AHC: Immigration Waves to the American South before the ACW

Much more immigration into the South might have prevented Bleeding Kansas and kept Missouri and Texas as solid Union states but for one big problem: Individual free-soilers could not compete with large plantations where slavery was economical.

In Texas much of the immigration was the the Hill Country area near San Antonio and Austin which wasn't very conducive to a plantation economy in the first place.
 
In Texas much of the immigration was the the Hill Country area near San Antonio and Austin which wasn't very conducive to a plantation economy in the first place.

And this may have even been true for North Texas as well; it was, more than anything, mainly limited to eastern Texas, mainly around the Houston area.
 
This is one element of American history I know close to nothing about. I know there was prominent Irish presence in the south prior to the Confederacy's existence and many served in the ranks of the Confederacy (and Union for that matter). Aside from the Irish in Georgia, which groups were numerous enough to develop their own community?
 
This is one element of American history I know close to nothing about. I know there was prominent Irish presence in the south prior to the Confederacy's existence and many served in the ranks of the Confederacy (and Union for that matter). Aside from the Irish in Georgia, which groups were numerous enough to develop their own community?

There was a sizable German community in Texas who moved there after the 1848 revolutions were put down. They tended to be more liberal than other Germans, and staunchly supported the Union. I read somewhere that that lead to some degree of ethnic cleansing in retaliation, though the Wiki says nothing about that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty-Eighters#United_States
 
This is one element of American history I know close to nothing about. I know there was prominent Irish presence in the south prior to the Confederacy's existence and many served in the ranks of the Confederacy (and Union for that matter). Aside from the Irish in Georgia, which groups were numerous enough to develop their own community?

There was *some* Irish presence in the South, but it wasn't really all that prominent, outside maybe a few of the cities(mainly New Orleans, and maybe a few places in Texas).

There was a sizable German community in Texas who moved there after the 1848 revolutions were put down. They tended to be more liberal than other Germans, and staunchly supported the Union. I read somewhere that that lead to some degree of ethnic cleansing in retaliation, though the Wiki says nothing about that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty-Eighters#United_States

I do know about the Nueces Massacre in 1862; three dozen German-Americans loyal to the Union were murdered.....simply for being Unionists.
 
I do know about the Nueces Massacre in 1862; three dozen German-Americans loyal to the Union were murdered.....simply for being Unionists.

That wasn't the only one, but it was the most "successful" from a Confed POV.

Elsewhere, circumstances on the ground were more amenable to guerrilla warfare. For example, the Kingdom of Jones (County) in Alabama, the Appalachians in Eastern Tennessee/Western North Carolina, and most spectacularly in NW Virginia, which successfully seceeded from Virginia's own secession:p to create today's West Virginia!:D

Lesser known was the circumstances faced by the (New)-Mexicans at Sante Fe in the face of the CSA's invasion launched from El Paso. I shudder to think of what the Southrons would have wrought upon the Roman Catholic brown-skinned "Greasers":mad: that they had just curb-stomped a dozen years previously. But Canby, the Union commander, was unusually talented for a Northerner so early in the war, and he was the Union's undisputed master of desert warfare.:cool:

The Southern Rebels themselves were astonished at the level of ferocious resistance shown by the locals. "They never fought us this hard the last time...!" was a common Southern refrain in the Arizona Campaign:p Not surprising, considering what the consequences would have been for the ethnic Mexicans and their families after a Southern victory. And I'm pretty sure this campaign was well after the Nueces Massacre. The German-Americans at Neuces were White, the Mexicans...were not. So just imagine.

Not that there weren't plenty of non-ethnic Anglo-American Unionists at Sante Fe, but the ethnic Mexican-Americans sure helped.:)

On top of all this, the Sante Fe garrison was blessed to have as their commander Colonel Edward R.S. Canby, the North's undisputed master of desert warfare. When the rebel army was defeated, he saw to it that the rebels were cut off from all water sources all the way back to El Paso. So of all the rebs who marched off from El Paso, few came back.
 
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That wasn't the only one, but it was the most "successful" from a Confed POV.

Elsewhere, circumstances on the ground were more amenable to guerrilla warfare. For example, the Kingdom of Jones (County) in Alabama, the Appalachians in Eastern Tennessee/Western North Carolina, and most spectacularly in NW Virginia, which successfully seceeded from Virginia's own secession:p to create today's West Virginia!:D

Lesser known was the circumstances faced by the (New)-Mexicans at Sante Fe in the face of the CSA's invasion launched from El Paso. I shudder to think of what the Southrons would have wrought upon the Roman Catholic brown-skinned "Greasers":mad: that they had just curb-stomped a dozen years previously. But Canby, the Union commander, was unusually talented for a Northerner so early in the war, and he was the Union's undisputed master of desert warfare.:cool:

The Southern Rebels themselves were astonished at the level of ferocious resistance shown by the locals. "They never fought us this hard the last time...!" was a common Southern refrain in the Arizona Campaign:p Not surprising, considering what the consequences would have been for the ethnic Mexicans and their families after a Southern victory. And I'm pretty sure this campaign was well after the Nueces Massacre. The German-Americans at Neuces were White, the Mexicans...were not. So just imagine.

Not that there weren't plenty of non-ethnic Anglo-American Unionists at Sante Fe, but the ethnic Mexican-Americans sure helped.:)

On top of all this, the Sante Fe garrison was blessed to have as their commander Colonel Edward R.S. Canby, the North's undisputed master of desert warfare. When the rebel army was defeated, he saw to it that the rebels were cut off from all water sources all the way back to El Paso. So of all the rebs who marched off from El Paso, few came back.

Now to be fair, a number of the battles in New Mexico were shitshows; what allowed the USA to keep the territory was enough Federal officers who realized that it wasn't winning the battles, it was being the person with an intact supply train afterwards that really mattered...

We're at risk of straying into the Civil War itself; the OP is more pre-war. This does bring up the point though: There's a lengthy antipathy to Roman Catholics in the Southern US, that's only started to fade in the last few decades (And is still quite strong in some places, believe you me...) If we look at the immigrants of the early to mid 19th, we have.... the Irish, a lot of Germans, but a lot of Bavarians and Saxons, a lot of Poles, the beginnings of Italian, Croat, and Slovak immigration... notice a pattern here? Remember that other thing about the Klan: they hated Catholics nearly as much as they hated black people.

Maybe figure someway to have the Scandinavian and North German immigrants head South?
 
That wasn't the only one, but it was the most "successful" from a Confed POV.

Sadly, this is also true.

Elsewhere, circumstances on the ground were more amenable to guerrilla warfare. For example, the Kingdom of Jones (County) in Alabama, the Appalachians in Eastern Tennessee/Western North Carolina, and most spectacularly in NW Virginia, which successfully seceeded from Virginia's own secession:p to create today's West Virginia!:D

Apparently, even Arkansas had a not-insignificant contingent of Unionists; I came across this link a while back and thought I'd share it with you: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~arcivwar/loyal.htm

Lesser known was the circumstances faced by the (New)-Mexicans at Sante Fe in the face of the CSA's invasion launched from El Paso. I shudder to think of what the Southrons would have wrought upon the Roman Catholic brown-skinned "Greasers":mad: that they had just curb-stomped a dozen years previously. But Canby, the Union commander, was unusually talented for a Northerner so early in the war, and he was the Union's undisputed master of desert warfare.:cool:

I don't think it would paint a pretty picture, for sure. Hell, some of the nastiest Confeds might just have gone out and gone full genocidal on those poor folks! :(


The Southern Rebels themselves were astonished at the level of ferocious resistance shown by the locals. "They never fought us this hard the last time...!" was a common Southern refrain in the Arizona Campaign:p Not surprising, considering what the consequences would have been for the ethnic Mexicans and their families after a Southern victory. And I'm pretty sure this campaign was well after the Nueces Massacre. The German-Americans at Neuces were White, the Mexicans...were not. So just imagine.

Same went for the Latinos here in Texas, too, as many of *them* were also staunchly Unionist.

Not that there weren't plenty of non-ethnic Anglo-American Unionists at Sante Fe, but the ethnic Mexican-Americans sure helped.:)

Yes, this.

On top of all this, the Sante Fe garrison was blessed to have as their commander Colonel Edward R.S. Canby, the North's undisputed master of desert warfare. When the rebel army was defeated, he saw to it that the rebels were cut off from all water sources all the way back to El Paso. So of all the rebs who marched off from El Paso, few came back.

Really need to read up on this guy.

Now to be fair, a number of the battles in New Mexico were shitshows; what allowed the USA to keep the territory was enough Federal officers who realized that it wasn't winning the battles, it was being the person with an intact supply train afterwards that really mattered...

We're at risk of straying into the Civil War itself; the OP is more pre-war. This does bring up the point though: There's a lengthy antipathy to Roman Catholics in the Southern US, that's only started to fade in the last few decades (And is still quite strong in some places, believe you me...) If we look at the immigrants of the early to mid 19th, we have.... the Irish, a lot of Germans, but a lot of Bavarians and Saxons, a lot of Poles, the beginnings of Italian, Croat, and Slovak immigration... notice a pattern here? Remember that other thing about the Klan: they hated Catholics nearly as much as they hated black people.

Indeed so. Hell, the Irish were luckier than most(except maybe the Germans who weren't in Texas), and they were only barely tolerated by many of the less egalitarian people in most of the South.

Maybe figure someway to have the Scandinavian and North German immigrants head South?

Can't see too many Scandinavians coming down there, by and large. Prussians, on the other hand, might be attracted by a particularly militaristic CSA, at least those who aren't too put off by slavery(those who are would simply go to the North, instead)
 
Why focus on free labour? The Southern states could use Southern European indentured servants to substitute African slaves as the British did in the Caribbean (they later changed to East Indians but...), is it plausible?
 

TFSmith121

Banned
They could try, and in fact did

They could try, and in fact did - more than 90 percent of the European emigrants to Virginia in the Colonial Era were indentures (Morgan's American Freedom, American Slavery is a great source, even though it is going back a ways), but that tended to lead to things like Bacon's Rebellion.

Which in turn, tended to lead to white supremacy as a legal doctrine, to avoid things like Bacon's Rebellion.

Now, there were individuals in the American south who quite clearly advocated for chattel slavery across racial identifications, and as late as the 1860s; and, of course, it was practiced quite openly - but always with at least the veneer of racial identity as being of African ancestry.

Along with the obvious political and demographic reasons indentured servitude had declined in the Nineteenth Century, certainly in the US South, the reality is that because the costs of passage had declined so much, there was little reason for Europeans seeking to emigrate to have to sell themselves into bondage (essentially) to cross the Atlantic, especially with - even before the Homestead Act - literally thousands of acres of "free" land or economic opportunities in the free labor Northern and Western US.

It is worth remembering that wages were generally one-third higher, in real terms, in the US than they were in Europe even as early as 1800, and that superiority was preserved, if not increased, throughout the century.

One of the interesting sidelights to all this is if one looks at the European emigrants who rose to the rank of major general in the CSA vis a vis those in the USA, there were all of two "rebel" major generals: Cleburne and de Polignac. The Frenchman was a military adventurer, pure and simple; the Irishman was a pharmacist-turned-lawyer in Arkansas, basically a professional who also was a landowner.

The number of major generals in blue who were born in Europe is, of course, many times larger - there were 45 foreign-born US general officers, and the number of pure adventurers almost nil.

Best,
 
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