African American State in the Deep South

Your challenge of the day is to create an African American state that contains at least todays states: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina

Optional: Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia

Bonus: Missouri, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, DoC, Maryland, Delaware

Your PoD is no earlier than 1763 AD
 
Your challenge of the day is to create an African American state that contains at least todays states: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina

Optional: Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia

Bonus: Missouri, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, DoC, Maryland, Delaware

Your PoD is no earlier than 1763 AD
Maybe a harder reconstruction sees a ultimative punishment for Southern Rebellion ? That would be major blow for lost causers.
 
One possibility: a majority African-American Southern government decides to consolidate its power by force, bringing in veterans. This causes white people to flee, and allows for a black majority in that state to continue ruling even after Jim Crow laws start everywhere else. It is possible this state gets put down by force, but if this happens it gives precedent to taking down other states by force in the future.

Jim Crow laws were not federal laws but states, if a black state manages to avoid white rule and becomes hostile enough that whites flee, black majority rule could continue.
 
I wonder if, in the unlikely event that the CSA manages to survive, contiguous sections of (let's say) Alabama and Mississippi might have been ceded to yield an African-American state; that is, one that is not simply a majority but heavily to overwhelmingly African-American? I believe that in the 19th century, there were counties in both states that had an absolute majority of African-Americans in the population--but given the laws of the day, a vanishingly small fraction were able to vote and participate in government once Reconstruction ended.

If--and that's a huge "if"--the cession occurred, I wonder if such a state would likely be poorer than Mississippi (no mean feat) and quite likely both land-locked and predominantly rural: that is, a semblance of the Mississippi Delta region on a somewhat grander scale? Can't see any land cessions allowing this would-be state to have access to the Gulf, even if it's a sliver no more than a couple of miles wide. Note, however, that there's some area along the southernmost MS-AL border that today is occupied by a coastal preserve and a wildlife management area. That area was probably uninhabited wetlands at the time, and might become part of this nascent state. Today it might have a modest coastal town that would be reminiscent of, say, Port Norris, NJ, or Port Penn, DE, both on the Delaware Bay.
 
I just noticed how early the POD is. What about a situation where the American colonies never rebel, so you have a continuing British America and a French Louisiana into the 19th century? The French fail to settle white colonists in Lower Louisiana, but succeed at developing a plantation-based economy and eventually the Black majority in Lower Louisiana revolts. In order to maintain trade through New Orleans to a flourishing agricultural-and-fur-trade colony around St. Louis, the French negotiate with the rebels and grant the former slaves control of their own autonomous state in exchange for perpetual French control of the port of New Orleans and shipping on the Mississippi. A couple decades later, during a Franco-British war, a slave revolt occurs in the Southern part of British America. The Louisianans and French ship weapons to the rebel slaves, and the slaves are able to drive the white settlers (who there are fewer of, thanks to continued British control of America) out. The war ends with a French victory in Europe, and Britain agrees to cede everything South of the Tennessee River. The newly captured territories fall under Black Louisianan Control. In the 20th century, Black Louisiana eventually gains independence from France. Done.
 
South Carolina is a good bet. Maybe have continuing African-American political potency despite the rise of Jim Crow and incentives for black migration to South Carolina to offset the Great Migration.
 
South Carolina is a good bet. Maybe have continuing African-American political potency despite the rise of Jim Crow and incentives for black migration to South Carolina to offset the Great Migration.

The state that started rebellion over slavery becoming an African American ruled state does have the ring of a delightful irony.
 
The state that started rebellion over slavery becoming an African American ruled state does have the ring of a delightful irony.

I don't see how it could become independent. Especially after the Civil War as the government's answer to the question of secession. African American majority yes independent state no.
 
Your PoD is no earlier than 1763 AD
Ight.

Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina
UK keeps these ones durring the Revolutionary War, black loyalists are resettled here rather than in Canada/Sierra Leone.

Louisiana
Captured durring the Napoleonic Wars.

Assuming the Brits abolish slavery on schedule there's time for Slaves from the rump US to flee south and actually there would probably be some Slaves crossing the border even before that seeing as how the US likely wouldn't be able to get any sort of extra-territorial fugitive slave treaty with the Brits.
 
Last edited:
The state that started rebellion over slavery becoming an African American ruled state does have the ring of a delightful irony.

I believe South Carolina had the highest black population, as a percentage within a state, before the Great Migration - with over half of South Carolinians being black.
 
Top