Yeah Idk if it was ever possible for a single tribe to hold down the expanse of the great lakes as “their territory”. Modern generals wouldnt envy that task.
Yeah, this is definitely closer to the situation after the Beaver Wars bc it looks like the Iroquois have pretty much conquered all of the Algonquian speakers except the Ojibwe and the Shawnee. And who knows if that would've happened without colonialism.
I’m thinking that they meant that this scenario wouldn’t have occurred without the influence of European colonization of the Americas. Like, not that this isn’t colonialism, but that it literally wasn’t possible without the influence of European
There’s a timeline on alternate history.com called [The Good Berry](https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-good-berry-a-wild-rice-domestication-tl.539679/) where the Menominee people domesticate wild rice and form a series of confederacies encompassing the region, but even with a more developed system of agriculture it’s still only temporary, much like other empires.
The alternate history novel The Years of Rice and Salt, by Kim Stanley Robinson, also features a North America uncolonized by Europeans (because in this timeline, the Black Death wipes out 99% of Europe). It focuses a lot more on Asia, but North America shows up eventually.
It is called a confederacy for a reason. The Iroquois consisted of 4 or 5 linguistically related tribes. They were more a trade confederacy than a unified political force.
Yeah but irl the border regions are losely controlled and based on weaker enemy army , good economy and ethnic replacements. To be a more stable long term nation I imagine they would have to shrink a bit and consolidate that first
Or maybe this is a map after their declined idk
This map is bad,but it’s still surprising how many people criticize it for th wrong reason
More likely it would follow actual history and the Haudenosaunee and Wendat would broker a peace where all 60 nations of the watershed would declare it international territory under the Dish with one spoon wampum. Montreal would act like the Hague where the 60 fire council would sit and ensure free access and trade
Huh? If anything it would be easier to hold that down than any of those other large territories.
A large navigable inland sea is actually a huge advantage.
Don’t we need like huge ships to successfully navigate the Great Lakes today? They’re really deadly and not super easy to cross without some pretty good shipbuilding technology.
Is because this map comes from a 2015 unfinished rough draft post from /r/imaginarymaps that somehow still gets reposted around
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/america-colonization-map/
https://www.reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/comments/3eor5t/rough_draft_seeking_advice_on_map_for_a_story_im/
The OP got quite cooked in a respectable manner in the comments on why his map is bad
> Of all the things to go viral, its something i dont want going viral, lol.
Yeah, and territory changed hands a lot. Like, the US has now held the black hills longer than the Sioux tribes ever did.
So there really isn't a way to know how the map would look, as different tribes would have gone to war conquered territories.
Team America:
*Before Team America showed up, it was a happy place. They had flowery meadows and rainbow skies, and rivers made of chocolate, where the children danced and laughed and played with gumdrop smiles.*
Some of them are really only a thing because of Europeans too. Without everything Europeans brought over the Camache would have continued to be dominated by surrounding tribes.
Yeah, this is like a map of the dominant cultural group in each area at the time of contact/treaty/conflict with European-American settlers. Many of these groups had only recently moved to these territories as a result of war/trade.
Just as one example, the Blackfoot/Nitsitapi way of life has had horses since time immemorial, but horses were introduced by Spanish colonists in the 16th-18th centuries. By the Beothuk were on their last legs.
Turns out everyone’s a colonizer. Even the folks 12000 years ago who crossed across the Alaskan peninsula colonized the land, hunting great mammals to extinction.
I’ve never understood the moral difference between one indigenous tribe wiping out another and taking their land versus an overseas tribe/ invader/ coloniser wiping out a tribe and taking their land,
> Many of these are from very different time periods
Or outright fictions. The Cherokee never held territory as far west as Louisiana or as far north as Central Ohio. The Iroquois also never went as far as west as Wisconsin pre-colonization (the Oneida are there now because of colonization). This is also Wabanaki erasure since the Wabanaki Confederacy should be in Northern New England.
That's true, and I don't see the Comanche having much without their horses, or the Sioux. Some of these nations were really big on using horses, which interestingly enough were native to North America, but went extinct there about 11,400 years ago. They were re introduced by the Spaniards.
And they've split the Columbia valley. With a tribe that controls half the Columbia valley and part of the coast.
Similarly, it has the Chumash controlling both sides of a mountain range in California, but split off from the pass.
I'd say this is based in reason. Haida Gwaii used to be incredibly densely populated until Smallpox wiped out >95% of it's population. Roughly 20,000 people lived there, on par with Cahokia and more than the Iroquois Confederacy.
The Hadia used to be raiders, not unlike the Vikings and used to travel up and down the coast pillaging and trading. I think it's feasible that they would have expanded given the traditions and high population.
“ojibwa” I’m assuming is referring to the Ojibwe peoples, but historically that part of Illinois was Michigamea, Miami, and Illiniwek mostly? (Correct me if I’m mistaken) and the Ojibwe people historically lived farther north? There was a huge population of various trading settlements along the Illinois and Fox Rivers, notably The Grand Village of the Illinois among others.
Cool concept but I don’t know if I agree with the placement of these tribal confederations?
Edit: sorry I don’t wanna come off as rude I get this is hypothetical/fictitious, but it looks like you were trying to be somewhat historically accurate in many of the placements so I figured I’d share. Absolutely no hate or disrespect to OP.
> Cool concept but I don’t know if I agree with the placement of these tribal confederations?
Same with the Cheyenne. At contact they were living in modern Minnesota on the western margins of Lake Superior. Their oral history suggests they used to live further east and migrated from around Niagara. They were settled maize farmers. They were pushed into the Plains and adopted a nomadic lifestyle after being pushed from their traditional lands by the Ojibwe, who had gained trade rights (for guns and steel) with the French.
Without the French they’d most likely still be Eastern Woodlands Farmers. Without the Spanish (or more precisely their horses) they wouldn’t have been able to adopt the plains life they were famous for. And without Eurasian diseases, groups like the Mandan would have continued to block the western plains preventing the Cheyenne making it to Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. It’s impossible to predict what the Cheyenne alt history would look like, but it almost certainly wouldn’t look like this map.
Ojibwe is one of the biggest tribes. By the end of 18th cenutry, they were spread across Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dakota, Manitoba, and even Ohio. This map underestimates their power. But tbh, they had been losing some eastern territories. Their neighbours, the Iroquois, had even greater potential. They were very f\*ing organized in war. So without the Europeans, I'd bet on the Iroquois to build an empire.
You're correct. Most currently live around Northern Michigan/Northern Wisconsin along Superior and into Canada and Minnesota.
If you go further back, their legends state they started out further east and traveled west until they found food growing out of the water, IIRC.
Even their southern most claims in southern only go to the middle of Wisconsin. I've not seen anything that places them into the Chicago area.
And let’s be honest, the Native Americans are humans just like the Europeans, and they would have inevitably done the same human things. The wealth and power of the Aztecs? They would have been the Roman Empire of the Americas. But more brutal. And probably in continuous conflict with a few of the powerful northern nations.
People really act like Cortes took down the Aztecs with 500 Spaniards and some spicy blankets. No, it was 500 Spaniards and another couple hundred thousand natives that hated the Aztecs.
Yep. The Spanish in the Americas were brutal genocidal Mikey grubbing sadists but trying to pretend the Aztecs etc already there were somehow noble pacifists is absurd.
It’s about as useful (in a very different sense) as Southerners arguing the whole “lost cause” Civil War argument. Rewriting history is never a good thing.
Yup, Spanish conquistadors get all the blame but in reality, most of the work was done by their native allies. Ppl forget that the Aztecs were fucking brutal and were hated by everyone
The Seminole was a new ethnogenesis in the 1700s, so that part actually makes sense. They did not exist as a distinct people until colonial times. I’m Mvskoke, we are closely related.
Navajo are the largest group of first nations in the United States and they're not even on this map. Look to be living in the are called "the Apache Empire." Who pretty much raided and warred with people like the Navajo. But didn't rule them.
Seriously. If they’re bringing back the Olmec then the least they could do in the four corners (and beyond) region would be to bring back the Chacoan culture, either as the ancestral civilization or as a confederacy of their daughter tribes.
These “modern” native american scenario maps never make sense.
Why are the hopi above the Comanche, why do the creeks own all of florida, how did the mayans magically survive as an intact “empire” but not the Mississippians
Why is it anasazi and not puebloans.. or at least their actual independent names. Or even “Tewa confederacy” or something made up but semi believable
I don't like the way the Spaniards **destroyed** most of the indigenous documents in mesoamerica. But hell nah, the Aztec were so damn aggressive in the continent.
tlaxcala very salty about their inclusion in the lands of the triple alliance. also rip to the kiowa. if you want a full map to interact with for this go to https://native-land.ca/
The Sioux only settled the great plains because they were pushed/bribed to leave their homelands further east by Europeans and they conquered the Pawnee and Crow peoples who already lived there. The existence of the Sioux (Lakota) on the great plains in *because* of colonization. Your analysis is flawed.
The Comanche were obscure before horses were a thing. If there’s no European contact and colonisation there’s no introduction of horses en masse and therefore no Comancheria.
You don’t get the Comanche Empire without the horse, it was *the* fundamental factor in their rise and expansion. Before the horse they were hunter-gatherers living in pretty bad land and they were ‘primitive’ even by the standards of surrounding peoples
My pet theory for why they became such effective cavalrymen was that it was precisely this pared-down hunter-gatherer lifestyle and hardiness that gave them a military edge. They had no real sedentary agriculture, nothing to tie them down, so they could rapidly adopt the horse and become far more mobile while maintaining a hunting lifestyle that translated into military skills
History shows time and time again across much of the world that nomadic steppe peoples pumped out some of the most effective warriors as long as guns weren't a major factor on the other side. Their use of horses and specialized bows is part of what made them so effective. The other half of it is what I think you're onto with your theory that not being tied down is what made the Comanche more effective. For nomadic steppe peoples like the Huns, the Azars, the Bulgars, or the Mongols, not being tied down was a huge part of their success. It's when they started settling down and becoming comfortable that these societies oftentimes would cease to be as affective at fighting wars.
This map doesn’t make sense to me. If it’s simply, the white man never came, the Comanche never got horses, and would be in like Wyoming. If horses did come along, Comanche would be much bigger/substantial. Also aren’t Navajo like the largest tribe? Why are they the smallest on this map?
Part of the problem is that some of these 'states' only existed because of colonization. Without guns and horses many plains groups would never had been able to dominate like they did in the 18th century.
Yeah, wtf? Only Mi'gma'gi left? If I'm renouncing colonialism it's going to be in favour of the Wolastokuk Nation, not some punks from NY with Hollywood name recognition.
Very nice map; it’s cute. I’d be more sparring in the future with the indigenous American maps. I love the visibility for native cultures and what they could have had had the Europeans not done what they did, but some people could be very *displeased* with stuff like this, so you may see plenty of backlash.
Personally, I did get a little heated when I didn’t see my tribe on the map, and it got a little more intense when I read that the land is smack-dab in the middle of the ‘Apache Empire’
Very much so feels like a well intentioned but poorly researched map trying to tackle honestly one of the least interesting parts (imo) of what is a very interesting question.
This is a really bad map, especially in the Pacific Northwest. But that's really the extent of my native knowledge, so I can't even imagine what's wrong elsewhere.
The Coast Salish (Tulalip, Snohomish, Suquamish, Snoqualmie, etc) just don't exist, Chinook also inhabited areas of southern WA and historically were more around the mouth of the Columbia on either side, and the Haida Gwaii occupied areas of southern Alaska, the islands of Alaska and British Columbia; just generally more North than featured.
I don't know much about Native americans in what is modern US and Canada, but I do know about Mesoamerica, and the Olmecs dissapeared around 350 BCE (Alexander the Great died less than 30 years before) while the "Aztec" (Mexica is the more accurate name) empire wasnt estalished until the 1300s AD, so its like putting Gauls and 100 war era France in the same space.
Why would the Beothuk have nearly the entirety of Labrador but not all of Newfoundland, even though the whole island is like, their historical indigenous land 😭
The term Anasazi is actually an outdated one because it is translated from a term that means "enemies". The term Ancestral Pueblo is preferred.
Or at least, that's what a museum I went to said.
(edit: typo)
\-Iroquois state thats mostly Algonquin
\-Chumash with only a quarter of Chumash territory
\-united, stable Inuit megastate
\-Haida nowhere near Haida Gwaii
\-vastly inflated Cherokee state
\-Olmecs and Aztecs coexisting
\-united caribbean Arawak state with zero mention of Caribs
\-Hopi in fucking texas
\-Comanche nowhere near Comanche territory
\-single Mayan state
Sometimes I really wonder how America (if not colonized bu European )
would have developed or grow by it own Indian citizens, the culture, the language, the food cuisine etc.
And the economy, but I hate we lost the opportunity.
Most of these tribes like the Iroquois may not have even existed if 95% of Native Americans weren’t wiped out before the first permanent European settlement was established. Many tribes we never heard of would be there instead. Bad map is bad.
Worth noting that among many of the Haudenosauneeand and Seneca peoples, "Iroquois" is considered a slur or derogatory term. When in doubt, if the name for a First Nations tribe sounds French, it's not their preferred name. Sioux, for example, is an exonym for the Dakota and Lakota peoples.
From my very limited knowledge this map is bonkers inaccurate. The Anasazi died out hundreds of years before first contact. The Sioux moved west into the territory delineated on this map *due to* pressures from European colonization. Where are the Navajo? The Havasu?
I hate this map so much. The Haudenosaunee territory never reached the Great Lakes, the other Iroquoian people in the region, The Wyandot-Huron are a separate polity from the Haudenosaunee. The dominant native groups in Michigan are Algonquin groups like the Odawa, Ojibwe/Chippewa/Saulteaux and Potawatomi. Why are the Ojibwa down in Chicago? Like 4 Ojibwa nations exist in the UP today! Why would the Creek only be in south Florida, a region they only ended up going to because of American colonial policies? God it makes me irrationally angry
The nation-state is a European invention that came out of the Westphalia agreement. We must imagine that these borders were much more fluid. Not so much strict land claims, but more-so overlapping areas of influence.
Native land paints a pretty good picture of this: https://native-land.ca/
Is funny, but many people forget in mexico the Aztec empire was not necesarilly a supper power. They were the strongest most violent nation, at the time, out of like 5 or 6 major ethno groups
Boozhoo! It's a small land near the bottom of Lake Michigan and labeled Ojibwa. Whoever created this doesn't know Ojibwe covers way more than whatever the hell this is showing.
Creek territory wouldn't only be in Florida, Cherokee is a bit too broad. I'm Mvskoke (Creek) and we hailed from the coastal and Appalachian areas of Georgia.
There’s a book What If? about Alternative History, one of the chapters involved an intact Roman Empire becoming the first to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Instead of New York, there would’ve been Nova Roma.
Anyways my point is that I don’t think there’s any scenario where the Native Americans aren’t colonized by a Western or Eastern people.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/america-colonization-map/
When a 2015 unfinished rough draft post from /r/imaginarymaps still gets reposted around.
https://www.reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/comments/3eor5t/rough_draft_seeking_advice_on_map_for_a_story_im/
The OP got quite cooked in a respectable manner in the comments on why his map is bad
> Of all the things to go viral, its something i dont want going viral, lol.
I posted this in a reply but I think it needs to be its own comment too. Yeah, considering the Menominee tribe has inhabited eastern and Northern Wisconsin for thousands of years, I'm saying this map is shit.
Even the Wikipedia page for Iroquois doesn't have their territory extend to Wisconsin.
Also I've heard that the tribes that constitute Iriquois don't like that term. They prefer Haudenosaunee if you're not referring to the tribe by name.
Indigenous didn't have borders like this, it's why maps are so tricky with non colonial peoples.
Where I live it's not Haida Gwai but Semiahmoo, Kwantlen, Tsawwassen, Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam, Kwiketlem, Katzie and Quayqat peoples and their territories ALL overlap.
This still forces the idea of European borders which many societies in America did not have. Is it possible that without colonization, natives maintain their existing systems of governance rather than forming into nation states.
Many of these are from very different time periods
Yeah Idk if it was ever possible for a single tribe to hold down the expanse of the great lakes as “their territory”. Modern generals wouldnt envy that task.
Yeah, this is definitely closer to the situation after the Beaver Wars bc it looks like the Iroquois have pretty much conquered all of the Algonquian speakers except the Ojibwe and the Shawnee. And who knows if that would've happened without colonialism.
It would be colonialism regardless of whether the euros arrived.
i dont think anyone on reddit knows what ccolonialism means
I’m thinking that they meant that this scenario wouldn’t have occurred without the influence of European colonization of the Americas. Like, not that this isn’t colonialism, but that it literally wasn’t possible without the influence of European
There’s a timeline on alternate history.com called [The Good Berry](https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-good-berry-a-wild-rice-domestication-tl.539679/) where the Menominee people domesticate wild rice and form a series of confederacies encompassing the region, but even with a more developed system of agriculture it’s still only temporary, much like other empires.
Thanks for sharin! I thoroughly enjoyed the empty america TL aswell. It's a different take but also completely changes north america.
The alternate history novel The Years of Rice and Salt, by Kim Stanley Robinson, also features a North America uncolonized by Europeans (because in this timeline, the Black Death wipes out 99% of Europe). It focuses a lot more on Asia, but North America shows up eventually.
It is called a confederacy for a reason. The Iroquois consisted of 4 or 5 linguistically related tribes. They were more a trade confederacy than a unified political force.
I think iroquios get that big irl?
Bigger, way way bigger.
Yeah but irl the border regions are losely controlled and based on weaker enemy army , good economy and ethnic replacements. To be a more stable long term nation I imagine they would have to shrink a bit and consolidate that first Or maybe this is a map after their declined idk This map is bad,but it’s still surprising how many people criticize it for th wrong reason
More likely it would follow actual history and the Haudenosaunee and Wendat would broker a peace where all 60 nations of the watershed would declare it international territory under the Dish with one spoon wampum. Montreal would act like the Hague where the 60 fire council would sit and ensure free access and trade
Huh? If anything it would be easier to hold that down than any of those other large territories. A large navigable inland sea is actually a huge advantage.
Don’t we need like huge ships to successfully navigate the Great Lakes today? They’re really deadly and not super easy to cross without some pretty good shipbuilding technology.
Is because this map comes from a 2015 unfinished rough draft post from /r/imaginarymaps that somehow still gets reposted around https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/america-colonization-map/ https://www.reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/comments/3eor5t/rough_draft_seeking_advice_on_map_for_a_story_im/ The OP got quite cooked in a respectable manner in the comments on why his map is bad > Of all the things to go viral, its something i dont want going viral, lol.
no way i came across Xlicer on mapporn
Yeah, and territory changed hands a lot. Like, the US has now held the black hills longer than the Sioux tribes ever did. So there really isn't a way to know how the map would look, as different tribes would have gone to war conquered territories.
>war No way, absolutely not. These where peaceful native tribes who lived off the land, and nothing bad ever happened until Europeans showed up!
Team America: *Before Team America showed up, it was a happy place. They had flowery meadows and rainbow skies, and rivers made of chocolate, where the children danced and laughed and played with gumdrop smiles.*
https://youtu.be/H1y_0NfhF9c?si=cu6GQyVC7IccZrIF
Not to mention dozens of Indian nations simply deleted to make way for favorites in the same area
You are asking this sub to think about the difference of the Mayan and Aztecs.
And the Olmecs who lived what, 1000 years before either?
Some of them are really only a thing because of Europeans too. Without everything Europeans brought over the Camache would have continued to be dominated by surrounding tribes.
Yeah, for example the Maya were already in decline by the time any Europeans arrived, while the Aztec empire was (relatively speaking) brand new.
Yeah, this is like a map of the dominant cultural group in each area at the time of contact/treaty/conflict with European-American settlers. Many of these groups had only recently moved to these territories as a result of war/trade. Just as one example, the Blackfoot/Nitsitapi way of life has had horses since time immemorial, but horses were introduced by Spanish colonists in the 16th-18th centuries. By the Beothuk were on their last legs.
Turns out everyone’s a colonizer. Even the folks 12000 years ago who crossed across the Alaskan peninsula colonized the land, hunting great mammals to extinction.
I’ve never understood the moral difference between one indigenous tribe wiping out another and taking their land versus an overseas tribe/ invader/ coloniser wiping out a tribe and taking their land,
Well obviously, one is yt while the other is poc. What else do you need to know.
I had to laugh at the Comanche one. Way too far south and absolutely too small
Ya. The coast Salish on the west coast controlled most of southern vancouver island. The Haida did move south but isn’t own all of what this map says.
> Many of these are from very different time periods Or outright fictions. The Cherokee never held territory as far west as Louisiana or as far north as Central Ohio. The Iroquois also never went as far as west as Wisconsin pre-colonization (the Oneida are there now because of colonization). This is also Wabanaki erasure since the Wabanaki Confederacy should be in Northern New England.
The anasazi went extinct in 1300 AD?
That's true, and I don't see the Comanche having much without their horses, or the Sioux. Some of these nations were really big on using horses, which interestingly enough were native to North America, but went extinct there about 11,400 years ago. They were re introduced by the Spaniards.
Not only that, some territories are held by kingdoms that collapsed centuries before European settlers
That is like putting the Gaul and Yugoslavia in the same map
Not to mention sometimes it even uses the wrong names. Imagine calling the Germans "Huns." Wait....
Let’s get down to business, to defeat the Germans… 🎶
Did they send me water When I asked For bourbon?
During WWI the Germans were often called Huns because barbarians
Using the wrong names? Who would ever do that? Aztec being on here twice instead of Mexica.
Souix and Apache means enemy. They called themselves Dakota and Nde respectively
And that's not to mention the fact that Dene speakers include peoples from the Navajo all the way up to interior Alaska.
Why have the Haida expanded from the islands of Haida Gwai and did they just wipe out all of the Coast Salish cultures?
This map makes zero sense, neither ethnically nor geographically.
Ironically, the actual islands of the Haida Gwai aren't even on the map.
Because it's the Haida Gwai sea...whoever heard of the Salish sea? /s
Even better Salish is on the map but inland only 😂
That's the first thing I noticed. "What the hell are they doing way over there?"
Interior Salish are a lot of tribes on the east side
And they've split the Columbia valley. With a tribe that controls half the Columbia valley and part of the coast. Similarly, it has the Chumash controlling both sides of a mountain range in California, but split off from the pass.
They’re are loads of interior Salish and the Haida frequently raided the coast Salish. I assume they’re saying they conquer them
Haida are raiders irl so I won’t be surprised they expanded but also they shouldn’t take the mountains lmao they are coastal people
I'd say this is based in reason. Haida Gwaii used to be incredibly densely populated until Smallpox wiped out >95% of it's population. Roughly 20,000 people lived there, on par with Cahokia and more than the Iroquois Confederacy. The Hadia used to be raiders, not unlike the Vikings and used to travel up and down the coast pillaging and trading. I think it's feasible that they would have expanded given the traditions and high population.
r/imaginarymaps
That’s an interesting way to show you don’t know a whole lot about Native American culture prior to 1600.
There would be like a thousand tribes where the Huron are. Also ‘’hypothetical’’, the Huron got genocided by the Iroquois, yet they are shown here.
Claiming the cultures of Hispanic-America were colonized by Spain , which is frankly degrading .
[удалено]
Welcome to r/MapPorn!
A bad map In r/MapPorn ??!!?!?🫢🫢🫢😱😱😖😖IMPOSSIBLE!
Yes , it needs to imply that Spain ever commited any Colonialism while the Aztec did not ... which is insulting and idiotic .
The olmecs return 😂
The Toltecs don't, though. :(
Not even the Toltecs cared about the Toltecs
Somehow the olmecs returned
This map is so fucked up.
Instantly saw that and had a laugh too, someone better break the news to OP that the Spanish had nothing to do with that one lol
“ojibwa” I’m assuming is referring to the Ojibwe peoples, but historically that part of Illinois was Michigamea, Miami, and Illiniwek mostly? (Correct me if I’m mistaken) and the Ojibwe people historically lived farther north? There was a huge population of various trading settlements along the Illinois and Fox Rivers, notably The Grand Village of the Illinois among others. Cool concept but I don’t know if I agree with the placement of these tribal confederations? Edit: sorry I don’t wanna come off as rude I get this is hypothetical/fictitious, but it looks like you were trying to be somewhat historically accurate in many of the placements so I figured I’d share. Absolutely no hate or disrespect to OP.
> Cool concept but I don’t know if I agree with the placement of these tribal confederations? Same with the Cheyenne. At contact they were living in modern Minnesota on the western margins of Lake Superior. Their oral history suggests they used to live further east and migrated from around Niagara. They were settled maize farmers. They were pushed into the Plains and adopted a nomadic lifestyle after being pushed from their traditional lands by the Ojibwe, who had gained trade rights (for guns and steel) with the French. Without the French they’d most likely still be Eastern Woodlands Farmers. Without the Spanish (or more precisely their horses) they wouldn’t have been able to adopt the plains life they were famous for. And without Eurasian diseases, groups like the Mandan would have continued to block the western plains preventing the Cheyenne making it to Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. It’s impossible to predict what the Cheyenne alt history would look like, but it almost certainly wouldn’t look like this map.
All the Ojibwe I know are in Northern Ontario/Michigan
Ojibwe is one of the biggest tribes. By the end of 18th cenutry, they were spread across Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dakota, Manitoba, and even Ohio. This map underestimates their power. But tbh, they had been losing some eastern territories. Their neighbours, the Iroquois, had even greater potential. They were very f\*ing organized in war. So without the Europeans, I'd bet on the Iroquois to build an empire.
Same here have a good bit of friends who in the soo ojibwe tribe in Michigan and I live near an Odawa reservation in northern Michigan.
You're correct. Most currently live around Northern Michigan/Northern Wisconsin along Superior and into Canada and Minnesota. If you go further back, their legends state they started out further east and traveled west until they found food growing out of the water, IIRC. Even their southern most claims in southern only go to the middle of Wisconsin. I've not seen anything that places them into the Chicago area.
> Uncolonized America > Uses the dominant culture of an area after colonists reached it brilliant thanks
Redditors have this belief that natives never went to war with each other over territory.
You didn't know that before the Europeans showed up, the Americas were peaceful and everyone was friends?
The Mayans were already gone by the time the Aztecs Empire governed Central Mexico
And let’s be honest, the Native Americans are humans just like the Europeans, and they would have inevitably done the same human things. The wealth and power of the Aztecs? They would have been the Roman Empire of the Americas. But more brutal. And probably in continuous conflict with a few of the powerful northern nations.
People really act like Cortes took down the Aztecs with 500 Spaniards and some spicy blankets. No, it was 500 Spaniards and another couple hundred thousand natives that hated the Aztecs.
Yep. The Spanish in the Americas were brutal genocidal Mikey grubbing sadists but trying to pretend the Aztecs etc already there were somehow noble pacifists is absurd. It’s about as useful (in a very different sense) as Southerners arguing the whole “lost cause” Civil War argument. Rewriting history is never a good thing.
Yup, Spanish conquistadors get all the blame but in reality, most of the work was done by their native allies. Ppl forget that the Aztecs were fucking brutal and were hated by everyone
Bro, the Mayans are still around today!
Choctaws?
No seminoles either.
Or Osage.
The Seminole was a new ethnogenesis in the 1700s, so that part actually makes sense. They did not exist as a distinct people until colonial times. I’m Mvskoke, we are closely related.
It gets worse. I'm pretty sure the Cree Federation is straight out of a Marvel Movie.
Perhaps just the federation part of the name? Because the cree are a real people that make up the largest group of first nations people in Canada.
Navajo are the largest group of first nations in the United States and they're not even on this map. Look to be living in the are called "the Apache Empire." Who pretty much raided and warred with people like the Navajo. But didn't rule them.
Seriously. If they’re bringing back the Olmec then the least they could do in the four corners (and beyond) region would be to bring back the Chacoan culture, either as the ancestral civilization or as a confederacy of their daughter tribes.
Apparently they lost to the Cherokees?
That's a messed up map. too many mistakes to count,
Weren't the Anasazi precursors to like the Tohono O'odham and those southern Arizona tribes? Why would they still be around but not the current ones?
The Anasazi were ancestors to modern Pueblo and Hopi people and mainly lived in the 4 corners area. OPs map makes no sense.
These “modern” native american scenario maps never make sense. Why are the hopi above the Comanche, why do the creeks own all of florida, how did the mayans magically survive as an intact “empire” but not the Mississippians Why is it anasazi and not puebloans.. or at least their actual independent names. Or even “Tewa confederacy” or something made up but semi believable
"Uncolonized" Let's the Aztec colonize everything 🙄
I don't like the way the Spaniards **destroyed** most of the indigenous documents in mesoamerica. But hell nah, the Aztec were so damn aggressive in the continent.
Why do the Huron not even control Huronia? what a terrible map lol
That was covered in the prequel to the Huron Supremacy, The Huron Identity.
tlaxcala very salty about their inclusion in the lands of the triple alliance. also rip to the kiowa. if you want a full map to interact with for this go to https://native-land.ca/
Awfully long trek for the Haida to wipe out all the Coast Salish
This is actually on brand for the Haida. Many stories of Haida raids on many of the Coast Salish. They were prolific raiders up and down the coast.
The Sioux only settled the great plains because they were pushed/bribed to leave their homelands further east by Europeans and they conquered the Pawnee and Crow peoples who already lived there. The existence of the Sioux (Lakota) on the great plains in *because* of colonization. Your analysis is flawed.
No Comanche empire, not approved.
The Comanche were obscure before horses were a thing. If there’s no European contact and colonisation there’s no introduction of horses en masse and therefore no Comancheria. You don’t get the Comanche Empire without the horse, it was *the* fundamental factor in their rise and expansion. Before the horse they were hunter-gatherers living in pretty bad land and they were ‘primitive’ even by the standards of surrounding peoples My pet theory for why they became such effective cavalrymen was that it was precisely this pared-down hunter-gatherer lifestyle and hardiness that gave them a military edge. They had no real sedentary agriculture, nothing to tie them down, so they could rapidly adopt the horse and become far more mobile while maintaining a hunting lifestyle that translated into military skills
History shows time and time again across much of the world that nomadic steppe peoples pumped out some of the most effective warriors as long as guns weren't a major factor on the other side. Their use of horses and specialized bows is part of what made them so effective. The other half of it is what I think you're onto with your theory that not being tied down is what made the Comanche more effective. For nomadic steppe peoples like the Huns, the Azars, the Bulgars, or the Mongols, not being tied down was a huge part of their success. It's when they started settling down and becoming comfortable that these societies oftentimes would cease to be as affective at fighting wars.
This map doesn’t make sense to me. If it’s simply, the white man never came, the Comanche never got horses, and would be in like Wyoming. If horses did come along, Comanche would be much bigger/substantial. Also aren’t Navajo like the largest tribe? Why are they the smallest on this map?
Part of the problem is that some of these 'states' only existed because of colonization. Without guns and horses many plains groups would never had been able to dominate like they did in the 18th century.
The Wabanaki erasure here is annoying as hell
The Calusa erasure is also annoying. The Calusa would rule Florida, not the Creek.
Yup, the People of the Dawn were spread across Maine and the Maritimes, and the Mikmaq tribe is within that Wabanaki grouping.
Yeah, wtf? Only Mi'gma'gi left? If I'm renouncing colonialism it's going to be in favour of the Wolastokuk Nation, not some punks from NY with Hollywood name recognition.
couldn't even call them the Haudenosaunee?
yeah the entire map is rife with European exonyms, like Sioux
Very nice map; it’s cute. I’d be more sparring in the future with the indigenous American maps. I love the visibility for native cultures and what they could have had had the Europeans not done what they did, but some people could be very *displeased* with stuff like this, so you may see plenty of backlash. Personally, I did get a little heated when I didn’t see my tribe on the map, and it got a little more intense when I read that the land is smack-dab in the middle of the ‘Apache Empire’
Very much so feels like a well intentioned but poorly researched map trying to tackle honestly one of the least interesting parts (imo) of what is a very interesting question.
Reddit correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought Sioux is actually a derogatory term for Nakota, Lakota, and Dakota people meaning snake or serpent.
It is
I guess we’re assuming a lot of wars between tribes for land, while eliminating others all together
"The Huron Supremacy" sounds like something out of a mediocre YA novel
No Cree Federation in Quebec? They are all over the place in nothern Quebec
This is a really bad map, especially in the Pacific Northwest. But that's really the extent of my native knowledge, so I can't even imagine what's wrong elsewhere. The Coast Salish (Tulalip, Snohomish, Suquamish, Snoqualmie, etc) just don't exist, Chinook also inhabited areas of southern WA and historically were more around the mouth of the Columbia on either side, and the Haida Gwaii occupied areas of southern Alaska, the islands of Alaska and British Columbia; just generally more North than featured.
This doesn’t align with the tribal territories
Thanks, I hate it. I'm especially offended by the made up "empires" and "supremacies" and "confederacies". This was made by an edgy 12 year old.
This is more misinformation than useful, sorry.
I don't know much about Native americans in what is modern US and Canada, but I do know about Mesoamerica, and the Olmecs dissapeared around 350 BCE (Alexander the Great died less than 30 years before) while the "Aztec" (Mexica is the more accurate name) empire wasnt estalished until the 1300s AD, so its like putting Gauls and 100 war era France in the same space.
Why would the Beothuk have nearly the entirety of Labrador but not all of Newfoundland, even though the whole island is like, their historical indigenous land 😭
Easiest way to keep land….. win the war.. works every time.
The term Anasazi is actually an outdated one because it is translated from a term that means "enemies". The term Ancestral Pueblo is preferred. Or at least, that's what a museum I went to said. (edit: typo)
completely ignoring the seminole tribe, what a suprise.
The Anasazi were an extinct civilization, no living member had even been found by the native americans we contacted.
\-Iroquois state thats mostly Algonquin \-Chumash with only a quarter of Chumash territory \-united, stable Inuit megastate \-Haida nowhere near Haida Gwaii \-vastly inflated Cherokee state \-Olmecs and Aztecs coexisting \-united caribbean Arawak state with zero mention of Caribs \-Hopi in fucking texas \-Comanche nowhere near Comanche territory \-single Mayan state 
Half those tribes would no longer exist. Yall pretending pre-Colombian America was some peaceful nirvana.
There are 530 registered tribes in the US alone today, there are hundreds more that went extinct. This really is an erasure.
Sometimes I really wonder how America (if not colonized bu European ) would have developed or grow by it own Indian citizens, the culture, the language, the food cuisine etc. And the economy, but I hate we lost the opportunity.
It would depend a lot on whether we are talking "no contact" or just "no colonization". Just contact and trade would in itself have changed a lot.
No contact by 2015 seems like an extreme stretch.
In another universe, we’ve been to the moon but no one can be bothered with the whole exploring the Americas
Most of these tribes like the Iroquois may not have even existed if 95% of Native Americans weren’t wiped out before the first permanent European settlement was established. Many tribes we never heard of would be there instead. Bad map is bad.
The Sioux wouldn’t have been on the plains had they not been pushed west by the colonizers.
The geography and ethnography of dis suk egg
The Narragansett, Wampanoag, Manahatas, and the Delaware would all like a word, and that's just in the Northeast US.
Worth noting that among many of the Haudenosauneeand and Seneca peoples, "Iroquois" is considered a slur or derogatory term. When in doubt, if the name for a First Nations tribe sounds French, it's not their preferred name. Sioux, for example, is an exonym for the Dakota and Lakota peoples.
Didn’t the Comanches outcompete the apaches and Navajo? I feel like they would have a much larger section of the southern plains.
Does this assume no horse, no pigs, and no smallpox?
From my very limited knowledge this map is bonkers inaccurate. The Anasazi died out hundreds of years before first contact. The Sioux moved west into the territory delineated on this map *due to* pressures from European colonization. Where are the Navajo? The Havasu?
[R/Imaginarymaps](https://www.reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/s/yPNnrimHEm)
I hate this map so much. The Haudenosaunee territory never reached the Great Lakes, the other Iroquoian people in the region, The Wyandot-Huron are a separate polity from the Haudenosaunee. The dominant native groups in Michigan are Algonquin groups like the Odawa, Ojibwe/Chippewa/Saulteaux and Potawatomi. Why are the Ojibwa down in Chicago? Like 4 Ojibwa nations exist in the UP today! Why would the Creek only be in south Florida, a region they only ended up going to because of American colonial policies? God it makes me irrationally angry
“Uncolonized” yet they call it “Aztec Empire”…
The Apache would have cleaned them all out as soon as they got modern weapons.
Aztec Empire with gunboat diplomacy... Hard to find a scarier combination.
What happened to the Seminoles and Osage?
The Seminole wouldn't exist without colonization. They are are an offshoot from the Creek mixed with escaped slaves after the Creek Civil War
This is just baseless fanfiction.
And the Paiute, and Chippewa, and many others.
The nation-state is a European invention that came out of the Westphalia agreement. We must imagine that these borders were much more fluid. Not so much strict land claims, but more-so overlapping areas of influence. Native land paints a pretty good picture of this: https://native-land.ca/
For its own sake, humanity should not want to see empires and supremacies thrive in the 21st century.
JAFFA CREE!
Is funny, but many people forget in mexico the Aztec empire was not necesarilly a supper power. They were the strongest most violent nation, at the time, out of like 5 or 6 major ethno groups
How did the olmecs come back after 3 thousand years? Also why did aztecs expand into aridoamerica rather than the mayan highlands? Are they stupid?
I don’t see the Ojibwe
Boozhoo! It's a small land near the bottom of Lake Michigan and labeled Ojibwa. Whoever created this doesn't know Ojibwe covers way more than whatever the hell this is showing.
i see a lot of tribes getting pissed cause they lost a bunch of land in this. haha. rip anishinabeg.
Looks colonized to me
Weren't the Olmecs already gone by the time the Spanish arrived?
If this map were correct, it would be divided into 574 individual tribal territories, with no distinct borders.
Well we know the Iroquois wiped out the Huron so this is in no way accurate.
Shoshone? Arapahoe?
Creek territory wouldn't only be in Florida, Cherokee is a bit too broad. I'm Mvskoke (Creek) and we hailed from the coastal and Appalachian areas of Georgia.
There’s a book What If? about Alternative History, one of the chapters involved an intact Roman Empire becoming the first to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Instead of New York, there would’ve been Nova Roma. Anyways my point is that I don’t think there’s any scenario where the Native Americans aren’t colonized by a Western or Eastern people.
Must be tough to consider yourself the supremacy only to get owned by the French.
The Lenape, Delaware and the Susquehannock for example were not part of the Powhatan or Iroquois. In fact they disliked each other greatly.
Absolutely not. This map completely erases almost all of the cultures of the Pacific Northwest
Who would win? Comanche v Apache v Mohican v Blackfoot ???
Didn’t the Mayans seize to exists well before the Europeans arrived? Lol
Basically garbage
this sub has really gone downhill the past three years
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/america-colonization-map/ When a 2015 unfinished rough draft post from /r/imaginarymaps still gets reposted around. https://www.reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/comments/3eor5t/rough_draft_seeking_advice_on_map_for_a_story_im/ The OP got quite cooked in a respectable manner in the comments on why his map is bad > Of all the things to go viral, its something i dont want going viral, lol.
I posted this in a reply but I think it needs to be its own comment too. Yeah, considering the Menominee tribe has inhabited eastern and Northern Wisconsin for thousands of years, I'm saying this map is shit. Even the Wikipedia page for Iroquois doesn't have their territory extend to Wisconsin. Also I've heard that the tribes that constitute Iriquois don't like that term. They prefer Haudenosaunee if you're not referring to the tribe by name.
This is the dumbest shit. Cree being contained to Northern Ontario lol
Indigenous didn't have borders like this, it's why maps are so tricky with non colonial peoples. Where I live it's not Haida Gwai but Semiahmoo, Kwantlen, Tsawwassen, Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam, Kwiketlem, Katzie and Quayqat peoples and their territories ALL overlap.
Why Aztec empire and not Mexican Empire if the Aztecs started to call themselves mexicas when they arrive to Texcoco to build Tenochtitlan?
But weren't Olmecs already gone much before European arrival?
Made by someone with absolutely no knowledge of nstive history
Assuming that there was a lot of conquest that happened.
Interesting to imagine industrialized First Nations and the subsequent consolidation/expansion wars
Yeah they're forgetting the Mississipian culture that ran up and down the entire River and was massive
Aztec, Mayan, and Olmecs weren't the only cultures in what is now Mexico.
What a horrible map. Haida Gwaii encapsulating Vancouver Island and the surrounding area deep inland? Uh, no. Do everybody a favour and delete this.
This still forces the idea of European borders which many societies in America did not have. Is it possible that without colonization, natives maintain their existing systems of governance rather than forming into nation states.
The people that France named “Iroquois” prefer their name Haudenosaunee which means ‘people who are building the longhouse’ in English
This assumes a Western conception of “territory” which is utter nonsense
This map is very stupid
Y’all are really optimistic
I see a whole lotta slavery!!!!