Horizon to Horizon: The Imperial Commonwealth of the United States

[Libertad]

HORIZON TO HORIZON: THE IMPERIAL COMMONWEALTH OF THE UNITED STATES

Welcome to my new Cliche Called Ameriwank timeline.

My decision to create this thread is to tell you, honestly, because of the reason that I don't want my original Cliche Called Ameriwank timeline to drown out the United States of Ameriwank by Big Tex in search engines as what I am noticing since the time that I saw that the page 1 of my Ameriwank timeline is on the top result of Google search engine and the other 6 pages of my thread are among the top results with the United States of Ameriwank being a bit drowned out. I really don't want that to happen.

I want readers to notice that this work of mine is not that good in my opinion compared to Big Tex's phenomenal work. That's the reason.

So by the way, Why the title? Horizon to Horizon? What's with the Imperial Commonwealth of the United States? What's this?

Well, to those who at least managed to lurk around without making their presence felt in making replies, you'll notice that in the first thread, I've decided to create an American monarchy. And yes, I'm going to continue the idea... but with a twist... Just watch out for that.

So there would be a federal American kingdom. If it is really going to be federal. But yeah, at least an American monarchy. My inspiration in making this decision is Lord Grattan's amazing Course of Human Events timeline. And of course, this is in tribute to Wolfgang Scott Cohen and his America Eterna: The Federal Kingdom of America timeline. May you be in peace right now Wolf , living in a United States of Ameriwank like world. Hopefully. That's my (Ameriwank?) world . But what's with the Imperial Commonwealth?? Well, if Big Tex is going to create the Great Republic of the United States out of his current Ameriwank Empire; why can I not make the Imperial Commonwealth of the United States out of my own (Ameriwank??) Empire?

The question though is how the hell am I going to do this timeline going along the way of creating a borderline ASBish looking and utopianistic one world union timeline?

Then just watch out!!

And actually, the question is... can I really do that?? Can I make the entire planet of the humans come together under the embrace of (the American Eagle?)??

Well, I'm gonna try. But my goal is really not that. I just want to create the largest territorial Ameriwank possible. And that might not cover the entire world. But let's see as we move from my POD to the year 2000. To my readers in the original thread, you already know what's gonna be my POD. But I'm going to post it again here for the benefit of those who did not. Hehehehe.

You might ask..."What's with the question marks over there with the open and close parentheses covering the words Ameriwank and the American Eagle? I thought you're going to make an Ameriwank?"

WHAHAHAHA. Decide for yourself if I'm making an Ameriwank or not then!!

You'll see why.

LET'S GET STARTED!!!

[Libertad]

SEVEN YEARS’ WAR and the BATTLE OF SIGNAL HILL



The Seven Years’ War is an international conflict involving most of the great powers of the world from 1756 to 1763 and affected large parts of the world; including Europe, North America, Central America, the West African Coast, India and the Philippines. It is what many historians are considering as the “third global war” after the War of the Spanish Succession and the War of Austrian Succession. It is known by many names considering the battles in numerous theaters: The French and Indian War, Pomeranian War, Third Carnatic War and the Third Silesian War.

There’s been a non-stop fighting for almost seven years. The date is September 15, 1762. The place is St. John’s, Newfoundland. The French were totally losing the war and everybody on the French side knows it. However, in anticipation of the upcoming peace negotiations, the French wanted one final fight. The goal is to gain access to the fisheries of Newfoundland as part of the plan to rebuild the French Navy after being beaten badly by the British. Thus back in May, a small force headed by Chevalier de Ternay slipped out of Brest, France, passed the blockade and headed into the Atlantic.
By June 27, 1762; it seems that the French were just on their way in capturing Newfoundland. Here in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Comte d’Haussonville’s forces forced the surrender of the town and proceeded to make a defense system consisting of several advance posts equipped with artillery around Signal Hill, a strategic point surrounding the area.
But just two days ago, the British landed at Torbay, a few miles north of the place. Ternay and Haussonville were unable to counter it, so to hamper the British advance, they dispatched a detachment to guard the bare summit of Signal Hill.

Now at dawn, the British makes a surprise attack by climbing the hell held by the French. This surprise attack is short but fatal that it lead to the death of the commander of the French detachment, Guillame de Bellecombe. [1] On the British side though, a bullet shatters the legs of one of William Amherst’s officers.

By morning, Signal Hill is in the hands of the British. And it seems that the war is finally on its closing period.

[1] THE POD. In OTL, He is just seriously wounded and managed to have a good career in French India and French Haiti before finally retiring and dying in the middle of the French Revolution.

[Libertad]

THE TREATY OF PARIS and the END OF THE SEVEN YEARS’ WAR


And so the Seven Years’ War finally came to an end. In the Treaty of Paris signed on February 10, 1763; the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland emerged as the world’s premier colonial power. Many historians today concluded that the Treaty of Paris started what will become known as the First Britannian Century. Not only does this treaty showed the overall victory of the British over the French and the Spaniards, it actually started the slow transfer of power that is going to happen for the next 150 years within the old British Empire from the motherland Britain to its North American colonies, that in a matter of years will form the United States of America.


In this treaty; Britain returned many of its conquests, since the British perspective on the status of France and Spain is that despite their loss, they are still major European powers so that peace terms could not be made too harsh that it will only aggravate the situation where France and Spain might look for revenge, bringing Britain into another long war. This lead to the decision of returning some of the economically powerful sugar islands in the Caribbean that was formerly held by the French in return of capitalizing on the fur trade of Quebec. Spanish Tobago was not returned back though but Havana was returned back to Spain. Britain, through this treaty, gained St. Lucia, Tobago, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada and Dominica while returning Martinique and Guadeloupe back to France.[1] Britain also gained the eastern half of French Louisiana, that of from the Mississippi River to the Appalachian Mountains while also gaining Spanish Florida and yes, French Quebec. Britain then returned all of its other conquests to its respective owners while also giving France fishing rights off Newfoundland and giving two small islands, St. Pierre and Miquelon, for French fishermen to dry their catches. Minorca was also returned back to Britain by Spain. France was then forced to recognize the British client rulers in India along with making the promise not to attack Bengal.

So the year 1763 became the first year of London's colonial dominance that will never be reversed.

[1] St. Lucia was given to Britain, and was not returned to France. Spanish Tobago was also given to Britain. These are the first obvious butterflies since the POD.

[Libertad]

THE COURSE OF HUMAN EVENTS [1]



1763 was a seminal year in North American history. In the aftermath of her victory in the Seven Years War, Great Britain established military and mercantile superiority over the lion’s share of the continent. All of New France east of the Mississippi River and east of the Hudson Bay Company’s land (Rupert’s Land) in the arctic north, plus the two Floridas now belonged to Great Britain. The North American theater of the war had been the site of brutal and destructive violence. Its end though did not bring peace to the continent. Rather it brought more conflict and bloodshed.

After the British army had taken control of the region from France, various Indian tribes, beginning with those near Détroit, revolted. They were alarmed by the policies imposed upon them by British General Jeffery Amherst and the British encroachment onto their land. The French, though they claimed the land, never attempted to dominate the land in the Upper Great Lakes as the British were attempting to do. The Indians, under the leadership of the Ottawa Chief Pontiac, attacked several British forts and settlements in the region in an attempt to drive both soldiers and settlers out. All totaled, eight forts were destroyed and hundreds of British soldiers were either killed or captured. Over a thousand settlers lost their lives or were captured as well. The number of Indians killed was not recorded. In the end, The Indians were unable to drive away the British, but the rebellion did force the British government to modify the policies that had provoked the conflict. The following year, peace talks between the crown and the tribes were begun. General Amherst was recalled to London and then reassigned.

[2]King George III was greatly appalled by the reports of the awful violence. On October 7, 1763, the king issued the Proclamation of 1763. The treaty established the vast Continental Crown Lands [3], which would, for an unspecified length of time, be reserved for the Indians and off limits to British settlers. The region set aside included the entire Great Lakes watershed, St. Lawrence watershed east of the river and the Mississippi watershed and those of its tributaries east of the river itself. The eastern boundary began at the mouth the St. John River at St. Lawrence Bay, followed the rives for 30 miles, went south to the Great Eastern Divide, and then followed the divide south to the 33rd Parallel, where the line curved to the SE where it intersected the 82nd Latitude and the East Florida border. The southern boundary of the reserve was the 32nd Parallel from the Mississippi River east to the Chattahoochee River, then south along the river at midstream to the river’s junction with the Apalachicola River, then east along the East Florida boarder to its terminus at the 82nd Latitude.

The Proclamation did not sit well with the colonists. For those who had poured money into land speculating endeavors it brought financial loss. For the land hungry populous it represented opportunity lost. People’s anger was focused on Parliament. This anger was enflamed further in the spring of 1764 when Parliament passed the Sugar and Currency Acts. The Sugar Act, which was a modification [4] of the 1733 Molasses Act, was an attempt to raise money for the Crown by increasing the duties on merchandise imported into the colonies that was not of British origin. The Currency Act prohibit the colonies from issuing paper money, but it did forbid them from designating future currency emissions as legal tender for public or private debts. This tight money policy created financial difficulties in the colonies, where gold and silver were in short supply[5]. At a town meeting in Massachusetts Bay, "no taxation without representation" was decried and cooperative protest throughout the colonies was suggested. Non-importation, or declining to accept merchandise imported from Britain, became the protest of choice in the Colonies.

By early 1764, King George III had concluded that he needed a personal representative in the colonies, someone whom he could trust to act on his behalf regarding land and settlement issues in the land covered by the Proclamation of 1763 and who could be a persuasive spokesperson for the Crown in the existing colonies of North America. In late April that year he chose his brother, Edward Augustus, Duke of York and Albany for the job. Edward was created Proprietor of the Continental Crown Lands. [6] He arrived at Annapolis, Maryland on August 27, 1764. Edward and his wife, still newlyweds, having been married just five months earlier, would stay at the estate of Frederick Calvert, the 6th Baron Baltimore.

[1] The first entry of Lord’s Grattan’s The Course of Human Events timeline. There were very slight modifications on this entry though which I made.
[2] Here come the modifications. I deleted the first sentence of this paragraph from the original entry.
[3] The second obvious butterfly from the POD.
[4] It’s originally written as “an extension”.
[5] Changed the original entry for a bit.
[6] More butterflies are flapping their wings right now!

THANK YOU LORD GRATTAN.

[Libertad]

EDWARD AUGUSTUS; DUKE OF YORK AND ALBANY, PROPRIETOR OF THE CONTINENTAL CROWN LANDS

[Libertad]

THE AMERICAN COLONIAL CRISIS [1]

Upon arriving in North America, Edward Augustus immediately became involved with the situation in the Crown Lands. In November 1764 he met with Britain’s Indian Agent for the northern section of the Crown Lands, Sir William Johnson. Johnson told him about Pontiac’s activities and described the British response. At the time, British soldiers were marching toward the Muskingum River in the Ohio Country and were within striking distance of several Indian villages. During that mission the army secured the release of more than 200 men, women and children who had been taken captive by the Indians. The army also extended an invitation to tribal leaders asking them to gather the following summer at Fort Ontario to craft a formal peace treaty with representatives of the British government. By November, the expedition had pressed on into the Illinois Country where they drove French soldiers from their last remaining stronghold, Fort de Chartes. It was there that they spent the winter.

When spring arrived, the commander, Colonel Bouquet and deputy Indian agent, George Croghan, met with Chiefs Pontiac and Kaské. While Kaské wanted to burn Croghan at the stake, Pontiac urged moderation. Kaské refused to join with “those who would surrender to the invaders the land given them by the Great Spirit”. Rather than accept British sovereignty, he left British territory by crossing the Mississippi River with other French and Indian refugees. Pontiac though agreed to travel to New York. There he and several hundred other Illinois and Ohio tribal leaders entered into a formal treaty with William Johnson and Edward Augustus at Fort Ontario on July 25, 1765. The Fort Ontario Treaty called for the cessation of all hostilities in the region, provided for the return of all prisoners of war, and established a Covenant Chain of Mutual Respect and Peace between the tribes and the British government. Additionally, the tribes recognized British control (but not sovereignty) over the land north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, and the British agreed to provide livestock, clothing, blankets and medical supplies to the tribes annually for ten years. While at the fort, Edward Augustus met and befriended the Mohawk leader Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea). Brant’s friendships with Edward Augustus and William Johnson were the only lasting friendships he ever had with white men.

The Duke of York also quickly became involved in the issues between the colonists and the crown. Throughout his first year in North America, the Duke of York was in correspondence with several leading citizens and government officials in the colonies. These letters focused on the issues of taxation, commerce and western settlement. These letters did much to calm the waters in the colonies. The Duke’s efforts were hampered however when Parliament passed the Stamp and Quartering Acts. There was civil unrest in several cities from Halifax to Philadelphia.

As a result of Prince Edward’s efforts, a meeting was set up between Prince Edward and key legislators and citizens from several colonies. The meeting was held between October 10 and 28, 1765 in New Haven, Connecticut, [2] with him presiding. At the conclusion of the meeting; the Stamp Act Congress, as it was known, submitted a Declaration of Rights and Grievances in which they claimed that Parliament’s right of taxing the colonists is unconstitutional because the body did not include any representation from the colonies and in response to the problem of “taxation without representation”, a Plan for Colonial Cooperation and Responsible Government was also issued as a proposal in solving the problem. The plan, called the Adams-Franklin-Augustus Plan (after its chief proponents Samuel Adams, William Franklin and the prince himself) would be disseminated, along with the Declaration of Rights and Grievances, throughout British America and would be presented to King George III and the British Parliament by a colonial delegation, headed by Prince Edward himself, who signed these documents.

[1] With partial entries from Lord’s Grattan’s The Course of Human Events timeline.

[2] The Stamp Act Congress of OTL was held in New York City between October 7 and 25, 1765.



SAMUEL ADAMS, Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Stamp Act Congress delegate



WILLIAM FRANKLIN, Governor of New Jersey and Stamp Act Congress delegate