AH: Prevent US Expansion West of the Mississippi

BlondieBC

Banned
You make a good point, it really did take a catastrophic war to take the wind out of the US sails. Would it be possible to have that sort of conflict earlier in US history or to stop the expansionist mentality? Someone mentioned a US based on the articles of confederation for example.

I don't think you can move the conflict early enough (1800 or so), but I guess you could change the ARW and get the USA never to form. But then you are more preventing the USA from forming than preventing expansion.

Also keep in mind the USA had little net immigration from the ARW for a generation or so. It was local population growth. It seems like it was closer to 1840 before you see large white inflows again. And this is part of the problem in keeping the USA contained. These people are no longer "European", much less British. They are generations removed from Europe, sometimes up to 8 or so generations. The USA had a lot of luck. We had the native population greatly lowered by disease and kept low. We had few epidemics like Europe to low enough population density. We had high birth rates. I can't give you the exact numbers for 1800, but in Poland in the late 1800, farmers were down to 8.5 acres of land. In the USA, you often had 40-160 acres. Maybe more. And each kid could simply move west. And we had taken away the effective bases need for competitors. France lacked the surplus population. The UK was down to the Halifax to Toronto base. Central Mexico was far away. Natives were few.

And lets get back to the pattern. You have a lot of kids because you have a lot of food and few disease. Six kids per family was common, making it to adult hood. So take a village in say Eastern Tennessee in 1750 that has all the good land in production. Twenty five years later, you have 3 times as many families, so there is not enough land. But be it 25 or 100 miles west, you have open land of the same type. So every 15-25 years, you see about half the village move as a group west. Normally, entire extended families. Clans might be a good word. So up to several hundred people with perhaps 50 combat capable soldiers move west. Repeat. Such is the pattern of my family. If you look at a map, an realize that by the ARW, there were multiple counties west of the British control line, you will see how it was easy for about 1810 to have the population ready to cross the Mississippi. With lots of empty land, you skip more marginal land which will be settle latter. It is only after things start to fill up a bit, and we hit the more combat capable tribes that we get around to expelling the Cherokee. It was just not worth the effort with enough empty land.

Now IMO, what happens if you can fix the slavery issue and avoid the ACW, is that the USA keeps up this pattern. Another war for emptish land, purchasing land, or the Texas side solution will happen. My guess is we take Canada west of Ontario. The UK only had an army of 250K in the Napoleonic war. By 1860, the USA can field a million plus if we get mad. While people argue the UK would send the entire might of the empire to fight a long war, they will compromise. It can playout a lot of different ways, and some pretty odd ways, but the USA is larger. Maybe we keep Borneo. Maybe the Mosquito coast. Cuba is possible or another chunk of Mexico.

The problem for foreign powers is the same. The USA has many small free militias. Each of these village moving west is really a self supporting light infantry platoon or company. You can have hundreds of these family/military units moving in any given year. They have to be stopped by force, which is expensive, compared to the largely free USA forces. It is not that Mexico could not raise an army. It is that it is very expensive to keep many regiments of Mexicans soldiers in Texas. Or without ACW, in say the Baja. Same for the UK in the Great Plains or British Columbia. Same for Spain in Cuba. And for the families, they have strong motivation to move. They either take a huge cut in lifestyle by splitting the family farm 2-3 ways or they move to an open area. It is like water flowing across the land. And the problem for the UK is the RN can't cut off the flow.

It would be much like there being a way to get directly from Germany to South Africa via some Star Trek like technology. The UK would have never been able to hold South Africa. Add in some disease killing sub-Sahara blacks (lower the population by 90%), you end up with a big German/Dutch blob swallowing much of a continent. And there would be little that foreign powers could do to stop it.
 
Well if a US ally or powerful rival held the Louisiana territory it might give the government pause but I don't see how anyone could stop it from filling up with settlers coming over the border it would be insanely expensive to police northern Louisiana.
 
President Thomas Jefferson said:
There is on this globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans.
Until the building of railroads, virtually all trade from the Northwest, Kentucky, and Tennessee went through New Orleans. At any moment, there might be thousands of dollars of American goods in warehouses there, with more coming downriver. The United States is going to consistently want that city, and being far closer than any colonial power, they're going to eventually get it.

I think the only way you could keep this from happening is to establish an independent pro-American republic there. Actually, that was Jefferson's original long-term plan: several separate, allied republics in North America.
 
The only way it's possible is if the former US is absolutely too locked in internecine warfare between regions, and other powers (Has to be a combination of Britain, Mexico, and France) rush into the gap and quickly fill the area with settlers. Honestly, I think it really is plausible if the US falls flat on its face for Mexico to hold onto its northernmost territories. A couple more decades and a stable Mexican government, and keeping those territories is likely. Combine that with Britain snatching up an expanded Oregon territory, and France hanging on to much of Louisiana, and the internally-fighting US can't expand any further.
 
It would take "facts on the ground" -- massive colonization of the trans-Mississippi by both the British and the Spanish/Mexicans (which would probably require a POD that includes the U.S. getting curbstomped by the Brits in 1812 as well as creating a compelling reason for both parties to want to colonize the area) combined probably by the further setback of a much earlier Civil War (which would require another wizardly creative POD).
All of the above is almost as hard to pull off as defying the second law of Thermodynamics.;)

(semi-Ninja-ed by Sucrose :D)
 
So, we can't balkanize the U.S., but can we balkanize Louisiana? Have Mexico take the territory, or France keep it. In order to gain settlers, the land it open to American immigrants. Much as in OTL Texas, many of the groups are simply American settlors looking for new land, but you also get a *Mormon type group, and some utopians as well. There ends up being the inevitable revolts and new governments throughout the west spring up.

Even in OTL, the annexation of Texas was a very near thing, and there were groups on both sides that fought against it. So, in the ATL, the anti-annexation forces win out, and the new Republics are not annexed into the U.S. (slavery might be a factor here. With a smaller US, the balance between free and slave states will be balanced, and one side would fight to the dickens against annexing another government which would add to one side over another. )
 
The Spanish I believe had an effective plan for keeping the Anglos away, just disruption by the Napoleonic Wars kind of distracted them.
 
The Spanish I believe had an effective plan for keeping the Anglos away, just disruption by the Napoleonic Wars kind of distracted them.

Would you happen to know the particulars of that plan? For the sake of argument we could assume the Napoleonic wars didn't happen (It would take the whole Louisiana purchase problem off the table as well)
 
It would take "facts on the ground" -- massive colonization of the trans-Mississippi by both the British and the Spanish/Mexicans (which would probably require a POD that includes the U.S. getting curbstomped by the Brits in 1812 as well as creating a compelling reason for both parties to want to colonize the area) combined probably by the further setback of a much earlier Civil War (which would require another wizardly creative POD).
All of the above is almost as hard to pull off as defying the second law of Thermodynamics.;)

(semi-Ninja-ed by Sucrose :D)
See my tl, which i'll update Real Soon Now (i.e. some time in the next month or so. Sigh.).

However, the full challenge is probably impossible. To keep the us east of the mississippi, you have to have a war of 1812 thats pretty catastrophic for the us, such that michigan and good chunks of indiana and illinois are british/canadian. If the us gets up to wisconsin, i cant imagine any pod that doesnt give them missouri. Anything much later than 1812, and there are too many americans in missouri, and louisiana for this to work.
 
See my tl, which i'll update Real Soon Now (i.e. some time in the next month or so. Sigh.).

However, the full challenge is probably impossible. To keep the us east of the mississippi, you have to have a war of 1812 thats pretty catastrophic for the us, such that michigan and good chunks of indiana and illinois are british/canadian. If the us gets up to wisconsin, i cant imagine any pod that doesnt give them missouri. Anything much later than 1812, and there are too many americans in missouri, and louisiana for this to work.

This, plus there would still be Canadians penetrating the region.
 
Demographics are in the US's favor as far as North America goes, but a stable Mexico right next door could definitely compete, it has the population to do it.

The US in 1810 had a population of 7.2 million, in comparison to Canada's 430,000. A long, detailed source I just read lists Mexico's population as as 5 to 5.5 million in 1810, so populating Mexico's northern territories too thickly for the US to take is most definitely plausible. A gold rush, maybe?

I'd love to know the population of French Louisiana, but finding that one out might be a little trickier.
 
Would you happen to know the particulars of that plan? For the sake of argument we could assume the Napoleonic wars didn't happen (It would take the whole Louisiana purchase problem off the table as well)

Let's see. I have "A Wilderness So Immense" in front of me. Lets see, we'll one of the efforts by Spain was to make use of trade incentives and money to aid Rufus King in lobbying for New England's or Atlantic Coastal secession from the United States. "The feeble policy of out disjointed Govenment will not be able to unite them. For these reasons I have eve been opposed to encouragement of western immigrants- the States situated on the Atlantic are not sufficiently populous and loosing men is loosing our greate source of wealth" - Rufus King
Hence why the debate was fierce to shut down trade traffic.

Jay even wrote of fears of western secession. It seems that the Shay Rebellion put the fear of Agrarian Revolt in King and New England delegations and drop the secession attempt.

The main proponent of Spanish efforts to resist American colonization was King Carlos III. Louisiana was viewed as a buffer zone to shield the silver mines of New Spain. Martin Navarro was Carlos's man in Louisiana and he recommended Carlos ease trade restrictions to encourage "a numerous population in this province...as a barrier for kingdom of Nueva Espana". It looked like they saw the Mexican-American war coming, only they suspected it would be they fighting the US. Though when Carlos died his Sucessor was not as able as him. The main issue it looks like is population, the population of the land hungry Kentucians increased several times more then in Louisiana.

After that it was pretty much up to the offcials in Louisiana to find a way to stem the tide themselves. This is where attempts to draw the settlers west of the Appalachains to Spain's side. This is where the Spanish Conspiracy comes in with Wilkinson planning to get Kentucky to leave the US. The general plot of which was to keep up restrictions on Mississippi River travel and give out concessions to Kentucky to entice it away from the Atlantic States.
 
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