Before Columbus came to the Americas, the Americas were ravaged by a very intense plague. The entire two continents were ravaged and recovering as it set them back hundreds of years, technologically speaking (before that point, they had more complex and functional societies. For example, smoke signal networks before the collapse meant you could literally get a message coast to coast in minutes, and there were North-America-wide treaties and agreements. With the plague, the network was spotty and only remained in pieces.) At its height, the smoke Signal network would be unparalleled in speed in transmitting messages for literally hundreds of years until the invention of the telegraph. At the time, the natives had the world's most advanced communications. This was already a start at controlling gas for their purposes. If reading/writing took off (like it did in Britain thanks to Queen E.) for any reason, massive learning would have happened very quickly.

Some people like to view that the natives were either just "Indians" and just one large group of barbarians, or that they were a bunch of unconnected tribes. Both of these are pretty much untrue. The Native tribes had the tribal council, which was basically the Native American version of the EU or UN. Existing wars were more symbolic (warriors even often avoided killing enemy combatants, and generally KOs were enough with a losing tribe admitting defeat and the war ending.) As far as socially goes, the natives were actually more advanced than the Europeans in a lot of ways.

However, plague hit, and their entire society was ravaged. Then, when they've finally hitting early stages of re-building and recovery after their fairly short dark age (compared to Europe's), the white man shows up and destroys it all again.

If that plague never happened, they would have been much more advanced. There's a chance the Native Americans could have been the ones colonizing Europe. At the very least, the "Pale faced invaders" would have faced a unified resistance after the Pilgrams murdered a group of the natives, and have had a harder time conquering than they did in Africa.

So all you need to do is have the plague not happen, and get a chief to be a "reading/writing is for everyone" advocate earlier in the history.

Before Columbus came to the Americas, the Americas were ravaged by a very intense plague (and yes, this is before the smallpox brought by colonists). The entire two continents were ravaged and recovering as it set them back hundreds of years, technologically speaking (before that point, they had more complex and functional societies. For example, smoke signal networks before the collapse meant you could literally get a message coast to coast in minutes, and there were North-America-wide treaties and agreements. With the plague, the network was spotty and only remained in pieces.) At its height, the smoke Signal network would be unparalleled in speed in transmitting messages for literally hundreds of years until the invention of the telegraph. At the time, the natives had the world's most advanced communications. This was already a start at controlling gas for their purposes. If reading/writing took off (like it did in Britain thanks to Queen E.) for any reason, massive learning would have happened very quickly.

Some people like to view that the natives were either just "Indians" and just one large group of barbarians, or that they were a bunch of unconnected tribes. Both of these are pretty much untrue. The Native tribes had the tribal council, which was basically the Native American version of the EU or UN. Existing wars were more symbolic (warriors even often avoided killing enemy combatants, and generally KOs were enough with a losing tribe admitting defeat and the war ending.) As far as socially goes, the natives were actually more advanced than the Europeans in a lot of ways.

However, plague hit, and their entire society was ravaged. Then, when they've finally hitting early stages of re-building and recovery after their fairly short dark age (compared to Europe's), the white man shows up and destroys it all again.

If that plague never happened, they would have been much more advanced. There's a chance the Native Americans could have been the ones colonizing Europe. At the very least, the "Pale faced invaders" would have faced a unified resistance after the Pilgrams murdered a group of the natives, and have had a harder time conquering than they did in Africa.

So all you need to do is have the plague not happen, and get a chief to be a "reading/writing is for everyone" advocate earlier in the history.