The inheritor of a long-established political confederacy between the Five (later Six) Nations of the Haudenosaunee (commonly referred to as "Iroquois" in older sources), the territory covered by this polity was originally limited to the southern shores of the Katarokwi Lake, but it increased rapidly throughout the 17th century, as a result of the Beaver Wars, a series of wars fought to monopolize the fur trade, so coveted by European merchants, and that would see the Haudenosaunee destroy and ultimately absorb a number of indigenous confederacies, spreading their empire all the way to the Mississippi River.
The 18th century would see the Haudenosaunee retain control over much of these vast territories, enriching themselves as suppliers of furs for European trade. Their survival was also quite contingent on serving as a buffer between the vast European colonial empires rising along the eastern coastlines and, in the case of the French, around the St. Lawrence and Mississippi river basins. It was a precarious peace, and one that saw, at some point, the Iroquois being forced to relinquish their claims to much of their western acquisitions in the Great Peace of Montreal, returning them to the indigenous tribes, who were allowed to return eastwards, under supervision of the French, who hoped to link Louisiana and Canada through the Illinois Country. Ultimately, taking advantage of the French Revolutionary and later Napoleonic Wars, the Haudenosaunee were able to recover those territories, unleashing a second conquest over its indigenous peoples.
The 19th century saw the rise of the Industrial Revolution in Europe. This, together with the inevitable collapse of beaver populations, placed before the Haudenosaunee the threat of extinction, as the nation became flooded with industrial products coming from Europe and foreign debts increased handily. But it was then than an outstanding discovery was made - the Appalachian mountains, much of them under Haudenosaunee control, were apparently filthy rich in coal, the fuel of this new Industrial Revolution. Starting in the 1880s, the mountains of Appalachia began being explored in earnest, quickly pushing the Confederacy forward as one of the foremost producers of good-quality coal in the world. And, with coal, industry followed, especially when it was discovered that some outstanding iron deposits were to be found in Ouisconsin, upriver from the Confederacy. Soon, a strong commercial relationship would start and, as canals and later railroads were built, iron from Ouisconsin would come to Haudenosaunee lakeports, go to the railroads and reach its factories, powered with Appalachian coal, to produce the many products that would then be shipped through Maryland, New Netherland and New Sweden. The North American commercial system was launched.
All this mining and industry demanded a labor force that, frankly, the still very thinly spread-out and traditionally rural Haudenosaunee people, alongside their other indigenous neighbors, mostly absorbed into their society, were not capable of providing. To that effect, contracts were signed through the Dutch Empire, that exported throughout the years hundreds of thousands of indentured laborers coming from Asia, mostly from Hindustan, to work in the mines and factories of the Haudenosaunee. This has led to a very divided country, with a small indigenous Haudenosaunee elite presiding over a nation with a mainly foreign, and rather destitute, industrial working class, a balance that not many believe will be sustainable in the long-term. For the time being, however, it provides with the fun-ish factoid of having a country whose two main ethnic groups are "Indians" and other "Indians"
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The idea of a Haudenosaunee industrialization has been something I have wanted to play with in a while, and that I have added as part of the background before, but that explored more fully here. It came to me as I realized that a buffer indigenous state between the British and French colonies in North America would sit on prime coal land, and went from there. And I have to say, even if the map could be more complete (it really does lack city names, maybe even national subdivisions, but naming was proving difficult), I think it turned out a fun and interesting map in a scenario that has a lot to explore.
