1800's an isolationist America never expands

From what I understand the Untied States was essentially playing a game against Mexico like chess pieces but what if William Henry Harrison or another man in the White house who is less gung-ho about diplomacy in the Texas war of Independence and actually supports Mexico and splits from the rebel's and denounces them as say "Non-American" or Terrorists and the States keeps a decentralized Government and a small Military to match.


Hence, no Manifest destiny and no collective genocide of Native People's occur's, along with less expulsion of Local Mexicans because, well, in this timeline it doesn't happen.
 
Also my idea of what the U.S. military is in this timeline

4,000 Regular Infantry, mostly based around fortification's (in the west)

450 Cavalry

70 artillery pieces

19,000 Militia (full/non full time duty)

4 Frigates

6 Sloops

(Mostly of Protection of trade)
 
Commercial interests would be strongly against that the whole way. Not to mention you'd need to stop the US from acquiring Oregon and Washington, because part of what doomed the Plains Indians was because there were now so many people crossing their land (and most importantly, competing with them for already very scarce resources--part of this helped doomed the bison too). Also, New Mexico was against the government in Mexico City for numerous reasons and were already well commercially integrated into the US before the Mexican War.

Then there's Colorado, where the gold there was already rumoured to exist, meaning the Pikes Peak gold rush is only a matter of time. That's going to put another major center of US power very close to Mexico, and what's stopping people from going further in search of stuff, or south in search of lands? Not Mexico, that's for sure. Only the Cheyenne, Kiowa, Comanche, and others, who the US will deal with in whatever means they can. And Colorado will put even more pressure on other Plains peoples and result in the continued decline of bison and thus the death of the Plains Indian lifestyle. Also, Utah too, with the Mormons and people who alongside them.

It doesn't have to end in war, but by the 1820s it was really only a matter time before Mexico lost the north, its just how are they going to lose it? Likewise with the Plains Indians--their way of life was doomed, it was only a matter how it would end. Personally, it could've ended far better, without massacres and a century plus of discrimination, but that's another topic.
 
Commercial interests would be strongly against that the whole way. Not to mention you'd need to stop the US from acquiring Oregon and Washington, because part of what doomed the Plains Indians was because there were now so many people crossing their land (and most importantly, competing with them for already very scarce resources--part of this helped doomed the bison too). Also, New Mexico was against the government in Mexico City for numerous reasons and were already well commercially integrated into the US before the Mexican War.

Then there's Colorado, where the gold there was already rumoured to exist, meaning the Pikes Peak gold rush is only a matter of time. That's going to put another major center of US power very close to Mexico, and what's stopping people from going further in search of stuff, or south in search of lands? Not Mexico, that's for sure. Only the Cheyenne, Kiowa, Comanche, and others, who the US will deal with in whatever means they can. And Colorado will put even more pressure on other Plains peoples and result in the continued decline of bison and thus the death of the Plains Indian lifestyle. Also, Utah too, with the Mormons and people who alongside them.

It doesn't have to end in war, but by the 1820s it was really only a matter time before Mexico lost the north, its just how are they going to lose it? Likewise with the Plains Indians--their way of life was doomed, it was only a matter how it would end. Personally, it could've ended far better, without massacres and a century plus of discrimination, but that's another topic.

Well I know the British were not ready to have a pithy Crisis over Oregon but still the issue of Texas rings loud I mean I am surprised that Jackson didn't go tally - ho! and send Military aid and go as far to have a war over Texas.
 
The States keeps a decentralized Government and a small Military to match.
That would have a big impact on the wars in Europe in the 20th century.
Not sure about no manifest destiny. I think there were too many people coming for europe for that to happen.
When you say "isolationist" do you mean America trades very little with the rest of the world or America stays out of entangling alliances and foreign wars?
 
Last edited:
I'd think that the President would have a very hard time convincing his fellow Americans to be anti-Texas... in OTL, the population there consisted of a lot of people who had just recently left the USA to go there, so he would asking them to turn on their relatives. Not to mention that two Americans who were looked upon as heroes (Crockett and Bowie) were there...
 
One thing I've often thought about is "WI: American settlers form filibuster-style republics out west, instead of the US just going om-nom-nom?". I've been considering making a map (possibly several) based on this idea.

Naturally, many of them would be tied economically with the US, and some may join later on.
 
Aside from the settlement/Texas issue, I think its very easy for the US to keep isolationist and keep the Army small, but the US Navy will definitely need to be at least comparable to a European state like France or Italy as well as Japan, though not Royal Navy level and definitely not like the modern-day US Navy. That goes well in line with protecting US interests moreso than a strong army, since the Navy is logically the US's first line of defense. Also see how the construction of the Brazilian dreadnought Minas Gerais made the US military get rather worried--the US will at least want to stay competitive with the strongest Latin American navies.
 

Spengler

Banned
From what I understand the Untied States was essentially playing a game against Mexico like chess pieces but what if William Henry Harrison or another man in the White house who is less gung-ho about diplomacy in the Texas war of Independence and actually supports Mexico and splits from the rebel's and denounces them as say "Non-American" or Terrorists and the States keeps a decentralized Government and a small Military to match.


Hence, no Manifest destiny and no collective genocide of Native People's occur's, along with less expulsion of Local Mexicans because, well, in this timeline it doesn't happen.
You have to utterly wreck America in the war of 18132 to end manifest destiny. American Manifest destiny existed because the USA had no big enemies. Also everyone genocided the natives people. It was how nations acted at the time. You see the 19th century was not like the 21st century.
 
One thing I've often thought about is "WI: American settlers form filibuster-style republics out west, instead of the US just going om-nom-nom?". I've been considering making a map (possibly several) based on this idea.

Naturally, many of them would be tied economically with the US, and some may join later on.

William Walker's fail rings loud ;)
 
Really the only way (IMO) that the nascent US wouldn't expand is for a form of the Jeffersonian ideal--a nation of small freeholders with a largely agrarian/artisanal economy--takes a stranglehold on the American psyche in the late 1790s. Couple that with a really horrific massacre of settlers in the old Northwest and you might just have the recipe for people wanting to cling to the comfort of the Atlantic seaboard: let the damn British try to civilize Indians if they can, and all that. Follow that up with a disastrous outcome in the War of 1812: not only is Washington burned but James Madison is captured and hauled off to London. Madison's capture might demoralize the defenders at Ft. McHenry sufficiently that perhaps Baltimore might fall. And with that, and the peace that ensues, the young US turns inward almost violently so.

But I think that's a real long shot at best.
 
Top