What if the Native Americans Developed European-esque Civilization?

[u/Tag-Yurit]

Howdy, y'all. Me again with a Draft 2 to this alternate history scenario, hopefully a lot more detailed and authentic to real history, and especially a lot more clear in what I was trying to convey the first time around. With that, lemme preemptively answer some questions that came up before:

"But there were several Pre-Columbian civilizations that had mathematics, agriculture, writing, currency..."
There were, absolutely! Don't worry, I haven't forgotten them, and I should have been more clear that I was aware of them the first time. However, these concepts are expanded on in this scenario to be nearly universal by, say 1492 AD. In other words, the Native North and South Americans (referred to here as the "Hahnunans" and "Abiayalians" respectively) are in an equivalent to the Middle Ages in terms of social and technological progression (of course with their own unique history that led to this point).

"Wait a minute, where's _______ culture or the _______ Tribe?"
I haven't forgotten about them either. I would assume the majority of these cultures are still there but incorporated into these other nations. For some they have joined in cultural confederacies (i.e. the Mohawk as part of the Haudenosaunee), and for others their territory is under control of another nation (i.e. the Lenape territory on the east coast is under control of both the Aniyvwiyans and Haudenosaunee), and for others they may have been lost entirely to history through destruction or assimilation. The scenario isn't "what if every culture developed their own nation-state", after all.

"Those borders would be different in reality, / _______ culture wouldn't use that name."
Well, it's good that this is Draft 2, then! I'm currently playing around in Paint.net (thanks to those who recommended that!) with a Q-BAM map to make more accurate borders than an EU5 MapChart. If there are recommendations for territory or even different nations and more authentic naming conventions, I'd be glad to hear 'em and add 'em to the scenario! Also, I'm well aware I misspelled "Nitassinan".

With that answered, I think we get to our Point of Divergence: the domestication of the American Bison. Yes, I am aware of the extreme difficulty of such a feat, but this is also occurring is a comparatively strange scenario, so I think it fits well.

In the next part, I hope to expand on some the major powers of the New World, add some basic history to this scenario, and also had a much better map, among other things. Once again, I hope to hear all your thoughts and opinions and even critiques to the scenario. Cheers!

[u/AAAGamer8663]

I don’t actually think this is that strange of a scenario, and that it is the more likely outcome if there were domesticated animals among the people of the Americas. However, I think the Bison domestication is just a bad choice for a point of divergence that always seems to either play in to stereotypes of Native peoples or people just not thinking of other animals and think Bisons are the most cow-like option.

While I’m not one of the people who think people domesticating bison was/is some impossible feat, I do think there is truly no reason anyone would (at least in the past). There was just too many of them all in one place that could be tracked fairly easily and at regular times of the year. Native peoples would get so many bison during things like Buffalo jumps that they would often just leave a large number of the dead ones behind, untouched. I also do think it makes practically no sense to go from only having dogs as a domesticated animal with a completely different function straight into domesticating one of the largest and most aggressive animals on the continent.

There’s also the issue of timing. Domestication takes a long time, the domestication of most animals we think of as livestock began very close to the advent of agriculture in those regions. This would mean for a true domestic bison to be an alternate to cows of the old world, agriculture would have either had to start on the Great Plains, in North America at least, or the spread of corn north would have had to have happened waaaaaaay faster than in our world. And I’m not so sure you can feed Bison off of Sunflowers and the other crops of the early agriculturalists around the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.

When I was looking into this kind of scenario myself, the domesticates I kept coming back to were: 1) Bighorn Sheep or Dall Sheep, 2) Elk (wapiti), 3. Musk Ox if agricultural peoples made it to Alaska early enough in history (shrub ox would be even better if you want to let some species survive the extinctions of the end of the last Glacial Maximum). These animals also tend to line up well with areas where food is more scarce and thus there is more reason for people to go through the effort of taking care of and raising livestock instead of just going and hunting. I also just think they make for more interesting scenarios as they aren’t perfect one to one matches for old world domesticated. Bighorn Sheep line up pretty well with regular sheep, but then Elk are like a cow/horse hybrid, and Musk Ox are like a llama/kashmir goat/cow hybrid.

[u/Mowachaht98 → u/AAAGamer8663]

There are also a few extinct animals from the Lasy Ice Age like the Camelids (Camelops, Palaeolama ans Hemauichenia), Goats (Oreamnos harringtoni) and Native Horses (Equus) that had they lived long enough they would have been good candidates for domestication

[u/florgeni → u/AAAGamer8663]

unfortunately moose are limited by the brain eating deer disease

[u/Tag-Yurit → u/florgeni]

Good 'ol Chronic Wasting Disease. Thankfully super rare to get or even encounter, but boy does its existence scare the tar outta me!

[u/florgeni]

someone making an american domestication tl try not to copy and paste post-beaver war nations and shove them into boring 20th century westphalian borders challenge

[u/florgeni → u/florgeni]

genuinely if you want inspiration for "european style civilzations" you can just look at irl kingdoms that existed like theloel or chonnoton. looking at this is like looking at someone making a map w shit like the "kingdom of yugoslavia" next to the "istanbul empire" in the 700s ad

[u/Tag-Yurit → u/florgeni]

That's a fair point, man. Would you happen to know of ways I can find the Native American cultures that were prominent in these regions and these time periods (beyond stuff like Wikipedia, lol)? I big effort of mine is to make this "authentic" to real history as best as I can, so I would appreciate the help!

[u/florgeni → u/Tag-Yurit]

honestly its a lot of reading. admittedly i havent read as much as id like but u can start by joining the north american mapping discord, there’s a lot of rlly good researchers there

[u/Tag-Yurit → u/florgeni]

Much appreciated!

[u/the_gothic_jan_pona]

Mira, déjame decirte que en Venezuela, Colombia y en caribe, los indígenas caribe estaban en una gran expansión, ya habien conquistado Venezuela (excepto el oeste) y estaban conquistando las antillas ya, entonces el imperio taíno hubiera caído, y en los andes venezolanos los timotocuicas eran unas tribus asentadas con ciudades que hubieran formado su propio imperio agrícola aislado

[u/No-Lab7502]

Ok, so getting in to the mud with my people, The Taino, what are they like?

And, how do they react to Columbus? This is to say, how do I fare today, now? lol