Consequences of a quick US civil war.
- Thread starter blademan9999
- Start date
My mistake on the number of trips, however the cost per passenger remains the same so the transportation cost remains the same. If you reduce the "support" below some decent level, the folks being "transported" will know it is a death sentence and you now have the entire black population deciding better to fight than die supinely. The forced transportation only works if the folks in the USA are equally willing to kill millions of folks in the process. The USA of thee 1860s is racist, but not Nazis. What happened to the Indians was far from population centers, and not in your face like this would be.
Skallagrim
Banned
What @GTStinger said. In OTL, Southerners wanted to filibuster all over the place and carve out Caribbean slave states. A place like Haiti, which I do not see being successfully subdued into becoming such a slave state, could hypothetically end up being a US 'protectorate' or something. Mind you, I still think the odds of this actually happening are low even if Haiti ends up in such a position.
This scenario would severely impact @sloreck's calculation, because 'Southern USA to Haiti' is both much quicker and much cheaper than 'Southern USA to West Africa', but it's still not going to be cheap. Under the "right" circumstances, though, a plan like this could end up being wholly or (more likely) partially implemented. Needless to say, it would end up being a humanitarian disaster. Haiti can't just support millions of extra inhabitants all of a sudden. You'll see famine, disease, civil war, brutal anarchy.
$30 is a tiny fraction of the cost of a slave in 1860 (about $800). If the government is going to compensate slave owners, shipping slaves to Africa won't cost that much extra and it would probably be even cheaper to ship them to Central America. The government already had the power to ship them anywhere because they were slaves. In principle the government could have just bought all the slaves and shipped them to Africa, only then granting them freedom. There'd be no need for any more coercion than African slaves had been subject to for 250 years, much less genocidal intent.
Freedmen settling in Africa would likely be getting large land grants that they wouldn't get anywhere in North America or Central America and they would be exposed to a lot of propaganda about the promise of Negro rule in Africa, so they would have that incentive. If colonization is dragged out over 15-20 years, even at it's peak, America would only need to send ~500,000 freedmen to Africa and Central America in a year.
The problem that I haven't seen discussed on this thread is how can America and Liberia pacify and clear enough land in Africa within 10-20 years to move millions of freed slaves there? It would seem to require more effort than what it took to open the Midwest to settlement in less time. The Scramble for Africa might be radically different with the driving force in the colonization of Africa the search for land for former slaves. Could we see most of the African coast from Guinea to the Congo become a giant Liberia? Would Liberia stretch inland all the way to Timbuktu (probably a necessity if you're writing a book because of all the culture there)? Does America strike deals with Liberia and any other Negro Republics to preferentially sell Africa's natural resources to American companies?
I believe Lincoln's proposal for Colonization exempted free Negroes. They would almost certainly stay in America unless they chose to leave. As Africa develops in the early 20th century making colonization easier we might see a renewed push to send free blacks living in America to Africa with propaganda about free land and natural riches in the "promised land" of Africa and this might pick up during the Great Depression. I could see African Nationalism pushing a lot of free blacks to emigrate to an Africa with a reasonably successful Negro Republic.
I think "Confederate victory in 1861 followed by immediate Conquest of the Golden Circle" would be most likely to lead to colonization with the least political controversy and it's the context in which I've been thinking about colonization. In the scenario the largest numbers of Negroes may be sent to Central America (a plan also considered by Lincoln) with Liberia second. A great many freed Negroes might migrate to the Union, saving a lot of migration expenses. If the C.S.A conquers Haiti and makes it a state, it would basically guarantee Black representation in Confederate Congress. That may generate a lot of opposition to making Negroes the majority anywhere in Confederate territory. Keep in mind that neither Haiti nor Liberia was recognized by the U.S. government. On the other hand, the Confederacy might be confident after successful colonization to see Negro representatives and rule (in outlying regions) to be a major Confederate accomplishment. So maybe 1910.
A different part of the country might try if the peace does not ban secession outright in some form.