Dixieland: The Country of Tomorrow, Everyday (yet another Confederate TL)

Say, whatever happened to Andrew Johnson since he never became president? Its not like he could go back home, what with it being in another country
 
My guess is he lives in Kentucky and eventually retires from politics to live a relatively quiet life.
That sounds reasonable. I hadn't considered that. I more or less thought he served as a member of the cabinet during Lincoln's second term. Since Stanton died in 1869 I believe, I could have seen him serving as a War Secretary.
 
@TastySpam: I've nominated this for a Turtledove. Someone go second it. This is the best CSA TL I've ever read (better even than the TL-191 books) and I eagerly await more!
Shame it didn't get the Turtleldove but I agree that this is honestly better than TL-191 in most ways. It starts off fine but once it goes the parallelism route after the First Great War it goes off the rails. And even with the Great War I find it lazy that the alliances were the same as OTL except the CSA and USA join opposite sides. This is honestly a breath of fresh air. A rejuvenated Spain? A non-united Germany? Teddy Roosevelt as the CSA colonial governor of Bosnia? Sign me up.
 
Chapter 111 - Concentration Camps
Concentration Camps
The midterms were brutal for President Longstreet, seeing both a resurgence in Cleburne's Nationals as well as Tillman's Progressives, costing Longstreet any semblance of a congressional majority. Prohibition had become wildly unpopular once it was actually implemented (both due to actual opposition to Prohibition and a dislike for crime, which distinctly increased after the implementation of Prohibition). Furthermore, the war in Haiti continued to drag on. At home, Longstreet had been an energetic reformer, using the power of the presidency to clear the way for extensive infrastructure developments and education investments. Indeed, Longstreet's civil service reform was viewed as remarkably successfully, helping install an entire generation of young Confederate bureaucrats on the basis of merit. However, neither of those issues was enough to improve his popularity. In response, Longstreet's cabinet settled on two separate solutions to both the crime and war issue.

First, many policymakers quickly came to believe that regardless of what states' rights rhetoric would imply, the national crime wave and the increasing strength of organized crime (such as now world-renowned Confederate Mafia groups) in the Confederate States implied that a national solution was necessary, one that could operate across state borders. After public outcry grew after a gang war shootout in Baton Rouge which killed several bystanders (including children), a tripartisan group ultimately passed an act establishing the Confederate Bureau of Interstate Security (CBIS), the comparatively humble predecessor of the internationally notorious CMIS. At first, the CBIS saw itself vastly underfunded in the fight against organized crime, but the creation of a national policing agency did reassure many Confederates and was largely popular. Tropes of undersupplied police officers fighting against powerful and decadent Confederate organized crime groups quickly became a mainstay in North America and the British Commonwealth.

Second, the Confederates were making some progress in Haiti, but at a pace far slower than they had hoped. Longstreet had inherited a war he thought somewhat foolish, but he was determined to end it. Although the initial conquest of Haiti was successful and largely restored Confederate confidence in the strength of their armed forces and nation (after the Cuban debacle), the resulting guerilla war seemed to continue to drag on. The Confederates were aware of historical precedent - many of those skeptical of the war reminded their countrymen that the French were thrown out of Haiti despite initial victories against the Haitian revolutionaries. The Confederate Army, heavily reliant on British advisors, sought to emulate the strategy of the Anglo-Ottoman forces under General Kitchener in World War I, albeit in a much more radical form. Whereas Kitchener interned what were largely seen as possibly disloyal minorities, the Confederates sought to apply this strategy to an entire nation.

With Haitian guerillas almost impossible to clear out of the Haitian highlands and countryside, the Confederate Army adopted a scorched earth campaign, burning almost any farmland and arable land they could find. Civilians located were forced at gunpoint into "concentration camps" set up to hold them. In theory, the camps would be safe havens for the civilian population while the Confederate Army focused on destroying the rebels. In practice, widespread malfeasance and popular prejudice meant that the camps were almost as squalid as ironically Confederate POW camps in the War for Independence were. The conditions in the camps only became worse as Haitian rebels deliberately targeted supply lines headed towards the camps. Disease and starvation were rampant - although Confederate documents do not evidence a deliberate plan to inflict mass death, many officers were less than entirely attentive to the conditions of the camp based on racial prejudice. Out of a prewar population of roughly 1.6 million, an estimated 260,000 Haitian civilians either died inside or outside of the camps from famine and disease, compared to roughly 60,000 Confederate soldiers and 80,000 Haitian guerillas (both groups mostly from disease).

The mass deaths of the Confederate concentration camps was largely ignored by the international community - unlike the Congo crisis, the Confederates didn't seem to be intentionally killing large swaths of people (even as they embarked on a military strategy that would obviously lead to massive civilian casualties) - and foreign audiences in North America and Europe were generally not moved by the plight of non-European children, besides a famous Mark Twain essay excoriating the camps (interestingly, the pragmatic Longstreet administration actually reached out to Twain to help organize fundraisers to relieve camp inhabitants, which he did). The bulk of horror seemed to mostly come from within the Confederate States itself, especially from radical leftists inclined to criticize the established system. One Confederate Independence war veteran, Albert Parsons, quickly became famous for his regular demonstrations against the war.

The scorched earth policy ultimately did break the back of the Haitian resistance. However, the strategy also ruined the Haitian economy, heavily dependent on the export of agricultural goods. The Confederates were increasingly likely to have won a prize that was essentially economically worthless. Haiti in fact became a bit of conundrum for the Confederacy insofar that they did not actually want it anymore - but it was also widely believed that if the Confederates left, a vehemently anti-Confederate government would eventually take power (humiliating the Confederates in the process). Interestingly, the Confederates found that the most willing collaborators weren't the pre-war mulatto elite (who saw the Confederate invasion destroy everything), but rather ambitious members of the poor black majority. Longstreet was actually incredibly receptive to their ambitions, hoping that they could help create a stable order. Moreover, he felt that black collaborators could probably weaken widespread anti-black prejudice, which he saw as a contributor to the socioeconomic status of Confederate freedman (which he saw an impediment to national strength).

Against furious protests by the Progressives, it was decided to admit Haiti as a territory, which would quickly shift the Haitian economy towards not only being an agricultural exporter, but a convenient location for Confederate business to offshore low-skill manufacturing towards. In addition, although scientific racist thought was increasingly widespread among the Confederate intelligentsia, other Confederates softened their racial attitudes, having been exposed to a war that did not neatly fit into racial categories (with the Haitian mulatto elite being the most fiercely opposed to the Confederate States and largely emigrating to France and several black Confederate soldiers serving well alongside white soldiers). One result of the Haitian War was that white Confederates started becoming more polarized based on race. All of this would come to a head in the upcoming 1903 elections...
 
Last edited:
Also, nice to see a Confederate timeline where race is a polarizing issue among whites at the turn of the century rather than it be a monolith of super pro-slavery sentiment or a Jim Crow mentality but on steroids throughout the country. And this TL is quite a friendly reminder that racism was absolutely everywhere at the time, not just in the South or in the US as seen by the indifference of Europeans to the concentration camps in Haiti (not that it's a good thing and I absolutely do not condone racism). It's rather ironic that Haiti might be better off ITTL in spite of one-fifth of its population being killed in the Haitian War.
 
Last edited:
Also, nice to see a Confederate timeline where race is a polarizing issue among whites at the turn of the century rather than it be a monolith of super pro-slavery sentiment or a Jim Crow mentality but on steroids throughout the country. And this TL is quite a friendly reminder that racism was absolutely everywhere at the time, not just in the South or in the US as seen by the indifference of Europeans to the concentration camps in Haiti (not that it's a good thing and I absolutely do not condone racism). It's rather ironic that Haiti might be better off ITTL in spite of one-fifth of its population being killed in the Haitian War.
Oddly enough, the first OTL concentration camps were the Boer ones (as in the ones the British used to intern Boer families in), and while those succeeded in their task of breaking Boer resistance, they generated a lot of outrage in Europe over the treatment of "fellow White men" to the degree that it shocked Britain into seeking alliances. The Kaiser loudly denounced the treatment of "fellow Germanics" and threatened war against Britain; while his ability to wage such a conflict was minimal, it did make Britain realize how different the world had become since the "easy days" of Rule Britannia during the Victorian Age. I'd imagine with the first camps targeting African slaves rather than migrant Europeans, the initial furor would be much reduced, if not absent altogether.
 
How in anyway could being invaded, occupied and slaughtered without a choice be better off?
Obviously, it would be worse off at that point in time when the Haitians are being invaded, occupied, and slaughtered. I meant in the present day. It certainly helps that it's industrializing thanks to the Confederacy annexing it. But yeah, one-fifth of Haiti's population dead isn't a good look. In TL-191: After The End, Haiti having almost half of its population wiped out in the Population Reduction didn't stop Haiti from being at least someone more economically prosperous ITTL 21st century thanks to African-American immigration following the Second Great War and more so stronger military and economic ties to the USA than OTL. Sorry if it looked like I was trying to justify the Haitian War atrocities by the Confederates.
 
Last edited:
Oddly enough, the first OTL concentration camps were the Boer ones (as in the ones the British used to intern Boer families in), and while those succeeded in their task of breaking Boer resistance, they generated a lot of outrage in Europe over the treatment of "fellow White men" to the degree that it shocked Britain into seeking alliances. The Kaiser loudly denounced the treatment of "fellow Germanics" and threatened war against Britain; while his ability to wage such a conflict was minimal, it did make Britain realize how different the world had become since the "easy days" of Rule Britannia during the Victorian Age. I'd imagine with the first camps targeting African slaves rather than migrant Europeans, the initial furor would be much reduced, if not absent altogether.
It makes sense if this Haitian War is a Boer War analog then.
 
Obviously it would be worse off at that point in time. I meant in the present day. It certainly helps that it's industrializing thanks to the Confederacy annexing it. But yeah, one-fifth of Haiti's population dead isn't a good look.
It might exist. Remember in America there was a furor over the concentration camps the Spanish were using in Cuba, and Cubans were not considered "white". Although at the same time, America didn't really care when they used concentration camps in the Phillipines so it's hard to say.
 
It might exist. Remember in America there was a furor over the concentration camps the Spanish were using in Cuba, and Cubans were not considered "white". Although at the same time, America didn't really care when they used concentration camps in the Phillipines so it's hard to say.
True. So much morally gray area exists here IOTL and ITTL that it's hard to say for sure.
 
Last edited:
I wonder if many African-Americans (or African-Confederates for that matter) will migrate to Haiti in a move supported by both the Black and White community. The former gets to have their own potential state while the latter will 'get rid' of them on the continent. Though it seems that we might actually have quite a few relatively non racist whites in the CSA from the last bit of that update.
 
It makes sense if this Haitian War is a Boer War analog then.
In what way is it an analog to the Second Boer War? In that one, Britain had problems fighting a small force of men who had switched to a bloody insurgency, true, but unlike the CSA, Britain was this massive Great Power that was somehow getting bloodied in what was supposed to be a small police action in its own colony. It also exposed weaknesses in British military doctrine and forced the British Empire to modernize its army properly and seek allies on the global stage. The CSA isn't a major power, and while Haitian resistance is surprising, the CSA's humiliation isn't that big a deal. It's a response to getting smacked down by Spain, sure, but Spain was generally regarded as a European power, even if it's in pretty bad shape these days.

If you mean "the war that introduced the horrible, horrible concept of the concentration camp", then yeah, you're probably right. Although one can argue the Herrero genocide carried out by the Germans precedes this as a wide-scale act of ethnic cleansing.
 
Top