Cossack Host in North America

I would love a timeline where the dissolved Zaparozian host (dissolved in 1775) left Russia and settled in the Western US. Imagine a fledgling, protestant US expanding west and encountering an already established, Orthodox christian culture already trained in horsemanship and modern war. How would the cossacks have dealt with the West Coast natives, where would they have spread? I personally think that Montana would be ideal for a 18th or 19th century Cossack host.

Alternatively, what if the Tsar had seen the potential in the region, and actively colonized it with a Cossack Host or two?
 
Someone's been reading too much Clavell. :)

Sorry, I just don't see it. Shipping the people there in the first place is a bit ludicrous - most of them were on the wrong side of Asia to begin with. The Russians had very few men and less shipping in the Far East, both of which would be prerequisites to such a large scale migration. Then you have to get them to somewhere where they'll take off.

California is great living space, but they'd just sit there - you don't get to the plains by diffusion from there. Oregon is the better bet.

Let's say the Russians stumble on the Willamette and build a colony there. It grows enough food to support more development in the North Pacific. A couple generations down the road you could import Cossacks somehow I guess.

But what then? The founder population will be tiny - hundreds - and won't do much better than the American doubling every generation. Given the sheer amount of empty land involved, the rates of population growth, and the geographic obstacles, this colony's going nowhere. By the time it starts, the US will be on the Mississippi with a population of millions. By the time they made it up the Columbia and Snake to Idaho? Unless the American population isn't there on the other side at all, they never will.

Sorry. It's just a numbers game.
 
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Indeed, very problematic. It's not really so much a matter of logistics. Cossacks dominated the Siberian trade, including shipping along the north coast. They could cross the Bering Strait with no difficulty at all. The problem liessomewhere between motiovation and population. The European population of Siberia was tiny, and concentrated in the west. A Cossaack group coming to North Americamay well be tempted to stay and expoloit the resources and natives - it's what they did at home - but they would do it in the usual pattern. That means building trade posts and levying taxes in kind. It also means they get nothing they couldn't get closer to home, which makes America comparatively unattractive. Without a major pull factor, you won't get enough people thereto found anything like a host. And with that pull factor, you get tremendous butterflies.

A vague idea: The Russians lay claim to the California coast. Explorers, accompanied by cossack guides, range down the shore and a few Spanish settlements have the new facts of life explained to them. There is a crisis, a treaty, and the coast cis-montane belongs to the Czarina. So far, no big deal - then some lucky guy strikes gold, and Siberians stream there in their - well, high hundreds would be a major exodus. This is around the time of the Pugachev rising, and the government chooses to resettle disloyal cosack clans. America looks good. They arrive as military peasants, but many of them gravitate to the gold fields. By now, the California gold mining industry is a officially Russian, but swamped with non-Russian diggers, some coureurs from New France and especially people New Spain. The viceroy extends his protection againstthe ourtrages perpetrated by the Russian government, there is a flashpoint, and this time Spain gets serious. The Russian squadron in the Pacific is taken, a cavalry column arrives from Central Mexico, and Russian government ends in a brief, desultory fight where both sides mostly combat rampant desertion. Russia has to concede California because it cannot supply it. The cossacks now find themselves stuck as subjects of a hostile, Catholic, rather high-handed government that immediately sets about monopolising gold mining and turfing out the foreigners. As aresult, they decide to leave. The Spanish government has neither the means nor the interest to hold them (labourers from the Philippines and Fujian are cheaper and more docile), so we see a few thousand Cossack voortrekkers making their way northeast across the Rockies by 1780. They know what they'll find - some of them havealready beenthere - and they are confident they can carve out a better life for themselves among the native tribes in the northern plains and foothills than they would get under the Spanish yoke.
 
Indeed, very problematic. It's not really so much a matter of logistics. Cossacks dominated the Siberian trade, including shipping along the north coast. They could cross the Bering Strait with no difficulty at all. The problem liessomewhere between motiovation and population. The European population of Siberia was tiny, and concentrated in the west. A Cossaack group coming to North Americamay well be tempted to stay and expoloit the resources and natives - it's what they did at home - but they would do it in the usual pattern. That means building trade posts and levying taxes in kind. It also means they get nothing they couldn't get closer to home, which makes America comparatively unattractive. Without a major pull factor, you won't get enough people thereto found anything like a host. And with that pull factor, you get tremendous butterflies.

A vague idea: The Russians lay claim to the California coast. Explorers, accompanied by cossack guides, range down the shore and a few Spanish settlements have the new facts of life explained to them. There is a crisis, a treaty, and the coast cis-montane belongs to the Czarina. So far, no big deal - then some lucky guy strikes gold, and Siberians stream there in their - well, high hundreds would be a major exodus. This is around the time of the Pugachev rising, and the government chooses to resettle disloyal cosack clans. America looks good. They arrive as military peasants, but many of them gravitate to the gold fields. By now, the California gold mining industry is a officially Russian, but swamped with non-Russian diggers, some coureurs from New France and especially people New Spain. The viceroy extends his protection againstthe ourtrages perpetrated by the Russian government, there is a flashpoint, and this time Spain gets serious. The Russian squadron in the Pacific is taken, a cavalry column arrives from Central Mexico, and Russian government ends in a brief, desultory fight where both sides mostly combat rampant desertion. Russia has to concede California because it cannot supply it. The cossacks now find themselves stuck as subjects of a hostile, Catholic, rather high-handed government that immediately sets about monopolising gold mining and turfing out the foreigners. As aresult, they decide to leave. The Spanish government has neither the means nor the interest to hold them (labourers from the Philippines and Fujian are cheaper and more docile), so we see a few thousand Cossack voortrekkers making their way northeast across the Rockies by 1780. They know what they'll find - some of them havealready beenthere - and they are confident they can carve out a better life for themselves among the native tribes in the northern plains and foothills than they would get under the Spanish yoke.

I like that!! :)

Dialing Rule of Cool up to Eleven, any chance of this Cossack Host incorporating (or at least passing Steppe Horde Organization ideas on to) Plains Nations? New World Khans have to be one of those AH Holy Grails. :D
 
I would love a timeline where the dissolved Zaparozian host (dissolved in 1775) left Russia and settled in the Western US. Imagine a fledgling, protestant US expanding west and encountering an already established, Orthodox christian culture already trained in horsemanship and modern war. How would the cossacks have dealt with the West Coast natives, where would they have spread? I personally think that Montana would be ideal for a 18th or 19th century Cossack host.

Alternatively, what if the Tsar had seen the potential in the region, and actively colonized it with a Cossack Host or two?

That is ... brilliant!!!
 
Maybe if the Russians make it accross the Bering Street a few decades earlier we might see a large Russian America on the West Coast looking similar to Russian Siberia/Central Asia
A few larger cities with a russian population on the coast serve as administrative centres. Along the roads between them some russian and possibly german colonists. In the North further inland only very few fur traders and miners. In the South an cordon of vassaliesed indians and cossack settlements guard the border against free indians and the US.

If the borders between Russia and the USA and/or Mexico are not exactly esthablished we might even get some undeclared border wars.

And Imperial Russia had the habit to deport political prisoners to the most godforsaken part of their country. So Stalin and Lenin end up there and lead a bunch of outlaws. When the ground gets to hot for them on the West Coast they cross the Rockies into US territory.
 
Maybe if the Russians make it accross the Bering Street a few decades earlier we might see a large Russian America on the West Coast looking similar to Russian Siberia/Central Asia
A few larger cities with a russian population on the coast serve as administrative centres. Along the roads between them some russian and possibly german colonists. In the North further inland only very few fur traders and miners. In the South an cordon of vassaliesed indians and cossack settlements guard the border against free indians and the US.

If the borders between Russia and the USA and/or Mexico are not exactly esthablished we might even get some undeclared border wars.

And Imperial Russia had the habit to deport political prisoners to the most godforsaken part of their country. So Stalin an




d Lenin end up there and lead a bunch of outlaws. When the ground gets to hot for them on the West Coast they cross the Rockies into US territory.
Holy shit.... What do you think America will do if their is a Communist nation just a border hop away:eek::eek: and it takes place during the 1900s AmericaZ:eek
 
Geekhis Khan: New World Khans have to be one of those AH Holy Grails.

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Sargent, Pamela. Climb the Wind
Divergence: c 1865 CE
What if: A Lakota chief arose to unite all of the Plains Amerindian tribes and prevent their piecemeal defeat and surrender to the Wasichu Bluecoats.
Summary: American expansion westward is stalled, which, coupled with the mysterious death of President Grant in 1871 and ascendancy of the corrupt Vice President Schuyler Colfax, leads toward destabilization of politics in the East. The turmoil crystallizes when a coup topples the government following the assassination of President Blaine a decade later.

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Sorry, no Cossacks, but a great read none the less
 
I imagine that, if the Russian government was ever serious about a cossack host in N.america, it would do largely as it had done elsewhere on the fringes of the empire - recruit the most likely locals en masse to make up the numbers.

Instead of Buryats and Kalmycks you'd get....uhhhh...Aleuts? Pomo?
 
very interesting idea, but here is the real problem i think

not logistics

not how they'd get there

but rather: without western industrialization, how would the cossacks keep their weapons and power? the americans wouldn't give them weapons, assuming they ran into them soon enough to resupply them.
 
very interesting idea, but here is the real problem i think

not logistics

not how they'd get there

but rather: without western industrialization, how would the cossacks keep their weapons and power? the americans wouldn't give them weapons, assuming they ran into them soon enough to resupply them.

They could pourchase guns, powder, and metal implements from either Spoanish, French Canadian, or US traders. Sure, it would cost them a lot, and there is no way they could keep up a European style of living, but they didn't do that in Siberia, either. The Cossacks of Sibir lived largely like natives, in log cabins, dugouts or leather tents, with locally made clothes, locally produced food, and local tools. Their main imports were guns, iron tools, and a few luxuries (sugar, tea, alcohol). Any potential American host would quickly adapt to whatever tools they find. Their powerful advantage was not their guns or their sabres, let alone any nonexistent cannon, it was their ability to withstand diseases, their alcohol tolerance, and their utter ruthless brutality.
 
Their powerful advantage was not their guns or their sabres, let alone any nonexistent cannon, it was their ability to withstand diseases, their alcohol tolerance, and their utter ruthless brutality.

You know, the average cossack was essentially like a courier de bois with a military obligation in wartime. I have no idea where everyone is getting this supply of alcohol-tolerant, disease-resistant genocidaires from, really. Not to mention that in fact, your average early-1800s Far Eastern Cossack was probably a baptised Mongol/Yakut/Tungus or at any rate a half-native of some sort.

Further Siberia was colonised with assistance in grain from the metropole almost from the get-go; with actual government-appointed voivodes and yes, cannon too. In fact, the first thing that Cossacks built was a FORT, which later became the central point for fur-tax collection and eventually the seat of the governor. I am therefore confused as to the dugouts and other stoneage stuff, though log cabins was par for the course for any period settlers.

Finally, the Spanish in California were really rather impoverished, more so than the Russians they met, and the Spanish would likely pose little to no military challenge to any Russia willing to actually commit a couple of warships (they were just very very disinterested in Petersburg). The Americans on the other hand were quite enterprising and well-supplied, and quite surprisingly active, considering the distance. And needless to say, pretty bleedin' ruthless. The Russians relied on them for a lot of their trade because they often had no choice.
 
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Incognito

Banned
Another way to get Cossacks in North America

This was mentioned on spacebattle form in the Lincoln offered foreign aid? thread (which deals with what (if any) aid was offered to U.S.A. during the Civil War):

Russia was the only great power that sided wholeheartedly with the Union. Russian-American relations were actually very strong at the era. Both were viewed as backwoods, ignorant cousins by mainstream Europe. America had the untapped wealth of the West, Russia, Siberia. The freeing of the serfs by Alexander the second and Lincoln's struggle to end slavery were viewed as twin causes. Russia even took sides, to a degree, mandating that in the event of a Franco-Anglo war against the Union, Russia would ally with them (the Union) and declare war.
So if you have France and Britain send troops to aid C.S.A. than perhaps Russia would send Cossacks to help U.S.A. out.
 
Alternatively, how about this: through some POD, (perhaps the aforementioned Russian troops during the civil war, perhaps something that takes effect further back) a significant russian/cossack population ends up in the west/southwest, settling the area and giving it their own customs, religion, culture, etc, but still being within the US?

I have to admit, the first thing I thought when I read the thread title was "Borscht Western". Just how incredible the wild west would be with the addition of russian cavalryman to its cast of character?
 
Alternatively, how about this: through some POD, (perhaps the aforementioned Russian troops during the civil war, perhaps something that takes effect further back) a significant russian/cossack population ends up in the west/southwest, settling the area and giving it their own customs, religion, culture, etc, but still being within the US?

Not sure if a number significant enough to meaningfully implant their culture/etc. over the long haul would likely settle anywhere that's an option.

I have to admit, the first thing I thought when I read the thread title was "Borscht Western". Just how incredible the wild west would be with the addition of russian cavalryman to its cast of character?

The imagery of "the Cavalry" riding in takes on a different connotation, that's for sure. :D
 
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