"For Want of a Nail" and Oregon

[chrispi]

While For Want of a Nail is an excellent AH, it does have a few errors (e.g. it says Florida was Spanish in 1776 when in fact it was British.) But there's another implausibility that concerns me, and that is the Mexican conquest of the entire West Coast.

The Brits have had interest there since the days of Sir Francis Drake and New Albion. Captain Cook was exploring the Pacific Northwest coast around 1776 too. In OTL, Spanish hostility towards British ships in Nootka Sound nearly started a war, so I think that similar provocations would happen in the ATL as well. Further incursions from the east by the Hudson's Bay Company (sadly absent from FWOAN ) make the British position much stronger. In short, the Spanish lose Oregon in the 1790s, making a Mexican reconquista very unlikely.

Now, what to do with a British Oregon? Here's one scenario: just as the Pilgrims settled New England to escape religious persecution, so the Luddites settle Oregon to escape industrial persecution.

[David S Poepoe]

I have to admit that Drake's claim of New Albion is really questionable. Also the British can't really protect their claims to it. Spanish exploration under Bartolome Ferrelo in 1543 reached just north of the Tillamook River in present day Oregon.

[cow defender]

maybe theres a race for oregon between mexico and britain which starts the british mexican war, giving the brits california and the yucatan?

[chrispi]

Originally Posted by David S Poepoe

I have to admit that Drake's claim of New Albion is really questionable. Also the British can't really protect their claims to it. Spanish exploration under Bartolome Ferrelo in 1543 reached just north of the Tillamook River in present day Oregon.

Then what was the Nootka Sound controversy about, if Britain can't protect its claims?

[David S Poepoe]

Originally Posted by chrispi

Then what was the Nootka Sound controversy about, if Britain can't protect its claims?

Nootka Sound is further up the coast from the Tillamook River. Spanish exploration is completely different than actual settlement along the California coast.

[chrispi]

Originally Posted by David S Poepoe

Nootka Sound is further up the coast from the Tillamook River. Spanish exploration is completely different than actual settlement along the California coast.

The Nootka incident forced Spain to cede Oregon to Britain* in the 1790s. Spain got off lightly; were a war to have resulted it could have lost a lot more.

*Technically Oregon was a British-US condominium in OTL until the 1840s, but let's not quibble here, okay?

[David S Poepoe]

I know you are trying to figure out British Columbia/Oregon within the FWOAN ATL. I don't have my copy of FWOAN with me right now so I don't remember the map of North America.

[George Carty]

Originally Posted by David S Poepoe

I know you are trying to figure out British Columbia/Oregon within the FWOAN ATL. I don't have my copy of FWOAN with me right now so I don't remember the map of North America.

Here's the "For All Nails" map (retconned a bit from the original FWOAN map). Siberia has been Japanese since the Global War.

[chrispi]

Basically my own "For Want of a Nail" political map looks like the above, except that Jefferson is the independent Republic of Louisiana, the United States of Mexico is actually the Empire of Mexico, and, of course, Alaska/Oregon is a realm of British North America.