An American's Aztlán, A Timeline

Rain

Hello everyone. Long time lurker here and I’ve decided to finally start my first TL. I'll hopefully have the first "true" update up soon. In any case, here’s a sneak-peak of the TL's “present.” Enjoy.
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Scene: A living room in an average American home. An average girl is channel surfing.

Click.

“From New York City to Los Diegos, American Entertainment Tonight is your number one source for all of the latest celebrity gossip and 2V[1] news. Our top story tonight is the accident that has recently plagued the set of the Romantic-Suspense film Cold Bay in Tri-Prov[2]. Director Adam Rodriguez…”

Click.

“I’m sorry Anderson, but that’s the biggest issue I’ve always had with your party. All of its policies can be addressed as “the American people are idiots, and have to be babysat by the federal government.”

“Professor Sanders, I’m shocked at that grossly inadequate simplification. My party has never viewed the American people in that manner. We simply acknowledge the importance that the state plays in the lives of its people. Throughout history, it has been the state’s role to ensure the financial and moral well-being of the people.”

“Yes, because it’s obviously the state’s god-given right to spend its people’s money, then have the audacity to tell its citizens how to behave in their own bedrooms.”

“Yet encouraging America’s populace to embrace immorality under the supposed banner of civil rights is better? I find it difficult to believe that your party’s “hedonism and gold for the rich and starvation for the poor” policy is the best route for America.”

“Mr. Anderson, I will admit that I admire your party’s idealism and faith in the idea that the American government can actually help the poor through higher taxes, but I will also admit that your party has played a large role in holding back America. Remember that it was your party who tried to stop the Sly Rights Movement solely under the basis that alternative sexualities are immoral in the eyes of organized religion. Furthermore…[3]”

Click.

“have recently joined forces with the Quebec Independence Movement in Canada. While supportive of a continual union with the U.S., the governor was also firm in his belief that his state’s unique culture should be protected at all costs, even if it meant succession from the Union. Even though the President and Congress have been adamant in their opposition to the idea, they have also supported the Supreme Court’s right to determine the constitutionality…”

Click.

“Give it up for Scandinavian superstar…”

Click. Screen fades to black.

“Samantha! Dinner’s ready.”

“Coming Mom!” The young girl raced towards the kitchen. She quickly took her seat with her mother and little sister. In just a few minutes, her family had started to eat.

“Can you two believe that this is our last night here?” Samantha’s mother asked. “I’m sure your father will be so happy to see you two after such a long time. It must have been lonely for him in Detroit without us…”

“Mom,” interrupted Samantha, “Why do we have to leave home, and why do we have to move to Detroit?”

“Oh sweetie, we’re moving because Detroit is filled with opportunities that neither me nor your father could find here. We wouldn’t move if we thought we could get the best here. Besides, you’ll love Detroit with its fine culture and beauty.”

“Couldn’t we at least go to New York or L.D.?” Samantha’s mother didn’t answer, and the rest of dinner was eaten in silence. Once done, Samantha walked outside to the back yard. She loved how the sky looked at dusk. The bright lights of the city could be seen in the distance.

Samantha sighed. She was afraid of moving from her home, but maybe her new life in Michigan wouldn’t be that bad. After all, how different could Michigan be from New Leon?

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Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Aztlán (Noun)
Definition: A cultural region of the United States composed of the states of Chihuahua, New Leon, New Mexico, Sonora, and Texas.

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[1] Vitavision a.k.a. Television. Also known as the Vita and VV(pronounced vivi).

[2] Nickname for the Tri-Provincial Area, a cultural region composed of the Canadian provinces of Vancouver, British Columbia, and the U.S. state of Columbia

[3] A simplification of the ideologies of America’s two main political parties.
 
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Malta

Interesting. I just wonder how the Aztecs (Mexica and Tlxcallans and other) Native Groups will play into things...
 

The Doctor

I may not be the first to post a responce, but I know I was the first to look at this and I immediately subscribed. :D
 

Rain

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Rain

An American’s Aztlán #1: Agree to Disagree

Extracts from “The History Professor, An Autobiography.”
By Jonathan G. Marsh
University of Detroit
Detroit, United States of America
© 1988 Detroit-Windsor University Publishing: Detroit. Used with Permission.

I suppose the question I have been most asked throughout my career was “What is the most important event in history?” Unsurprisingly, it became annoying after awhile when everyone kept expecting a technical answer such as the evolution of man or the formation of the solar system. It always left me wanting to scream “Why are you wasting my damn time if you already think you know the answer?!?” Besides, my specialty was 19th Century history, but did anyone ever ask me about that outside the classroom? No. Still, it did inspire one of the more infamous facets of my 19th Century History course. Every year, my classes’ only grade would be the final exam, and every year, the exam would have the same exact question.

“What was the most important event of the 19th Century?” The only task my students were required to do in order to make an A was to write an essay supporting their answer. Interestingly, this happened to annoy my fellow faculty members to no end. They claimed that anyone could ace my course without attending a single lecture, since they all knew what would be on the final exam. This was hypothetically possible since my class never had an attendance policy or any other grades. Conveniently though, every student who tried that little stunt never made a score higher than a 60. At any rate, it wasn’t as if the ones who did come to class did any better. The vast majority were generic and unoriginal answers that have been done to death. I cannot even begin to tell you how many papers I got claiming the answer was the Napoleonic Wars, the American Civil War, or the Unification Era in Europe[1]. Still, I was generally forced to give these uninspired works at least a passing grade. After all, they followed the rules and gave full support for their answers, but I suppose originality in the study of history requires a true revolutionary.

As for the exams that aimed for originality, I generally expected failure, but not because the event chosen was a bad choice. Indeed, their choices were among some of the more refreshing proposals I’ve ever seen. Sadly, most of these essays lacked the evidence needed to support their otherwise clever answers. As with the sea of unoriginal essays, I couldn’t be bothered to remember most of the original essays, but there was one in particular that I was never able to quite forget.

The girl’s name was Amanda Bailey, or something along those lines. She was a senior at the University of Windsor, but had to take her history requirement for graduation here at the University of Detroit for some odd reason or another. Even though both schools had practically always been one, it was still unusual to see the students criss-cross between campuses before the schools started to specialize. As for Amanda herself, she was odd in the fact that she always appeared to be a trance, never looked fully alive. Besides that, she was just another typical student: never talked, never asked questions, and probably couldn’t give a damn about history if her life depended on it. Thus, I never expected her to produce as unique of an essay as she did for the final exam.

The time period she chose wasn’t unusual. The Mexican-American War, overall, was a popular if not as popular choice for the final exam. What set this apart from others was how specific and obscure the event was, and how much theorizing she did in the “what if” category. The event in question was Congress’s approval of the Davis Amendment, which admittedly impressed me due to the fact that she even heard of it in the first place, let alone was able to write an entire essay about it. Still, I suppose we could blame the schools for the majority’s ignorance of the Amendment. Hell, even I didn’t bother to mention it in class do to how relatively unimportant I’ve always viewed it and still do, but I’ll never forget how fiery her words seemed to be.

However, a common misconception must be addressed first. Too many Americans today still believe that the original plans for the Mexican Cession included all the territory gained after the Mexican-American War if not all of Mexico. In reality, the Polk Administration only wanted the territory of Alta California for its ports, and the territory of New Mexico simply to connect Alta California to Texas. It was the addition of the Davis Amendment that gave the United States its land south of Gila and Grand Rivers [2].

Now, perhaps I’m just being an ignorant bigot when I say this, but I’ve always dismissed the importance of the Davis amendment for one reason only. To simply put it, the land it gave us was essentially worthless. Don’t get me wrong, Sonora’s beaches are beautiful in the winter, and New Leon’s Orange Blossom festivals are some of the best in the country, but besides these select areas, the majority of the region known as Aztlán is a desert wasteland. Even without the Davis Amendment, the United States would have still received Los Diegos, the most important region gained in the Mexican Cession.

On the other hand, Amanda gave the event much more importance than either any of my fellow faculty or I have. Fortunately, Amanda had understood that the land itself would be of little value to anyone without the blessings of modern day science. Instead, she chose to relate the amendment’s importance to the Great Slavery Debate that had plagued America since its birth as a sovereign nation. She had argued that it was the passage of the Davis Amendment that led to the addition of the Wilmot Proviso to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It was the Wilmot Proviso that illegalized slavery in the lands gained from the Mexican Session. Naturally, it should have been expected that anti-slavers would have been against all the possible slave states that the Mexican Cession could offer, despite how impractical slavery would have been in states such as New Mexico or Chihuahua. In accordance to Amanda’s thesis, the additional lands that the Davis Amendment offered was enough of an emotional push for the anti-slavers to get the Wilmot Proviso to succeed in the Senate, were previous versions of it had failed due to the Southern Senators. In a sense, Amanda was correct about the idea that the success of the Wilmot Proviso was an appeasement to Northern legislators. At the time, it would be assumed that the majority of the territory from the Mexican Cession would be settled by Southern Americans, much as it was assumed that the Oregon Country and Northern Louisiana Purchase region would be settled by Northern Americans. Thus, a compromise would be needed to make up for all of the land that would eventually “end up in Southern hands.”

Still, Amanda’s paper had multiple flaws that prevented me from giving her that elusive A grade. My first criticism of Amanda’s thesis was her implication that the success of the Davis Amendment was what led to the failure of the various compromises that could have postponed the Civil War. Although her reasoning was beautiful on paper, it failed to answer one practical question. How could the Davis Amendment fail? For an entire paper built on how the success of one amendment changed the world, that same paper failed to answer how that supposedly important amendment could never pass. Truth be told, the failure of the Davis Amendment would have been a death sentence for most of the politicians. Ever since the early 1840s, calls among Americans for the annexation of all had Mexico had grown rapidly. By the time the Mexican-American War was over, the Manifest Destiny meme was at the peak of its popularity.

A better way to understand the situation is to view it from the eyes of the average 1840s American. Back then, the majority of them believed that God predestined the United States to rule all of the Americas either directly or indirectly. In reality, these people were still smart enough to realize they couldn’t just take land from powers such as the British without a horribly devastating war. This was the reason after all that America didn’t bother to fight for the provinces of Vancouver or British Columbia. On the other hand, the average American saw Mexico as another situation entirely. To the more sophisticated bunch, it was an inferior nation whose lands where being wasted, and whose full potential could be achieved under the rule of the United States. To the less educated American, Mexico was free land from God with essentially no strings attached. In the eyes of all these people, only an idiot would not take as much land as he could.

As excellent as Amanda’s writing was, she never grasped this concept, and thus why the Davis amendment is viewed so lowly by historians. As mentioned previously, support among Americans for taking Mexican lands had never been higher. Even if the Davis amendment were to fail, which seems unlikely considering it passed by a comfortable 44-11 vote[3], the backlash that would result among land-hungry Americans would force Congress to pass a new amendment that would probably resulted with the United States of America annexing even more Mexican territory.

A better choice for Amanda’s essay might have been the success of the Wilmot Proviso. In all probability, the Wilmot Proviso would have actually had the chance of failing, unlike the Davis amendment. The Proviso amendment barely passed the Senate when it finally achieved success, and its failure could have actually had a tangible effect on American history. Perhaps it would of resulted in an even more spectacular failure for the Compromise of 1850, and who knows how it Proviso’s failure would have affect the start of the Civil War. We might have seen the riots of 1850 degenerate even faster than what historically happened. As discussed in multiple debates, it was certainly possible for those riots to lead to a worst case scenario with the Civil War starting in 1851 instead of 1852.

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[1] The period in European History when the Italian, German, and Scandinavian nations united into their respective states.

[2]OTL Rio Grande

[3] In OTL, the Davis Amendment failed 44-11, and only included parts of the Mexican states bordering the Rio Grande, instead of the additional land in Sonora, Baja California, etc., in TTL.

 
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Rain

An American’s Aztlán #2: Yucatán Ahoy!

Extracts from “A History of the Yucatán Republic [1].
By Soloman R. Rodriguez
Albuquerque, United States of America.
© 2002 Grand River Publishing Company. Used with Permission

The biggest threat to the Yucatán Republic had always been its own indigenous people. After the collapse of the great Mayan civilization, and the arrival of the Europeans, the indigenous Mayans of the Yucatán had been willing to tolerate the domination of their land by foreigners. Eventually though, freedom once more became a real possibility for the Mayans when Mexico declared its independence from Spain, and soon enough, the Mayans’ homeland became an independent nation in 1841.

Despite the liberation of the Yucatán peninsula from both Spain and Mexico, the indigenous Mayans found little to be happy about their strikingly familiar situation. Ever since the conquest of Central America by the Spaniards, a powerful caste system had forced the Mayans into the bottom rung of their native homeland’s own society. Originally, it was the Spanish colonial authorities that held a monopoly over the Mayans’ land, but after Yucatán achieved its independence from Spain and Mexico, the Yucatecos, or Yucatecans of European descent, become the Mayans’ new overlords.

Finally, what became known as the Mayan Rebellion [2] started in 1847 when the Yucatecos pushed the nations’ indigenous people over a psychological edge. In response, nearly the entire indigenous population of the Republic of Yucatán turned against the Yucatecos. By 1848, it appeared that the Mayans might actually overthrow the republic.

In a fit of desperation, President Santiago Méndez decided to offer his nation’s sovereignty in exchange for saving his head from what would surely be the indigenous rebels’ version of the guillotine. The President’s plea was sent to Great Britain, Spain, the United States, and reluctantly, Mexico. Neither Great Britain nor Spain wanted to enter a bloody war in order to gain what they viewed as unusable jungle. Mexico, on the other hand, was viewed as a last resort due to the disgrace the Yucatecans would face by crawling back to the nation they succeeded from. Fortunately for the republic’s survival as an independent nation, the United States was willing to accept a modified version of President Méndez’s offer.

As President Méndez’s offer came after the end of the Mexican-American War, there was substantial support among the American populace and its leaders to annex the Central American nation. Surprisingly, the Yucatán Republic’s admission into the union was not stopped by the Great Slavery Debate, but was instead stopped by cultural and economic reasons. Many opponents in congress feared that the rebellious Mayan population could never be integrated into mainstream American Society. Likewise, the terrain was unfavorable to both American colonists, and business ventures. Still, another compromise was reached between the pro and anti-annexation factions. The United States would supply the Yucatán Republic with supplies, weapons, advisors, and some troops, in exchange for a favorable trade relationship, and an undetermined debt to be paid after the war. This way, the United States could have a base of influence in Central America without the high maintenance costs. Despite the unsympathetic calculations behind the United States’ offer, President Méndez was still ecstatic about being able to preserve his nation’s sovereignty, and heartily accepted the proposal. Over the next two years, the United States’ military would help the republic’s army win multiple battles, but ironically, it would be the rebels themselves who would bring peace back to the Yucatán Peninsula.

In early 1850, a new religious moment began to flourish among the rebels. Known as the “Church of the Talking Cross,” amongst its followers, the church believes that God had visited the site of Chan Santa Cruz [3] as an apparition known simply as the “Talking Cross.” The rebels believed that the apparition told them to make peace with the Yucatecos before they could achieve physical and spiritual salvation [4]. Soon enough, the message of peace and reconciliation had spread throughout all the rebel camps, and offers for a ceasefire were sent to the republic’s leaders. After learning the cause for the rebel’s change of heart, many in the republic’s leadership wanted to use the rebels’ new found pacifism to crush the remaining traces of resistance to the national government. On the other hand, the American government refused to support any attempt to crush a party willing to cooperate, and thus forced the Yucatán government to compromise with the rebels. By the end of 1850, peace between the Yucatecos and the country’s indigenous people was achieved when the Treaty of Chan Santa Cruz was signed. Besides promising U.S. support in rebuilding the country, the treaty also gave the indigenous people additional rights to help protect their cultural traditions. It was under these laws that saw members of the Church of the Talking Cross become not only the majority in the Yucatán Republic, but also become significant minorities in the neighboring countries of Chiapas and Guatemala. It was also under these laws that a revival in Mayan art and languages happened, which peaked with the establishment of the international Mayan Cultural League.

Even with all the success that the Republic of Yucatán experienced after the short-lived Mayan Rebellion, the republic’s promising relationship with the United States was quick to end. With the start of the Civil War in 1852, the United States had abruptly cut off its contact with the republic. It wasn’t long after that Great Britain started to reevaluate its previous assessment of Yucatán, and began redrawing its plans for Central America.

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[1] Officially, the nation is known as the Republic of Yucatán, but that name is used interchangeably with the name Yucatán Republic, which has grown in popularity over the years.

[2] OTL Caste War of Yucatán

[3] Essentially the Mecca for the Church of the Talking Cross. The city is currently a global tourist destination and home to one of the largest temple complexes on Earth.

[4] “Supposedly” the apparition in OTL had a more “pro-war” message that ended up being one of the reasons for the OTL Caste War lasting decades. For whatever reason, butterflies cause the Mayans to perceive the apparition’s message ITTL as the exact opposite of the OTL message.

 

benjamin

From Wikipedia's Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo entry...

"An amendment by Jefferson Davis giving the U.S. most of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, all of Coahuila and a large part of Chihuahua was supported by both senators from Texas (Sam Houston and Thomas Jefferson Rusk), Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, Edward A. Hannegan of Indiana, and one each from Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri and Tennessee. Most of the leaders of the Democratic party, Thomas Hart Benton, John C. Calhoun, Herschel V. Johnson, Lewis Cass, James Murray Mason of Virginia and Ambrose Hundley Sevier were opposed and the amendment was defeated 44-11."

Hope that hopes Dathi.

Nice TL Rain, and welcome to the boards,

Benjamin
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

benjamin said:
From Wikipedia's Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo entry...

"An amendment by Jefferson Davis giving the U.S. most of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, all of Coahuila and a large part of Chihuahua was supported by both senators from Texas (Sam Houston and Thomas Jefferson Rusk), Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, Edward A. Hannegan of Indiana, and one each from Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri and Tennessee. Most of the leaders of the Democratic party, Thomas Hart Benton, John C. Calhoun, Herschel V. Johnson, Lewis Cass, James Murray Mason of Virginia and Ambrose Hundley Sevier were opposed and the amendment was defeated 44-11."

Hope that hopes Dathi.

Nice TL Rain, and welcome to the boards,

Benjamin
Click to expand...
Ah, yes, this crazy US idea that you can take a negotiated treaty and amend it unilaterally.
Thanks.
 
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