Dominion of Southern America - Updated July 1, 2018

Glen

Moderator
So overall, reviewing my recent comments when not as tired, I believe I understated the amount of whites still farming and overrepresented the proportion that is black.
 

Glen

Moderator
Windsor is the most obvious it's the premier Royal Palace and the one most able to be turned into a name. Stuart has too many bad connotations and they can't claim descent from any of the previous Royal families.

Aracnid

Why would they use Stuart? The new consort is Scottish but I don't see any link to the Stuart dynasty in the wiki link.

Agreed that there is no reason to use Stuart (or Stewart for that matter). But there is also no real need at this point in history for a dynastic name change to the generic Windsor.

If their feeling particularly nationalistic someone might suggest Lyon, possibly even Anglicised to Lion.;) Alternatively Windsor might be an option as you suggest.

Steve

I'm not sure why the dynastic name isn't going to be "Lyon-Bowes" here. That's the way it has always worked - the renaming to "Windsor" OTL was a fluke of politics, not an indicator of a trend.

I was having a brainfart, forgot who she had married and was thinking Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

So Lyon-Bowes is a definite dynastic likelihood if the union results in an inheritor of the crown.
 
Interesting population number, what is your thought there?

OTL South plus Anglo-Canadians plus rounding.


Actually, a large number of small farmers in the DSA are black, whether in the old South or in the West. Most whites in the DSA are not hardscrabble farmers, instead going into other trades or ranching (and guess who most of the ranch hands are). I think what you are underestimating is the fact of how many blacks have gone into small farming. And also the fact that the DSA no matter what else is and will remain as having a large black population, but with less cultural barriers to work they are showing up in all sorts of roles.

Yes and no - whites in the DSA like owning land, but not working the land (except for the lower classes). So you will see more of the freeholds in the West in black hands. The ranches, the large spreads, on the other hand, will be in the hands of whites.

That is odd, a while ago I read this book on Anglo pioneers in the USA, Canada, Australia, SA and NZ and the Protestant work ethic of settling the land and "earning through labour" earthly and divine bounty was very much a common thread. While the white Plantocracy of the Old South might prefer to have their land worked by Blacks (and what about the hardscrabble, white Scots-Irish of the Appalachians?) many of the British settlers especially in the West would want single family farms. More importantly its a theme given weight by a variety of laws and land acts in all of the British settlers colonies.
A key purposes of the Australian Land Acts was to switch from large scale ranches owned by whites but employing large numbers of Aboriginal stockmen to self sufficient family farms, and it was driven both by local pressure from recent immigrants and Australian born, but also but pressure from London to make the colony more attractive to Britons thinking about emigrating so they stayed within the Empire and didn't go to the USA. I strongly suspect that in those areas where the quality of land is good enough there will be similar successful pressure for provision of 240 acre freehold land plots to be given/sold and bargain rates to appropriate (i.e. primarily White British descent) families.


Now now, let's be nice! Again, you took a highly romanticized novel about one plantation and extrapolated that to an entire nation, with all the numbers in fact derived by you. You are right in claiming the numbers as you show are ASB - but you, my friend, provided those numbers, not I.

On the other hand, I am very flattered that you put all that time and effort into thinking about the logistics of this timeline. Based on the responses I have given you in return, what do you think are more realistic numbers to represent these trends in demographics in the DSA?

I'm sorry if I can over as overly antagonistic, this is one of the best TL's on the board and as work is kicking my arse at the moment my writing has stopped leaving my creative juices nowhere else to flow. Anyway having recently been doing demographic modelling it was on my mind. As for my numbers I'm the first to admit they were mine not yours and to be honest I was hoping I would spur you to say something along the lines of "this plantation is atypical and the actual numbers are much lower."


Actually, this number is a bit high. About 10% will remain simple field hands, lacking the initiative to even share-crop. There's probably also about 10% who will stay on plantations but take up a variety of roles, such as overseers, blacksmithing, drivers for the wagons and/or barges for cotton, and of course servants for the big house. These will stay on the plantation but for room, board, and a wage rather than a crop.

Now then, you've got split those who are renting land to farm as opposed to those who are sharecropping. I would lump them together - so I would say overall you still have 60%, maybe more, working land owned by whites, but with differinig relations.

No argument, my use of language was sloppy, by "share-cropping" I meant exactly the range you describe here.
 
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Glen

Moderator
The Slaver Rebellion in Cuba had stronger strains of liberation and separatism than some other provinces of British Southern America. While it still had a primarily pro-slaver basis, there were a number that were only in the rebellion to gain freedom from the British Empire. However, due to the dominance of the Royal Navy on the high seas, the Cuban rebels faced greater difficulties than other provinces, and Cuban patriots recognized that their best hope of freedom was as part of the Southern Confederation. Their flag harkened back to an earlier plot to overthrow the British from the early 1800s, and reflected a different color scheme and pattern than many of the other Confederationist flags.
cu_1810.gif
 

Glen

Moderator
At the end of the day Cairo is closer to the border and is at the nexus of bigger an important rivers.

True - of course, it was closer to that nexus OTL too, so why didn't it develop more? From the wikipedia article, oddly enough, it seems the answer was poor planning of rail and road infrastructure - bypassed the city instead of connecting it.

Well in OTL Cairo had some pretty horrific race riots and a very bad Civil Rights era which pretty much killed it. Butterflying that away would be pretty easy.

Good point - there was that, too - it won't happen that way IOTL for sure.
 

Glen

Moderator
The Western World, from British Patagonia to Gitchigumee, from Avalon to Germany, had enjoyed a generation of essentially unbroken period of growth, prosperity, and advancement from after the end of the Liberal War around 1855, to the beginning of the 1880s. The great liberal nations of the world; the Americans, the Mexicans, the Grenadans, the South Americans, the British, the French, the Germans, even the nations of the Hispanic and Italic peninsulas, had enjoyed unrestricted growth. The more eastern and oriental powers had done nearly as well. Many of these nations had embarked on ambitious building projects, creating the great canals, bridges, railroads, and artworks of the second half of the 19th century. This time would later be called the Era of Grand Design.

panic1893_1.JPG

The Grand Design came crashing down in the Panic of 1881. It started in the banking houses of Germany, but quickly spread to Paris, London, New York, all the great centers of trade. Bank runs were rife, and many businesses collapsed in the puncturing of the massive speculative bubble that had formed over the past 25 years. Whole governments were brought to the verge of bankruptcy by the financial crisis. Particularly hard hit was Mexico, which had already struggled with the burden of overbuilding of canals across the nation. The nations of the east, Prussia-Poland, Austria-Hungary, Russia, were less impacted, perhaps because they had not risen so high, or some suggested that it was their embrasure of Korsgaardianism which allowed them to weather the economic typhoon better than their western counterparts. However, it would be a long, long time for all the Americas and European nations before they reached the same level of affluence that they had enjoyed in the 1870s.
 
The Western World, from British Patagonia to Gitchigumee, from Avalon to Germany, had enjoyed a generation of essentially unbroken period of growth, prosperity, and advancement from after the end of the Liberal War around 1855, to the beginning of the 1880s. The great liberal nations of the world; the Americans, the Mexicans, the Grenadans, the South Americans, the British, the French, the Germans, even the nations of the Hispanic and Italic peninsulas, had enjoyed unrestricted growth. The more eastern and oriental powers had done nearly as well. Many of these nations had embarked on ambitious building projects, creating the great canals, bridges, railroads, and artworks of the second half of the 19th century. This time would later be called the Era of Grand Design.

panic1893_1.JPG

The Grand Design came crashing down in the Panic of 1881. It started in the banking houses of Germany, but quickly spread to Paris, London, New York, all the great centers of trade. Bank runs were rife, and many businesses collapsed in the puncturing of the massive speculative bubble that had formed over the past 25 years. Whole governments were brought to the verge of bankruptcy by the financial crisis. Particularly hard hit was Mexico, which had already struggled with the burden of overbuilding of canals across the nation. The nations of the east, Prussia-Poland, Austria-Hungary, Russia, were less impacted, perhaps because they had not risen so high, or some suggested that it was their embrasure of Korsgaardianism which allowed them to weather the economic typhoon better than their western counterparts. However, it would be a long, long time for all the Americas and European nations before they reached the same level of affluence that they had enjoyed in the 1870s.

Signs of dark things ahead?
 

Tsao

Banned
panic1893_1.JPG

The Grand Design came crashing down in the Panic of 1881. It started in the banking houses of Germany, but quickly spread to Paris, London, New York, all the great centers of trade. Bank runs were rife, and many businesses collapsed in the puncturing of the massive speculative bubble that had formed over the past 25 years. Whole governments were brought to the verge of bankruptcy by the financial crisis. Particularly hard hit was Mexico, which had already struggled with the burden of overbuilding of canals across the nation. The nations of the east, Prussia-Poland, Austria-Hungary, Russia, were less impacted, perhaps because they had not risen so high, or some suggested that it was their embrasure of Korsgaardianism which allowed them to weather the economic typhoon better than their western counterparts. However, it would be a long, long time for all the Americas and European nations before they reached the same level of affluence that they had enjoyed in the 1870s.

Bad times seem to be in the future.... BTW, what's the situation in Prussia-Poland?
 

Glen

Moderator
Interesting.

Thanks!

Admittedly, though, the pelican looks...odd...on this flag. I cannot place my finger on it. I like it, but it looks a bit off, for some reason.

Yeah, I had a tough time with that one - I think it might be better positioned slightly lower, and I had to reduce the image too much to get it to fit as is. But I like the idea conceptually.
 

Glen

Moderator
Honestly, if you want to try and break it into traditional politics, liberal and conservative may not be the best way to describe it.

True - the politics don't run quite that way, especially not with the current 21st century definitions of the terms.
 

Glen

Moderator
White Gold made me think - what are the possibilities of some sort of anthology of DSA related stories once this TL comes to a close? I's certainly buy/support/contribute to one if there was plans for one :D

Pretty good, actually. Now that we are 100 years plus from the POD, if people are interested in writing stories from the first 100 years of the timeline they could do so.
 

Glen

Moderator
I love your continued use of rivers to create states with incredibly complex-but-logical borders. What would the population of those states be in 1880? I'd think they both barely met the requirement and won't grow much over the next century...

Thank you! The population is small, about on par with OTL states in the region. Other states are more populous, but we can't expect it to be much different in these regions.
 

Glen

Moderator
OTL South plus Anglo-Canadians plus rounding.

A fair way to estimate, but did you include the Caribbean? Also what time period?

That is odd, a while ago I read this book on Anglo pioneers in the USA, Canada, Australia, SA and NZ and the Protestant work ethic of settling the land and "earning through labour" earthly and divine bounty was very much a common thread.

And that is a fair point - I think I went a bit overboard in the description of how farming is viewed - but it is a tendency in Southern Culture, and particularly among the middle and upper classes. The lower classes may well cling to the land more - now, the Protestant Work Ethic is still there, but directed towards 'loftier' goals in many cases.

While the white Plantocracy of the Old South might prefer to have their land worked by Blacks

Call it nostalgia, but yes, they often do - of course, they'll take anyone they can get on the cheap.

(and what about the hardscrabble, white Scots-Irish of the Appalachians?)

They are certainly an exception - I thought of stating that in my prior posting on this but forgot to mention it. However, since they are split between the USA and DSA, they are not as big an influence on Southern society overall - though an influence nonethelss.

many of the British settlers especially in the West would want single family farms.

Maybe first or maybe even second generation, but by the third generation they are likely to adopt more Southern attitudes.

More of my comments in a bit.
 

Glen

Moderator
More importantly its a theme given weight by a variety of laws and land acts in all of the British settlers colonies.
A key purposes of the Australian Land Acts was to switch from large scale ranches owned by whites but employing large numbers of Aboriginal stockmen to self sufficient family farms, and it was driven both by local pressure from recent immigrants and Australian born, but also but pressure from London to make the colony more attractive to Britons thinking about emigrating so they stayed within the Empire and didn't go to the USA. I strongly suspect that in those areas where the quality of land is good enough there will be similar successful pressure for provision of 240 acre freehold land plots to be given/sold and bargain rates to appropriate (i.e. primarily White British descent) families.

You make a fair point, and there may be some push towards attracting British settlers ITTL, but I think it will take a different form in the DSA - Cotton is still king, with sugar as queen in the Caribbean, and cattle ranching is getting some tractionn in the west, but bottom line is that the large land owners still hold a great deal of power; while there was a definite break in it immediately after the Slaver Uprising, a new, Loyalist and British immigrant based, planter class has arisen, and they are not going to allow any laws that impair their ability to establish plantations where they desire. Thus the smaller holdings will tend to be where cotton or sugar isn't going to be able to be cultivated - which is not that many places in the Dominion. So yes, the USA will still get some more of those small British farmers. I willl check and think as to what to do in Australia - remember we are talking a hundred years after the POD is when that law was passed in Australia. Still, could happen in Australia - and in South Africa, believe it or not.:eek:

I'm sorry if I can over as overly antagonistic,

Not overly antagonistic, perhaps just over-extrapolated.:)

this is one of the best TL's on the board

Thanks, that really means a lot!

and as work is kicking my arse at the moment my writing has stopped leaving my creative juices nowhere else to flow.

Happens all the time - heck, I've been known to go underground months at a time when work gets to kicking on me.

Anyway having recently been doing demographic modelling it was on my mind. As for my numbers I'm the first to admit they were mine not yours and to be honest I was hoping I would spur you to say something along the lines of "this plantation is atypical and the actual numbers are much lower."

Which you did!:D

No argument, my use of language was sloppy, by "share-cropping" I meant exactly the range you describe here.

We're probably more or less on the same page, just with some different emphases.
 
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