how come Native North Americans didn’t have vast empires of wealth and cities like Montezuma had down in Mexico?
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Indigenous Historian who recently graduated from UC Berkeley. The Cahokian Empire was situated across the East Coast and extended into parts of Michigan. It was a sizable empire that seemed to function in a hierarchical kingdom-like social structure. There is speculation that it might have been similar in orientation to European Feudalism. It appeared to have massive wealth and power. However it collapsed prior to the invasion of North and South America by Europeans. It is thought that it was overthrown by populist rebellions that favored decentralized or “tribal” rule. This is the level of governance Europeans found when they arrived. Europeans found the remnants of a collapsed empire. While this might not necessarily be the most accurate way of describing the situation as the Spanish found it, I like to help others understand the situation by explaining it as a “Dark Age” for North American indigenous on the East Coast. Furthermore, most indigenous cultures did not appear to have strong concepts of land-ownership. Modern European concepts of land-ownership is actually relatively nascent in the grand scheme of things (think Charles Martel (700’s CE) and his propagation of Frankish *Feudalism*). If we look to the South, we can see the Aztec’s had a complex system of vassals and tributaries. Could they have been on their way to their own system of Feudalism? Who knows. Honestly, had the Europeans not fucked shit up so badly, maybe the North American Indigenous tribes might have consolidated thoroughly in the East Coast under the Haudenosaunee (speculative, but they were a major power). If we look further south, we can see Aztec linguistic and cultural migration patterns into Pueblo areas in Arizona. Maybe the Aztecs would have conquered North American lands. it’s really unfortunate to think about but the situation in the America’s at time of “discovery” was incredibly complex and at any time there could have been a spark leading to major societal changes given a couple hundred years. Now we will never know. Unfortunately because of the mass genocide of countless cultures in the America’s we have few records of the past. As a historian and someone of Native American ethnicity, one shouldn’t speculate too heavily, but in this case what could have been is truly tantalizing.
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