Viable alternate North American nations

Strategos' Risk

I'm currently reading a Victoria AAR for California right now, "The Golden Nation" by DerKaiser. It's good stuff, with a POD in 1836. I think it's pretty much remarkable in being the first kind of alternate history I've seen anywhere where an independent California is more Hispanic than Anglo, since, well... it belonged to Mexico, after all. I'm sure that for story and game purposes, the population and industrial, economic, and military capabilities are a bit boosted, and the numbers of Californios (non-Hispanic Californians) are exaggerated, but it still makes for an interesting story.

Upon reflection, California does seem like a viable state that purposes could have remained free for a while, if it was able to play off the Great Powers, or perhaps gain the guardianship of one. But what about other possible North American nations? ASIDE FROM THE CSA. Though if the existence of one of the nations is contingent upon the CSA existing, throw it in, I guess.

Texas: I think by its very American nature, it's doomed to be annexed by the U.S. Most Texans wanted it, anyways.

Deseret: I can't see how the U.S. would treat them any differently from OTL, unless the U.S. is crippled by the CSA/British or French involvement/powerful Mexico/ASBs. If worse comes to worse, the U.S. military will treat the Utahns little better than the Native Americans, I bet.

Columbia/Oregon: Was there even any regionalist/nationalist fervor for a separate Pacific Northwest state? It seems unlikely, anyhows.

New England: Seems unlikely anytime post-War of 1812, barring drastically different politics in the early U.S.

Republic of Rio Grande: ?

California, due to the virtue of its resources, location, and whatnot, seems somewhat possible to me. And the idea of an essentially Latin American nation north of the Rio Grande is quite intriguing. How possible is it?
 

RPW@Cy

Strategos' Risk said:
Columbia/Oregon: Was there even any regionalist/nationalist fervor for a separate Pacific Northwest state? It seems unlikely, anyhows.
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I believe there was some agitation for independence in Oregon prior to the US setting up the Oregon territory, but I don't know if it ever attracted significant public support.

Other possibilities - I don't believe it's in any way automatic that British Columbia would have become part of Canada instead of remaining a separate British colony and graduating to an independent dominion.

Also, it's possible that in a timeline where Russia doesn't sell Alaska to the US that we could see a situation where if Russia still has a revolution like that the Whites could set themselves up in exile in Alaska as a de facto independent state - sort of a Russian Taiwan.

AS for the Mormons and California, I have a very vague memory of reading an AH a long way back where the Mormons, instead of stopping in Utah continue all the way to California and set themselves up there instead. It might be harder to make or keep California a majority Mormon state, but if they could do it i would have thought independence would be more realistic there. Has anybody else heard of this?

Overall, I think an independent BC is the most likely option.
 

Tyr

Oklahoma- A native American state. Would require a CSA to the south of course, the US isn't going to let it happen right in its midst.

America is a big place, most states (except New Mexico and the like) are viable nations really. Just look at how big places like Luxembourg are.
 

Tocomocho

- Yucatan, if they are able to solve in some way the Mayan problem. If not, it is also possible to have the Mayan state of Chan Santa Cruz surviving as a British ally or protectorate.

- Chiapas, either joining the United Provinces of Central America and later going alone, or becoming independent during the Mexican Revolution as some sort of socialist state controlled by Zapata.
 

Dean_the_Young

There's a problem with North American states, two of the biggest ones being terrain and population.

First, let's face it. The USA was able to expand so fast (and Mexico and Canada able to be their size) because the continent was nearly empty of people. To put a viable, independent state, you need people to defend it. The northern half of Mexico didn't have many people, which was why the US was willing to take what it did. Even if you had all those Mormon settlers go into CA (doubtful, because they'd have to walk through the pacific mountain ranges as well as do so without Mexican permission), CA still wouldn't have been populated enough to deter American expansion.

Second, terrain. Multiple states are hard to set up in the center of North America due to the relative lack of natural barriers preventing people from just walking over. And since nearly all rivers flow into New Orleans, whoever controls New Orleans can control all major shipping for commerce, as well as river settlement patterns. So when one follows the rivers, you get to the Oregon Territory. And when one gains control of the rest of the interior up to the Pacific Mountains, it's a relatively short hop just to the Pacific, making CA worth the investment to obtain.
 

NomadicSky

Banned
You can have Canada split during the 20th century with Quebec going it's own way. Or have the revolutions of 1837 be backed by the US a Republic of Canada "OTL's Quebec maybe more or less territory" The United States in TTL takes Anglo Canada.
 

Max Sinister

Banned
With such an early POD, pretty much everything's possible. What about this division (from Chaos TL):

- Canada
- German Atlantis
- Italia Nuova
- Caroline
- Florida
- Louisiane
- Texas
- California
- empty circle

Makes nine. Coincidentally, the same number as in "the nine nations of North America". Why not form nations along their lines? New England, the Foundry, the breadbasket, Dixie, Pacifica, empty quarter, the islands, Mexamerica, Quebec?
 

New Yorker

Can I ask a point of clarification? It is often assumed that when the US expanded into California and the Soutwest that there were numerous Hispanics there. But I thought that the truth was that there very few settlers at all, although many of them were Hispanic. So the US did not take over large Mexican populations, but took over a lot of empty land with small populations. is this correct?
 

Dean_the_Young

New Yorker said:
Can I ask a point of clarification? It is often assumed that when the US expanded into California and the Soutwest that there were numerous Hispanics there. But I thought that the truth was that there very few settlers at all, although many of them were Hispanic. So the US did not take over large Mexican populations, but took over a lot of empty land with small populations. is this correct?
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Bingo. The US specifically avoided large Mexican populations, or else it would have taken much more land, perhaps some of the cotton growing Mexican states. As it was, while the US probably ended up with less than it wanted at the time it also avoided taking major Mexican population clusters.
 

Bulldawg85

Annexation

There was considerable sentiment towards outright annexation of Mexico after the Mexican-American War, but the President let it be known that he would not allow such a treaty.
 

Dean_the_Young

Bulldawg85 said:
There was considerable sentiment towards outright annexation of Mexico after the Mexican-American War, but the President let it be known that he would not allow such a treaty.
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Jared is the best person to refute this, but in short no one except the penny presses seriously wanted or considered annexing all of Mexico. The Northern politicians were against the war in the first place (ala Lincoln), and the South, who wanted the war for expansion, were adamantly against getting any more Mexicans than they had to.
 

Bulldawg85

All of Mexico movement

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_of_Mexico_Movement

The All of Mexico Movement was a movement of those in the United States who wanted the U.S. to annex all of Mexico in 1848 in the Mexican-American War. The possibility had been under discussion for decades, but the success in the war made it a real possibility. However, letters home from thousands of American soldiers in Mexico strongly objected to annexation, saying the Mexican and American social, religious and political norms were so different that assimilation would be impossible. Fearing new slave states would shift the balance of power, northerners opposed annexation of Mexico. President James K. Polk rejected annexation and opted for a southern border at the Rio Grande and around the 32nd parallel. In terms of new lands, there was a great deal of land in Texas, which was annexed and which did support slavery. Other land was perhaps available in Cuba, and senior American diplomats suggested the purchase of Cuba in the Ostend Manifesto of 1854. Negative reaction to the Cuba proposition was overwhelming, and largely ruined the sentiment for Manifest Destiny.
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There was a group that wanted annexation.
 
Oddball

Oddball

Dean_the_Young said:
There's a problem with North American states, two of the biggest ones being terrain and population.

First, let's face it. The USA was able to expand so fast (and Mexico and Canada able to be their size) because the continent was nearly empty of people. To put a viable, independent state, you need people to defend it. The northern half of Mexico didn't have many people, which was why the US was willing to take what it did. Even if you had all those Mormon settlers go into CA (doubtful, because they'd have to walk through the pacific mountain ranges as well as do so without Mexican permission), CA still wouldn't have been populated enough to deter American expansion.

Second, terrain. Multiple states are hard to set up in the center of North America due to the relative lack of natural barriers preventing people from just walking over. And since nearly all rivers flow into New Orleans, whoever controls New Orleans can control all major shipping for commerce, as well as river settlement patterns. So when one follows the rivers, you get to the Oregon Territory. And when one gains control of the rest of the interior up to the Pacific Mountains, it's a relatively short hop just to the Pacific, making CA worth the investment to obtain.
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While I basicaly agree with your argument, I personaly find this problem easily solved:

Just let a big and powerful old world nation controll the important parts while it gets populated and developed. Then have all the nations you desire form either peacefully or by revolution. :D

IMHO Canada is a good excample of this. And it was not given that Canada developed into a singel confederation, It could have been split at many crossroads.

If you follow this path, a interesting question is:

How many Dominions (or whatever you call it) could have formed if Britain avoided the ARW and continued to dominate North America?
 

Wendell

Dean_The_Young has more or less expressed my views on this issue, however, I think that most of the original states could have been viable countries. Additionally, it may be possible to produce a large, viable state in the west other than California a population base can emerge for such a state.
 

Dean_the_Young

Max Sinister said:
That's just one group.
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And a pretty minor one at that. Which, as your quote pointed out, pretty much got shot down immediately by both sides.
Wendell said:
Dean_The_Young has more or less expressed my views on this issue, however, I think that most of the original states could have been viable countries. Additionally, it may be possible to produce a large, viable state in the west other than California a population base can emerge for such a state.
Click to expand...

I should probably make a point to admit that yes, had the thirteen original colonies decided not to form a new union, there would easily be multiple nations in North America. But these would be a small number of states that had territory to the west and expanded from there. You would not, however, get a dozen nations in the interior from every indian confederation that popped up. Almost all the states would need port access of one kind or another, either requiring a coast or a free use of a port (which puts them under the power of another state). And whether Mexico breaks apart in places (possible) or uses extra time to get its bearings and then assert control in the north and south is up in the air.

But once you had a single nation on the East Coast, the number of nations you could have in north america plummeted short of supporting breakaway parts of any Civil War.
 

Wendell

Dean_the_Young said:
I should probably make a point to admit that yes, had the thirteen original colonies decided not to form a new union, there would easily be multiple nations in North America. But these would be a small number of states that had territory to the west and expanded from there. You would not, however, get a dozen nations in the interior from every indian confederation that popped up. Almost all the states would need port access of one kind or another, either requiring a coast or a free use of a port (which puts them under the power of another state). And whether Mexico breaks apart in places (possible) or uses extra time to get its bearings and then assert control in the north and south is up in the air.

But once you had a single nation on the East Coast, the number of nations you could have in north america plummeted short of supporting breakaway parts of any Civil War.
Click to expand...

I am going to concur with your assessment.
 
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