Heart of Dixie: A Timeline

[Unknown]

Just noticed something in the first chapter...

"American Supremacy" in the United States?

Sounds like you might make them the bad guys ITTL.

Interesting to see what happens...

This TL is unique because, well, we haven't seen a TL with a successful CSA (except for the late Robertp6165's The Black and The Gray).

Wonder where this is going.

 

[Witch0Winter]

I thank you all again for the support. It's really great. If I don't answer your questions, by the way, it's probably because I either haven't decided or the answer is coming really soon. I appreciate every comment and reader I get, so I hope a short(-ish) update doesn't disappoint. Next is back to North America!

Someday Soon: Latin America War and Peace 1856-1865​

So Close To God, So Far From Europe: Mexico 1856-1862

Flag of the Second Republic of Mexico.​

While John Brown executed some men in Kansas in 1856, Mexico had entered its own turbulent state of politics. The dictator Antonio López de Santa Anna had been overthrown in a revolt in 1855 and his government replaced by a more liberal one, initially headed by rebel leader Juan Álvarez, but by 1856 helmed by Ignacio Comonfort, a moderate liberal leader who made plans to draw up a constitution.

By 1857, a draft had been drawn up on the Congress of Mexico as they had planned since the downfall of Santa Anna, and approved in early February. The new constitution was radically liberal, establishing individual rights such as freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and the right to bear arms. It also reaffirmed the abolition of slavery, eliminated debtor prison, and eliminated all forms of cruel and unusual punishment, including the death penalty. The constitution was applauded by the liberal government and those who supported it, but the conservative Catholic Church and army were gravely unhappy with the reforms.

Mexican Constitution of 1857.​

The opposition to the new constitution resulted in a swift attempt by Mexican generals to act with the more moderate President Comonfort, and they marched on Mexico City in November with that in mind. However, a street fight began in the city square between gathered liberals and conservatives after a liberal student had fired a shot with a pistol. Comonfort, who had come to meet the generals, was struck by a stray bullet in the neck and died within minutes.

According to the Mexican Constitution, Benito Juárez, President of the Supreme Court of Justice, was the next in line to become President. However, the conservative generals wanted the liberal Juárez even less than Comonfort, and instead proclaimed their own candidate, General Félix María Zuloaga, as the true President of Mexico in Mexico City on November 20, 1857.

General Félix María Zuloaga.​

Juárez was acknowledged by all elements of the liberal government as acting President on December 18, 1857. Fleeing from conservative Mexico City, President Juárez established his government in the liberal stronghold of Veracruz. With a large amount of Mexican trade coming in through the city, the new government would use the money gained from trade to fund their side of the Mexican Civil War, which broke out the same year as the American Civil War to the north.

Though considered a side conflict by many in the United States and Confederate States, both President Preston Brooks and President James Buchanan recognized the liberal government and sent aid, though did not cooperate or coordinate with each other. Their reasonings varied, but the Protestant CSA was mainly concerned about having a heavily-conservative and Catholic nation on its borders, and generally supported the liberal government with its new constitution as similar to the CSA. The United States, meanwhile, thought the opposite and feared that a conservative Mexico would ally itself to the CSA, but figured a liberal Mexico would draw closer to the United States and give them another ally on the continent.

Support mostly came in the form of money and arms shipments, though a number of Confederate soldiers in southern and western Texas would foray into the conservative states over the Rio Grande, searching for glory and, for the Mexican-American soldiers, looking to shoot down those that would strike down the liberal government of their beloved country.

Mexican Civil War: Liberals in red, Conservatives in blue.​

In 1858, three conservative strikes attempted to take Veracruz, and each failed in turn. The liberal government under Juárez was arrayed against the professional army, but had the advantage of being well-supplied from the sea and defending the city against incompetent officers who warred with each other as much as they did the liberals. The last attack on the city, on August 9, 1858, was a demonstrous defeat for the conservatives, with General Tomás Mejía being struck down by his own soldiers while in retreat.

Naval attempts at an attack on Veracruz by the miniscule Mexican Navy under the conservatives had met with similar failure when the only two ships attacking were sunk by elements of the Confederate Navy escorting supply ships from New Orleans.

Following their continuous defeats in the north around El Paso del Norte and Monterrey and the losses of their armies at Veracruz, the conservative government struggled to maintain power. In early 1859, President Juárez marched from Veracruz to Mexico City with the bulk of his army and laid siege to the city. The conservatives, already facing strife among their government and the people in their controlled territory, surrendered after a two-day battle on April 1, 1859.

Monterrey, Nuevo León.​

With the surrender of the conservatives, President Benito Juárez was left as the supreme President over all of Mexico, though conservative guerillas would cause trouble in northern and western Mexico through the 1860s. Juárez quickly moved the government up from Veracruz and set about reconstructing the liberal dominance over Mexico.

The Mexican Civil War, somewhat conveniently, came at the end of the American Civil War and all three nations set about licking their wounds and getting things back in order. Mexico established a new presidential election in the fall of 1859, which Juárez won handily.

Juárez, however, came into official power among a trying time of Mexican history. Though the war had been concentrated in the north and around Veracruz, it had managed to deal heavy blows to infrastructure and the national economy. Mexico found itself struggling to pay foreign debts to the powers of Spain, France, and Britain in short order.

Faced with a tough choice, President Juárez pleaded for American help, be it Confederate or United States. His other option was to suspend payment of foreign debts, and he feared European reprisals in the event of that happening. President Frémont agreed to schedule a talk with the Europeans in exchange for an assurance of a Mexican alliance with the United States. Frémont saw in Mexico an opportunity to gain leverage over the Confederacy, and took it as best he could.

Talks between ambassadors from Britain, France, Spain, the Confederate States of America, and the United States of America met outside the customs house of Veracruz on June 7, 1861. Britain and France were initially the hardest on Mexico about its payments, but the American ambassador, Hannibal Hamlin, were able to talk them out of outright military intervention to secure their debts.

Britain themselves did not desire a war that could possibly draw either or both of the American nations into it, and France doubly so. They eventually agreed to a bargain that would allow for unrestricted trade with Mexico via the Europeans’ colonies in the Caribbean until Mexico’s debts could be paid. France was the least satisfied with the deal, but Napoleon III stepped down from talks of war out of the fear of drawing France into a costly war with the United States that would only lessen his popularity even further.

With its foreign debt worries staved off for the moment, President Juárez began to reconcile its conservative and liberal factions and restore order and unity to the country once more. Conservative rebels were granted amnesty and would, by 1870, have mostly disappeared except in the most conservative areas. Heavy and competitive trade with the two American nations began in 1862 and would continue through the coming decades as Mexico sought to rebuild itself as a regional power in Latin America and keep its liberal government together.

President Juárez would received a second term of office as President in 1863, and be succeeded by the liberal politician and scientist Melchor Ocampo in 1867.

President Benito Juárez.​

Flames in the South: Uruguayan War 1859-1860

Territorial Disputes in the Platine Region.​

Since its founding in 1828, the South American Oriental Republic of Uruguay had been troubled by strife between the Blanco and Colorado parties. Not political parties in the sense of Mexico, the United States, and the Confederacy, but rather factions that waged rebellion whenever the other party gained party. They were, in essence, what many in the United States had feared in the time after Thomas Jefferson was elected, but before he succeeded John Adams.

The two partisan groups had formed in the 1830s and formed out of the relationships between the local caudillos (landlords) in the cities and countryside. Rather than a party unity based on common ideas and nationalistic sentiments, each had differing goals and loyalties within their respective frameworks.

Uruguay had a very low population density, and a weak and ineffective government. Citizens were thus brought into either of the two camps out of necessity for protection, while the caudillos used their workers, mostly gaucho horsemen, as private armies. The frequent civil wars that broke out between the Colorados and Blancos were brutal, and the harsh tactics employed by both sides only furthered the separation between both factions. Even European immigrants, who came in great numbers during the latter half of the 19th century, were drawn into one of the parties. Both had liberal and conservative sides, so the political ideologies of the immigrants were not factors. The feuding parties destroyed any development of a central national government.

Montevideo, Uruguay.​

However, by the 1850s, members of the Blanco and Colorado parties attempted reconciliation for the betterment of Uruguay. With the approval of many from both sides, a “Fusionist” government was created, led by former Coloradoan President Gabriel Antonio Pereira. Pereira preached an understanding between the two factions to form a strong, central government after his election in 1856.

However, a large faction of the Colorado Party under the former President and General Fructuoso Rivera felt that Pereira had betrayed their party for the Blancos, and that the new government would only put the Blanco Party forever in charge over the Colorado. Strife worsened between Fructuoso and Pereira when, on October 3, 1858, a Colorado raiding party burned a small former Blanco, now Fusionist, township and destroyed many of its buildings. The attack resulted in the death of 12 people and wounding of 28.

President Pereira moved troops toward the town, who encountered Colorado gauchos. A brief but bloody battle resulted in Fusionist victory and, hopefully, a calming between the two factions. However, it was not to be so. General Fructuoso declined all attempts for the Fusionists to make amends with the Colorados, and instead declared himself the rightful President of Uruguay and all Fusionist government members to be “Blanco cowards.”

General Fructuoso Rivera.​

General Fructuoso controlled much of the area near the Brazilian border, but the Fusionists controlled the coveted Montevideo and surrounding area, as well as a large population. However, both parties were split by nationalistic loyalties. Many in Uruguay, close to 200,000 in total, spoke Portuguese and considered themselves ethnically Brazilian. This proved a problem for the Fusionists as Brazil nominally supported the Colorado Party.

The Fusionists weren’t the only party with problems, though. The Colorado Party was split between those that favored the Fusionist government, those that didn’t but condemned a civil war over Colorado aggression. The final loyalists, though fierce, were much smaller than what General Fructuoso would have liked. Still, the general counted on the support of both Argentina and Brazil against the Fusionists, and marched confidently south toward Montevideo.

Despite an early victory in November of 1858 at Salto along the Uruguay River, 1859 would not prove to be a successful year for the Colorado forces. As civil wars burned throughout the Americas, misfortune fell on the Colorado Party in the form of their alliances. In Brazil, Dom Pedro II became sick with pneumonia over the winter of 1858, and was bedridden for much of the early campaign. When he had regained his health, however, he had grown displeased with Colorado aggression, and rather sought to draw his attention to the Civil War in Colombia between centralists and federalists. He would eventually provide full support for the federalists, who would set up the United States of Colombia in 1861.

Damage from the war in Uruguay.​

Argentina, on the other hand, had become a battleground between the Unitarian and Federal parties, whose brief skirmishes kept their attention away from tiny Uruguay. Worse still for the Colorado forces, a coalition government would eventually emerge in Argentina, who put up signs of neutrality toward both parties in Uruguay, but secretly began to support the Fusionists.

Despite these setbacks, General Fructuoso was still confident in his victory in the civil war, and continued to march south. His forces won a stunning victory against the Fusionists at the Battle of Fray Bentos, also on the Uruguay River, and it seemed that General Fructuoso was unstoppable. However, Paraguayan President Carlos Antonio López was finally persuaded to join in the war on the side of the Fusionists in May of 1859.

Paraguayan troops made lightning raids across northern Uruguay, including a decisive battle in the town of Melo. From there, Paraguayan soldiers marched south and joined up with the remaining forces of the Fusionists. Facing a march on Montevideo, the combined army chose to met the Colorados at Colonia del Sacramento to the west.

Paraguayan troops heading for the front.​

There, a bloody battle was fought between the three factions, but the combined armies of Paraguay and the Fusionists managed to overcome those of the Colorado Party, and General Fructuoso himself was killed on the morning of June 1, 1859. With his death, the civil war came to a fast end.

Though members of the former Colorado Party would stir up trouble throughout the coming decade, President Pereira managed to hold the new government together. He also brokered a full alliance with Argentina to stave off any Brazilian attacks, though Pedro II would become too involved with Colombia over the years to focus on a potential war with Argentina and Uruguay. Paraguay, despite its help with the civil war, would drop its alliance with the death of President López.

We Three Kings: The Spanish-Triple Alliance War 1863-1865

Queen Isabel II.​

Spain under Isabel II desired to regain some of the glory it had lost throughout the 19th century with the loss of its American colonies. Nationalism rose to an all-time high in Spain, and the efforts of Queen Isabel rose Spain to the fourth-largest naval power in the world, shocking many in Britain and France. The Spanish would exert their newfound power in Central America, Indochina, Central America, and, by 1863, South America.

Though few thought that Spain honestly sought to reassert its power in South America, Isabel did desire the guano-rich Chincha Islands in the Pacific. Though owned by Peru, Spain saw the South American nation as little competition for ownership of the islands, and moved forward with a plan to capture the islands. A small fleet from the Philippines sailed across the Pacific and, on May 8, 1863, landed Spanish marines on the islands, who met little resistance and had captured the Chincha Islands in hours. Spanish victory was at hand, and Queen Isabel was satisfied with the outcome.

Spain occupying the Chincha Islands.​

However, in Peru, the people were greatly angered at the Spanish incursion on their territory, and demanded their government do something. Though President Mariano Ignacio Prado, elected in 1861, initially desired peace and resisted warfare, threats of a coup forced his hand. On July 3, 1863, President Prado ordered three Peruvian frigates filled with marines to the islands.

The Peruvians found the islands comparatively lightly-guarded, with only a raider and handful of soldiers guarding the new Spanish colonials who had been moved to the islands to further increase Spanish domination over the land.

The Spanish fought fiercely, but they were outgunned and outmanned, and surrendered on July 4, 1863. Peru, this time, was the one to celebrate a further victory over the Spanish and that they had proved that they were not so easy to take down. Queen Isabel, however, thought otherwise.

A Peruvian Navy ironclad.​

The Spanish were initially surprised at the attack, then angered. They would not let any of their former colonies get the best of them, and sought to prove who the greater power was. By July 18, 1863, a large fleet including a number of ironclads set out from Spain to cross the Straits of Magellan and wage war with Peru. Though they had no love for the Spanish, the Argentines held little regard for Peru or their friends, the Chileans. Argentina allowed the Spanish fleet to dock in Buenos Aires, where they set off from on August 7 to cross into the Pacific and raid up the Peruvian coast.

The Spanish were wary of upsetting the Chileans, and did their best to avoid the port cities of the nation. Instead, the combined fleet sailed up to Peru and attacked the port city of Callao on August 11. A Peruvian squadron came out to meet the Spanish, but the larger force prevailed, sinking 2 Peruvian ships and sending the rest running. The fleet then proceeded to bombard the city with wild abandon before retreating back to their reclaimed Chincha Islands with coal they had pilfered from Peru.

The battle seemed to be, initially, a stunning victory, but it would have unwanted consequences. A Bolivian ship had been in Callao, and the ship and her crew were all lost in the attack. Angered by Spain wanton killing, Bolivia declared war shortly after hearing the news. A combined Peruvian-Bolivian fleet was soon assembled, including a number of ironclads. The combined fleet sailed out to the Chincha Islands and engaged the Spanish fleet.

President Mariano Ignacio Prado​

Spanish Admiral Luis Hernández Pinzón, who had visited Peru in 1861 to check up on the status of Spanish citizens in the country that Spain had never recognized the independence of, led the warships against the allied fleet. The battle, to his surprise, was much more fierce than predicted and managed to sink one Spanish ship and damage two more. Still, the loss of two allied ships and damage to three more, including the flagship of the fleet, forced the Peruvian-Bolivian forces in retreat.

Not wanting to draw the Spanish back to their home countries, the allied fleet fled to neutral territory, and the docked in the port of Valparaíso in southern Chile. The Peruvian-Bolivian fleet thought itself safe, but Admiral Pinzón arrived and demanded Chile give the fleet over to him. Chile, who had tired of the Spanish aggression themselves, refused.

Admiral Pinzón, angered by the Chilean refusal, decided to steam into the harbor and take the ships himself. However, Chile had received advanced news that the allied fleet had been headed for them, and had gathered their own ships in case of Spanish aggression. A fleet under the command of Admiral Juan Williams Rebolledo sailed into the harbor and caught the Spanish fleet between the guns of three navies.

Admiral Juan Williams Rebolledo.​

Many support ships, a frigate, and an ironclad were lost by the Spanish in the first case in the world of an ironclad sinking another ironclad. Admiral Pinzón retreated with his tail between his legs, with a declaration of war from Chile on his back.

The following year of war, 1864, was one filled with numerous, indecisive engagements up along the Pacific coasts of Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. Admiral Pinzón was forced to retreat twice, once to the Philippines and once to San Francisco in neutral America, but returned every time. Spanish marines raided coast towns and burned ports where they could to sow chaos among the South American navies.

Queen Isabel II tried to reign in her top Admiral once it became clear that the war was more about pounding the former colonies to dust than any real war goals. However, she was persuaded by Prime Minister Ramón María Narváez to continue the war for Spanish prestige and naval dominance, to prove itself to the Europeans that their nation was still to be contended with on the ocean.

The war might have perhaps been won, and Narváez proven right, at the Battle of the Gulf of Arauco in Chile. An allied fleet under Admiral Rebolledo had sailed itself to the gulf, and managed to become trapped between the Spanish fleet and the open ocean. However, Admiral Pinzón had been suffering from bouts of fever throughout 1864 and was confined to his cabin while his fleet approached the allied ships.

A Spanish ironclad.​

His captains proved too hesitant to carry out the attack themselves, and the better-organized allied fleet managed to run past the Spanish, albeit with notable damage and losses, and escape. This tactical blunder proved to be the nail in the coffin of the Spanish fleet in the war, though they did not know it yet.

After resupplying in Brazil, the last South American country to service them, Admiral Pinzón sought to finally destroy Rebolledo’s fleet, who had spent the past year harassing him. On February 2, 1865, Pinzón sailed up Chile’s coast once more to the port of Antofagasta, on the coast disputed between Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. He planned to catch the allied fleet while in port and route it, forcing the former colonies to the negotiation table.

Admiral Rebolledo, on the other hand, had knowingly drawn the Spanish to the port to enact his own war-ending battle. He continued to let the Spanish believe that his fleet was trapped in port, and ignored scouts who confirmed it to their admiral. When the Spanish were spotted on the horizon, Rebolledo drew out of port and engaged the Spanish on the coast.

The battle was a complete rout for the Spanish, whose worn and undersupplied ships were sunk and battered by the well-supplied allied fleet, bolstered by new ships purchased from the United States and sailed down from San Francisco.

The remaining ships in the Spanish fleet fled to the Philippines, where they would later make a transoceanic journey back to Spain, having gone all the way around the world in their journeys. After the Battle of Antofagasta, Spain finally approached the negotiation table. Along with a general peace, Spain recognize Peruvian independence and the rights to the Chincha Islands. Spain signed the Treaty of Buenos Aires on May 28, 1865.

The treaty would also prove important in the coming years as it officially recognized the Pacific coasts of Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. The recognition would later be used to hold a peace between the newly-forged Triple Alliance and foster a strong bond between them over the war.

The 1850s and 1860s proved as vital and conflicting a period in Latin America as it did in North America, in which a series of civil wars and other conflicts turned out a powerful new alliance and several new, liberal governments. The emergence of stable South American governments would alter the balance of power outside Europe and North America considerably, giving nations such as Brazil, Chile, and Mexico power that were dreamed of by their founders earlier in the century.

Ironclads on the Pacific.​

 

[Witch0Winter]

A revised map of 1872:

 

[YamSeng]

Amazingly detailed and i love your paying attention to areas besides the USA and CSA. Consider me subscribed.

 

[Huehuecoyotl]

Bolivia can into ocean!

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

This is really great stuff. I like how you have the Latin American countries playing the CSA and the weaker USA off against each other, which is what would actually happen, rather than being easy prey for CSA expansionists.

 

[FleetMac]

Indeed, and it sets the tone for possible US/CS relations down the road (that is, one of competition for prestige and influence without unnecessary bloodshed). Even if the Yanks come out ahead in their dealings with Mexico, there's always a Confederate*-Brazilian alliance in the Americas .

I really like these last couple of updates (the last one, especially) as not only do they expand past the immediate crux of the TL, they also add more depth (and therefore believability) to the world crafted around it through a handful of butterflies. Regarding the aforementioned "Southron Liberia" notion, I'd wager that if the right cards were played a quasi-commonwealth sort of setup might one day arise (that may be a bit optimistic, but at least it's not dystopic) between Richmond and Monrovia. And again, given the difficulty of transferring whole population groups long-distance, I doubt the flux of freed slaves out of the CSA would exceed that of OTL's Great Migration in numbers (maybe a bit more or bit less). Indeed, the South's gonna have to join the modern world in getting rid of that "institution".

*We REALLY need a good demonym for Confederate citizens, since as pointed out in the second update, there's been more than one "confederacy" in world history. And "Southern/South" only really works in a North American context. PlatoonSgt, thoughts?

 

[Witch0Winter]

Indeed, and it sets the tone for possible US/CS relations down the road (that is, one of competition for prestige and influence without unnecessary bloodshed). Even if the Yanks come out ahead in their dealings with Mexico, there's always a Confederate*-Brazilian alliance in the Americas .

I really like these last couple of updates (the last one, especially) as not only do they expand past the immediate crux of the TL, they also add more depth (and therefore believability) to the world crafted around it through a handful of butterflies. Regarding the aforementioned "Southron Liberia" notion, I'd wager that if the right cards were played a quasi-commonwealth sort of setup might one day arise (that may be a bit optimistic, but at least it's not dystopic) between Richmond and Monrovia. And again, given the difficulty of transferring whole population groups long-distance, I doubt the flux of freed slaves out of the CSA would exceed that of OTL's Great Migration in numbers (maybe a bit more or bit less). Indeed, the South's gonna have to join the modern world in getting rid of that "institution".

*We REALLY need a good demonym for Confederate citizens, since as pointed out in the second update, there's been more than one "confederacy" in world history. And "Southern/South" only really works in a North American context. PlatoonSgt, thoughts?

Glad you've looked the recent updates. I've really been trying to get into the larger effects of the timeline, and have some fun exploring areas that few timelines seem to tread. Brazil is going to be a very interesting subject ITTL, enough that it will probably get its own update all to itself.

I'm writing the next update already, so I know Liberia is covered, but you are right in that it's really going to be a matter of ending slavery than just shipping them all back to Africa. Also, I thought the names Dixie (used as a plural) or Southron might apply to the citizens of the CSA. What do you think?

 

[Witch0Winter]

This is really great stuff. I like how you have the Latin American countries playing the CSA and the weaker USA off against each other, which is what would actually happen, rather than being easy prey for CSA expansionists.

I'm glad you like it. I always found the idea that the CSA could expand easily into Mexico at the expense of both the United States and the Mexicans to be a ridiculous idea for timelines, so I've made sure to address that. No Pacific coast for the CSA ITTL.

 

[FleetMac]

Glad you've looked the recent updates. I've really been trying to get into the larger effects of the timeline, and have some fun exploring areas that few timelines seem to tread. Brazil is going to be a very interesting subject ITTL, enough that it will probably get its own update all to itself.

I'm writing the next update already, so I know Liberia is covered, but you are right in that it's really going to be a matter of ending slavery than just shipping them all back to Africa. Also, I thought the names Dixie (used as a plural) or Southron might apply to the citizens of the CSA. What do you think?

-Looking forward to that Brazil update.

-Don't get me wrong, the Liberia thing is a great idea and something that could realistically be supported ITTL. It's just that even with a "back to Africa" plan, it'll probably be impossible to "whitewash" the South no matter the era (at least without resorting to Featherstone-esque genocide, and that'd happen in a pig's eye in OTL and TTL), there's just too many people to move over too long a distance with the economic state of things being as they are. Of course I feel like I'm preaching to the choir now, so I'll stop .

-I like "Dixie" being used the same way "Yankee" is, both as an adjective and a name for individuals of either country. It also has a possible teasing and/or negative connotation depending on how one enunciates it (Yankee->Yank, Dixie->Dix...think about it ). And "Southron" works fine amongst the English-speaking world, but good luck making sense of it in Spanish or French.

 

[Witch0Winter]

-Looking forward to that Brazil update.

-Don't get me wrong, the Liberia thing is a great idea and something that could realistically be supported ITTL. It's just that even with a "back to Africa" plan, it'll probably be impossible to "whitewash" the South no matter the era (at least without resorting to Featherstone-esque genocide, and that'd happen in a pig's eye in OTL and TTL), there's just too many people to move over too long a distance with the economic state of things being as they are. Of course I feel like I'm preaching to the choir now, so I'll stop .

-I like "Dixie" being used the same way "Yankee" is, both as an adjective and a name for individuals of either country. It also has a possible teasing and/or negative connotation depending on how one enunciates it (Yankee->Yank, Dixie->Dix...think about it ). And "Southron" works fine amongst the English-speaking world, but good luck making sense of it in Spanish or French.

Let's just say Brazil, like the rest of Latin America ITTL, is not just an overlooked backwater.

I get what you mean on Liberia, don't worry. I'll definitely be using the idea of a "Dominion of Liberia" to the two American states, but the simple logistics forces the CSA to confront the problem head-on.

I think I'll use Dixie like Yankee, with the nickname of "Dix" being used by particularly annoyed Yanks. Though they might be called Southron by the British just because, especially when the Brits start to take an interest in the North American continent outside Canada.

 

[FleetMac]

Let's just say Brazil, like the rest of Latin America ITTL, is not just an overlooked backwater.

Glad to hear it. And some food for thought; there's a common notion in the OTL Latin American world that the word "American" refers to the New World in general ("the Americas", basically), not just US citizens. I suddenly have this mental image of the Confederacy, along with a stronger Mexico and/or Brazil, being great proponents of such a stance ("Hey Yankees, we're all Americans too!")...if nothing else, it could be seen as mockingly/teasingly taking the piss out of the whole "American Supremacy" movement as time goes on .

I get what you mean on Liberia, don't worry. I'll definitely be using the idea of a "Dominion of Liberia" to the two American states, but the simple logistics forces the CSA to confront the problem head-on.

Roger that. I'll look forward to that update.

I think I'll use Dixie like Yankee, with the nickname of "Dix" being used by particularly annoyed Yanks. Though they might be called Southron by the British just because, especially when the Brits start to take an interest in the North American continent outside Canada.

That's pretty much what I was thinking regarding "Southron" as a term. BTW, British interest in North America outside of Canada? Is that a hint of things to come then?

 

[Witch0Winter]

Glad to hear it. And some food for thought; there's a common notion in the OTL Latin American world that the word "American" refers to the New World in general ("the Americas", basically), not just US citizens. I suddenly have this mental image of the Confederacy, along with a stronger Mexico and/or Brazil, being great proponents of such a stance ("Hey Yankees, we're all Americans too!")...if nothing else, it could be seen as mockingly/teasingly taking the piss out of the whole "American Supremacy" movement as time goes on .

Oh, I am well aware of "Americans" referring to all people on both continents, and, if you haven't yet noticed, usually try to address this when writing about specific nations in the Americas. That said, American Supremacy starts as an ideal in the United States, but who's to say it won't apply to all the Americas someday?

That's pretty much what I was thinking regarding "Southron" as a term. BTW, British interest in North America outside of Canada? Is that a hint of things to come then?

Oh yes, let's just say the British ITTL are a bit more disillusioned toward the European continent, and spread their interests across the pond and elsewhere.

 

[FleetMac]

-I'm thinking a possible Pan-American bloc that comes around (a la NATO) against an outside power in coming years, with a stronger CSA as part of it...perhaps "PATO" for Pan-American Treaty Organization? Or maybe one of the other American nations decides to throw its weight around more on the world stage? I'm just gum-flapping of course, so I guess I'll have to wait and see then .

-Well you listed the British as part of the "Armed Neutrality" camp in the Maps section, so it makes sense for them to look elsewhere than Europe to expand influence, especially as thunder clouds of war start looming again (assuming they don't get dragged into the fray of course).

 

[Witch0Winter]

-I'm thinking a possible Pan-American bloc that comes around (a la NATO) against an outside power in coming years, with a stronger CSA as part of it...perhaps "PATO" for Pan-American Treaty Organization? Or maybe one of the other American nations decides to throw its weight around more on the world stage? I'm just gum-flapping of course, so I guess I'll have to wait and see then .

-Well you listed the British as part of the "Armed Neutrality" camp in the Maps section, so it makes sense for them to look elsewhere than Europe to expand influence, especially as thunder clouds of war start looming again (assuming they don't get dragged into the fray of course).

You're right on several accounts, don't worry. I don't want to spoil too much, but I'll say that the improved circumstances of the America ITTL lead to a significantly modified balance of power around the world, which leads to many different situations than OTL. Especially since I seem to be managing to wank a dozen countries or so all at once.

 

[Witch0Winter]

Well, here we go back to North America for a long post about everything from slavery to department stores. Hope you all enjoy, as I plan to get more posts like this for quite some time. History isn't just about wars, after all.

How Few Remain: North American Politics and Culture: 1860-1880s​

I Like the Way You Beg, Boy: Chattel Slavery 1860-1865

Confederate Flag.​

Slavery was one of the worst atrocities committed by any American state throughout the history of European settlement, perhaps only second to the destruction of the native tribes throughout the continent. Chattel slavery, as it was known, dehumanized Africans to the point of being treated as animals, and many times worse. Those that held the institution in high regard were wicked and cruel, and rightfully garnered little sympathy to the keepers of history in the 20th century and beyond.

Despite the conception that slavery was widely-accepted in the Confederate States of America, however, the truth was far more complicated. When the Constitution of the Confederate States was written in 1858, a clause to disallow Congress from banning slavery was proposed, but eventually shot down by representatives from Missouri and Kentucky who opposed such an inclusion. The two delegates represented more moderate states, but the states also contained some of the most profitable centers of trade and commerce in the CSA, and 2.3 million people, around one-fifth of the total population of the Confederacy. President Preston Brooks and much of the Congress were unwilling to anger the two states enough to shake their already flaky loyalty, and dropped the proposal, among others that affected slavery much more than the status quo. They argued that a large majority in Congress would need to approve the destruction of slavery, which, in their eyes, was unlikely.

President Brooks, unsurprisingly, was a large supporter of slavery in his term as President of the Confederate States of America. Known around both nations for beating Charles Sumner with his cane on the floor of the Senate, Brooks saw any attack on slavery as an attack on the rights of the peoples of the Confederate States, and vehemently opposed it. He especially feared northern Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kentucky as the states began to slip further and further from strong pro-slavery positions. He even believed Virginia had begun to turn away, as many pro-slavery men had either died in the war or quieted down on their farms.

Abolitionist sentiment in the Confederacy was suppressed by Brooks’ administration, a move which began to sow resentment in many states that saw the obvious intrusion of the federal government into states’ rights an irony from the man who had argued so much for them. Nevertheless, he remained strong in his fight for slavery, and benefited from the support of wealthy plantation owners who saw a friend in Brooks. With progressive policies in every other facet of the new nation, many were willing to overlook the slavery issue for the time being under Brooks. However, it would not last.

Anti-slavery poster used in both the USA and CSA.​

Slave rebellions were already quietly wreaking havoc across the CSA, even in Brooks’ home state of South Carolina. Many more states were also fleeing to the United States of America, as the former North no longer had to send back any escaped slaves. Britain had also chosen to not include a specific clause in the peace treaty between the two about the returning of slaves to the other. The United States, especially under President Frémont, refused to return the slaves, further exacerbating President Brooks, who made threats that he knew he could not properly follow through with.

President Brooks, instead, looked east for a solution to his problems. Liberia, ostensibly an American colony, had more or less passed under the joint influence of both the United States and the Confederacy to manage. Both nations would take a greater interest in the semi-colony in the years to come, but the CSA was the first, and began a program to move any willing freedmen to Liberia beginning in 1861. Brooks endorsed the project as a partial solution to the ornery freedmen and slaves, as problem slaves and revolutionaries were shipped their as well.

Frémont allowed the move, if for no other reason than to create a “colony of freedom” for the slaves and freedmen in the Confederacy, and greatly expanded American economic and political involvement in the region throughout his terms, setting a precedent for future influence in Liberia.

However, many freedmen in the Confederate States opposed being shipped off from their homeland, and began to gather together from their white allies in the Confederacy to bring about change. Though their numbers began small, they would grow rapidly in the coming years. Freedom was but a breath away.

Monrovia, Liberia.​

I Like the Way You Die, Boy: Freedom 1865-1880

Still from the 2012 Confederate film Freeman: A Legend Unchained.​

The death knell to slavery came in 1865, towards the end of Preston Brooks’ tenure as President. Though it at first seemed miniscule, it was the beginning of the end for the abomination that plagued the Confederate States of America.

As much of the tension between the North and South in the United States had come from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, literature would deliver the first fracture between the landed rich in the Confederacy and the poor, voting whites. One particular poor white worked as a reporter for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, a young man by the name of Samuel Clemens. Clemens, a native Missourian, had fought briefly in the war for the Confederacy, but had spent much of his time in occupied St. Louis until the peace in 1859. During the war, he had written short stories to pass the time, and a number were published in local newspapers in the early days of peace before he found a job for the aforementioned newspaper.

Clemens was no advocate of slavery, and his sentiment only grew as Missouri increasingly turned away from the abominable institution. Inspired by Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Clemens sought to make his first full-length novel a tale of slavery and the harm it brought, not just to slaves but poor whites as well. He had spent many of his reporting years talking to these same whites who never seemed to draw the conclusion that they, under the plantation owners, enjoyed little of the freedoms they believed they did.

Samuel Clemens.​

The novel, titled Heart of Darkness, told the story of a poor white who served as a “Mark Twain” on a steamboat that a rich plantation owner in Mississippi had hired to sail up the river to capture a band of runaway slaves. The book explored the darkness of the slave trade and the effects it had on the nation, for both whites and blacks. The haunting tale was not only critical of slavery in a way that appealed to southerners, but well-written, in contrast to Stowe’s prose. The book was published in St. Louis in 1865, and spread across the Confederacy like wildfire.

The book was quickly banned under Brooks, but printing presses in the United States, where the book enjoyed even more success, covertly handed off shipment after shipment of books in Louisville, Vicksburg, and St. Louis, getting them into the hands of literate and poor southerners who began to favor the man from Missouri. Slaveholders, of course, were incensed at the book, but also greatly afraid of the effect it had already begun to have. Plantation owners began having a hard time directing both their slaves and whites around when they were demonized and hated among the population, especially in the northerly states of Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and even Arkansas. Worryingly, the states with the hardest line against the book were the most unpopulated, especially as the cultural elite in New Orleans enjoyed the book as well, and turned against the men who sold them the cotton their ships carted overseas.

New Orleans, biggest city in the CSA.​

Still, disaster for slaveholders may have been staved off, if not for the results of Election of 1866. The Democrat party, as it had been in 1860, ran unopposed in the Presidential Election, and only opposed in a handful of local elections by a resurgent Whig Party. As the Confederate Constitution stated, Preston Brooks could only run for one term, so President Brooks handed the reins to his Vice President of six years, Jefferson Davis.

President Jefferson Davis, in the history of the Confederate States of America, would become one of the most reviled and unsuccessful leaders in the country’s history. Davis had served as the Secretary of War under Franklin Pierce, and the old officer’s military history showed in his policies as a ruler. Many attributed his failure to treating the CSA like it was a military dictatorship or kingdom rather than a democratic nation.

President Jefferson Davis.​

Davis was meticulous to details to the point of obsession, and rarely delegated duties to his Cabinet, or Vice President Alexander Stephens. To make matters worse, President Davis’ bouts of ill health would leave him sickly and even blind for days at a time, bringing the executive government to a halt until he could return to office. Davis also had a tendency to feud with state governors, including the popular Zebulon Vance of North Carolina. The feuds were only heightened by his refusal to prosecute the failure of friends, and that he would often then promote those same friends.

Showing off yet more of his military background, President Davis spent more time on the military than civil matters, and rarely listened to the public’s opinion of him. The Confederate Army did grow in size and prestige under him, but it was at a time when such expenditures were unnecessary and frivolous to the economy that was still struggling to raise itself up to the same standards as the United States. Under Davis, the Mint simply printed more money, leading to runaway inflation that was only stopped by a mandate from the states. Many compared him to John Adams, the withdrawn successor to a famous leader.

The anti-slavery movement in the South grew rapidly, and some dubbed it the anti-Davis movement. In addition to anti-slavery, the movement was focused hard on peoples’ rights and the rights of farmers and workers. Indeed, many whites at the time wanted to free the slaves simply to break the aristocracy. Though Samuel Clemens’ book had started the movement, the people supported it still needed a leader. One would be found, however, in 1867 in the same city that had started the movement, St. Louis.

Stephen Arnold Douglas had been, before the Civil War, a diehard Democrat Senator from Illinois. Douglas had been a massive supporter of popular sovereignty and the Young America movement, and had been outspoken in support of letting the Confederacy go, and that Buchanan’s dictatorship was far worse than the South rebelling. Unfortunately for Douglas, his cries came before they were echoed across the United States, and the Senator was threatened with jail or death for his speeches.

Stephen A. Douglas.​

Fearing for his life, Stephen A. Douglas fled Illinois over the Mississippi into Confederate Missouri, taking residence in St. Louis. When the city was occupied, Douglas had been instrumental in arguing for better rations and water for the people and captured soldiers, and had been instrumental in preventing the burning of much of the city when the United States was forced to retreat after the end of the war. Douglas, a newfound hero for the people of St. Louis, was elected to the Confederate Senate in 1860, as were several other northern senators and congressmen who had joined the cause.

Douglas had heard of the anti-slavery movement by 1867, and had even read Heart of Darkness. While he found some of it ridiculous, he generally agreed with the book, though had learned his lesson and didn’t voice that opinion in the Senate. However, his enjoyment of the book did get him to agree to a meeting between himself and Samuel Clemens in St. Louis. In Clemens’ modest home, Douglas listened to him express a desire for Stephen A. Douglas to take up leadership in the anti-slavery, populist movement.

Word had gotten to Samuel Clemens about Douglas’ skill as an orator and his fervent support of popular sovereignty. He used the latter to negotiate Douglas into the position, highlighting how an increasing majority of poor whites sought to end slavery, and that supporting it would go against the will of the people. Stephen Douglas, ever the opportunist, accepted leadership of the movement, and a new political party would come into being that year, the Labor Party. The Laborists supported freeing of the slaves and betterment of poor whites, as well as expanding the industrial capacity of the Confederacy and opening Dixie ports to nations all over the world. They highlighted the fact that Britain, the world’s supreme power, had refused to trade with them due to their clinging to slavery.

Senator Douglas ran on the Labor Party ticket in the Senatorial elections of 1868, and won handily in Missouri. Both senators from Missouri were represented by the Labor Party, as well as both in Kentucky, one in Arkansas, and one in Texas. Many more Congressmen were elected on Labor Party tickets in the elections of 1868 and 1870, and the Democrats in the government grew worried. They could not legally do anything about the growing movement, though continued to flame the party at every turn to try to discredit the Laborists. However, this tactic only resulted in further support of the Labor Party. Perhaps even more disastrously for them, many slaveholders cracked down hard on slaves to prevent any uprisings with an anti-slavery party gaining popularity.

These crackdowns would birth the Confederacy’s first black folk hero, Freeman. The identity and origins of Freeman are unknown, though many speculate him to have been Frederick Douglass, whose whereabouts went unaccounted for from 1869 through 1873 in North America. Douglass refuted the claims as that he was speaking across the United States and, secretly, in the Confederate States against slavery, not being a vigilante. Whatever the truth, Freeman’s legend spread like wildfire across the CSA and the Dixie sung his name, from mouths black and white.

Frederick Douglass, "allegedly" Freeman.​

The story of Freeman begins in Jackson, Mississippi, on a local slave plantation. Freeman is alleged to have visited to check up on an old cousin, only to find him dead at the hands of the slaveholders and his wife and children sold off to plantations in Alabama. Freeman is said to have then killed the whites on the plantation, allowed the slaves to escape to Kansas, and eluded the local authorities come to capture him, allegedly with dynamite involved.

Freeman is then said to have continued on a rampage from Jackson, Mississippi, to Mobile, Alabama, slaying criminals and slavers across the two states. Finally, his story ends in Mobile where he is told to have not only found his cousin’s wife and children, but killed almost every local slaveholder and won the freedom of a beautiful woman who had been repeatedly imprisoned for refusing to service her white owners. The story goes that Freeman and posse escaped on a Mexican ship in Mobile Bay, which took them up the Dixie coast to New York City.

The exploits of Freeman helped to sow the further incensing of both poor whites and blacks against the autocratic slaveholders, who they began to view as nothing more than criminals, “making slaves of us all.” Plantation owners were, of course, terrified of the popularity of the stories and attempted to smother their spread wherever they could. However, they underestimated the popularity the stories would also have in foreign nations, where peoples in Mexico, the United States, and much of Europe were overjoyed in reading of the vigilante works of Freeman. An aging Alexandre Dumas is said to have thoroughly applauded the tale, and Jules Verne spoke of wishing to meet the man and write his story for the French.

Alexandre Dumas, French supporter of Freeman.​

In the United States, President Lincoln similarly applauded Freeman and offered him amnesty should he come to his nation. Samuel Clemens, who initially published under the name Mark Twain to not attract further ire in the Confederacy, wrote his second novel, The Exploits of Freeman, which sold heavily in the United States, second only to Heart of Darkness. The book, like Clemens’ first, became popular in the CSA due to underground publishing, especially among the liberal Dixie intellectuals.

With these factors behind him, Stephen Douglas decided to run for President in 1872 under the Labor Party ticket against Vice President Alexander Stephens of the Democrats. Douglas looked carefully for a running mate, and eventually settled on the charismatic Zebulon Baird Vance. Vance, though his family had owned slaves, did not oppose the anti-slavery movement in the Labor Party, and spoke highly of popular sovereignty. He was also a crucial bid to win the eastern states, outside Douglas’ western power base.

The Presidential Election of 1872 was still a narrow contest, but Douglas was the clear winner in the end, carrying every northern state, including Virginia, and winning the western states of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. In addition to his win, the combined Congressional and Senatorial elections saw the Labor Party sweep the Democrats, carrying a majority in every house. By the time Douglas took office in 1873, it was clear where the future of the Confederate States lay.

The ending of slavery was not so simple an affair, however. Though the Confederate Constitution only required a two-thirds majority to pass an amendment, there was still a sizable number who opposed ending slavery and cared more for the rights of poor whites. Both Stephen Douglas and Zebulon Vance recognized this, and made steps to improve the situation. The largest was giving all white men the right to vote, which would set the precedent for all men, white or black. On June 9, 1873, the First Amendment of the Confederate Constitution was passed, taking away property requirements for white men to vote.

The decision was celebrated all along the South, who saw it as a massive victory for the poor white man over the planter aristocrat. To make it even more clear, many plantation owners vehemently opposed the move and fought to keep the land restrictions in place. This spurred whites on to oppose them and their slave institution, which they now saw less as a moral cause and more to take away the power of rich whites. The anti-slavery sentiment in the Confederate Congress and Senate grew, though it would still be some time until anything definite would be done.

Slavery would outlast Stephen Douglas' Presidency, but his presence was still strongly felt as he rejoined the Senate in 1878 after Zebulon Vance easily took the Presidency on the coattails of giving poor whites the vote. All states but the core of the Old South voted him in. Though Baird was not the strongest on the anti-slavery issue, he agreed to call a special session of Congress for the purpose of ending the abominable institution on March 10, 1880.

His choice to do so was based not only on internal factors of taking power from the planters and giving the Labor Party even more votes, but also on external factors. Europeans and Americans had not forgotten Freeman and saw the fact that slavery still persisted until 1880 to be disgusting in an enlightened age.

Both Queen Victoria and President Hannibal Hamlin leaned heavily on the Confederacy to give full voting and property rights to former slaves, essentially giving them the same position poor whites had occupied before the Labor Party elections.

While not the biggest favorite, it became essentially the only choice when Britain hinted that, though they had required the United States to trade with the CSA in The Treaty of Washington, they would not require a civilized nation to trade with another that still carried the remnants of a barbarous institution.

Queen Victoria, Empress of India.​

With those pressures on, Congress passed and President Baird ratified the Second Amendment to the Confederate Constitution, that stated that essential liberties were not to be denied to any persons of the Confederate States upon the basis of race. This gave men of color the ability to vote, hold land, and move wherever they please, a move well-supported by Vice President James W. Throckmorton, if not for anything else than to ensure his election to President in 1884.

The Amendment came into effect on October 10, 1880, to the joy and celebration of people of color throughout the Confederacy and beyond. Former slaves fled their former plantations in droves of mass migration and headed for more enlightened areas of the country with all due haste. Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee lost the largest amount of former slaves, the populations dropping rapidly. Not all would leave, but enough that those who were left banded together in their own communities, usually away from whites.

The majority of former slaves would settle in the states of Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, and especially Arkansas and Texas, which gave large land grants to former slaves. Many would also take government land grants to the Indian Territory, and become some of the first CSA citizens on the territory.

In all, around 5 million slaves were freed in 1880, and a little less than half settled elsewhere within the Confederacy. This had the effect of not only giving people of color a chance to begin again in areas where their freedom would be more accepted, but swelled the populations of the liberal states, ensuring a continued dominance of the Labor Party over the Democratic core states.

Florida would be the biggest surprise to many, as the backwater state would receive close to 200,000 former slaves on government-granted land, not only swelling the state’s population but making people of color the majority in the state, a rare first. Populations would eventually even out due to immigration throughout the rest of the 19th century, but the first few years saw the Laborists dominating every body of government in the CSA and passing numerous other laws to better shove the Confederacy into the modern, industrialized world. Senator Douglas would name it the “Young Confederate” movement after the many young farmers, miners, factory workers, and former soldiers who made up the movement along with young freed slaves.

Old Mistress visits her former slaves.​

Republican Rhapsody: USA! USA! 1860-1868

23-star flag adopted in 1869 under President Lincoln.​

It was long said in the United States, shortly after the Civil War, that John Frémont wept as he took a train from St. Louis to Washington, D.C., and saw the destruction made to his beloved country. The sentiment might have actually been true, given Frémont’s famous loyalty to the United States. He had been the only general to beat the Confederates at every turn, especially against the formidable Thomas Jackson, and had been the only hero returning home at war’s end.

The United States was a broken and bitter country, and many placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of James Buchanan. They were not far wrong, and the unpopular President retired to a rural farm in Maine for the rest of his life, in self-exile. Meanwhile, John Breckinridge took up the reins of the Presidency to quietly guide the United States in the last year before the Election of 1860 in the United States. Breckinridge, overall, did not wish to make waves, and simply dedicated himself to repairing the damaged areas of the country and sticking to the provisions in the Treaty of Washington that Great Britain had set out for them.

The Democratic Party had effectively come to an end by 1860, as public disgust in their incompetence destroyed any chance that any of their politicians had of getting elected again. However, the American Party had also been more or less destroyed in the wake of the war, leaving the United States a single-party state under the liberal and progressive Republican Party. It was no surprise to anyone when John C. Frémont ran on the ticket in 1860, though some made a stink at his choice of running mate, the young Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. Frémont chose the man for both his socialist thinking, his well-built mind, and a desire to anchor his ticket to the eastern half of the country as Frémont ran from California.

President Frémont.​

Frémont ran unopposed and won easily in the Election of 1860, only prevented from a total majority of votes by a few who abstained in honor of George Washington, who they thought should remain the sole President to collect every one of the votes. Frémont enjoyed the reverence for Washington, and heartily accepted the abstentions. Frémont was a large supporter of Washington at a time when his legacy was being mired by his being from the southern state of Virginia. However, Frémont pointed out that he himself was from Savannah, Georgia, and that it had not hindered him.

Though the nation was just beginning to recover, the United States in 1860 was a broken nation that had been kicked in the gut by the secession of the CSA, and felt its international reputation mired. President Frémont, almost from the instant he took office in 1861, sought to correct this. First, he passed an amendment from the Republican Congress that not only ended slavery, but gave full rights to all people of color within the United States. Frémont himself led troops to Maryland to assist in the freeing of slaves there, and he welcomed the new citizens with open arms that surprised both the former slaves and the whites around him.

Frémont’s next objective was to return the United States to its former glory, without the burden of the slave states to tie it down. The President himself was familiar with the feeling of being lesser and looked down upon, as he himself had been an illegitimate child and ridiculed throughout his childhood and into adulthood as being an abolitionist before it was widely supported. Yet, he had become a hero general and the President of his beloved country all by strength of will, and desired to do the same for the United States of America.

American Exceptionalism, as a concept, was not new to the United States. It had persisted as the United States had been, at one time, the first free nation in the Americas (not counting the thousands of free peoples who had been on the continent for thousands of years), and the first to spread so far across the continent. American Exceptionalism became the idea that the United States was different and superior to the states in Europe, and should fulfill its destiny of stretching across the continent.

Manifest Destiny, a part of American Exceptionalism.​

Frémont capitalized on this idea, under a new name: American Supremacy. Like American Exceptionalism, the idea was that the way the United States was created and governed set it aside from Europe and its destiny was to be the greatest country in the world. The Supremacy included being above the likes of the CSA, which Frémont insisted was just chaff that had to be cut off before the good wheat of the United States could be harvested.

In the interest of American Supremacy, Frémont sought to practice what he preached, and show the world that, yes, the United States was better and meant to be the top superpower on Earth. Frémont and his Republicans passed a number of laws and even amendments that steered the United States toward a more progressive future. With Lincoln’s advice, the rights of workers were greatly enhanced, while still keeping a positive environment for business and trade. Feminism began to take hold throughout the progressive environment in the United States, and laws were made that allowed states to give women the right to vote as early as 1869 in Massachusetts.

Frémont himself was well-aware that many of the changes were only possible with the tight control the Republican Party kept on the government, and even spoke that he was, at times, little more than an “enlightened despot.” He grew bitter at times from his role, and encouraged competition where he could to keep his party from falling to a dictatorship that he so feared. Still, he did not stop his policies, as he felt it was too important a job to quit before he was done as President.

Part of the idea of American Supremacy was a supremacy of culture, which the United States thoroughly lacked by 1860. President Frémont sought to rectify this, and gave large government grants to institutions that supported the arts, as well as funding to public schools to teach everything from music, art, and literature. Over the years, many would benefit from his programs and the United States would grow in prestige over the world from its arts programs, even if many still thought them below Britain and France.

American composers drew heavily on Romantic music from Europe, and combined it with sentimentalism of their country and the land around them. A man from the Dakota Territory, Isaac Zachary, would become an unlikely sensation from his music inspired by the Teton Mountains he had frequented as a boy, inspiration from the local Lakota Tribe, and Romantic music. His symphonies were first played in a concert hall in Chicago, but proved popular enough that he not only toured in Philadelphia, Washington, New York, and Boston, but even made a visit to British Canada to play in Montreal.

An example of Romanticism in art.​

He would inspire a number of American composers, including the famous John Hoke, a former soldier that sought to capture the terror of battle and emptiness of defeat in his work. The defeat in the Civil War left a lasting influence on American culture that was felt throughout the late 19th century. Playwright John Wilkes Booth gained his first fame from his play, The Retreat From Baltimore, which was acted out by his brothers and supporting friends. The play ran for an entire season, and spurred Booth on to greater fame.

Literature was also affected, such as the famous Order of War by the young John Henry Gates, a veteran who talked of the insanity and madness of the war, the futile struggle for a people who no longer wanted the United States. Order of War would be one of the highest-selling novels of the 19th century in America, only behind Heart of Darkness and The Exploits of Freeman.

John Henry Gates.​

Other authors sought to bring a unique American quality to the novels, and birthed the “Western” genre, ranging from tales of romance in the Rocky Mountains, run-ins with Indians on the Great Plains, and the exploits of small-time heroes against bandits in the West. It was at this time that the highly-literate Mormons would make their mark, with authors such as Stanley Yelnats and Josiah Ford who were inspired by both their church doctrine and the wilderness of Utah.

American music beyond symphonies also took its own unique bent to it. Much of the inspiration of piano players came from the European, African and Asian-inspired Impressionism style, and used it as a base to draw from both Celtic music of Irish immigrants and Amerindian styles gathered from explorers of the West. American Impressionism was a blend of the urban life in the East and rural life in the West, and it was this mix that first brought American music to Europe as a talking piece. Some even noted that America’s rugged individualistic mindset was a good ground for competition between composers and single players of the violin and piano.

Stanley Yelnats.​

American art would take similar avenues, focusing on the idea of "Americana" that here was a significant and different style to be found in the wilds of the United States. Thomas Cole's Hudson River School turned out many young artists who painted portraits, landscapes, and murals throughout the 19th century. Government grants were given to projects requiring the artists, and many were able to successfully find work even in the increasingly-industrialized world.

Thomas Cole's​

A Home in the Woods, a major inspiration for later works of Americana.​

Get Your Hands Off of My Stack: American Enterprise 1860-1880s

Pittsburgh in 1857.​

The United States of America, despite being the obvious loser in the Civil War, was the clear winner in industry. The Army Arsenal in Columbia, Massachusetts, churned out firearms by the thousand, along with many other factories dotting New England. Irish and German immigrants flocked to the war industries, and enjoyed the higher wages they gave despite long hours in poor conditions. By war’s end few wanted to leave, and nobody encouraged them to do so. The United States had suddenly lost a massive percentage of its cropland, and the Frémont administration was giving out land by the dozen acre out West on the Great Plains to increase agricultural output. The populations of Kansas and Nebraska boomed, and the families there needed steel plows and tools, cookware, housing material, and more to grow.

The factories in the East, following the mass production ideas in Columbia, began churning out agricultural and everyday commodities by the thousand. Factories exploded up all over the East, many focused around Boston, New York, Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. The coastal cities also boomed in size as the loss of half the Eastern Seaboard required the United States to consolidate its ports into existing lands and overlooked ports from before. Washington, D.C., became a proper city in its own right and expanded into Maryland and away from Arlington, Virginia.

A pro-business environment compared with increased workers’ rights and workplace standards drew rural farm workers in New England to the factories, as well as the impoverished overseas to American shores. The industrial boom was further helped by Mexico’s recent liberalization, in which the country sought all the tools of industry and labor, and was willing to pay handsomely for it to be shipped overland and by sea from the United States rather than from Europe.

Boston in the 1880s.​

To this end, the United States enlarged its rail system several times over from 1860 to 1870. President Frémont himself founded the Pacific Railway Company, which successfully ran track from Boston, Massachusetts, to San Francisco, California. Frémont himself hammered in the final stake in 1864. The Pacific Railway Company was helped by many private businesses, such as William Rosecrans’ famous Preston Coal Oil Company that supplied many of the trains on the Pacific Line, and himself funded the extension of tracks south over the Mexican border, allowing factory goods to travel by land nonstop from Boston to Mexico City.

William Rosecrans himself, along with Philadelphia haberdasher John Wanamaker, would become a major figure in the civilian goods market, which exploded in the latter half of the 19th century and into the 20th century. In 1862, Rosecrans established a company store for his Preston Coal Oil Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, which sold basic goods to the workers for part of their paychecks. What made the store unique is how Rosecrans went about getting prices low enough that the workers would willingly go to the town stores instead of local shops.

Rosecrans first bought goods in bulk, getting deals for a variety of goods right off trains that ran through Cincinnati. He could get slightly-damaged wooden tables or quick-burning kerosene lamps for cheap, and sell them cheaper than anyone else in the city. Second, Rosecrans set the store up so that people helped themselves to items to their liking, and only interacted with the clerks to buy what they had chosen. Rosecrans said he received the idea when waiting in line at a local store and realizing that the eight or so people waiting in line could just as easily find what they wanted, without the hassle of waiting and hiring a skilled clerk who knew where to find all that the store sold.

William Rosecrans in his retired Army uniform.​

The Preston Coal Oil Company Store was a tremendous hit with the workers, and by 1863 it had been expanded to allow people outside the company to buy from it. The name was shortened to “PCO Store,” and a second store opened in Cincinnati in 1865.

Whether Rosecrans was influenced by John Wanamaker or not is a storied debate in the history of business, but the matter lies that in 1861 John Wanamaker, together with his brother-in-law Nathan Brown opened Oak Hall, a men’s clothing store, in Philadelphia at Sixth and Market Streets on the site of George Washington’s executive mansion. Oak Hall prospered under Wanamaker’s then-radical policy: “One price and goods returnable.” In 1868, Wanamaker opened a second store in Philadelphia on 818 Chestnut Street, and named it Wanamaker & Brown. Both stores were extremely successful, but Wanamaker had grander ideas.

In 1873, he purchased a Pennsylvania Railroad freight depot in Philadelphia that had been abandoned after the major switch to Pacific Railway. The massive, sprawling space of the depot proved big enough to hold his vision. After a falling out with his brother-in-law, the company was renamed Wanamaker & Co., and the new store John Wanamaker’s. He renovated the depot into what he advertised as the “Grand Depot for merchandise.” Wanamaker had created America’s first department store.

The store was compared to London’s Royal Exchange or Les Halles in Paris, and it was fitting that it was at a time that the United States sought to be positively compared to the giants. Under President Hamlin, the government allowed Wanamaker to purchase a massive space in Manhattan that had once belonged to the US Army in 1883. Hailed as the “largest space in the world devoted to retail on a single floor,” it featured 129 circular counters around a central gas-lit tent where customers were treated to showings of the latest fashions from the ballrooms of Vienna, Paris, and St. Petersburg.

John Wanamaker's in Philadelphia.​

Part of Wanamaker’s success came from finding ways to keep business booming year-round. Before his time, clerks were typically laid off temporarily after the Christmas boom through the dull winter months of the new year. For high-paid clerks this was no problem, but the low-paid clerks of Wanamaker and Rosecrans could not afford so much time off. Wanamaker, then, came up with the idea of taking stock from the textile factories that experienced a similar dry period post-Christmas and selling bed linens and other white goods in bulk for low prices, just above cost. This innovation, eventually becoming known as a January White Sale, was a massive hit. Customers flocked to stores and employees stayed employed.

Rosecrans, not to be outdone in the annals of history, came up with an innovation that was quickly snatched up by Wanamaker and every other businessman of the day. His innovation was a simple one: The price tag. Rosecrans invented the idea of attaching a tiny slip of paper with a fixed price to simple goods in his PCO Store, to keep customers from attempting to haggle over prices. It was out of necessity more than anything else, as his first customers did not want to have to wait after work to haggle for goods. The innovation quickly exploded in Wanamaker’s stores and spread in popularity throughout the business environment of the late 19th century.

Wanamaker and Rosecrans were not the only entrepreneurs of the day to recognize the power of low prices to increase market share. Thomas Gray, a sickly farmer’s son who had served in the Civil War and been wounded in the Battle of Bethesda, opened a “five-and-dime” store in Washington, D.C., in 1876, the first of over a thousand he would christen in his lifetime. While Wanamaker stumbled onto discounting in his early days, Gray was a low-price man from the very start. He had learned the retail trade while living in occupied Washington, and working for local dry goods seller Moore and Percy’s. Gray had hidden his identity as a Union soldier and worked as a 17 year-old clerk in the store, selling mainly to Confederate soldiers.

At the time, dry goods were held behind the counter and a clerk had to take orders and go find them for the customer. Gray, only a passable salesclerk, found the process tiring and cumbersome. His story went that, on a slow day between leaves for the soldiers, Gray’s boss asked him to go arrange some five-cent items in full view on the self-service display. The cheap stuff sold out in a single day and with little fuss. The customer took it in their hands, looked it over, and made their decision. No clerk was necessary to make the sale. Gray found this both sensible and appealing. When he went to make his own store in 1875 after years of working his way up through various companies and learning the trade, low price and convenience became the cornerstones of his business.

Thomas Gray.​

While Rosecrans had learned a similar lesson and adopted similar techniques in 1861, it was Gray who first brought it to the East in a large way, and thought much bigger than PCO envisioned at the time. Gray’s store, Lucy’s, named for his daughter, did not just limit itself to American manufacturers. Instead, Gray hunted for deals in European factories, buying wholesale in Manchester, Calais, and Sonneberg, and shipped them back overseas. He sought the greatest deals he could get, and focused on quantity over quality, a revolutionary idea at the time.

When President Hamlin began to raise tariffs to spur local, American business, Gray simply switched to buying luxury goods overseas and applying the same tactics to American factories in the USA, CSA, Mexico, and Brazil, who had all taken many pages from Europe’s book on factories. Lucy’s, PCO, and Wanamaker would grow to be the three largest, initial department stores throughout the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Gray even invited former-President Frémont to the opening of the first Lucy’s on the West Coast, in San Francisco in 1895.

Lucy's Building in New York City.​

The positive economic environment, the influx of factory workers with large wages to spend, and the culture of American Supremacy that believed in buying American over all else helped drive up the big businesses of the day, that grew along with the purchase of theatre and symphony tickets, books, and paintings all created and made famous in America.

Indeed, while the CSA just managed to stumble into modern life, by the 1880s America was ruling it, and showing no signs of stopping.

The Course of Empire: Consummation, Thomas Cole.​

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

President Brooks, instead, looked east for a solution to his problems. Liberia, ostensibly an American colony, had more or less passed under the joint influence of both the United States and the Confederacy to manage.

Liberia was independent at this point, and had been so since 1847, before the POD. It was actually never a colony of the American government - it was a project of several private colonization societies, although one of the settlements was founded by the United States Navy. The Liberian government would have to approve any plan for settlement of freedmen from the CSA, although they probably wouldn't have much problem doing so.

The difficulty with Liberian colonization, BTW, isn't just linguistics - it's also that Liberia was a terrible disease environment. African-Americans born in the United States were just as vulnerable to tropical diseases as whites, and the OTL Liberian settlers had a high death rate during their first couple of years in Africa. Of course, even a relatively small number of settlers could radically change Liberia's history - in OTL, there were about 15,000 settlers, so if the CSA sends over 50,000 or 100,000 freedmen, that would drastically change the population balance of settlers versus indigenous tribes. If they're lucky, this might lead to a more secure state and earlier assimilation of the indigenous people; if they're unlucky, it could lead to a caste system forming among the settlers as the founding families seek to preserve their privileges against the new arrivals.

Anyway, I'm also not sure that anti-slavery could spread so quickly in the CSA, given that by the 1850s, the fire-eaters had convinced themselves (and a large part of the population) that slavery was a positive moral good and the natural order of things. They also wouldn't let go of slavery so quickly after having just fought a war to preserve it. I'm not saying that a revolt against the "Bourbon" planters' rule is impossible or that the poor whites and blacks couldn't join forces - after all, the Populists managed to unite the two for a while in OTL - but I think it would take another decade or two, especially since many of the CSA states would still have property qualifications for voting.

 

[FleetMac]

Very nice update, Sarge! My thoughts;


-It seems that Missouri's inclusion in the Confederacy was a much larger anti-slavery catalyst than many would've thought. Then again, given historical Southron inclusionism towards the state and its membership in the CSA ITTL, this seems to be a case of “givin' Dixie what it wants, 'till they cain't take it no mo'”. And Mark Twain's role in the movement is frankly inspired . Finally, the notion of dovetailing abolitionism with general anti-Planter sentiment and industrial progressivism seems like a good way to grant moral support across the country.

-I have to agree with JE that the success of the Labor Movement, or at least Abolitionism, probably wouldn't be successful for another 10-15 years or so (although the argument could be made that, more so than OTL's causus belli, slavery was a secondary issue to perceived acts of government-sponsored murder of Southrons in Kansas and seen as less-than-vital for the Cause). Still, if you scoot the date back a bit, things would be far more definite. If anything, it gives the average Dix more clarity in what they're fighting against (getting rid of that damnable property voting requirement should also be one of the first things to go, not just slavery).

-I'm surprised there wasn't any attempt to undercut Stephen A. Douglas' roots as a Northerner during his political career (although there's an interesting parallel with Fremont there, as having originated from the other future country to serve their actual one). Am I to understand then that his role in preserving Confederate lives and property in St. Louis gives him a little bit more "street cred"?

-The internal movement of freedmen and their families within the South makes a ton of sense to me (and incidentally, it seems they mostly went to the Trans-Mississippi and Upper South which were more progressive AND more modernized than the rest at that point in history even before the POD). But I noticed a possible error, in that IIRC Florida wouldn't have been the first black-majority state in the region as I believe South Carolina and/or Mississippi had that honor first (I may be wrong at this point in history however).

-I don't think you made this clear, but where is the US' capital in TTL? I don't think it should be D.C. (at least, not the capital of government, although a ceremonial/economic center isn't so problematic), as it would directly abut an international border and sit vulnerable to potential attack once the war moratorium expires (not that the attack is forthcoming, but there's a reason very few capitals lie next to a border IOTL). Perhaps Philly would work, or a city further to the west like Chicago?

-It's interesting (although not really surprising), how the Yanks have adopted both the Western and “Americana” as artistic genres as opposed to the CSA. Musically, I wonder what implications this'll have in the future for either country?

-Thomas Gray did indeed bring the Department Store to “the Eat”, but I'm sure the East benefited from its introduction as well .

Keep up the good work!

 

[Witch0Winter]

Liberia was independent at this point, and had been so since 1847, before the POD. It was actually never a colony of the American government - it was a project of several private colonization societies, although one of the settlements was founded by the United States Navy. The Liberian government would have to approve any plan for settlement of freedmen from the CSA, although they probably wouldn't have much problem doing so.

The difficulty with Liberian colonization, BTW, isn't just linguistics - it's also that Liberia was a terrible disease environment. African-Americans born in the United States were just as vulnerable to tropical diseases as whites, and the OTL Liberian settlers had a high death rate during their first couple of years in Africa. Of course, even a relatively small number of settlers could radically change Liberia's history - in OTL, there were about 15,000 settlers, so if the CSA sends over 50,000 or 100,000 freedmen, that would drastically change the population balance of settlers versus indigenous tribes. If they're lucky, this might lead to a more secure state and earlier assimilation of the indigenous people; if they're unlucky, it could lead to a caste system forming among the settlers as the founding families seek to preserve their privileges against the new arrivals.

Anyway, I'm also not sure that anti-slavery could spread so quickly in the CSA, given that by the 1850s, the fire-eaters had convinced themselves (and a large part of the population) that slavery was a positive moral good and the natural order of things. They also wouldn't let go of slavery so quickly after having just fought a war to preserve it. I'm not saying that a revolt against the "Bourbon" planters' rule is impossible or that the poor whites and blacks couldn't join forces - after all, the Populists managed to unite the two for a while in OTL - but I think it would take another decade or two, especially since many of the CSA states would still have property qualifications for voting.

Yes, I'm well aware of the Liberia situation, but more or less simplified it until I could get further into the situation in a future update. Liberia becomes much more important ITTL with a much larger number of freedmen and influence from the Americas, but that's to be covered on its own update.

EDIT: Well, I took the advice and made some changes to extend the date back to 1880, and further emphasize the pressure Britain and the United States were putting on the Confederacy to end it, as well as making it an issue of not just freedom but anti-planterism, with more whites wanting to end their power than free people of color. I hope this is sufficient.

Very nice update, Sarge! My thoughts;


-It seems that Missouri's inclusion in the Confederacy was a much larger anti-slavery catalyst than many would've thought. Then again, given historical Southron inclusionism towards the state and its membership in the CSA ITTL, this seems to be a case of “givin' Dixie what it wants, 'till they cain't take it no mo'”. And Mark Twain's role in the movement is frankly inspired . Finally, the notion of dovetailing abolitionism with general anti-Planter sentiment and industrial progressivism seems like a good way to grant moral support across the country.

-I have to agree with JE that the success of the Labor Movement, or at least Abolitionism, probably wouldn't be successful for another 10-15 years or so (although the argument could be made that, more so than OTL's causus belli, slavery was a secondary issue to perceived acts of government-sponsored murder of Southrons in Kansas and seen as less-than-vital for the Cause). Still, if you scoot the date back a bit, things would be far more definite. If anything, it gives the average Dix more clarity in what they're fighting against (getting rid of that damnable property voting requirement should also be one of the first things to go, not just slavery).

-I'm surprised there wasn't any attempt to undercut Stephen A. Douglas' roots as a Northerner during his political career (although there's an interesting parallel with Fremont there, as having originated from the other future country to serve their actual one). Am I to understand then that his role in preserving Confederate lives and property in St. Louis gives him a little bit more "street cred"?

-The internal movement of freedmen and their families within the South makes a ton of sense to me (and incidentally, it seems they mostly went to the Trans-Mississippi and Upper South which were more progressive AND more modernized than the rest at that point in history even before the POD). But I noticed a possible error, in that IIRC Florida wouldn't have been the first black-majority state in the region as I believe South Carolina and/or Mississippi had that honor first (I may be wrong at this point in history however).

-I don't think you made this clear, but where is the US' capital in TTL? I don't think it should be D.C. (at least, not the capital of government, although a ceremonial/economic center isn't so problematic), as it would directly abut an international border and sit vulnerable to potential attack once the war moratorium expires (not that the attack is forthcoming, but there's a reason very few capitals lie next to a border IOTL). Perhaps Philly would work, or a city further to the west like Chicago?

-It's interesting (although not really surprising), how the Yanks have adopted both the Western and “Americana” as artistic genres as opposed to the CSA. Musically, I wonder what implications this'll have in the future for either country?

-Thomas Gray did indeed bring the Department Store to “the Eat”, but I'm sure the East benefited from its introduction as well .

Keep up the good work!

Glad you still like it! EDIT: As I mentioned above, I moved the date back to 1880 and emphasized the effects that outside pressure would have on the decision, as well as the effects of anti-planterism would have on the CSA, in that most Dixie would just want to free slaves to hurt the rich white men than for freedom for people of color. Hope this works.

The capital of the United States is kind of a dual-capital thing, where Washington, D.C., is the executive capital where the President still lives, but Philadelphia is home to Congress, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. Washington remains important due to its favorable position on the Potomac, and people aren't as worried to live there as relations between the USA and CSA normalize. Chicago is an interesting idea, perhaps a change later to be a capital that is actually in the middle of the country like Washington originally was?

Yes, you were right, South Carolina was the first majority state for people of color, but I meant more Florida was the first where they were free, since a majority of freed slaves in South Carolina and the like got out as fast as they could.

 

[FleetMac]

Glad you still like it! As I mentioned above, the quick date to the end of slavery does, unfortunately, reflect more of real life issues than accurate alternate history. I can try to change this, but I apologize for this one point where I do not feel comfortable with making it worse.

No apologies needed on this end. I understand that it can be a squeamish subject (rightfully so), and not simple to disengage from the region at this point in history. While I don't think full-out bloodshed is necessary per se, I doubt the Planters and Co. will take threats to their power lying down. However, like I said a delay of these events by about a decade meshes quite well with your TL concept. And at least there's likely no Jim Crow to follow (as pointed out elsewhere on the board, that "institution" came about due to very specific events that would've been butterflied away ITTL). That's not to say everything will be all happiness and sunshine in racial terms, but it could be a helluva lot worse.

The capital of the United States is kind of a dual-capital thing, where Washington, D.C., is the executive capital where the President still lives, but Philadelphia is home to Congress, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. Washington remains important due to its favorable position on the Potomac, and people aren't as worried to live there as relations between the USA and CSA normalize. Chicago is an interesting idea, perhaps a change later to be a capital that is actually in the middle of the country like Washington originally was?

Fair enough. And yes, I was thinking of somewhere in the Midwest due to the greater westward expansion taking place; by moving the capital off the East Coast, it'd both be shifting the seat of power further to the middle of the land AND put it in a more easily defended location from either Canada or Dixieland.

Yes, you were right, South Carolina was the first majority state for people of color, but I meant more Florida was the first where they were free, since a majority of freed slaves in South Carolina and the like got out as fast as they could.

Ah, I understand now.