Remove ads

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

Reader mode
The fic isn't that big yet, a fine command could trivially skip you around to all mentions of "federation" besides. Better to rip the bandaid off now, I'd say.
 
Remove ads
the Pacific Northwest
  • Threadmarks
    • 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.
     
  • Threadmarks
    • I wonder how long it will take the people of Mesoamerica to notice what's going on.
     
    Gamerlord said:
    I wonder how long it will take the people of Mesoamerica to notice what's going on.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    A couple of years at most for rumours?

    More interesting is to speculate what those would consist of; what aspects of the future people would be attributed as supernatural etc.

    The fact that are so many reservations that would have different events happening to them would make for even more confusion.
     
    Even though they're obviously far better for the uptime residents than the Europeans were, it does feel like the downtimers are still engaged in a form of colonialism. It's softer and nicer, but downtimer culture and society is being replaced by something that far more resembles the contemporary United States, so it does feel like the exchange of ideas here is mostly one-way.
     
    Zachanassian said:
    Even though they're obviously far better for the uptime residents than the Europeans were, it does feel like the downtimers are still engaged in a form of colonialism. It's softer and nicer, but downtimer culture and society is being replaced by something that far more resembles the contemporary United States, so it does feel like the exchange of ideas here is mostly one-way.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    There will be some exchange the other way in time, but you are completely correct. People in-universe will notice this too, and it will cause controversy. For all they want the downtimers to succeed, the uptimers think the best way for that to happen is for the continent to adopt European politics and an industrialized lifestyle. And well, there's a reason the title includes the phrase "good intentions"...
     
    Last edited:
    Gamerlord said:
    I wonder how long it will take the people of Mesoamerica to notice what's going on.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Probably a matter of weeks. The South western reservations just aren't that far from the Aztecs and related groups, and there were pretty extensive trade networks crossing the continents
     
    That said, the Aztecs were jerks. More specifically, jerks who regularly invaded their neighbors to kidnap people to ritually sacrifice them.
     
    I just write said:
    That said, the Aztecs were jerks. More specifically, jerks who regularly invaded their neighbors to kidnap people to ritually sacrifice them.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Do remember that the Aztecs sincerely believed that they had to keep sacrificing to keep the gods happy (or to keep the universe running, with cultures that were wiped out it's hard to get details). People like to denigrate them as sadistic mass murderers, but their entire culture was centered around the idea that the gods sacrificed to create them and that they had to repay their debt to them in kind. Strangely enough, they were the most moral and ethical (if you accept their viewpoint about the universe) mass murderers to ever live. The Mixtec and Mayans also performed sacrifices too, not to mention the North American groups that also did so.
     
    Last edited:
    Gamerlord said:
    Do remember that the Aztecs sincerely believed that they had to keep sacrificing to keep the gods happy (or to keep the universe running, with cultures that were wiped out it's hard to get details). People like to denigrate them as sadistic mass murderers, but their entire culture was centered around the idea that the gods sacrificed to create them and that they had to repay their debt to them in kind. Strangely enough, they were the most moral and ethical (if you accept their viewpoint about the universe) mass murderers to ever live. The Mixtec and Mayans also performed sacrifices too, not to mention the North American groups that also did so.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    I'm sure that was a big condolence the people whose last sight was their still-bearing heart.
     
    Gamerlord said:
    Of course it is according to your worldview, but according to theirs they are paragons of good. It's easy to forget that and cast them as sadists and mad monsters.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    how do you know there weren't?

    Like someone made the doctrinal shift happen that led to "no actually we need thousands of hearts, regularly, not just an occasional sacrifice"

    We don't know that the ones who made that weren't sadistic or mad... maybe they were?
     
    Gamerlord said:
    Of course it is according to your worldview, but according to theirs they are paragons of good. It's easy to forget that and cast them as sadists and mad monsters.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    I don't think you can apply cultural relativism to human sacrifice. Like at some point there's a limit.

    It's like "cool motive, still mass murder".

    Chloe Sullivan said:
    how do you know there weren't?

    Like someone made the doctrinal shift happen that led to "no actually we need thousands of hearts, regularly, not just an occasional sacrifice"

    We don't know that the ones who made that weren't sadistic or mad... maybe they were?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    There was actually this guy named Ca Acatl Topiltzin, a 10th Century Toltec ruler, who ended human sacrifice and replaced it with animal sacrifice or just bloodletting. Basically, if you think there's something fucked up about a culture, there were probably people in that culture who felt the same way.

    As for why later generations brought back human sacrifice, maybe it had something to do with the fact that taking captives for sacrifice required you to go out and fight imperialistic wars with your neighbors, I dunno.
     
    Last edited:
    ScottishMongol said:
    I don't think you can apply cultural relativism to human sacrifice. Like at some point there's a limit.

    It's like "cool motive, still mass murder".
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Again. That's from your point of view. Sure, it's the most common point of view today, but it wasn't theirs. Don't go assuming that cultures predicated on an entirely different basis view things like you do. Even 'basic' things.
     
    Gamerlord said:
    Again. That's from your point of view. Sure, it's the most common point of view today, but it wasn't theirs. Don't go assuming that cultures predicated on an entirely different basis view things like you do. Even 'basic' things.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Well, like I said, there were Mesoamericans who thought human sacrifice was bad and tried to lead religious reformations to end it. Didn't take, but there were definitely people who thought it was bad.

    Seriously, I don't believe morality is totally subjective, there are things that are wrong no matter what culture you live in.
     
    Gamerlord said:
    Again. That's from your point of view. Sure, it's the most common point of view today, but it wasn't theirs. Don't go assuming that cultures predicated on an entirely different basis view things like you do. Even 'basic' things.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    I want to point that a lot of terrible things would have had pretty good justifications if you asked the people who did them. The first Crusade was about reclaiming the Holy Lands. Mao's Great Leap Forward was about industrializing China. McCarthyism was about finding communist spies. Take a cross section of history and just about every evil thing will have been justified in some way. That's just human nature. We don't want to think of ourselves as evil. That doesn't change the facts and claiming that moral relativism somehow justifies every bad thing that has happened long enough ago to count as history is nonsense.
     
    EnlightenedFool said:
    I want to point that a lot of terrible things would have had pretty good justifications if you asked the people who did them. The first Crusade was about reclaiming the Holy Lands. Mao's Great Leap Forward was about industrializing China. McCarthyism was about finding communist spies. Take a cross section of history and just about every evil thing will have been justified in some way. That's just human nature. We don't want to think of ourselves as evil. That doesn't change the facts and claiming that moral relativism somehow justifies every bad thing that has happened long enough ago to count as history is nonsense.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I never said that it justifies anything! That was never the point of what I am saying.
     
    Okay, I might have fumbled my perception check there. If I'm reading your posts correctly your argument is that Aztec culture doesn't have the same basic presuppositions as modern people and consequently believed that their actions were morally justified in context and that means that the individuals involved weren't evil. Am I correct? I don't want to misrepresent your argument.
     
    Last edited:
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top