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Comment by angelzen | Hacker News Reader

Europe is far from being dotted with microstates. There are a handful of relics, but most of Europe has been unified under some larger nation state. For a historical perspective, a political map of pre-1800 Germany with 'up to 350 states': https://twitter.com/weird_hist/status/1260451732221542400

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I think that neither enhances or dilutes my point.

Modern microstates are the nearest analog. But they are on more kinds of maps, lists of countries, and the people currently on reservations should have something more similar to that.

Modern Europe is not a good comparison. Something like Papua-New Guinea is probably closer. Not even sure how far into Europe's past one needs to go to find an ethno-political system similar to B.C. circa 1800. Medieval Europe? The era of Greek city states?

https://www.muturzikin.com/cartesoceanie/oceanie2.htm

Sure, I’ll bite: how would you describe Papau-New Guinea’s system in a way that could quickly convey an enhancement to what the reservation and other treaties around North America, since “Microstate like Europe” doesn’t convey that - to some

To the best of my understanding, B.C. circa 1800 can be described as 'patchwork of sovereign micro-ethnic groups in rugged terrain'

Europe microstates: Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, Vatican, Liechtenstein, Faeroe, maybe Iceland and Luxembourg. Relics of times long past, historical curiosities.

Papua NewGuinea: 832 living languages, presumably each with an independent history tracing hundreds if not thousands of years. Most of them with <3k speakers each. The largest ones with <250k speakers.

https://www.languagesgulper.com/eng/Papuan.html

And how would that mix with losing to a more powerful group which has diplomatic consensus with the rest of the world while maintaining sovereignty and trade with the more powerful winner?

I am not seeing how recognizing Papua-New Guinea’s language history addresses that? I’m not familiar with how its governed or if it has to balance cultures, resources and property with an imperial force that merely tolerates everyone else.

Can't help with that. I'm interested in ethno-geography. Here's a nice map of early XIX century Coast Salish micro ethnic groups: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coast_Salish#/media/File:Coast...

>> B.C. circa 1800 can be described as 'patchwork of sovereign micro-ethnic groups in rugged terrain

So was Appalachia at that time. So too were the expanses of Russia. So too was even Ireland. Pretty much every 17/1800s settled territory without a nearby railroad was composed of tightly-knit micro-ethic groupings. That doesn't meant they were not also part of a larger nation.

That's definitely not true of Ireland in the 19th or even 18th century. Nothing could be farther from the truth - Ireland at that time was a centrally (and externally) managed state much closer to a modern state than anything described in this thread.

Roads and canals do fine for knitting together a nation in the cultural and political sense of the word, and for enforcing/dispensing all the fruits of central government. Europe in the early 1800s was less homogeneous than today, perhaps, but it's strange to claim that areas without nearby rail service were a 'patchwork of sovereign micro-ethnic groups'.

And in places like BC, the water network linked everyone.

It didn't link everyone into centrally run sovereign nation states, though, which I thought was what we were talking about.

This is kind of debatable through, sure there are national laws, and even EU wide laws. However, Germany has its states, Berlin has different laws than Hamburg for certain things, same as Italy and Spain have their regions with various levels of autonomy. Every municipality all over Europe has control of some of its local laws, too. We don’t just have one European wide law, or even German wide law for every aspect of law.

Just like every county in the US can have different laws. An example might be sales tax rates in Florida.

Maybe the top poster should say that the map of North America should be dotted with micro-states like the USA (maybe even like Canada, I don't know)

That way it wouldn't sound like an American trying to paint Europe as some kind of parochial backwater of medieval fiefdoms.

Yeah, he definitely did not word it well. I’m from Canada, and how you describe it as North America having micro states is also kind of true. There are states, territories and provinces, across North America with a lot of local control, but there are also local native reservations that have a lot of sovereignty. For example, there are plenty of tribal lands close to where I grow up that have completely separate laws from the provenance that they are in, they deal directly with the federal government and even do their own policing. Although you almost never see those boarders on maps, there’s a strong argument that they’re a type of micro state, and Canada probably has multiple dozens of them if not hundreds with different languages and laws.

> trying to paint Europe as some kind of parochial backwater of medieval fiefdoms

no idea how you got "parochial backwater" from "microstate", it bothers you way more than it should

some of the most impressive, highly developed, secular, constitutional republics are microstates. whatever you associate the word with is not what I associate the word with.

> Every municipality all over Europe has control of some of its local laws, too.

Unless I'm mistaken, that's not true in France. Its a unitary state, where each region and commune is simply an administrative subunit of the state. That's why the French government was able to reorganize its regions at the start of January 2016.

By comparison, that would be illegal in the USA for the federal government do combine North and South Carolina, or to reunite West Virginia to Virginia. They're not administrative units of one government, but are actually separate governments.

Sure, but not every small town has a distinct language and distinct set of laws. The OP talks about "food security for an estimated 10,000-12,000 K'ómoks People", unclear that the K'ómoks ethnic group was much larger than 10k.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%27%C3%B3moks

On Vancouver island where the Komoks people lived, there certainly was a distinct language and culture and possibly laws for probably half a dozen or more groups. On the island alone, I (a white person), know of the Songhees, Lekwungen, Tsartslip, Tsawout, Wsanec, Cowichan, Pacheedaht, Ucluelet, and Homalco nations. All those are local to the island and have their own languages and traditions.

Point being that there can be a surprising number of micronations in a very small area.

Regarding your disclaimer, wouldn't it be more apt to say "someone with no Komoks blood" or "a white person that also has no First Nation lineage" the latter if you also want the affect of your disclaimer. I'm thinking its a pretty distinctly North American experience for people of any color to have some First Nation/indigenous/local heritage. At least for the black and white people that have been here for 200-600 years.

this is more so curiosity than a correction.

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