Final fate of "British Columbia" by the end

  • 1. Eventual independence

    Votes: 18 51.4%
  • 2. Eventual merging with the US

    Votes: 17 48.6%
  • 3. Something else (post in thread for more details)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    35
  • Poll closed .
The Maple Leaf Forever!:extremelyhappy: Seriously though, what is the Canadians' opinion of the Southron rebels?
Very mixed. Didn't like the Southrons defending slavery, did salute their sacrifices in distracting British troops from the warzone in Canada. I think most of them would figure out that the Southrons were primarily just trying to save their institution of slavery, and that the Southrons were not sympathetic. I think they Southron rebels are viewed like the Confederacy in OTL. No doubt the conflagration in the south helped for Canadian independence, though. The big failure in the American South also means a big culture change there. End of slavery there too.
 
I got a flag design for the Canadian Republic from @Marc Pasquin on the Request Flag/Map thread.
cdn-republic2.png
 
So no escalating tensions due to the Oregon territory and an early friendly relationship with Canada, great. Though I wonder how Britain will maintain control over Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia - if they'll be a lot stricter or if they learned and are keeping the people happy to be British.

So how's the reaction to the Canadian Rebellion/Revolution in British Columbia? They are at the point where they could press for more autonomy with a war exhausted home country.
 
So no escalating tensions due to the Oregon territory and an early friendly relationship with Canada, great. Though I wonder how Britain will maintain control over Newfoundland, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia - if they'll be a lot stricter or if they learned and are keeping the people happy to be British.

So how's the reaction to the Canadian Rebellion/Revolution in British Columbia? They are at the point where they could press for more autonomy with a war exhausted home country.
British Columbia is being punished for the failed rebellion. The Maritimes (NB, NS, Newfoundland) are being treated better and the British are trying to keep them happy to be British.
 
Chapter 14: Civil Rights: 1840s Style
Civil Rights: 1840s Style

After the Emancipation Year in 1836, Americans the road to “All Men Were Created Equal.” was only beginning. In fact, progress started to stall until the creation of the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1840. The reason why almost four years went without any civil rights progress was partially due to the Panic of 1837, which caused all attention to be focused on the crashing economy. However, the US government was attempting… almost nothing. It didn’t think it could do much with the depression. Shuffling the cogs of the "American System" would be the new metaphor for "fiddling while Rome burns" as the adjustments to the American system were wholly insufficient for dealing with the economic crisis. In fact, more effort was going into settling the West, or sending volunteers to Canada to get an ally in the north. Many people saw Henry Clay as completely incompetent, and with his American system in ruins due to the Panic of 1837, so did he. Clay felt like there was nothing he could do about the depression—future historians would see this despair as tarnishing his reputation. He wasn’t terrible, but still among the bottom rung of Presidents due to inability to solve an economic depression, and insufficient progress on civil rights. This was despite his pioneering of the American system, the sorting out of Oklahoma as American (through negotiation with British authorities), and the beginning of a uniquely American culture.

The economy would finally improve by the early 1840s. The United States had more markets in Europe now that Europe had rebuilt from its spat of previous wars. The National Bank of the United States of America was now in good condition. People started feeling hopeful again, which could have been the reason for some of the various civil rights initiatives in those eras. They were going back to work; their lives were secure enough that they could start thinking bigger. The military spending could also decrease now that there was a friendly ally to the north and that Great Britain had little appetite for yet another American adventure. Part of the reason for why the Panic of 1837 was especially bad was that "British Columbia" was not getting much cotton out when it was fighting the British forces and when it was left in shambles. Its rebuilding (with tenant farming producing the cotton now that slavery was abolished), allowed some of the U.S. textile factories to recover. It was at this point that railroad construction exploded, with many new railroads crossing the United States of America. With the construction of the railroads came decreased travel times and increased prosperity for the nation.

The women’s rights movement also started in the late 1830s and early 1840s. Women were marginalized, especially because they were not allowed to vote in this era. Many marches and other peaceful protests started to occur in various cities around America. President Clay, however, did not take this seriously. He never paid them much attention, thinking the movement would simply fizzle out as police arrested the demonstrators. The police, however, had the opposite effect, especially after the election of Daniel Webster 1840. Webster was hopeful of the movement, but he thought it would take constitutional amendments to make permanent progress on this issue. He attempted to rally Representatives and Senators on the importance of a voting rights omnibus Constitutional Amendment to expand suffrage to African Americans and women. That Constitutional Amendment would have been the 13th. Its passage would be rather difficult and would outlast Webster. In the end, the 13th Amendment would take until 1852 to pass, after getting though 2/3 of the House of Representatives, 2/3 of the Senate, and 3/4 of the state legislatures. The last holdouts who had the most resistance supporting this Amendment would be the "upper South" of Kentucky, Virginia, and Missouri. An actual "Equal protection of the Laws" amendment was still in the future, many politicians being rather unwilling to pass such a law since they thought it would or could never be enforced.

The women’s rights movement stalled for some time, but it was not the only large civil rights push in this era. The Freedmen’s Bureau was formed in 1840 as one of the first achievements of Webster. He wanted to realize the Emancipation Year and start extending equal rights to African Americans. Providing education to the recently-freed African Americans was probably one of the successes of the program. It helped them get on their feet as Americans. Job opportunities arrived when laws that prohibited employment discrimination based on race passed. Webster attempted to make one such law, but it would be until Abraham Lincoln in the 1860s that one such law would finally pass. Other African Americans would join the large pool of western settlers trying to make their own farmsteads on the western prairies. A “Great Migration” toward the cities to find those urban factory jobs took most of the remaining African Americans.

However, the "Great Migration" would not always go as planned. The influx of African Americans competed with other immigrants (such as Germans, Irish, Scots, Italians, Spanish, etc.) for their places in urban society. Corporations and companies often exploited them, with staggering numbers of deaths on the job. The awful pay and dangerous conditions would make some people associate the United States with "broken promises"--specifically, the promise of helping the Freedmen after the end of slavery being broken due to their exploitation by the companies. Many neighborhoods in large cities became rife with gang warfare due to a broken police system, endemic poverty, and local political corruption. The United States of America would still have a long way to go before it could realize its dream of "all people are treated equally", despite making some big gains in the 1840s. Thankfully, the gains of the 1840s would be remembered by future generations of Americans, and serve as inspiration.
 
Last edited:
Note: I will be updating this chapter later today. Stay tuned for "Fury in the South" sometime about the Mexican-American War.\
What do you guys think about this chapter?
 
Last edited:
Interesting. I enjoy the irony of Clay being a below-average President (usually he's seen as a very good one, since he is generally seen as one of the best leaders never to be President) and Van Buren one of the best.

Womens' rights would stall after suffrage - it's shocking enough to give them the vote, and I like how you had it last till 1852 before being approved, though I'm glad Van Buren lived to see it passed. (He died in 1862 OTL) I imagine there were some women who were like, "Wait, we got it this soon? Now what?" NOt expecting it to happen this fast.

In fact, I imagine there were some who added womens' suffarge to the amendment concering black suffrage and voted for it specifically becasue they thought it wouldn't pass then. Voting seems the most logical thing to give them first; blacks are a smaller minority TTL and they probably are thought to be more easily controlled and overwhelmed via the ballot.

I wonder how TTL's Huckleberry Finn would work with slavery gone and with the MIssissippi still controlled by British Columbia. Maybe they sail the MIssouri looking for a place to live and running into all sorts of crazy settlers? Or, maybe they go down the MIssissippi and explore British Columbia in the wake of the British crackdown and ending of slavery in the country.

Isn't Texas blocked by part of British Columbia from bordering the U.S.? Or did I miss an update where, say, OTL Oklahoma was added to the U.S.? You said it stopped at the Nueces, at least at first, though it could have expanded.

Then again, maybe it did expand, and there is disputed territory that the U.S. wants that would need to be taken from Mexico. That would definitely spark a war.
 
Interesting. I enjoy the irony of Clay being a below-average President (usually he's seen as a very good one, since he is generally seen as one of the best leaders never to be President) and Van Buren one of the best.

Womens' rights would stall after suffrage - it's shocking enough to give them the vote, and I like how you had it last till 1852 before being approved, though I'm glad Van Buren lived to see it passed. (He died in 1862 OTL) I imagine there were some women who were like, "Wait, we got it this soon? Now what?" NOt expecting it to happen this fast.

In fact, I imagine there were some who added womens' suffarge to the amendment concering black suffrage and voted for it specifically becasue they thought it wouldn't pass then. Voting seems the most logical thing to give them first; blacks are a smaller minority TTL and they probably are thought to be more easily controlled and overwhelmed via the ballot.

I wonder how TTL's Huckleberry Finn would work with slavery gone and with the MIssissippi still controlled by British Columbia. Maybe they sail the MIssouri looking for a place to live and running into all sorts of crazy settlers? Or, maybe they go down the MIssissippi and explore British Columbia in the wake of the British crackdown and ending of slavery in the country.

Isn't Texas blocked by part of British Columbia from bordering the U.S.? Or did I miss an update where, say, OTL Oklahoma was added to the U.S.? You said it stopped at the Nueces, at least at first, though it could have expanded.

Then again, maybe it did expand, and there is disputed territory that the U.S. wants that would need to be taken from Mexico. That would definitely spark a war.

Thanks for the feedfback.
Clay had the misfortune of "Wrong place, wrong time". Stuck in economic panic for most of term 2 was a big problem. I'd say without the problematic term 2 he'd be above average due to the "American System", but term 2 had him being forced to do something he wasn't that great at. Van Buren also got lucky that by that time economy got better (Panic was why OTL Van Buren was considered horrible), and could take advantage of a growing trend in US society. I might have given women's rights a bit too much momentum at this point. They get suffrage about 1852... but then stall after that. I'll go make more revisions. Van Buren still isn't one of the best TTL, though.

I added a section where the U.S. clarified the status of the Oklahoma Territory with Great Britain.

TTL's Huck Finn will be in the literature chapter... which is still under development. OTL Oklahoma wasn't part of British Columbia; it was west of the Mississippi. OTL Arkansas was, but the point of contention was the Kansas--Oklahoma--Texas corridor, which is controlled by the US. I'll go expand the Texas part next chapter.
 
Last edited:
The South was usually the region of the US where a large amount of military personnel and officers came from, they were also the ones who helped push for settlement into the West. Does this mean that it would take the US longer to settle out west than in OTL?

I'm also wondering if Britain is still using British Colombia as a penal colony. The British sent prisoners to Australia because they couldn't send them to North America anymore, but with a stronghold in the South they could use them as a source of cheap labor while chattel slavery was being abolished.
 
The South was usually the region of the US where a large amount of military personnel and officers came from, they were also the ones who helped push for settlement into the West. Does this mean that it would take the US longer to settle out west than in OTL?

I'm also wondering if Britain is still using British Colombia as a penal colony. The British sent prisoners to Australia because they couldn't send them to North America anymore, but with a stronghold in the South they could use them as a source of cheap labor while chattel slavery was being abolished.
Fascinating. The US does take a bit longer to settle out west than in OTL. Maybe I should amend the Mexican-American war section. Nevertheless, the US in JATS (TTL) uses western expansion as a way to reduce overcrowding in the cities or to reduce immigrant pressure by settling people in the west.

Prisoners are being sent to both Australia and British Columbia. The British government in this case, uses a "why not both" approach to the prisoner question.
 
Top