MotF 214: Happy Little Accident

[Kaiphranos]

MotF 214: Happy Little Accident

The Challenge

Make a map that includes a border that was drawn unintentionally, based on a misunderstanding, by mistake, or containing an error.

The Restrictions

There are no restrictions on when the PoD of your map should be. Fantasy, sci-fi, and future maps are allowed.

If you're not sure whether your idea meets the criteria of this challenge, please feel free to PM me or comment in the main thread.
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Entries will end for this round when the voting thread is posted on Monday, April 20th, 2020 (extended by one week).
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PLEASE KEEP ALL DISCUSSION ON THE CONTEST OR ITS ENTRIES TO THE MAIN THREAD.
Any discussion must take place in the main thread. If you post anything other than a map entry (or a description accompanying a map entry) in this thread then you will be asked to delete the post.

Don't forget to vote on MotF 213!​

 

[Prince di Corsica]

The Confederation of the Equator

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So I decided to go with what is possibly History's happiest little accident (or no accident at all, depending on who you ask): Brazil!

Brazil exists as a consequence of the Treaty of Tordesillas: a treaty accorded in 1493, after the first Columbian expedition, made to replace the old system that placed the newly-discovered Caribbean lands under the Portuguese zone of influence, which would set the zones of influence between Castile and Portugal at a meridian that was supposed to leave the Western Hemisphere to Castile and the Eastern to Portugal. Interestingly, the original proposal by Pope Alexander VI, the line would run 100 miles to the west of the Azores or the Cape Verde Islands, upon which the Portuguese insisted on shifting them further west, 270 leagues from Cape Verde, giving Portugal the lands that would later become Brazil.

To further accentuate the accidental nature of this event, I decide that, for whatever reason, the Portuguese don't insist on moving the line, which would leave but the very tip of Brazil in their hands, a tip they would take anyway, as it was quite wealthy in brazilwood, the earliest trade product in the region that would prompt settlements, and afterwards it would also be the center for the Brazilian sugar industry, meaning the colony, despite being considerably smaller, would still be quite profitable.

So very tiny Brazil will have a very different life - I took the opportunity to vastly increase the Dutch territories in South America and allow some life into the Huguenot colony of Antarctique, because Protestant South America is always delightful. And I decided, for some reason, that Dutch Amazon would follow the path of Belgian Congo (Netherlander, big tropical river basin) and go weirdly nativist with renaming everything, but I wasn't quite able to express that in the map, sadly. One day I may revisit the horrible hell I can only imagine the DRAM must be.

Now, I know the flag is awful. Then again, having an awful flag can certainly be a sign of realism in this world of ours, so there's that. It is inspired by the OTL flag of the Confederation of the Equador, so the colour scheme really isn't my fault.

It's a small map, but then again, this is a happy little accident. And it gave me the opportunity to try a book-style map, although that is a art that I still need perfecting.

 

[TapReflex]

The United States has changed a lot in her three hundred year history, and there are guaranteed to be big changes. But one thing that's never changed for the country is bewildering borders and incredulous names. From several failed attempts at various states named Jefferson to New Jersey handing over her Northern Counties to Pennsylvania so the governors could smuggle drugs...
... In not extinguishing the United States gov't the rulers were suddenly having old debts revisited: Native Americans after WWIII were a larger part of the population, and vital to the future of the United States. While some Native treaties are easier to push through than others based on various factors such as demographics, geography, and the willingness of elected official to cede land to Native American communities, some tribes choose not to focus on specific treaties, instead utilizing their numbers to dominate state politics, with Native American coalitions dominating in Montana, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and Oklahoma. Then there are the UN treaties. The actual nitty gritty of what went into assigning which ports to which UN members was decided behind closed doors, the United States has leased hundreds of miles of land to the United Nations United States Authority. Not to mention some of the states themselves have sought federal authority to shift their shapes, gobbling one another. Then of course, we must take into account the Great American Desert, or perhaps we can wait on that for another day.
Note: Many of the expanded Indian reservations, made in the 1700s-1930s did not take into account the differing climate of the 21st century, and for the Sioux and Choctaw for instance, most of their reservations are uninhabitable. The US government is unwilling to relitigate the boundaries unless things get bloody. The Entry of Caribbean and Pacific Island nations into the United States complicates matters further especially as the US seeks to reduce reparation payments by granting lands to nations which are threatened by climate change. Of course the longest time the USA had the same flag was between 1959 and 2026, a record of 67 years. The more somethings change the more things stay the same, such as with The USA and their strange borders.

See larger size here