The challenge is to have a black separatist state in America by, for our purposes, from 1650 to 1975, albeit out of this forum. I would say your best bet is a widespread slave rebellion around 1720, but I doubt Britain would have troubles putting it down.
AHC: Black separatist state
- Thread starter Harald Sigurdson II
- Start date
Radical republicans come to power and protect blacks from Jim Crow. Southern whites don't like the blacks having power over them in places like South Carolina and Mississippi. They move West to where there are less of them, leaving large black majorities in these states. Later conflict with a white racist President causes them to declare independence.
Grey Wolf
Donor
I'd say it could be a model. It was after all feared that it might be
Best Regards
Grey Wolf
Perhaps the British could invade the southern states, free a huge number of slaves and arm them. Then they could just leave them to wreak havoc.
Or Britain decides to allow the Caribbean slave owners to sell their slaves to the Southern states prior to the abolition of slavery. (To offset the compensation; ie they sell at 60% value and the Government makes up the rest.)
Fast forward 50 years and the number of black people in the US is much higher. Throw in a charismatic leader or two and get the population to congregate into a fairly dense area so they are easily the majority, add a dash of Jim Crow, allow to simmer. Presto we have a secessionist movement.
Or Britain decides to allow the Caribbean slave owners to sell their slaves to the Southern states prior to the abolition of slavery. (To offset the compensation; ie they sell at 60% value and the Government makes up the rest.)
Fast forward 50 years and the number of black people in the US is much higher. Throw in a charismatic leader or two and get the population to congregate into a fairly dense area so they are easily the majority, add a dash of Jim Crow, allow to simmer. Presto we have a secessionist movement.
SinghKing
Banned
What about an ATL where Britain retains Florida, instead of being forced to cede it to Spain in the 1783 Treaty of Versailles? As such, the British effectively acknowledge the Seminoles', especially the Black Seminoles', independent sovereignty by either providing them First Nation status or making their state a British protectorate. The Seminole State, Maroon Florida, becomes a critical buffer state for the British against the U.S of Americans who want to possess Florida themselves- and the US slaveholders become increasingly aggressive against the Seminole State themselves when they seek the capture and return of Florida's black fugitives, set out under the Treaty of New York (1790). ITTL's War of 1812, The Maroon Seminole Nation in Northern Florida is already a critical ally of the British in the region, with a military force which has already been overtly supported, supplied and trained by the British for decades, and joins the British in their war against the United States.
The Seminole State's competent, decently equipped and far larger armies are extremely successful in their battles against the Americans, seizing significant swathes of territory in Southern Alabama and Georgia (and retaining them after the conflict); and their agitators, sent behind enemy lines, are even more successful. Soon, much of the USA's slave population on the Southern plantations is in open revolt, and the USA is forced to begrudgingly sign a premature Emancipation Act to quell the uprisings, and to stem the resulting flow of willing recruits swelling the Seminole's armies and boosting their supply chain.
After its conclusion though, the American population is far, far more hostile towards its newly freed population of former black slaves, who are popularly portrayed as traitors, with America's defeat in the War of 1812 directly attributed to them (in spite of the fact that large numbers of those slaves joined the American armies, and fought against the British and the Seminoles for their freedom prior to TTL's Emancipation Act). As such, a mass migration ensues, with the freed Black peoples of the USA fleeing en-masse to the expanded Seminole State and the British Dominion of Florida, and virtually all of those black people who attempt to stay behind in the USA subsequently killed in the retributive genocide.
The Seminole State's competent, decently equipped and far larger armies are extremely successful in their battles against the Americans, seizing significant swathes of territory in Southern Alabama and Georgia (and retaining them after the conflict); and their agitators, sent behind enemy lines, are even more successful. Soon, much of the USA's slave population on the Southern plantations is in open revolt, and the USA is forced to begrudgingly sign a premature Emancipation Act to quell the uprisings, and to stem the resulting flow of willing recruits swelling the Seminole's armies and boosting their supply chain.
After its conclusion though, the American population is far, far more hostile towards its newly freed population of former black slaves, who are popularly portrayed as traitors, with America's defeat in the War of 1812 directly attributed to them (in spite of the fact that large numbers of those slaves joined the American armies, and fought against the British and the Seminoles for their freedom prior to TTL's Emancipation Act). As such, a mass migration ensues, with the freed Black peoples of the USA fleeing en-masse to the expanded Seminole State and the British Dominion of Florida, and virtually all of those black people who attempt to stay behind in the USA subsequently killed in the retributive genocide.
It would be good to get Jared's view on this if he's about. I wonder how much higher the slave population of the South can go. I would have thought that there is a maximum of X square miles of plantation-suitable land, of which the economically efficient number of slaves is Y per square mile. I wonder how far from X and Y the South was by the time of the civil war.
Suppose a successful, Haiti-esque slave revolt takes place in a black-majority state, causing most of the whites to flee. At the same time, there's a committed anti-slavery president in office, who sends down troops to kill the leaders and restore order but at the same time refuses to round up the hundreds of thousands of now masterless slaves freed as a result of the rebellion, making those people de-facto free. As a result, the whites who fled do not return, and the region becomes an almost entirely black-controlled society, with some scattered whites and mulattoes. The place also becomes a refuge for escaped slaves (in this TL the revolt causes slavery to end without a civil war) and other blacks facing persecution, boosting the population. At the same time, like OTL, some of the new territories opening up in the west explicitly ban blacks from entering, and they are denied citizenship, furthering an exodus to this region where blacks are full state citizens.
Biggest obstacle I see for this is that an imperialist 19th century United States is going to be revanchist and unlikely to allow an independent black state to stay uncontrolled by the federal government. But maybe the still nearly-entirely black region remains as a sort of protectorate for a while before new empowerment and racial tensions in the early 20th century cause its leaders to declare independence.
Obviously, we're talking about a massively, massively changed United States here deeply shaken by the slave rebellion, which gives fuel to abolitionists. A close-to-OTL United States would never tolerate any of this.
Biggest obstacle I see for this is that an imperialist 19th century United States is going to be revanchist and unlikely to allow an independent black state to stay uncontrolled by the federal government. But maybe the still nearly-entirely black region remains as a sort of protectorate for a while before new empowerment and racial tensions in the early 20th century cause its leaders to declare independence.
Obviously, we're talking about a massively, massively changed United States here deeply shaken by the slave rebellion, which gives fuel to abolitionists. A close-to-OTL United States would never tolerate any of this.
SinghKing
Banned
So, would the Seminole State (/'Maroon Nation', given that they'd swamp the Seminole Indian's society and culture extremely quickly by sheer numbers) proposal meet most of these requirements (excluding the Haiti-esque slave revolt, but also eliminating the need for the committed anti-slavery US President, and the unusual restraint which would be required of the US Militia to bring about such a scenario)?
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So I've had a quick look, and in 1800 the number of slaves in the US was nearly 900,000. Which rose to 1,200,000 by 1810. Then 1,500,000 in 1820. To 2,000,000 in 1830.
Between 1800 and 1830 the number of slaves in the British Caribbean went from c.800,000 to c.600,000. So if staggered then they wouldn't flood the Us too much.
Maybe I'm oversimplifying though. There is also the problem that the trade was ceased in 1808. Though of course that is not set in stone - perhaps there could be a moratorium or something.
Yeah, they're pretty similar. Although I'm skeptical that the British seizing large portions of Georgia and Alabama wouldn't result in further wars against them, which is why I wanted something more homegrown.
And the president wouldn't really be exercising unusual restraint in the slave revolt scenario, he'd be sending down troops to regain US control and kill any slave leaders who have killed whites (of which there will be many) he just won't spend years and millions of dollars using the army to try and round up all the hundreds of thousands of escaped slaves for the sake of their masters. As a result of the revolt being so bloody and the area being primarily inhabited by freed, hostile slaves, the whites who fled mostly won't return, and more blacks will flood into the place in the coming decades.
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SinghKing
Banned
Wasn't talking about the unusual restraint required of the US President. I was talking about the unusual restraint which would be required of the occupying American troops, if you were to avoid them simply massacring every single former slave which they come across, slaughtering them by the bucketload. Without restraint on their part (which American troops weren't particularly well known for, especially in this era, when they were waging wars against 'lesser peoples'), how could you prevent the situation down south with the escaped slave population from escalating into a concerted US state-sponsored genocidal campaign against the blacks?
I did an abortive timeline on this a while back. Not the most realistic thing in the world, but you might find it interesting:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=232130
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=232130
MalcontentRex
Banned
To me this won't really be possible before 1900. Best scenario for this that I can see would involve NOI (Nation Of Islam) which comes into its own in the 1930s. But, I could be wrong.
You rang?
Sorry I don't have time to go through this thread in detail at the moment. But the short version is that even as late as 1860, there's plenty of good, vacant land in the Old South that can still be turned into plantation land if someone is of a mind to do it. Most obviously, the Delta Country (Mississippi, mostly) became famous for its agricultural productivity - but it was barely touched in 1860. The significant development happened after the ACW. That could be expanded earlier. There were other areas of vacant/under-utilised land around the Old South, too.
This does lead to questions of whether there would be overproduction of cotton sooner than in OTL (in OTL, 1860 was more or less the peak of the cotton boom). This may lead to some slaves being used in other pursuits, (tobacco, sugar, manufacturing/artisans, etc), but the South could still use a lot more slaves. (Unpleasant prospect though that is, of course.)
In terms of the viability of slavery, well, having more slaves around makes the white Southerners even more paranoid about what would happen in the event of a slave revolt. This in turn makes them even more politically sensitive. But sans outside interference, I don't think that you could get the proportion of slaves vs whites needed for a large-scale successful slave revolt in the South. This isn't Haiti; the slaves would still be outnumbered by whites over the South as a whole.
tedio
Banned
The idea that any single or combination of several southern states could manage to fend off the combined weight of the rest of the Union puts this in ASB territory.
That would only happen if the commanders allowed it, and responsibility for that goes right to the top. Also, I would expect large amounts of people to be hiding in the woods or simply fleeing the area when troop arrived. Armies back then moved pretty slow, and weren't usually accompanied by mass civilian casualties, unless they sieged a city or something. Most of the massacres committed by US troops against American Indians occurred in such situations; in the immediate aftermath of a battle.
Now, undisciplined militia would probably kill people left and right, but I'm thinking this would be more of a federal operation. Remember, the local militias have already lost and fled.