Over the past few decades people have been thinking about what would have happened by now if history had taken a different turn. Part of the motivation has been realizing that one demographic group has dominated and defined historical accounts -- the story of prosperous white male Euros -- and so prompted an interest in exploring new groups: children, women, indigenous, black, Chinese, the poor, the deaf . . . what demographic can you think of?
Another source has been a sense of justice, that some people have had it rough without any good reason. Is it happenstance or is it a plot on the part of the privileged? Then there is the question of how to go forward which makes it necessary to consider how we decided goals in the past -- or did it just happen? We thought we had won WWII and thereby saved civilization, but that's far enough in the past to consider whether it's true. Some still can't tolerate the idea of genocide, unless it's one's most resented group that is designated for elimination. Would we feel better about it if eliminating unwanted people weren't so bloody? Poison, deliberate famine, machete frenzies, concentration camps, stigma that blocks safety nets. We do all these things but try not to look.
Black people have finally convinced us that they were unjustly converted into capital for profit-focused people who didn't consider them human. Now we suck off their culture and arrange compensations while continuing economic oppression. But the group -- or rather groups -- that have lost the most is the indigenous who were here when the Euros overran everything. Only recently have they found a voice and the beginning of pan-indigenous solidarity.
"People's histories" so far have only occasionally indulged in the "what-if's", like what if our enemies had won the big wars. They're good possibility generating exercises. An enrolled tribal person of considerable accomplishment asked if there were any "future histories" of a North America that developed in different ways. Mostly they were thinking of politics, but my preoccupation has always been with geography/geology and genetics/culture.
Two massive continents -- America and Eurasia -- are divided by two huge oceans -- Pacific and Atlantic -- at least the way the continents are configured now. Humans have developed on each continent, later in part responding to the breaching of those ocean barriers. Suppose it was not the Euros from the west edge, Atlantic edge, of their continent (which from this point of view ought to be called Asiarope), but rather the Asians who crossed the Pacific Ocean and migrated to America.
The Pacific Ocean contains a huge current that goes down one coast and up the other. During WWII the Japanese sent fire bombs to burn down the massive forests of the wet NW. They made the trip but sputtered out. When I was a kid, bombs were still washing up on the coast and sentries in watchtowers tried to see them before they landed. In those days we were still finding among the shells and seaweed the blue-green blown-glass spheres used to float the edges of fishing nets in Japan.
A South American camp that had been submerged by rising sea level 60,000 years ago held pretty convincing proof that humans were present before the glaciers melted, that making everything about glaciers was a constriction. It was noted that storms in places like Polynesia created big mats of fallen trees, vines, and other debris that floated to America on that current, carrying along creatures hardy enough to survive. This led to the adventure of Kon-Tiki, when a man crossed the ocean on a raft. In addition, the culture of the archipelagos of "Asiarope" was a boat culture of considerable sophistication and analysis of artifacts suggest that things of value, like jade, traveled through barter all along the coasts, up one and down the other.
Genetic study suggests that the foundation matrix for American indigenous people is the same as the "Asiaropes". Black straight hair, shaded skin, and some responses at the physiological level, like a different metabolism path for alcohol. Pushing back against this is the drive to achieve equity and sometimes identity on Euro terms, esp. when missions tried to force conformity to Europe. Also, during and immediately after WWII, indigenous veterans of great patriotism did not like to be compared to the "enemy," even knowing they could sometimes pass as Asian.
Those problems are lessened now, so I thought I would try imagining history as it might have crossed the Pacific instead of the Atlantic. We can start with the plagues the Euros carried with them: smallpox most notoriously. In this fantasy version Euros die as they arrive because of some disease for which they had no antibodies.
Next, the industrial revolution never happens because energy sources go straight to sun and wind. The continent is never organized as "states" but as "ecosystems" called: fish-eaters, corn-growers, swampers, bison eaters, and so on. In their own language, of course. An alliance is formed with the Asians so that Pacific boat traffic develops.
The Mississippi/Missouri complex is never dammed and periodic floods are seen as renewing the land with fertility, so welcomed. No cattle are ever brought to the high prairie, so feed crops do not need to be grown or fed over winter except for horses. Horses came from the East -- Siberian, able to withstand sub-zero cold, unlike the Euro thoroughbreds from desert country.
There is no slavery and therefore few Africans so skin color is never an issue. The slavery-powered sugar cane addiction that made sugar a great profit until it triggered diabetes, esp. for indigenous people, never happened. Spain never "owns" the SW. People living there learn hydrology to bring water down from the mountains so no longer sacrifice enemies and children to bribe the gods to bring rain. With the released energy, language develops onto paper and, well, brushes rather than pens.
The Rockies become home to displaced Tibetans. Maoris specialize in higher education -- universities -- basing it on Eastern martial arts that emphasis peace and strategy rather than domination. Hierarchy is discouraged. Binaries must obey ying/yang.
For plot, introduce a bewildered African who can't quite figure it all out, but the story tells how he/she succeeds. Or introduce a crazy orange opportunist who tries to establish a cult that makes him king. Fun to do as a committee. Feel free to use, adapt, or argue against this stuff. Part of the reason I spent time on it was that it was fun, but also one motive was that if anyone talks about "Indians" who is not one, they are assumed to either be one or be trespassing. It's a stereotype and I resist. I like looking at things everted, turned inside out. In this story, indigenous people are never called "Indians" and neither is the continent called "America."
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