AHC: A more inclusive early US?

[Inquisition]

The title. I was reading about the surprisingly conciliatory language in the Northwest Ordinance towards Native tribes, and it got me wondering - what would it have taken to actually have the majority of (Christianized, presumably) Native tribes integrating or stably allying with the young and expanding US?

Assume a PoD no earlier than the start of the7 Years/French and Indian War.

 

[writofcertiorari]

You could possibly have more Native tribes allying with the Patriot side of the Revolutionary War, but in the end this is a question of settlers. As long as there is land that is perceived to effectively be "free" out there in the Midwest, people are going to move there, which will inevitably cause conflicts with those already living there. It's fundamentally different than immigrating to some country that has already been settled, where you integrate into the existing system.

Actually, a lot of the laws and treaties were, as you noted, conciliatory towards the Natives. The government often talked about Natives settling down and farming, becoming 'civilized,' etc. One problem is, most Natives wanted to keep their own lifestyle, and as you go further West that was increasingly the case. So you're either asking for the settlers not to move West in such large numbers, or you're asking the Natives to completely change their way of life (and therefore the forfeit vast majority of their land).

None of this even touches on the issue of race, which I probably don't even need to elaborate on. So yeah, while this scenario is plausible, it's unlikely.

 

[Lusitania]

But you have the five civilized tribes adopt white ways snd had slaves and plantations. They were so successful that it made Whites envious and demand they be expelled. The court decision in the native favor was ignored and we know the rest.

 

[Wendell]

Prevent the Jackson presidency.

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

The title. I was reading about the surprisingly conciliatory language in the Northwest Ordinance towards Native tribes, and it got me wondering - what would it have taken to actually have the majority of (Christianized, presumably) Native tribes integrating or stably allying with the young and expanding US?

The difficulty is that the Indians were viewed (by whites and by themselves) as being outside the white social and political structure. The practice of signing treaties with Indian tribes implicitly recognized the tribes as having some form of sovereignty independent of the United States (and of any state). That status was codified in the Constitution where it states that "Indians not taxed" are not to be counted in the Census for purposes of apportionment.

And that was how both sides wanted it, at the time. Nearly all the Indians lived beyond the frontier of settlement, living as they always had. Whites expected them to sell off the land (which by white standards was almost vacant) and move further west. Which they mostly did, preferring to continue living as they always had. Few of them had the cultural equipment to adapt to living in "white", i.e. European-style society.

Eventually, of course, they were forced to so adapt, wherever they were.

The issue was confused by the quasi-foreign status of the Indians. The Cherokees in Georgia were not Georgia citizens; they did not have Georgia land titles. There was no procedure for converting sovereignty to ownership until many years later.

(A few small Indian bands in the east stayed put, adapting enough to get along, but without official recognition as tribes. For instance, the Shinnecock Indians of eastern Long lsland. It would be interesting to find out what their status was over time.)

 

[Wendell]

here were people who argued that the post-civil war fifteenth amendment nullified tribal sovereignty.

 

[Lusitania]

For a more inclusive US you need to have a POD in the colonial 13 colonies where as natives slowly became incorporated or allies. This is only way that attitudes change in both sides.

As for not adapting the 5 civilized tribes inter married with white snd they had plantations snd even slaves. So here we have them adapting to western ways but all it causes is envy and the prevailing attitudes at the time resulted in the US not accepting them.

 

[GuildedAgeNostalgia]

In otl, colonial Pennsylvania was able to get much of the Delaware Indians to adopt a more "civilized" lifestyle and integrate with the colonists.

 

[Thomas Jefferson]

IOTL the Treaty of Fort Pitt gave the Delaware, who lived in present-day Ohio, the theoretical right to apply to Congress for recognition as a state. This was, of course, ignored as soon as the ink was dry, but if it had happened, you would have had a Native American government with the ability to regulate land sales, if not the freedom of movement, within their territory and the ability to vote in Congress. There still would have been substantial white incursion into the state, but the new settlers would have had to buy or rent their land at a fair price rather than just chasing off the original inhabitants. This would also have set a precedent for the incorporation of other Native peoples who were willing to adopt state governments subordinate to Federal law in the United States. So, for example, you could have a State of Cherokee covering OTL's eastern Tennessee, northern Georgia, and northern Alabama; a State of Chickasaw covering western Tennessee and northern Mississippi, and a State of Choctaw covering the rest of Mississippi. How this would have affected other native peoples is up for debate, but there would definitely be a much larger Native American influence on US politics, culture, and demographics.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

One strange thing is that the Catholic colonising powers (Spain especially, but also France and Portugal) tended to try and convert the natives to Christianity and make them subjects to the King, whereas the Protestants (England, the Dutch in South Africa) were more likely to clear them out to make room for their own settlers. I don't know why this was -- maybe the Protestant system of national Churches lends itself more easily to a belief that "We're the new Chosen People, these savages are in our way and need to GTFO"? Regardless, if you change the English/British/American mindset to make it closer to the Spanish one, you'd probably get results similar to that found in the Spanish Empire, namely, large numbers of natives integrating into British culture, and the creation of a large class of mixed native/British people. You'd probably need a POD well in advance of the Seven Years' War to achieve this, however.

 

[Drunkrobot]

@Fabius Maximus There's an important difference between the areas tended to be colonised by the Catholic powers and which tended to be colonised by the Protestants: Population density. Spain grabbed the Caribbean, Mesoamerica, and the Inca Empire, while England and the Netherlands, when they weren't simply nabbing an existing colony, took places that were relatively sparse, like the New England area and the tip of South Africa. These lead to differing colonial strategies: Spain could extract the riches of existing polities by substituting itself as the new ruling class, meaning that for them to clear out natives meant sabotaging their own ability to extract wealth. In areas like the Thirteen Colonies, meanwhile, native tribes weren't large and wealthy enough to exploit on their own, and there was little to none of the yearned-for gold and silver, forcing a strategy of cultivating cash crops using labour imported from either Europe or Africa. Because the conditions of such plantations were, of course, awful, there was a serious concern about colonists escaping to the natives and living with them rather than staying and serving the colonial company's bottom line. I can't tell you if that was the reason for colonial elites to clear out the natives and use promises of generous land grants to keep (European) colonists from going native, but that was an effect of pushing natives into the interior.

 

[Pesterfield]

or you're asking the Natives to completely change their way of life

What if it's recognized the Great Plains are bad for farming, so "civilizing" tries to turn the Plains tribes into ranchers?

That should let them keep their way of life, with cattle replacing bison or the East getting a taste for bison.

About religion, could we keep Christianity adapting like it did in Europe? Native deities are adopted as saints/angels/other names for God, religious practices given a Christian gloss, etc.
I know there's a word for it, but I'm blanking.

 

[Analytical Engine]

About religion, could we keep Christianity adapting like it did in Europe? Native deities are adopted as saints/angels/other names for God, religious practices given a Christian gloss, etc.
I know there's a word for it, but I'm blanking.

Syncretism.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

@Fabius Maximus There's an important difference between the areas tended to be colonised by the Catholic powers and which tended to be colonised by the Protestants: Population density. Spain grabbed the Caribbean, Mesoamerica, and the Inca Empire, while England and the Netherlands, when they weren't simply nabbing an existing colony, took places that were relatively sparse, like the New England area and the tip of South Africa. These lead to differing colonial strategies: Spain could extract the riches of existing polities by substituting itself as the new ruling class, meaning that for them to clear out natives meant sabotaging their own ability to extract wealth. In areas like the Thirteen Colonies, meanwhile, native tribes weren't large and wealthy enough to exploit on their own, and there was little to none of the yearned-for gold and silver, forcing a strategy of cultivating cash crops using labour imported from either Europe or Africa. Because the conditions of such plantations were, of course, awful, there was a serious concern about colonists escaping to the natives and living with them rather than staying and serving the colonial company's bottom line. I can't tell you if that was the reason for colonial elites to clear out the natives and use promises of generous land grants to keep (European) colonists from going native, but that was an effect of pushing natives into the interior.

Maybe, but then the French-occupied areas weren't noticeably more densely-populated than the English-settled areas, and yet the French still put more effort into evangelising the natives.