Malê Rising

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Originally Posted by Ganesha

Very cool. Given that Islam is a proselytizing religion (even more so with revolutionary Abcarism mixed in), how much will the Muslim South Carolinians attempt to convert their Christian neighbors? Might they even try to convert North Carolinians and Georgians?

If Muslim South Carolinians are going around African-American communities in the south preaching the teachings of Muhammad, there's going to be serious tensions. Would they be brave enough to try it?

That's an interesting question. The Muslims in South Carolina will be aware that they're a minority, and the Freedmen's Circle collectives will have a strong taboo against creating dissension within the community, so most (albeit not all) of the proselytizing within SC itself will be by example and through cultural cross-pollination. Both Muslims and Christians will borrow each other's cultural trappings - I've already mentioned Muslim spirituals and gospel music - and there will be many who cross the divide out of conviction or family ties, but for the most part, people of both religions will avoid rocking the boat.

Outside South Carolina, though, the dynamic will be different - Abacarist Muslims will see proselytizing as spreading the gospel of freedom. Some will be brave enough to try it, which will create tensions not only with the whites but with the leadership of the black churches. One of the growing pains of TTL's civil-rights movement will involve Abacarists and church-based groups learning to work together.

Originally Posted by Neoteros

Are you suggesting that in this TL, West African Muslims will have the same influence in America of OTL Ashkenazi Jews, with proselytism? Damn. Interesting...

They're starting with a group that's considerably more socially disadvantaged than the Ashkenazi Jews were, so building up the same degree of influence won't be easy. On the other hand, they'll have a great deal of cachet within the African-American community due to their role in the Sea Island rebellions and the Great Rising, and South Carolina politics will enable them to build up social capital. So yeah, they'll start slower, but by 2012, they might be about as politically and culturally influential as Ashkenazi Jews in OTL.

Originally Posted by Ganesha

Actually, I was thinking that Jews will emigrate in roughly the same numbers as OTL, but more of them will go to the Ottoman Empire rather than the United States. I might be completely off base here, but since the Ottomans are remaining relatively tolerant and open-minded ITTL, Russian Jews might look at them as an attractive and nearby place to settle, especially since the Holy Land is within Ottoman territory. There's also the Free Port of Salonika. You might get a wave of Russian Jewish and Muslim immigration into the Balkans, the Middle East, and Anatolia.

Fair point. I do plan for the Ottoman Empire to have a large Jewish community, centered on Stamboul, Jerusalem and the Levantine coastal cities, and they probably will get many of the immigrants who would have gone to the United States in OTL. Some will go to Salonika too, but it isn't big enough to accommodate nearly everyone who would want to come.

The Russian Muslims will mostly settle in Anatolia and the Balkans, with the Ottoman government offering incentives to choose the latter.

Originally Posted by Iori

I think perhaps you should qualify this by saying the Crimean Tatars, as the Tatars overall have historically been one of Russia's largest Minorities (5.5 million presently) and spreadout throughout the Empire, but centered around modern day Tatarstan, straddling the border between European Russia and Asian Russia.

You're right, of course; consider the statement qualified.

Originally Posted by Admiral Matt

Hiram Maxim, of Maxim Gun fame, achieved powered flight with a 3.5 ton steam turbine aircraft in 1894. Of course, he did it partially by accident and hadn't thought to include any method to pilot the thing. So when it took off, it had to rip itself loose from the track he'd built. Apparently it was damaged and Maxim gave up on the endeavor.

He wasn't the only one experimenting at the time - Langley's Aerodrome 5 and 6 achieved unmanned flight in 1896. The idea would definitely be floating around, and there would be people with some idea how to design a plane, so if someone invests the money in a crash program, it might produce results. The question would be one of priorities - would manned flight seem too pie-in-the-sky (no pun intended) as compared with other, more urgent projects, or would a militarily useful model seem close enough to make the investment worthwhile?

In any event, I think we agree on what a crash program could reasonably produce - something that could be used for medium-range reconnaissance and possibly dropping a few small bombs for psychological effect, but no more than that. Likewise with armor - maybe some mobile artillery and early-model tanks that show promise for future wars, but nothing that will be a magic bullet in this one.

Originally Posted by Admiral Matt

To read your responses I clearly came off as having hostile or flame-inducing intent, which was certainly never my goal. I hope you'll forgive one post aimed solely at clearing the air. Switching to another place implies my grievances are being thrashed out somewhere. Since I have no real grievances, I'd rather avoid that implication.

I trust you will find it calculated not to derail the thread, but if Jonathan Edelstein requests it, I'll immediately edit this away.

There was certainly no offense taken on my part, and if I came off as hostile, I apologize. My only concern was that these meta-discussions often tend to take things over - I've seen it happen elsewhere. Your points were entirely legitimate and fair game.

Originally Posted by Admiral Matt

I think my math background is the source of the issue here, as your definition of the butterfly effect - including changes that can be traced - is indeed pretty standard on the board. That's obviously the real work of alternate history, as it can be predicted, and just as obviously is not a chaotic system. My background prejudices me against dropping the original meaning of the term - that in chaotic systems there aren't identifiable reasons - but as I said before, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Hmmm. I suppose that in the strict mathematical sense, the term "butterflies" doesn't apply at all to history, or to any other non-chaotic system where cause and effect can be traced?

(And yes, this forum is all about playing God, but I'm a rabbinic Jewish sort of God - the rules I lay down apply as much to myself as to my creations. )

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Jaime Abrantes, The Promise of Grão Pará (Belém: Amazonas, 1947)

... The uprising of the Cabanagem was an uneasy coalition between the rural poor and the local elites, which at times degenerated into factional fighting even while the imperial Brazilian armies threatened. After the imperial forces were finally worn down, leaving more than a quarter of Pará's population dead, the coalition broke down entirely. Within two years of the formal recognition of Grão Pará's independence, it had returned to a state of war: this time, civil war.

The immediate cause of the war was the 1839 constitution, promulgated while the rebellion was still in progress. Drafted by revolutionary journalist Eduardo Angelim, who served as Grão Pará's provisional president, this charter was a progressive one for its time: it abolished slavery, established universal suffrage, included a bill of rights modeled after the American one, and most controversially, held that no man could be deprived of the fruits of his labor.

Eduardo Angelim

The first postwar legislature, meeting at the capital in Belém, was a populist one, including tenant farmers, laborers and even ex-slaves. The radical majority attempted to enforce this provision by enacting a land-reform law which broke up the big estates and requiring employers to pay a minimum wage based on their profits. The landowners and large merchants, who had supported the rebellion out of a desire to rule their own fiefdoms free of interference from Rio rather than from sympathy for the cabanos' social demands, reacted as might be expected. After they failed to block the populist legislation through parliamentary maneuvering, they recruited armies from their tenants - often composed of the same people who had voted for the popular party not long before - to violently resist any attempt to seize their domains.

Before long, the landlords' scattered rebellions had become a full-blown war against the government in Belém, pitting former comrades-in-arms against one another. The landowners had an enormous advantage in money and resources to offset the government’s superior numbers, and quickly took control of much of the countryside. The populists fought a valiant rearguard campaign in the cities and the deep Amazon, but by 1849 it was over: the landlords seized the capital, Angelim went into exile in Portugal, and Grão Pará's progressive experiment had ended.

The constitution of 1850, drafted by a tightly controlled convention, was very different from its predecessor. Suffrage was subject to a strict property qualification, political parties were outlawed, land-reform decrees were nullified, and the cabanos were relegated to their prewar status. In many cases, their lot was even worse than it had been in 1830; Grão Pará was impoverished by two decades of rebellion and civil strife, the merchant oligarchs in the port cities had raised the price of necessary goods, and an increasing number of the rural poor were driven into debt peonage. Slavery was not reinstated, but for some, it hardly mattered.

The cabanos, as always, responded to the deteriorating conditions in several ways. Most resigned themselves sullenly to their lot. Some erupted in local rebellions, all of which were crushed. The remainder fled, either to quilombos brancos (“white quilombos”) similar to the colonies of escaped slaves, or to the deep Amazon where they scratched out a living hunting, trapping, prospecting and trading small wares. There, they came into conflict with the Indians of the Amazon basin as well as similar groups of settlers from Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, all of which had their own claims in the basin and which saw Grão Pará's weakness as an opportunity to enforce them.

Between 1850 and 1870, the “War Without Armies” would push the frontiers hundreds of miles in each direction, as groups of settlers staked their countries’ claims to disputed land and were driven out in their turn. The region was too marginal to be worth the cost of a formal military expedition, but the basin was a patchwork of brushfire wars and shifting alliances. And throughout it all, the merchants of the lower Amazon, through whose cities the timber and ores had to pass, reaped the profits.

What changed things was the growing European demand for industrial rubber. The Amazon basin was the largest known source of untapped latex, and suddenly, rather than a marginal country of prospectors, loggers and trading posts, it became a place of immense natural riches. In 1855, Grão Pará exported about 2000 tons of rubber; by 1875, this had risen to 11,000 tons. And magnates from Britain, France, the North German Confederation, Brazil and the United States, who had hitherto ignored Grão Pará, scrambled to set up rubber plantations.

The rubber barons were the ones who imposed peace on the middle Amazon; with the government in Belém as weak as it was, they established their own security forces to defend the plantations and repel incursions. They settled in Manaus, which had been a jungle village in 1840 but had taken on the appearance of a boom town by the late 1870s, with all the imported luxuries and gaudy frills that the planters’ millions could buy.

With the rubber planters’ wealth came great suffering. Labor was needed for the estates, and many Indians, who were already hard pressed by the traders and prospectors, were rounded up and made to work as virtual slaves. The barons also recruited among the cabanos, and brought in contract laborers both from Europe - many of whom perished of tropical fevers long before their indentures were up - and from India and Java.

The rubber boom, too, made Grão Pará a pawn in the game of empires, as the great powers jockeyed for control of the Amazon’s strategic resources. France, acting as Brazil’s patron, backed the long-dormant Brazilian claim to the region, while others favored Bolivia or Peru; Britain and the United States became strong supporters of Grão Pará's independence, but each hoped to turn the Belém government into its puppet. In a single generation, the aristocratic legislature envisioned by the 1850 constitution had slipped out of the aristocrats’ hands, with political factions becoming little more than proxies for the great powers, while in the deep Amazon, another revolution was building...

*******

Zélia Alalouf, Bridge to the Twentieth Century: The Brazil of Isabel I (São Paulo: Nova Fronteira, 2010)

... The Third Platine War, the coronels' rebellion and the flight to Recife took an enormous toll on Emperor Pedro II. In his youth, Pedro had lived through the decade of civil wars and convulsions that had splintered the country, and the thought of this happening again to his beloved Brazil was almost too much to bear. The illness he contracted while in Pernambuco did nothing to help the situation, and as the war progressed, he withdrew increasingly from public life. The Emperor lived to see the victorious end of the war, but he weakened steadily after the court returned to Rio, and on August 11, 1870, he died at the age of forty-four.

The Brazilian throne devolved upon the 25-year-old Isabel, Princess Imperial. On the surface, it seemed that little was changed; the princess had often acted as regent during her father's illnesses and absences, and during the war years, she had acted for him almost continuously. But it soon became clear that Empress Isabel was different from Princess Regent Isabel. Now that she acted in her own name, she felt less constrained to follow her father's way of ruling, and more willing to put her own stamp on the country. For the next half-century, little would happen in Brazil without Isabel having a hand in it.

Isabel of Brazil

The early part of Isabel's reign has often been compared to a mirror-universe Second French Empire in which Eugénie, rather than Napoleon III, was ruler. The Empress was greatly influenced by her mother, Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies, and the two had much in common: both were deeply religious, passionate about education and the arts, and keen to improve and modernize Brazil. But where Teresa Cristina was retiring, Isabel's years as regent had made her forceful and autocratic.

Some of Isabel's innovations were progressive: the new imperial constitution of 1872 greatly expanded the franchise, free primary education was made available throughout the country, immigration was encouraged, and the growth of industry was promoted. But at the same time, the powers of the throne and the Church became stronger. In the name of curbing the coronels' power, the postwar constitution strictly curtailed the provinces' autonomy, making the provincial legislatures subject to centrally appointed governors and cabinets and stripping the provincial governments of all fiscal power. Significantly, the power to appoint provincial and municipal officials was given to the Empress, not to the national assembly. The constitution also enshrined the Church's role in education, public morals and public health; during the late nineteenth century, Brazilian censorship laws were among the strictest in the world.

Economically, Brazil had become little more than an appendage of France. Loans from the French treasury and troops from the French army had helped keep the imperial government afloat during the war, and France had taken its repayment in the form of mineral rights and trade concessions. During the 1870s, French companies developed new mines, built new factories and dominated the import trade; even many of the smaller import-export houses in the port cities were owned by retired French and Wolof soldiers. Only the coffee and sugar plantations remained largely in Brazilian hands. The French presence brought unprecedented investment to Brazil, and created jobs for hundreds of thousands of immigrants, freedmen and displaced agricultural workers, but it also meant that much of the country's wealth was expatriated...

... Isabel was also a fierce opponent of slavery, and she was the one who finally brought an end to it. The institution had been in steep decline for years; the combination of a negative population growth rate among slaves, the end of the Atlantic and trans-Caribbean slave trades, and the loss of many slaves to revolts and escapes, had convinced even its most ardent proponents that its days were numbered. Indeed, as more and more immigrants refused to stay on agricultural jobs because they were "slave work," and as the imperial government refused to countenance the importation of contract laborers from non-Catholic countries, the plantation owners themselves began to urge that slavery be abolished so that they could recruit a steady work force.

During the civil war, several of the provinces under imperial control had outlawed slavery; Ceará, in 1866, became the first to do so, joined by Bahia and Pernambuco the following year and Paraiba in 1868. As the imperial armies moved steadily south during 1868 and 1869, they confiscated and freed the slaves of rebellious coronels, and even before the war ended, Isabel (then still Regent) pushed the Liberty of the Womb Act through the legislature, decreeing that every child thereafter born to a slave was free. The final act in the drama was the 1872 constitution, which, at the Empress' insistence, provided that all slaves in Brazil would become free as of January 1, 1876. Much to the chagrin of the confederados who had immigrated to São Paulo and Minas Gerais provinces after the American civil war, and who had fought on the coronels' side in the Brazilian one, chattel slavery was at last gone from the New World.

For the most part, however, the lot of the freed slaves was unenviable. Most were poor, few were educated, and both the urban and rural freedmen were relegated to the margins of society. The measures that had been imposed after the Marianada revolt, including the outlawing of the candomble rituals, remained in force, and the Church-dominated government showed little inclination to rescind them. Their natural leaders had perished in slave revolts, fled to the quilombos or made their way back to Africa, and organizing for their rights as citizens would be a long and arduous task.

The growth of the industrial cities during the 1870s, which resulted in an acute labor shortage in much of the country, helped somewhat: many unskilled freedmen were able to raise themselves from the underclass to the working class, and those fortunate to have worked in skilled occupations as slaves might even attain middle-class status and be able to provide good educations for their children. But the other event that raised the Afro-Brazilians' profile was entirely unexpected. As the imperial government cast about for partners to help offset France's economic dominance, someone remembered that there were Brazilians all along the West African coast. The Agudas, Marianados and Malê may once have been slaves who fought their way free, but suddenly, as the 1880s dawned, they were long-lost cousins to be courted...

[Daztur]

Originally Posted by Admiral Matt

Yeah, I'm not sure how I missed that myself. Very clever way of getting some of those African industries through to decolonization.

Yeah, overall I prefer time lines that take the approach "now what would happen this THIS happened?" more than "what sort of POD would lead to this result a century or two down the road?" and Jonathan Edelstein is obviously trying to guide things towards a more pleasant result for Africa but the way he's doing it is subtle and clever enough that I'm really enjoying it.

What's interesting here is that the next big war AFTER the great war will probably see some horrific examples of generals fighting the last war since there'll certainly be more bits of mechanized warfare ready to roll by then and a lot of people will have no idea how to deal with them since they didn't get any/much preview in *WW I.

Will be interesting to see the role of contract laborers brought in from Asia in the New World, especially in the light of the last update from Brazil. Presumably a lot are already there.

[wolf_brother]

Wait, Afro-Brazilian cross-Atlantic alliance?

[Shevek23]

Originally Posted by Daztur

...
Will be interesting to see the role of contract laborers brought in from Asia in the New World, especially in the light of the last update from Brazil. Presumably a lot are already there.

But as long as Isabel is Empress (we're told for a half-century, so that's into the 1920s!) they'll have to be Catholic Asians.

The Portuguese African colonies, Angola and Mozambique, seem more likely. And any French colony Africans who convert to Catholicism, but they'd be few I'd think. The only significant population of Asians who are nominally Catholic anyway I can think of would be the Filipinos. Be interesting if Spain and her colonies get drawn into a Franco-Brazilian orbit.

There might be fair numbers of Vietnamese Catholics by now, but I'd think they'd still be a minority in Vietnam and privileged there, and so tend to stay there as favored agents of the colonial regime. (This might also be true of any Africans who convert under French rule).

The big question mark is, how closely tied to the French will the Brazilians and their possible African allies be? We know France is going to eventually go to war against Britain; if the Brazilians don't work out some way to stay neutral they and their African allies might get badly hurt in that buzz saw.

Also, the Great War will happen before the USA OTL was ready to go on its imperialist spree centered on the Spanish-American War. If Brazil is allied to France and Spain is allied to both Brazil and France, the US might get drawn into the war on the British-German-Turkish side by the temptation of seizing Spanish territory. One hopes the Afro-American influence strengthens the hand of the anti-imperialists. But then again they might get drawn toward the imperialist side if they think the Afro-Cubans and possibly the Filipinos are getting a raw deal from Spain and if they think they might have some influence in promoting a progressive colonial policy in the Caribbean and Philippines.

I've lost track of Mexico but I think at this point, the 1870s, it's still an Empire with a French-affiliated monarch, and might well still be that in the 1890s.

None of these Yankee ambitions, however modulated they might be sincere multicultural progressivism, would be any serious help to the British or Germans. Perhaps though these European powers can diplomatically point to the hungry/ambitious Yanks and use the implicit threat to keep the Iberian-related minor powers (Spain, Portugal, Brazil) neutral and thus keep the war from spreading to South America and somewhat isolate France.

Vice versa, if either Spain or Mexico is too headstrong in its alliance with France and gives the Americans a pretext, perhaps the British will secure a significant expedition of Americans to the fronts of Europe as a quid pro quo for their blessing of whatever territorial or whatever other hegemonic gains the Americans can get in Mexico, the Spanish Caribbean, or the Philippines.

American trade, particularly munitions, would be valuable to the Anglo-German-Turkish side as well, but probably not on quite the scale it was during the OTL Great War. The US would have had two fewer decades of internal growth while the British will have had less time to decline, plus of course here the British also have significant productive as well as extractive industries in Africa. So I figure that aside from the limited help that tying down second-string Franco-Austro-Russian allies represents, the main thing Americans could offer in addition to this lesser (if still significant) industrial muscle would be boots on the ground, AKA cannon fodder. Given the less commanding position Americans would have relative to the situation as of 1918 OTL, and the likelihood that Americans would enter the war at all for spoils in America and possibly Asia, I suppose any expeditionary force the USA might send to Europe would be more likely to fall under Anglo-German command while the Americans concentrate on taking and holding the territories they desire elsewhere.

Well gosh, it was never clear to me what side if either the Americans might wind up on in this 1890s Great War before! The way it looks to me now, the Americans will either remain neutral, foregoing all gains the OTL Spanish-American war brought them, or will enter on the British side but mainly be interested in territory either in Mexico, Cuba/Puerto Rico, or the Philippines (or all of them if both Mexico and Spain are on the other side.

I'm interested in hearing counterarguments drawing the USA toward the French side; personally I'm coming up empty. The best-case scenario I can imagine for France regarding the USA would be if it stays neutral; to do that either both Mexico and Spain need to be dissuaded from provoking the Americans, or France needs to distance herself from either one if they seem to be on a collision course with the USA.

Am I overlooking something?

[Ganesha]

Very nice update, Jonathan. In this case, I have nothing intelligent to add, so I'll just say that I enjoyed reading it, it seemed very plausible, it was very interesting, and I'm looking forward to the next!

Cheers,
Ganesha

[Daztur]

But as long as Isabel is Empress (we're told for a half-century, so that's into the 1920s!) they'll have to be Catholic Asians.

Was talking about the new world in general not Brazil specifically, but still throttling nipo-brasileiro culture in its crib is a bit sad. I wonder where those people will end up instead (dead on the battlefield?). Interestingly they might get killed by/kill my own ancestors if they can't sneak off, butterflying any slim chances of *me getting born ITTL since both of my Russian great grandfathers ran away to the US rather than get sent to the Russo-Japanese war and *they might not get a chance to do so ITTL.

[Ganesha]

As you might remember, I'm a bit of a map fanatic, but I have no ability to make maps myself. I was thinking that as we approach the Great War, it might be nice to have a world map, showing all the little changes that have occurred in Jonathan's world. The most visible changes, of course, will be in South America and West Africa, but there are small changes everywhere.

So, I've gone through the timeline and found all the posts which have relevance to a mapmaker.

1. The Franco-Prussian War.

2. Britain's adventures in Southern Africa

3. West Africa in 1858.

4. The Lower Niger in 1878 (which partially supersedes #3)

5. South America in 1865 required corrections, which can be found here.

6. The Balkans and Caucasus in 1878.

Between all these maps and posts, a good mapmaker should be able to put together a really nice-looking world map for 1878 or so. I don't know if Kaiphranos wants to do it, but if he doesn't, then I'd suggest that we take it down to the Request Maps/Flags thread and see what they can do with it, or petition B_Munro or EdT.

This is just a suggestion on my part, of course. I just wanted to put all the relevant posts in one place so that if someone were to do it, they wouldn't have to hunt through the whole timeline to find all the changes. Oh, and here's an 1850 OTL basemap, if that's any use.

Cheers,
Ganesha

[wolf_brother]

That 1850 basemap is horrendously outdated. It'd be easier to start with my 1848 one and work forward the additional two years (though the POD for ITTL is in 1840 iirc).

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Originally Posted by Daztur

Yeah, overall I prefer time lines that take the approach "now what would happen this THIS happened?" more than "what sort of POD would lead to this result a century or two down the road?" and Jonathan Edelstein is obviously trying to guide things towards a more pleasant result for Africa but the way he's doing it is subtle and clever enough that I'm really enjoying it.

Guilty as charged. I'll say in my defense, though, that while I have the timeline sketched out in broad terms, I try to let the details develop naturally, and some have come as a surprise to me while I was writing them. I've also rethought quite a few aspects of the main outline due to interim developments, and I don't consider any of the timeline's future etched in stone.

Originally Posted by Daztur

What's interesting here is that the next big war AFTER the great war will probably see some horrific examples of generals fighting the last war since there'll certainly be more bits of mechanized warfare ready to roll by then and a lot of people will have no idea how to deal with them since they didn't get any/much preview in *WW I.

Definitely, although there may be a few small wars in which armor and/or aircraft are used and in which the generals get a better idea of their strengths and weaknesses.

Originally Posted by Daztur

Will be interesting to see the role of contract laborers brought in from Asia in the New World, especially in the light of the last update from Brazil. Presumably a lot are already there.

Originally Posted by Shevek23

But as long as Isabel is Empress (we're told for a half-century, so that's into the 1920s!) they'll have to be Catholic Asians.

The Portuguese African colonies, Angola and Mozambique, seem more likely. And any French colony Africans who convert to Catholicism, but they'd be few I'd think. The only significant population of Asians who are nominally Catholic anyway I can think of would be the Filipinos. Be interesting if Spain and her colonies get drawn into a Franco-Brazilian orbit.

There might be fair numbers of Vietnamese Catholics by now, but I'd think they'd still be a minority in Vietnam and privileged there, and so tend to stay there as favored agents of the colonial regime. (This might also be true of any Africans who convert under French rule).

For Brazil, I was actually thinking - and Daztur can correct me if I'm way off base - of Catholic Koreans. Since Korea isn't a French colony, the Catholics there wouldn't be in a favorable social position, and as a periodically-persecuted religious minority, they may have an incentive to take labor contracts in Brazil. Beyond that, I am indeed anticipating labor immigration from Lusophone Africa and southern Europe; the Philippines should also be possible, since the liberal Spanish monarchy and the French Empire are on friendly terms. (Whether this will have any broader effect on Spanish colonies is an open question, but I'll point out that Spanish Guinea is right next to Gabon.)

As Daztur says, though, the New World isn't just Brazil, and there are already Indian and Javanese contract laborers working the rubber plantations in Grão Pará, with the possibility of some Chinese and Japanese in the future. Think of it as super-Surinam (or maybe super-Surinam combined with super-Guyana) and you won't be far off the mark.

And note, also, that I qualified my description of Isabel's policies by stating that they were in effect during the early part of her reign. She will indeed live as long as she did in OTL, dying in 1921, but Brazil at the end of her reign won't necessarily be the same as it was at the beginning. Keep an eye on those growing industrial cities.

Originally Posted by Shevek23

I've lost track of Mexico but I think at this point, the 1870s, it's still an Empire with a French-affiliated monarch, and might well still be that in the 1890s.

No, Maximilian went down just as in OTL - once the ACW ended, the United States backed the Juaristas. As for the United States' role in the Great War, though, I haven't decided - its inclination will be toward neutrality (and you'll never guess who one of the leading antiwar figures will be), but it may get dragged into the Latin American theater. I can imagine certain factors that might bring the US in on the French side - for instance, if it believes that Britain is trying to make Grão Pará into an outright colony, it might side with France in order to enforce the Monroe Doctrine - but I agree that the pull, if any, will more likely be toward the British. Again, I won't say much more at this point, especially since the details aren't all worked out!

Originally Posted by wolf_brother

Wait, Afro-Brazilian cross-Atlantic alliance?

Not a military alliance, certainly - the Agudas and Marianados are coastal trading peoples who have neither states nor armies, and while the Malê have both (two of each, in fact), they're about to be incorporated into someone else's empire. The Brazilians are looking more for an economic and cultural alliance, hoping that the Afro-Brazilian diaspora can open doors for Brazilian products in new markets, help promote labor immigration, and in the case of the richer ones, possibly even invest in Brazil. They're seeking alternatives to French economic dominance, and the Afro-Brazilians have a built-in connection. Whether they'll see that connection the same way that the folks in Rio do is, of course, an open question.

Originally Posted by Ganesha

As you might remember, I'm a bit of a map fanatic, but I have no ability to make maps myself. I was thinking that as we approach the Great War, it might be nice to have a world map, showing all the little changes that have occurred in Jonathan's world. The most visible changes, of course, will be in South America and West Africa, but there are small changes everywhere.

So, I've gone through the timeline and found all the posts which have relevance to a mapmaker.

Thanks and great job! You got pretty much everything - there are also territorial changes in East Africa (the Anglo-Omani empire and Russo-French Eritrea, obviously), but I haven't described the borders in terms that a mapmaker could use. Maybe, to help things out, I'll do a quick East Africa sketch map showing borders as of 1879, although there will be some further changes during the decade of the 1880s. I should also do one showing the French advances in West Africa and Gabon during the 1870s and maybe one of the ports where the Coaster peoples are present.

I'll probably do the Oyo-Company War updates first - they're mostly written, and one in particular has been a lot of fun - but I'll see about getting the maps done this weekend.

[Unknown]

Jonathan, I live in Texas. It's not for nothing that one ad campaign said: "Texas. It's like a whole other country." My mom, OTOH, is from Ohio (Dayton, to be exact).

I just love the irony of South Carolina becoming integrated, given that it is the state that started the Civil War by seceding.

[Shevek23]

With Mexico out of the French orbit (and falling under Yankee hegemony presumably) that's a big mitigation of US temptations to get into the Great War just for the spoils. We'll have to wait and see how closely Spain sticks to their current ties to France when the stakes get high--and who knows, the alliance with France, if it goes to that point, might work more to deter Yankee aggression than provide a pretext for it. Of course if Spain is allied to France then they are at Britain's mercy, except the British would be tied down and distracted. It's my understanding that OTL during WWII one very weighty reason Franco did not want to get entangled with the Axis as an active belligerent was that Spain was very heavily dependent on seaborne trade which the British could cut off; this may be less true in the 1890s, but on the other hand it's hard to imagine a Britain more entangled and distracted than during the Battle of the Atlantic--and yet Franco could have no doubt they'd be able to hurt them badly with all their limbs tied behind their back despite the very best compensations Hitler could possibly offer him.

So Spain would almost certainly want to stay back from the brink of actually going to war with Britain, unless the French side looked downright invincible--and on the high seas as well as land. Even if the French could protect their own littoral and extend that curtain to cover the Spanish coast, what good would Spain's colonies do her with the RN between them and the metropolis?

So the sensible thing to expect would be Spain stays out as a neutral, and American designs on Spanish colonies in the midst of the world crisis might actually drive Madrid to seek an alliance with London, no matter how cordial the relationship with Paris had been. Perhaps the Spanish could limit it to a friendly neutrality and cutting off all ties with France, while leaving it understood Spain is not offering to actually make the French border another war zone nor hosting British forces in any way--but cooperating with Britain in matters of trade overseas and so forth. That might be enough to deter any US adventurism.

With Mexico not entangled with either alliance either, it looks like the US would have no easy pickings anywhere and would only be drawn into the war for reasons very different than anything that happened OTL, and for which I will wait quite patiently!

Unless it turns out the Spanish might indeed do something very very foolhardy, then the crypto-imperialist logic comes back into play in Washington, perhaps.

It encourages me to know that there will indeed be a vocal lobby against imperialism in the USA. I'll never guess who because I will refrain from guessing! Or at least vocalizing any guesses that come readily to mind.

[Daztur]

For Brazil, I was actually thinking - and Daztur can correct me if I'm way off base - of Catholic Koreans. Since Korea isn't a French colony, the Catholics there wouldn't be in a favorable social position, and as a periodically-persecuted religious minority, they may have an incentive to take labor contracts in Brazil.

Hmmmm, Catholics would definitely outnumber (the pretty much non-existent) Protestant Koreans at this point and they would be in a pretty precarious social position, I'm just not sure they'd have the raw numbers this early. The Daewongun's persecution was pretty fierce and unpleasant so the Brazilians could probably get a good number of contract laborers to go there instead of Hawaii (where they often ended up historically with some in Mexico and Cuba as well) they probably won't be numerous enough to make up for the Japanese-Brazilians.

Hmmmmm, though maybe the recruiters won't bother being choosy and the majority would be strictly nominal Catholics who just want a job. The religion of the kids of Korean Catholics in name only would be right up your alley

Perhaps you could nudge the Brazilians towards Korea with some publicized stories of Korean martyrs, there certainly were a lot of them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Martyrs

Edit: oooh, ooh you'll want to look up Pungmul http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pungmul now stick that into Brazil and you've got to get some fun stuff.

[Admiral Matt]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Edelstein

He wasn't the only one experimenting at the time - Langley's Aerodrome 5 and 6 achieved unmanned flight in 1896. The idea would definitely be floating around, and there would be people with some idea how to design a plane, so if someone invests the money in a crash program, it might produce results. The question would be one of priorities - would manned flight seem too pie-in-the-sky (no pun intended) as compared with other, more urgent projects, or would a militarily useful model seem close enough to make the investment worthwhile?

Well it depends on the scale of the deadlock.

Historically the Western Front spawned a desperate search for alternatives that would end the war without having to push through on the one decisive front. The Entente got into its farces at Gallipoli and Arkhangelsk, built tanks, dug gigantic tunnels under enemy lines to fill with explosives, fiddled with flamethrowers, and were mass-producing medium range bombers with a half-ton load when the war finally ended. To the same end they placed huge stakes on winning the entry of first Italy and then Romania, both of which proved (and should have been guessed) almost useless. The Central Powers had their dirigible bombing and a Russia First plan, brought in gas and mortars, practiced clandestine biological warfare against American agriculture, shipped in Lenin, tried out unlimited submarine warfare twice, and IIRC experimented with a hovercraft at one point.

If France, Britain, and/or North Germany feel they cannot produce decisive results, I think it's very safe to say they'll throw money at any project that someone can sell as a magic bullet.

In any event, I think we agree on what a crash program could reasonably produce - something that could be used for medium-range reconnaissance and possibly dropping a few small bombs for psychological effect, but no more than that. Likewise with armor - maybe some mobile artillery and early-model tanks that show promise for future wars, but nothing that will be a magic bullet in this one.

Ayup, same page.

There was certainly no offense taken on my part, and if I came off as hostile, I apologize. My only concern was that these meta-discussions often tend to take things over - I've seen it happen elsewhere. Your points were entirely legitimate and fair game.

Hmmm. I suppose that in the strict mathematical sense, the term "butterflies" doesn't apply at all to history, or to any other non-chaotic system where cause and effect can be traced?

Yeah. It's funny how the language ends up over time, neh?

(And yes, this forum is all about playing God, but I'm a rabbinic Jewish sort of God - the rules I lay down apply as much to myself as to my creations. )

Fair enough.

Incidentally, I have to say I'm in total agreement with Shevek on one thing. I suspect that the South Carolinians, and other voting blacks, are going to be among the strongest advocates of American expansionism. Even just one more non-white state would go a huge way toward improving their agenda nationally. "Imagine what we could do, brothers, if only Haiti and Santo Domingo's senators were cooperating with ours! Imagine the law and stability we could bring to our southern brothers, and the strength they could lend our righteous cause!"

[Shevek23]

At first blush I guessed African-Americans would be typically anti-imperialists, then I considered a way some of them could wind up on that bandwagon anyway.

There's a big caution to consider about that though--these people have to believe that they will have a fair share of say in just what American colonial policy will be. They could be optimistic about that and still wrong. But if, as the 1890s roll around, there is a backlash against them in the US even a quarter as nasty as that of OTL, it may only be a very few token Afro-Americans who are so deluded or co-opted as to believe that.

Given the nuanced nature of Jonathan's writing and vision, I suppose that blatant examples of the OTL Jim Crow spirit can exist side by side with African-American hope, optimism, and solid (and broadly recognized) accomplishment with the US system. I forget if for instance it's been ruled out that there might be high-ranking African-Americans in the Navy, at the ship captain or even Admiral level. There might be African diplomats, or major captains of industry. Some such figures might be more typical of the mentality of some of their white OTL counterparts than of the broad situation of most of their fellow Africans. And others might see the visible successes of a few of their own, however disproportionate to their numbers and actual contributions, as evidence they do have the traction to make a difference, and that there is more hope for other Africans of the diaspora (and other people of color) under the American flag than under European government, at least some European governments.

And I simply did not consider the angle that they might favor conquests in the tropics just to raise their relative edge demographically! But again, the sense of that depends on their confidence that these newly "caught" peoples will indeed be incorporated into the US democratic system and not simply ruled as alien subjects. The more confidence they have that American assimilation will be good for the people there, the more grounds they have for hope that they will soon be enjoying the benefits of enlarging their bloc.

But if things are as they were OTL with only subtle, nuanced differences, while there might be some very interesting pro-imperialist angles coming from surprising people, I'd guess the majority of African-Americans would tend toward the Anti-Imperialist side still. They won't believe the white powers that be will behave reasonably in conquered territory they don't have to run by the same rules as apply in the continental USA; they won't believe these white powers will want more colored voters "against" them and will simply take the benefits of colonialism without the risks of broadening multiculturalism. Some might even suspect that lots of tropical acquisitions ruled on different terms than the USA might amount to more Liberias, places to which African-Americans might be persuaded or even forced to go diluting what influence they already have in Washington, places ruled from above that get no representation.

The details of the situation will matter a whole lot. And the political debate will bring the whole question of American race relations forward for good or ill.

As with the messiness of trying to gain territory amidst a global brawl, perhaps discretion might prove the better part of valor for the white powers that be, and for domestic as well as geopolitical reasons, the Pandora's Box of US imperialism will stay shut. Or at any rate when the gung-ho types insist on opening it, there will be reactionary as well as progressive Cassandras who will later say "I told you so!"

[Ganesha]

I wonder how much of the Great Migration northward will instead go to South Carolina? I have absolutely no idea, so I'm throwing this out there for discussion.

Cheers,
Ganesha

[nlucasm]

Jonathan:
this TL is amazing, I'm without words, the POD, butterflies and the writing
just fantastic

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Originally Posted by Daztur

Hmmmm, Catholics would definitely outnumber (the pretty much non-existent) Protestant Koreans at this point and they would be in a pretty precarious social position, I'm just not sure they'd have the raw numbers this early. The Daewongun's persecution was pretty fierce and unpleasant so the Brazilians could probably get a good number of contract laborers to go there instead of Hawaii (where they often ended up historically with some in Mexico and Cuba as well) they probably won't be numerous enough to make up for the Japanese-Brazilians.

Hmmmmm, though maybe the recruiters won't bother being choosy and the majority would be strictly nominal Catholics who just want a job. The religion of the kids of Korean Catholics in name only would be right up your alley

Perhaps you could nudge the Brazilians towards Korea with some publicized stories of Korean martyrs, there certainly were a lot of them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Martyrs

Edit: oooh, ooh you'll want to look up Pungmul http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pungmul now stick that into Brazil and you've got to get some fun stuff.

Spreading the news about the Korean martyrs should be very doable - all it would take is one Brazilian missionary in Korea, or even a French missionary who preaches in Korea and then visits Brazil. At that point, recruiting Korean laborers might be seen not only as an economic benefit but as a moral imperative. And as a side bonus, a mass departure of Catholics from Korea, combined with a crisis in Buddhism, may create a vacuum that the Russian Orthodox Church can fill along the lines we discussed before.

I'll grant that there probably aren't enough Korean Catholics to fill the Brazilian labor shortage by themselves, but as noted above, Brazil will also be recruiting Lusophone Africans, Filipinos, southern Europeans, Poles and Catholic Arabs to make up the numbers. The Poles, Spaniards and Italians will tend to head straight for the industrial cities, but the Brazilians might be able to get the others to stay on the farm, at least for a while.

Pungmul sounds like it would fit right into Brazilian culture - should be a lot of fun!

Originally Posted by Shevek23

So the sensible thing to expect would be Spain stays out as a neutral, and American designs on Spanish colonies in the midst of the world crisis might actually drive Madrid to seek an alliance with London, no matter how cordial the relationship with Paris had been. Perhaps the Spanish could limit it to a friendly neutrality and cutting off all ties with France, while leaving it understood Spain is not offering to actually make the French border another war zone nor hosting British forces in any way--but cooperating with Britain in matters of trade overseas and so forth. That might be enough to deter any US adventurism.

With Mexico not entangled with either alliance either, it looks like the US would have no easy pickings anywhere and would only be drawn into the war for reasons very different than anything that happened OTL, and for which I will wait quite patiently!

Well, if the US gets too cozy with one side in the war, the other may try to recruit Mexico a la OTL's Zimmerman telegram. But barring that, the only thing I can see compromising American neutrality is the United States' commercial interests in Grão Pará. There will be a Grão Pará theater in the Great War, with Brazil and its French patron trying to retake the country (and thus control its rubber resources) and Britain supporting the independent government. You'd think that both sides would respect American rubber barons' property rights in order to avoid angering the United States, but you never know what might happen...

Originally Posted by Admiral Matt

Incidentally, I have to say I'm in total agreement with Shevek on one thing. I suspect that the South Carolinians, and other voting blacks, are going to be among the strongest advocates of American expansionism. Even just one more non-white state would go a huge way toward improving their agenda nationally. "Imagine what we could do, brothers, if only Haiti and Santo Domingo's senators were cooperating with ours! Imagine the law and stability we could bring to our southern brothers, and the strength they could lend our righteous cause!"

Originally Posted by Shevek23

I simply did not consider the angle that they might favor conquests in the tropics just to raise their relative edge demographically! But again, the sense of that depends on their confidence that these newly "caught" peoples will indeed be incorporated into the US democratic system and not simply ruled as alien subjects. The more confidence they have that American assimilation will be good for the people there, the more grounds they have for hope that they will soon be enjoying the benefits of enlarging their bloc.

What Shevek23 said, I think. If Haiti and/or Santo Domingo were indeed made into states, they and SC could form a mutual support bloc in Congress, and this idea might be very attractive to some South Carolina politicians. But Haiti as a de facto colony, with a (possibly southern) governor appointed from Washington and a population used as a cheap labor pool for American planters and industrialists, would look a lot less attractive. And the South Carolinian senators and representatives would be precisely the ones who would interact with their unreconstructed colleagues the most, and who would be most aware of the probability that a conquered Haiti wouldn't be admitted as a state.

I agree with Shevek23 that SC would, to some extent, be a bubble. Black South Carolinians would hear about Jim Crow from friends and family, and read about it in the news, but they wouldn't experience it. Their personal experience would be one in which their American citizenship is respected, and they would thus have more of a sense of the United States as a place of hope and aspiration. There would also be individual South Carolinians whose success in the American system, either in business or the military (remember that Robert Smalls is a four-term senator in this timeline, and that he's very interested in naval affairs) might give them a more assimilated and even jingoistic attitude toward American expansion. And of course, there will be some who are simply venal, and who don't care if Haiti is made into a colony as long as they get a share of the spoils. But I suspect that in the 1890s, these will be a minority, and that the South Carolinians who are actually in a position to affect the United States' policy (the aforementioned senators and representatives) will be very skeptical of extending American rule to the Caribbean or Latin America.

Originally Posted by Ganesha

I wonder how much of the Great Migration northward will instead go to South Carolina? I have absolutely no idea, so I'm throwing this out there for discussion.

Some of them will, but most won't. South Carolina will still be relatively poor compared to the industrial north, so wages will be lower, and its society will seem a touch strange to many African-Americans elsewhere in the South. There will be enough in-migration for South Carolina to go from slightly less than 60 percent African-American before the ACW to more than two thirds in 1900, but there will still be a substantial exodus to the prairie states and the north.

Originally Posted by nlucasm

this TL is amazing, I'm without words, the POD, butterflies and the writing, just fantastic

Thanks! Next update(s) probably tomorrow: the Oyo-Company War, to close out the 1870s.

[Daztur]

I did some searches for hard numbers of Catholics in Korea at this time and the best I could find was this: http://www.injaelee.org/K_church_history.html which doesn't give a source for the stats but, while the presentation has an obvious slant, the actual numbers pass the sniff test.

So it would seem that in 1910 there were 73,000 Catholics, the last mass execution of Catholics was in 1866 and persecution of Catholics was lifted in 1873. All of that is after the POD of course but not many butterflies would make it to Korea, although possibly enough to butterfly away the awesome Queen Min The Treaty of Kanghwa opened Korea up to foreigners in 1876 although French missionaries were active (illegally) before then.

So, while a good number of Koreans would be willing to immigrate and do agricultural contract labor (since they did IOTL although not as many as the Japanese) Korean Catholics at this time are pretty few so Brazilian recruiters would have a hard time meeting their quotas.

What I'd guess would happen is:
1. Stories about Korean martyrs hit Brazil right when it needs more labor.
2. Recruiters get sent to get some Korean Catholics.
3. Recruiters have a hard time meeting their quotas and aren't too choosy about religious affiliation leading to a lot of Korean folk religion coming in (a mix of Korean shamanism which is kind of sort of like Siberian shamanism, Buddhism and Taoism).
4. Fun mix of ideas in Brazil.

That is, unless the Korean government tries to push the Catholics out and the Brazilians take them, which might up the numbers a bit. What would make things harder is that Catholics (even today) tend to be more spread out, unlike the more urban Protestants.

As for the opinions of the Korean government about this, Korean government at this time was a faction-ridden mess and butterflies could easily change who's on top:
-Hardline conservatives: wouldn't want any Brazilian recruiters in the country in the first place.
-Moderate conservatives: would love to have the Catholic population removed.
-Japanophile liberals: probably would be happy to have the Catholics removed as well.
-*Queen Min's faction: they very roughly wanted something like the Meiji Restoration but were starting too late and had too many scary neighbors to pull it off despite Min being plenty smart. They'd probably prefer to have the Catholics stay to help kick start Korean education (she and her husband were very welcoming of Protestant schools) but would want to cooperate with anyone who could help keep Korea independent (i.e. keep Japan out).

[The Sandman]

I know it's a minor thing, relatively speaking, but will any of the grains, vegetables and fruits mentioned in the Lost Crops of Africa series do better ITTL?