I’ve gotten heavily into World War II alternatives in the last several months. This month I’m going to go back to my original plan of one World-War II-related scenario and one scenario from a less well-known section of history. The Huron/Iroquois war certainly ranks in there as a less well-known section of history, but as you'll see as this scenario unfolds, it may have had a very important impact in determining the direction of US and Canadian history from that point forward. Part of the point of this scenario is to illustrate that a little known event can have large ramifications later on.
Background: For this scenario, most people are going to need a little background information. In the late 1640’s, four major groups of European settlers played a role in Northeastern North America. In descending order of numbers and power, they were the English Puritans in New England, the French in what is now Canada, the Dutch in what is now New York, and the tiny Swedish colony in what is now New Jersey. In the 1640’s these settlers occupied a tiny fraction of the continent. A bewildering array of Indian tribes occupied the rest of Northeastern North America. Those tribes have been traditionally broken down by language group.
There were two major language groups in Northeastern North America at this time. Algonquin speakers like the Narragansetts, Mohegans, Ojibwa, and many others, formed a shell around a group of Iroquois speaking tribes like the five nations Iroquois, the Hurons, the Erie, and the Susquehanna. For a large part of the southern interior—especially Ohio and Kentucky, the language and even the tribal names of the Indians who lived there in the 1640’s is unknown. The tribes in those areas were shattered by epidemics and wars before Europeans made much contact with them. Based on very limited evidence, there may have been a belt of Souian-speaking tribes in this area.
Large-scale agriculture spread from the interior of North America toward the coasts, starting around 6-700 AD. As it spread, so did larger populations and more sophisticated political organizations. Large-scale agriculture reached the East Coast of North America only a short time before the Europeans began contacting Indians there. In parts of the interior, it had been around for close to a thousand years. Interior tribes, especially the Iroquois-speaking ones, had more time to develop large populations and sophisticated political organizations than the coastal tribes. The interior tribes should have posed a major barrier to European settlement of the area. They should have played a major role in the balance of power between the French and English in North America. With the exception of the five nations Iroquois, they didn’t. Why not? The Huron/League of Iroquois war was the key.
Why was the Huron/Iroquois war important? This war was important for two reasons.
- First, the Hurons themselves were important. They were a large tribe—twenty to thirty-five thousand people before European diseases started taking their toll, probably still over ten thousand in 1648. Those population figures rank them up there with the combined total of the five Iroquois tribes. Those figures are also roughly comparable to those of the Cherokees.
The Hurons were among the largest Indian groups in North America as of around 1640. They spoke the same Iroquois language as the five nations Iroquois who defeated them, and were at approximately the same cultural level. They lived in long-houses clustered together in fortified towns. Some of those towns were large by Indian standards. One Huron town had a population of at least three thousand people, possibly as many as fifty-five hundred.
The Hurons were also economically important. They ran a huge trading network which carried corn and beans to Indians too far north to farm and brought back fur and other products from the northern tribes. That trading network got bigger and more important after European contact. The Hurons were a major player in the fur trade with the French.
- Second, the defeat of the Hurons set a pattern for future Iroquois wars. The Iroquois victory in this war changed the face of Indian warfare. It was a war of annihilation, not of skirmishes. It set the pattern for Iroquois wars for the next seventy or eighty years. Through the 1650’s, the five nations Iroquois destroyed three more major Iroquois-speaking tribes, and scattered others. After a brief pause in the late 1660’s and early 1670’s, the five nations Iroquois went back on the offensive in the 1670’s and 80’s. Raids by the five nations Iroquois in the 1670’s and 1680’s helped empty the once densely populated Ohio River valley, destroying tribes so thoroughly that in many cases even the names of the tribes involved have been lost. In some cases archeologists know that Indian towns were inhabited until the 1670’s because they have found European trade goods from that time period in the towns, but they can’t associate a tribal name with those towns. The Iroquois eventually raided tribes as far south as South Carolina and as far west as Illinois.
These victories by the five nations Iroquois eventually made English settlement of the interior of North America much easier. They eliminated key French allies and left large areas that had been densely populated almost deserted.
On To the Scenario:
What actually happened: Between 1648 and 1650, the five nations Iroquois decisively defeated the Hurons, turning them from a prosperous tribe to a tiny remnant of refugees. Huron country was emptied of its people. Fugitive Hurons scattered to neighboring tribes.
The Hurons could have won. The two sides were pretty evenly matched in terms of numbers. The Hurons were good warriors. The five nations Iroquois won partly because they surprised the Hurons, attacking the towns during the winter with a huge raiding party—over a thousand men. Both the winter attack and the large size of the attacking party were innovations in Indian warfare in the area. The Iroquois also had an advantage in that they were better armed. The Dutch in New Amsterdam (what is now New York) had recently sold them 300 muskets. The Hurons had some guns, but nowhere near that many.
The Hurons fought back hard, but in a piecemeal fashion, allowing the five nations Iroquois to defeat their forces a few hundred men at a time. They managed to kill around 300 of the invaders, but lost more men themselves.
More importantly, the Hurons lost confidence in their ability to defend their remaining towns. After the invaders left, the surviving Hurons split up. They burned their towns so that the Iroquois couldn’t use them as bases and scattered in all directions. Some went as refugees to neighboring tribes. A large faction, including an entire town, went over to the Iroquois and became part of the Seneca tribe. Around five thousand Hurons fled to a French mission on a barren island, where all but a few hundred starved to death.
What Might Have Happened: The Iroquois war party spent part of the winter in Huron country before attacking. If they had been detected during that time, the Hurons could have organized a response, probably launching a surprise attack on the war party before it attacked them. The two sides were evenly matched enough that surprise could have given the Hurons victory, routing the Iroquois war party. If the Iroquois lost 300 men in a successful surprise attack, they could easily have lost twice as many in a battle where the Hurons had the advantage of surprise. The survivors would have to make it back to Iroquois country in the winter with little food or shelter. Let’s say less than 300 of the more than a thousand Iroquois warriors make it back to their villages. Some of those are in bad shape from exposure. Most of the precious muskets are back in Huron country. Given an Iroquois population of a little over ten thousand, the five tribes would have started with around 2,500 men of fighting age. They have just lost between 25 and 30 percent of those men in one battle—probably the most effective 25-30 percent . The survivors are demoralized by the rout and in many cases wounded.
Not all of the five tribes would have been equally hard-hit. Some of them opposed the war and didn’t contribute to the war party. The hardest hit tribes could have lost close to half of their male populations. Losses like that put the entire league of Iroquois in jeopardy. The five tribes banded together in the first place because they were surrounded by enemy tribes. As news of the Iroquois defeat spreads, those enemies become active. The Mahicans push back into their old territory around the Dutch trading post of Fort Orange, threatening to cut the five nations Iroquois off from their supply of Dutch muskets and gunpowder. A coalition of tribes from the upper Connecticut River valley attacks the Mohawks, with some support from the Puritans of New England. At this point the Mohawks are allied with the Dutch, and the English want to use New England tribes to destroy their power. The Hurons attack from the north, while the Susquehanna Indians attack from the south. The Hurons are well armed with captured muskets, while the Susquehanna are very well armed as a result of their alliance with the tiny colony of New Sweden.
The coalition against them is too much for the weakened league of Iroquois tribes. The league disintegrates. Many of the Mohawks seek refuge among their allies, the Narragansetts of Rhode Island. The Mahicans or the Connecticut River tribes capture others. Many Seneca women and children are incorporated into the Hurons. Others are incorporated into the Susquehanna. Remnants of the three remaining tribes are allowed to remain in part of their homeland by their neighbors. They gradually lose their individual tribal identities and become a poor, unimportant, isolated tribe in upstate New York, or are incorporated into surrounding tribes.
Short-term Consequences: In the short-term the French are the major winners. The Hurons control the fur trade, and the French control the Hurons. The Iroquois had been threatening the trade routes between Huron country and Montreal. They are no longer in a position to do that. The Dutch lose their major Indian allies, and influence over most of upper New York. Coastal Indians also threaten them at New Amsterdam. The Mohawks had kept those Indians in check, but with the Mohawks defeated, they become a threat again.
The Huron trade network stays in operation, and actually expands, bringing European trade goods to a huge area of eastern North America. The Susquehanna use their newly won territory to spread their own trade. Trade goods filter through the Susquehanna to the tribes of the Ohio River valley.
The Hurons sometimes bully other tribes, but they are traders. They don’t launch wars of extermination. Dozens of tribes throughout eastern North America remain in their traditional territories instead of being exterminated or driven from those territories.
Middle term Consequences (1650-1675): The French find that their victory is not lasting. They have a problem in that French trade goods are not competitive in either price or quality with Dutch or English trade goods. The Hurons were already split to some extent into Catholic and Traditionalist factions by 1648. The Traditionalist factions become more and more alienated as Huron Catholics become more dominant. The Traditionalists are reinforced by the traditionalist Senecas who have been adopted as Hurons. They want to redirect trade to New England or New Amsterdam, as do some of the Catholic Hurons. Traditionalist Hurons filter into part of the old Iroquois territory in New Amsterdam, and use the Mahicans as middlemen to trade with the Dutch.
European trade goods reach further and further into the interior of North America. In some cases they start or fuel wars, as tribes fight over good trade routes. If one tribe gets muskets before their neighbors do, the lucky tribe is sometimes able to destroy their neighbors. Diseases spread from the European colonies to the Indians. Those diseases don’t spread into the interior as quickly as in our time-line because the Hurons guard their control of the trade routes, keeping French traders out of the interior as long as they can.
Without the League of Iroquois in the way, Huron trade expands quickly to the west and south. It meets existing Indian trade routes along the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri River valleys. There is a huge demand for European beads, knives, axes, cloth, pots, and especially guns throughout the region. Guns spread slowly. It takes a while to learn how to use them effectively. The other goods spread quickly, becoming prestige goods throughout the interior. European metal goods are too valuable to be left in one piece. They are shaped into native shapes—European brass pots become hundreds of arrowheads, and so on.
In the area that is now New Jersey and Pennsylvania, a multi-cornered cold war is brewing. English Catholics in Maryland claim that territory, as do the Dutch, and the tiny post of New Sweden. The Susquehanna and a chain of conquered or allied tribes hold the balance of power. In our time-line, the Dutch conquered New Sweden, then were themselves conquered by the English. In this time-line the Dutch are weakened enough by the collapse of their Iroquois allies that they don’t tackle New Sweden. The English of New England initially infiltrate into New Amsterdam rather than conquering it. Puritan traders push into what is now upper New York, following their allies among the New England Indians.
Long-term Consequences: This gets almost impossible to predict in detail. Let’s take the impact on European settlements first, then at what happens to the Indians.
Consequences for European colonies:
The Dutch: The Dutch are going to lose out to the English at some point. They are too close to New England and too small to survive long-term. The only real question is how long it will be before the English take over. In this time-line they’ll probably lose control of northern New York earlier, but hang on to the southern part until about the time they lost it historically. One wild card is a possible revolt of the tribes of southern New York. The Dutch fought a bloody but inconclusive war with them in the 1640’s. With the League of Iroquois removed from the equation, that war might resume. The Dutch population was small enough that the Indians could force them to accept "help" from the New England colonies, which would be fatal for the Dutch in the long run. In any case, the Dutch are no longer an independent part of the equation by the mid-1670’s. There is intense rivalry between the royal governor of New York and the colonies of New England, even more so than in our time-line because New Englanders are trading into upstate New York.
The French: The French turn out to be the big losers in all of this. In our time-line they were able to spread to the interior of the eastern United States early because the Hurons were no longer capable of protecting their trade routes. The French could also be useful to the interior tribes as a counterbalance to the Iroquois. Neither of those factors are at work in this time-line. The Hurons work hard to protect their trade, and they succeed for quite a while. They no longer need the French as allies against the Iroquois or as trading partners. That means that the Louisiana settlement is delayed because in our time-line the French discovered the Mississippi from the interior—ultimately from Canada. Oddly enough, the mouth of the Mississippi was almost impossible to find from the sea due to many channels cutting through the delta at its mouth. On the other hand, France was in a colonizing mood at the time. They might have directed their energies elsewhere. A renegade former Spanish governor of New Mexico was touring Europe at around the time, trying to find a European power to invade New Mexico. He might have been able to direct French (or English, or both) energy toward a colony in Texas as a base for attacking New Mexico. In any case, this starts to have consequences for France in Europe—no Louisiana bubble—which has a lot of financial implications for wealthy Frenchmen.
As France and England become global rivals, the North American part of that rivalry is altered. The French aren’t in the interior of North America anywhere near as early. The French and Indian wars start out more focused on the north. The Hurons try desperately to stay out of those wars. They have a large Catholic population, which has traditionally been pro-French, and a large Traditionalist population that has been pro-English. At the same time, both factions are better off if they are in a position to trade with both the French and the English, and they both know it. They may be able to stay out of the first few French/English wars, but they’ll probably eventually splinter into pro-French and pro-English factions.
The English In New England: New England stays involved in the Indian fur trade longer than in our time-line, because they aren’t cut off from the western part of it by the Dutch and later by the royal governors of New York. New England Indians have a little more maneuvering room because they can move into the vacuum in the former League of Iroquois territory as New England’s frontier expands toward them. Those two factors delay King Phillip’s war long enough that it merges with the French/English wars. In the short term that is a good thing from New England’s point of view. King Phillip’s war drained New England financially and militarily. It made it much easier for the English crown to reassert royal authority over New England. Some authors have speculated that New England might have actually tried to declare independence in the late 1600’s if King Phillip’s war hadn’t happened. In any case, New England would be more independent- minded, at least until the French/English wars started in earnest. Then the delay of King Phillip’s war becomes a negative as New England faces a longer and more draining battle with it’s Indians once that battle comes.
The English in Maryland and Virginia: The fall of the Iroquois has an impact here. In this time-line Maryland and Virginia don’t have to set up an elaborate system of Indian buffer states to protect the frontier against Iroquois raids. On the other hand, the Susquehanna are more powerful in this time-line, and that might cause the same sort of alliances. As the Huron trade network expands, traders from Virginia and Maryland find themselves competing against the Hurons or their local partners. Bacon’s rebellion doesn’t happen, at least not the same way. It started partly as a reaction to Iroquois raids into Virginia.
The English in the Deep South: The ripples keep spreading. There is a very real possibility that they could impact the founding of South Carolina. If the attempt to settle South Carolina happens on schedule, it finds a very different situation. First, South Carolina traders now have to compete with Indian traders who are part of the Huron trading network ultimately stretching back to New York. Second, that Indian trade has already reached the frontiers of the Spanish missions in what are now Georgia and Florida. It alarms Spanish authorities, who were always very concerned about other Europeans encroaching on their colonies. The Spanish were in a steep decline. They tended to react sluggishly and belatedly to threats. Given enough time though, they could still bring significant power to bear. In this time-line, European trade goods arriving at their border stimulates Spanish fears, and they devote more energy in this time-line to combating the threat from South Carolina in the early days of the colony.
Ultimately, some English group was going to succeed in colonizing the South Carolina area. Spanish power kept the English from moving south from Virginia in the first half of the 1600’s, but that power had faded enough by the last half of the 1600’s that someone was going to move into the vacuum. If Spain reacts vigorously, and destroys South Carolina in its infancy, the process might take a while longer, but by 1700 or so, the English would be moving into the area. How that happens is important though. In our time-line South Carolina was colonized from Barbados. The settlers brought a system of slave-based large-scale plantation agriculture with them when they arrived. If South Carolina had been settled from Virginia or North Carolina, or even New England, the economy of the south could have developed in some very different ways.
Another possibility: If South Carolina colony fails, potential colonists from Barbados might go elsewhere—possibly to Texas or Northern Mexico. I’ll talk about the reasoning behind that in the French section.
Even if the same people colonize South Carolina on schedule, it would be deprived of two of its early Indian allies. The Westos were probably Iroquois speaking refugees from the north—possibly remnants of the Erie Indians. South Carolina used them as allies in a nasty Indian slave trade, then used refugee Shawnees to destroy the Westos when they became too powerful. South Carolina would have probably found other allies willing to play the role, but it might have taken longer to establish the slave trade.
As a result of trade competition and Spanish threats, South Carolina expands more slowly in this time-line. It may also be established from a different source. That has major consequences later on, especially for Indians.
Consequences for Spain: Florida might not be essentially emptied of its Indians by slave raids organized by South Carolina in the early 1700’s. On the other hand, if the French don’t found Louisiana, and also don’t settle in Texas, the Spanish don’t settle in Texas either, at least not until later. Spanish Texas was a defensive reaction to French settlement in Louisiana.
If the French or English settle in Texas and try to use it as a base to invade New Mexico, the Spanish have a major problem. They faced major Indian revolts throughout New Mexico and northern Mexico in the late 1600’s. A French colony in Texas could have helped those revolts succeed, which could in turn have peeled back layers of Spanish settlement in northern Mexico to the point where vital gold and silver producing areas were threatened.
Consequences for Indians: The fate of literally dozens of tribes is altered. The impact would be felt all over the eastern half of the United States, maybe further. In our time-line, groups shattered by wars and epidemics tended to integrate themselves into tribes which were still strong. Tribal identity was often not particularly strong. In our time-line, adopted people from other tribes often outnumbered native-born tribesmen in the League of Iroquois. Many if not most of the historically important tribes did not exist as political entities before the start of European settlement. They formed as a response to diseases and wars that accompanied the Europeans. It seems as though tribes had certain ideal populations which they needed to fill all of the roles necessary for proper functioning, and when epidemics or war reduced the populations below those ideal numbers, they tried to maintain the "correct" size by merging with neighboring tribes.
In broad outline, I suspect that as disease and wars decreased their numbers, the Indians of the Northeast would form into several major groupings—much like the five civilized tribes of the southeast. There might be one based on the Traditionalist Hurons in the old Seneca country. Another one could form around Susquehanna and their allies—probably including the Shawnees and some of the unknown tribes of Western Pennsylvania. Another one might form around the Erie Indians of northern Ohio. The Narragansetts might form another one. Catholic Hurons might form another group, though relatively direct contact with the French probably would have caused them to be reduced quite a bit by disease relatively early in the game. Further west, it is impossible to guess what would happen. In our time-line, the Illinois Indians were a very large group when the French first contacted them—between ten and twenty thousand people. They were essentially exterminated by Iroquois attacks, disease, and wars with neighboring tribes. Depending on how effective the Hurons were at keeping the French out of their trading empire, the Illinois might have survived to play a major role.
The impact of Huron victory could keep rippling in some very surprising ways. The Hurons tried to keep French traders out of their trading territory, and were successful for the most part until their defeat. Let’s say the French were kept out of the fur trade to the west by a strong Huron tribe. That tribe keeps extending its network, trading with both the French and whoever controls New York—but primarily with New York because the prices are lower and the goods are better. The fur trade had to keep moving west because the most lucrative fur-bearing animals tended to be locally exterminated in heavily trapped areas. Through Indian middlemen, the fur trade reaches the Mississippi and Missouri River valleys by 1660’s. It also reaches into the American southeast, where tribes like the Creeks, Cherokees, and Choctaws welcome the relatively cheap trade goods.
In Florida and Georgia, Spanish mission settlements start seeing a trickle of French and English or Dutch trade goods. A few European trade goods even make their way to the frontiers of New Mexico. Some of goods come from Virginia. Others come through Huron trade networks ultimately from New York. The Spanish are alarmed by what they see as signs that other European powers are encroaching on their territory. We’ve already looked at potential consequences to South Carolina.
The balance of Indian power on the Great Plains is affected in several ways. Historically, the winners on the Great Plains were tribes that got horses and then guns before their neighbors. Some sections of the Great Plains changed hands two or three times before the white frontier reached them, as first one tribe and then another gained an advantage based on European technology.
In this time-line, there are several potential impacts. First, European trade goods reach the area sooner. Second, because Louisiana is not founded, trade goods may be less plentiful. They have to be brought in from the east rather than just up the Mississippi. Of course if either the English or the French or possibly both try to settle in Texas, that has an absolutely huge impact on the tribal balance of power, as tribes near the Texas coast gain a major military advantage. On the eastern fringe of the Great Plains, Caddoan-speaking tribes like the Pawnees start getting European trade goods. That helps them in their fight against Plains Apache raiders. The Pawnees do better initially because they get trade goods earlier, but it takes longer for them to get guns, which alters the balance in favor of the Apaches later. The Comanche/Plains Apache war is more even because the Comanches don’t get secure access to French guns.
A group called the Jumanos begins carrying trade goods across the plains to New Mexico and down into the northern part of Mexico itself. That really alarms Spanish authorities. Even without French or English settlement in Texas, that may start peeling away layer of Spanish settlement in northern Mexico. In the late 1600’s, there are plenty of Indians in northern Mexico who would love to toss out the Spaniards, and trade goods reaching there earlier might give those Indians the edge they need to make it happen.
In the Southeast, thousands more Indians survive into the 1700’s, especially if South Carolina’s settlement is nipped in the bud. South Carolina sponsored a very destructive Indian slave trade which caused wars between tribes, and also helped spread disease as Indians escaped from slavery and went back to their people carrying malaria and later yellow fever. Delaying the founding of Louisiana also has an impact, allowing tribes like the Natchez Indians to survive into the late 1700’s.
What would the world look like in this time-line’s 1998? That’s absolutely impossible to say. Would there be a mass of English-speaking people occupying part of North America? Almost certainly. Would those people live in something resembling the United States? If so, would it have had a civil war where the South tried to form a separate nation? There is a significant chance that the answer to both of those questions could be no.
One problem with alternate history is that if you really look in depth at the possible implications of a change, history tends to mutate into an unrecognizable morass in a few years—a couple of decades at the most. I tried to track as many of the potential changes as I could, but there are so many branches that it gets impossible in very short order.
Is there a story in any of this? Maybe. A couple of the changes that could be triggered by this POD could also be triggered in other ways and could be made into quite dramatic stories. I’ll probably follow up on them when I get through my current backlog of story ideas.
Potential weak spots in the scenario: I always let a scenario sit for a few days after I write it, then go back and try to poke holes it. Here are the most serious potential holes I poked in this one.
So, what do you think? Do you like this kind of delving into relatively unexplored alternatives, or would you prefer that I stick with more familiar territory? Your feedback is important to me.
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Copyright 1998 By Dale R. Cozort