A North-Western Change...

[Bavarian Raven]

so i have been doing some reading on the coastal tribes of the pacific northwest coast of north america and how advanced their culture was in many ways.

-having a large population base without agriculture,
-having a large trade network and a significantly diverse culture,
-some understanding of metal working (using high quality copper to hammer out sheets which were made into decorative/cultural items, and small iron blades)
-they had a unique form of currency (and even had their own form of 'loans')
-not to mention that many of the tribes had advanced understanding of warfare for their region and time (and some tribes even practiced beach landings while under fire from arrows (blunted but still dangerous)
-they did (albeit rarely) build palisades and the such to defend their settlements
-they have access to numerous resources (large fish/animal stocks), abundant wild edibles, almost unlimited lumber, copper and iron (though the source of their iron is still unknown but predates european contact by numerous centuries), whales(oil)...

so my question is as follows (and could even become a TL one day ), what would it take/what diverges in history would be needed (whether big or small) for one of these pacific northwest tribes to form something akin to a small kingdom or empire of the such. or even a small city state like structure. discuss. and thanks for your replies in advance.

 

[Gryphon]

The biggest problems with your ideas are right here:

-they have access to numerous resources (large fish/animal stocks), abundant wild edibles, almost unlimited lumber, copper and iron (though the source of their iron is still unknown but predates european contact by numerous centuries), whales(oil)...

They have everything they need; why change?

(Also: language. There were hundreds of languages and dialects in the Northwest; few people could understand those outside their own tribes. By about the time of European contact, the Chinook trade jargon was being adopted as a general trade language, but still, the language problem is a serious barrier to inter-tribal unity.)

Therefore, the impetus for changing society requires a change to society. There's two ways to do this: internally or externally.

Externally, European contact east of the Mississippi tended to force tribes to unite or die (and even when they did unite- Metacomet, 1812, etc., they still died). It would be all too easy to imagine a similar situation occurring in the Northwest- the best bet would be around 1830. A much more anti-American British Empire replaces Dr. John McLoughlin with someone much more anti-American, and when hundreds of Americans begin arriving around 1842, this new character ends up attempting to repeat the 1790s Iriquois, but sucessfully. Using the Chinook jargon as a unifying language between the tribes, he manages to convince them that Boston illahie is the bad guy, and the folks of King Chautsh are the good guys. Intertribal unity develops, and a loose federation of tribes is born. (This is utterly implausble, though interesting.)

Internally, famines, drought, and more general poor-situation-ness could lead to a situation where one tribe or another feels it might be a good idea to try growing some plants- perhaps this 'maize' that those guys from down the river keep trying to sell. It's possible, though I stress very unlikely, that an agricultural city-based society could develop west of the Cascades.

The problem is that there's no need for them to unite, and there's no need for them to change their lifestyle. If a need for something is created, it's easy to get it- the problem is, only vastly improbable situations could create the need.