What If: Five Native American Nations join the U.S.

Airedale260

Well-known member
Basically this came up on another thread...what would happen if the Cherokee, Seminole, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Creek Nations joined the U.S. as states, rather than be forcibly displaced?

I admit I don’t really know much about this part of history, other than the Trail of Tears being a national disgrace. Thoughts?
 
This happens because Andrew Jackson dies in one of his many duels.

Edit: Also George Washington was part of an organization dedicated to uplifting the Indians. They were quite successful with the Cherokee, whom managed to maintain a neolithic civilization rather than regressing to a paleolithic one after the plagues that decimated the Indian tribes.
 
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Washington had the notion that these tribes would in time become fully equal to the white population, and the members of these tribes would become regular citizens of the USA. Jefferson later continued that policy to a considerable extent. The Federalist period in between didn't encourage these efforts, however. And after Jefferson, white settlers were already pushing into the region. This meant that "it's their land and they'll join us in time" became increasingly unpopular, supplanted by "it's our land, and we'll just kick them off it".

Mississippi attained statehood in 1817. Alabama two years later. That pretty much put the nail in the coffin for statehood for the tribes living within the confines of these new states. You need a scenario wherein the "civilising"/assimilation policy is pushed consistently, so that when the time comes to start dividing the areas in question (for the bulk, that means the 1810s), the general consensus is that the Civilised Tribes are ready for US statehood. This is not impossible, but you sort of need to destroy the Federalists to do it. Or put a Federalist in charge who wants to do it.

Supposing that this goes through, we'll see adjoining territories being fused together, no doubt. It won't be five extra states. More probably three. A Chickasaw/Choctow one and a Cherokee/Creek one in the 1810s, and a Seminole one in the 1820s. State borders are definitely going to be different in the surrounding region, all the more so because tribal statehood will be anticipated. Going off the tribal areas, one might see:

-- a *Louisiana that includes the coastal part of OTL's Mississippi but lacks its own OTL Northern regions;

-- an inland *Mississippi that lacks its own North as well as sea access, but includes OTL Louisiana's North, and thus straddles both sides of the river;

-- an *Alabama that loses good chunks of its OTL North, but includes OTL Florida's Westernmost regions, and;

-- A smaller *Florida Territory, soon divided into three parts (a Northern segment, a Seminole segment in the middle, and a Southern segment), all three of which remain territories for longer than united Florida did in OTL.

In addition, Tennessee would probably gain a modest bit of OTL Alabama (North of the Tennessee River) and Georgia would lose its North-Western corner. The overall result is two additional slave states, at least until the "Floridian question" omes into play. No doubt, the South will want to admit Florida as three separate slave states. This may cause major political clashes with Northerners.

(Of course, one possible outcome is that there is simply a wider acceptance of smaller states, leading the North to carve out a bunch of smaller, low-population free states to keep parity with the greater number of smaller slave states.)
 
Cool map to help visualise what we are talking about. I'm surprised by the size of the tribal areas - I was expecting flyspecs like New Jersey or Connecticut.
Three, not five, makes sense:
Trails_of_Tears_en.png
 
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I've taken the liberty of drawing up a quick map of the Indian states overlaid on current state boundaries. I'll do some more editing later, but here's the Indian states proper.



The red state is the Chickasaw-Choctaw state, which I'm calling Nuniwaya after Nunih Waya, the place where both tribes believed they had originated. I've shifter their territory slightly to use the Yazoo as their western boundary, because I doubt that they'd be able to hold onto the Inland Delta, which is some of the best cotton soil in the South.

The orange state is the Cherokee-Muskogee state. I haven't come up with a good name yet, so I'm referring to it as 'Mesopotamia' for now. They'd definitely be the most Westernized of the three, as the Cherokee were mostly Americanized prior to their expulsion, and the Muskogee were well on their way to getting there before the Creek War.

The yellow state is the Seminole state, which I also have no name for.

Funnily enough, Seminole would probably be a free state, given their distaste for slavery. This could potentially make their entrance to the union more realistic. I'm guessing that the order of admission would go: Cherokee-Muskogee (~1810) to balance Ohio and then Nuniwaya and Seminole together sometime around 1825 to preserve the balance.
 
@Eparkhos - great job!
As to the Seminole - could they not simply be given the lower 2/3rds of the peninsula?
And good to know that the Indian States would generate 4 "slave"and 2 "free" senators.
As to the free vs slave state mix - with the slave states ahead by 2 versus OTL, maybe simply have the Seminole and Florida (the Norff) join together? If the South feels there is a need to pad numbers there always is Texas which can be divided into 3? 5? states.
To prod the can of worms further - Oklahoma ...
 
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Yeah I wonder how the Seminole state would work in regards to the State of Florida which was kinda a backwater state at the time already. Most of the White people and their slave population seemed concentrated in the Northern part of the State/Territory so giving the Seminoles the whole Southern Peninsula... or at least a WARM WATER port seems reasonable. Seminole territory, even in the map above, was greatly reduced actually in the previous decade or two. Andrew Jackson captured the territory that would be Tallahassee in like 1817 or therabouts from the Seminoles after all. The Americans could just snip off West Florida including Pensacola as well as bits of East Florida, like down and around Saint Augustine. In the case of the former maybe the other States (Georgia or Alabama) could actually swallow up the Northern bits if that's politically feasible.
 

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