(This is my first post on the forum so I do hope the formatting is appropriate.)

So we have two problems to start with. On the one hand we have the issue of demographics, how can we explain the predominance of the European population in the American continents as well as the existence of certain states (e.g. New Spain)? On the other hand we have the issue that Taure brought up involving the native Wizarding opinion concerning the muggle conquests of their land. ​

I think Taure's framing of the question into the four scenarios described above is great, albeit interpreted a bit too narrowly. For example, the dichotomy between joint colonization, involving magical assistance of muggle expansion, and no magical colonization seems to me to be too rigid. It is entirely possible that we had some form of European magical colonization of the Americas, but no such colonization, or relatively little, in other places like Africa and Asia. Secondly, the nature of such 'colonization' does not have to be inherently violent; a peaceful European migration to other continents will explain away the problem of demographics without us having to postulate that European wizards were capable of conquering the whole world or that they did so.

The best way to solve the demographics problem is to propose a form of joint 'colonization'. I gather Taure implicitly assumes that such colonization must be forced because otherwise we would be hard pressed to explain away the native magical populations tolerance of the American muggle genocide taking place. I think this makes sense (I am assuming the Native magical and muggle populations were well integrated prior to European conquest), unless we propose that the native magical population was incapable of stopping the muggle conquest, but that seems rather preposterous.

I don't think it's necessary that the magical conquest of the Americas was co-temporal with the muggle expansion either. I agree that it is problematic to assume that European wizards and witches just happened to colonize America at the same time as their muggle counterparts, given that they (presumably) had earlier access. I can imagine two scenarios involving such a hypothetical earlier colonization. Either such pre-Columbian expansion was always peaceful, in which case the Europeans were successful in integrating native wizards into their culture (and maybe the ICW if it existed at this time). The lack of magical intervention by the latter in the native American extermination is explained away by the proposed cultural assimilation of the native wizards.

The problem with this approach is that it doesn't adequately solve the demographics problem. The pre-Columbian American population was quite large, some scholars estimate between 50-100 million. If we assume a native magical population proportionate to this, then it seems quite difficult to believe that European wizards and witches grew to such a large number as to greatly outnumber the former.

A more violent extermination of native magical peoples alongside the muggles (but perhaps not at the same time) seems more reasonable. Note that this doesn’t mean a complete genocide obviously, just a ‘culling’ of the native Wizarding population to bring it in line with the current proportions seen in Canon, which closely resembles the muggle population.

So we can solve the dual problems of the lack of magical intervention in the native genocide, and European wizards and witches waiting to colonize America, by proposing that they didn't wait for the muggles to go, and that they took over by force wherever they were met by magical resistance. Maybe they did so in antiquity, in which case there wouldn't be much of a wizarding population left to put up resistance to muggle conquests by the time of Columbus.

Or maybe the pre-Columbian time period was characterized by a mostly peaceful co-operation between European and native wizards and witches, which for some reason or another turned sour and led to the complete conquest of the native magical population. This could even mean that European muggles were 'barred' from sailing into the Americas by magical means up to a certain time-period, and that the impetus for later muggle colonization waves was in fact the magical conflict described (as BTT similarly proposes) which 'opened up' the continent to muggle exploration.

Parallel States vs. Diverging States:

So we are now left with the dichotomy of parallel states vs. diverging states. I think the way to go here is definitely diverging states, this helps explain why the Ministry of Magic has jurisdiction over Ireland, why MACUSA predates American independence, and the references to New Spain & Assyria etc... Another advantage of this diverging states scenario is that it does not place wizards subservient to muggles. Even if we stretch credulity to believe that wizards and witches will change their national borders to correspond with muggle ones; we should still expect to see a greater degree of involvement in muggle affairs compared to the current state in Canon.

In Canon, wizards approach muggle affairs with a great deal of apathy, but this wouldn’t make much sense if they were so influenced by them. Granted that the statute of secrecy is considered sacrosanct, and any corresponding violation a taboo, I would still expect to see some behind-the-scenes manipulation of muggle affairs. Every magical nation would have an enormous investment in manipulating muggle nations to acquire territory in a way that is beneficial to their interests. While it is always possible that such behind-the-scenes manipulation does actually take place; it’s hard to believe that the magical community would deliberately construct such a system so open to corruption (and to violations of the statute) given how seriously they take their secrecy.

The issues proposed by Taure having to do with diverging states are I think non-problems. For starters, the problems having to do with geographical differences leading to cultural separation over time are only apparent if we see extensive colonization outside of the Americas.

We also have the issue of why the modern European Wizarding nation-states lack large colonial holdings. This makes sense under a parallel state scenario because the European magical powers would have been forced to give up their territory during the decolonization time period. This again is easily solved if we just propose that, outside of the Americas, European colonization simply did not take place. So Africa and Asia were largely left untouched, perhaps because the magical populations were already well integrated and/or had access to greater magical technologies and thus more capable of defending themselves. We know wands were available in Asia for example.

The reasons for proposing that there was joint colonialism after all was that there was a demographic discrepancy in the American states, that there existed colonial magical states like New Spain, and that it would be expected that the magical colonial denizens would resist subjugation or at least the attempted genocide of their muggle brethren. However, the first two reasons do not occur in Asia and Africa where all the evidence (slim though it is) tells us that these continents are mostly native in magical population.

Further, the American colonization was unique in that no other continent was so thoroughly exterminated, and we don't really see this in other parts of the world. In India for example, much of the prevailing power structures were kept in place after British colonization; there were famines, but this doesn't come close to approaching the scale of genocide perpetrated in the American continent. So it's easy to see why Indian wizards and witches would have stood by and done nothing; for the most part nothing really changed.

In the African continent we have slavery of course, and some atrocities like the Belgian Congo. But much of this slavery was perpetrated by one African population on the other, and again I don't see a reason for the native magical population to notice much of a difference or care when the Europeans 'officially' took over.

So the American genocide is historically explained away by the unique native susceptibility to European diseases, but it would be interesting to instead invoke some sort of magical explanation having to do with magical conquest of American lands.

On Sovereignty:

Lastly, we have issues relating to magical sovereignty. I earlier proposed that a form of joint American colonialism/diverging States was best. I still stick by this, but I don't think this necessarily entails that a magical state is in charge of supervising the muggle population that falls exactly into its borders. Such an exact correspondence of jurisdiction is doable I suppose, but would have some interesting consequences.

It would be strange for example if the Argentinian minister of magic must also meet with the British prime minister from time to time to inform him/her of the relevant events happening on the falklands, simply because they happen to have a magical settlement there. This becomes even more convoluted in past times involving widespread colonial powers. Of course it is possible that such consultations are largely ceremonial/do not always occur, but having access/control over the top muggle administration makes it easier for the magical population to 'administer' colonial muggle territories (i.e. if the muggle authorities pass a law that makes the enforcement of secrecy harder, one could discreetly change such a law).

Having said all this, I think it is possible to keep the idea of joint American colonialism + diverging states along with a magical nation having total supervision over its corresponding muggle state territories. All we have to do is adopt an alternative approach to what constitutes a magical nation-state. Instead of the notion of a magical nation-state with 'fixed' boundaries established by Taure; I propose a much more fluid notion of magical sovereignty. Where a magical 'state' is simply the sum of a nation's population and certain magical communities interspersed throughout a given territory.

Advocating for this type of nation-state means that the British Ministry having supervision over muggle affairs in India during the time of the British Raj does not infringe on the sovereignty of the magical Indian nation state(s). On the contrary, such supervision could be seen as a sort of burden; an unfortunate responsibility that the British wizarding population must take on themselves. So British wizards and witches being on muggle Indian territory during the time of the British Raj meant only that they were responsible for upholding the statue of secrecy. But this doesn't entail that Indian wizards and witches must follow British 'rules'; only the rules of the statute of secrecy which we might argue are set forth by the ICW.

Another possibility is that magical states do set their own policies for violations of the statute, and members of the Indian magical community that are caught violating the statute by British authorities are judged by the Indian equivalent to the Wizengamot.

As long as a magical nation state doesn't come with fixed boundaries, it is possible to believe that the European magical presence in colonial territories starts and ends with enforcement of the statute of secrecy. This also makes the potential matter of wars interesting because it means that a 'war' does not consist of one nation upholding its 'boundaries' from violation by another. Indeed I don't think this makes much sense given the magical abilities of transportation that we know to exist.

Instead, I imagine a war to consist of fighting over crucial resources and territories. If Britain and India went to war in past colonial times for example, Indian wizards would find themselves expelled from and attacked in British communities like Diagon Alley, and vice versa. Battles might be fought for the control of such territories; with wizards and witches apparating directly to attack such places along with other holdings. We might imagine raids conducted on British houses in the countryside until the population is demoralized enough to surrender.

A successfully prosecuted war might end with the capture of spoils or a treaty enforcing such a thing (i.e. give us x dragons, wands, house-elves, gold etc...). And all the while this is going on the British magical community keeps enforcing the statute in India; with Indian wizards and witches not daring to directly attack them on penalty of international censure. Alternatively, there may be international standards in times of war that allows the ICW community to temporarily take over the statute’s enforcement, precisely to avoid such conflict.

So I don't think of magical sovereignty as really being associated with the possession of borders. I imagine it is okay for a foreign wizard to travel to London for example; what would not be okay would be for them to enter Diagon Alley or some other such territory without permission, which might very well be spelled against such intrusion.

Ultimately, this waters down the dual notions of joint colonialism and diverging states. The former because it is only applicable to the Americas, and the latter because magical jurisdiction over muggle affairs is parallel, but possessions of magical territories/holdings is not. I think in the end there was too much ‘baggage’ riding on the two terms which made the distinctions between the alternatives falsely dichotomous. Once we strip away this baggage I think we can see that it is in fact possible to have the best of both worlds.

TL;DR:
Joint colonialism/diverging states involving a selective joint colonization effort in the Americas but no magical colonization elsewhere, combined with a flexible notion of the magical nation state is the way to go.

 

There being a split between Ireland and Northern Ireland in the wizarding world is interesting, considering that split seems to a product of things that wouldn't translate to the wizarding world.

 

Yeah, in some areas the wizarding world seems to mimic muggle borders and in others it seems like its substantially different.

 

The Northern Ireland Quidditch team does seem odd, in that it defies a ready explanation under the “quidditch teams are divided by national/regional boundaries” hypothesis. But we can get around this by proposing that Northern Ireland is a culturally distinct wizarding commune that is separate from the rest of Ireland (presumably due to religious distinctions). So wizards having two separate Irish identities isn’t necessarily due to the magical community adopting muggle borders, but rather a simple case of wizarding tensions/cultural differences mirroring muggle ones.

 

The SoS was instituted in 1689, separating the wizarding and muggle worlds completely. From that point onward History of Magic and Muggle History were separate and I lean towards the position of divergent states/muggle colonialism with magical sovereignty not being strictly tied to the possession of borders.

Important wizarding locations were probably built around things that couldn't be simply moved around (I wanna say the Veil, but I don't know if that's canon), and what they could they moved and enclosed, to facilitate oversight and control.

IMO a wizarding world map has large sections that are deemed neutral "no man's land" and buffer zones/marchlands, with the ICW running arbitrage when it comes to responsability.
*I don't really see the matter of responsibility as much of an issue in modern times for the most part - there are probably not many wild dragons, and if there are, they probably don't migrate much and it's been established who handles it ages ago - but when there's a Manticore on the loose between two countries, I can see them each trying to shift the responsibility to the other. Countries in the Durmstrang catchment area are probably discussing to this day whose responsibility it is to deal with the muggleborns.*

When it comes to the times before the SoS, things get tricky, 'cause we don't know how many proper/structured wizarding nations were there, if any. So I'd have to go with "all of the above" for before the SoS.

It is likely that powerful (muggle) nations had wizard courtiers aligned with them, aiding and joining them in the Age of Discovery. It is also likely that there some proper wizarding communities (if more informal) that didn't interact much with muggles by choice (though they probably weren't totally insular).

We don't have a specific date of formation of the Wizards' Council, but we do know they existed as far back as 1269 A.D., that they were responsible for wizardkind and did not concern themselves with governing muggles and that they created decrees like 1419's ban on Quidditch games wherever existed the slightest chance a Muggle could see, giving the idea that there were at least some separate communities. We also know (going by the lexicon so don't quote me on that, but it makes sense IMO) that muggles' fear of wizards had been rising since 100 A.D., which would probably push for the formation of segregated wizarding communities, small ones before the formation of Hogwarts.

And the further back we go, the harder it is to make any guesses. The HP Lexicon says that before 100 A.D. there was a great deal of Muggle/Wizard cooperation and in Britain that probably means the reason we don't have much information on the druids is that they really were important magical and were obliviated/removed from common knowledge after the SoS came into effect.

 

That's something I envision as well. They need somewhere to relocate the dragons, after all.