DBWI: America expands to the pacific

Dolan

Banned
With what? The United States were a God-forsaken nation that was kept in state of permanent bankruptcy after Kingdom of France demanded payment of their loans back and that fucking Jefferson tried to ignite a treasonous revolt in France to evade payments.

Nobody trusted that thirteen damned colonies afterwards, and they were pretty much still United only because everyone else hates them.
 
With what? The United States were a God-forsaken nation that was kept in state of permanent bankruptcy after Kingdom of France demanded payment of their loans back and that fucking Jefferson tried to ignite a treasonous revolt in France to evade payments.

Nobody trusted that thirteen damned colonies afterwards, and they were pretty much still United only because everyone else hates them.
perhaps some irrational feeling to expand westwards, though the only real expansionism i know of was an attempt to buy the city of nouvelle-orléans
 
I read a TL that wanked the United States at the cost of Louisiana, the Canadas, and pretty much everyone else in the world.

The PoD was that the French chose to be magnanimous towards the newly independent America, which in turn meant that the French were the ones whose regime faltered after they got deeply in debt. Eventually they were led by a man named Napoleon (rather odd, I know; he was a competent if overambitious artillery commander I think) and this Napoleon fellow sold Louisiana (which the French recovered somehow) for sous on the franc.

That kickstarted American expansionism, eventually they annexed northern Mexico, southwestern Canada, and bought Alyeska from the Russians again for sous on the franc. They also got Hawaii and administered my native Philippines for a time.

Crazy, no wonder it was in ASB.
 
Actually, the British were forced to acquire Luzon outside of Manila in the 7 years war and the Spanish has Northern Borneo and the Spice Islands, I wonder if the Americans would have been interested in that.
 
I read a TL that wanked the United States at the cost of Louisiana, the Canadas, and pretty much everyone else in the world.

The PoD was that the French chose to be magnanimous towards the newly independent America, which in turn meant that the French were the ones whose regime faltered after they got deeply in debt. Eventually they were led by a man named Napoleon (rather odd, I know; he was a competent if overambitious artillery commander I think) and this Napoleon fellow sold Louisiana (which the French recovered somehow) for sous on the franc.

That kickstarted American expansionism, eventually they annexed northern Mexico, southwestern Canada, and bought Alyeska from the Russians again for sous on the franc. They also got Hawaii and administered my native Philippines for a time.

Crazy, no wonder it was in ASB.

Napoleon was a real prominent historical figure and a rather fascinating one. He was an artillery commander who rose to prominence in France's colonial wars of the 19th century, was influential in helping to craft the French military into a modern fighting force and as granted the governorship of his native Corsica which he held until his death (he pretty much ruled there as King in all-but-name, if you will, and his sons succeeded him). The Corsicans still view him as a folk hero of sorts and his family is still super prominent on the island. I'm actually rather surprised you hadn't heard of him - he was no Wellington, of course, but it's kinda hard to read any history of 19th century France without stumbling upon him.

And also, and I'm sorry if this comes off a bit personal as that is not my intention, but you are badly misusing the term ASB. These days people seem to throw it out there for anything they either find to be unlikely or that they personally disagree with. That is NOT ASB. ASB refers to a series of events so unlikely that it would take divine intervention for them to come about. Catherine the Great suddenly becoming a supporter of Democracy in Russia? THAT'S ASB. The Anishinaabe Confederacy managing to follow up their victories in Canada and, rather than pushing for greater treaty rights as they did in OTL, instead driving the British out of the North American continent? THAT'S ASB.

The United States of America, which grossly outnumbered the population of surrounding colonies and states in the first half of the 19th century, actually getting it's act together and pushing onward into the rest of the continent? That's NOT ASB, because it's, if not entirely likely, at least well within the realm of plausibility. I mean, if the US's economy is in better shape, then you might not see a gloryhound like Hamilton push for war with Britain, which eventually saw the US losing the region Wisconsin, Michigan and much of Maine. It was really THAT defeat which sealed up the US, because it meant they couldn't expand North or South. And once the French began to settle Louisiana enmass, that was out of the question too. But if the US is able to remain financially and politically stable, there is a window of opportunity tht they could flood into much of the underpopulated interior of the continent and make a go of it. And that is NOT ABS (sorry to keep coming back to this point, but I really, really, REALLY, hate the overuse of that bloody acronym).
 
For this to happen, Mexico needs to lose the northern autonomies (Louisiana, Sioux, Cheyenne, Araphaho, Comancheria, Colorado, Louisiana, California, Nevada, Modoc, Snake River and Utah in no particular order). If Mexico is weaker or has a more aggressive policy towards the natives, this would become possible.
 
We already have a North American power bloc with the Confederated Republics of North America. Being used as a political chessboard and proxy battlefield by Europe for 150 years generated enough animosity to bring almost everyone to the table, the Empire of Kentucky and Tennessee Technarate notwithstanding. Granted, the live-action low-grade warfare is not only televised but made into a literal life-and-death drama.
 
The main problem here is birthrates. Despite the high birthrates seen in the the late 17th century, birthrates quickly declined to levels seen in France during the 1700s. This meant that although by 1800 their population was 3 million, by 1900 this had only grown to around 8 million. This averages out to a respectable 1% average yearly growth. This can be contrasted to Mexico, who by 1900 had a population of 20 million, and had a yearly growth rate of 2% by 1900, and Canada which had a growth rate of 3% by 1800, and by 1900 had a population of 10 million itself.

Immigration is also a key factor. Canada, in 1882, opened it's western lands to settlement through the Homestead Act, which saw any European living and working on their land for 5 years gain 100 acres to themselves. This was coupled with concentrated efforts to found this cities of Portland and Seattle in 1855, in order to better control the territory, and beginning in 1885 a mass recruitment campaign for workers from across Europe, including Italians, Poles and Jews from southern and eastern Europe, allowed these cities to grow in urban industry. The Americans only went as far as Illinois and Missouri for a reason: they simply did not have the population to control large areas of land beyond that point in any real capacity. The Canadians and British also had a far larger army and navy, while the American army was still hugely decentralised by the time Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin(and all the lands westwards) were granted to Canada. Once we consider that the American economy was hugely dependent on cotton exports to the UK, then the US would really have no way of gaining any land past Iowa. Getting the Oregon Territory would be effectively ASB.

Meanwhile in Mexico, gold was struck in it's California province in 1845, and this saw hundreds of thousands of Europeans arrive looking for gold, including many Americans in fact, alongside an estimated 100,000 arrivals from Asia, mostly Filipinos and Chinese. Although not all found gold, the Cortez Act of 1852 did grant 50 acres to many family looking for it, mostly in northern California and Colorado. Further recruitment campaigns in the 1900s and strong industrial growth in Mexico by 1900 allowed for Mexico to soon dwarf the USA demographically. All of this means that the only possible way for the USA to gain California would be to get there before the gold rush, by 1840. Given the sheer lack of population compared to Mexico, I think that's bordering on ASB.
 
A larger US...wonder what impact that would have had on the Southern American nations? The main powers on the continent are Mexico in the North and Gran Colombia plus its alliance sphere down South. Would the US have come into conflict with them worse than the OTL Cuban War? Remember, when they tried to grab Cuba but the Gran Colombians expelled them...
 
I read a TL that wanked the United States at the cost of Louisiana, the Canadas, and pretty much everyone else in the world.

The PoD was that the French chose to be magnanimous towards the newly independent America, which in turn meant that the French were the ones whose regime faltered after they got deeply in debt. Eventually they were led by a man named Napoleon (rather odd, I know; he was a competent if overambitious artillery commander I think) and this Napoleon fellow sold Louisiana (which the French recovered somehow) for sous on the franc.

That kickstarted American expansionism, eventually they annexed northern Mexico, southwestern Canada, and bought Alyeska from the Russians again for sous on the franc. They also got Hawaii and administered my native Philippines for a time.

Crazy, no wonder it was in ASB.
That is some wanking. Did they also land a man on the moon and annex Mars?
 
If they were going to do it, it had to happen before the Alta California gold rush. That caused the population of AC to rise dramatically and Mexico strengthened its hold on the region. Before that time it probably would have been vulnerable to a US invasion.
 
What? With a country name like that what about Yewomen landing someone on the moon?
Yemen never landed anything anywhere in that timeline, they just claimed Mars for some reason.
Yemen is a historical term for what is today the southern part of the Ottoman vilayet of Tihamah, the Emirate of Sanaa and the Republic of Aden and Socotra. In that timeline, these are all united into one country(!) that also owns the Hadhramut.
 
A larger US...wonder what impact that would have had on the Southern American nations? The main powers on the continent are Mexico in the North and Gran Colombia plus its alliance sphere down South. Would the US have come into conflict with them worse than the OTL Cuban War? Remember, when they tried to grab Cuba but the Gran Colombians expelled them...
Mexico is the only thing from Latin America that the US should be worried about. Colombia is too far and had no naval projection at all to matter. Why would they even care if the US expands?

They also have to deal with the Iroquois Confederacy, which made good deals with the British and grew to such an extent by the early 19th century they were manufacturing their own guns and even cannons, and could mobilise nearly 1/10th of their population for a protracted war.
 
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