The plains were awakening.
Winter's long grip had broken, and the wind now rolled warm across the endless grasslands of the American interior.
Herds moved again, rivers ran free, and from the Dakota hills to the Rockies, the smoke of campfires could be seen once more.
A confederation had been formed of the remaining surviving native american tribes still settled across the frontier.
The remaining native survivors amounting only to between 250 and 350 hundred thousand.
This number of living natives was less than even 1% the current population of the United States.
But even still, being the people they are, they were tribes used to hunting, roughing it, and fighting western powers for hundreds of years.
The man who called himself Koda Greyhawk had arrived months ago, slipping like a ghost across the borderlands.
None knew his true name — not the elders, not the warriors, not even the women who whispered of him in the night.
He spoke the tongues of the Sioux, the Cheyenne, the Crow, and the Ute with the ease of a native-born son, yet carried himself like no man of the plains.
He came with knowledge — and with purpose.
He told the people that the Great Father in Washington would not rest.
That the Union, though broken and bloodied by its own Civil War, would one day rise again with iron and rail and fire to finish what it had begun: the swallowing of the continent.
And he spoke of another destiny — not America's, but theirs.
A destiny written not in treaties or promises, but in borders carved by their own hands.
~
Wyoming Territory — The Great Council at Wind River
The snowmelt had swollen the river, and its rush echoed beneath the cottonwoods where hundreds of tipis now stood.
Chiefs and elders from nearly every tribe west of the Mississippi had gathered there.
It was said to be the greatest meeting of nations since the white man first set foot on the plains.
At the center of the encampment burned a great fire.
Koda stood before it, his face painted in the red and black of war, his clothing simple, but the gleam of understanding in his eyes set him apart.
Behind him, maps drawn by his own hand showed not hunting grounds or trails — but borders.
"This land," he said, his voice carrying over the murmur of the gathered tribes, "is the heart of the world. The white man fights for gold, for cities, for seas. Let him have them. But this—" he tapped the map where the great spine of the Rockies cut north to south "—this is our shield, our wall, our home."
He pointed again, tracing his finger across the high plains and mountain plateaus.
"Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana. Five lands bound together — rich not in gold, but in freedom. Here, no white man plants his banner unless we allow it. Here, our children will learn the old ways and the new. Here, we will be one people."
A murmur rippled through the crowd — half wonder, half disbelief.
Chief Black Elk of the Lakota rose, his age-lined face unreadable.
"You speak as the whites do — of borders, of laws. Such things are not our way. The wind and the buffalo do not know boundaries."
Koda met his gaze.
"The buffalo are gone because the whites made their way law. If we would survive, we must use their own weapons against them. The tongue of the law. The power of paper and promise."
He lifted a folded document — written in clear, careful English, a language all the tribes of America had been forced to learn over the last two hundred years of contact.
"The Treaty of the Five Nations. A declaration of a sovereign native territory — recognized not as a rebellion, but as a protectorate, to the Confederation of Canada, as backed by the British Empire."
At this, the camp exploded in argument.
Voices rose, hands gestured.
Some shouted that this was folly, others that it was trickery.
But Koda only stood, waiting.
When the noise finally ebbed, he spoke again, quieter now.
"Think the Whites are done removing our peoples from our lands? We have a chance now to declare our soverignty, to lay claim to lands barely touched by white hands, and to secure a fair agreement with the British to stop further American agression, we can have allies to trade, while working with the tribes of the north who already live under Canadian rule."
Sixty years ago the canadians pushed back America, and stunted the young nations dreams of solely ruling North America.
And while Britain was friendly to this young nation now, that did not mean that if worse came to worse that the entire weight of the british empire would come crashing down upon them, returning the Americas back into the fold except under british dominion.
The fire crackled.
The americans would eventually enter the remaining territories into the union, but the population within these future states was still to low.
If the natives drove a Propoganda campaign now when the liberals were still reveling in their victory and the release of slaves the nation over, their 'demands' could be met, with the whites settled being given the choice to stay or to uproot and move on to Union territory, meanwhile other agents were already hard at work within the Canadian Territories and British Parliament to lay the ground work to recognize the creation of a third North American nation, one independant from the US but with an ironclad bond though not directly connected to Canada and by proxy Britain.
The rising of Native America.
~
Washington D.C. — Summer 1872
The Oval Office was the seat of 'ultimate power' in the americas, where the current president Henry Wilson sat looking over his growing pile of work even while planning his next campaign tour as the november elections are fast approaching.
Henry in a previous time was only Vice President, one nearing the end of his life unfortunely at this point, but still a radical liberal who even formed african american units during the Civil War.
But now he was looking over a new peace of information that had his brows furrowed something fierce.
What sat in his hands now was a series of formal pieces of legal paperwork.
Pieces that if revealed to the public would cast a scathing light on his presidency, and the american public as a whole.
These were eye witness accounts of the American expansion westward, along with the atrocities they commited in the name of 'progress'.
Being a radical liberal himself, Henry was ashamed of his ancestors for their lack of honor in this matter.
But now the collective of Tribal states had banded together, during the civil war and filed claim to territories in the frontier, citing their long ownership of the lands, and that any entrace into the region would be seen as an act of war by the tribes living there.
Using america's own legal system againt them Koda had made it very clear that, the land did not belong to america, and that the tribes would under no matter be giving them up.
Instead, as a gesture of goodfaith, they were willing to sign over the lands of Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma to the United States governemnt in exchange.
This first report was shocking but what came next was even more so.
Diplomatic letters had arrived from Britain, France, Canada, along with a half dozen other worldy nations, all of whom announced their recognition of the land claims raised by the Native American peoples, and their declaration of intent to assist in the defense of this region should America seek to exand their claim.
At this he feared Europe was once more interfering with the americas, something they hated with a passion under the monroe doctrine, but what was being asked wasnt similar.
Instead what he was looking at collectively was an application to recognize the founding of a native nation.
Native America, coloquially named using the very phrasing the US citizens had been using to name the entirity of natives in america for generations now.
Formal paperwork had been submitted to him showcasing how the tribes already had settled over half a million people in the five territories, far surpassing the American settlers of the time.
But as much as the deal cause his stomach to turn, the undisputed acquisition of Arizona, New Mexico, and the former Indian territory of Oklahoma was of great interest.
With rail networks spanning the continent they could reach coast to coast, and avoid the sections like the Rocky Mountains where the expenses to create rail lines would be massive.
Worse yet, a report from the Pinkerton national detective agency, a precursor to American intelligence agencies, had already looked into the regions citing them as beautiful, but otherwise worthless territories, worse still the half-million natives were armed with musket-rifles, and the local populations were also on their side.
Even worse pamphlets had started to circle in american cities reminding them of the trail of tears, why do the blacks get justice even if it comes with segregation, when the natives who were persecuted for far longer get nothing?