500+ nations within the current US boundaries alone
Take a look at a map of Europe around the 1600s with all the free cities and sovereignties, and imagine that an undocumented version of North America looked like that as well
Its been too reductive to group the indigenous populations into one native american group, and one trend of "land acknowledgements" has been helpful in revealing that in a digestible way
it's not a question of semantics but one of ontology
you remind me of an arabic taxi driver i had once who tried to convert me to islam on the assumption that i was christian, just because i'm white
To be fair, those European states, groups, and entities were still extremely interconnected (in comparison) and shared societal, cultural, and religious traits. They viewed themselves as part of a single "Christian civilization," at least in very broad terms. I don't think such an argument could be made for North American societies.
And yeah viewing all Native Americans (I mean in the 1600s, not necessarily now) as belonging to some single "nation" seems like a purely European projection. That seem pretty superficial and essentially erases all of those diverse cultures (which is what is what ended up happening...).
I just don't believe this negates that there was a gradual movement towards greater unity among Native American tribes and nations, especially in response to external threats. This process occurred over centuries and varied by region.