At All Possible For The U.S. To Get 54-40 In Oregon Country?

What it says on the tin.

Is there any chance the British would be willing to give up the land up to the extreme U.S. claim of the 54-40 parallel?

In fact, on that matter, could you see the British get land down to their extreme claim of the 40 parallel?
 
Yes and yes.

The Americans would probably not go to war if the British pressed the issue (and if they did, they'd lose). I'm sure there's a few timelines around here on the issue.

The British might back down, although its less likely, especially if they think American immigrants are flooding the area (true) and they'd have to fight a war over it later (maybe).

Both are perfectly possible.
 
The later the settlement of the boundary is, the more territory the US will gain from it, as US settlers were pouring in far faster than the British. If there's some kind of war, the British would probably win and gain all of their claims. If the ownership issue isn't settled until, say, the 1860s, I can see the British giving up the whole thing to the US rather than risk war over a territory that doesn't want to be British.
 
Based on settlement efforts by each party, standing claims and the US not only diverting so much attention and resources towards Mexico but requiring British benevolent neutrality to avoid a catastrophe in that area in the 1840s and 1850s, followed by the US being entirely distracted by the growing race towards civil war?

There really isn't any reason for the British to agree.
 
danwild6, something does not become a possibility based on a link which does nothing to show it to be possible. Unless you can show how the US could push forward settlement in Oregon @20 years ahead of schedule and without a British response...



As for Floyd...between his 'vision' being rejected by Congress and being so warped as to attack not only the ambition of John Quincy Adams, a point Floyd clearly had no credibility on, but questioning Adams on matters of negotiations and diplomatic efforts...
 
An overland route to the Oregon Country had been found as early as 1811 but would need to be improved for wagons to use the trail. While in OTL the trail developed over time by private interests there really isn't anything stopping the US government from taking the lead a decade or so earlier. Whats stopping the British from responding, well nothing but the British didn't respond forcefully in OTL to American settlement. In fact it was Polk who made it an issue with the 54-40 or fight campaign slogan.
 
Yes to both, but not the way people are saying it.

First of all, the idea of "flooding" areas with lands is so fallacious and downright silly in the 1830s that urgh... a great way to start making my blood boil :D. America did not have this magical power to point and say "settle!" Not everywhere was Texas, and Texas largely grew out of a settler class given free valuable farming land where everything's flat. The Oregon Country is dead-set between the Rockies, making it damned hard for anyone to actually get there. The Oregon Trail wasn't exactly an easy trek (just remember the game :p) and when you finally got there; life was harsh and very wet.

Second, you have the fact that many Americans could give less of a shit who's flag they were claimed to be flying under out West. There was barely any authority as it was until the late 1800s there anyway, with only government forts (and later towns) resembling anything like the East. A fourth of my family comes from American stock in North Dakota, born and raised for generations (since the War in fact), but came up to Canada in 1910 when we were offering a free 12 acres to anyone willing to give Saskatchewan a shot. Now we're unapologetically Canadian. Nova Scotia was built on 50,000 resentful settlers from Massacheusetts (who stayed and Canadianized nonetheless). Ontario only became full of loyalists after the war, before it was largely just a few farmers and frenchmen... I could go on, but I've made my point. Unless the local administration is corrupt, harassing settlers (which the British did not do but the Spanish did in Texas) and trying to enforce far-away laws, you're not going to get Texas-like settler conflict anywhere in the West. Now, don't get me wrong that I'm not saying settlement wouldn't help it's just highly overrated in these scenarios as the "be all end all" to negotiations. There was plenty of American settlement north of the 49th IOTL, the region was almost entirely populated by American settlers and Hudson's Bay employees and yet it was split right down the middlde iotl: because these things are decided in board-rooms on the Atlantic coast, not on a demographic census of the region.

Finally, we come to where both PoDs can come in. In my honest opinion, if America invested more earlier settlement in the region and made this known to the British (so they knew the region was virtually American settled), they are lead by a tough President and win quickly in Mexico and don't bring the British to brinkmanship but rather weather down their expectations, they might just attrition Britain into doing this. While keeping out of Mexico I don't think it's absolutely necessary they don't involve themselves. Start a PoD with Polk being a bit more aggressive on the Oregon but not willing to fight over it. Negotiations are stalled while Texas ends up occupied, but enough interest in the region is kept up that settlement is helped along and the British are aware it's becoming more and more American. Then you have Texas fully annexed and the north looking for an appropriate counterbalance. Elect Zachary Taylor in 1848 and have him not die during the Presidency, so he can contain the South (if they rebel) and simulatenously not negotiate anything favorable to the British. In my opinion, whether nearer the end of his term or over the next decade (after a few aborted attempts at settlement themselves) the British might just take the attitude of "have it, whatever" and sign off the region to the U.S. This would have huge implications on future U.S. foreign policy though, as when they were tempered by the agreement iotl it was seen as a bit of a kicker to Manifest Destiny. The key isn't that the region is settled by Americans, but that Congress is encouraging it and the President is encouraging it; so it's a visible platform to the British whose leadership may simply give up caring about far off pacific domains rather than needlessly fight over it.

If you want the region to end up fully British, have 54'40 or Fight become a reality. It would go absolutely horribly for the United States in its infancy; Britain, at the height of her power, would blockade her ports and be able to occupy much of the territory without too much hastle. It would spout off further regional issues in the United States between the North and South (earlier Civil War?) and just be an entirely disastrous affair. Britain would probably end up with the whole Oregon Country and perhaps bits of Maine, etc. depending on if they bothered with land-occupation.
 
Your point is that it would have been better for the US to seek the better border, with no basis given for how the US position in terms of settlers will have improved, when the American Civil War was clearly on the horizon and the diplomatic/military position of the US was even worse...
 
Your point is that it would have been better for the US to seek the better border, with no basis given for how the US position in terms of settlers will have improved, when the American Civil War was clearly on the horizon and the diplomatic/military position of the US was even worse...

I don't think the Civil War was "on the horizon" in that people could easily predict its occurrence. And I did give a basis for earlier and larger US settlement, you may not accept it as valid but I do. In OTL the US didn't actively encourage settlement in Oregon but they very well could have.
 
danwild6, I have not rejected a basis for an earlier US settlement in British Columbia, you simply failed to offer any such basis. An entirely unsupported and unsubstantiated idea panned by the president and Congress is not a basis, let alone a valid one.
 
danwild6, your original premise offers nothing in terms of how the settlers would have been organized or sent or settled or funded or equipped or even the area the settlers would have gone to...or stayed.

Which makes clear why the idea was panned by everyone who mattered in a country still settling half the territory between the Mississippi and the Appalachians.


As for the other links...random Wikipedia articles which do nothing to support your suggestions.
 
I believe it would be very difficult to get 54-40 away from British-controlled Canada. The major reason is lying between the 49th and 50th parallel was what was then a major trading outpost where the Red River of the North and the Assiniboine Rivers converged, today it's the city of Winnipeg. This outpost was connected to Lake Superior through the various rivers that flow into the Great Lakes, and eventually the Atlantic via the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Maybe if the US gave Britain exclusive rights to fur trading in the area, the US could get the area they wanted, but I doubt it.
 
But Winnipeg is east of the Rockies; we're only talking about 54-40 west of them. How important was Vancouver Island to the British? The mainland opposite it?
 
The Red River was given to Canada ages ago in 1818. 54-40' was that west of the Rockies, not a border of 54 all the way to Ontario.
I believe it would be very difficult to get 54-40 away from British-controlled Canada. The major reason is lying between the 49th and 50th parallel was what was then a major trading outpost where the Red River of the North and the Assiniboine Rivers converged, today it's the city of Winnipeg. This outpost was connected to Lake Superior through the various rivers that flow into the Great Lakes, and eventually the Atlantic via the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Maybe if the US gave Britain exclusive rights to fur trading in the area, the US could get the area they wanted, but I doubt it.

I'm from Vancouver so I've a vested interest in this :p. Vancouver Island at the time had a very strong British claim and the region was important to fur traders. Fort Vancouver (now Vancouver, WA) was their headquarters though, not the Lower Mainland. They wanted it pretty badly iotl, and losing it kind of sucked for the HBC.
But Winnipeg is east of the Rockies; we're only talking about 54-40 west of them. How important was Vancouver Island to the British? The mainland opposite it?
 
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