"A world without America" - no North American superpower?

[Cyclone]

I was reading the "The Worst piece of Alternate History Ever" thread, and a thought occurred to me: what would happen if we actually removed "America"? But then a further question occurs: what is "America," as in the United States of? What defines it and makes it so important? One particular key trait of America is the midwest: a massive contiguous area of arable land, which links up directly to the greater Mississippi basin, as seen in this image:

Without a westward expansion, wouldn't "Louisiana" (or whatever particular government seized control of that territory) become the new America?

So what if, some horrible disease tears up all this wonderful, fertile land, leaving only a river and some infertile land behind, at some point in the mid-12th century? How would history develop?

 

[Tom Kalbfus]

I was reading the "The Worst piece of Alternate History Ever" thread, and a thought occurred to me: what would happen if we actually removed "America"? But then a further question occurs: what is "America," as in the United States of? What defines it and makes it so important? One particular key trait of America is the midwest: a massive contiguous area of arable land, which links up directly to the greater Mississippi basin, as seen in this image:

Without a westward expansion, wouldn't "Louisiana" (or whatever particular government seized control of that territory) become the new America?

So what if, some horrible disease tears up all this wonderful, fertile land, leaving only a river and some infertile land behind, at some point in the mid-12th century? How would history develop?

Your going all about this backwards. Harry Turtledove has a timeline where there is no United States of America, its called The Divided States of America.

You don't need to do anything with the Continent of North America other than have a noncohesive United States that falls apart and breaks up into several countries much as in that book of the same name.

 

[jycee]

Your going all about this backwards. Harry Turtledove has a timeline where there is no United States of America, its called The Divided States of America.

You don't need to do anything with the Continent of North America other than have a noncohesive United States that falls apart and breaks up into several countries much as in that book of the same name.

The probem with The Divided States of America is that is not very realstic since it use OTL´s modern state borders.

But you are right a better way to go around this is to make it so the Union never manages to stick together. The new nations whichever they are would defenetly compete for control over the fertile lands of the Mississipi Basin. And because Louissiana does not have the popouation to keep an eye on all its land very soon the new nations will also lay claim to it.

If Louisiana stays Spanish it might be incorporated into New Spain and thus the US would be replaced by a larger richer New Spain.

Then there is Britains infuece and its own claims in the West, I would imagine Britain would manage to take control over most of the Great Lakes region. The British Dominion in North America would be much more powerful than OTL´s Canada. Although mabe this time it will be broken up into several dominions or kingdoms rather than grouped into a single one.

Also withouth a massive force like the US in OTL a few Native American Nations might pop up across the map. At east one in the Plains, maybe one in the Great Lakes, and if the tribes in the south manage to create a confederation and unite they could easily survive independently if Virgnia, the Carolinas, and Georgia are fighting each other for that land all the time.

In the end I think you would get a few very rich and prosperous nations, New England, New York, Virginia probably amongst them. These nations benefit more from trade than agricuture. While the agricutural lands would probably be under poorer nations that depend big time on the richer ones.

 

[tormsen]

I think the PoD in the original post is the more interesting, though. You'd need to work out a bit better a climatic PoD, however.

Butterflies aside, it would definately increase the likelihood of native states emerging, in my opinion. There would be much less incentive for European settlers to take that land, so it may end up divided into vague spheres of influence (British, French and Spanish most likely) for a long time.

I could almost imagine much of the North American interior being left to it's own devises. Perhaps a 19th century Scramble for America?

 

[Valdemar II]

I have a hard time seing native states survive at least in NA, their population density was ridiculous low and the only ones with somewhat European level of technology lay in areas where they would be taken out rather fast. My guess is that the American west would be split between Britain/Canada and Mexico with the tribes ending up as they did in those two countries.

 

[Boto von Ageduch]

I understand that your PoD is the existence of a Great Planes desert.
Under these conditions, I am not convinced that this would prevent the US from forming and becoming powerful.
First of all, I cannot see a strong reaon why independence and Lousiana purchase
shouldn' t take place roughly as in OTL.
Then what do the US lose? Lots of agricultural area, an early chance for contiguous borders,
and a concrete geographical "anchor" of everything "Go West" stands for.
I think the latter item should not be underrated in its cultural implications.
For the question of borders, I do not think the young US would be more severely menaced
in a military way than in OTL - a desert isn't pleasant to march through either.
As for the food supply, this is an issue to think about.
However, for a long time, the US would still have a suffient potential for cultivated land -
you would, of course, much more clearing of woods around the Appalachians.

An advantage for the US would be that they would have less problems with the natives,
as they have much less room for retreat.

The really serious cut would be the fact that the US would not achieve access to the
Pacific: California would stay entirely Mexican, while British America/Canada would
absorb the remaining coastline.
Thus in the mid of the 19th century, we would a wealthier "golden" Mexico.
This might promt Mexicans to foray East into the desert planes to search for gold.
Here is the point where a clash with the US would be unavoidable,
and I think that the relation of power between Mexico and the US would only
tilt non-decisively in favor of Mexico.
Now a lot depends on detail assumptions ...

 

[bm79]

Though I don't know if I'll ever get to a good enough state of polish to publish it here on AH.com, I've been working on a TL for quite a while which would create a North America with four Great Powers and no superpowers. My PoD is that Napoleon never reimposes slavery in St-Domingue, thus no Haitain war of independence. The 50,000 troops Napoleon has slated for stationing there and in the newly reacquired Louisana thus don't end up dying in the jungles of Hispaniola. The 35,000 of those that end up in Louisiana have to spread out and become soldier-farmers in dispersed garrisons since the colonial infrastucture isn't suited for supporting such a large standing force. This helps to increase the French colonial presence outside the nuclei of OTL southern LA and the small French settlements in OTL Missouri. Intermarriage with native women creates a large Métis class, augmented by the eventual immigration of almost 1 million Irish in the 1840s and 50s (New Orleans, not New York, was the main entrance point for Irish OTL during the Famine, due to the importance of the Liverpool-New Orleans cotton trade). Louisiana declares independence from France after the defeat of Napoleon and the Restoration of the Bourbons and become a republic.

Anyway, my TL creates a NA where the US keeps to its 1783 borders with the exception of adding East Florida (Louisiana gets West Florida to the Escambia). Louisiana, after a series of conflicts with Mexico (which it won) and Britian (which it lost) now has these borders (I don't know how to make maps, sorry):

Starting in the East and going anti-clockwise:

- the Escambia river to the 31st parallel
- the 31st parallel to the Mississippi
- the Mississippi to the Missouri
- the Missouri to the Platte
- the Platte to the 101st longitude
- the 101st longitude south to the Colorado River (the Colorado that goes through Austin, TX, not the one that carved the Grand Canyon)
- the Colorado to the Gulf

Also included in Louisiana is all of St-Domingue (Hispaniola), though the other French possessions in the Caribbean remain in French hands.

The other two powers are of course Canada (BNA), which now includes the northern part of OTL's Louisiana Purchase territory and the Oregon Country, and Mexico, which has retained most of its northern territories as well. I've only written out the TL to about 1865 (but with many holes), but each of these four countries is large enough, have large enough populations and enough resources to come into their own and eventually make their mark on the international stage. Each, though, has its own unique and varied internal problems which will hinder their development at certain stages, and that's the main reason for the blockage in my TL writing. I've got four basket-cases on my hands! Canada is larger but and has a somewhat increased population, but a lot of that comes from Francophone Louisiana, adding to the Anglo-Franco problem (Canada will end up with a lot more Franco-majority provinces than OTL, perhaps three or four). Mexico's still got its revolving governments and the tensions between the hacendados and the peasants. Louisiana's got, in New Orleans at least, the old four-way fight between legitimists-orleanists-bonapartists-republicans (the Republic was declared in 1817 as a compromise and has never been fully excepted), and also has to deal with a society made up of Whites (French and Irish, mostly, though for the Irish the language issue never becomes a problem, since most spoke Gaelic at home and saw English as the language of the oppresors at the time]), Métis, Natives (including most of the "civilized tribes" of the US Southeast who were given sanctuary in Louisiana and granted lands in the Ozark region and have since melded very successfully into LA society), Africans and Creole Africans (the OTL gens de couleur libres). The US, of course, is split on sectional lines as well as the growing debate on slave versus free states. When Britain, Mexico, and Louisiana all abolish slavery in the 1830s (Louisiana was also part-slave, part-free beforehand), the southern slave states become increasingly recalcitrant on the issue. Though Louisiana might now be a free country, it hadn't closed its doors to American trade, so slave-produced cotton flowed freely through the Louisiana ports of New Orleans, Mobile, and Pensacola. As long as the money's there, why rock the boat?

As you can see, I've put a lot of thought into this, so I tend to ramble. One day I'll post my TL and let everyone praise and pick it apart. The point is, though, that it'd be rather easy to create a North America where no one single nation dominates without having to resort to balkanization.

 

[Herr Frage]

"America the Fallen" is exploring the possibility of a Divided States of America. The PoD is that Washington and Jefferson or become to ill to attend the Constitutional Convention while John Adams is in Europe. The Convention fails to reach an accord and the fragile union begins to fall apart as the states either pursue their own intesrts or make alliances.

I recomend you give it a look.

 

[Dan1988]

À bm79: That's an interesting TL that I would like to see.