Dominion of Southern America - Updated July 1, 2018

Glen

Moderator
The coast of the Pacific Northwest was an area of interest for several powers at the close of the 18th century. Four nations, America, Britain, Russia, and Spain all had some form of claims on the area and its lucrative fur trade.

Russian interests began with the efforts of Nikolai Rezanov who obtained an exclusive charter for Russian exploitation of the region.

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The Russians early on ran into difficulties from the native Tlingit, who repeatedly drove the Russians north of their land, essentially holding Russian settlements West of the 140th meridian.

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Rezanov personally tried to save the efforts in Russian North America by using his own formidable charm to finagle an agreement out of Spanish California for food resupply for the always hard pressed Russian fur traders. In the process he won a wife, the daughter of José Darío Argüello.

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Unfortunately for Russian ambitions in America, with the onset of the Mexican revolution in 1810, Rezanov's deal with California collapsed, and with increasing pressures from the Americans, he instead focused in efforts into securing Sakhalin, which had succeeded by 1812.
 

Glen

Moderator
British interest in the Pacific Northwest dated back to the Hudson Bay Company, but their attempts to forge an overland route were waylaid by the victory of the Americans in their Revolutionary War. While the Hudson Bay Company still had rights to work their old territory, they had lost their monopoly and were out-competed by the American based Northwest Territory, who would go on to forge the first overland routes from the North, later augmented by the western route first found by Lewis.

However, some British interests came still by way of ship. The King George's Sound Company was given license to engage in the sea otter pelt trade between the Pacific Northwest and China.

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Frequent weystations for ships traveling from Britain to the Pacific Northwest included the Falkland Islands, though most ships did a Pacific course between the North American and Chinese coasts, with stops in the Sandwich Islands.

Attempts in the late 1700s to establish permanent bases in the Pacific Northwest were thwarted by Spanish objections, leading both powers to agree to abandon any such projects at that time. By the time of the Napoleonic Wars, Spain had ceded their claims to the region to America.
 

Glen

Moderator
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One of America's greatest early explorers by sea was Captain Robert Gray. Gray was the premiere American adventurers mapping the coast of the Pacific Northwest, often at the same time as British and Spanish, even Russian, ships were attempting the same. He is credited with the first navigation of the Columbia River, which he named, as well as being the first American to circumnavigate the Globe. Gray Island was named after him.

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Captain Gray sails up the Columbia River.
 
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Glen

Moderator
The inventor and naval engineer Nicholas J Roosevelt was critical in the early development of the United States and the opening of the West for both America and the British South. A scion of New York, Nicholas Roosevelt was an early innovator in mechanical propulsion for watercraft. He first found prosperity at the turn of the century as one of the key builders for the 74 gun ships of the line for the rejuvenating United States Navy. However, he was more famous for developing the first practical steamships, the key to which was his innovation of a vertical wheel. His steamships first plied the Hudson River from New York City up to the nation's capital, Washington, DC, and eventually beyond to the new New York state capital at Albany.

However, after the War of 1804, he set his sights on a new project, the navigation by steamship of the Ohio and Mississippi. In 1806, he personally piloted the first steamship from Pittsburgh down the Ohio River to the Falls of the Ohio, which many thought impassable but Roosevelt proved differently. He was able to go all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, but more importantly demonstrated the ability to go upriver at a faster rate than any other method available. In future years, the Roosevelt steamships would go up and down the Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri and other important rivers. Roosevelt's steamboats made Fort Finney in Wabash a major weystation, and it soon grew into one of the major towns in Wabash.

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Glen

Moderator
very nice update, so it seems the US will have pretty much undisputed control over those northern territories

It's pretty much looking like it. Things are moving a bit faster in America than in OTL, and that's having effects on squeezing out the other nations in regard to the Northwest.
 

Glen

Moderator
First Five Presidents of the United States

  1. 1789 - 1797 George Washington (No Party)
  2. 1797 - 1805 John Adams (Federalist)
  3. 1805 - 1813 Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican)
  4. 1813 - 1821 James Madison (Democratic-Republican)
  5. 1821 - 1829 John Quincy Adams (Federalist)
 

Glen

Moderator
The United States of America grew substanially in the first part of the 19th century. Increased immigration as well as territorial expansion westward and defeat of the tribes of the Northwest Territory in the first decade of the 19th century saw new states in the west following in the footsteps of Ohio, the first state to arise from the Northwest Territory. The new states of Ontario and Wabash were added just a few years after Ohio, and were bastions for the Democratic-Republican Party.

The State of Ohio was the first to be carved out of the Northwest Territory with these boundaries:
  • In the north by the 42nd parallel North to Lake Erie.
  • In the east by the border of Pennsylvania to the Ohio River.
  • In the south along the Ohio River to its juncture with the Great Miami River
  • In the west a line due north from the juncture where the Great Miami River meets the Ohio River

Ohio was settled mostly by Pennsylvanians and Virginians of English and German extraction and Protestant leanings (including Deist). After abolition, some Black Americans moved into Ohio from Virginia as well.

The State of Ontario was given the following boundaries:

The State of Ontario was settled predominantly by a mix of Quebeckers and other Francophones, including many Deists, seeking to escape the seigneurial system, immigrant Catholic Scots and Irish, and German, Dutch, and Anglophone Deists and other Protestants from New York and Pennsylvania. Most Native peoples in the area were forced to assimilate and take up a more agrarian lifestyle or to migrate north along the northern coast of Lake Huron.

The State of Wabash was delineated with these borders:
  • In the north by the 42nd parallel North from Lake Michigan to the border with Ohio
  • In the east a line south along the Ohio border to the juncture of the Great Miami River and Ohio River
  • In the south along the Ohio River to its juncture with the Wabash River
  • In the west up the Wabash River to where it veers northeast, and then a line straight north to Lake Michigan.

The State of Wabash was settled mostly by Kentuckians, Viriginans, and Pensylvanians, much like Ohio. A few settlers from Ohio in fact moved further west to the new state. There was also a small influx of settlers from the British Appalachians.

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Glen

Moderator
The Federalist response to the growth of Democratic-Republican states in the west was to push through the division of Massachusetts into Massachusetts and Maine. The Maine region had been growing steadily away from the rest of Massachusetts, separated by New Hampshire and by the growing numbers of French, Scots, and even Irish in Maine. This influx, some Catholic, others Deist, was a far cry from the Puritan Yankees who still held sway in Massachusetts proper, but they were considered a reliable vote in the Federalist column.
 
Very interesting and detailed. As well Wabash seems slightly smaller than OTL Indiana, so it seems what ever becomes of Illinois will be bigger :D
 

Glen

Moderator
You've probably already answered this, but are the Brits still transporting criminals to their American colonies?

People who can afford the passage go to Southern America.

The convicts go to Australia.

Should make for some interesting divergences down the road....:eek:
 

Glen

Moderator
The early development of internal improvements in North America was quite different between the United States of America and the British Provinces of Southern America.

In both the United States and British America, toll roads and small canals were initially established as private ventures by joint-stock companies. In the British provinces this appeared to be enough for the developing large plantations, as the twin industrial developments of the Cotton Engine in America and industrialized all cotton textile production in Britain drove plantation development.

In the United States, where smaller farms and greater distances prevailed, the need for improved transportation grew. The next stage of development saw the state legislatures, especially in Pennsylvania, New York, Quebec, and later Ohio and Ontario, tackling large toll road and canal projects with public funding supplementing private ventures.

However, even these efforts soon seemed inadequate to bring together the nation. The earliest federally supported project were improvements along the Richelieu River including a canal bypass with locks, to allow water traffic to move from the St Lawrence River in Quebec State to Lake Champlain which bordered both New York and Vermont, and a canal from Champlain down to the Hudson River, which thus allowed travel from Quebec City to Albany, thence to Washington, DC and beyond to New York City.

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The Federalists in Adams' second term of office began work on the National Road, which eventually stretched from Cumberland, Maryland all the way into Ohio and eventually Wabash and Illinois.

While the Democratic-Republicans were wary of expanding the role of the Federal Government, in his first term, Jefferson's Treasury Secretary, Albert Gallatin, was able to persuade the President and other leaders that improvements that increased interstate commerce could be justified.

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Albert Gallatin in his elder years

More canals would be completed by 1820, including a canal linking the Hudson to northern Pennsylvania to better facilitate delivery of coal to the capital in Washington and New York City, as well as a canal and lock system to bypass Niagara Falls and connect Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. New York State would later independently finance a canal from Lake Ontario along the route of the Oswego River and then through the Mohawk Valley to the Hudson near Albany in an effort to direct more traffic from the west to New York.

A map of American Canals circa 1820:

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Glen

Moderator
Note that I edited the previous post to include an AH map of the canals of America circa 1820.
 
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