AHC: Screw America post-1800

[House of Orange]

Just as the title says.

After the initial War of Independence, the only real threat I've seen that could truly screw potential American dominance on the continent would by the failure of the Constitutional Convention and eventual splintering of the Union. However, by 1800 and the Jefferson presidency, this issue was safely resolved, and America faced no immediate threats in the future (other than the British kidnapping their sailors, I suppose).

The challenge is, using a PoD after 1800, to screw over the United States of America: prevent the U.S., or any "American" nation succeeding it, from becoming the dominant power in North America, let alone the world.

Bonus points if your PoD does NOT involve the Civil War.

 

[Captain Seafort]

The most likely way of achieving this would be a more obviously successful War of 1812 - annexation of northern Maine, the southern coats of the great lakes and New Orleans, and Tecumseh's confederation establishing effective and enduring control of the midwest under British protection. If you think this leaves the US with too great an industrial potential, have them try to recover this land (perhaps in the 1830s) and get a further hammering and more lumps knocked off.

 

[NotedCoyote]

The most likely way of achieving this would be a more obviously successful War of 1812 - annexation of northern Maine, the southern coats of the great lakes and New Orleans, and Tecumseh's confederation establishing effective and enduring control of the midwest under British protection. If you think this leaves the US with too great an industrial potential, have them try to recover this land (perhaps in the 1830s) and get a further hammering and more lumps knocked off.

Building on that, major losses during the war could also lead to a more extreme result from the Hartford Convention. New England secedes/kicks the western and southern states out of the Union, depending on which perspective on it you want to take. Since this is a New England that, unlike OTL, is cut off from the Great Lakes, population growth and economic power are reduced. Find some way to make the southern states squabble and break apart and you could conceivably get a very divided North America in which no one American successor state has anything close to the industrial power or population of OTL's America. As an added Balkanization bonus - a weak and divided America takes away a lot of the incentive for Canadian confederation, so British North America is also likely to become a collection of smaller countries as it gains more self-governance.

 

[M79]

*Alien and Sedition acts of 1799 are not resolved and states push to ignore or 'nullify' enforcement of laws they do not agree with

*Louisiana Purchase is never ratified but illegal settler colonies emerge roughly along OTL lines

*Andrew Jackson loses his 1806 duel and dies

*By the end of War of 1812 the Union is broken as the Confederacy of New England secedes with a capitol at Hartford. Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and the future states of Maine and New Ireland leave as Britain reclaims West Florida and much of the southern Mississippi basin following their victory at the Battle of New Orleans.

*Treaty of Ghent gives US lands north of the Arkansas Rivers and Yazoo river junction with the Mississippi to the US, Britain retains control of the lands elsewhere east to the Mobile River.

*Adams and Onis barely manage to get the Spanish out of peninsular Florida but remain unable to extirpate its native populations

*John C Calhoun cites trade issues and pervasive inability of Washington to enforce its own edicts. South Carolina along with Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, Southern Illinois, and Virginia secede as do truncated Alabama & Mississippi (northern halves of the states only) along with the Florida Territory. This new Federation of North American States based our if Charleston seeks to industrialize as rapidly as possible.

*In 1836 Texas secedes and establishes a Republic recognized by UK in 1841. Confederacy begins colonization efforts in Africa and Asia as US and FNAS colonize the West, including an FNAS mission successfully establishing a colony at New Richmond (Portland OR of OTL).

*Mormon church successfully establishes an independent nation in Deseret in 1847 with recognition coming from 1850

*California Gold rush prompts massive immigration and self-determination followed by independence in 1849 inclusive of OTL Nevada

*CaliMexican war results in defeat for Mexico after guerilla warfare and aid from Texas, France, England, Deseret, and the FNAS which has colonized Kansas and Oklahoma. Deseret takes Colorado and Arizona north of the Colorado River while securing (and planning to colonize) much of Wyoming and southern Idaho, Texas takes New Mexico and the remainder of Arizona along with a sliver of land on the Gulf of California. California gets Baja California, Republic of the Rio Grande gets independence, and the FNAS claims Oregon from California up to the Columbia River; north of that is British Columbia and Victoria. Mexico becomes a monarchy under Maximilian but without US help the rebels flounder.

*Over the next 40 years, US colonization efforts claim Nebraska, the Dakotas, and west to the Rockies while FNAS efforts claim Hawaii. Texas and California form a defensive pact while the US drifts apart with Chicago as capitol of the new American Alliance. Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan remain in the United States governed from Philadelphia while the rest go their own way. Yucatan guerilla fighters earn independence in 1875 as Canada gains official Dominion status in 1887; as the 20th century dawns, the continent looks akin to a carved turkey on a European table.

 

[HB of CJ]

Had Andrew Jackson LOST the Battle of New Orleans AND the British Navy had sailed up the Mississippi to St. Louis or connected with British Canada, Western expansion of the USA COULD have ended at the Mississippi River. The War Of 1812 was a big deal. One of those cusps of history that could have made a big difference.

Could/would the British Navy sailed past New Orleans ANYWAY regardless of either winning or losing that Battle? Wonder. But it is moot because they did lose and they did not sail North. That left the rest of North America between Mexico and Canada pretty much a walk in the sun for Americans. The Native Americans were doomed.

 

[AltoRegnant]

We take a more pro-Napoleon stance, not embargoing them with Britain as well as buying the Louisiana territory.

This with Jefferson's francophillia could result in britain not seeing us as opportunists during 1812, but as french allies. And that would mean they take that war far more seriously

 

[History Learner]

Trent War

 

[frustrated progressive]

If any state had consolidated the OTL position of the USA by midcentury (and sustained its unity), its rise to the status of a great power would have been essentially inevitable.
But there are plenty of ways to keep America from doing that.

 

[redjirachi]

The most likely way of achieving this would be a more obviously successful War of 1812 - annexation of northern Maine, the southern coats of the great lakes and New Orleans, and Tecumseh's confederation establishing effective and enduring control of the midwest under British protection. If you think this leaves the US with too great an industrial potential, have them try to recover this land (perhaps in the 1830s) and get a further hammering and more lumps knocked off.

Just to make things work, have James Madison killed in the White House fire

 

[Wendell]

No Louisiana Purchase.