AHC & WI: USA not a Pacific power - POD Louisiana Purchase

Rush Tarquin

Gone Fishin'
There are those posters who argue that the US as a Pacific power was inevitable or US expansion to the Pacific was an inexorable force after a certain point thanks to relative birth rates, Manifest Destiny, etc. Where various posters consider that point to be differs a lot: the Northwest Territories, the Louisiana Purchase, the Oregon Territory, the Mexican-American War, the admissions of Texas, the Utah Territory, then California, the Alaskan Purchase, the annexation of Hawaii, and the Spanish-American War.

I would like the USA to be a continental power in North America, while being as small a factor as possible in the Pacific. The earliest POD is the Louisiana Purchase, but the later, the better.

The US doesn't need to stay whole or continental top dog to achieve this, ie. a significant US containment as a result of 1812, secession of New England, or earlier secession of the south are all okay.

The other point of interest is what happens to Pacific geopolitics and Pacific history without the US. What happens to Hawaii, Alaska and the North American west coast? Who opens Japan? What happens to China without the US' open door policy? What happens to Korea? Who, if anyone, picks up Spain's Pacific colonies? Is Britain or an Asian power Pacific hegemon in the 20th century, or might France or Russia make a play for the Pacific?
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"Opening Japan" was before the US was in any sense a Pacific power, so that may stay the same, or not.

Mexico controls California and the Oregon territory is undersettled - it might be southern Canada TTL.

Russia is in no real position to be a player in the Pacific, and France isn't a whole lot better (if for somewhat different reasons).
 

Rush Tarquin

Gone Fishin'
"Opening Japan" was before the US was in any sense a Pacific power, so that may stay the same, or not.

Mexico controls California and the Oregon territory is undersettled - it might be southern Canada TTL.

Russia is in no real position to be a player in the Pacific, and France isn't a whole lot better (if for somewhat different reasons).

My questions would then be:

1. Why would birth rates and westward American migration drop off and leave the Oregon territory to the British?

2. Is California kept by Mexico due to no/failed Mexican-American War or does the Republic of California not happen or become reintegrated into Mexico?

3. Is the Pacific an Anglo-Japanese Alliance lake or do they turn on eachother or is Mexico a pacific power?

4. Is there a Japanese-Spanish War as well as or instead of a Russo-Japanese War or does another power pick on Spain?
 
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My questions would then be:

1. Why would birth rates and westward American migration drop off and leave the Oregon territory to the British?

2. Is California kept by Medico due to no/failed Mexican-American War or does the Republic of California not happen or become reintegrated into Mexico?

3. Is the Pacific an Anglo-Japanese Alliance lake or do they turn on eachother or is Mexico a pacific power?

4. Is there a Japanese-Spanish War as well as or instead of a Russo-Japanese War or does another power pick on Spain?

1: You don't need birth rates to drop off, just have the early wagon trains fail disasterously. The US, east of the Mississippi, is HUGE. It doesn't need to expand.

2: I'm just looking at the situation without the US taking the area, so either way.

3: I'd suspect the former.

4: Not sure.
 
POD Louisiana purchase is a bit tough, at least if the consequences flow from that directly.

What you really need is a powerful nation taking and holding the land. Spain isn't that nation anymore. Pretty much you need an alternate War of 1812 to get Britain to take it and hold it. IMO.

We've got a couple of TLs that do that, although none use the Louisiana Purchase as the PoD, IIRC.
 
one problem with doing away with the LA purchase is that it really puts a crimp in the USA... without New Orleans and the land around the Mississippi river and it's tributaries, the USA won't amount to much. A better POD to keep the USA a minor power in the Pacific is having the USA either not go to war with Mexico or lose that war (badly), so that CA and the southwest never belongs to it. This would limit the USA to coastal OR/WA, which does the trick pretty well...
 
one problem with doing away with the LA purchase is that it really puts a crimp in the USA... without New Orleans and the land around the Mississippi river and it's tributaries, the USA won't amount to much. A better POD to keep the USA a minor power in the Pacific is having the USA either not go to war with Mexico or lose that war (badly), so that CA and the southwest never belongs to it. This would limit the USA to coastal OR/WA, which does the trick pretty well...

The USA controls a huge piece of territory with significant resources even without the LA purchase. New Orleans being in foreign hands is an issue, but the USA "not amounting to much" without the area is ignoring a lot to focus on one particular area.
 
My questions would then be:

1. Why would birth rates and westward American migration drop off and leave the Oregon territory to the British?

I guess you could tackle this is less immigration into the US. The immigrants can still arrive but they would be arriving into a larger Canada (British North America) that likely includes a good chunk of the Louisiana territory, whatever country makes-up the Louisiana territory, and a larger (and hopefully) stabler Mexico (or the varios republics that broke out of it.

2. Is California kept by Mexico due to no/failed Mexican-American War or does the Republic of California not happen or become reintegrated into Mexico?


Mexico can't win the Mex-American War, you need a POD further back for this and the war never to happen. Or a justification for a widely different outcome.

Also the California Republic was a bigger sham than the Texas one it was declared by a small group of American soldiers (not even settlers) always with the intention of annexing the territory to the United States afterwards.

3. Is the Pacific an Anglo-Japanese Alliance lake or do they turn on eachother or is Mexico a pacific power?

Likely an Anglo Japanese alliance. Though if the POD is far back enough, and Mexico manages to stabilize in the early 1800s, receives a healthy and steady influx of immigrants and manages to populate and develop its Pacific territories, they could also be it.


4. Is there a Japanese-Spanish War as well as or instead of a Russo-Japanese War or does another power pick on Spain?

The POD would cause sufficient butterflies that by 1900 who knows what the geopolitical situation would look like. However, I can see a rapidly modernizing Japan butting heads with Russia (or whoever holds Korea), and if it get expansionist trying to get the Philippines from Spain. There is no reason why we shouldn't see either of even both. Unless that uber-Mexico took the Philippines from Spain already.
 
Mexico can't win the Mex-American War, you need a POD further back for this and the war never to happen. Or a justification for a widely different outcome.
Mexico could win the Mexican-American War;
they after all had a professional army at a time when we we're (mostly) using the old militia system.
 

Rush Tarquin

Gone Fishin'
I guess you could tackle this is less immigration into the US. The immigrants can still arrive but they would be arriving into a larger Canada (British North America) that likely includes a good chunk of the Louisiana territory, whatever country makes-up the Louisiana territory, and a larger (and hopefully) stabler Mexico (or the varios republics that broke out of it.

So a better British performance in 1812 could do it. What are you referring to with "whatever country makes-up the Louisiana territory": an Amerindian British protectorate, Jefferson's 'Agrarian Republic', or returning it to France or Spain?

Mexico can't win the Mex-American War, you need a POD further back for this and the war never to happen. Or a justification for a widely different outcome.

Also the California Republic was a bigger sham than the Texas one it was declared by a small group of American soldiers (not even settlers) always with the intention of annexing the territory to the United States afterwards.

In a recent thread there was also mention that the British had someone heading to California by sea (or maybe he was going on his own initiative; I couldn't find anything on it through a quick search) to occupy the area due to Mexico's unpaid debts to Britain when the flow of events beat him to it. The British and French were apparently both negotiating with Mexico to buy the area prior the the Mexican-American War, supposedly prompting the US to try to negotiate a purchase themselves, if only to sink France and Britain's attempts. Perhaps Britain could have preempted the US and snatched up the area, especially if Britain had already resolved to hang onto the Northwest.
 
Mexico could win the Mexican-American War;
they after all had a professional army at a time when we we're (mostly) using the old militia system.

Unfortunately this is not the case. Mexico had a profesional army, yes, but most of its officials were too busy fighting each other and deposing the current head of state to fight any invader.
Before the war even started General Paredes, called back half the troops stationed in the border and used them to depose the sitting President and name himself such. Then the US declared war, when the remaining troops under Arista crossed the Rio Grande and attacked Taylor's station.

During the war Mexico did put a worthy resistance in the Northern front, but as soon as Winfield Scott took Veracruz, the governor and bishop of Puebla declared neutrality giving the US free passage into Mexico City. Once again the people of Mexico City did put a worthy resistance, but that wasn't enough. Scott had a free line of supplies from the front to Veracruz.

Not to mention that the governors of New Mexico and California also surrendered to the small militias sent to occupy them without a shot being fired (though there was later resistance by the populations of Taos, Santa Fe, and Los Angeles).

And there is also the issue that Mexico was trying to keep Yucatan within Mexico, which was also in rebellion and in issues with itself (the Mayans were in rebellion attempting to establish their own republic against the criollo elites who first tried to break away from Mexico).

The US was too organized and too willing for a broken, politically unstable Mexico, to do much about it.
 
So a better British performance in 1812 could do it. What are you referring to with "whatever country makes-up the Louisiana territory": an Amerindian British protectorate, Jefferson's 'Agrarian Republic', or returning it to France or Spain?

Well I was assuming the US never got it in the first place. Although I realize this requires an earlier POD than the war of 1812.


In a recent thread there was also mention that the British had someone heading to California by sea (or maybe he was going on his own initiative; I couldn't find anything on it through a quick search) to occupy the area due to Mexico's unpaid debts to Britain when the flow of events beat him to it. The British and French were apparently both negotiating with Mexico to buy the area prior the the Mexican-American War, supposedly prompting the US to try to negotiate a purchase themselves, if only to sink France and Britain's attempts. Perhaps Britain could have preempted the US and snatched up the area, especially if Britain had already resolved to hang onto the Northwest.

Commodore Stockton headed to California from the sea under US orders.

Britain was interested in purchasing or making a joint occupation/protectorate out of California. And they did send a diplomat to Mexico with the offer. Mexican leaders however, in fear of appearing weak, would hear nothing about it. And closed their doors to all diplomats in the same way they did to the US.
 
Has anybody here created a TL in which the US recognised the legality of Aaron Burr's claim about the unconstitutionality of incorporating the Louisiana Purchase directly into the USA? As I understand it, he held that, apart from "the old North-West", which was effectively grandfathered in as US territory under the Treaty of Paris, the only way in which additions to the USA could legally be made was as new states whose own governments ratified the Constitution in the same way that the original states had done...
 
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