A bunch of Dwarves in the Appalachians in 1600 (RAR!)

[Zor]

In this scenario in the year 1600 ROB deposits a number of Dwarves from Dwarfworld in the Appalachian Mountain Range. They soon settle in and establish themselves among substantial iron and coal deposits.

Biology: Dwarves are about squat humans that stand 1.2 to 1.45 meters tall (with no real difference in the height between males and females), weigh 60 to 80 kg and have a robust build with thicker skin, thicker bones and more muscle on them. The average dwarf is about 2-3 times as strong as a human in terms of upper body strength. Dwarves are stronger jaws than humans, lungs better able to filter out smoke and similar and a more developed liver. Male Dwarves grow long long thick facial hair. Dwarves breed in pretty much the same way as humans and grow up at the same speed but they also live longer, 200 to 250 years is an average Dwarven lifespan. Dwarves and humans are speciated and half dwarves are usually sterile.

Culture and Society: Dwarves have considerable reverence for demonstrated skill and by extension seniority. Dwarves have large extended families presided over by a elderly great great great grandparents. Dwarves are not expected to follow in their parents footsteps but they are expected to strive and excel in their job. Jobs are the domain of guilds. There are (among others) farmers guilds, miner's guilds, laborer's guilds, smith's guilds, carpenter's guilds, brewers guilds, surgeon's guild, merchant's guilds, scribe's guilds and warrior's guilds. Each guild inducts young Dwarves in and trains and educates them as an apprentice, then a journeyman and finally a master. Masters form a the clan council and elect a Thane to rule. Thanes technically serve for life but need to rule with the approval of their. Dwarven law is written down and is a long complex subject. Dwarves take a dim view on liars. To them white lies told to avoid giving offense are nothing more than insults to one's intelligence and character. Dwarven Law considers slavery an abomination, it keeps people in bound in misery and it means that lazy bum slaveowners can exploit the labor of others without due compensation or guild approval. Dwarves speak a vaguely nordic language.

Dwarven Religion is based around ancestor worship, a belief in The World itself as a god and a notion of Patrons, which could be though of as angelic beings. Each Trade has a Patron. They don't mind other faiths but they are rather defensive of their religious beliefs.

Settlements: There are six Dwarvish Holds across the Appalachian mountains. Each Hold is home to a clan, though there are some small towns about the clan managing farmland. Each clan has about 40,000 Dwarves. 75% of all Dwarves are farmers, tilling the land, sowing both New and Old World crops and tending cows, pigs, goats and a species of fat domesticated rodent that weighs 5 to 10 kilograms as well as harvesting timber The Hold itself is dug into mountains and is home to artisan's workshops and homes, markets, granaries, storage rooms, official chambers, schools, shrines to their ancestors and patrons, guildhalls and similar. Each hold is independant in most thing save for a Thanesmoot. A Thanesmoot is a gathering of Thanes which happens once a year (rotating from hold to hold) in which matter.

Dwarves like trading and will gladly trade with humans. They also like contracts.

Technology: Dwarven technology is at a roughly 18th century level. They can make clocks, pocket watches, lens, basic tools to aid agriculture and harvesting, gas lamps, flintlock muskets, some good applied chemistry, plumbing, a wide variety of trip hammers and similar gear, watermills, saw mills, good iron casting and basic steam engines for pumping out mines. Engineering is a highly prized skill among the Dwarves.

Military: Each Dwarven hold has a militia and a guild of warriors. Every Dwarf is expected to be trained in arms when they become a teenager and the Hold keeps a store room full of weapons and armor. The standard Militiadwarf has a helmet and a 3mm thick breastplate and is armed with an axe and a flintlock musket. In addition they also keep a reserve of warrior of full time warriors in place who drill all the time and serve as shock troops and NCOs and Officers for the militia. Dwarven Militia. Dwarven warriors have three quarter plate armor, axes and basic breechloading flintlock muskets. Each hold has 200 warriors and can muster 800 militia for a campaign. They also each have a couple of good cast iron iron field cannon able to fire 3 kilogram roundshot and can make cast iron rockets akin to congreve rockets. Dwarves don't have cavalry. The closet thing they have to that are armed couriers. They do have various semaphore systems for long distance communications. Dwarves can build ships and sail, but as these Dwarves are hundreds of kilometers from the sea they'll stick with making basic river boats for the time being.

What happens?

Zor

[U.P. Cinnabar]

The Farrells kill and eat them all in retaliation for Sinclair/WGN cancelling Outsiders.

in more seriousness, the Dwarves will end up in violent competition with Human mining companies seeking to exploit the wealth of the mountains, and possibly with the mountain folk who have already settled in the Appalachians.

The main question that then has to be asked is how rapidly can the Dwarves industrialize?

[Elheru Aran]

What happens? 1600s settlers on the East Coast run into Natives who tell them about the Dwarven kingdoms in the mountains. By the 1700s, trade relations are established. Perhaps by the early 1700s, alliances are established.

I'm not sure if the Appalachians run far enough North to be a factor in the French and Indian wars, but if they do, then you could see both the French and British trying to get the Dwarven forces on their side.

Almost certainly the British will try to keep settlement more confined to the coast than they did previously, but there are going to be issues with settlers crossing into the mountains. Will they try to bring the Dwarven holds into the British sphere of influence, or will the settlers attempt to become Dwarven citizens?

[Elheru Aran]

in more seriousness, the Dwarves will end up in violent competition with Human mining companies seeking to exploit the wealth of the mountains, and possibly with the mountain folk who have already settled in the Appalachians.

There won't be any of that in the 1600s. Plymouth Colony, for example, wasn't until 1620. Charleston, SC, not until 1670. Georgia wasn't founded until 1733. Jamestown in VA is founded in 1607, but they went nowhere fast. Starting the Dwarves in the 1600s gives them at least a century to get well established. There may be random explorers and settlers moving through their territories by the end of that century, but the vast majority of English are going to be staying in coastal regions until the mid 1700s or so.

[U.P. Cinnabar]

I went forward a couple hundred years, as I assumed the Dwarves are here to stay.

But, you make an interesting point in the post above, and the answer is(as Kosh would say)yes. The British will try at first to bring the Dwarves into the British sphere of influence, but as they bloody themselves fighting a fiercely determined enemy, and as the War of the Spanish Succession will start near the turn of the next century, the British will end up reaching some sort of alliance with the Dwarven holds they haven't otherwise assimilated into the British empire.

Either way, any human settlers in the Dwarven holds will most likely end up becoming citizens, possibly with equal rights or at least representation as Thanedoms. Those amongst the humans assimilated by the Dwarven holds will form "humans rights'" and "human nationalist" groups, even if the assmilation was peaceful.

Another question would be what happens when the Puritans, tolerant souls that they were, come into contact with the Dwarven holds? Will it be all out war, or will the Puritans be forced into some sort of accomodation with the Dwarves?

[Broomstick]

Are you completely forgetting that before Europeans settled in North America there were already people living there? You are completely forgetting about the Natives.

As it happens, the Natives in that region were largely the Five Civilized Tribes. Based on what happened in actual history, I'd argue that the Dwarves and the Natives are likely to form an alliance of some sort, with the Natives adopting quite a bit of Dwarven technology (this is the group of Natives including the Cherokee, who thought writing was such a great idea one of them invented a writing system for their language and in something like 10 years 80-90% of the tribe went from being completely illiterate to at least being able to write their names). Given that the Five Tribes adopted European architecture, were willing to settle disputes via treaty as much if not more than warfare, happily started sending their kids to European-style schooling as soon as it was set up in the colonies (the Five Nations had Harvard trained lawyers), and were quite open to trade and cultural exchanges I'd expect the two peoples to get along and interact to the advantage of both, provide the Dwarves aren't interested in armed expansionism. There may be some initial disputes over ownership of territory, but those can probably be worked out.

If that happens, when the Europeans arrive they'll encounter TWO groups, probably allied, who have a tech level comparable to that of the new arrivals. It will considerably alter history. The Europeans might be able to buy passage through the mountains to conquer in the Ohio Valley and beyond but probably will not be able to take over the Appalachians.

[Crossroads Inc.]

On the topic of "Souls" it really isn't that big a stretch for people from that time period to get their mind around "another species" as it were. Shoot for hundreds of years most people (including some these days) thought that Blacks and others were genuine OTHER "races" and not the same species as it were. SO I doubt that side of things is going to be any sort of shock.

In terms of the Natives, they may have an easier time of things with the Dwarves the the English. They will still have the same problems in the long run. A civilization that expands and consumes resources, that will grow out into Native lands. That the Dwarves main "towns" are dug underground may help alleviate tensions somewhat, but farm land will still be an issue.

In terms of Europe, well as many have already touched on, by the time Europe realizes it has a problem settling its going to be too late. Europe could never respect the Natives since in their eyes they weren't "Civilized" no kings, no cities, no armies, etc... The Dwarves will have these things in spades.

Religion isn't going to be that much of an issue because of the space. England and France fought like cats and dogs over their various religious sects because they were right next to each other. England and China however never really had such quarrels because... Well China is on the other freaking side of the planet. sure by the victorian age with Steam boats they pushed into far away lands, but by that time I imagine the Dwarves are going to be on equal footing.

In terms of history as we know it... Well thats Fcked.
The Puritans knowing about these "short beasts" may pick some completely different location to settle in. Of course knowing how messed up their trip was, and how many died on the crossing... If they took any longer to sail anywhere else, there may not be any left to continue the settlement.
The English may still settle along the coast, but as others has mentioned, once they move more inland they will come in direct confrontation. The Spread into Canada may continue as normal, so we may end up with a Canada that looks similar to today with lots of Lumber furs and other industries. But the Dwarves are going to hold the keys to what drove America into the Industrial Age, mainly the biggest coal and Iron deposits on the continent.

The real "fun" is trying to extrapolate history out on its effect in Europe.
The riches of the Americas Fueled England for close to 150 years and pushed England into becoming far more of a Sea power to protect those interests. That is now of course all thrown into doubt, so Englands power is diminished. Spain however is still free to push into the central Americas were it can expand upwards. If the Dwarven growth is slow, then Spain could control up into the Baja and into California to lay claim.
The Natives again may hopefully not have the direct genocide they had with the Europeans, but so much of their land IS on valuable mining lands. Iron, Gold, Coper etc. Conflicts are inevitable.

Extrapolating out MORE.
Moving into the 1800's is fun as you have no America mucking about with things. The vast amount of inventions from the US never come about (though Dwarven Inventors may pick things up) Going into the 1900's it will be interesting to see how the history of Europe continues on. WWI will still happen fairly normally, but will the Dwarves Empire get involved? Would they help the Brits or the Germans?
Moving past that you get even more interesting. If WWI ends more favorably for the Germans, you may not have had the crushing economic collapse that allowed the Nazi's to come to power. Hitler may not have rose up. Shoot he could have gone on to become a painter for all we know.

Personally I am curious what Dwarven architecture is like.
A few sad points from loosing the US as we know it...
No New York or Boston in the 1920's. No Art Deco movement, no Sky Scrapers, ESB, Chrysler Building etc.

interesting times.

[Elheru Aran]

As for the Natives:

I don't know how organized the tribes were in the Appalachian area. The Five Nations were IIRC more up North in the New York/Pennsylvania/Ohio...ish area. The Cherokee were down South in the Georgia/Alabama/South Carolina area, and they do seem to have had a reasonably well organized confederacy at least by the early 1800s.

Depending on how organized the tribes are, it's possible that the Dwarves may be dealing more with isolated family units, at least from the start. If neither party has any reason to fight the other-- Dwarves like humans, according to the OP, and the Natives will be interested in trade rather than conflict, unless something ridiculous happens like the Dwarves resembling some kind of ancestral demon-- then I can see small-time alliances growing to encompass tribal spheres of influence.

That said. A big thing that comes to mind is that disease is probably still going to spread, if it hasn't already, unless the Dwarves can insulate the Natives from it somehow. So we may still see mass die-offs of Native populations. IIRC it's theorized that this had already happened to a large degree before the 1600s (thanks, Columbus), thus why many East Coast regions were nigh empty and available for settlement. How many epidemics happened after the 1600s?

[The Romulan Republic]

Do they have the disease issues that contact with the Natives did in real life? Do the dwarves carry diseases that can have a catastrophic effect on humans (likely, if they're close enough to interbreed and produce offspring)? Can they catch diseases from the Natives or Europeans to which they have no immunity?

Unless disease sinks them, though... I actually think history will change for the better, probably. They're somewhat more progressive than a lot of the European occupiers of the time (strongly anti-slavery, some religious tolerance, a few hints of proto-democracy). And 240,000 folks with technology two centuries ahead of everyone else in 16th. Century Appalacia will be a major power. Probably the major power in that hemisphere in short order, if disease doesn't get them. They can keep the Europeans out for a long time.

Europe may set up colonial holdings elsewhere, but if disease doesn't kill them off, the dwarves can pretty much do as they please.

Hopefully the dwarves will then opt to ally/trade with, rather than slaughter/enslave/expel, the natives.

Of course, proof of the existence of magic and inter-dimensional travel will also have huge effects on human history, going forward. I wonder how religious beliefs will account for the appearance of the dwarves?

[The Romulan Republic]

On the topic of "Souls" it really isn't that big a stretch for people from that time period to get their mind around "another species" as it were. Shoot for hundreds of years most people (including some these days) thought that Blacks and others were genuine OTHER "races" and not the same species as it were. SO I doubt that side of things is going to be any sort of shock.

That's an interesting thought, though I'm not sure how universal that attitude would be.

It'll get really interesting down the line, though, if the biological sciences develop to the point where they can prove that the dwarves are not evolved from any known Earth species.

In terms of the Natives, they may have an easier time of things with the Dwarves the the English. They will still have the same problems in the long run. A civilization that expands and consumes resources, that will grow out into Native lands. That the Dwarves main "towns" are dug underground may help alleviate tensions somewhat, but farm land will still be an issue.

Unfortunately, yes. Although as far as I'm aware, the natives in that region didn't do much mining, so at least they won't be clashing with the dwarves over mining claims, hopefully.

In terms of Europe, well as many have already touched on, by the time Europe realizes it has a problem settling its going to be too late. Europe could never respect the Natives since in their eyes they weren't "Civilized" no kings, no cities, no armies, etc... The Dwarves will have these things in spades.

Better than Europe does, actually, if not as many people as the European powers.

Hell, Dwarf tech. may actually boost the development of European science and tech. a bit once trade gets going, and its at least possible that this alternate Earth will have a future in which people speak of "the Dwarven World" in much the same way that people nowadays refer to "the Western World".

You know... I'd love to have a series of SF novels or films on this premise, say, one every hundred years, charting how the world gradually (or not so gradually) changes due to the presence of the Dwarves.

Religion isn't going to be that much of an issue because of the space. England and France fought like cats and dogs over their various religious sects because they were right next to each other. England and China however never really had such quarrels because... Well China is on the other freaking side of the planet. sure by the victorian age with Steam boats they pushed into far away lands, but by that time I imagine the Dwarves are going to be on equal footing.

Likely.

Though not forever. See Muslim extremists/Christian and Jewish extremists today.

On the other hand, Dwarves won't have the shared Holy Land and millennia of sporadically ugly history that Muslims have with Christians and Jews.

In terms of history as we know it... Well thats Fcked.

Heh. Yeah.

The Puritans knowing about these "short beasts" may pick some completely different location to settle in. Of course knowing how messed up their trip was, and how many died on the crossing... If they took any longer to sail anywhere else, there may not be any left to continue the settlement.

It may be callous of me to think so, but I can't help but think that the world might be a better place if the Puritan strain was excised from the future American consciousness when the Mayflower sank in the middle of the Atlantic.

Although due to the Butterfly Effect, there's really no way to say. We can't possibly know or track what all the reprecussions of such a change, or any change, would be in the long-term.

Hmm... would it still be called America, in this world? When did the term "America" actually originate?

The English may still settle along the coast, but as others has mentioned, once they move more inland they will come in direct confrontation. The Spread into Canada may continue as normal, so we may end up with a Canada that looks similar to today with lots of Lumber furs and other industries. But the Dwarves are going to hold the keys to what drove America into the Industrial Age, mainly the biggest coal and Iron deposits on the continent.

Dwarven World, here we come.

The real "fun" is trying to extrapolate history out on its effect in Europe.
The riches of the Americas Fueled England for close to 150 years and pushed England into becoming far more of a Sea power to protect those interests. That is now of course all thrown into doubt, so Englands power is diminished. Spain however is still free to push into the central Americas were it can expand upwards. If the Dwarven growth is slow, then Spain could control up into the Baja and into California to lay claim.
The Natives again may hopefully not have the direct genocide they had with the Europeans, but so much of their land IS on valuable mining lands. Iron, Gold, Coper etc. Conflicts are inevitable.

Likely, sadly.

The Natives still get invaded, but Spain may hold onto its global power longer, while England is diminished. Interesting.

Extrapolating out MORE.
Moving into the 1800's is fun as you have no America mucking about with things. The vast amount of inventions from the US never come about (though Dwarven Inventors may pick things up)

Very likely they will. They can, via trade, potentially give Europe a two-century tech. boost, in time.

Going into the 1900's it will be interesting to see how the history of Europe continues on. WWI will still happen fairly normally, but will the Dwarves Empire get involved? Would they help the Brits or the Germans?

You're not thinking big enough here. Would WW1 even happen at all? Would the mix of politics and alliances that lead to it ever occur in anything like the same way in such a radically altered timeline?

Sure, given human nature, improving technology, and so many rival countries packed so close together, a global industrial war of some sort sooner or later is plausible. But the factions, borders, relative resources, and outcome might be very, very different.

Moving past that you get even more interesting. If WWI ends more favorably for the Germans, you may not have had the crushing economic collapse that allowed the Nazi's to come to power. Hitler may not have rose up. Shoot he could have gone on to become a painter for all we know.

Hitler as we know him will likely never exist. In a world so changed, the chances of the exact sequence of relationships among Hitler's ancestors playing out in exactly the same way to create the malfunctioning combination of genes we know as Adolf Hitler coming into existence are likely miniscule.

Personally I am curious what Dwarven architecture is like.
A few sad points from loosing the US as we know it...
No New York or Boston in the 1920's. No Art Deco movement, no Sky Scrapers, ESB, Chrysler Building etc.

interesting times.

I'll trade the loss of American Art Deco and sky scrapers for an American Moria.

[Simon_Jester]

In terms of the Natives, they may have an easier time of things with the Dwarves the the English. They will still have the same problems in the long run. A civilization that expands and consumes resources, that will grow out into Native lands. That the Dwarves main "towns" are dug underground may help alleviate tensions somewhat, but farm land will still be an issue.

If the dwarves are stubbornly honest in their dealings, and it seems they are, that will help tremendously for the natives. The biggest problem the Native Americans had was the plagues, which are already happening anyway and the dwarves won't make them worse. The second-biggest problem the natives had was that the British colonists and their descendants did not keep agreements. Not for more than a generation or so, with at most a very few exceptions.

(Tied for second place was that many native tribes allied with the French, who were better at Indian diplomacy, but who were ultimately on the losing side of the colonial wars. Then many of the other tribes allied with the British against the American colonists, causing the same problem all over again)

In terms of history as we know it... Well thats Fcked.
The Puritans knowing about these "short beasts" may pick some completely different location to settle in. Of course knowing how messed up their trip was, and how many died on the crossing... If they took any longer to sail anywhere else, there may not be any left to continue the settlement.
The English may still settle along the coast, but as others has mentioned, once they move more inland they will come in direct confrontation. The Spread into Canada may continue as normal, so we may end up with a Canada that looks similar to today with lots of Lumber furs and other industries. But the Dwarves are going to hold the keys to what drove America into the Industrial Age, mainly the biggest coal and Iron deposits on the continent.

The Puritans are actually quite distant from the Appalachians. Massachusetts Bay colony could get founded pretty much as normal, unless the dwarves send military expeditions specifically to drive them out of the area. Which wouldn't be hard to do, mind you.

Basically, the major loci of 17th century settlement in what is today the United States were:
1) The 'cavaliers,' most of them nobles on the losing side of the English Civil War and their indentured servants, founding plantations in (mostly) Virginia and the immediately surrounding states...
2) The Puritans, who mainly settled in and around Massachusetts Bay and tended to be rather utopian, except that their society was so grim and joyless that to us it reads like something from a young adult dystopian setting.
3) The Quakers, who moved up the Delaware River later in the century, and who were so gosh-darn reasonable that basically no one could object to them as neighbors.
4) The Dutch in the Hudson Valley, subsumed by the English after 1660 or so. More fun-loving than the Puritans, less reasonable than the Quakers, the most likely to own slaves of any of the northern people on the Atlantic Seaboard... but fundamentally there more as merchants and less as utopians, which makes them good trading partners.

If the dwarves don't methodically push the very first English settlers (in the 1610-1630 timeframe) into the sea, these three colonial loci are likely to get established roughly as historical. The Quakers are smart enough to negotiate their way in, the cavaliers are building colonies hundreds of miles from the mountain strongholds of the dwarves, and the Puritans are somewhere in between- not as far away, but more likely to negotiate successfully.

So I think your 'oh well, the English colonies are never founded' interpretation is invalid. It's more likely that the colonies get founded but run into trouble expanding at the expense of the natives, forcing a more integrated way of life. The dwarves' anti-slavery stance is likely to extend to other forms of forced labor and may result in them subverting the system of plantation agriculture in the Cavalier-dominated southern states, but I suspect the dwarves will have enough mutual respect and understanding with the Puritans and Quakers that they will be able to interact on favorable terms.

The real "fun" is trying to extrapolate history out on its effect in Europe.
The riches of the Americas Fueled England for close to 150 years and pushed England into becoming far more of a Sea power to protect those interests. That is now of course all thrown into doubt, so Englands power is diminished. Spain however is still free to push into the central Americas were it can expand upwards. If the Dwarven growth is slow, then Spain could control up into the Baja and into California to lay claim.
The Natives again may hopefully not have the direct genocide they had with the Europeans, but so much of their land IS on valuable mining lands. Iron, Gold, Coper etc. Conflicts are inevitable.

The main obstacle to further Spanish expansion into North America wasn't the English, it was the relative worthlessness of the American southwest as a target for expansion. Too much desert and wilderness, not enough resources or enslavable natives.

The main cause of Spanish decline as a whole was a combination of factors in continental Europe, including things like the Dutch rebellion, the inbreeding of the Spanish Habsburgs, and the ridiculous expenses the Spanish had to accept in order to maintain their status as Europe's premier land power through the early to mid-1600s. Things like that were already underway and unlikely to change, and they were going to add up to a Spanish decline whether the English rose to fill the gap or not.

What we're more likely to see, in my opinion, is a "long seventeenth century," with France rising to a position of greater power on the Continent and Louis XIV winning the War of the Spanish Succession, while the British colonies in North America are rather smaller and less significant.

Extrapolating out MORE.
Moving into the 1800's is fun as you have no America mucking about with things. The vast amount of inventions from the US never come about (though Dwarven Inventors may pick things up)

It IS possible that the British colonies may remain associated with Britain, since one of the flashpoints of the war was British refusal to allow the American colonists to settle further inland, and here that's a nonstarter due to potent dwarven-native alliances blocking the way. On the other hand, there may be wars between the dwarven holdings and the rather expanded colonies, which could end strangely and unpredictably.

Going into the 1900's it will be interesting to see how the history of Europe continues on. WWI will still happen fairly normally, but will the Dwarves Empire get involved? Would they help the Brits or the Germans?

It's very likely that European history from 1700 on will be heavily butterflied, because without the steady rise of Britain's thalassocracy as a counterweight to French domination on the Continent, the French are likely to succeed in putting a Bourbon on the Spanish throne, and will have somewhat less difficulty sustaining their economy through the 1700s. Things could still get bad enough to trigger the French Revolution, but then again they might not, or a more gradual system of reform might take place instead. And without a detailed analysis of what happens in France during the 1700s, it is impossible to predict how the Wars of Revolution (otherwise known as the Napoleonic Wars) play out... which in turn means it's impossible to predict what 19th century Central Europe looks like. There might never even be a Germany as such.

The World Wars, likewise, are heavily butterflied, and so on.

A few sad points from loosing the US as we know it...
No New York or Boston in the 1920's. No Art Deco movement, no Sky Scrapers, ESB, Chrysler Building etc.

We actually might see a lot of that. New York and Boston will likely still be founded roughly as historical, and unless the dwarves make a systematic effort to crush them, are likely to survive and exist. The main difference is that instead of being a couple of big cities in a huge, sprawling, diverse federation of independent Americans, they're going to be effectively big city-states, with extensive trade links into the hinterlands and to the landlocked communities of the dwarves. Possibly still British possessions, possibly not. Very likely to be spun off under something like the Dominion system in the 1800s.

[Elheru Aran]

Not sure the Dwarves would mess -that- much with the plantation system; the Appalachians are fairly well inland and there's plenty of space. Otherwise that seems largely on point. I didn't notice that they're anti-slavery, but that would be an interesting twist. 'If we find out you have slaves we won't trade with you' might be enough incentive to prevent large-scale slavery in North America. The slave trade might still be a thing thanks to Spanish and Portugese involvement, just not so much in what became IRL the US.

Essentially, once the British colonists encounter the Dwarves and/or Native allies, that's going to put the brakes on their westward expansion fairly hard. The expansion will still happen, it'll just happen on different terms, particularly if the Dwarves have enough clout to enforce the treaties that historically the British made with the Natives. I can see friction from illegal settlement in Native territories or settlers travelling through Native territory in order to reach land that's not under treaty being diplomatic issues, though. Sort of an alt-historic antecedent of IvP.

[The Romulan Republic]

Not sure the Dwarves would mess -that- much with the plantation system; the Appalachians are fairly well inland and there's plenty of space. Otherwise that seems largely on point. I didn't notice that they're anti-slavery, but that would be an interesting twist. 'If we find out you have slaves we won't trade with you' might be enough incentive to prevent large-scale slavery in North America. The slave trade might still be a thing thanks to Spanish and Portugese involvement, just not so much in what became IRL the US.

Another interesting question is if the Dwarves would give sanctuary to fugitive slaves. Given how militant (quite literally) the South got towards those who gave refuge to fugitive slaves, this could be a cause of military conflict if slavery does become big.

Trade restrictions might prevent that from happening though, yes.

Essentially, once the British colonists encounter the Dwarves and/or Native allies, that's going to put the brakes on their westward expansion fairly hard. The expansion will still happen, it'll just happen on different terms, particularly if the Dwarves have enough clout to enforce the treaties that historically the British made with the Natives. I can see friction from illegal settlement in Native territories or settlers travelling through Native territory in order to reach land that's not under treaty being diplomatic issues, though. Sort of an alt-historic antecedent of IvP.

With their population and tech., yeah I'd say the dwarves have the clout, at least in the 1600s. Though the Europeans might end up outnumbering them if longer dwarf lifespans means slower population growth. That doesn't seem to be the case though, from the OP. If anything, they should grow in numbers faster, given that they mature as quickly as humans, live longer, and have better tech. (hence likely higher standards of living and possibly lower infant/childbirth mortality).

I wonder if European colonization will eventually move more northward, leading to a more populated Canada, and colonists eventually bypassing the Appalacians by swinging 'round through the Great Lakes region and down the Mississippi (and through the Gulf and up the Mississippi)? Seems likely.

Or will the dwarves move Westward? If they go the usual fantasy dwarf route of focusing on mining, and prefer building their settlements in mountains (as seems to be the case), they'll be just giddy with excitement when they hear about the Rockies.

[Simon_Jester]

Not sure the Dwarves would mess -that- much with the plantation system; the Appalachians are fairly well inland and there's plenty of space. Otherwise that seems largely on point. I didn't notice that they're anti-slavery, but that would be an interesting twist. 'If we find out you have slaves we won't trade with you' might be enough incentive to prevent large-scale slavery in North America. The slave trade might still be a thing thanks to Spanish and Portugese involvement, just not so much in what became IRL the US.

Well, another issue is that the dwarves would be totally unsupportive of the slave-owners' right to capture escaped slaves. Plantation slavery as practiced in North America always depended in large part on the slaves not being able to run. Hence the effort the southern states' congressmen put into the Fugitive Slave Act and such.

There was always a steady flow of escaped slaves fleeing to join the Indians, in the English colonies as well as further south in the Caribbean and Spanish mainland colonies. Look up "maroons" for examples. But here, it is very likely that dwarvish enclaves and merchants would refuse to respect the right of the 'cavalier' gentry of the South to keep or pursue slaves. This would significantly disrupt the institution of slavery in the South.

Think of the Underground Railroad, but with more muscle and more active penetration into the areas the slaves live in.

Another interesting question is if the Dwarves would give sanctuary to fugitive slaves. Given how militant (quite literally) the South got towards those who gave refuge to fugitive slaves, this could be a cause of military conflict if slavery does become big.

The militant pro-slavery South of the 1800s was the result of roughly two hundred years of custom and habit growing up around plantation agriculture. It's entirely possible the dwarves will strangle that in its cradle. Or at least shift the balance of advantage so that black slavery is less of an institution.

A big part of the reason it dominated southern agriculture in the 1700s and on was because black slaves had innate resistance to malaria and tended to die less often than white indentured servants or convict laborers from England. If this advantage was offset by the ease with which the blacks could escape (due to dwarves not even acknowledging their slave status), while white laborers would be easier to coerce (because the dwarves do honor the idea of a contract)

Note that the southern plantation owners were little or no kinder to their indentured servants than to their slaves... But there's no potential for a race-based hierarchy to spring up that way.

You might see the Southern system evolving into a big undifferentiated mass of indentured debt slavery and sharecropping, with a largely interracial underclass, instead of the artificial segregation of black slaves who worked on plantations and free low-income whites who din't.

With their population and tech., yeah I'd say the dwarves have the clout, at least in the 1600s. Though the Europeans might end up outnumbering them if longer dwarf lifespans means slower population growth. That doesn't seem to be the case though, from the OP. If anything, they should grow in numbers faster, given that they mature as quickly as humans, live longer, and have better tech. (hence likely higher standards of living and possibly lower infant/childbirth mortality).

If they have the same population growth rate as humans they'd be constantly and swarmingly overpopulated in their native land. They may mature quickly but they can't have, say, one child per ten years per fertile woman without a crushing population boom.

I wonder if European colonization will eventually move more northward, leading to a more populated Canada, and colonists eventually bypassing the Appalacians by swinging 'round through the Great Lakes region and down the Mississippi (and through the Gulf and up the Mississippi)? Seems likely.

By and large this is exactly what happened, except insofar as colonists crossed a few specific land routes like the National Road. The Appalachians are a natural barrier to land travel, and were very difficult to penetrate with road, railroad, and canal. The Ohio valley wasn't settled from West Virginia and western Pennsylvania, it was settled by Easterners passing through those areas or going entirely around them, to reach Ohio.

The people who settled West Virginia... mostly settled it to stay, because it was their kind of place to begin with.

[Elheru Aran]

I see no reason the Dwarves wouldn't want to move West, no. Rockies, Sierra Madre, Cascades Mountains and whatnot. A little closer to home, there's the Adirondacks in New York and the Green Mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire.

I inquired earlier how far north the Appalachians go. Roughly they seem to run from the northeast of Alabama through northwest Georgia, all the way on up through to New York. Doesn't mean the English and French can't do an end-run though. I also wouldn't be surprised to see at least attempts to use Spanish ports to go around from the South. Conceivably, if the War of the Spanish Succession goes the way of the French, the French might be more active in trying to colonize Louisiana and the Mississippi River area.

Only six Dwarvish holds though isn't very many to start with, unless they start trying to expand immediately. We're talking a pretty good amount of territory to cover here, in land that's much more sparsely populated by Natives than it used to be. Enforcement of treaty terms may be a difficulty here. Expect important passes like the Cumberland Gap to be, quite possibly, fortified.

I would absolutely not put it past the European powers to start trying to find out all they can about Dwarven culture and society, and once they know certain points (being very firm on contracts for example) taking advantage of that. Instead of slavery, they lawyer it as indentured servitude, and thus lawyer the Dwarves into supporting the system they create. Similarly, they could write the treaties to manipulate the Dwarves into (for example) ONLY being allied with Native tribes they've *already* allied with; any other tribes are fair game. Something like that. Of course Dwarves are no fools, but expect a lot of dirty diplomacy and legal trickery.

EDIT: Remember also that rivers used to be valuable for travel and commerce. Well, they still are, but they were pretty important back in the day. There's nothing stopping settlers from going up the Mississippi and Missouri, or taking the St. Lawrence west. They just have to get to the mouths of the rivers, and go from there, waterfalls like the Niagara aside. Plus, unless they pass through mountain areas, the Dwarves might be less likely to monitor rivers...

[Broomstick]

I don't know how organized the tribes were in the Appalachian area. The Five Nations were IIRC more up North in the New York/Pennsylvania/Ohio...ish area. The Cherokee were down South in the Georgia/Alabama/South Carolina area, and they do seem to have had a reasonably well organized confederacy at least by the early 1800s.

The Cherokee seem to be related to the Iroquois, at least as far as language goes.

The Iroquois federation (known first as the Five Nations then the Six Nations) pre-dates European contact, probably formed between 1450 and 1500. This was a fairly strong union between the nations, which enabled peaceful contact among them and also united defense against other (such as the Algonquin groups). They entered into treaties not just with the colonist in North America but also European powers such as England and France. It wasn't until the American revolution, when part of the Six Nations sided with the British and part with the fledgling US, that the power of the Six Nations were broken.

The eastern/southern border of the Six Nations around 1600 butted up against the western/northern border of the Five Tribes. The location proposed for the Dwarves in this scenario would pretty much lie between the two groups.

Depending on how organized the tribes are, it's possible that the Dwarves may be dealing more with isolated family units, at least from the start.

Prior to European colonization, both Six Nations and Five Tribes had actual towns of as much as several thousand people including street planning and regulation. They had structured systems for making decisions and settling disputes (the Six Nations tending more democratic and Five Tribes more towards hereditary chiefdoms). So... actually pretty structured. Keep in mind, treaties between the Six Nations and England date back as far as the 1640's. I don't think the English government at the time (remember, this predates the absorption of Scotland into English dominion by nearly a century, hence I call it "England" rather than "the UK") would be doing that with "isolated family units" but rather because the Six Nations were, in fact, regarded as nations.

If neither party has any reason to fight the other-- Dwarves like humans, according to the OP, and the Natives will be interested in trade rather than conflict, unless something ridiculous happens like the Dwarves resembling some kind of ancestral demon-- then I can see small-time alliances growing to encompass tribal spheres of influence.

One bone of contention would be slavery - all of the tribes/nations mentioned practiced it on at least a small scale, usually involving war captives. It was not, at the time the OP scenario starts, the chattel slavery of the early US but much more small scale and with at least some captives becoming citizens/marrying into the tribes/nations. Some of the Five Tribes did adopt plantation chattel slavery but that was because the whites around them were doing so as well (the US Civil War also wound up creating a Civil War among the Cherokee. Post Civil War, former Cherokee slaves became citizens of the Cherokee Nation, which is why in still today in Oklahoma you have Cherokee tribal members whose ancestry is predominantly African). Prolonged contact with the Dwarves may or may not moderate or eliminate slavery among the Natives. If it doesn't, it may be part of what keeps them separate as groups rather than melding into a larger alliance.

Keep in mind, both the Six Nations and Five Tribes groupings occurred in part as a mutual defense against other groups. While much of Native warfare was raiding parties some actual conquer-and-replace wars did occur prior to the European arrival.

Agriculture is another matter - the Appalachian lands with the coal and iron in them really are not the best for agriculture and never have been. The main agricultural areas for the Five Tribes were the foothills and flatter, eastern portions of their territory (where there probably would be some conflict with arriving Europeans just as in our world) and for the Six Nations the Ohio Valley on up through their New York state and Canadian holdings (at their peak expansionist era the Six Nations held territory all the way into Indiana and Illinois). If the Dwarves wind up concentrating more on power/mining/technology and the Natives more on agriculture you might well have a beneficial trade relationship going on there, among groups that would be amenable to formal treaties. Remember, the Natives did little or no mining (some for flint and obsidian for tools, that's about it) so to them the stuff underground never factored into their decisions until the white man started shoving them off the top of their land and they learned rocks could be made into valuable objects like metal tools.

There is still going to be conflict and land disputes, but if all sides act in good faith you likely will wind up with alliances that can hold against European incursions. Unlike the real world where things like the Indian Removal Act were a blatant and illegal land-grab. If the Dwarves are interested mostly in what's under the ground and the Natives lean heavily towards agriculture then the two groups are more likely to "share" than engage in wars of conquest.

That said. A big thing that comes to mind is that disease is probably still going to spread, if it hasn't already, unless the Dwarves can insulate the Natives from it somehow. So we may still see mass die-offs of Native populations. IIRC it's theorized that this had already happened to a large degree before the 1600s (thanks, Columbus), thus why many East Coast regions were nigh empty and available for settlement. How many epidemics happened after the 1600s?

Even after the Europeans arrived the Natives were more numerous and more organized than typical school history portrays. While the East Coast did have some abandoned villages people were definitely more numerous than previously assumed.

Will the Dwarves bring illness that the Humans might be susceptible to, both the Natives first and the Europeans later on? Are Dwarves largely immune to Human illness? Would some cross-transfer of illness improve the immune robustness of both groups, with fewer Natives deaths to European diseases?

As for epidemics in the post-1600 early colonial period:

Malaria arrived from Africa in the bodies of slaves. This killed non-trivial numbers of white settlers and contributed to some areas of the Deep South actually having most of the population of African ancestry (albeit those people were still slaves and had no power). It affected whites and Natives more or less the same, neither group having prior resistance to it.

Yellow Fever arrived in the US in the 1660's via Philadelphia. Again, this decimated whites as well as Natives.

The smallpox outbreak at Fort Pitt om 1763 is the famous one where blankets and handkerchiefs previously used by smallpox victims were given to visiting Natives. Regardless of other factors, the Natives are going to suffer greatly from smallpox in this alternate history. One question is whether or not the Dwarves will - smallpox in our wold only affects humans and no other species, it's a highly specific pathogen. Boston suffered multiple epidemics of smallpox between the 1630's and 1700, and a particuarly bad one in Boston in the 1720's that nearly emptied out the city as the citizens attempted to outrun the disease wound up spreading it to the other Colonies.

Hookworm likewise came with the importation of slaves and ranged as far north as Illinois - yep, that's going to be a problem, but not until the 1840's (first arriving in Louisiana and Florida).

Other diseases, like measles and influenza, also made the rounds and fatality rates were higher for Natives than Europeans or Africans.

Smallpox was clearly one of the major killers of Natives, both before major European contact on the Atlantic coast (it's believe to have started in Central America with the conquistadors and worked its way up the Mississippi watershed fairly rapidly) and after. Fatality rates were significantly higher among Natives than Europeans.

So, yes, you'd still see massive epidemics and disease die-offs among the Natives. If the Dwarves are close enough to Human they, too, would also be affected, perhaps more so if they have denser population centers. If Dwarves are different enough not to get Human diseases then it's a question of whether or not they can help their Native allies or not.

[Broomstick]

Not sure the Dwarves would mess -that- much with the plantation system; the Appalachians are fairly well inland and there's plenty of space.

There weren't really any plantations in the actual Appalachians because they're mountains. The mining areas and the plantation areas did not overlap.

Essentially, once the British colonists encounter the Dwarves and/or Native allies, that's going to put the brakes on their westward expansion fairly hard. The expansion will still happen, it'll just happen on different terms, particularly if the Dwarves have enough clout to enforce the treaties that historically the British made with the Natives. I can see friction from illegal settlement in Native territories or settlers travelling through Native territory in order to reach land that's not under treaty being diplomatic issues, though. Sort of an alt-historic antecedent of IvP.

Prior to the American Revolution the Native/European treaties were better enforced, if still far from perfect. The US government was much more guilty of violating treaties than the European power were, the most frequent and violent treaty violations were post 1780's, most in the 19th Century.

With their population and tech., yeah I'd say the dwarves have the clout, at least in the 1600s. Though the Europeans might end up outnumbering them if longer dwarf lifespans means slower population growth. That doesn't seem to be the case though, from the OP. If anything, they should grow in numbers faster, given that they mature as quickly as humans, live longer, and have better tech. (hence likely higher standards of living and possibly lower infant/childbirth mortality).

Unless you propose a situation where the Dwarves rapidly out-breed the Humans there has to be some limit on their population.

Either
- Dwarves are not as fertile as Humans, and therefore have a lower population growth rate
- Something kills them off at a higher rate (greater infant mortality, warfare (seems unlikely give the initial OP), disease, something)
- They have sky-high death rates in pregnancy/labor (which would lead to an oversupply of men, with interesting sociological implications)
- They have a shorter active reproductive life than Humans. For example, if Dwarf women go through menopause about the same time as Human women, in their late 40's/early 50's, then an equal level of fertility will not result in worse overpopulation than for Humans since the reproductive lifespan of Dwarf women would be the same as for Humans. Now, a really long post-reproductive lifespan for Dwarf women might have interesting sociological implications, but that's getting a bit off-topic.

Or will the dwarves move Westward? If they go the usual fantasy dwarf route of focusing on mining, and prefer building their settlements in mountains (as seems to be the case), they'll be just giddy with excitement when they hear about the Rockies.

That may well be a later development in this scenario.

[The Romulan Republic]

Prior to the American Revolution the Native/European treaties were better enforced, if still far from perfect. The US government was much more guilty of violating treaties than the European power were, the most frequent and violent treaty violations were post 1780's, most in the 19th Century.

Yeah, that doesn't surprise me, given one of the actual reasons for the American Revolution that the traditional narrative doesn't like to talk about was that the Revolutionaries were pissed was that Britain wouldn't let the colonies expand westward into the lands of natives they'd made treaties with.

[Zor]

Do they have the disease issues that contact with the Natives did in real life? Do the dwarves carry diseases that can have a catastrophic effect on humans (likely, if they're close enough to interbreed and produce offspring)? Can they catch diseases from the Natives or Europeans to which they have no immunity?

Dwarves are not any more susceptible to Terrestrial Diseases than the Europeans or Native Americans of the time were and have better sanitary habits. Nor are they carrying anything particularly nasty themselves.

Zo

[Simon_Jester]

Essentially, once the British colonists encounter the Dwarves and/or Native allies, that's going to put the brakes on their westward expansion fairly hard. The expansion will still happen, it'll just happen on different terms, particularly if the Dwarves have enough clout to enforce the treaties that historically the British made with the Natives. I can see friction from illegal settlement in Native territories or settlers travelling through Native territory in order to reach land that's not under treaty being diplomatic issues, though. Sort of an alt-historic antecedent of IvP.

Prior to the American Revolution the Native/European treaties were better enforced, if still far from perfect. The US government was much more guilty of violating treaties than the European power were, the most frequent and violent treaty violations were post 1780's, most in the 19th Century.

Right.

Most treaty violation throughout the frontier period in what is now the US was driven by a few common causes:

1) Private individuals who had specific incentives to ignore treaties for personal gain. That is to say, by colonists, not by European governments who had little to gain from fighting an Indian war since they'd be the ones paying for any troops other than local militias. On the other hand, the US government was directly subject to the influence of individuals who would profit from a treaty violation, which played a huge role in many of the cases where the federal government itself violated Indian treaties and drove Indians off their land. The Trail of Tears is a good example of this; the Trail of Tears probably never would have happened if not for southerners eager to personally take over the Cherokee lands, who lobbied the federal government accordingly.

2) Many other Indian wars and treaty breaches that were not specifically the result of gain-seeking by colonists were the aftermath of violent conflict between individual colonists and individual natives in a private capacity. If such a conflict escalate, it usually drew the attention of the whites' local government, which generally responded more effectively with large scale violence than the Indians could. So friction at the point of contact between whites and Indians inevitably produced occasional wars, which the whites tended to win by having more guns and bigger militias. This kind of thing happened both before and after independence, and has a lot to do with, for example, how Native Americans were effectively wiped out in New England as an independent population.

Or will the dwarves move Westward? If they go the usual fantasy dwarf route of focusing on mining, and prefer building their settlements in mountains (as seems to be the case), they'll be just giddy with excitement when they hear about the Rockies.

That may well be a later development in this scenario.
[/quote]On the other hand, it seems rather unlikely that dwarves will be even more eager to move westward as part of a "gold rush" than European whites were, because it would be very, very hard to do that.

[LadyTevar]

First: There was a Culture outside the Five Nations in Western WV: The Fort Ancient Culture, which lasted from 1000-1700 and seemed to build on the remnants of The Hopewell Tradition/Culture(200 BCE-500 AD), and also the eariler Adena Moundbuilders(1000 BCE- 200 BCE).

The Fort Ancient Culture lived along the Ohio River and its Tributaries, which not only were mostly navigational, but also had wide banks where they could raise cities that relied on the "Three Sisters" and hunting for food. Europeans would later find clusters of native fruit and nut trees growing near the Ancient sites, possibly from discarded seeds and not true husbandry. Most of the cities seem to be 500-1000 people, and had a central palisade for protection. The Ohio and Kanawha Rivers also had salt brine near the surface, and Salt seems to be one of the Ancient's trade items shared up and down the Ohio. The Fort Ancient followed the Adena and Hopewell Cultures in building large mounds, and by 1600 nearly every tributary of the Ohio had multiple mounds lining their banks from the three combined. The most famous Fort Ancient mound is the "Great Serpent Mound" along Ohio Bush Creek in Adams Co, Ohio. It is believed they died out after European diseases spread up the Mississippi from early Spanish settlements.

Now, the Dwarves, as per the OP, would be building not along the river valleys, but further up the hollers where coal could be dug. Nice idea, but more than one of the creeks that poured into West Virginia's Kanawha River were "boiling" or "bubbling" creeks -- creeks that burned when fire came near because of the natural gas underneath. Salt Brine and Natural Gas seemed to run hand in hand, and Europeans were quick to tap the natural gas to boil off the brine. It's unknown if the Natives knew how to do this.

Besides coal and natural gas, the Appalachians had something even more precious -- the sandstone along certain ridgelines (especially along the New River of NC, VA, and WV) was nearly pure Silica. Besides glass, it's useful in foundries, construction, ceramics, and in the chemical industry. (Which is why Kanawha Valley got the nickname "Chemical Valley" as DuPont and Bayer moved in to take advantage of the silica.)