AH Challenge: African-American President before 1914

Baskilisk

Banned
AH Challenge: African-American President before 1914
No PoD's before 1642
America has to be independant from Britain by the time of the election,
Slaves can't revolt and take control of the entire country:eek:,
The president has to control at least 3/4 of modern day USA. Absolutely no less.
Extra points the earlier you abolish slave trade.
Alternatively, make a Native American president of the whole country with the same rules above:D
No meteors or catastrophic floods or other nonsense, unless it happen in OTL.
Oh, and the majority of the population has to speak English.
Is this possible? Make it possible:D
 
Last edited:
MrP

MrP

Banned
Well, 1642 is a lot of space. You probably just need to wait for a few hours before you get some attempts. :)
 

General Mung Beans

Banned
For the Native American one:

In TTL King Phllips War doesn't happen and equal rights for Indians are supported by preachers and others and eventually Indians become full citizens. When the American Revolution happens most Indians side with the Rebels and they win earlier. Eventually in 1820 President John Running Deer is elected President.
 

Neroon

Banned
In the immediate post-Civil-War era the Republicans go with a Black Vice President. Win election. President assassinated by Southern die-hards.
Voila.
 

WestVirginiaRebel

Banned
The Dred Scott decision happens differently and the Supreme Court decides that slaves and their descendents are citizens.

Andrew Johnson does not veto the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (although his veto was overidden by Congress anyway in OT). With the weight of pre-Civil War law behind it, the North is better able to enforce voting rights in the post-Civil War south. Hiram Rhodes Revels then stays in the Senate and goes on to become the first Black president of the United States in 1876, running as a moderate. He manages to win over Southern voters based on his support for amnesty and citizenship for former Confederates (which he advocated in OT as well).
 

The Sicilian

WestVirginiaRebel said:
The Dred Scott decision happens differently and the Supreme Court decides that slaves and their descendents are citizens.
Click to expand...
I don't think that would be possible without a civil war happening. It's kinda hard to be both legally a citizen and someone else's property at the same time. I think it would be possible for the court not to deny citizenship to free blacks living in the North, but that doesn't help up a whole lot in getting a black president, as they were economically and politically marginalized (in most states they were unable to vote and held only the most menial jobs).

I think the best bet to get a black man president by that date would be for Reconstruction to go very differently. I think the key here would be to have the government tie the interests of poor whites to poor blacks, instead of rich whites (the former masters of the later). I'll think on this more.
 

Rakhasa

The most non-ASB posibility I can think is stolen from the GURPS roleplay Alternate Earths (or whetever it was called in english). Let me see is I remmeber it in a logical progression (it's been a while, so let's skip dates)

1-The civil war is a draw, and thus the US gets divided in two nations.
2-The postwar north (United States) gives blacks citizen rights, but also ends up with a big black population, escaped form the south and civil war veterans. Just because they are against slavery, this does nto mean than they are not racist, so
3-They decide to settle the West, and give the black veterans lands there (whites, too, but a mayority of the blacks in the US move west)
4-As a result of this policy, several states have a massive black mayority, with voting rights, and so blacks enter politics as governors, senators and congressmen very soon. The first black vice-president appears on the late 19th century.
5-The Confederacy, of course, is still there, still dislikes the north, and still keeps slaves. As a "us againts them", racism in the north diminishes faster than in OTL, and, whats more important, public manifesttaions of it are shunned with more force -PC, in short, appears in strenght earlier.
6-First black president.

Since the more relevant change for this was no the POD (the Civil war is a draw) but the settlers in the "Black west", a similar policy in a traditional "US wins the war" timeline is possible -and actually easy, since there will be thousands of former slaves on the south than cannot be happy with their former masters. Racism on the south may keep going strong, but a timeline with black senators (and congressmen, lobbists, and secretaries) since the 19th century will allow a black POTUS far sooner than in OTL.
 

General Mung Beans

Banned
Rakhasa said:
The most non-ASB posibility I can think is stolen from the GURPS roleplay Alternate Earths (or whetever it was called in english). Let me see is I remmeber it in a logical progression (it's been a while, so let's skip dates)

1-The civil war is a draw, and thus the US gets divided in two nations.
2-The postwar north (United States) gives blacks citizen rights, but also ends up with a big black population, escaped form the south and civil war veterans. Just because they are against slavery, this does nto mean than they are not racist, so
3-They decide to settle the West, and give the black veterans lands there (whites, too, but a mayority of the blacks in the US move west)
4-As a result of this policy, several states have a massive black mayority, with voting rights, and so blacks enter politics as governors, senators and congressmen very soon. The first black vice-president appears on the late 19th century.
5-The Confederacy, of course, is still there, still dislikes the north, and still keeps slaves. As a "us againts them", racism in the north diminishes faster than in OTL, and, whats more important, public manifesttaions of it are shunned with more force -PC, in short, appears in strenght earlier.
6-First black president.

Since the more relevant change for this was no the POD (the Civil war is a draw) but the settlers in the "Black west", a similar policy in a traditional "US wins the war" timeline is possible -and actually easy, since there will be thousands of former slaves on the south than cannot be happy with their former masters. Racism on the south may keep going strong, but a timeline with black senators (and congressmen, lobbists, and secretaries) since the 19th century will allow a black POTUS far sooner than in OTL.
Click to expand...

While the US may allow blacks to settle in the West won't they be more against giving them civil rights since they may blame the blacks for causing the Civil War and the Republicans would be out of office?
 

JarrettHolst

A couple of ideas:

1. Play around with the Nullification Crisis

If you have the US break up earlier this could accelerate the pace of social change. Perhaps the Nullification Crisis turns out differently and South Carolina leaves the Union. A handful of other Southern slave states do the same.

You could then go one of two ways.

The rest of the country stays intact and begins a national debate of slavery similar to what Great Britain goes through. Slavery is ended in the rest of the US earlier and without Jim Crow, rights for African-Americans come sooner and we might get an African-American president before 1914 (still not likely).

Alternatively, the fact of one state leaving the Union leads to a series of secessions and the US falls into chaos. A series of mini-civil wars take place throughout the 19th century, with even a number of foreign wars thrown in. The end result is that a re-united United States emerges at the end of the century, constituting most of the territory of the existing US. The wars and chaos have led to more rapid social change, with the country perhaps going to the left and radically changing its perceptions on race. An African-American is chosen VP in the 1912 election and moves up after the President dies of a heart attack the next year.

2. Break-down of US at the beginning.
This is basically a variant of the scenario above. The US falls into several smaller states soon after the Revolution. These states go through a chaotic 19th century, filled with many small and large wars. They re-unite later in the century, vastly different from OTL. You could even throw in an Aboriginal nation or a small state of freed slaves that eventually re-integrate into the country (like the Arkansas Confederacy of Eric Flint's, even).

3. Early American Rebellion

If you follow left-wing history like Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States", it could be argued that there existed the potential of tri-racial rebellion against the existing colonial governments of British Columbia. That is, an alliance of African-American slaves, Aboriginal nations and poor whites who join together to overthrow the colonial authorities.

There were occasional occurrences of these groups living together (see "Gone to Croatan" by Sakolsky & Koehnline) but I don't know how likely it would be that they'd all come together and that whites would ally with these groups against other Europeans.

You could create a scenario where colonial conditions become harsher, there are more examples of prisoners and indeventured servants being used, and social and class differences increase. Slave rebellions become more common and disenfranchised groups seek out alliances with Aboriginal nations. I don't know if this would create some like the existing US, though; perhaps a different independant nation or a Federation of independent states (a FSA?).
 

Blue Max

A PoD of 1642 means that we can throw a giant monkey wrench into the development of slavery. Perhaps something like Indentured Workers getting furious at slaveowners for some kind of political wacktitude in the colonial era.

Result: Slavery is stillborn--countries that pratice slavery are increasingly seen as inhumane and evil. Great Britian formally bans slavery by 1700.

Still, now you have trade connections between Western Africa and what will later become the United States. If we change the nature of the Colonial expansion--by actually allowing Natives to enculturate into American society, rather than getting wiped out or driven out, we can turn Slavery from a black mark in the United States to a vice practiced by other nations besides England.

The United States will draw huge numbers of Immigrants from the World. This time, though, race doesn't really matter. Some of the Immigrants are from Africa. With no slavery and racism as a non-issue, we've moved very far from OTL's USA. It would be plausible, though, that a third generation African of Igbo origin in the United States could become President in 1912.

Its a very, very different world to play with, though.
 

violadog

JarrettHolst said:
A
3. Early American Rebellion


You could create a scenario where colonial conditions become harsher, there are more examples of prisoners and indeventured servants being used, and social and class differences increase. Slave rebellions become more common and disenfranchised groups seek out alliances with Aboriginal nations. I don't know if this would create some like the existing US, though; perhaps a different independant nation or a Federation of independent states (a FSA?).
Click to expand...

I think the situation for this may have existed in Colonial Virginia in 1676, that year was the year was the year of Bacon's Rebellion. My understanding of Bacon's Rebellion is that it was pretty much an alliance of blacks and poor whites. So maybe that could somehow be the jumping off point for an earlier first black president?
 

Sol Invictus

Abraham Lincoln.

Nuff said....

Seriously, he was apparently a complete melting pot of races, his mother was of mixed Indian/Negro ancestry. He was very swarthy...
 

catboy637

John Wilkes Booth doesn't kill Lincoln. Lincoln issues that the former slaves be given immediate citezenship and be given equal rights to whites. The South is put under strict occupation and doesn't vote until 1889. Menawhile, Lincoln selects a former slave as his vice-president for his thrid term. Lincoln dies of typhoid fever and viola!
 

General Mung Beans

Banned
catboy637 said:
John Wilkes Booth doesn't kill Lincoln. Lincoln issues that the former slaves be given immediate citezenship and be given equal rights to whites. The South is put under strict occupation and doesn't vote until 1889. Menawhile, Lincoln selects a former slave as his vice-president for his thrid term. Lincoln dies of typhoid fever and viola!
Click to expand...

Very unlikely; Lincoln was quite racist compared to the Radical Republicans in Congress and wouldn't have appointed a black vice president.
 
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