There's probably some less enlightened ways to go about this
With emancipation, alot of southern planters perceived Asian coolie labor as a necessary substitute for slavery.
What if circumstances were such that African-American labor was not numerous or controlled enough to replace slavery with an economically useful Jim Crow-sharecropping-convict labor system, maybe a contract labor system could have brought alot of Chinese (from China itself or the Southeast Asian diaspora) to all plantation areas from coast to coast?
PoD could perhaps be some kind of war between 1750 and 1850 where the African-American population of plantation areas is greatly reduced either through (1) genocide, ethnic cleansing-trail of tears-ing, or (2) escape west, south, or into the mountains, or (3) as a result of British or French or Spanish operations rampaging through the south in force while pursuing a deliberate policy of disrupting slavery as it was established there. 2 or 3 in particular would probably work best together.
With emancipation, alot of southern planters perceived Asian coolie labor as a necessary substitute for slavery.
What if circumstances were such that African-American labor was not numerous or controlled enough to replace slavery with an economically useful Jim Crow-sharecropping-convict labor system, maybe a contract labor system could have brought alot of Chinese (from China itself or the Southeast Asian diaspora) to all plantation areas from coast to coast?
PoD could perhaps be some kind of war between 1750 and 1850 where the African-American population of plantation areas is greatly reduced either through (1) genocide, ethnic cleansing-trail of tears-ing, or (2) escape west, south, or into the mountains, or (3) as a result of British or French or Spanish operations rampaging through the south in force while pursuing a deliberate policy of disrupting slavery as it was established there. 2 or 3 in particular would probably work best together.