A Question on the logistical/economical necessity of New York

HJ Tulp

Donor
In a TL I've been 'working' (more like musing) on for the past year or so I'm toying with the idea of New York/Nieuw Amsterdam staying in Dutch hands. What I'm wondering about is if ATL New York/Amsterdam would be just as destined for greatness as OTL New York. Was the geographical of New York indispensible to the economy of Eastern North America or would it's political situation make it a backwater?
 
One of the main reasons for New York's rise as the primer east coast city was the Erie canal allowing goods transported via water from areas on the great lakes to the Atlantic having to pass through NYC before railroads took hold. Also NYC was the main entrance for immigrants, so if NYC can still remain the main gate to North America. Before this Philadelphia was the main big city
 
In a TL I've been 'working' (more like musing) on for the past year or so I'm toying with the idea of New York/Nieuw Amsterdam staying in Dutch hands. What I'm wondering about is if ATL New York/Amsterdam would be just as destined for greatness as OTL New York. Was the geographical of New York indispensible to the economy of Eastern North America or would it's political situation make it a backwater?

That depends on who ends up with Great Lakes.
 
Hudson River

The Hudson River is a fine natural highway, so unless someone else controls the Hudson watershed, New York should do quite nicely
 
New York rose because it was a convenient connection point between the rest of the US and Europe, especially Britain. Boston was too far away from the rest of the US, and Philadelphia was just too far inland to compete with New York, and British interests preferred New York, which remained loyalist-controlled in the Merchants' and Slaveowners' Rebellion of 1776.

The Hudson and the Erie Canal helped, but they weren't really necessary. Southern slaveowners would ship cotton to New York along the coast, to be shipped to England. New York was growing faster than Philadelphia already starting in the 1780s, and overtook it in urban population by 1820. Then the Erie Canal opened, but by the 1850s there were railroads connecting all the major Eastern ports to the Great Lakes and the Ohio, and the most important would eventually be the Pennsylvania Railroad rather than the New York Central.

In a TL in which New Amsterdam remains Dutch, but the rest of OTL's US is English, the primate city of Anglophone North America has to be Philadelphia. Boston would be even less favored than in OTL, because of the potential for conflict with New Amsterdam, and the reduced potential to settle the Great Lakes area; in OTL, New York was the primary gateway to Upstate New York and the Great Lakes, but many of the settlers came from New England and not from New York, which would not be possible if there were an international border between the two.
 
New York rose because it was a convenient connection point between the rest of the US and Europe, especially Britain. Boston was too far away from the rest of the US, and Philadelphia was just too far inland to compete with New York, and British interests preferred New York, which remained loyalist-controlled in the Merchants' and Slaveowners' Rebellion of 1776.

The Hudson and the Erie Canal helped, but they weren't really necessary. Southern slaveowners would ship cotton to New York along the coast, to be shipped to England. New York was growing faster than Philadelphia already starting in the 1780s, and overtook it in urban population by 1820. Then the Erie Canal opened, but by the 1850s there were railroads connecting all the major Eastern ports to the Great Lakes and the Ohio, and the most important would eventually be the Pennsylvania Railroad rather than the New York Central.

In a TL in which New Amsterdam remains Dutch, but the rest of OTL's US is English, the primate city of Anglophone North America has to be Philadelphia. Boston would be even less favored than in OTL, because of the potential for conflict with New Amsterdam, and the reduced potential to settle the Great Lakes area; in OTL, New York was the primary gateway to Upstate New York and the Great Lakes, but many of the settlers came from New England and not from New York, which would not be possible if there were an international border between the two.

Well, except for the fact that Philadelphia was larger than NYC until the Yellow Fever epidemic in 1793, iirc.

Any number of ports could have been used for transshipment, and if New Amsterdam stayed Dutch, say, the British/US colonies would almost certainly not use it.

As for the Hudson, sure there's a fair bit of land up that way whose commerce naturally flows through NYC. However, the REAL advantage NYC had, as has been mentioned by others, was the Erie Canal which opened up Upstate New York (in particular along the Mohawk river), and especially the Great Lakes.

AND, if the Great Lakes are controlled by the same entity as the eastern seaboard (or even parts of it) and the St. Laurence, it makes FAR more sense to build ship canals from Montreal (or whatever that city will be called) and Lake Erie. Far, far more efficient to operate a ship canal than a barge one, given the choice.
 
In a TL I've been 'working' (more like musing) on for the past year or so I'm toying with the idea of New York/Nieuw Amsterdam staying in Dutch hands. What I'm wondering about is if ATL New York/Amsterdam would be just as destined for greatness as OTL New York. Was the geographical of New York indispensible to the economy of Eastern North America or would it's political situation make it a backwater?

The Erie Canal is a big deal, but, no: New York's rise to glory was far from inevitable.

Boston was the main Atlantic port in the region for much of early American history, and New York's rise has a lot of do with people trying to escape the Boston Brahmins. So looser, freer commerce in Boston could kill New York in the cradle. Or, as pointed out, the commerce could go to Philadelphia pretty easily.

That said...the New York Harbor is arguably the best harbor on the Eastern Seaboard. It's enormous and it's well-protected from all but the worst storms. Cannon on Long Island and Connecticut can protect the eastern approach from enemy ships, and cannon on the Verrazano Narrows protect from the south. Newark Bay provides a nice, even more protected bay for your largest or most fragile ships. The Hudson provides abundant fresh water, the land is fairly flat and farmable (aside from the New Jersey marshes), and the soil is fairly fertile (and the waters teem with fish).

It is worth noting, though, that barring serious legislation by the British, simply being in Dutch hands isn't necessarily enough to stop New York from becoming a main port - the Dutch were notoriously open when it came to immigration and trade.
 
Well, except for the fact that Philadelphia was larger than NYC until the Yellow Fever epidemic in 1793, iirc.

Nope. New York proper was larger than Philadelphia proper in every US census, including 1790. Philadelphia already had suburbs outside the city (which it annexed in the 1850s); New York's urban area overtook Philadelphia's in either the 1820 or 1830 census - if I remember correctly, the built-up area became first in 1820 while the county took until 1830.

AND, if the Great Lakes are controlled by the same entity as the eastern seaboard (or even parts of it) and the St. Laurence, it makes FAR more sense to build ship canals from Montreal (or whatever that city will be called) and Lake Erie. Far, far more efficient to operate a ship canal than a barge one, given the choice.

It wouldn't be a ship canal either way. The Welland Canal existed in the 19c, but had dozens of locks; there was no technology in that era to allow real ships to use canals going inland. To say nothing of making the St. Lawrence navigable up to Lake Ontario. Today, the St. Lawrence Seaway actually has smaller dimensions than Welland - it's easier to cross from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario than from Lake Ontario to Montreal and the open sea.

Boston was the main Atlantic port in the region for much of early American history, and New York's rise has a lot of do with people trying to escape the Boston Brahmins. So looser, freer commerce in Boston could kill New York in the cradle. Or, as pointed out, the commerce could go to Philadelphia pretty easily.

At least the way it's described in Ed Glaeser's histories of New York and Boston, it has nothing to do with the Brahmins. Boston is just too far from the rest of the US to have been a viable shipping point between the US and Europe. New York and Philadelphia are better.
 
New Amsterdam would change the whole modern history

The Dutch were better at trade than either the Spanish or Portugese that they supplanted, or the English and French who came after them. Indeed they were so successful in overtaking Portugese and then later Spanish trade that this lead to the envy of Britain and the Dutch-English wars.

Suppose that the Netherlands maintains closer ties to Britain starting from queen Elizabeth and they keep this alliance and the British even receive help from protestant Netherlands (as it did in the time of William III later) during the Cromwell years. It is plausible then that the Dutch would retain some of the trade and perhaps also New Amsterdam. I would argue that under the Dutch, it would grow into an even more important hub of the eastern seaboard and overtake Boston and Philadelphia sooner.

However having a strong British-Dutch alliance dominating world trade so early on would mean a vastly diffrent European history as well, with France being subdued earlier economically,mand then, politically by Britain. Also this could mean a more prosperous colonial development for Britain, a sooner overtaking of French posessions and quite possibly less grievances and even no war of independence in 1776 in the american colonies or even if that happens, with the Dutch on the a British side, the Crucial French contributions could be stopped ... and the colonies would be split in the middle by a loyalist New Amsterdam.

If the American revolution does not happen, then neither does the French, and then there is no Napoleon, and without him there is no European restructuring, the Holy Roman empire does not cease, Germany does not unify under Prussia and there are no world wars started by Germany. We would be living in a vastly diffent world, one dominated globally much more earlier by the British-Dutch empire.
 
It wouldn't be a ship canal either way. The Welland Canal existed in the 19c, but had dozens of locks; there was no technology in that era to allow real ships to use canals going inland. To say nothing of making the St. Lawrence navigable up to Lake Ontario. Today, the St. Lawrence Seaway actually has smaller dimensions than Welland - it's easier to cross from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario than from Lake Ontario to Montreal and the open sea.

So you think Montreal wouldn't boom even in British North America?
 
So you think Montreal wouldn't boom even in British North America?

It would be bigger than in OTL, in which it's stymied by the language barrier. But it could not plausibly be bigger than Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Its immediate hinterland is too cold to sustain much population density, and its connections to the American East Coast are terrible. It took until 1881 to get to the population that New York had on the eve of the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825.
 
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