Straight Land Grap

Raymann

Banned
Using every realistic means possible, physically just how big can the United States get and still remain something of like what it is today? (representative government, equal rights for natural born citizens...)

Now I just don't mean territories in the usual sense but in the legal one where they are on the paths to becoming states at some time or another.
 

Straha

Banned
heres how to start america on the road to empire....

1 make the canadian and carribean colonies of britain side with the rebels

2 the USA grabs louisiana from france and the pacific northwest off of russia

3 mexico annexed in 1848

4 central america,venezuela and the rest of the carribena conquered/filibustered in the 1850's

5 hawai,japan,micronesia,melanesia,polynesia and taiwan also taken in the 1850s

6 british/french/dutch guianas bought

7 the colony of lbiera not given independence and worked as a terretory.

8 large parts of west africa,madagascar and the boer nations gotten at the berlin congress.

by 1950 all of north america,the carribean,japan,taiwan,all of polynesia,most of melanesia,all of micronesia and liberia get statehood. The rest of America's african empire recieves statehood in the 1970's. THe rest of its other states recieve statehood between 1950-1980
 

Raymann

Banned
I like that but how about Australia and possibly New Zealand during WWII. Also parts of Siberia we got from Russia during the Pacific War with our ally Japan in 1905. And lastly of course the island of Great Britain and a few of her colonies which joined during the darkest days of WWII.
 
More successful revolution

The revolution is more successful because the British government decision to seriously fight the rebellion is leaked to the Colonies in time for the colonies to form an army big enough to defend the ports against the British attack. Without the ports like New York the Colonies are less likely to develop the Tory adherents that prolonged the war. Essentially the Colonies spend as much money as they did in OTL, but they spend it earlier and therefore more successfully.
Canada, Florida, and the Louisiana territory are still British in 1776. The US takes Canada with a much bigger invasion, and then builds a navy that allows it to take the Caribbean islands away from Britain by using a policy of freeing the slaves on the islands, and of course, those that join the Colonial armies from the mainland as well. An additional motive for joining up is given by the decision to distribute the sugar plantation land to slaves turned soldiers.
Britain is slowly deprived of it's islands and trade by massively increased Colonial privateering and invasions of a nucleus of troops and a lot of muskets.
Eventually Britain sues for peace, keeping Bermuda and Newfoundland, but not the Caribbean islands. All the mainland and most of the Caribbean are in Colonial hands.
The Spanish, French, Dutch, and Danes still have their islands, and of course Portugal and Spain have their Atlantic and Latin American colonies. There is no bankruptcy of France, so no Revolution, no Napoleon, no invasion of Spain and Portugal, and no Latin Colonial rebellions. Australia is colonized by the British, just as in OTL, because they have to have somewhere to put all their prisoners. The Marathi wars with France in India are not fought and India keeps it's ununified independence.
The Colonies form a Confederation that is much looser than in OTL but with a bigger navy paid for by import tariffs. The militias are much larger and more numerous, and of course they are unopposed by British forces in Canada. The Confederation does enforce free trade, unlike in OTL, but they have independent currencies and therefore don't have the postwar deflationary depression we had, or the Colonial currency hyperinflation when the British used the Tories to distribute counterfeit currencies. The Tory landholders are not dispossessed by the Revolutionary troops to pay for British damage to Revolutionary property. The economy is not damaged as much and continues to develop at it's prewar rate.
With both New Orleans and the St. Lawrence in Colonial hands the expansion into the interior is much faster. Rail develops on the St. Lawrence as the cargo moves around the rapids, and steam ships develop on the Mississippi to move manufactured goods and passengers upstream to pay for the agricultural products moving downstream. There is no Erie Canal or National Road. There is a Confederation capital sited at the falls of the Potomac. It actually develops faster when the earlier railroad extends up the Potomac and Shenandoah to link to the Ohio. It takes the major place that NYC has in OTL because of the construction of the Erie canal in 1817-1825.
All land on the other side of the Alleghennies is formed into states and allowed to keep the proceeds of the sale of land, but the land price is deliberately set low to encourage immigration, unlike in OTL. They fill up much faster with cheaper land and cheaper transportation. The wave of colonization hits Texas faster and the Mexican cession is simply purchased from the Spanish government in one of it's periodic financial crisises. There is no Mexican war. Baja is included. New Russia from the Fallerones to the Bering Straits is also included.
The better financed and larger Confederated navy explores earlier and when trading posts are built on the Pacific islands they are annexed, more to keep them out of European hands than otherwise. Discovery of the New Caledonia nickel and chrome deposits takes place around 1850, 25 years earlier than in OTL. Likewise the phosphate deposits of Nauru, etc. When the British prisoners on Australia revolt in 1845 the Confederation navy ships them arms and ammunition, and some ships for gunrunning. The British are so far away that they never recover Australia from the insurrection. The Confederation government eventually recognises them and later annexes them.
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Fascinating post Walter :) One wishes people would use timelines like this and make them into novelisations. It would be a truly different world !

Grey Wolf
 
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