent these, but later they took steps to foster peace between tribes. Reservations forces, accompanied by their tribal allies, would arrive in an area to force an end to the fighting and oversee an exchange of hostages. Those hostages taken by the reservations would be taught modern skills and eventually sent back to their tribes to help uplift them.

In the interior, tribes exploited guns and horses to carry out traditional feuds, and later conflicts over grazing land and watering sites. Reservation police were less able to prevent these raids given their rapid nature and the distances involved, and conflicts would persist as horses became more accessible and lifestyles in the interior adjusted to reflect this. Eventually this would culminate in the Range Wars (1432-1435).

Beginning as a normal series of conflicts over grazing land, the Range Wars became more complex as ranchers (both white and Native American) living on reservations were drawn into the conflict. Through trade, marriage, and informal alliance, the reservation citizens had slowly become entangled in tribal politics, and when several reservations citizens were part of a high-profile raid that produced notable casualties, tribal police became concerned about acting outside of their jurisdictions.

The Yakama Nation, the Colville Reservation, and the Nez Perce Nation would eventually act together to force a peace agreement, but the "joint law enforcement zone" that was produced was seen as untenable. A few high-profile trials were held at the Yakama Nation Tribal Court - some said, cynically, that they were show trials to convince the tribes that justice had been done. The controversial trials would convince reservation governments that a reorganization of the region's political order was necessary.

In 1437, representatives of all of the major recognized tribes in the region signed the New Tacoma Agreement, which was intended to be a precursor to a unified regional governing body. The signatories recognized each other as allies, established legal jurisdictions and an inter-tribal court, and created a free trade area. The agreement outlawed slavery and officially recognized over a dozen governments established by 15th​ Century tribes, some of them modeled off of reservations governments. Most of these governments (and many successors to reservation governments) were nascent and struggled to establish bureaucracies, build infrastructure, or enforce laws, and often outsourced government services to those of the larger reservations.

In the 1430s, the Pacific Northwest also experienced economic troubles. While trade was vital to the Pacific Northwest at this time, it was nearly universally in barter, the only exceptions being the copper plates used as status symbols by coastal tribes like the Tlingit, Haida, and Coast Salish. As the reservations flooded the market with cheap barter goods, something like inflation set in. New Tacoma tried issuing their own currency, but they were not the only ones, and even other reservations were hesitant to accept it. At a continental conference hosted by the Osage Nation in 1440, the Pacific Northwest delegation would collectively introduce the concept of a common currency to be used by all recognized states on the continent.

 

[ScottishMongol]

Chapter 5: Infrastructure​

In a twist of irony, the poverty experience by many reservation inhabitants was turned into an asset immediately after the translocation. In places where many houses were without electricity or running water, there was no great loss in standard of living when reservations were cut off from the outside world, and the reliance on farming and ranching for many meant a self-sufficient food supply was more quickly attainable. Many communities had a decent concept of the traditional lifestyles their ancestors lived and some still practiced traditional crafts in various forms, if only for sale in the tourism industry.

This is not to say that the poorest reservations were not worse off immediately after the translocation. Diabetes, a disproportionally common condition among Native Americans, killed many when insulin supplies ran out. While most reservations were able to avoid starvation, many "almost starved" and malnutrition from this period would have lasting effects. Some tribal governments cracked down on alcohol production when the supply ran out in a well-meaning attempt to combat alcoholism. In some places this led to restrictions on the substance, leading to ill-fated battles with bootleggers that lasted long past the First Contact period.

Reservation police and other law enforcement agents were drafted to become the core of the new reservation militias, which oftentimes exchanged fire with organized crime elements or hostile 15th Century tribes. Emergency powers were strict and far-reaching. Nearly all businesses were nationalized, those which survived did so because they were non-vital for the survival of the reservation. Agricultural products were ruthlessly requisitioned, "for the good of the people".

Even those who weren't registered with the tribe were now subject to its laws and the hard hand of the tribal police. Some resisted government influence, and were dealt with mercilessly. Many found themselves liable to be drafted into labor gangs, laying down roads, pipes, and power lines, or put to work on newly-built farms. In the best cases, white Americans were welcomed into "coalition governments" – this usually occurred where white Americans represented a majority of the population.

In the end, elections were not suspended and democratic traditions were maintained, and the reservations closely avoided any dictatorships, "Presidents-for-Life", or even de facto oligarchies, but a lot of criminals were given summary executions, the tribal councils were loath to give up their new control over industry, and white Americans suddenly found themselves marginalized. Tribal governments began to truly act like independent states, with expanded bureaucracies and government services.

As always, it was a spectrum. Some reservations left nothing but bones, and on the Osage Reservation, with its oil wells and hydroelectric dam, they had hot showers and even rations of gasoline for private use. The smaller reservations were able to survive through small-town democracy and decisive leadership, and it was the larger reservations that required emergency powers to organize their considerable populations.

There were several factors that could be used to indicate a reservation's chance of success. The first was size: the larger a reservation, the more likely it was to have significant agricultural base and a large labor pool to draw from. The second was proximity to other reservations: medium-sized reservations that would have failed on their own had a better chance if they could contact each other in order to share information, coordinate on public works programs, and exchange surpluses. The third was relations with neighboring 15th Century tribes: assuming the reservations worked to contain disease, or were able to deal peacefully with their neighbors, a reservation could trade almost anything for food they lacked themselves.

Even the most basic trinkets such as glassware, plastic tools, and modern clothes and blankets could fetch many times their weight in fish, game, and plants. Where the 15th Century tribes were settled agriculturalists, food surpluses were almost sure to be traded. While simple barter was sufficient to entice trade with other tribes, some reservations had actual industries which allowed them to truly integrate themselves into the local economy. Reservations often found themselves exploiting basic utilities in innovative ways. The reservations had crops, livestock, and techniques superior to any at the time, likewise a simple medical clinic, while representing only basic care, could be sufficient to prevent many ailments and injuries that could have been debilitating at the time. A simple machine shop could produce an impressive array of products, and a high school library alone possessed knowledge that would revolutionize the 15th Century way of life, for those who knew how to use it. Again, this was to say nothing of those reservations that possessed technical institutes, hospitals, or museums.

Many reservation inhabitants were able to "earn their keep" by performing services for the 15th Century tribes, usually as medical or technological advisers, and less-commonly as agricultural advisers. Some reservations set up apprenticeship programs to teach 15th Century Native Americans metalworking or other crafts, or hired them as laborers on farms, with seeds and tools to create their own modern-style farms when their tenure was completed. Some reservations allowed outsiders to attend their schools, or opened new schools in 15th Century communities.

Many 15th Century Native Americans migrated to the reservations seeking work or a better standard of living. By this point, the initial threat of starvation had been staved off and medical safeguards had been implemented, so reservation governments were now open to immigration, with some restrictions depending on the immigrant's tribal affiliation as tribal governments sought to retain sovereignty.

The First Contact period was not only a time of uplifting the Native Americans of the 15th Century, but of building up a modern infrastructure. Once economic growth allowed for surpluses of food and labor, effort could be directed towards expanding access to water and electricity for reservation inhabitants. Thanks to the circumstances, tribal governments were able to chip away at endemic poverty. Most economies were local, as out of necessity most communities had been forced into self-sufficiency. This was encouraged by tribal governments, who incentivized community gardens and cottage industries.

There were many cases where technology had to be downgraded and previous standards of living could not be reached again. Medical technology, while vastly superior to any existing at the time, faced technological restrictions. Private automobiles fell out of use in many places where supplies of oil were difficult to obtain. Rail or river travel replaced cars for travel between communities, while urban areas (now growing quickly) were reoriented towards pedestrian travel, bicycles, or urban rail. Travel by horse and coach became commonplace on the Great Plains.

Some technology remained elusive – while radio communications between reservations had existed since the translocation, production of new radios took almost a decade to establish itself. Air travel was risky, and done only when speed was strictly necessary, and the production of new airplanes progressed in fits and starts. Production of new automobiles was not an immediate priority (this was not an issue for many – witness the "rez car"). Few firearms superior to those of the 1800s were produced, with the balance of modern firearms reserved for government use. Computer technology was almost abandoned entirely, and production of new film and photography equipment was not feasible due to limited access to the necessary raw materials.

Trade and communications across tribal borders were becoming feasible and in some places were already commonplace. These raised their own problems – for one, most trade was still done through barter, and while some tribal governments experimented with issuing money, financial institutions were still in their infancy. Some called for a continental common market with few restrictions on trade or travel, and even a common currency. Others believed in coordinating the efforts of tribal governments through a common forum, perhaps even a multinational entity. Some called for enforced standardization of industries, environmental regulations, and relations with 15th Century tribes.

To those tribal governments that had frequent communication with each other and to the individuals who advocated these reforms, it became increasingly clear that only a single federal government could have the powers to enforce them.

 

[Algalon]

genocide apologia is not welcome on sv
@Warlord D Thoran SV Content such as the video you posted and endorsed is not welcome on SV.

SV is meant to be a welcoming community. The video you posted is the exact opposite of that to Native Americans. It is offensive to the extreme, starting out with genocide-denial, going over to "White Settlers did nothing wrong" and later on outright implying that the Natives 'had it coming for their violent ways'.

We do not want such content on this board.

Your post has been removed. You have been issued an infraction for 50 points and your ability to reply to this thread revoked for the next 3 days.

 

[ScottishMongol]

Chapter 6: The First Contact Period in the Great Lakes​

The modern states of Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin contain dozens of reservations, most of them belonging to tribes of Ojibwe (also called the Chippewa). In the 15th Century, the Ojibwe, along with the Odawa and Potawatomi, were members of the Council of Three Fires, a multi-tribal confederation much like the Haudenosaunee, which was in fact their predominant rival. In the 15th Century, that area was also inhabited by multiple Siouan-speaking peoples, as it would only be due to later westward migrations that the Sioux people would be forced onto the Great Plains.

Most reservations were small, each typically containing only a small town (or perhaps two to four towns) and some adjoining farmland, with a few being completely uninhabited. However, the Oneida Reservation contained part of the city of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and with it a technical college, a public library, a concrete plant, a hospital, and an international airport, among other facilities. In addition, the Wisconsin reservations were members of the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council, which had its headquarters on the Lac du Flambeau Reservation, and the equivalent Michigan Inter-Tribal Council had its headquarters on the Saulte Ste Marie Reservation.

After the translocation, as the Great Lakes reservations contacted each other and the 15th Century tribes, a joint delegation of Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi from the reservations approached the Council of Three Fires, which had its capital at Michilimackinac, on the straits between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. As in other regions, they gave a general explanation of the translocation (as the reservation tribes understood it), a warning of the threat of disease and an offer to help, and some information on the dangers the future held.

The smaller reservations were able to survive well enough on their own, but with the leadership and resources of Green Bay they could be used as regional headquarters to begin the modernization of the region. With the leadership of the Council of Three Fires coordinating these efforts, roads were built between settlements and medical depots were established. As in the Pacific Northwest, apprenticeship programs were created to teach 15th Century tribes advanced skills. As tools and technology filtered down from Green Bay, the small towns of many reservations grew into large towns, perhaps even what could be considered small cities by the standards of the time. Michilimackinac was itself built up into a proper city, intended to be an administration center for the confederation – many of the "surplus" population of Green Bay migrated there to help in the building and stayed afterwards as permanent residents, while the town attracted its share of permanent migrants who wished to be close to modern services and to the center of government. Later, a railroad was established to link Green Bay with the Great Plains nations.

Naturally, travel by water was quicker than travel by land, and larger boats, first powered by sail and later by steam, plied the Great Lakes and the rivers that fed them. However, disease often moved quicker than medical personnel or supplies, and the dieoff was harder inland or in areas outside the Council of Three Fire's control. Disease also filtered in from the south and east along trade routes, which led the Council, at Green Bay's advice, to halt trade until they felt the epidemics could be contained.

This cooperation would not last forever, and Great Lakes region eventually faced a political crisis. The leadership of the Council of Three Fires had assumed, perhaps reasonably given the attitudes of the reservation tribes, that the modern Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi would be joining the Council and merging politically. However, some began to see the modern tribes as an internal threat.

Even before the founding of the Federation, a pan-Indian identity had been taken up by the majority of the reservations. A general assumption of mutual cooperation, alliance, and friendship was held by most tribal governments, regardless of 15th Century grudges – these were more or less smoothed over in the face of a "common enemy". However, to the Council of Three Fires, the modernization and subsequent expansion of the Haudenosaunee, their traditional rivals, posed an existential threat, and attempts by the reservation governments to convince them otherwise were unwelcome. Negotiations for the reservations to join the Council halted entirely as relations cooled.

Without reservation knowledge, the tribes of the Great Lakes threatened to fall behind their neighbors, and many feared the return of disease as well. And yet, Council leadership began to view the reservations as a potential fifth column, people who would stand aside or even aid invaders. Attention began to be drawn to the differences the reservation tribes had with the Council: they followed different religions, they could not all speak Ojibwe, some of them looked different - many were not even Native American.

However, it was too late for either side to back out. The reservations existed as pockets within Council territory, and they had become inextricably tied to their neighbors economically. Several heated arguments, at least one fistfight between diplomats, and a riot in Michilimackinac later, and it became clear that the situation was untenable. It was claimed afterwards by the new government that cooler heads had prevailed, but in reality, a "soft coup" took place in 1428 which allowed the reservation governments to force a seat at the table. The reservations had more advanced weaponry (if not precisely more people), effective control of both Green Bay and Michilimackinac, and, crucially, the support of swathes of the countryside where modern intervention had saved lives and improved livelihoods. After the Michilimackinac Riot, the city's small garrison, mostly recruited from the reservations, placed the capital under martial law, and over the next month the Council of Three Fires leadership were essentially forced to the negotiating table.

With representatives in all three member tribes, the reservations were able to effectively control the Council of Three Fires. They sent diplomatic overtures to the Haudenosaunee, expanded industry and infrastructure around the Great Lakes, extended citizenship (if not representation) to white Americans, and effectively transformed the Council into a true government with a constitution. Green Bay became the first true industrial center on the continent, with Michilimackinac promising to follow.

The events of 1428 were extremely controversial. The Haudenosaunee did not take a particular stance, but the new government faced criticism from the Great Plains reservations, some of whom considered taking more direct action. Over the next few years, three representatives were assassinated, two of them from the reservations. The anti-reservation faction would eventually lose ground, as modern technology raised the standard of living. Older members of the Council retired or died off and were replaced with younger members who had different views on the reservations. There were two attempts at "secession" as individual bands attempted to withdraw from the Council, but these were dealt with by the Council's military forces. This did not help relations with other tribal governments, and a multilateral summit was held to address the concerns. The Council of Three Fires (in reality, reservation representatives) argued that their actions had been justified, and while many did not accept this the Council was recognized as a legitimate government. However, the summit raised concerns about actual rogue states that could arise on the continent in the future.

 

[ScottishMongol]

Chapter 7: Religion
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Religion, like most other topics relating to Native Americans, is extremely difficult to generalize due to the great variety of religious traditions across the continent. However, we can identify three categories of religions among Native Americans: traditional faiths, Christianity, and new religious movements. All of these were greatly affected and influenced by the translocation.

The exact number of adherents to traditional faiths is difficult to determine. Most Native American religious traditions were persecuted by the US government, and access to many sacred sites was restricted. Due to this, the exact number of practitioners was probably higher than most estimates. In the aftermath of the translocation, many of these faiths saw intense and sustained revivals due to exposure to their ancestral religion as it was practiced before European contact. This, combined with the practically divine occurrence of the translocation, led to many translocated Native Americans "returning" to their ancestral faiths, sometimes abandoning previous religious traditions.

15th Century traditional faiths were less effected by the translocation. While some tribes that were badly shaken by epidemic diseases and disruptive new technologies saw the rise of apocalyptic prophets, once order was restored and living standards began to climb these movements rarely persisted past the first generation.

Since European colonization, several new religious movements had been established and had gained popularity among Native Americans. A few thousand Native Americans practiced the Longhouse Religion or Gaihwi:io, which combined traditional Iroquois beliefs with Quaker influences. This did not spread much to 15th Century tribes, and many reservation citizens abandoned the religion to take up more traditional strains of the faith influenced by 15th Century Iroquois. It would survive and came to be considered a sect of traditional Iroquois religion.

The Native American Church was a syncretic faith that combined Christianity with traditional Native beliefs, and was notable for its ritual use of the drug peyote. The Native American Church was widespread and could claim a plurality of adherents among reservations across the western part of North America. The Native American Church benefitted from the translocation, gaining converts as its adherents proselytized. This was met with controversy by those who wished to preserve traditional faiths, and there were many heated debates, but no proselytization laws were passed initially.

The Native American Church came to be the largest denomination of Christianity, though of course as it grew and became more established regional practices began to assert themselves. In some areas the faith became more centralized and formal, in others it took on aspects of local religious traditions.

More "mainline" Christian traditions also survived the translocation. In the Southwest, Catholicism was the dominant Christian denomination, although without access to the Pope (indeed, a Pope who was severely out of touch with the modern Church) they only paid lip service to Rome, and more and more aspects of "Folk Catholicism" were practiced, including syncretization with traditional faiths, which was already the case to some degree, but as Catholics sought converts doctrinal purity became less of a concern. In the Great Lakes Methodists and other Protestant denominations were commonly practiced, sometimes incorporating elements of traditional Ojibwe faith. These did make some converts, but Methodism remained a minority religion among Native Americans in the Council of Three Fires.

The Ute and Ouray Reservation in what is our history's Utah was of course majority Mormon, and their missionaries endeavored to spread the faith across the Great Basin, which was done in conjunction with their medical and technological missions. "Ute Mormonism" took on a distinct flavor which preached that the "Lamanites" (which was how the Book of Mormon referred to Native Americans) were the chosen people.

In addition, there were small Catholic, Protestant, and Mormon congregations across the continent who largely remained insular and a minority even on a local level. While for the most part religious traditions remained separate but tolerant, there was a fair degree of syncretization especially among new converts, and a 15th Century Native American could attend his Methodism congregation on Sunday while performing traditional religious rituals the rest of the week. For this reason, and for multiple other factors such as an inherent distrust of religious identification, the Federation never collected data on religious affiliation, and exact numbers are extremely difficult to produce, even when self-reported by congregations.

Naturally, the religious beliefs of white Americans were a category all their own. The one thing most religious traditions could agree on was that God/the gods/the ancestors/the spirits had caused the translocation, primarily for the purpose of preserving the Native American way of life. The slogan "God is an Indian" became common graffiti in New Tacoma and Green Bay in the aftermath of the translocation, and elsewhere as well. Even Christians believed that this was a chance for the faith to spread in a more compassionate way than the forced conversions of our history – and, perhaps, the same chance could be extended to the rest of the world, given enough time. Some blamed the trickster Coyote, though this was often tongue-in-cheek.

Most white Americans did of course stick to their old religion, or sometimes lack of religion in the case of atheists, who insisted that there was a scientific cause. The humanistic and (mostly) non-serious Church of the Alien Space Bat was formed, which advocated, like most others at the time, for a correction of the failures of our history.

However, some were more convinced by the nature of the translocation, and started new religious traditions that imitated (some would say fetishized) Native American faiths, others sought to convert to those same religions (or perhaps what they thought those religions were). While in some cases these attempts were well-meaning but ultimately misguided, others were more respectful – of course, given the circumstances and the history of appropriation, few Native Americans from the 21st Century were willing to welcome them. 15th Century Native Americans had fewer qualms.

In any case, there were proportionally few conversions by white Americans to Native American religions. This would change in the second generation as those born after the translocation were raised in a society that exposed them to more diverse religious traditions.

Of course, the religious tradition that had the most runaway success from the translocation was the Ghost Dance. Ghost Dance was a movement that began in the 1890s and preached a reunification of the living with the spirits of the dead which would bring the spirits to fight on their behalf, make the white colonists leave, and bring peace, prosperity, and unity to Native Americans. It promoted clean living, an honest life, and cross-cultural cooperation between tribes.

Ghost Dance was most popular on the Great Plains and Great Basin, and had significant crossover with the Native American Church. While its number of practitioners had dwindled due to persecution by the US government (including the infamous Wounded Knee Massacre), there were still numerous followers of the Ghost Dance at the time of the translocation. In the First Contact Period, thousands flocked to Ghost Dance preachers, for it appeared that it had actually succeeded, in a way. Naturally, the problem then became what direction to take the faith now that its goals had been ostensibly achieved. Ghost Dance sects and schools of thought flowered like mushrooms after the rain, with everything from humanism to various forms of syncretic beliefs to "orthodox" believers who adhered to the teachings of the original Ghost Dance prophets. Ghost Dance had become the fastest-growing religious tradition among translocated Native Americans, with thousands not only identifying with it but doing so in addition to their old faiths. Ghost Dance had always synthesized itself with local belief systems, so different strains were practiced by different tribes, as well as by Native American Church or even traditionalist Christian congregations.

In the end, Ghost Dance settled into a few broad points of doctrine: defending the continent from colonization by the white man (existing white Americans were politely ignored), cooperation between all Native Americans for their mutual benefit, and protection of traditional lifestyles. Some sects included abstinence from alcohol, or incorporated rituals such as the use of peyote.

The one thing that dominated across the continent was an environment of religious toleration. While some religions sought to convert 15th Century Native Americans, they were rarely predatory and never done so under threat. Occasionally legislation was passed to limit religious institutions' ability to proselytize (in the Southwest charitable religious orders were forbidden to do so), but it is worth noting there was almost no religious violence aside from random acts.

 

[ScottishMongol]

Chapter 8: The First Contact Period in California
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If there was one part of the country that faced the greatest dieoff following the First Contact, it was the region west of the Sierra Nevada Mountains - the region known as California. The reservations here were, with few exceptions, extremely small, sometimes fragmented, and lacking in basic infrastructure needed to sustain their populations. They did not have the means to establish quarantines or provide substantial medical assistance to nearby tribes – as disease spread, tenuous alliances collapsed. Sometimes the reservations themselves descended into violent infighting, with residents fighting with tourists over meager supplies. People scattered in the aftermath of collapses, bringing disease across the region and sometimes destabilizing the regions they fled to.

Things were particularly bad in Southern California. The region was extremely poor in food and water, and by year ten the majority of the reservations had been completely abandoned. Some showed no signs of having survivors at all. The regional tribes were just as badly hurt by the unchecked disease and fighting over scarce resources, and traditional territories were sometimes abandoned. There were movements of people, and many tribes began to congregate along the shores of the Salton Sea, where some agricultural tradition was maintained. The Union of Southwest Tribes contacted the Salton Sea communities and gave them medical and technological aid, and in time they formed the Confederated Tribes of the Salton Sea. Some tribal remnants would seek to return to ancestral hunting grounds, armed with modern tools and weapons.

In all of Central and Southern California, the Tule River Reservation was the only that was able to ensure self-sufficiency. While it was not able to halt the spread of epidemic disease, it was able to provide medical care to nearby Yokut bands. As the region recovered, ranching and farming spread across the Central California Basin, with Yokuts contacting other tribes, including the survivors of the few other reservations in the region. By the time expeditions from the Southwest or Pacific Northwest reached the area, the Yokuts dominated a loose alliance of tribes across the Sacramento Basin.

Due to the often-violent nature of the First Contact Period in California, and the general lack of infrastructure to allow for growth, populations climbed slowly in California than in other areas. In addition, the low population and abundant natural resources drew the attention of nearby tribes. The Annette Islands and Yurok jointly explored the Bay Area in 1428, and through the 1430s the Union of Southwest Tribes (effectively dominated by the Navajo Nation) extended a highway and railroad through Southern California to the Los Angeles Basin, allowing them to construct a port on the Pacific Coast – they had previously established a port at the mouth of the Colorado River, but this would allow them to bypass Baja California. At the same time, the Pacific Northwest tribes established a trading post and scientific base on the site of our history's Alcatraz Island – Fort Oakes, after a Native American activist from our history. Now the Pacific Northwest and the Southwest could trade by sea.

However, these actions drew heavy criticism, not just from the tribes of the Great Plains who witnessed this but (perhaps hypocritically) from each other. The Southwest tribes accused the tribes of the Pacific Northwest of attempting to colonize the Bay Area and exploit its gold deposits – some observed that this may have threatened the Southwest's mining interests. Conversely, the Pacific Northwest tribes accused the tribes of the Southwest of conducting their own colonization of Southern California, including turning the Confederated Tribes of the Salton Sea into a puppet state.

The Yokut and their allies were ignored during all this. Eventually, through diplomatic pressure, the tribes of the interior were able to force a settlement. Both sides would be allowed to keep their current settlements, with certain restrictions on growth, but they would be required to provide humanitarian and technological aid to nearby tribes. They could extend their infrastructure through recognized tribal land, but only if the tribe in question requested it, and even then, they would be required to build it with outside help. Exploitation of natural resources was also banned until the local tribes were capable of negotiating it themselves – and negotiations would be conducted with mediators from other nations. This effectively capped development until the tribes reached a (perhaps arbitrary) level of population and had self-sufficient economies.

There were further issues about how to enforce this "California Development Zone". Many felt that having three or four other nations merely act as observers was insufficient, and such a diplomatic solution required a multinational organization. Some proposed to simply create a joint trust area between nations, which would require a multilateral treaty. Others, of course, felt this insufficient.