Dominion of Southern America Part I

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The Dominion of Southern America Timeline Discussion
Dominion of Southern America Timeline Part I
Dominion of Southern America Timeline Part II
Dominion of Southern America Timeline Part III
Dominion of Southern America Timeline Part IV
Dominion of Southern America Timeline Part V


Part I
POD: 1766 - Josiah Martin becomes Governor of Quebec instead of Carleton, who instead becomes Governor of North Carolina in 1771. Much frivolity ensues....

It should surprise no one that Quebec, recently taken into the British fold as a result of the British victory in the French and Indian War, would be a hotbed of sedition and join the list of colonies rebelling against the British Crown in the 1770s. The only surprise was how long it took for the French of Quebec to do so. Many have attributed this to the lenient policies of the first British Governor of the Province of Quebec, James Murray.

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James Murray

So conciliatory were his actions towards the French there, that he alienated many of the British merchants who came to the area, leading to his recall from the office in 1766. His replacement, Josiah Martin, while much more palatable to British merchants, was much less so to the French of this province. Despite his best efforts, and the largess of the Quebec Act which increased the territory of the Province by including Labrador and all land north to meet the holdings of the Hudson Bay Company (though not including any accommodations for the Catholics of the province) he was unable to hold down the predominantly French and Catholic population, and was forced to flee the province for New York.

Quite in contrary to the general spirit of rebellion in the North, the Southern colonies (with the notable exception of South Carolina) were more loyal to the British Crown. The Southern colonies were blessed with able governors such as James Wright of Georgia and Guy Carleton of North Carolina.

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Sir Guy Carleton

Upon his appointment in 1771, Sir Guy (later Baron Dorchester) was particularly effective at calming tensions in North Carolina after the previous governor, William Tryon had been forced to suppress the Regulator Movement. Not only did Sir Guy bring a steadying influence to the North Carolina Colony, but his observations, and entreaties to Parliament to provide favorable treatment to the Southern colonies in order to engender their loyalty to the crown are directly credited with the formulation of the Southern America Act of 1774, which shielded the Southern colonies from many of the punitive actions taken against rebellious Massachusetts and her neighbors, as well as rescinding the Proclamation Line from the Gulf Coast all the way to the Ohio, allowing for commerce and settlement to the West. This is credited with limiting the South's participation in the American Revolutionary War to more of a failed civil war as rebel factions fought loyalists but the governments of these states in general remained in control and loyal to the crown.

Though Virginia had gained with the Southern America Act access all the way to the Juncture of the Ohio and Mississippi, it was not enough for the ironically named 'Old Dominion'. Virginians also wanted access to the Ohio Country. The Crown, however, had designated the lands south of the Great Lakes between the Ohio and Mississippi as a refuge for the indigenous tribes.
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Richard Henry Lee

But instead of gratitude for the extension of settlement South of the Ohio, the Virginians not only sided with the rebellious colonies to the north, but it was Virginian Richard Henry Lee who made the motion to declare independence from Britain, another Virginian who penned the Declaration of Independence, and a third, George Washington, who would lead the Rebel army.

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Early in the course of the American Revolutionary War, the Siege of Boston had the war stalled in the North. Looking for a victory, Washington sent a relief mission up to Quebec. Under the command of Schuyler and Montgomery, the American force made contact with local forces which were constituted into the Canadian Regiment. The Canadian Regiment would serve side by side with the forces sent by Washington in securing Montreal and Quebec City.

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Flag of the Congress' Own Canadian Regiment.

With the major cities of Quebec, at least for the time being, in the hands of the rebels, Quebec sent its first delegation to the Second Continental Congress, already in progress. A relief force of British and Hessian soldiers attempted to land in Quebec City in May 1776, but were repulsed by the rebel defenders.

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Benedict Arnold

Ambitious rebel officer Benedict Arnold convinced General Washington to send him at the head of a supporting force to supplement to relief of Quebec. Arnold joined Ethan Allen and his forces. While they had significant successes, news soon reached them that Quebec City was in rebel hands and their mission superfluous. At that point, Arnold convinced Allen and his men to join him on a raid into Nova Scotia to inspire rebellious forces in the region.

Nova Scotia had developed a large Yankee population, but politics were still mostly ruled by the merchant oligarchs of Halifax. Somehow, Governor Frances Legge managed to alienate both with his staunch pro-British stance and attempt to audit the oligarchs. He was to be recalled to London in 1776, which may have resolved the situation except that at that same time Arnold and Allen launched raids into Nova Scotia proper, inspiring Yankees in the region to join their forces. The oligarchs took the opportunity to throw out Legge and declare for the rebellion. Admiral Arbuthnot, on station at Halifax, was able to take command of the port and hold it for the crown, but not to suppress the new rebel legislature. Nova Scotia thus became the last colony to send representatives to the Continental Congress.

The Flag of the United States of America was set in its essential pattern by 1777, though many variations would occur throughout the American Revolutionary War and even after. Initially George Washington preferred the use of six pointed stars, but in the end the five pointed star won out. The twelve stripes on the flag alternating red, white, and blue stand for the twelve founding colonies of the United States of America. There had also been red and white alternating stripes early on, but the tricolor stripe pattern won out in the end. Also featured was a blue field with a star for each new state, replacing the Union Jack that had been displayed in the original flag.
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The British force (actually mixed British and Hessian forces) sent to Quebec had been met by the unwelcome vision of rebels in command of Quebec City. Rather than offer siege to the city, the commanding general John Burgoyne decided to continue with his original plan that he had concocted before ever leaving London. He landed his forces on the southern bank of the Saint Lawrence River and started his army moving south towards Albany, New York, where he expected to be met by British forces marching up from New York City and thus cut off New England from the rest of the colonies.

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John Burgoyne

However, without a friendly port to disembark and revictual, Burgoyne's forces were forced to forage in force on their route. This effort slowed their initial advance to a crawl, and did much to alienate further Canadians who otherwise might have remained neutral or even loyal to the crown. The march south was hard on his men, with little in the way of forage available once they penetrated to Lake Champlain. Despite this deficiency, his forces were able to drive the small garrison force out of Fort Ticonderoga and continue south towards Albany. However, in the summer of 1777 his men were in worse shape and no relief was coming from the south when he was forced to battle and subsequent surrender at Saratoga. He had to surrender his entire army and admit abject defeat. This victory proved the tipping point to France's entry into the war.

While British fortunes fared ill to the north, to the south events were more in favor of the British and their Loyalist allies. While the mid-Atlantic colony of Virginia was in play, of the Southern colonies only South Carolina was seriously in danger of falling into the rebel camp. Indeed, South Carolina had sent delegates to the Continental Congress before the Battle of Sullivan's Island in 1776. While the rebels fought ferociously under William Moultrie, doing significant damage to the British flotilla, the forces led by Virginian Charles Lee were overwhelmed by an attack to the rear by the forces of Henry Clinton, who had received reinforcements of Loyalists from North Carolina sent by Governor Carleton. Though at a heavy cost, Charleston fell and the rebels of South Carolina were forced to flee to the hinterlands.

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Sir Henry Clinton

While 1777 officially marked the widening of the war into an international one with the enlistment of the French to the American cause, the French were slow to commit to the conflict, as were other European powers. Attempts to liberate Rhode Island in 1778 and Charleston in 1779 by joint Franco-American forces failed.

Another attempt to break the British hold on the South occured when the Spanish honored the Bourbon Family Compact and entered the war in 1779. Word of Spain's declaration of war sent Louisiana Governor Bernando de Galvez off to attack British West Florida. His attempted Siege of Baton Rouge failed, as much due to illness as to enemy gunfire, but the British force there bolstered by Loyalists was too much to break, and thus Galvez had to return to New Orleans, where the tables were turned as British forces from Pensacola under John Campbell laid siege to New Orleans. This time too the defenders were the victors, but Galvez was forced to remain on the defensive for the remainder of the war. While the British did not secure the vital port of New Orleans, they did manage to preserve West Florida for the British Empire.

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Bernardo de Galvez

The role of Africans in the American Revolutionary War was a small. Early on by Governor Carleton's recommendation the British refrained from recruiting slaves to join the British forces. Sir Guy had come to appreciate the deep anxiety that Southern Colonists had about the possibility of slave uprisings. This policy helped to sway to the Loyalist cause even more Southerners who otherwise might have remained neutral when in 1776, General Washington, desperate for manpower, rescinded his previous ban on recruitment of Africans into the Continental Army.

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Africans in American Service

The decisive battle of the war was fought in 1781, when combined armies and navies of America and France converged on New York City in the Siege of New York. Clinton had been lulled into a false sense of security by false reports that the combined force was planning an assault further to the south. Indeed, there had been much discussion about landing the blow there, but Washington had won over the others for a New York attack.

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Rochambeau

French forces under the command of General Rochambeau and the Continental Army under Washington met in White Plains, New York, then together engaged the British in Manhattan in siege.

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Siege of New York

While the land forces pinned down Clinton and his command, at sea Rochambeau's fleet was joined by that of Admiral de Grasse where they were able to defeat the British fleet in the Battle of Long Island Sound.

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Battle of Long Island Sound

With the successful conclusion of the siege, the Commander of British Forces was captured and the British army and navy in the North decisively defeated. Command of British forces devolved to General Cornwallis in the south. He received orders from Parliament to hold North Carolina and all points south, but for all intents and purposes fighting on the American continent was over and an unofficial cease fire went into effect for the next few years.

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Lord Cornwallis

While the war on the American mainland settled down into an uneasy, unofficial cessation of hostilities, other theatres offshore and around the world continued to be active.

Newfoundland had been only indirectly touched by the war, but it accelerated changes that had already been developing, most profoundly the shift in population from predominantly transient English fishermen to predominantly Irish permanent residents. English interests in the island shifted from fishing to a weystation for shipping, though even here, with the lack of success in the rest of the North, much shipping began to shift to Bermuda and thence to the Caribbean or Southern colonies. As the theatre of operations on the mainland wound down, French Canadian agitators slipped across to Newfoundland to inspire Catholic Irish residents to rebel. A small group of rebels eventually took over the understrength garrison. The change to the rebellion opened up Spanish markets for Newfoundland fish which had been closed since 1779, leading to a resurgence in fishing as an industry.

The war in the Caribbean was mostly one of raids, usually unsuccessful or poorly sustained, such that much of the Caribbean would return to the same hands at the end of the war.

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While the war did widen to include the Netherlands in what some call the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War and spread to include clashes in the East Indies sparking the Second Anglo-Mysore War, this had little impact on the main event on the American Continent.

Cornwallis in the meantime conveyed an offer to the Continental Congress to recognize the United States of America in return for their renunciation of their alliance with France, which was rejected.

In the closing year of the war, French raiders issued the death knell to the venerable Hudson Bay Company's monopoly on Prince Rupert's Land with their destruction of York Factory, cutting off the last outlet of the Company to their fur trade as Quebec was in rebel hands. The burgeoning Northwest Company would see to the completion of the work started by the French navy.

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Rupert's Land and York Factory

While a less than smooth process, the Peace of Paris saw separate treaties for the combatants in the war against Britain.

The Treaty with the new United States of America included:
1. Acknowledging the Twelve Colonies to be free, sovereign and independent States, and that the British Crown and all heirs and successors relinquish claims to the Government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same, and every part thereof;
2. Establishing the boundaries between the United States and British North America at latitude 36-30;
3. Granting fishing rights to British fishermen in the Grand Banks, off the coast of Newfoundland and in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence;
4. Granting fur trapping rights to the Hudson Bay Company in Prince Rupert's Land until the time of renewal of their charter, with Americans to have equal access to Prince Rupert's Land from this time forward;
5. Recognizing the lawful contracted debts to be paid to creditors on either side;
6. The Congress of the Confederation will "earnestly recommend" to state legislatures to recognize the rightful owners of all confiscated lands "provide for the restitution of all estates, rights, and properties, which have been confiscated belonging to real British subjects [Loyalists]";
7. United States will prevent future confiscations of the property of Loyalists;
8. Prisoners of war on both sides are to be released and all property left by the British army in the United States unmolested (including slaves);
9. Great Britain and the United States were each to be given perpetual access to the Mississippi River;
10. Territories captured by Americans subsequent to treaty will be returned without compensation;
11. Ratification of the treaty was to occur within six months from the signing by the contracting parties.

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Treaty of Paris

The Treaty of France included:
1. Declaration of peace, and forgetfulness of past problems.
2. Confirmation of old treaties between the two nations.
3. Exchange of prisoners and hostages to take place within 6 weeks of ratification; also ships (naval and merchant) captured after hostilities at sea officially cease are to be returned
4. French crown to retain St. Pierre & Miquelon.
5. French crown continues fishing rights between Cape Bonavista and Cape St. John (on the east coast of Newfoundland) and between Cape St. John and Cape Raye (round the west coast of Newfoundland).
6. The French may still fish in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
7. In the West Indies, British crown returns St. Lucia to France subject to guarantees of the rights of British settlers.
8. French crown returns Grenada, St. Vincent, Dominica, St. Christopher's (St. Kitts), Nevis and Montserrat to Britain, subject to guarantees of the right of French settlers in any of those islands.
9. In Africa, British crown surrenders the Senegal river area to France, and returns to France the island of Gorée.
10. French crown guarantees to British crown possession of the Gambia river area and Fort James.
11. British shall have right to carry on the gum trade from the mouth of the River St. John to Portendic Bay, but may not establish permanent settlements there (boundaries of the various African possessions to be determined by commissioners to be chosen within 3 months of ratification).
12. British and French access to other parts of the African coast to continue as customary.
13. In India, British crown returns to France all settlements on the Orixa coast and in Bengal, as at the beginning of the war— with liberty for the French to make a ditch round Chandernagore (for drainage)— and will as far as possible provide security for French trade in the area.
14. British crown also delivers Pondicherry and Karikal to France, with additions to the former at Valanour and Bahour; to the latter at the Magans.
15. Mahé and the factory at Surat also returned to French control, with security provisions as in Article 13.
16. Britain and France will cease to aid their respective Indian allies against each other within four months (ceasefire orders having already been sent to British and French forces in India).
17. British crown abandons restrictions on French use of the port of Dunkirk in France.
18. The two crowns will make new commercial agreements by the end of 1786.
19. All territories conquered by either side since the war began, and not mentioned above, are to be returned to their pre-war owners.
20. The two nations should be able to enter into their respective possessions of St. Pierre & Miquelon, St. Lucia, Gorée, Grenada, the Grenadines, St. Vincent, Dominica, St. Christopher, Nevis & Montserrat, within three months of ratification of the treaty. For Indian towns etc., within 6 months.
21. to 24. Technical details.

The Treaty with Spain included:
1. Declaration of peace, and forgetfulness of past problems.
2. Confirmation of old treaties between the two nations.
3. Exchange of prisoners and hostages to take place within 6 weeks of ratification; also ships (naval and merchant) captured after hostilities at sea officially cease are to be returned.
4. British crown surrenders Minorca to Spain.
5. In "the Spanish continent" [the majority of America south of the United States] British subjects will be permitted to cut and carry away logwood in the district between the Bellize (or Wallis) river and the Rio Hondo (both of which shall be open to navigators from both nations) up to an isthmus formed by a widening of the Bellize river and a widening of the Rio Nuevo (New River), from where the boundary goes straight across the isthmus to the Rio Nuevo, along the Rio Nuevo to where it comes opposite a river [marked on an accompanying map] which flows into the Rio Hondo; then across to that river, downstream to the Rio Hondo, and finally down the Rio Hondo to the sea. Commissioners will mark out places where the British may establish settlements, and all British subjects within the Spanish continent and offshore islands will move to those settlements within 18 months from ratification (with full assistance from the Spanish authorities). No fortifications may be made within this area, and any now existing must be demolished. The British settlers may also fish for their subsistence off the coast of the designated area, and neighbouring islands (but must not make any other use of the said islands).
6. All territories conquered by either side since the war began, and not mentioned above, are to be returned to their pre-war owners.
7. The two crowns will make new commercial agreements by the end of 1786.
8. to 10. Technical details.

The Treaty with the Dutch Republic included:
1. Declaration of peace, and forgetfulness of past problems
2. Respect for each other's flags at sea to be resumed
3. Exchange of prisoners and hostages to take place as soon as possible, without waiting for ratification; also ships (naval and merchant) captured after hostilities at sea officially cease are to be returned
4. In India, the States General of the Republic surrender the town of Negapatnam to the British crown, but may exchange it for some equivalent property if they have such available
5. British crown returns Trinquemale (Trincomalee) to the States General, with all other Dutch towns, forts, harbours and settlements conquered by the British forces (including East India Company forces) during the war
6. The States General promise not to obstruct the navigation of British subjects in the Eastern Seas
7. Commissioners shall be appointed to discuss navigation rights on the African coast, and the subject of Cape Apollonia [in what is now Ghana], which have been the source of disputes between the English African Company and the Dutch West India Company
8. All territories conquered by either side since the war began, and not mentioned above, are to be returned to their pre-war owners
9. to 11. Technical details

A map of North America in the year 1783.
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A map of the world at the end of 1783 after the American Revolutionary War:
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The flag of the State of Maryland has flown since colonial times, and is simply a flag adaptation of the Calvert family Coat of Arms of Lord Baltimore.

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In the aftermath of the American Revolutionary War (as it is known in the United States), many Loyalist families fled the newly formed USA for Britain, the Southern Provinces, or even the Caribbean. General Carleton oversaw the evacuation of Loyalists from around the Chesapeake and Delaware areas while General Cornwallis went by sea to evacuate New York under the watchful glare of the Americans.

In 1789, Governor Carleton proposed the creation of a new Honour for Loyalist families, the Unity of Empire. So called United Empire Loyalists and their descendants would be allowed to affix U.E. after their name, and add the Loyalist coronet to their family Coat of Arms. Some families in the South still proudly display the U.E. remembering the loyalty of their ancestors.

Governor Carleton had also suggested to the British Parliament uniting the remaining Southern Colonies under one Governor-General but this was dismissed, though the idea would be revived from time to time in later years.

Britannia opening her arms to the Loyalists:
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Only a few years after the end of the American Revolutionary War it was becoming obvious to many that the Articles of Confederation were inadequate to the governance of the United States of America as a nation. Eventually representatives of the states met at first to amend the Articles, but later to draft a new document to govern the nation, the Constitution of the United States. The greatest contention was over whether to have equal representation for each state or representation based on a state's entire population excluding Indians not taxed. Eventually a compromise was reached where there would be a bicameral legislature with equal representation in the new Senate (three for each state, one elected every two years to serve for six years) and proportional representation for every 50,000 people (rounded up) in the new Assembly (each Assemblyman to serve for two years).

Ratification was contentious and long in coming. By 1789, a Bill of Rights was added that, among other things, forbade Congress from establishing any official religion or language for the United States.

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James Madison, Father of the Constitution and Author of the Bill of Rights
Why James Cook named the east coast of New Holland New South Wales is a mystery to the ages. However, this is the name it was given when it was claimed by right of exploration for the British in 1770. But this is the name it came to be known by when a convict settlement was started there after the American Revolutionary War made it politically untenable to continue transporting convicts to America. The Colonization Fleet found the originally selected site for colonization, Botany Bay, too sandy for easy agriculture, and instead moved to Port Jackson, which would become the first and arguably most important settlement along the west coast.
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While natives were present on along the shore when the first English penal colonists arrived, they were soon decimated by small pox and other diseases for which they had no acquired immunites.
Many celebrate 1789 as the ending of slavery in the United States of America, though in actuality the ban of slavery in the Northwest Territory and later the entire nation were only written into legislation that year, but it wasn't until the early 1790s that the abolition of slavery really began to take effect. While many states of the union allowed slaves at the time, it was felt to be a dying institution, and counter to the spirit of freedom that the new nation wished to foster. Also, blacks had rallied to the American cause and served in the Continental Army in return for freedom, as well as several having fled Loyalist owners, thus there was a small but significant free black population in the new nation. While there was some federal funds voted for recompense for freed slaves, many slave owners chose instead to sell their slaves south to the British colonies, often getting a better price than that offered by Congress, even with the downturn in price by the flooding of the slave market.

Some slave owners migrated to the Southern Colonies with the passage of abolition, but the majority preferred the loss of their slaves to living once more under the rule of the Crown. Even though many slaves were sold from New York, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, a sizable number remained with their previous owners and continued to work the land, typically in return for some share of the crop. Some likened the relation to manorialism, with the plantation owners acting as feudal lords and freed slaves as serfs, while others saw it more like the seigneurial system in the state of Quebec.

The Southern British provinces saw a significant increase in their slave population, just in time for the onset of a massive growth in cotton cultivation with the invention of the Cotton Engine.

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African Life in Rural North America, circa 1790
The Flag of Pennsylvania was a simple affair, featuring the Commonweath's Great Seal in the center of a white field, with blue bars to either side (some earlier versions had either a white field or blue field).
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Order of Ratification of the Constitution, 1787-9:

  1. Pennsylvania
  2. Delaware
  3. New Jersey
  4. Connecticut
  5. Massachusetts
  6. Maryland
  7. Virginia
  8. Quebec
  9. New Hampshire
  10. New York
  11. Nova Scotia
  12. Rhode Island
The flag of Delaware, as so many other flags of the original states, contained at its center the seal of the state. In addition to this, the flag had a buff roundel in the center on a field of blue, the colors of which were inspired by the uniform of General Washington. Over time, these colors changed slightly in tone to give the final colors of the state flag of today.
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The flag of New Jersey incoporated the Great Seal of New Jersey, and the colors of the Continental Line Regiment of New Jersey, buff and 'Jersey' blue.
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The flag of New York also incorporated colors felt to be reflective of those worn by the future first president of the United States while featuring at its heart the seal of the state.
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The flag of New Hampshire was designed as a simple dark blue field with the seal of the state at it's center, depicting a ship being constructed in honor of New Hampshire's importance as a shipbuilding state during the American Revolution.
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Connecticut's flag was, like many other flags of the U.S. states, composed of two bars of blue with a center bar of white featuring the state's seal in the middle. Unlike other states, however, Connecticut's seal was an oblong rather than the more conventional circle.
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Entry of new states into the Union was somewhat delayed in the case of Newfoundland simply for the lack of an organized legislature, which was not convened until the late 1780s. However, with ratification of the Constitution Newfoundland was quickly admitted to the union as a state.

More difficult was the status of Vermont. Vermont was disputed between New York and New Hampshire for years prior to the American Revolutionary War, and many of the residents there resisted New York attempts to keep the territory of Vermont in New York, but New York had lost support by its reticence to recognize the New Hampshire Grants. New York, however, attempted to block Vermont's entry to the union as a state, and given that Vermont was completely surrounded by US states thought it had the upper hand to force a settlement. But the men of the Green Mountains proved more stubborn still. The impasse was broken in part by the compromise leading to the Residence Act to establish a federal district for the location of a new Capital for the nation. New York agreed to acquiesce to an separate state of Vermont in return for the placement of the new Capital in New York at the site of the former state capital, Kingston.
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Kingston and surrounds.

Kingston had been burned to the ground by the British during the war, and the plans were to move the capital of New York up the Hudson to Albany. The site of Kingston was well situated to put the new Capital in contact with the rest of the United States by traveling the Hudson up to where a transfer to Lake Champlain would place it in easy reach of Quebec, a brief jaunt to the southwest arrived at the Delaware river and thus to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, as well as going down the Hudson to the Sea and thence up to New England or down to Maryland and Virginia. President Washington chose to have the 10 mile by 10 mile square allotment of land oriented as a diamond bisected by the Hudson River and including the entries of the Rondout and Wallkill Rivers. The Blue Mountains to the west of the renamed Federal District of Columbia, with the city itself to be called Washington, would develop into a summer retreat for the wealthy and powerful who would flock to the national Capital.

Kentucky rounded off the new states formed when it separated from Virginia.
The State of Vermont adopted the flag of the Green Mountain Boys as its standard. The green field, of course, was related to the name of the Green Mountain Boys and the state itself. The blue canton with twelve stars (for the original twelve colonies of the American Revolution) placed in a more naturalistic arrangement was inspired by the nascent US flag.
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Capitols of Major British Colonies in the New World, 1790:


In 1792, the population of North America received another influx of immigrants from the Scottish Highlands as a new wave of Highland Clearances occurred (sometimes referring to this year as 'The Year of the Sheep' for the preference for sheep over people).

The Highlanders split roughly into two main migrations depending on religion. Many of the Highlanders still adhered to the Catholic faith, and they gravitated towards settlement in the new United States of America, especially in the predominantly Catholic state of Quebec and neighboring Nova Scotia. Presbyterian Highlanders on the other hand tended to head for the British Southern Colonies, often migrating further west into the Appalachians.

Awaiting travel to North America:
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The flag of the State of Nova Scotia is inspired by the Nova Scotian Coat of Arms, one of the earliest ever granted in North America. The flag basically is the interior of the coat of arms.
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While there had been a President of the Continental Congress since 1774, the new Constitution called for a far different president with significant executive powers.

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George Washington, First President of the United States (in office 1789-1797)

The first President of the United States of America was George Washington, and though there were elections of sorts for both his terms, any opposition was mostly symbolic. While President Washington himself was against factionalism and the formation of political parties, when he set the precedent of only serving two terms the next election would devolve to a contest between nascent political parties. The two parties were the Federalists, which had been associated with Washington and born out of support of the Ratification of the Constitution, but now were proposing continuing the trend of centralization of the nation, and the Democratic-Republicans, who wished to retain power for the independent states. Federalist power was strongest in the Northeast, whereas Democratic-Republican support was greatest in the Southwest (including Quebec). In the first contested election for President in 1796 the Federalists won, making John Adams the second President of the United States. He won reelection in 1800, but with a much smaller margin.

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John Adams, Second President of the United States (in office 1797-1805)

The Sans-Culottes Take Up the Flag of Revolution:
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Across the seas, America's former ally, France, was facing its own crisis. While the war had technically been a victory for the French, the cost of the war and the general state of the French economy meant that only five years after the peace, the King of France was forced to call the Estates General together, which sparked a wave of first reform, then revolution. The French Revolution would bring several factions to power, and have waves of purges, collectively referred to as the Reign of Terror.

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English view of the French Reign of Terror

The émigrés were also composed of waves of fleeing French, composed of differing groups whose politics or status often determined where they went to. Many of the noble émigrés first departed at the behest of the King himself, and fled to fellow nobles in neighboring nations of Europe, where they plotted to overthrow the revolution and restore monarchist rule. Some of the lesser lights of this migration, as it became ever more likely that France was lost to them, would move on to the Americas and particularly the State of Quebec.

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Girondists being offered exile or trial

The next major wave of émigrés were the republican Girondists who were offered exile and confiscation of their property or the Guillotine. Many prominent Girondists including many who escaped the initial witch hunt such as Barbaroux, Buzot, Condorcet, Grangeneuve, Guadet, Kersaint, Pétion, Rabaut de Saint-Etienne, Roland, Louvet de Couvrai, and Rebecqui headed overseas to the United States where they were welcomed with open arms. Even when those Girondists who survived the purges eventually overthrew the Jacobins and initiated their own purge (offering many Jacobins the same deal and who also chose overwhelmingly to travel away from the old regimes of Europe and instead go to the United States). While the Girondists were relatively welcome in America and even Quebec, the Jacobins were a more awkward fit, especially for more conservative Quebeckers, and thus were more likely to settle elsewhere in New England. The turn of the century saw one last wave of émigrés when a man named Napoleon Bonaparte took control of the French nation.

Napoleon takes command of the French Nation:
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Designs proffered for the flag of the State of Quebec were rather contentious in the beginning of the 19th century. While many Quebeckers were of French heritage, there were the old guard descendants of colonists, who tended to be more politically conservative, and then there were the new wave of émigrés and their children who were much more radical. Whereas the traditional Quebecker looked back to the Ancien Régime with nostagia, for the émigrés (at least the latter waves) it was Revolutionary France that they held to their hearts. In the end (probably somewhat facilitated by the reconciliation brought about by the stable reign of Louis Napoleon I), a compromise was reached on a flag design, essentially taking the American Flag, a symbol of revolution, and placing in the blue canton the Fleur-de-lis of France.
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In the 1790s, as Kentucky was opening up to settlement and eventual statehood, concern grew in Virginia and the United States in general about the boundary between the United States and the British Southern Colonies with regard to the strategically important Cumberland Gap. Because of such concerns, a secret survey was undertaken at the behest of the President of the United States and with the blessings of the Governor of Virginia to assess whether the previous line delineating Virginia from British North Carolina were accurate, and if not, who did they favor with regard to the Gap, and other points of interest. In the end, despite a few close calls with the British, a much more refined survey was made and it was discovered that the Gap did indeed belong on the American side of the border, and in fact that the previous dividing line diverged substantially north of latitude 36-30.

Given this reassuring assessment, the Americans made their survey public and demanded the British acknowledge a strip of land in northernmost North Carolina as actually American. The British took the matter under advisement, but little was done to pursue the matter, much to the consternation of the Americans.

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The Strategic Cumberland Gap

The Second Great Awakening began in the ending of the 18th century. As revolutionary fervor died down in the now independent United States of America, a new thirst for innovation in religion arose. It was in this time that the Deist Movements rose to prominence in the United States, with a lesser countermovement being seen in the Primitivist Movements.

Deist belief was rampant among the Founding Fathers of the New United States of America (with the notable exception of Papist Quebec). As these men were the leading political thinkers of the time, so too were they later seen as some of the leading religious thinkers of the age.

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The Deist Movement started as a belief that God had created the universe with His natural laws in command, and that no further intervention on God's part was necessary or desired. They appealed to study of nature and science as the truest guides to God's intent in Creation. As many in the Mid-Atlantic States and New England turned away from more traditional establishments like the Anglican Church, Deist congregations arose. Religious services in the Deist Movement emphasized study of the Word (Bible) and the World (Science) as evidence of God's Plan, as well as Praise Sessions designed not to win favor of God, but as a communal celebration of the wonder of Creation. Even at this early juncture, the Deist Movement divided into to major movements, the Freedom and Determinist branches of Deism.

Determinist Deism proved most popular in New York and the New England States. Based on the idea that all human action had been preordained by the natural laws that God had set in motion at Creation, this was clearly a further refinement of Puritan thought. The Deist Church of New England especially put emphasis on the idea that Christ had been foreordained at the moment of Creation (as the Word, noted in the Gospel of John), and that one could tell how in accord with God's Plan mortal men were by their success in this life. While Puritan influences were evident, as a Universalist element merged with Determinist Deism, it also borrowed from Catholic doctrine perhaps under French Catholic influence in the north, accepting infant baptism and the idea that those who did not prosper in this life would spend time in Purgatory finalizing their conformation to God's ideal before going on to eternal paradise. It should be noted that as opposed to the Catholic Purgatory, no amount of prayer or intercession would hasten the passage of a soul through the Deist Purgatory.

The Freedom Deists also believed that God's actions in this world had all been manifested in the act of Creation, but they diverged from Determinist Deism in believing that humankind had been left the gift of Free Choice, an ability to join in or reject God's Plan, so that they could be enobled by free acceptance of God's Gift of Creation. While men could reject God, Freedom Deism still emphasized the immutability of God's Laws as revealed by Science, and that all human action were circumscribed by such. The Freedom Deist churches took a rather different view of Christ, as exemplified by the Church of Christ's Choice. They held that Christ had been a man who also had free will to choose or reject the work of God, and that the Temptation of Christ would have been meaningless unless Christ could actually choose to reject his role in God's Plan. Freedom Deism tended to drift into more Unitarian beliefs as Christ was seen more as a man than part of the Trinity. Freedom Deist denominations favored baptism of adult members.

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An Example of A Deist Camp Meeting.

Though developed in New England, the Camp Meeting and ecstatic celebration of creation spread more rapidly in the Western regions of the United States. Interestingly enough, Freedom Deists rapidly accepted the Camp Meeting and put it to even greater effect in their mission work to frontiersmen. Many of the frontier regions had no organized church or clergy, and thus the traveling camp meeting was a method to get the word out to the frontier. Deism made only minimal headway in Quebec against entrenched Catholicism, and mostly among the new immigrants from Revolutionary France and to a lesser extent, the Scottish Highlands.

The Camp Meeting was not restricted solely to the Deists. Several of the smaller Primitivist predominant movements of the time also used the Camp Meeting as a device to reach people. While some elements of primitivism were evident in Deism, the two tended to separate on the issue of a personal relation with God and the ability to invoke God's intervention. Small primitivist sects survived the Second Great Awakening but did not proliferate. Some European-based Protestant movements also embraced elements of Primitivism, and the Camp Meeting, most notably the Methodists. Also embracing these elements was the Baptist movement. The primitivist movements and their more mainstream mimics proved especially effective among the African freedman population of the United States, and made inroads into the Appalachians in the British Southern Colonies as well as among British African slaves therein. In the United States these came to be seen as more a form of African religion, and among the Anglican predominant slaveowning aristocracy of the South as subversive heresies. Many slaveowners forbade their slaves to participate in religious services, but surreptitious worship continued.

A Rare Public Baptism of Slaves in the South:
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The Wars spawned during and after the French Revolutionary Wars led to shifting alliances and shifting control of territory in Europe and sometimes the World.

Spain at first opposed Revolutionary France, but eventually wagered that it was more in its best interests to side with France than against. In the 1790s Spain ceded control of all of Hispaniola to French. Previously France had controlled the western portion of the island, which was one of the most productive islands in the Caribbean. Slaves rose up in the chaos of the revolution, but France meant to reverse that situation after the ascension of Napoleon. This was part of a greater plan on Bonaparte's part to restore a French American Empire. In furtherance of that plan, France concluded a secret treaty with Spain that restored Louisiana to the French. Given its secret nature, Spain continued to administer the territory, including the vital port of New Orleans.

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New Orleans and Surrounding Louisiana

Eventually, word leaked to the British of the transfer, which was a direct threat to British Southern America. The British devised a plan to neutralize France in the New World, but wanted to secure their vulnerable border with the United States of America. The Federalist Adams Administration was Pro-British, but America had a number of outstanding complaints against the British, including impressment of Americans into the Royal Navy, the lingering border adjustment between the USA and North Carolina, and the status of Prince Rupert's Land, and rescinding of the contentious fishing rights off the North American Coast. All of these the British were willing to cede to the Americans if they would support the war against France, as well as reaffirming the Mississippi as free for navigation and the right of Deposit in New Orleans should they prove victorious. The Anglo-American Convention of 1803 settled these issues, and Adams went to Congress for a declaration of war.

The Americans never joined the Coalition officially, and in fact due to the Washingtonian admonishment to avoid entanglement in European wars as well as lingering affection for France among the Democratic-Republicans and the Quebeckers, though this had been eroded by some of the high-handed actions of the French on the high seas. Thus not only was the vote for the declaration of war one of the closest in American history, it was also one of the oddest due to the political sensibilities of the time. Thus did the United States not declare the War of 1804 on France, nor commit to battle anywhere outside the continent, but instead declared it upon "Napoleon in North America".

The British rapidly seized control of New Orleans and Louisiana south of latitude 36-30, while American forces took control of the Mississippi north of there. In addition, American forces took the small islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. In the ensuing peace, France ceded these lands to the United States, as well as releasing their own fishing rights off the North American coast. Britain would hold the vital port of New Orleans as well as the Louisiana region below 36-30.

The British sent forces to seize French Guiana, Martinique and Guadeloupe from France. They also sent forces to Hispaniola in order to seize this island as well, but found themselves embroiled in a multi-sided civil war. Napoleon had sent forces to bring the island back under French control, but they faced a slave army that had taken command of much of the country. The French and rebelling slaves had entered into a vicious spiral of escalating atrocities.

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Vicious Fighting in Hispaniola

The British were able to establish control over the eastern half of the island, but the western half was a vipers' nest of carnage and intrigue. Eventually the British ability to cut off sea support for the French, especially after Nelson's victory at the Battle of Toulon, and the British offer of freedom to any black man who joined the British in the fight turned the tide. However, it would be years before the island would return to profitability. In the meantime, France had been excised from the Western Hemisphere.

Battle of Toulon:
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The Southern Live Oak​

The story of the Southern Live Oak (Quercus virginiana) and the early days of the navies of the United States and Southern America are intertwined. The Southern Live Oak is one of the hardest of hardwoods, which made it hard to work with, but very strong. This made it an attractive material for the construction of warships. In the United States, this tree only grew in Southeastern Virginia, but it was found throughout British Southern America.

The US navy had essentially been disbanded after the American Revolutionary War. During the Quasi-War with France, the need to reconstitute a blue-water navy was recognized, and Congress authorized the construction of six frigates.

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These ships used live oak from Virginia in their hull construction because of that reputation for strength. While there was a lull in hostilities with Revolutionary France with the ascension of Napoleon Boneparte, this reversed during the War of 1804. American frigates proved themselves a tough opponent, in part attributed to the Southern Live Oak lumber. Stories of cannonballs bouncing off American frigates abounded.

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USS Constitution at Sea​

The British were impressed with the performance of Southern Live Oak as a shipbuilding material, so much so that it became an important cash crop in the South. The British even commissioned some smaller naval vessels to be built in the Southern Colonies during the Napoleonic Wars and after to speed providing naval vessels in the Caribbean.

The British had left the Northwest Territory as the last reserve purely for Indians in North America before the American Revolutionary War. Given this, it is little surprise that the Six Nations, Shawnee, and other Indian tribes favored the British, while to the South where the lands west of the Appalachians had been opened to white settlement, the stance of native tribes, particularly those of the Five Civilized Tribes, was more mixed. On the one hand, some Indian leaders felt betrayed by the British overture to whites in the Southern Provinces. On the other hand, other Indian leaders thought that the British government far away would still be less likely to take their lands from them wholesale as independent whites in America might.

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With the ending of the Revolutionary War, native peoples were left in a worse quandary than ever. The Northwest Territory was cut off from British support by Kentucky Virginia, though some support still flowed up the Mississippi. More could be had from the Spanish and later the French as well, but not enough to guarantee the independence of the Western Confederacy of Native Tribes. Most disastrous of all for the Indians of the Northwest was the Anglo-American alliance and the War of 1804, which not only ended British support for the Indians, but also led to the final defeat of organized Indian resistance east of the Mississippi and the near complete severing of any outside support to the Tribes.

The Legion of the United States was the first professional army formed by the Americans after the American Revolutionary War. Raised, trained, and led by intrepid Revolutionary War officer 'Mad' Anthony Wayne, the unit was raised in response to poor showing for troops sent to the Northwest Territory to suppress the Indians there. Not only was General Wayne successful in that endeavor, but his work on expanding the American Legions, is believed by many experts to be directly attributable to the incredible successes the army enjoyed in breaking the back of Indian resistance throughout the Northwest Territory in the War of 1804, when the tribes there sided with the French, much to their regret. Sadly, General Wayne did not live long after his penultimate triumph, dying while traveling back east after his victory.

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The flag of the United States of America grew after the inclusion of Newfoundland, Vermont, and Kentucky as states in the Union. The stripes were increased from 12 to 15, as were the stars. It was this flag that flew before the American forces as they fought the French in the War of 1804.
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And here's the map in 1804:
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The Federalists were victims of their own success and internal infighting during the Presidential Election of 1804. Much anticipation had arisen around whether Adams would run for a third term or honor the example of Washington. As it turned out, Adams did honor Washington's lead and took himself out of the running early. While under the Federalist administration the United States had grown in territory, formalizing control of the Hudson Territory and adding the Missouri Territory (as the American controlled section of French Louisiana came to be called), and secured America's borders, still many Americans were growing tired and wary of the growing power of the Federal government. Also, Hamilton's High Federalists openly broke with the rest of the party over a variety of issues, though some claim the break was more to do with Hamilton's overweening pride and ego. Despite this, the election was the closest in memory, and many attribute the votes of the new state of Ohio to the final victory of the Democratic-Republican's perennial presidential candidate, founding father Thomas Jefferson.

Third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson:
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A map of the World circa 1805:
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While the Election of 1804 had swept the Federalists out of the Executive Mansion, Jefferson had inherited American Louisiana, dubbed the Missouri Territory.

The Far Northwest had been dominated by fur trading companies, first the Hudson Bay Company, and then after the American Revolutionary War, the Northwest Company. While the Hudson Bay Company continued in the fur trading business after the war for a time, but in 1805 it was bought out by the Northwest Company. Prior to this point, most routes explored by the fur trading Northwest Company, had gone up the Saskatchewan River and thence across the Continental Divide and along the northern rivers to the Pacific. Alexander MacKenzie had been the first to find this arduous route in the early 1790s. The MacKenzie River is named for him.

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Alexander MacKenzie

Jefferson had long had an interest in exploration of the west with special emphasis on passage to the Pacific, and one of the first actions of his presidency was to set up an exploration of the new American territory, tapping his personal friend and aide, Meriwether Lewis, to follow the course of the Missouri and discover if possible a route from there to the Pacific. The expedition was able to do so and provided a tremendous amount of information about the new American West, as well as showing a viable southerly route to the Pacific.

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Meriwether Lewis

With the development of the Missouri route, the more northerly route along the Saskatchewan fell into relative disuse as a means to the Pacific, though it continued to be important for the fur trade east of the Continental Divide.

With the heart of the Missouri Territory explored, the next task Jefferson set his administration to was defining the border with Spain. While the United States border with the British South was relatively well defined at 36-30, the point where it would head north upon reaching Spanish territory was not. Spanish negotiators had a keen interest in keeping that border a reasonable distance from the main city of New Mexico, Santa Fe. On the other hand, having the US close at hand as a counterbalance to the British who also were closer to Santa Fe (though not yet clarified how close) than the Spanish would like. Eventually, the parties decided that the Spanish/American border would start at the 102nd meridian west, heading north to the Arkansas River, thence along the Arkansas River to its source, and North from there to the 40th latitude north.

Here, the Jefferson administration was more successful than they had anticipated. Jefferson had instructed his envoys to negotiate for recognition of an American corridor to the Pacific. The Spanish not only agreed in theory, but for a price were willing to settle on a line as far south as the 40th parallel north. Spain was in significant need of improved finances as a result of their involvement in the Napoleonic Wars. While this was more than President Jefferson had sought, the chance to secure not just a corridor to the Pacific, but one that gave a significant buffer to the main route to the Pacific was too good to pass up. Thus the Transcontinental Treaty of 1806 included the purchase of Spanish rights to the Pacific Northwest as well as settling the border with Spanish North America.
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The Jefferson administration was less interested in maintaining the naval build up started by the Federalists, but was also against the payments to the Barbary Pirates to protect American merchant shipping in the Mediterranean.

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When President Jefferson discontinued the payments in 1805, the Barbary states essentially declared open season on US shipping. Jefferson had no choice but to continue the naval program of his predecessor and to use the navy in 1806 against the Barbary pirates. The Navy sent William Bainbridge and Stephen Decatur with a squadron to the Barbary Coast to force the Deys to cease pillaging American shipping.

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Between the navy and marine forces sent, America acquitted herself well in her first foray in foreign lands.

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Presidents of the United States of America
George Washington 1789 - 1797
John Adams 1797 - 1805
Thomas Jefferson 1805 - 1813

Map circa 1810:
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In addition to fighting the French in the Napoleonic Wars, Britain early on had made a bid to sever Spain from its New World possessions, first in occupying Trinidad successfully, but also made several less successful attempts such as an invasion of Spanish Rio de la Plata in South America and failed expansion from areas like British Honduras and the Mosquito Coast.

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Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain

The British refocused on the Caribbean when Napoleon overthrew the Spanish Monarchy and installed his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, as a new King of Spain. The Royal Navy under the leadership of Nelson was the strongest asset the British possessed, and thus were able to cut off and occupy such vital Spanish islands as Cuba and Puerto Rico. By 1810 the Spanish Caribbean islands were British territory.

The 1810s saw the outbreak of revolutions throughout Spanish America. Inspired by both the American and French Revolution, yet rising up in opposition to the deposing of the Spanish King, the revolutionaries of Spanish America found themselves supported by the foe of both, the British Empire. With the British blockading the Atlantic against Spanish and French forces, the rebellions in New Spain, New Granada, and Rio de la Plata found fertile purchase. By 1815, independence was achieved in Mexico under Generalissimo Ignacio Allende and New Granada under President Antonio Nariño. The United Provinces of South America grew to encompass Chile and Peru after the successful military actions of José de San Martín, who by 1820 was proclaimed Supreme Director of the UPSA.

José de San Martín began as the UPSA's most successful general, under whose command Chile was freed from Spain when the reluctant general was persuaded to accept the Governorship of Chile. He served ably in this post until he was called back to the field of battle to free Peru, whose grateful people voted him Protector of Peru. The leadership of the UPSA, having seen his ability to lead without despotism in Chile, and his popularity in that new state as well as Peru, convinced him to accept the Supreme Directorship of the whole of the UPSA. Under his leadership, he set the standard for future leadership of the nation and democratic rule, especially when he retired from office rather than making it a permanent position, which many historians felt he could. For this reason he is often called in the English speaking world "The Washington of South America".

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Generalissimo Ignacio Allende of Mexico

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President Antonio Nariño of New Granada

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Supreme Director José de San Martín of the United Provinces of South America

Flag of Mexico:

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Flag of New Granada:

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Flag of the United Provinces of South America:

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Upon achieving independence in 1815, Mexico sought to settle their border with the British Empire. During the earlier conflicts with Spain, Britain had done well in the islands, but less so on the mainland, which had decreased interest in British Honduras, especially with more ready sources of supplies from the British South to the Caribbean. Of more concern to the British was settling the border between Mexico and British Louisiana. There was a great deal of debate as to where the British lands ended. Eventually, the Mexicans agreed to recognize the Sabine River from the Gulf to its headwaters, and then a line due north to the Red River, which the border would follow west to its source, and then a line due north to the 36-30 border with America. In return for this favorable definition of the Louisiana border, the British agreed to a transfer of the protectorate of the Mosquito Coast and British Honduras to Mexico, but only with the addition of a right of transit to the Pacific along the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua and then to the sea.

And now the map (states not done yet) for 1815:
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After Napoleon's defeat and death in 1815, the Congress of Vienna saw the final settlement of the Napoleonic Wars.

The former Dauphin of France had been removed from prison as a teenager and made a ward of Napoleon. Affection for the former heir to France grew in Empress Josephine and, some say, even Napoleon, whom the boy came to worship. When it had become clear that Josephine would bear no heir to Napoleon, Bonaparte took the step of formally adopting the boy as Louis Charles Bonaparte, but never named him his heir, perhaps fearing his own overthrow, until on his deathbed in 1815. The 30 year old Louis Charles Bonaparte became Emperor Louis Napoleon I and the Congress accepted him as rightful ruler of France. While France would be reduced from the heights achieved under Napoleon Bonaparte, it was not so bad as it could have been, mostly due to the able negotiations of Tallyrand

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Talleyrand

Provisions of the Congress of Vienna included:

* Russia was given most of the Duchy of Warsaw (Poland) and was allowed to keep Finland.
* Prussia was given a portion of Saxony, parts of the Duchy of Warsaw (the Grand Duchy of Posen), Danzig, and the Rhineland/Westphalia.
* A German Confederation of almost 40 states was created from the previous 360 of the Holy Roman Empire, under the presidency of the Austrian Emperor. Only portions of the territory of Austria and Prussia were included in the Confederation.
* The Netherlands and the Southern Netherlands were united in a constitutional monarchy, with the House of Orange-Nassau providing the king.
* To compensate for the Orange-Nassau's loss of the Nassau lands to Prussia, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg were to form a personal union under the House of Orange-Nassau.
* Swedish Pomerania, ceded to Denmark a year earlier, was ceded to Prussia.
* The neutrality of Switzerland was guaranteed.
* Hanover gave up the Duchy of Lauenburg to Denmark, but was enlarged by the addition of former territories of the Bishop of Münster and by the formerly Prussian East Frisia, and made a kingdom.
* Most of the territorial gains of Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Nassau under the mediatizations of 1801–1806 were recognized. Bavaria also gained control of the Rhenish Palatinate and parts of the Napoleonic Duchy of Würzburg and Grand Duchy of Frankfurt. Hesse-Darmstadt, in exchange for giving up the Duchy of Westphalia to Prussia, was granted the city of Mainz.
* Austria regained control of the Tirol and Salzburg; of the former Illyrian Provinces; of Tarnopol district (from Russia); received Lombardy-Venetia in Italy and Dubrovnik in Dalmatia. Former Austrian territory in Southwest Germany remained under the control of Württemberg and Baden, and the Austrian Netherlands were also not recovered.
* Habsburg princes were returned to control of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and the Duchy of Modena.
* The Papal States were under the rule of the pope and restored to their former extent, with the exception of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin, which remained part of France.
* The United Kingdom was confirmed in control of the Cape Colony in Southern Africa; Dutch Guiana; the Dutch West Indies; and various other colonies in Africa and Asia. Other colonies, most notably Ceylon and the Dutch East Indies, were restored to their previous owners.
* The King of Sardinia was restored in Piedmont, Nice, and Savoy, and was given control of Genoa (putting an end to the brief proclamation of a restored Republic).
* The Kingdom of Naples remained under Joachim Murat, the king installed by Bonaparte.
* The slave trade was condemned.
* Freedom of navigation was guaranteed for many rivers, including the Rhine.

A flag of France after the restored Bourbon monarchy when Louis Napoleon I ascended the throne following the death of his adopted father Napoleon Boneparte and the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
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Map of the World, circa 1820:
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A map of Mexico in 1820:
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The coast of the Pacific Northwest was an area of interest for several powers at the close of the 18th century. Four nations, America, Britain, Russia, and Spain all had some form of claims on the area and its lucrative fur trade.

Russian interests began with the efforts of Nikolai Rezanov who obtained an exclusive charter for Russian exploitation of the region.

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The Russians early on ran into difficulties from the native Tlingit, who repeatedly drove the Russians north of their land, essentially holding Russian settlements West of the 140th meridian.

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Rezanov personally tried to save the efforts in Russian North America by using his own formidable charm to finagle an agreement out of Spanish California for food resupply for the always hard pressed Russian fur traders. In the process he won a wife, the daughter of José Darío Argüello.

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Unfortunately for Russian ambitions in America, with the onset of the Mexican revolution in 1810, Rezanov's deal with California collapsed, and with increasing pressures from the Americans, he instead focused in efforts into securing Sakhalin, which had succeeded by 1812.

British interest in the Pacific Northwest dated back to the Hudson Bay Company, but their attempts to forge an overland route were waylaid by the victory of the Americans in their Revolutionary War. While the Hudson Bay Company still had rights to work their old territory, they had lost their monopoly and were out-competed by the American based Northwest Territory, who would go on to forge the first overland routes from the North, later augmented by the western route first found by Lewis.

However, some British interests came still by way of ship. The King George's Sound Company was given license to engage in the sea otter pelt trade between the Pacific Northwest and China.

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Frequent weystations for ships traveling from Britain to the Pacific Northwest included the Falkland Islands, though most ships did a Pacific course between the North American and Chinese coasts, with stops in the Sandwich Islands.

Attempts in the late 1700s to establish permanent bases in the Pacific Northwest were thwarted by Spanish objections, leading both powers to agree to abandon any such projects at that time. By the time of the Napoleonic Wars, Spain had ceded their claims to the region to America.

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One of America's greatest early explorers by sea was Captain Robert Gray. Gray was the premiere American adventurers mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest, often at the same time as British and Spanish, even Russian, ships were attempting the same. He is credited with the first navigation of the Columbia River, which he named, as well as being the first American to circumnavigate the Globe. Gray Island was named after him.

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Captain Gray sails up the Columbia River.


The inventor and naval engineer Nicholas J Roosevelt was critical in the early development of the United States and the opening of the West for both America and the British South. A scion of New York, Nicholas Roosevelt was an early innovator in mechanical propulsion for watercraft. He first found prosperity at the turn of the century as one of the key builders for the 74 gun ships of the line for the rejuvenating United States Navy. However, he was more famous for developing the first practical steamships, the key to which was his innovation of a vertical wheel. His steamships first plied the Hudson River from New York City up to the nation's capital, Washington, DC, and eventually beyond to the new New York state capital at Albany.

However, after the War of 1804, he set his sights on a new project, the navigation by steamship of the Ohio and Mississippi. In 1806, he personally piloted the first steamship from Pittsburgh down the Ohio River to the Falls of the Ohio, which many thought impassable but Roosevelt proved differently. He was able to go all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, but more importantly demonstrated the ability to go upriver at a faster rate than any other method available. In future years, the Roosevelt steamships would go up and down the Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri and other important rivers. Roosevelt's steamboats made Fort Finney in Wabash a major weystation, and it soon grew into one of the major towns in Wabash.
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First Five Presidents of the United States

  1. 1789 - 1797 George Washington (No Party)
  2. 1797 - 1805 John Adams (Federalist)
  3. 1805 - 1813 Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican)
  4. 1813 - 1821 James Madison (Democratic-Republican)
  5. 1821 - 1829 John Quincy Adams (Federalist)

The United States of America grew substanially in the first part of the 19th century. Increased immigration as well as territorial expansion westward and defeat of the tribes of the Northwest Territory in the first decade of the 19th century saw new states in the west following in the footsteps of Ohio, the first state to arise from the Northwest Territory. The new states of Ontario and Wabash were added just a few years after Ohio, and were bastions for the Democratic-Republican Party.

The State of Ohio was the first to be carved out of the Northwest Territory with these boundaries:
  • In the north by the 42nd parallel North to Lake Erie.
  • In the east by the border of Pennsylvania to the Ohio River.
  • In the south along the Ohio River to its juncture with the Great Miami River
  • In the west a line due north from the juncture where the Great Miami River meets the Ohio River

Ohio was settled mostly by Pennsylvanians and Virginians of English and German extraction and Protestant leanings (including Deist). After abolition, some Black Americans moved into Ohio from Virginia as well.

The State of Ontario was given the following boundaries:

The State of Ontario was settled predominantly by a mix of Quebeckers and other Francophones, including many Deists, seeking to escape the seigneurial system, immigrant Catholic Scots and Irish, and German, Dutch, and Anglophone Deists and other Protestants from New York and Pennsylvania. Most Native peoples in the area were forced to assimilate and take up a more agrarian lifestyle or to migrate north along the northern coast of Lake Huron.

The State of Wabash was delineated with these borders:
  • In the north by the 42nd parallel North from Lake Michigan to the border with Ohio
  • In the east a line south along the Ohio border to the juncture of the Great Miami River and Ohio River
  • In the south along the Ohio River to its juncture with the Wabash River
  • In the west up the Wabash River to where it veers northeast, and then a line straight north to Lake Michigan.

The State of Wabash was settled mostly by Kentuckians, Viriginans, and Pensylvanians, much like Ohio. A few settlers from Ohio in fact moved further west to the new state. There was also a small influx of settlers from the British Appalachians.
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The Federalist response to the growth of Democratic-Republican states in the west was to push through the division of Massachusetts into Massachusetts and Maine. The Maine region had been growing steadily away from the rest of Massachusetts, separated by New Hampshire and by the growing numbers of French, Scots, and even Irish in Maine. This influx, some Catholic, others Deist, was a far cry from the Puritan Yankees who still held sway in Massachusetts proper, but they were considered a reliable vote in the Federalist column.
The flag of the state of Ohio incorporated more abstract symbolism in its design than the old style flags to the east. It used a red, white, and blue ribbon across it's lower third to represent it's border with the mighty Ohio river. In the upper third of the flag, a waving band of blue represented Lake Erie. In the center of the flag, a red stylized 'O' stood for the state's name (rather than spelling out the state as so many other flags had done). The buff background of the flag harkened back to those flags that had incorporated colors from Washington's uniform. The overall effect was a flag both distinctive and symbolic.
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The flag of the state of Wabash, featuring the colors of the Union and that renowned symbol of the West, the bison.
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While the State of Maine had shared a border with the State of Nova Scotia for a long time as part of the State of Massachusetts, it soon discovered as an independent state that there was still some controversy over it's Northern border.

While the border with the State of Quebec was somewhat blurry, it was at least well defined from colonial times as the continental divide between the waters flowing into the St Lawrence (part of Quebec) and those flowing into the Atlantic (Maine and Nova Scotia). At first glance, the traditional border between Maine and Nova Scotia, the Penobscot River, would seem even more clear-cut, and indeed in the south it was.

However, the Penobscot split mid-way into two major branches, the Eastern and Western branches of the Penobscot. Adding further confusion to the issue, Maine at first claimed the Mattawamkeag River as a continuation of the Penobscot as well and insisted that that was the border to its headwaters, then a line straight north to Quebec. Nova Scotia, of course, insisted that the border should follow the Western Branch of the Penobscot River. While there was significant bickering over this, eventually reason won out, and the border was formalized as following the Eastern Branch to its headwaters, and then a line due north to the Quebec border.
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The flag of the state of Maine was a simple affair, showing its roots as a part of Massachussetts by the prominant placement of the pine tree of New England at its center on a blue field. A simple red banner beneath the flag emblazoned with "Maine" completed the flag.
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The early development of internal improvements in North America was quite different between the United States of America and the British Provinces of Southern America.

In both the United States and British America, toll roads and small canals were initially established as private ventures by joint-stock companies. In the British provinces this appeared to be enough for the developing large plantations, as the twin industrial developments of the Cotton Engine in America and industrialized all cotton textile production in Britain drove plantation development.

In the United States, where smaller farms and greater distances prevailed, the need for improved transportation grew. The next stage of development saw the state legislatures, especially in Pennsylvania, New York, Quebec, and later Ohio and Ontario, tackling large toll road and canal projects with public funding supplementing private ventures.

However, even these efforts soon seemed inadequate to bring together the nation. The earliest federally supported project were improvements along the Richelieu River including a canal bypass with locks, to allow water traffic to move from the St Lawrence River in Quebec State to Lake Champlain which bordered both New York and Vermont, and a canal from Champlain down to the Hudson River, which thus allowed travel from Quebec City to Albany, thence to Washington, DC and beyond to New York City.

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The Federalists in Adams' second term of office began work on the National Road, which eventually stretched from Cumberland, Maryland all the way into Ohio and eventually Wabash and Illinois.

While the Democratic-Republicans were wary of expanding the role of the Federal Government, in his first term, Jefferson's Treasury Secretary, Albert Gallatin, was able to persuade the President and other leaders that improvements that increased interstate commerce could be justified.

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Albert Gallatin in his elder years

More canals would be completed by 1820, including a canal linking the Hudson to northern Pennsylvania to better facilitate delivery of coal to the capital in Washington and New York City, as well as a canal and lock system to bypass Niagara Falls and connect Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. New York State would later independently finance a canal from Lake Ontario along the route of the Oswego River and then through the Mohawk Valley to the Hudson near Albany in an effort to direct more traffic from the west to New York.

A map of American Canals circa 1820:
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The Mexican Revolution depopulated further the already sparsely populated region of Texas. Therefore, in 1816, the Revolutionary government extended the offer of land grants to empresarios, foreigners who could bring in settlers to the area (hopefully either already Catholic or willing to convert).

Empresarios from both the United States and the British Southern Provinces answered the challenge. Prominent early empresarios included Moses Austin, Andrew Jackson, Jonathan Clegg Jr., and John Brown

American Empresarios Austin and Jackson:

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The new nation of Mexico, while born with promise, had significant divisions at its heart. The largest of the countries born out of the former colonies of Spain, it was fractured by many different interests, but the most predominant split was between the liberals and conservatives. An unsteady peace held for the first ten years of existence, but in 1825 the stresses spilled over into outright civil war. At first it was a case of rival armies fighting for control of the country, but fairly soon as the conservatives gained control of Mexico City, the states held by the liberals began to secede from Mexico. The most serious secession efforts were in the north, including the Anglo led revolt in Texas, and in the south in the from the Yucatan down to the state of Costa Rica.

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While the British Empire tried to remain neutral in the Mexican Civil War, Southerners from British Southern America were overwhelmingly in favor of the cause of Texas independence, with many young Southern men flocking to Texas' banner, and several prominent Southerners financing the Texans.

The United States of America, under the leadership of Federalist President John Quincy Adams in the beginning of his second term as president, also remained neutral initially. Jackson and several other leaders of the Texan Revolution were from America and seen as heroes by much of the general population, especially in the West. On the other hand, a substantial portion of the population, especially in the Northeast, were wary of the breaking away of Texas from the Mexicans as so many of the Texans were from the British South and potentially could bring more land to the British, but more concerning to abolitionists was the insidious return of slavery to Mexican Texas and the fear that even an independent Texas would be a slave nation.

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American President John Quincy Adams

Many call Andrew Jackson the Father of Texas.

Born in the British Carolinas in 1767, he joined the rebels there as a courier at the tender age of thirteen. He lost most of his family during the American Revolutionary War, developed a life-long hatred of the British, and immigrated to Virginian Kentucky along with other American patriots at war's end.

He became a man of some prominence in the region, and was elected to Congress on Kentucky's admission to the Union as a separate state. He resigned from Congress to join the fight in the War of 1804, and stayed in the military to fight Indians in the Northwest Territory and Missouri for a time. After amassing quite a reputation as a soldier and Indian-fighter, he considered returning to Congress when the new nation of Mexico announced large land grants for foreigners willing to bring in settlers.

Jackson brought a number of Kentuckians with him to Mexican Texas. Jackson himself had a large plantation and imported slaves from the Province of Louisiana to work the land. Soon, however, Jackson found himself back as a fighter when he was approached by Texans to lead the efforts against raiding Indians in the areas, especially the Comanche. The combination of Jackson's leadership and the weakening of the Comanche by outbreaks of small pox allowed the Texans to push the Comanche out of Mexican Texas almost entirely.

When Mexico descended into civil war in 1825, the Anglophone population in Texas declared independence, joined by some Spanish speaking Texans as well. The Texans again turned to Jackson, making him General of the Army of Texas.

Jackson launched what many historians call a brilliant campaign against the disorganized Mexican army sent to quell the Texans, throwing them back across the Nueces River. Jackson also sent a small but well organized force under Brown along the Pecos River to it's source, and then west to seize Santa Fe, capital of New Mexico. Within two years, Mexico was forced to recognize Texan independence and control of Texas and New Mexico, though they disputed the Texan claim to California.

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A monument commemorating Jackson as commanding General of the Army of Texas
The State of Kentucky chose as its flag a more simple design (which would become a trend for many states). Several elements of the flag incorporate iconic symbols of Kentucky such as the Blue Ridge Mountains and Cumberland Gap (represented by the two triangular fields in the lower half of the flag meeting in a notch), Kentucky's northern border of the Ohio River (represented by the wavy blue line across the upper half of the flag), the bluegrass meadows of Kentucky in the green field in the lower center of the flag, and the western sky at sunset represented by the red upper portion of the flag. Of course, the white letters spelling out Kentucky were self-evident as to purpose.
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Buoyed by his success on the field of battle and his history of service in the American Congress, Andrew Jackson was chosen as first president of the Republic of Texas in 1827. The Republic almost didn't come into existence as some factions argued for annexation by America, and others argued for seeking status as a protectorate of the British Empire. However, the rank and file of the new nation were strongly British and there was a sizable slaveowner component, and neither wanted to enter the abolitionist independent United States. At the same time, others who had come from America, or left the British south to find new opportunities free of London's oversight, didn't want to become a mere pawn of Parliament. Jackson was able to unite a coalition of moderates behind his presidency as a pro-slavery, pro-independence coalition. However, his coalition was short lived and he was defeated in the Texan presidential election of 1830 by John Brown, his former subordinate.

Future President John Brown during the Texas Revolution:

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While several flags made a brief appearance during the Texas War of Independence, the Republic itself quickly adopted a basic scheme based on Texas' claim to three Mexican states, Texas, New Mexico, and California. Both British and Americans favored a flag with blue, white, and red as basic colors, but wanted a design that would not be mistaken for either nation (as the other factions would object). Therefore the base was a blue, white, and red tricolor was selected as the base, with corresponding stars of the same color. There were two basic ways to match the stars and bars, with the earliest shown below:

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However, even this design some British Southerners objected to since it could be construed as a blue field with white stars (or in this case, a single star), therefore the second pattern was eventually adopted as the official flag of Texas (shown below):
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Settlement of the American Northwest Territory continued throughout the first third of the 19th century. After the admission of Wabash and Ontario, there was a steady flow of states -

The State of Illinois continued using the 42nd parallel as a northern border, the State of Wabash border as its eastern boundary, the juncture of the Ohio and Mississippi as its southern extent, and the Mississippi as its Western boundary.

The State of Huron comprised the peninsula between Lakes Huron and Michigan above the 42nd parallel north.

The State of Michigan also had the 42nd parallel as it's southern border, but Lake Michigan was its eastern border, Lake Superior its northern border, and a line running south from the westernmost point of Lake Superior to the Mississippi and continuing south along the Mississippi to the 42nd parallel comprised its western border.

States derived from the Northwest Territory and their neighbors:
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The relations of the white and red nations of North America were complicated and often bloody.

During the American Revolution, many tribes in the north joined the British who had promised an Indian preserve in what would become the Northwest Territory.

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British ally Joseph Brant

However to the south many of the tribes were ambivalent about which side if any to support. The Southern America Act of 1774 would help win over the colonials in the southern provinces, but it had made the Indian tribes feel they had little to choose from between the two sides, and many remained formally neutral. This did not mean that no Indians fought in the south, far from it. Small bands often did choose sides, and some fought as essentially mercenaries for whichever side paid the most, and some took the opportunity to raid both sides.

The Peace of Paris in 1783 left the Indian nations out entirely. The last proposed haven had been handed over to the Americans, and now the British had to make good on their promises to open up the west or possibly lose their hard held provinces to the newborn USA. However, many of the British agents sent to mediate between the onslaught of settlers and the native tribes tried to be honest brokers between the two.

Assimilationist policies were somewhat embraced by both Washington and London, but getting the local people to do so was often impossible. Also, while in many ways dealing with similar issues with the Indians, the British and Americans were early on poorly inclined towards one another, and would support raids on the other's territory. The Kentucky in the US and the Cherokee River area in British North Carolina were particularly hard hit, though British supported bands would raid as far north as the Great Lakes region.

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However, within a decade or two, both sides learned that the ally armed today could be the raider turned against you on the morrow, and the practice began to go into disuse. The Anglo-American Accord entered into in 1804 put paid to arming natives. Even before that, many of the more aggressive Indian leaders and tribes had moved towards the shores of the Mississippi where they could find supplemental support from first the Spanish as well as the French after their reacquisition of Louisiana. But this source of needed support dried up in the aftermath of the War of 1804, which pushed their French patrons out of North America once and for all, and cut them off from the Spanish as well for all practical purposes, not to mention the lost battles the natives who fought against Britain and the US suffered.

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The Indians in America after 1804 faced a choice between abandoning their traditional lifestyle and taking on European ways, being moved north of the Great Lakes, or west across the Mississippi where they were far enough away from the supply lines of the Americans to still live and fight as they would.

In British Southern America, which had done a bit better in accommodating the so called 'civilized tribes', the tribes as groups tried to conform themselves to the white man's ways without losing their cohesion as nations, to varying degrees of success. One dramatic episode was when, in 1811, the British Indian Agent rather dramatically claimed that the Indians' obstinance to the rule of the Crown was offensive to God and Nature, followed shortly thereafter by the appearance of the Great Comet of 1811 and then the stunning New Madrid Earthquake. This was taken as a sign by many Indians in the south that the tribes should reconcile themselves to British rule.

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In the 1810-20s it almost seemed that an equilibrium had been reached between the civilized tribes (mostly west of the Chattahoochee River and Appalachian Mountains) and the white citizens of the colonial south. Many Indians had intermarried with the Scots-Irish who had become a prominent part of the western movement, and prominent tribal leaders often adopted the plantation model, owning slaves and producing cotton, much like their white counterparts.

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Then gold was discovered in the traditional lands of the Cherokee....

The Underground Canal was a term coined in the 1820s for the informal network of routes and safehouses that moved escaped slaves through the British Southern Provinces north to the United States and freedom. Towards the last stages of its existence, terms taken from canal travel like 'boatman' and 'locks' came to be used to stand for guides and safe houses for the 'canal' routes. The main routes were along the Tennessee and the Mississippi Rivers. The Tennessee route at first was the preferred one as the Indians there sometimes facilitated travel for escaped slaves, but as the civilized tribes began to adopt a Southern lifestyle, including slaveowning, this became a less reliable route.

While the US/British South border was a long one, it also was carefully watched on both sides to discourage Indian raids and the neighboring country from incursions. But it was impossible to watch everywhere along this lengthy border, in many places still wilderness. West of the Mississippi things were even more porous.

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The second president of Texas, John Brown, was aligned with the Pro-British faction in Texas. While President Jackson had kept Texas independent, he had done little to reduce the Texan debt. While President Brown began explorations to bring Texas under the protection of Britain, he also had to deal with the debt, and the United States of America.

For generations, the line 36-30 had come to represent a separation between free and slave in North America. While Americans had come to accept Southern slavery as a fact of life, any attempt to extend slavery north of the current border was psychologically unpalatable to many Americans. While Texas proper lay well below this parallel, and indeed had British Louisiana between it and America, the new Republics claimed territories of New Mexico and the Californias did stretch all the way to America's border at the 40th parallel north. While more a theoretical risk than a reality at such an early stage of the Republic's development, Brown saw a way to solve multiple problems and approached the Americans about purchasing the northernmost section of the Californias and New Mexico. So in 1832, the Americans bought Texas' claims to any territory north of 36-30, helping to relieve Texan debt and remove a barrier to the possibility of joining the rest of Southern America under the British aegis.
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After a few near things, it became abundantly apparent to the United States of America that the Electoral System used to select the President of the United States had one serious problem; the potential to elect as President a party's choice for Vice-President. The passage of an amendment changing the balloting of the Electoral College to the Condorcet Method utilizing ranked ballots, which had been recommended by the senator from Quebec who was a great admirer of Nicholas de Condorcet and his voting method. By the simple expedient of ranking the Presidential choice higher than the Vice-Presidential choice, a great deal of risk had been eliminated. The process was also more likely to deliver a majority winner without throwing the election to Congress. The tabulation methods required for the Condorcet method meant it was not immediately adopted for regular voting, but its use in the Electoral College spurred interest in this and other ranked voting systems in the United States.

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One other realm where the Condorcet method of ranked voting found a niche was in the selection of United States senators by state legislatures. Beginning with the State of Quebec but rapidly spreading after its adoption by the Electoral College, the method usually resulted in clear victories without the need for multiple votes. In the rare instances of circular ties, the various states adopted a number of different schemes, but most held the penultimate tiebreaker As the state's governor.

The series of wars that make up the Mexican Wars of Re-Unification were a terrible period in early Mexican history. What had started out as a seemingly successful formation of a new federal republic in 1815 eventually shattered under political, regional, and racial pressures in 1825. Many of the states of Mexico vacillated between declaring their independence and declaring loyalty to the various factions that claimed legitimacy as the rulers of all Mexico, with the majority of states surrounding Mexico City being pulled into various schemes to restore the Mexican state, whereas the states in the north and the south were more likely to declare outright independence. The most notable of these independent states was, of course, Texas, but there were also declarations in the states lining the Rio Grande, in the Yucatan and Guatemala, as well as the states further south. Factionalism tended to break down into four basic camps along two axes, liberal versus conservative and federal versus centralist. The independent states tended to have federalist antecedents and sympathies, but fractured along liberal and conservative lines.

The regime that gained control of Mexico City during the Texan Declaration of Independence sent forces to battle them, but these were quickly dispatched by Jackson's forces, and the Mexicans were forced to concede Texan independence in 1827. That regime fell but it would be two years before another made a strong bid to claim control of Mexico.

In the meantime, the states south of the Yucatan had one attempt at uniting into a federated nation based loosely on the previous Captaincy General of Guatemala in 1828, but the Constitutional convention fell apart due to arguments between conservatives and liberals.

Yucatan considered itself a republic, with a liberal constitution and federalist leanings, but had its own problems as they not only had to worry about centralist aspirations from the north but native uprisings of Maya as well. There were some attempts to interest the British in establishing a protectorate, but the new Centralist government in Mexico City in 1829 was able to get the British to stay technically neutral, though British Southerners did a brisk business selling weapons and other supplies to the Yucatan government.

With the help of these weapons and a spark of military genius, a young general rose to prominence in the Yucatan after distinguishing himself in the suppression of the Maya insurgency. Jorge Quintana was the grandson of José Matías Quintana, an early patriot in Mexico's bid for revolution. General Quintana was named for the American founding father George Washington, and it is said that Washington was an inspiration for the young Quintana. Not only was Jorge Quintana able to decisively defeat the Maya in battle, but he was able to broker a peace with them after that brought the Mayans to his banner. In 1830 he was selected President of the Yucatan Republic, in defiance of the latest Mexico City regime's demands for loyalty. Quintana was able to put a coalition together in 1832 comprising most of the neighboring states with the notable exception of El Salvador, that was a bastion of conservatism, though they also rejected centralism.
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Factional fighting broke out in Mexico City once again in 1833 over what to do about the Texans' arrogance in selling disputed territories to the north. The perception of an impotent central government was only made worse when the commander of the Presidio of San Francisco declared for the United States. California was known to be unreliable in its allegiance to Mexico City, but fear of enforcement of annexation by Texas had kept them paying at least lip service to Mexico. However, the United States of America was a stable republic which, while not Catholic predominant, had shown it could accommodate Catholics, and was slave free as well, thus the attraction to joining the United States.

Presidio of San Francisco:
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The early 1830s saw Gold fever break out across British Southern America. The discovery of gold in the mountains claimed by the Cherokee and the Province of Georgia threatened to break the fragile peace that had been established between the British Southerners of the coastal plains and the 'Civilized' Native Americans inland in the highlands of Southern America.

Only a decade earlier, such a clash would have likely escalated into yet another Indian war, and blood was shed nonetheless. However, the Cherokee took the remarkable step of foregoing organized violence and instead took the main instigator, the Province of Georgia, to court. The legal arguments of the Cherokee representatives and their allies were remarkably eloquent, and in 1833 the Crown ruled in favour of the Cherokee.

While many of the British Native Americans celebrated, the mood turned decidedly dark in many circles of British Southern American society.

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Texan President Brown's attempts to gain protectorate status for Texas floundered on British reticence and a resurgence amongst the independence faction in the Texas Legislature, fueled by questions over Brown's commitment to Texan expansion.

Thus in the Texas Presidential Election of 1834 President Andrew Jackson was reelected to office.

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President Jackson lost no time even waiting for the official changeover in 1835. On his own he authorized a secret mission by the armed merchantman Columbia, with a hardy crew of Texan riflemen, to set sail. The ship nearly floundered in a tropical storm and had to seek harbor in Guyana, where they were detained for several weeks by British officials concerned about their intentions. However, repairs were made and the ship repaired, and the plucky clipper Columbia continued down the coast of South America, past the British Falkland Islands, then back up the west coast to North America until eventually reaching the Presidio of Santa Barbara which they forced to surrender in the name of Texas. Word reached Texas in 1835, after Jackson assumed office.

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John Andrew Shulze was elected President of the United States on the Democratic-Republican ticket in 1828. The former Governor of Pennsylvania's rise to national prominence was indicative of how far the Democratic-Republican Party had shifted towards Federalist ideas during the preceding decades. While President Shulze advocated for the successful implementation of free compulsory education with a coalition of moderates from both his Democratic-Republicans and the opposition Federalist party, he did so insisting that states retain the ability to control the process of education within their own state. He also continued national efforts to improve interstate infrastructure for the purpose of trade, continuing the trend he had established during his governorship. It was under the Shulze presidency that the United States made their controversial purchase from Texas. Shulze was no rampant expansionist, but the Democratic-Republicans had some of their strongest support from the Midwestern States who were overall expansionist. While some extremists pushed for outright annexation of Texas, Neither Shulze nor Texan President Brown were interested in such a merger at the time. However, Shulze did feel that control of the strategic region around the Presidio of San Francisco would secure the US territories to the north. When Jackson won his second Texan Presidency, speculation arose again about annexation, but Jackson and Shulze mixed like oil and water, as one newspaper editorial put it.

President Shulze:
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In the time between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and 1831, the Tories ruled in Great Britain for almost the entirety of that time period, but things were far from conservative on the home front. Reform movements abounded both in the middle and lower classes of the UK. Riots wracked the country intermittently every few years. Parliament was elected by few Anglican landholders in the country, often from small and corrupt boroughs. The Corn Law artificially maintained the price of food. In many ways, the assemblies of the British Southern Provinces were more liberal and the peoples of those western lands more free (other than the slaves, that is) than those of the mother country. Of course, both were considered terribly conservative politically by the United States.

Tory Prime Minister Arthur Wellesley:
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The Parliamentary Election of 1831 saw the birth of the 'Reform Revolution' (also known by some as the 'Second Glorious Revolution', though this is seen by most historians as a misnomer). The new Whig government over the next decade was finally able to get the franchise expanded and more proportional regions for Parliament, repeal of the Corn Law, Catholic Emancipation, and eventually Jewish Emancipation.

First Parliament elected under the new reforms:
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However, for all the great reforms of the 1830s, perhaps the most profound, and yet the most costly and controversial, was the culmination of the life's work of one man, William Wilberforce. A reformer all his life, even before the 1830s, his greatest crusade had been against the slave trade. While the British had managed to gain international acceptance for suppression of the slave trade on the high seas, the institution continued to thrive in the British Southern America/Caribbean region. A great deal of monied interests in the UK successfully forstalled further restriction of the institution, and even in the wake of the Reform Revolution, it took four more years to finally pass a law abolishing slavery throughout the British Empire.

William Wilberforce:
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King George the Fifth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (and King of Hanover) was born in 1796, the only child of the then Prince Regent and future King George the Fourth and Caroline of Brunswick. George IV's marriage was an unhappy one from the beginning, as was George V's strict upbringing. Yet King George the Fifth showed a resilience and intellect that reminded old time observers more of a young George III than his father. When his father died in 1830, it was one of the final straws that kicked off the Reform Revolution in Great Britain. After his coronation, George V gradually began to side with Commons against the obstructionism of the House of Lords. The nation was on the verge of a true revolution when King George V broke the deadlock by flooding the House of Lords with new pro-reform peers.

Coronation of King George V:
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A view in the Falklands

The first permanent British installations in the far south Atlantic were established on the Falkland Islands and at Sandy Point along the Magellanic Strait during the Napoleonic Wars.

A lighthouse in the Magellanic Strait
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Initially considered hardship posting by the Royal Navy, nevertheless these provided an important link in the British world-spanning empire. The first colonists did not head for the region until the 1820s, mostly for the purpose of raising sheep and assisting shipping. While considered a desolate region, it was an important link in transportation from the Atlantic to the Pacific by shipping.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the royal family of Portugal had been driven out of that nation and to their New World colony of Brazil. There they declared the United Kingdom of Portugal and Brazil. During the Bonaparte reign in Spain, the Spanish colonies in the New World revolted and declared themselves Republics, in emulation of the United States, and ironically enough, sometimes France.

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The Queen of Portugal

The Queen of Portugal, daughter of the abdicated Bourbon King of Spain, conspired to acquire the administration of the South American Spanish colonies, and worked to annex them to Brazil and thus her rule. In this she would fail.

A Brazilian-Portuguese force launched an attach into the Banda Oriental region to the South of Brazil along the east coast, and initially appeared on the verge of annexing everything north of the Rio Plata. However, the armed forces of the United States of South America were able to repel the invaders back to Brazil. In a counter-invasion, the forces of the UPSA swung around out of the west and were able to sever Santa Catarina and thus Rio Grande do Sul from Brazil proper.

By this time the situation in Portugal had become such that the Royal Family had to return or risk losing Portugal entirely. Thus did the King of Portugal order the evacuation of his entire family from Brazil, fearing in his absence what might occur should Brazil lose any more to the upstart republic to the South. And wise he was, for not even a year later the Republic of Brazil was declared.
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An early flag of the Republic of Brazil:
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Historians dispute which was the first independent Lusophone nation in South America.

After the UPSA counterstrike against the United Kingdom of Portugal and Brazil, the question arose of what to do with the occupied Brazilian provinces. While some favored their annexation to the UPSA, it was eventually decided to grant them their independence (as a protectorate). The new state was named the Republic of Rio Grande do Sul, and came into being at the beginning of the 1820s. Shortly thereafter the Brazilians themselves sought to sever ties with Portugal, rebelling to declare the Republic of Brazil. There was talk of the Brazilian Republic annexing the Republic of Rio Grande do Sul, but the UPSA blocked any move towards such. The Brazilians did not go to war over the issue, having other matters to deal with, namely the Loyalist hold-outs in the north. Attempts to quell the pro-Portuguese forces in the north, far from the main power in the South, went poorly, especially when the King of Portugal sent a relief force to help hold the north at least loyal to the Portuguese crown. Eventually, the British brokered a peace between the Portuguese and Brazilians, with the north remaining a Portuguese colony, the Colony of Maranhao, while Portugal recognized the Republic of Brazil in the south.

However, peace internally in Brazil did not last long, as the issue of slavery boiled over in the early 1830s. The state of Pernambuco was the first state in Brazil to abolish slavery, and it and its neighbors was a hotbed of abolitionist sentiment in an otherwise slaveocracy ruled Brazil. Pernambuco legislators made several attempts to get the Republic to ban the practice, but to no avail. Finally, in 1834 Pernambuco and the other northern states seceeded from the Republic, declaring the abolitionist Confederation of the Equator (sometimes referred to as the Equatorial Confederacy).

Only a year later, in 1835, inspired by the abolition of slavery in Britain and the formation of the abolitionist Confederation of the Equator to the north, the slaves of Bahia rose up and took control of the state, forming the black controlled Bahia Republic.

The UPSA was fast to recognize all the new break-away states, much to the consternation of the Republic of Brazil.

The Break-Up of Brazil:
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While the early 1820s were unpromising for the Portuguese, it turned out that the rest of the first half of the 19th century would be fairly peaceful and prosperous for Portugal first under the brief but pivotal rule of King Pedro IV, and then later his son, King Pedro V.

King Pedro IV proved to be a friend to the liberal cause, so unlike in Spain where tension between Cortes and Crown overshadowed two decades, in the 1820s Pedro IV actively aided and abetted the formation of a new constitutional monarchy and government for the nation, in some ways more modern and liberal than Portugal's ally, Britain, or even it's neighbor to the north, France. Conservatives fumed in the nation, and some plotted to put Pedro's younger brother on the throne, but the orthodox royalists would not stand for an overthrow of the succession, and eventually the furor sputtered and died. Sadly, King Pedro IV died young in the mid 1830s of complications of consumption, however his son, King Pedro V, inherited a stable and prosperous nation.
Flag of Portugal:
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The Legion of the United States was the first professional army formed by the Americans after the American Revolutionary War. Raised, trained, and led by intrepid Revolutionary War officer 'Mad' Anthony Wayne, the unit was raised in response to poor showing for troops sent to the Northwest Territory to suppress the Indians there. Not only was General Wayne successful in that endeavor, but his work on expanding the American Legions, is believed by many experts to be directly attributable to the incredible successes the army enjoyed in breaking the back of Indian resistance throughout the Northwest Territory in the War of 1804, when the tribes there sided with the French, much to their regret. Sadly, General Wayne did not live long after his penultimate triumph, dying while travelling back east after his victory.

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Okay, it's a bit off, but here is the updated world map for 1835ish. As mentioned before, the situation in Mexico is complicated. In this map, the states more or less under federalist control are white with red outlining, those in centralist control are in red. Note that that is really rough, and it doesn't account for which of the federal states are in conservative federalist hands versus liberal federalists.
The 1820s and 1830s were an age of reawakening for the French Empire. King Louis-Napoleon had managed to bring stability to the long warring nation in the decades since 1815, moderating between liberals and conservatives in the French legislature. As the legitimate inheritor of the mantles of both the Bourbons and the Bonepartes, he was in a unique position to do so. One man who would arise from the past to become one of his key allies in the reconciliation of the nation was the Marquis de Lafayette.
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By the 1830s, the French who had lost so much of their overseas holdings began to establish new ones, with outposts in New Holland at Cygne Noir and Port Louis-Napoleon on the island of French Australe.

Port Louis-Napoleon
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The 1830s saw further emigration from Scotland and from Ireland. Many people in both nations had become dependent on potatoes as their sole crop, in large part due to decreasing size of plots allowed to crofters and renters, upon which only the high density potato crop could provide an adequate harvest. The climate and diseases such as the taint and rot combined to produce a number of crop failures in a row. While the Reform Revolution in London had the promise to bring more equitable conditions to the poor farmer of the Celtic lands of the British Isles, its effects were neglible in these years in these regions.

The New World beckoned once more as a land of opportunity. Those who could afford it took passage to the new world, with many Catholics choosing to immigrate to the United States, whereas Protestants tended to travel to British Southern America. The poor of all creeds were more likely to gain passage to the United States through indenture, still a popular option for the manpower hungry nation. Both the British and the Americans had passed laws protecting Indentured Servants making the prospect much more attractive to prospective laborers. In British Southern America there was much less demand for this type of labor given the supply of slaves in that region.

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Irish family saying farewell to emigrating loved ones.
The state of Newfoundland was one of the most under-developed of the states along the Eastern Seaboard. A fishing state, it had started out having a larger than normal amount of Irish immigrants, which was only magnified in the decades after the American Revolution by other Irish who followed to the island state. Due to this large number of Irish in the state, the eventual flag incorporated a symbol of Eire, the Harp.
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Monument to emigrants from Scotland in the land they left behind.​
The Reform movement in Britain inspired the southerners of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, predominantly Liberal, Francophone, and Catholic, to seek their independence from the Conservative, Dutch-speaking Protestants of the north. Supported by France, the Netherlands could not hope to keep the region. However, British intervention was able to keep the region from being annexed outright by the Empire of France. Thus was the new Kingdom of Belgique born.

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Louis-Phillippe

A king for the new kingdom was found from a cadet branch of the Bourbons, who became Louis-Phillippe I, King of Belgique. While a liberal, Louis-Phillippe was also no fool. Before accepting the throne he demanded that some lucrative colony of the Netherlands be ceded to Belgique. The British and French persuaded the Dutch to accede and thus was Ceylon transferred to the Belgique.

Flag of Belgique:
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The Kingdom of Hellas won its independence from the Ottoman Empire in the 1820s with the assistance of many nations of Christian Europe once the powers were assured that the Hellenes would not establish a republic but rather a kingdom. The Peloponnese and Crete were able to successfully throw of the Turkish yoke, and establish the Kingdom of Hellas. A German prince became the first king, Ferdinand I of Hellas.

King Ferdinand of Hellas
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German immigration to the United States in the first half of the 19th century was driven by war, religious dissent, and political oppression.

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While there had always been healthy immigration to the United States of Germans (mostly Protestant) prior to the 19th century, it saw a significant upswing in this turmultuous period. First spurred by the chaos of the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna only ended open warfare, but may have actually exacerbated the tensions in the region, especially in the West of the new German Confederation. This was first exemplified by the Wartburg Festival in 1817, which called for German Unity, but many there also called for the liberalization of such a new German state. Metternich would use this and other incidents to cajole the members of the Confederation to increase censorship and political oppression against the liberal opposition.

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The next major event was the Cologne Uprising of 1833. Rhineland-Westphalia had been granted to the Prussians in the Congress of Vienna, including conglomeration of small states and free cities such as Cologne. The Uprising began as another festival, in homage to the Wartburg Festival. In this case, it was not just a call for a liberal German nation, but the admission of Rhineland-Westphalia to such a new nation as state indepedent of Prussia. The protesters at Cologne were inspired by their neighbors to the West in France, Belgique, and the Netherlands, as well as as the Reform Revolution in the United Kingdom (in Personal Union with their neighbor to the North, Hanover). There was also a religous friction element in Rhineland-Westphalia's conflict with Prussia, as the Rhinelanders were predominantly Catholic whereas the Prussians were Protestant. The troops loyal to Prussia who attempted to break up the festival triggered a riot and weeks of violence in the province. Riots broke out in several cities of the German Confederation in solidarity with them. However, the joint forces of Prussia and Austria were able to bolster the local forces in these hotspots and crush resistance before France or the United Kingdom could interfere.

Further oppression followed for the next decade, which when coupled by intermittant crop failures led to an increase in Germans seeking freedom and fortune in America. For the first time Catholic Germans made up a significant minority of the immigrants to the USA, but German migration still remained predominantly Protestant.

While the loss of the Germanies was America's gain, the Festivals and Uprisings would not be forgotten at home.
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Sultan Selim III struggled his entire life to drag the Ottoman Empire into the modern age. Fearful that European nations were beginning to outstrip the empire, he instituted many reforms that were unpopular among the conservative powers in the Ottoman Empire. However, many credit his efforts with planting the seeds of the Ottoman Renaissance. There were several revolts and plots during his rule, with the most serious being in 1807. His rule was saved by the efforts of Alemdar Mustafa Pasha and Muhammad Ali. Alemdar Mustafa had been one of Selim III's key allies in reforming the military, and Muhammed Ali had distinguished himself just a few years earlier in the Arabian Campaign which exterminated the Wahabbi sect and their supporters, among them the Saud clan, thus freeing the Arabian Peninsula from their influence.

Selim III's death in 1822 sparked a civil war among reformers and conservatives that contributed greatly to Ottoman inability to defeat the Hellas Revolution. However, by 1830 the conservatives had been dealt their final defeat, and the empire was firmly in the grip of a new, young Sultan, Mustafa IV, and his Grand Vizier Muhammad Ali Pasha.

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The State of Panama is the southernmost state of Mexico. It is the only state in Mexico that started out as part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada. As the the wars for independence heated up in Spanish America, the Panamanians were in an unusual position between the emerging Mexican Republic, based on federal principles, and the Nariño led centralists of New Granada. Panamanian federalists won the day in Panama, and elected to join the nascent Mexican federation rather than be subject to a centralist regime. While New Granada might have wished otherwise, Panama was far on its periphery, separated on land by the neigh impenetrable Darien Jungle.

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The Darien Jungle​

During the outbreak of war in Mexico, some ambitious politicians in New Granada advocated annexation of Panama. However, British command of the seas precluded a naval approach, and the one land expedition attempted through the Darien was lost before ever making it to Panama. Panama and her neighbor, Costa Rica, remained fairly peaceful during most of the troubles, both in the hands of federalists who were on good terms with one another. When Jorge Quintana of Yucatan put together the first southern Mexican coalition of federalists, both Panama and Costa Rica joined eagerly.
By 1835, Jorge Quintana had reunited by diplomacy or force all of Mexico from the Darién Gap to the State of Puebla, which die-hard conservative centralists held against him. Quintana had respected the Moskito protectorate as equivalent to a state of Mexico, which sadly Nicaragua had not during the years of quasi-independence. Their attempts to annex the protectorate outright had been repeatedly repelled, in part with weapons quietly given the Moskitos by British sympathizers, while the British government had had to play neutral. Quintana ended the pretense when he reinstated the rights of the Moskito and assured the British that he would honor the original Mexican government's agreement to passage from the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua and then to the Pacific.

With his rear secure and the British mollified, Quintana set his sights on the North and Mexico City.
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The development of rail in North America was an important next chapter in the development of the continent.

Rail initially started across the Atlantic, with the United Kingdom of Great Britain as a leader. Steam locomotive rail was initially designed for coal haulage, but the ability to use the same means to transport other freight and even passengers quickly became obvious. By the 1820s many private investors were building rail throughout Great Britain, a trend that was supported by the Whig governments of the Reform Era in the 1830s.

Rail spread first to North America first in the United States of America. The American spirit of innovation was strong, and any new modern miracle of science was quickly embraced. The first commercial rail in the United States was built by the canal companies who already owned much of the right-of-ways in the United States and were meant to convey cargo from its origin to the canal and river transport systems. However, by the late 1820s the first passenger oriented railway was built connecting Philadelphia to the nation's capital in Washington, DC and thus across most of New Jersey.

However, it became quickly apparent to the Americans that if railways were to go any distance (and given the great size of America such vast transport systems were needed), then a standardization of rail gauge would be necessary, and so the USA was the first nation in the world to adopt a standard gauge for railroads. The British would follow suit.

In the provinces of British Southern America, the building of rail was also popular, though there mostly to bring the cash crop of cotton to the waterways. Passenger rail was a bit slower to develop compared to the spread-out US. Also, rail standardization didn't come until after passage in Britain, and then British Southern America adopted the British standard, which was different from the American one. However, neither region of North America was interested in one standard at the time, given lingering fears of the possibility of war some day between the two lands. However, as a result, many border towns would boom as Customs and Transfer points for railways of the USA and BSA.

In general, more railways tended to run East-West than North-South in the United States of America and from the Atlantic coast of British Southern America, whereas the Gulf Provinces had more North-South oriented rail develop.

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The year 1835 was when everything came to a head in the South, starting in Georgia.

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Discontent had been growing in the Province of Georgia over the continued dispute over mining in Cherokee Georgia. The British government refused to allow the Georgians remove the Cherokee and other tribes on lands believed to hold gold. The British governor of Georgia, Matthew Whitworth-Aylmer tried to enforce the British ruling on the issue against an increasingly hostile Georgia populace and assembly. When in 1835 abolition was passed, Aylmer thought it an extremely generous offer to the slave owners, given the fact that slaves were to serve a 10 year apprenticeship before full freedom, and slaveowners who wished to emancipate their slaves early would be compensated by the crown. However, a strident faction in Georgia, and in fact throughout the South, opposed even that much. Assemblies throughout British Southern America passed resolutions calling on Parliament to repeal the abolition. Slaveowners who took the Crown's shilling to release their blacks were threatened in many cases, and sometimes even killed, by nightriders. Some plantation owners who were willing to take the fee for early manumission started to take the unprecedented step of then arming their most reliable former slaves to serve as a ready-made militia willing to protect their former masters and in the process protect their own newfound freedom.

While during the American Revolutionary War Georgia had been one of the more loyal colonies of Britain, the decades had changed the state, with many South Carolinians of questionable loyalty to the crown moving into the region as planters. As the chaos in the province grew, Governor Aylmer dissolved the Georgia Assembly. The Georgians refused to disperse, and met in defiance of the order to declare Georgian independence from Britain. South Carolina followed suit, and then others....

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The British governors of Georgia and South Carolina were forced to flee from their charges, and they would not be alone.

Assembly after assembly in the South declared their defiance of the British Crown and declared their independence. Throughout the south, the legislatures were elected by landholders only, which mostly meant they were the creatures of the plantation magnates. By 1836 eight British colonies had declared for independence:
  • Georgia
  • South Carolina
  • Louisiana
  • West Florida
  • North Carolina
  • East Florida
  • Cuba
  • Bahamas

They would not remain alone.

These provinces sought to meet together to form a coalition to combat the British if they would not let them go freely. Militias were raised throughout the British South, many led by former British Army and Royal Navy officers, as many scions of the South had served, though the most recent war they had been in was the Napoleonic wars, and thus not all were seasoned veterans in modern warfare, though others had been active suppressing wild Indians in the west. British ships in completion or repair were seized to form the nucleus of a nascent navy. The upper classes of the plantations sought to expand their base by bringing in disgruntled middle and even lower class whites who had been forbidden from taking gold from the Indian lands, while others sought the extension of the franchise and freedom from distant control by the Crown, to which the cotton kings made glib promises.

However, not every subject in British Southern America were in favor of independence; far from it. And so other militias were formed, and British officials found succor in parts of the colonies. Britain would not abandon these people or this land without a fight.

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So begins what some have called the Slaver Uprising or Rebellion, others have called the Southern Civil War, and yet others have called the War against British Aggression....
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The first institution for officer training in the United States was established at the strategic fortification, West Point, roughly midway between New York City and the location of the new capital of the nation, Washington. The first legion cadets were run through the United States Military Academy in the first years of the 19th century.

The next officer training program would be for the navy, forming in 1835 in response to rising concerns about possible war with Great Britain should tensions over the end of slavery in the British Empire spill over to the rest of the continent. A location was sought that again would be close to the nation's capital, and thus the site of the Brooklyn Navy Yard was chosen for the United States Naval Academy.

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Differences in breakfast in the United States of America versus British Southern America:

USA - Pancakes with maple syrup and a cup of coffee
BSA - Pancakes with powdered sugar and a cup of tea

Just a tidbit before things really get serious.:D

In the early part of 1836, the assemblies of the eight rebellious provinces of British Southern America sent their representatives to Augusta in the Province of Georgia to form a new nation. The reasons to band together were twofold; to unite their strengths to fend off the Mother Country, and to forestall any attempts at annexation by the abolitionist United States. The representatives were resolute but dour in mood, the Indians were mounting a spirited resistance, civil war had broken out with the Loyalists, and reinforcements were arriving from Britain. However, their spirits were lifted when the Texans arrived to pledge not only their support, but willingness to join together with the provinces in a new Confederation of Southern America. To lead this new confederation, they chose two Consuls - Andrew Jackson of Texas and Langdon Cheves of South Carolina.

Consul Jackson
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Consul Cheves
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The first flag of the Confederation of Southern America was reminescent of the Union Jack with the Saint George's Cross excised (symbolizing both the Southern British heritage and their break with England). The stars on the flag represented the eight rebel provinces and Texas.

A flag of the Confederation of Southern America:
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The Confederationist Flag of East Florida took the rather interesting approach of taking the new Confederation of Southern America flag and fusing it with the old Cross of Burgandy that had flown over Florida in the Spanish era to create their banner.
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Consul Jackson chose to head up the Army of Texas on its fateful march to the Mississippi. He arrived just in time to relieve the Siege of New Orleans, and managed to envelope the surrounding British regulars in turn. New Orleans and many other prominant coastal cities of British Southern America had had fortresses built to ward off any attempted American attacks earlier in the century, and now ironically were turned against the ships of the British.

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In the East, Consul Cheves turned to prominent planter and former British officer Banestre Tarleton Pinckney. While some Pinckneys had joined the rebels in 1775, his branch of the family had stayed loyal and held on to their lands in South Carolina. Named after British war hero Banastre Tarleton (still reviled in American Virginia), General Pinckney would live up to his namesake's reputation in reverse, this time fighting the Loyalist militias.
The Confederationist flag of West Florida, while inspired by the earlier flag developed by East Florida, took a more traditional approach. A simple quartered field superimposing the Confederation of Southern America flag and the old Cross of Burgundy.
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Manpower in the Slaver Uprising was always a problem for both sides. While there were many among the planter class who had served in the British military, they needed men to command. Out of the need for self protection and protection of other Loyalists, the Black Companies were born. Commanded by whites (oftentimes their recent masters), freed blacks were dedicated to protecting their new found freedom, and were some of the fiercest fighters in the war.

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Even more fabled would become the black force known as the Sable Legion. Originally raised in Hispaniola, this force would see service on the continent, often absorbing smaller black units into their ranks.

Factions of British Southern America (not including Texas)
  • American Slavocrats - families who migrated to the BSA after passage of abolition in the USA (pro-slave, pro-independence, mixed on indians)
  • Southern Slaveocrats - families indigenous to Britain or the South owning slaves, mostly plantations (pro-slave, republicans by reason, mixed on indians)
  • Southern Anti-Indian - families looking to expel the civilized tribes in order to gain gold, land, and other resources (mixed on slaves, republicans by reason, anti-indian)
  • Pro-Independents - families looking to establish an independent, democratic nation in Southern America (mixed on slaves, pro-independence, mixed on indians)
  • Annexationists - families looking to have one or more province of the BSA annexed to America (anti-slavery, pro-annextionist, mixed on indians)
  • Pro-Indian - Indians and their predominant Scotch-Irish allies (mixed on slavery, Imperialists by reason, pro-indian)
  • Abolition Loyalists - families in favor of abolition, mostly poor whites, small urban population, mixed race (anti-slavery, Imperialist by reason, mixed on indians)
  • New Loyalists - families not notably loyalist in ARW, loyal to Britain (mixed on slavery, pro-Empire, mixed on indians)
  • United Empire Loyalist - families who remained loyal in the ARW, loyal to Britain now (mixed on slavery, pro-Empire, mixed on indians)

Not yet an exhaustive list, and some people belong in more than one camp.
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The initial flag of the break-away British Province of North Carolina was at first a single white star on a field of blue. According to some versions of its origins, this was supposed to represent a new star for the flag of the United States of America, and produced by a pro-annexationist faction of North Carolina. Whether this was true or not, the next flag to appear on the scene was more clearly related to some North Carolinians' aspirations for American annexation, and clearly inspired by that flag. However, as a compromise to pro-independence forces, it had eight stripes instead of the twelve of the USA. With the formation of the Confederation of Southern America and the inclusion of Texas, the pro-independence faction won the day politically, but by then a certain affection had grown among the rebels of North Carolina for the flag, and it was maintained with only the addition of an additional stripe.
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Factions of the Republic of Texas (at the time of union with the British Southern Provinces)
  • Texan Slaveocrats - families mostly from the British South in favor of slavery and confederation (pro-slave, pro-Confederation, mixed on indians)
  • Texan Expansionists - families in favor of Southern Confederation (mixed on slavery, pro-Confederation, mixed on indians)
  • Texan Isolationists - families in favor of Texas remaining separate (mixed on slavery, pro-independence)
  • Texan Annexationists - families in favor of annexation of Texas to the USA (anti-slavery, pro-annexation)
  • Texan Anglophiles - families in favor of joining the British Empire (mixed on slavery, pro-Empire)
  • Texan Liberal Anglophiles - families in favor of abolition and Reformist Britain (anti-slavery, pro-Empire)

Again, not an exhaustive list. First nations peoples are not as big a part of Texan politics as in the British South.

Factions in the USA

  • Abolitionist Americans - families seeking the end of slavery worldwide
  • Anglophile Americans - families supporting closer ties with Britain
  • Anti-Southern Americans - families who want the South held down
  • Annexationist Americans - families seeking to annex the South to America
  • Small South Americans - families who want favor independence for the Southern Provinces but not Confederation
  • Pro-Southern Trade Americans - families seeking an independent South to trade with

Once again, not an exhaustive list.

While many loyalist families rose up against the Confederation supporting slavers, one family in particular distinguished themselves leading the Loyalist militias in British Southern America. The Randolph and Grymes families were allied Loyalist Viriginian families who moved to the British South after being expelled from Viriginia during the American Revolutionary War. Horatio Grymes and James Randolph were the main loyalist militia leaders and would rise to the rank of General before war's end.

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While various versions of the Union Jack with the cross of St. George cut out were used early in the Slaver Uprising throughout the South, it became a symbol especially of the Georgians, who blamed the King of England for taking the side of natives over the colonists of Georgia. Thus when the Confederation formed and a new flag was created for the CSA, the Georgians kept their cut-out Union Jacks as the flag of Confederationist Georgia.
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The Slaver Uprising had many theaters, and each had a rather distinct character.

In the Caribbean, Cuba was the center for the fight for separation. The Confederationists were led by Joseph Saco, who interestingly enough, while in favor of eventual abolition, placed his desire for independence from the British Crown first. While the rebels had been able to take most of the forts guarding the Cuban ports, they eventually fell to the superiority of the Royal Navy. However, strong rebel bases in the rugged hills and mountains of the southeast.

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The Bahamas were even easier for the British to control in terms of major ports, but rebel smuggling operations through the myriad islands of the Bahamas remained prevalent throughout the war. The slavers of the Bahamas had never really thought they could hold the islands, but rather pinned their hopes on a continental victory leading to their liberation from the British.
The Slaver Rebellion in Cuba had stronger strains of liberation and separatism than some other provinces of British Southern America. While it still had a primarily pro-slaver basis, there were a number that were only in the rebellion to gain freedom from the British Empire. However, due to the dominance of the Royal Navy on the high seas, the Cuban rebels faced greater difficulties than other provinces, and Cuban patriots recognized that their best hope of freedom was as part of the Southern Confederation. Their flag harkened back to an earlier plot to overthrow the British from the early 1800s, and reflected a different color scheme and pattern than many of the other Confederationist flags.
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Early in the Slaver Uprising, the British were stunned by the ease with which the rebels overtook the garrisons in continental British Southern America. Many British regulars had to evacuate by sea or retreat into the hinterland where they joined Loyalist and Indian forces.

This combined with the election of a Federalist (and thus perceived pro-British) president in the United States led the British to adopt a blockade strategy to cripple the British provinces in Southern America (referred to as the Anaconda Blockade, first coined by the British Governor of Guyana after a native constrictor snake).

However, the plan was quickly shown to have several flaws, the most serious being American unwillingness to close trade at their long border with British Southern America. Parliament considered an embargo against America if the border remained open to trade, but fears that this would push the neutral USA into siding outright with the Confederationists defeated the measure. The America textile industry benefited from the disruption in cotton export to Britain, and in fact the British textile industry was forced in many cases to buy Southern Cotton at inflated prices from New England merchants. The French textile industry also had some difficulty, but continued on with a combination of blockade runner and American merchant supplied cotton. By 1837, a new strategy would be needed.

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A map of the world in 1836, including the territorial claims by the Confederation of Southern America (in Gray).
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During the early years of the Republic of Texas, one of President Jackson's major objectives was making real the tenuous claims to California Texas had made. The overseas route was lengthy, having to circumnavigate the entirety of South America. The main overland route, the Old Spanish Trail, was circuitous and felt to be vulnerable to snow in the winter. Jackson's government sought a way directly through the desert to the Pacific. President Jackson sent one of his staunchest loyalists and famous explorer, William Henry Ashley, to find a route as straight as possible from Albuquerque to the Pacific. Ashley was successful, blazing a route almost due west, with water sources no more than 20 miles apart! After crossing the Colorado at the Needles, he was able to link up with the Mojave Road, a native route that had spurs to both the Central Valley of California and down to Presidio de Santa Barbara on the Pacific Ocean. On reaching Santa Barbara, Ashley's party was held by the Mexican faction holding the region, but was able to convince them that they were American traders who had crossed the continent by the Old Spanish Trail. Ashley and his party were treated as heroes on their return to Texas. Ironically, it was the discovery of a more direct route to California that later made possible the sale of northern New Mexico and California to the Americans under the Brown Presidency, as before this the sale would have severed the only known routes from Texas to the Pacific.
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The Quintanistas of Southern Mexico began their great push north in 1835. The Conservative Centralists in Mexico City found themselves in desperate straits. While the British had taken an officially neutral posture, the Quintanistas were in possession of all the major routes from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the British as well as the Americans clearly wished to keep access to those routes. Thus the Conservatives were forced to make a deal with the devil in the form of Andrew Jackson of Texas. With the Texans already in California and New Mexico, and nothing to spare for the north, the Centralist Conservatives agreed to allow the Texan border to creep much further south than had ever been acknowledged before, as well as re-affirming the Texan claims to the Californias and New Mexico. Not only did this allow the Centralist Conservatives to concentrate on their existential battle for survival in the south, it also guaranteed loans and arms from Texas. Of course, in just a few months later, Texas would become much more distracted by events to the east.

A map (still needs cleaning up and elaboration)
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The Anaconda Plan failed, mostly due to the porous border with the USA. Cotton was exported via eastern North Carolina or western Louisiana, where American merchants were more than willing to buy it. On the other hand, the border trade allowed Britain to support the Loyalists and allied Indians in the interior, though only with money and purchases from American munitions merchants made by the Loyalists, being unable to directly ship British troops through the USA. In addition, the rebels proved more effective at slipping through the British blockade (and once clear of regional waters, would often hoist American colors to avoid interdiction, and indeed many of the Confederationist merchants arranged for new registries as American ships). The Confederation found an able commodore for their small fleet in the form of George Farragut, the grandson of Minorcan immigrants, his father was a sailor and captain named Jorge Farragut. He made effective use of the Confederation Navy to support coastal fortresses during British raids, especially the naval yards in Pensacola, and also heavily armed riverine boats to protect the rivers important to Southern transportation.

In 1837, the British replaced the reticent British commander with a more aggressive leader, the man known as 'The Sea Wolf', Admiral Lord Thomas Cochrane.
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The flag of rebel Louisiana was established just prior to the formation of the Confederation of Southern America. The flag looked to the roots of Louisiana and its traditional symbol of the Pelican, combining it with the revolutionary tricolor of France. Louisiana continued to fly the Pelican Tricolor as a Confederationist state after the formation of the Confederation.
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The British change in military leadership led also to a new, bolder offensive against the rebels. Admiral Cochrane and Commodore Farragut dueled on the high seas and in the rivers, and while Farragut was good, he did not possess behind him the might of the Royal Navy. Several beachheads would be established from which the British regulars began to link up with Loyalists scattered throughout the colonies. The Sable Legion was one of the most ferocious land units, and would go on to play a legendary role in the North Carolina offensive.

However, many historians believe the most important event of the war was the Second Siege of New Orleans. Whereas other fortress ports had fallen to the British, it appeared that this most critical city, controlling the highway of the South, the Mississippi River, would hold. Consul Jackson again commanded, having returned after repulsing a raid on Pensacola earlier in the year. Reports state that the elder General was like a man possessed, appearing wherever the action was hottest to rally the Confederationists. Some still believe he might have turned away the British despite their advantages by sheer will and brilliance. However, in the heat of the battle, a bullet shattered Jackson's skull, striking him dead. The heart of the defenders seemed to go out of them, and New Orleans was lost. Perhaps as bad would be the loss of Jackson himself. He would be remembered for generations in Texas, South Carolina, and throughout the South. General Jack Toutant-Beauregard would be left to take command in the West following Jackson's demise.

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Former Texas President Brown was fervently against alliance with the rebels in Southern America, and went to ground when the Jacksonians overthrew the Texas constitution in order make their foolhardy pact with the slavers of the British South to form the (from their perspective) unholy Confederation. Brown went underground to lead Anglophile Texans in armed resistance to Jacksonian tyranny. However, Brown soon realized that the Anglophile forces would need significant support to overthrow the Jackson regime in Texas. Brown was smuggled out of the country and set sail for Britain, where he entreated Parliament to support his forces in Texas. Negotiations went longer than Brown had hoped. His faction was willing to see Texas in the British Empire, but on condition that the British maintain their claims in New Mexico and California, and their right to 'responsible government'. Brown warned that if Britain did not take up the burden of Texas, then the Confederation would, and if their revolt failed, then America or even Mexico. Eventually a suitable arrangement was agreed to, and ships loaded with weapons and supplies headed out to the Texas coast to bolster the Anglophile Texans. On Brown's return to Texas, the word that greeted him was of the death of Jackson.

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One of the major actions of the Slaver Uprising in the north was the Battle of Roanoke Rapids. Roanoke Rapids was an important town, strategically located on the fall line of the Roanoke River just south of the border with America. Being the furthest navigable point on the river and having abundant water-power available, it was a natural choice for a transfer station for goods and people traveling to and fro the USA as railways stretched towards both sides of the Border. With the renewed offensive establishing a beachhead on the North Carolina Coast, and Loyalist resupply being eased by British control of the Mississippi, the Loyalists marched east to take this last vital link between the Confederation and America.

Roanoke Rapids almost was a disaster for the Loyalist army under General Grymes when they were pinned down in an ambush just west of the city by Confederation General Pinckney. However, in the end Pinckney's forces were the ones trapped when surprised from behind by the appearance of the Sable Legion, which had force marched to arrive in time to aid the Southern British Loyalists. Though these brave black troops must have been bone tired, they threw themselves into the fight with a ferocity that amazed both friend and foe. General Gryme's own life was in fact saved by the bravery of a black soldier that day, but in that case it was one of the freed blacks among the loyalist Black Companies. The two would remain close for the rest of Gryme's life.

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The British pressure on the Confederationists continued with one of the more colourful episodes of the war. The British had ignored the Texans in California for most of the war, but with the joint operations of Anglophile Texans under Brown and the British Crown, it was felt that some effort was worth undertaking in that theatre. Sending a few ships from the Royal Navy to secure Santa Barbara and San Diego was fairly easy. The more creative part was the small expedition meant to go overland and secure the route from California to Texas, which included a small contingent of camels for the task. This was the first recorded use of camels in North America, and came as quite a shock in Santa Fe.

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The settlement of the Trans-Mississippi north of Missouri was delayed by many years by the tenacity and leadership of the Indian Chief Black Hawk. Born before the American Revolutionary War, he was one of the leaders of the Indians fighting the Americans in the Old Northwest before being driven across the Mississippi River by the Americans in the aftermath of the War of 1804. Black Hawk was able to rally the survivors and local tribes in the region into a new band that came to be called the Black Hawk Band. For years the Black Hawk Band engaged in raids into surrounding states, until a new treaty was negotiated preventing white settlement on the region west of the Mississippi controled by the band, centered on the Des Moines River. The peace held for several years, until the death of Black Hawk in 1837. Both the treaty and Indian resistance rapidly crumbled, and the region was opened to American exploitation.

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The chaos of the Mexico wars came finally to an end in 1837. The Quintanists from the south took Mexico City that year, causing the Centralists to flee. The independent federalist states along the Rio Grande, who had played Texas and the Centralists off one against the other to maintain their tenuous position, now joined the Quintanista forces. Finally, the Centralists were forced to submit. Jorge Quintana, Generalisimo of Mexico, President of Yucatan, had fought a long, hard battle to both reunite the disparate states of Mexico while at the same time trying to protect their rights as states. He presided over a new constitutional convention in early 1838 in Mexico City, which both restored the old constitution's principles and proclaimed Quintana president. Some wondered, however, if the man who had pulled together Mexico by sheer will and brilliance, would now show himself a despot in peace.

Flag of the Second Mexican Republic:
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Texans still talk of the Texan Civil War, though most historians class it as a theatre of the larger conflict in British Southern America. Brown's forces grew as he marched from the sea, as many of the Texans of British Southern extraction rallied to the paired banners of the Union Jack and Texas. However, even though many of the fighting men who supported the Confederation had marched east with Jackson's army, there were still enough who supported the slaver cause to put up spirited resistance. John Clegg had been made Governor of Texas when Jackson was anointed Consul of the Confederation, and now he tried to marshal the remaining Confederationist forces to the defense of the capital, Austin, named after empresario Moses Austin. The situation was even further muddied by another Austin, Moses Austin Jr., who declared his intention to restore the Republic of Texas as an independent nation.

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By the end of 1838, Confederationist resistance had crumbled. Most of the major cities along the coast and rivers had been captured, with the Loyalists working with British regulars on the East Coast, Indian forces taking Pensacola in coordination with the Royal Navy, and Anglophile Texans having taken hold in Texas. Austin was ironically first taken by pro-Independence forces under Moses Austin Jr., who threatened to offer Texas to America rather than submit to British rule. Indeed, some Americans pushed for US intervention in the West rather than allow the British to stretch from sea to sea, but the Panic of 1838 distracted America. Eventually, Jon Clegg's Confederationists were crushed and Austin found his independence movement losing ground as word of the British deal reached Texans. General Toutant-Beauregard had held most of the Army of Texas in Louisiana to fight the British, and by the time they marched home, it was to a fait accompli. The Union Jack flew over Austin, Texas. The British upheld their end of the deal, guaranteeing the expanded territories of Jacksonian Texas, and granting the Texans responsible government, with Brown assuming the Governorship of Texas, which included under it oversight of new Lieutenant Governors for New Mexico and California.

Meanwhile, British Southern America, the coastal regions were placed under military Governorship and the assemblies disbanded. However, the Loyalists and Civilized tribes in the interior demanded consideration on par with the Texans for their loyal service. Thus were three new provinces established, Carleton in west North Carolina and northern Georgia, Indiana in the Civilized Tribal lands of west Georgia, and Arkansas in north Louisiana (though the western portion of Arkansas remained quasi-independent under the wild Indian tribes there).
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The Province of South Carolina had a long history of rebellion against the Crown. During the American Revolution, South Carolinian Rebels had fought under a crescent flag, reminiscent of the flag showing three crescents on a blue field flown during the protests of the Stamp Act. These flags served as the inspiration for both the initial Slaver flag of independent South Carolina, and thence the flag of Confederationist South Carolina when it joined the Confederation of Southern States. The flag flew until the end of the Slaver Uprising.
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