There had never been many Indians in the region from Ohio to Kentucky, and after large numbers were driven away by the Americans, this area—fully one and a half times the size of Portugal—held only sixty or seventy thousand Indians.
So Joseph decided to keep the American migrants—there were probably around sixty thousand of them as well. As long as they were given enough farmland and taxed a little less, who would still remember the United States of America ten or twenty years from now?
Henceforth, the Iroquois Duchy's model would be this: French Advisors would help the Indians manage the government and military, while immigrants from the United States provided the technology, and together they would build a beautiful homeland.
Though there were only a little over a hundred thousand people here at present, with ways to resist Smallpox now available, the Indians' unnatural death rate had already fallen sharply.
With their remarkable fertility, in only one or two generations, the Iroquois Duchy's population could rise to several hundred thousand, becoming a force on the North American Continent that could not be ignored.
Moreover, it was the French who had helped the Indians reclaim their homeland and facilitated the founding of their state, so the Iroquois Duchy was naturally France's little follower.
Major Thiebaud sighed. "At least now the Americans won't have the strength to push westward for several years."
As he spoke, he opened the report Leotard had handed him. Seeing phrases such as "2,300 enemy troops killed, 4,700 captured," "12 Cannons and over 5,200 Flintlock Guns seized," and "over 40,000 Protestant believers called upon to return to the Holy See," a smile blossomed across his face. "Once I return to the office, I will immediately report the situation in North America to Versailles Palace."
Pressburg, a