AHC: An American "Taiping Rebellion"

The Mormons seem to be people's pick. I could see a number of different groups emerging to rebel, however.
I'd actually heard the case for the Mormons as a potential American Taiping in a Matt Christman vlog, based on the predicates that A). the timeline of the two roughly syncs up and B). their ability to flee the country is prevented, since without the option to flee to Mexico tensions would continue to build if they weren't all, you know, massacred. If the US government in the upper Northwest was corrupt and incompetent and Mexico/the tribes prevented westward expansion it's reasonable they could rise to fill the gap, since (like the Taiping) the Mormons would provide an alternative social safety net.
 
So inspired by some only half-serious conversation over on the Your least favourite AH tropes & motifs thread over in Non-Pol Chat lamenting the lack of Mormon Taiping Rebellion TLs .

So your challenge here is that with a PoD after 1770, craft a scenario in which the United States is torn apart in an apocalyptically violent civil war directly as the result of the charismatic leader of a new Christian offshoot or sect that happens to be in some way extremely strange compared to the rest of "mainstream" Christendom attempting to seize control of the country.

Note: However said charismatic cult leader also claiming to be the literal brother of Jesus Christ is not inherently necessary for this scenario.


This can happen with a highly centralised Christianity (Catholicism) and a reformation movement, as Europe saw historically. However, American Protestant Christianity was highly decentralised with everyone accepting doctrinal differences. The huge number of religious sects and movements migrating to US meant that tolerance for doctrinal differences was extremely high. New religious movements are being founded every year. No reason why they can't coexist in the minds of inhabitants.

Year after year, small number of believers (Puritans, Mormons) subscribed to a new reformed religion ignored by literally everybody, and since they have no power trek out on their own in the wilderness to find their Zion. New religious sects are so common, they have ceased to have any potential drawing power in the minds of most citizens.

Also, US constitution is another barrier to a religion-fused civil war since it allows for freedom of religion and no govt interference or religious influence on govt. Since Americans are wedded to this principle, new converts to any new sect of Christianity are unlikely to support religious intolerance. I would go so far to say that no new "prophet" could imagine or invent a religion that advocated religious war to impose their doctrine on other Christians in that kind of ideological environment. Nor would they experience persecution they couldn't escape from by merely settling somewhere on the vast frontier.
 
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Wait there's one thing that we haven't talked about and that is what the Civil War actually look like?

This presume was before the South seceded within the Union so meaning would the Whole War hadn't happened or what they Stomp stronger because of the Mormon Taiping Uprising?
 
I'd like to congratulate you on the most intriguing and eye-catching title for a thread I've seen in a long time. Definitely following this. I have gone down some weird paths in my Alt History times but a US Taiping style revolt is definitely a first
 
Wait there's one thing that we haven't talked about and that is what the Civil War actually look like?

This presume was before the South seceded within the Union so meaning would the Whole War hadn't happened or what they Stomp stronger because of the Mormon Taiping Uprising?
Either the Northwest revolts on its own or (also like the Taiping) it's one of two revolts happening at the same time. There actually was hubbub about the secession of a Northwest Confederation OTL and the Mormons were neutral on the issue of slavery so there's nothing stopping both from happening at the same time. Even assuming that the Civil War TTL isn't a John Brown slave revolt.
 
I think a Taiping revolution by its very nature requires to be extremely violent and far from being a "big top religion", it would focus on privileging the Chosen over others (because that's what the Chosen are for).

Far from promoting racial equality at all, it would focus on how other peoples who fall away from the faith need to be purged in order to "cleanse" the Promised Land for True Believers.

Probably the POD would be that one of the Great Awakenings becomes radicalized and becomes a fanatical and intolerant sect that takes power by force. Although the result would probably be more like the Sons of Jacob than a Taiping sect.
From ma boi Mitridating
 
Either the Northwest revolts on its own or (also like the Taiping) it's one of two revolts happening at the same time. There actually was hubbub about the secession of a Northwest Confederation OTL and the Mormons were neutral on the issue of slavery so there's nothing stopping both from happening at the same time. Even assuming that the Civil War TTL isn't a John Brown slave revolt.
Imagine how fuck the US will be if the South seceded while the Mormon uprising turn deadly
 
If we don't use the Mormons (though I think that seems to be the direction we're heading), perhaps John brown himself could be Hong Xiuquan.
Would John Brown legacy be tarnished though man?

Because even if he have a good cause of ending slavery, he did rebel against the US to form a state with himself at the center Also so damn many deaths that he caused for indirectly help the South to preserving slavery
 
Besides the Mormons being the pick of Taiping rebellion, Which group of Christians will rebels against the American government?
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Perhaps an alternate Christian group that appeared in the Second Great Awakening of "burned-over" districts in upstate New York.

Just making people in here aware, major American religions originated during the Second Great Awakening of upstate New York - the Mormons, the Adventists, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Spiritualists, countless splinter sects these four groups have generated ever since, and other lesser ones such as the Shakers and Millerites.

 
He definitely wouldn't be remembered as fondly as IOTL.
But, this is an alternate world. Perhaps a more intense religious calling, a more hopeless future for abolition drives him to these lengths.
The South who supports slavery have more credibility to preserve it because John Brown uprising caused many deaths and casualties in US consciousness.

So we might see slavery go even longer because of John Brown tarnished legacy
 
I think of Joseph Smith survived and finished running for POTUS, and lost, but didn't take it well, there could be a big Mormon uprising in Illinois/Missouri area with the Nauvoo Legion fighting state militias and the US government. If Smith lived, I think he'd try to stay in that area of the Midwest rather than go to Utah like Brigham Young.
 
I think of Joseph Smith survived and finished running for POTUS, and lost, but didn't take it well, there could be a big Mormon uprising in Illinois/Missouri area with the Nauvoo Legion fighting state militias and the US government. If Smith lived, I think he'd try to stay in that area of the Midwest rather than go to Utah like Brigham Young.
Good idea!
 
I think of Joseph Smith survived and finished running for POTUS, and lost, but didn't take it well, there could be a big Mormon uprising in Illinois/Missouri area with the Nauvoo Legion fighting state militias and the US government. If Smith lived, I think he'd try to stay in that area of the Midwest rather than go to Utah like Brigham Young.
THAT'S ACTUALLY MY PLOT OF MAD LAD JOSEPH SMITH REVOLTED!!!! 🤣😅🤣

But the difference is that he actually go to Utah to form a state while the US tried to stop him across his revolt led by Robert e Lee and it's close to command Ulysses S Grant

I know it sounds a bit ASB ish? but I just want Joseph Smith said "you know what screw it all you Mormon haters, I'm going to Utah with my army!" and that's how the Deseret war started it.

I know it's unrealistic but I just want to have some trivia with the US had to send Military stop dissenters who had weapons and equipment to invade US territory all started by Joseph Smith didn't won the election.

To me I will definitely read that awesome Althist Work
 
I think the easiest way to get an "American Taiping Rebellion" is to incorporate your "God Worshipping Society" allegory, bet it the Mormons or some other religious group, into the already existing political divisions of the Antebellum United States. For instance, maybe, for whatever reason, Mormonism becomes popular amongst Southern elites, and when an alternate American Civil War breaks out over slavery, there's a distinctly religious element to it where the Southern states' leadership are disproportionately Mormon and view the conflict as a war both to maintain their slave-based socioeconomic system and as a religious crusade to spread their beliefs to the rest of the country. Alternatively, you could have Mormonism just become a lot more popular out west to the point where an uprising out West is on a much larger scale, but that's realistically never going to reach the scale of a full-blown takeover of the US or conflict on the scale of the Taiping Rebellion.
 
Couldnt you do the opposite?
Like the elite of the Union states converting to a christian sect and then giving crushing the South a religious flavour
 
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