AH Challenge: Destroy America (Ultimate anti-Ameriwank)

I may be totally wrong (this would be normal) but was not the tax burden heavier on the Home Islands than the colonies in the 1770's?

It was, but it wasn't supposed to be. There were taxes and customs in place, but they were unevenly collected. The various governors sent to the American colonies were uniformly incompetent when it came to proper collection... and no one back in Britain seemed to care all that much. So, the colonies basically got by on very little taxation, smuggled at will to avoid customs, and all this was pretty much winked at by London. More than anything else, it was this neglect by the home government that inspired the ARW... the colonists just got too used to living it easy and doing things for themselves....
 
This may be a stretch, but say John Harrison gets fed up with the Board of Longitude constantly putting road blocks in his way of an invention that's supposed to help British shipping. Instead, he gives the Time Piece to the French who share it with their allies in Spain.

The chronometer would be given to late to support the French in the F&I War, but the Spanish could use it to support their huge colonies in the New World, thus keeping them in their grasp until a peaceful end in the 1850s and 1860s.

The French on the other hand, would kick Royal Navy ass. Their focus was on Canada and the Caribbean, but by the time Napoleon comes to power, they secure Louisiana as their last major colony. Haiti is secured within the Empire, but American expansion is locked to the Mississippi River when President Jefferson's offer to buy New Orleans is rejected by Napoleon.

Americans are frustrated and angry. Many decide that life would just be easier to become French citizens and cross the Mississippi. The west ultimately belongs to the Indians. Despite Napoleon's racist ideas, he finds the Cherokees, Sioux, and Creeks to be more valuable allies than the Americans who are a little too friendly to the British.

Nevermind that scuffle in 1812. A three-way war almost erupted when French support for a Creek state in the Ohio River Valley was deemed a little too strong. It was an issue France and Britain could agree on, and one that ultimately came to pass in 1844.

Georgian expansionism was halted by the Choctaws and Chickasaws living in Mississippi territory, who were supported by the French. Kentucky and Tennessee, once strong new American states, were reduced to shells of themselves when farmers are given the choice to move across the river and become French, or back east.

After suffering through the financial chaos of President Nicholas Biddle (1833-1837) and the abolitionism of Martin Van Buren (1837-1845), James K. Polk was finally elected on a spirit of expansion in the American populace. He embarked on a war with the French Republic to claim Louisiana as their own. American forces hardly made it to the Mississippi. General Winfield Scott could not dream of launching an attack on New Orleans, and turned back to Mobile.

General Fremont attempted an invasion of Ohio Territory, ripe Indian country, but ended up captured in Detroit with the rest of his army. The Treaty of Detroit forfeit all land north of the Ohio River as the Ohio Republic which would be controlled by all manner of Indian tribes supported by the French in Louisiana and the British in Canada.

Polk chooses not to run for a second term (not like he would have run) and a Whig is elected: Millard Fillmore. President Fillmore (1849-1857) doesn't concern himself with blacks, after all Van Buren solved that problem, so slavery will be extinct by 1860 and the Freedmen virtually solved, but waves of immigrants, especially Catholic immigrants is getting to be a pain in the ass.

Fillmore enacts a few ridiculous laws that have plenty of approval in Congress. All the laws basically say to move the Pope-lovers west. Kentucky and Tennessee, states that can hardly stand on their feet, are handed over to the Catholic immigrants. Right next to Louisiana, the French give plenty of Irishmen passage down the Mississippi.

Protestant Americans notice this, move west, sail their goods down the Mississippi, and find that the French won't let them. This leads to a series of Nativism starting in the west with Anti-Catholic riots, and then local legislatures demanding they must live far from the river. Gangs of Irishmen roam the countryside just looking for some Protestants to mug.

Finally, the French get involved and support the free states of Kentucky and Tennessee as the Catholic American Republic. The CAR is allied to Ohio and Louisiana, and easily wins the war. The Treaty of Nashville ends the war in 1855. Fillmore ends his terms just like Polk ended his term: a failure. Two American states seceded and formed their own nation. Desperately trying to rebuild their shattered country, President Douglas (1857-1861) and President Lincoln (1861-1865) are the first to start industrializing the states. President Lee (1865-1873) is the first to begin borrowing money from European states to recover America's failing economy. He borrows money from Prussia, England, Spain, and recently independent Republic of the Plate (Republica del Rio de la Plata).

The money is put to good use, but Ohio's recent industry concentrated in Detroit (a massive wave of Freedmen emigrated to Ohio after being treated like trash in America) and Louisianan industry (independent in 1867 with the Act of Dominion in Paris) end up beating out the Americans which causes them to fall deeper into debt. President Lincoln's second term (1873-1877) and President Tilden (1877-1881) don't do much to help.

Finally, a hero seems to come along with the election of George Custer (1881-1885), but proves only more disaster when German ships are stationed in Boston Harbor. British, Spanish, and Platan ships soon follow in various American coastal cities. New York, Charleston, and Savannah are soon forced into submission and influence by foreign powers.

By 1900, the American President is no longer a man who can stand up to the world or is chosen by the people, but who can best keep the foreign powers off of the American people so much. Mississippi Territory is eventually given independence as a Creek Nation. The Original Thirteen Colonies is all that is left of the USA, and they are virtually colonies starting all over again in 1901.

Internationally, the French are secured throughout the world with their bases in America, Asia, and Africa. Their allies in the New World: Louisiana, Ohio, Mississippi, Catholic American Republic; are all regional powers that can stand on their own for a generation of peace. Britain is not as mighty as she would be IOTL, but she still has colonies in Africa, Australia, and owns half of India. The Spanish are in a much better position in Catholic Europe and are favored in the New World as opposed to the other European allies New Spain (which includes Florida), New Grenada, Peru, and La Plata have their choices of. As for Germany, her oppressive rule doesn't seem so bad in New England. Industry booms under the Iron Heel of the Kaiser. When a Great War eventually breaks out in the 1910s or 1920s, Eastern USA would undoubtedly be a major theatre.
 

Vault-Scope

Banned
I rather imagine a scenario where the USA conquer most of the world but at the height of its power, breakes into a civil war.
This civil war turns into a multi-sided worldwar, nortth america is eventually reunified under the loyalist forces but the result is a completely different society.
Even more different from USA today than North Korea or Iran... :D
 
Top