Dixie Forever: A Timeline

[Zoidberg12]

Heres a map that I made. This is a map of this world in 1885.

 

[JJohnson]

Thanks, Z, I really appreciate that! That's great work.

 

[JJohnson]

Pensions and Insurance

Similar to the United States, the Confederate States established a pension system for its soldiers who fought in the War for Southern Independence. Starting in 1865, any widow whose husband died as a result of the war while in combat would receive a pension; any soldier partially or totally disabled as a result of the war would get a pension; and children under 16 orphaned by the war would get a pension; all of this was dependent upon the soldiers rank at the time of death or mustering out of service. In 1868, a controversy arose as a result of free blacks and emancipated blacks getting a much reduced pension from the various states, until after lengthy testimonies in Congress, including by General Forrest, who was quoted as saying of his black soldiers "No better Confederates have ever lived," the Congress finally voted in 1869 to grant equal pensions to white and black soldiers. They had already granted equal pay since 1864, so this was not that big a stretch for the members of Congress to make.

By 1871, veterans made a group for themselves, the United Confederate Veterans Mutual Aid Association (UCVMAA), which was a voluntary association that used members' dues to pay for pensions for each other and their fellow veterans, to fill in the gaps created by the states' lack of full funding for all veterans, just disabled or dead veterans. By 1878, the group was operative in all Confederate states and territories. It took the moneys collected and invested them in railroads, banks, and new industries, making a huge amount of money, and that money also became useful for financing the growth of Confederate industry and finance in turn.

By the 1880s, the group had agreements with a huge number of businesses to direct a portion of their employees' wages to a pension for their veteran employees; this was in turn copied for other businesses for other employees, until by 1890, most industrial employees in the Confederacy had a pension for old age and disability through their business, funded by their own contributions in addition to contributions from their businesses. While the railroads grew, everyone was doing well. British investment into American railroads, either in the Union or Confederacy, was helping both nations prosper.

Finance

With the investing of member dues from the UCVMAA, the South was able to build its own financial systems. Businesses needed funds to grow, and soon, the South needed a stock market to begin transacting business more efficiently. So it began that Atlanta, one of the big transportation hubs of the South, aside from Memphis, got the Atlanta Stock Exchange (ASX), in 1869, selling its first shares on September 17, 1869. Every company registered on the exchange would get a letter symbol of 1 - 4 letters.

Atlanta Stock Exchange Building (built 1879)

The UCVMAA, and its sister organizations, the CNMAA (Confederate Navy Mutual Aid Association), and the CAMAA (Confederate Army Mutual Aid Association) all take money from their members to provide pensions for old age and disability for their members; each of them invest this money into the ASX, helping fund the growth of the Confederate industrial sector. Foundries for steel spring up; munitions factories; mechanized farm equipment; textile factories, and more.

Later, in Texas's commercial hub, Dallas, the Texas Bourse opened in 1894.

Texas Bourse, original building

On the other part of the block is this modern addition, built in 2010 to replace the older building built in 1968.

The name "bourse" is an older English word for a stock exchange, influenced by the numerous Texas Germans who still spoke German and were influential in the financial sector not only in Texas, but also New Mexico, Rio Grande, and the Chihuahua territory. Given the time of communications in the 19th century, it's not unreasonable that another stock exchange would open to meet the needs of those in the Transmississippi portion of the Confederate States. The TBX (Texas Bourse Exchange) even flies the red cross on blue field flag from the WfSI on one corner of the building, opposite the national flag and the flag of Texas.

Within a few years of its creation, two men born after the Compromise of 1850, William Davidson, and his employee, Edward Jordan, came up with the Davidson-Jordan Average, a list of the aggregate share price of the top 10 stocks traded on the ASX.

Railroads (1880s)

With growing financial means, the CS were able to fund their railroads privately, not using subsidies to build railroads that would go bankrupt without them. From Jacksonville to San Diego and Richmond to Miami, the rail network was slowly coming together. Already the transcontinental line had been completed, and a second was nearing completion by 1885. Various older, narrow-gauge lines were continuously being replaced with the new Standard Gauge (6') tracks made of steel, such that by 1900, most rail in the CS would be 6' and relatively new.

The Naval Flag (1885)

To help the Confederate Navy distinguish itself from ships managed by the various states, and from civilians, the Confederates adapted the use of red, white, and blue ensigns for their needs. In the Act to Establish Uniform Naval Flags in the Confederacy, the bill established a red ensign for the Confederate Merchant Marine and civilian vessels, white ensign for the Confederate Navy, and a blue ensign for government-service ships, Naval Reserve Forces, or ships manned by reserve officers. Ships in service to the CS overall would have no defacement, while ships in service to a specific state would be defaced with the coat of arms of that state. The bill provided that ships performing scientific research would fly the blue ensign, and later on, yacht clubs (when that became popular) would fly the blue flag.


Red Ensign

White Ensign

Blue Ensign

State Ensigns for Virginia:

Merchant/Civilian; Virginia State Guard Navy; Virginia government ships

As with the national flag, the stars would increase with more states entering the Confederacy. With New Mexico and Cuba, that meant 18 states and stars.

The Naval Jack, flown at the bow, was still the 'Southern Cross'

The White Ensign, as shown above, was to be flown at the stern of the ship, indicating which kind of ship it was along with nationality.

Cuba's State Flag

Similar to Texas, the "Yara" flag that was the symbol of Cuban independence, and now, membership in the Confederacy as a state.

 

[Ace Venom]

This was an interesting update. The standardization of the ensigns should be useful to prevent accidents.

 

[JJohnson]

With the economic recovery in the Confederacy, investment from Europe, and trade deals due to lower tariffs, money flowed, as did human capital. Beginning in the 1870s, for nearly 30 years, people made money hand over fist due to the cotton trade, the diversification of crops (thanks to George Washington Carver's research), and the railroad investments coming in from the United Kingdom.

Many families, including those of former generals who had gotten into railroads, got rich off the investments they made, and house construction took off.

In North Carolina, many families summered near Jacksonville at the eastern peninsula called 'Paradise Point' and began building what they euphemistically called 'cottages.'

Belle Sur, the estate for Lt. Gen. Richard Anderson

Alexander Stewart's residence on Paradise Point

G.W. Smith's residence.

Numerous other mansions were constructed as were thousands of houses in what has become the classical 'Southern' style, with porches and eventually fans.

With the lack of devastation in the Deep South, even black families were doing much better for themselves, and many were moving into cities to be nearer the factories springing up in Selma, Montgomery, Memphis, Atlanta, Richmond, Houston, Louisville, Nashville, and elsewhere. Even Texas, as sparsely populated as it was, had mansions to boast.

Savannah, already beautifully preserved as it was, not bearing any scars from the war, expanded as well. A new rail station just next to W Gwinnett St was built, and south and west of that, even more homes in what would become called the 'West Victorian' district would be built. The Stiles Avenue would be the marker where numerous two and three-story mansions would be built, with parks in a deliberate copy of the Oglethorpe Plan, so that even to the southeast (OTL Sackville, Abercorn, etc), Savannah would gain a large number of beautiful, ornate, and fashionable houses due to the increased trade coming into the town.

South in Florida, Jacksonville and other towns in Duval county grew up, including Arlington, Mandarin, St Nicholas, East Jacksonville, and Johnston Town (near OTL NAS Jax). Mandarin was the southernmost of these small towns, with the main roads of Mandarin, Brady, Loretto, and Flynn. Orange Picker and Flynn were made two-lane both ways, and became big for businesses in the small town, which grew from maybe 200 people to around 1400 before the turn of the century.

Town Hall for South Jacksonville, modeled after Mandarin City Hall, located on Flynn and Orange Picker, near the Mandarin General Store.

Wages (1870-1890)

The rapid expansion of industrialization across the Confederacy led to a real wage growth between 1860 and 1890. For farm workers, the average wage in 1860 was $315.58; by 1890 it was $473.37 (50% growth; OTL North Carolina was $140.40 in 1890). Iron and Steel Workers had wages rise from an average of $479.68 in 1870 to $593.29 in 1890 (OTL roughly $567.84). Miners in Missouri made around $584/year, and in Virginia $458/year. Textile manufacturing earned a number of women a wage for the first time in the South, where they would dorm together in cities until they married, earning wages until they found their husbands. Wages rose from about $196.56/yr in 1870 to $227.76/yr on average for textile plants in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Virginia, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Missouri. By 1890, railroad brakemen were earning about $536.64/yr; passenger conductors about $1,070.16/yr and freight conductors $811.20; locomotive engineers $1,179.36; locomotive firemen $620.88.

Urbanization proceeded strongly as well. Kentucky was 19.2% urban by 1890; Tennessee 16.2%; Texas 15.6%; Mississippi 7.7%; and Virginia 17.1%.

Race

While black citizens had made great strides since being enslaved, they were still not able to vote, and many positions were not open to them if they allowed a black man to be in a position of authority over a white citizen, limiting black wages in many jobs to 2/3 to 3/4 of a white man's wage. Despite this, there were resounding success stories like Madam C.J. Walker, the first black female millionaire in the Confederacy, who created a line of beauty products for black women. Robert Reed Church became the first black male millionaire in Memphis through shrewd banking deals. Booker T Washington promoted black education such that by 1890 a majority of black Confederates were literate and almost all were church-going.

Every year, the United Confederate Veterans had held reunions for their members since the end of the war, and every year, numbers of black soldiers attended, proudly, in their uniforms. comradery, fellowship, and friendships among the veterans were rekindled every year and every year, they shared their triumphs and tragedies. Children had seen black soldiers, and had grown up with these men in their churches and in their towns, there being no (OTL-style) segregation of churches or businesses. John Wesley Prince, Jr., born after the Compromise of 1850, had not fought in the War for Southern Independence, but fought in the Spanish-Confederate War, and afterward, became a minister, preaching about the 'Promise of Dixie,' where 'all Confederates are full and true Confederates in God's House and in His blessed Land.' White veterans were the most receptive, as many of their lives had been saved by their black compatriots. Many currently in power did not want the new status quo to change, but the tides were turning. Both north and south had held blacks as 'inferior' before the war, but given that without them, the Confederacy would've lost, that river had changed course even if many people didn't consciously realize it yet.

Women

Cities grew in the Confederacy from 1865-1890. Women worked during the war, and during the Spanish-Confederate War. As cities grew, general stores would give way to a new development, the department store. Middle class women across the Confederacy did the shopping. Newly immigrated young women would work as servants, or in shops and textile mills until marriage, and then become full-time housewives themselves. Young Confederate women tended not to work until around the 1880s, when they began to be hired in textiles and food processing, and in cities and schools. The jobs provided upward social mobility, more money, and more social prestige for the poorer women, which made them more attractive in their hopes of getting married. Black women were especially encouraged to work to save up money, as were the Scots and Irish. When men in town had a small shop or a restaurant, their wives and other family members could find employment there. Widows or deserted wives would often run boarding houses.

Most immigrants came from northern Europe, especially the Scandinavian, German, and Celtic areas (Scotland, northern Ireland, western Ireland, Wales), and the women gained an opportunity to make more money in the CSA than they could back in Europe. While many Catholics immigrated, many more Protestants did also, and many women Catholics would convert to their husbands' denominations at marriage in the new, distant land they had joined.

As schools expanded in the Confederacy in cities and towns, women could take on teaching careers. With the two wars they fought, women also had the opportunity to become nurses, even though medical schools that opened in the Confederacy remained nearly all male.

Aside from examples such as Madam C.J. Walker, business opportunities for women were rare, aside from widows taking over the businesses of their late husbands. The development of the sewing machine did make housewives more productive, and enabled women to make careers out of dressmaking shops or running their own small millinery.

Religion

A great revival swept through the CS Army, bringing thousands of people, black and white, to God. These people brought their religious zeal home after the war; God was on their side, after all. Churches experienced great levels of growth, and swelled in number, bringing the Good News to more people. Families kept large due to the mostly rural populations, and the people remained deeply religious, over 90% attending regularly.

Education

After the war, many of the people in the CS were literate, but large swathes were not. The Emancipation Bill obligated the CS to educate the former slaves. Thousands could already read, despite state laws against it. Various states began working on tackling the problem of educating their growing populations. The national government had no business in education, as it was a reserved power for the states. Military academies had already been started, and by the 1880s, most of them had begun accepting civilians for some advanced classes.

The religious fervor spilled over into education, and many churches began building schools to educate children, paid by the tithes and offerings from parishioners, or by subscription feeds by those who weren't members of their churches. These early schools focused in reading, writing, math, civics, and history, soon adding in some basic literature for older students. By 1890, these 'private schools' had raised the literacy rate for white students to around 90%, and the overall population to about 80% by 1890. Schools in west Texas, northern Rio Grande, eastern New Mexico, and eastern Chihuahua Territory were in German in great portions of those states, and in French in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi and some parts of east Texas.

Universities began to spring up in every state providing practical education to students in agriculture, machining, medicine, engineering, chemistry, law, and other needed subjects. Without national or even state funding, universities kept their staffs small and focused on practicality. Fraternal organizations grew, including the Freemasons, and graduates would send in subscriptions to their universities which would help defray costs for new students.

Immigration

The population in 1890 grew to 26,240,570, with about 1.5 million immigrants brought in over the last decade, and the quota for 1890-1899 being set to 1.84 million immigrants. The House was legally reset to 317 representatives.

Statehood

By 1885, Arizona petitioned for statehood, though its constitution languished in the House and Senate for some time before being approved in 1886. As of 1886, the CS had 19 states in the Confederation. Chihuahua Territory is renamed Jefferson Territory, after President Thomas Jefferson. Sonora and Durango are both organized and have territorial governors appointed by the Congress in Davis.

As of 1890, the CS have 6 territories: Guam, Puerto Rico, Durango, Sonora, Jefferson, and the Washington Islands.

Literature

Growing populations meant growing needs for entertainment. Aside from plays, musicals, and theater, books of all kinds were written and produced in the Confederacy. A notable, influenced by the past war, book called Blood War, by William O'Brien became a widely read best seller. It told the tale of a vampire army coming from the North to take the South's land, women, and property for themselves. It is a veiled critique of the Yankee culture and its behavior during the 'late unpleasantness,' and would become an inspiration for the movie "Jefferson Davis: Vampire Hunter."

Colonies

In Africa, the Dominion of South Africa (1890), the Dominion of Rhodesia (1892), and British East Africa, along with British Patagonia, become the target of investment, settlement, and literature/propaganda. Patagonia, whose border is the peak of the Andes to the west, and the Colorado River to the north, began gaining settlements - Victoria (Las Grutas), Melbourne (Puerto Deseado), Charles Town (Rio Gallegos), Port Nelson (Comodoro Rivadavia), and more.

During the War of the Pacific, without the US Intervention, and without an 'Alabama Award,' the British allowed warships bound for Chile to set sail. Arms merchants from the US and Europe tried to keep the conflict alive. Britain wanted to ensure it had adequate control of the Strait of Magellan, and participated and intervened on behalf of Chile. Chile's President, Jose Balmaceda, did not pay the debts owed to the British for their help during the war, sparking the Civil War of 1891, which was halted by the intervention of Patagonian redcoats and a small fleet of British naval vessels coming to Santiago. Fear of armed conflict at the same time as a war sparked a hurried and hasty agreement with the British. Chilean debts would be cancelled in exchange for all land below 42° S and the Isla Grande de Chiloe; while the President's authority to do this were questionable, he signed the document, as did the British representatives. The Civil War concluded with Balmaceda handing power over to General Manuel Baquedano, who in turn, handed it over to the congressional delegation shortly thereafter. Baquedano made sure that British economic interests were preserved in Chile, and helped prevent US intervention during and after the Civil War, as the US was already doing in Central America and northern South America.

Punta Arenas was renamed 'Fort Chelsey' once the British took control of the territory. Over the next 10 years, about 80,000 people from the British Isles left for Patagonia, including prisoners for minor offenses who would work off their sentences. Men, women, and children left for the unsettled land. Towns in this virgin land would take on the appearance of many western towns in America or in Australia in their frontier look. After this, the United States would begin taking a more international outlook in an effort to prevent any further European involvement in South America or the western hemisphere, while the CS would look more towards trade and friendly relations with Central and South America.

Western Sahara became Spain's focus for colonization. While a desert wasteland, it was close, and Canary Islanders could sail easily to the land. Focusing on developing its territory, Spain found that it held little value other than for fishing and a small amount of phosphates. A side effect of this focus is the advance of desalination technology, allowing the Spanish to grow the colony from the Congress of Berlin (1880) to 1890 to around 21,000 persons, mostly military and guarding the borders.

Greek Thrace, a result of the Congress, was integrated into Greece as was Epirus. In Africa, British East Africa was renamed Kenya; its Juba River border was reconfirmed in 1896 with Italian Somaliland, with Somalis being deported to the Italian colony. The Dominion of South Africa and the Dominion of Rhodesia (OTL Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe) were officially so named by 1896. (Note: Otherwise, Africa in 1886 and 1896 is essentially the same; Tunisia/Libya is Italian territory). In French Algeria, Napoleon IV pushes for French colonization in Constantin, Oran, and Alger, three areas which will eventually become French-majority by 1920.

 

[TrashMan]

Interesting developments.

 

[Ace Venom]

This is interesting. It seems like the need for a canal across the Isthmus of Panama is greater than ever. And it seems like the Monroe Doctrine is a dead letter if the UK can get away with what it did in South America. I can't imagine the United States likes it. I can't imagine the Confederate States likes it either.

 

[Lalli]

This is interesting. It seems like the need for a canal across the Isthmus of Panama is greater than ever. And it seems like the Monroe Doctrine is a dead letter if the UK can get away with what it did in South America. I can't imagine the United States likes it. I can't imagine the Confederate States likes it either.

There might be even two canals in Central America. And surely USA and CSA are quiet pissed about British Patagonia but they can't do anything for that.

 

[Ace Venom]

There might be even two canals in Central America. And surely USA and CSA are quiet pissed about British Patagonia but they can't do anything for that.

Germany may thank the UK for pushing the Union and Confederacy closer to them.

 

[JJohnson]

Presidential Elections in the US

In 1880, President Grant avoided a third term, keeping Washington's precedent. The Republicans nominated Rutherford B Hayes, someone virtually unknown outside of his own state of Ohio. Democrats nominated Tilden, a reformer who prosecuted the political boss, William Tweed, running against the corruption of Grant's administration. Both parties backed civil service reform; Republicans backed a vigorous campaign of settling the west.

The nation had its divisions. Northern Catholics tended to vote Democrat, while immigrants and Northern Protestants tended to vote Republican, as did the few northern black voters, when they could vote safely and without intimidation. Tariffs were a big issue because they were popular in the North, but the Confederates' much lower tariffs were hurting the North's economy; there was no appetite for a vengeful war to reclaim them - most northerners were happy to let the South go. Silver was demonetized in 1873, putting the US on a de facto gold standard, and Grant's administration began redeeming greenbacks, removing the easy money that the Democrats and many debtors wanted.

Republicans and Democrats slung mud at each other; Democrats attacking Republican corruption during the war and Grant's administration, blaming them for splitting the country in half; Republicans raised the 'Civil War' (a term no one in the South used, and few in the North would use after this election) issue, a tactic ridiculed by Democrats as 'waving the bloody shirt.' Republicans would chant out "Not every Democrat was a rebel, but every rebel was a Democrat."

Hayes had served during Lincoln's War (a common term for the war, as many blamed Lincoln for starting it, mismanaging it, then losing it; also called 'War of the Rebellion' by official documentation in Washington) with distinction as a Colonel, wounded several times, and brevetted to Major General, making him very marketable to veterans. He also provided the Republicans with Ohio, a crucial swing state.

Democrats were capable of winning without the south in the country, but they couldn't manage to pull it off this election. Republicans won by 261,176 votes (3,482,884 to 3,221,708; 169 to 81 electoral votes)

Electoral Map for 1880:

Hayes' Presidency enjoyed a surplus in revenues. Democrats wanted the tariffs lowered; Republicans wanted to keep the high tariffs to support high manufacturing wages, and spend it on internal improvements.

Although he could not convince Congress to prohibit the spoils system, Hayes issued an executive order that forbade federal office holders from being required to make campaign contributions or otherwise taking part in party politics. He was able to root out corruption in the postal service, eliminating the 'star routes.'

1884 Presidential Election

Hayes decided not to run for re-election, and the Republicans nominated James Garfield, while the Democrats nominated Thomas Bayard as their candidate. The Prohibition and Greenback Parties took votes away from both candidates in this election. In the end, Garfield won with 216 to 34 votes. Bayard won his home state and a few others.

President Garfield was nearly shot in July when a civil service job seeker, attempted to assassinate him, hitting Vice President Arthur nearby. He was arrested and sentenced to life in prison.

Garfield's presidency was marked by civil service reform, attempting to route out the corruption, finally getting the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act through shortly after the attempt. He pursued black education through government-funded schools, though this proposal went nowhere in Congress.

Garfield sought to curb growing British interference in the western hemisphere, with the seizure of Patagonia, by focusing on attempts to modernize the US Navy, and a renegotiation of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty with the UK to allow the US to build a canal without the British. In Garfield's third year, he succeeded, gaining the US the ability to build a canal in exchange for recognition of Patagonia. France's work in Panama had begun in 1881, but some in the US wanted a Nicaraguan Canal. Garfield's naval reform and refit resulted in the 'White Squadron' which would tour the Great Lakes and navigate around the Americas in a show of US naval strength. Garfield met with Confederate President G.W.C. Lee, inviting him to Alexandria to meet and discuss events with Patagonia. The Presidents had an amicable discussion, and both send a polite message to the British showing concern with their seizure of Patagonia.

1888 Election
Running for President in 1888, the Republicans nominated James Blaine, while the Democrats nominated Grover Cleveland. President Garfield declined to run, citing health issues having arisen in his last year of office. Blaine was unable to get the nomination twice before due to the "Mulligan Letters," which showed Blaine had sold his influence in Congress to various businesses. In one such letter, it ended with "burn this letter," from which the Democrats chanted "Burn, burn, burn this letter!" In one deal, he got $110,150 from an Iowa-Illinois Railroad for securing a federal land grant. Democrats and anti-Blaine Republicans made unrestrained attacks on his character as a result. Cleveland, on the other hand, was nicknamed "Grover the Good," for his personal integrity. In just three years he went from mayor of Buffalo to governor of New York, cleaning up large amounts of Tammany Hall's graft.

Helping Cleveland, was Benjamin Butler's campaign on the Greenback Party, siphoning off a number of Republican votes in key states. Notable is also the Probihition Party, which nominated John St. John from Kansas, and the Equal Rights Party, which nominated Belva Ann Lockwood, the first woman candidate for President.

James Blaine

Grover Cleveland, 21st President

John St. John (P)

Grover Cleveland won the election 157 to 111, with a margin of 46,020 votes (3,653,002 to 3,606,981).

Cleveland's faction of the Democrats were called 'Bourbon Democrats' - a bastion of classical liberalism, which was even more prominent in the Confederacy than in the North. His group of Democrats opposed high tariffs, free silver, inflation, imperialism, and subsidies to business, farmers, or veterans on libertarian philosophical grounds. His crusade for political reform and fiscal conservatism made him an icon for what would become the American Conservative movement. He won praise for his honesty, self-reliance, integrity, and commitment to the principles of classical liberalism. He fought political corruption, patronage, and bossism. His prestige was such that a number of Republicans, called 'Mugwumps' crossed the aisle to vote for him in 1888.

Cleveland oversaw the modernization and expansion of the Navy, as a reaction to the British interventions in Patagonia, and successfully negotiated the exchange of Fiji for recognition of British seizure of southern Chile. He reduced a number of offices which had become bloated with political time-servers. Most of his appointments were based on merit rather than on party loyalty, and he did appoint some Republicans to positions as needed. The Tenure of Office Act was finally repealed under his term.

Facing a Republican Congress, Cleveland vetoed hundreds of bills. A number of pensions already rejected by the Pension Bureau, he vetoed, believing Congress should not override that decision. When Congress was pressured by the Grand Army of the Republic into passing a bill granting pensions for disabilities not caused by military service, he vetoed that bill also. His most widely known veto was the Kansas Seed Bill. A drought had ruined crops in both Kansas and Nebraska, so Congress tried to appropriate about $10,000 to purchase seed grain for the farmers there. His veto message was:

I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the general government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the government, the government should not support the people. The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.

Westerners tried to advocate for free silver to help their poorer constituents, but Cleveland held to his principles. He and his supporters called for a tariff for revenue only, as the Confederates had, detailing his opinion in his second message to Congress:

"When we consider that the theory of our institutions guarantees to every citizen the full enjoyment of all the fruits of his industry and enterprise, with only such deduction as may be his share toward the careful and economical maintenance of the Government which protects him, it is plain that the exaction of more than this is indefensible extortion and a culpable betrayal of American fairness and justice ... The public Treasury, which should only exist as a conduit conveying the people's tribute to its legitimate objects of expenditure, becomes a hoarding place for money needlessly withdrawn from trade and the people's use, thus crippling our national energies, suspending our country's development, preventing investment in productive enterprise, threatening financial disturbance, and inviting schemes of public plunder."

He got the tariff reduced from 47% to 40%, but the issue lingered on till the next election. While he was not an interventionist, he and his secretary of state were wary of the United Kingdom's moves in South America, which did result in the acquisition of Fiji as a protectorate, which satisfied many in Congress. Cleveland got improvements to US coastal defenses, which hadn't been worked on since the 1870s. Sixteen steel-hulled ships were ordered, though none could truly match what was coming out of Europe and going to South America. While he did condemn the 'outrages' against Chinese immigrants, he did sign an extension on the Chinese Exclusion Act.


1864 - Lincoln/Johnson (R)
1868 - Hancock/Parker (D)
1872 - Grant/Colfax (R)
1876 - Grant/Colfax (R)
1880 - Hayes/Wheeler (R)
1884 - Garfield/Arthur (R)
1888 - Cleveland/Hendricks (D)

Confederate Diplomacy

Following the Paraguayan War, the various nations asked President George Washington Custis Lee to arbitrate the dispute. In the end, he awarded Gran Chaco to the Paraguayans. They honored him by renaming a town (Villa Lee), and region (Presidente Lee) after him.

The situation with Mexico, under Porfirio Diaz, grew worse during the middle of Lee's Presidency. A growing number of western Confederates, especially the still Spanish-speaking ones, desired a border wall to prevent raids into the states of Rio Grande, and territories of Jefferson and Durango. Both men eventually agreed to pursue jointly the Mexican bandits but the situation worsened by 1880.

US Statehood

In 1889, the Dakota territory is split on the 77th parallel, admitting both as North and South Dakota. Six days later, Montana becomes a state, and three days after that, Washington Territory becomes the State of Washington. In 1890, Idaho and Wyoming become states in July. There are now 32 United States, along with the territories of Fiji, Cook Islands, and Gilbert and Ellice Islands.


CS Statehood

Arizona became a state in 1886, and in mid to late 1890, Sonora, Durango, and Jefferson are all admitted as states. There are now 22 Confederate States, along with the territories of Guam, Puerto Rico, the Washington Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands; in 1891, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands were merged into the Mariana Islands Territory.


US and CS Minor Islands

The Guano Islands Act was passed in 1856 enabling citizens of the United States to take possession of unclaimed islands containing guano deposits. Once the Confederate States left the Union, they passed a similar act. Guano was important for saltpeter and fertilizer. Over the next 30 years, both the CS and US would make claims to various Pacific Islands:

CS:
Serrana Bank (1868)
Washington Island (1872)
Alacrans Islands (1877) (disputed with Mexico)
Flint Island (1885-present)
Navassa Island (1878)
Howland Island (1876)
Western Triangle Island (1880) (disputed with Mexico)
Bajo Nuevo Bank (1887)
Pedro Cays (1887)
Quita Sueño Bank (1887)
Roncador Bank (1887)

Confederate Claims to Serrana Bank, Bajo Nuevo Bank, Pedro Cays, Quita Sueno Bank, and Roncador Bank were settled in 1904 with Columbia

US:
Flint Island (1868-1882)
Vostok Island (1868)
Kingman Reef (1862)
Baker Island (1856)
Johnston Atoll (1859)
Midway Atoll (1867)
Swains Island (part of American Samoa)
Fanning and Caroline Island are part of the Gilbert Islands, but claimed by the UK until 1893.

The back and forth between the US and CS over Guano Islands was satirized in newspapers (North and South), since they were competing over, literally, guano. Though the United States, in claiming Vostok Island, would soon claim the Gilbert Islands, and the nearby Ellice Islands, administering them as the Territory of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands in 1884.

The Americans in 1899 would formally annex American Samoa, with German Samoa being the other division. The Germans took possession of both the Caroline Islands and Northern Mariana Islands after the Spanish-Confederate War, but sold their interest in the Northern Mariana Islands in 1885 to the Confederates.

In 1862, eighteen US Navy sailors took up residence on the Cook Islands for a few weeks for rest, claiming them for the United States. They were already a popular stop for whaling ships of various nations. The claim was ratified by Congress in 1866, and the Americans planted several buildings on Mangaia in a settlement they called Lincoln Town.

By 1900, the US would have the following Pacific Island Territories:
Cook Islands
Gilbert and Ellice Islands
Fiji
various small islands

British Guiana

Flag of British Guiana

The colony of British Guiana also benefited from the increased desire of the British to secure their colonies from possible splits from the mother country. Mostly a sugar exporting colony, since the fall in sugar prices in the 1880s, rice began being farmed in the colony. Over the 20 years from 1870 to 1890, its black population grew to 110,000 persons, white population grew to 96,000 persons, and its Indian-Asian population to 21,000 persons.

Aside from agriculture, industry began to grow in the colony. Rum began to be manufactured due to the sugar being grown. Immigrants came from not only the United Kingdom, but Italy, France, the Netherlands, and even Germany and Poland amongst other places.

With growing pressure from the Afro-Guyanese middle class, the colony gained a real colonial parliament, along with a true secret ballot in 1891, with planters losing a lot of power in the process, and black and urban white voters gaining a lot of power. Farms began mechanizing, ending the need for indentured Indians to be brought in, and freeing up a lot of labor to enter the cities and begin building up the colony's industry.

Colony of British Patagonia

Flag of Patagonia, representing the Corona Australis constellation

Its youngest colony, Patagonia grew rapidly from 1873 to 1893. Over 20,000 persons came practically every year to settle there, from the United Kingdom, Europe, and even Asia in the form of Indian and Chinese laborers. By 1893, there were around 469,000 persons living in Patagonia, settling the territory and taming the land.

Summer and winter were reversed, much like South Africa and Australia. Precipitation diminishes quickly moving east of the Andes mountains, and the British quickly built cities there to make use of the available rain:
(San Martin de los Andes)
West Hampshire (Bariloche)
Armagh (El Bolson)
Preston (Esquel)
Canterbury (El Calafate)

Those towns experienced milder summers (20-24° C/68-75°F), with cold nights of 4-9° C (39-48°F); south of these, summers were often between 16-20° C (60.8-68° F), with nights similar to the north. In winter months there is frequent snowfall, with daytime highs of 3-9° C (37.4-48° F) in northern Patagonia, and 0-7° C (32-44.6°F) in southern Patagonia, with nights ranging from -5 to 2°C everywhere (23-35.6°C).

Over in the settlement of (Maquinchao ), a few miles east, precipitation drops and the mountains no longer give protection from the winds. It gets summers maybe 5°C warmer, but in winter, its nights can be up to 10°C colder. The settlement of (Balmaceda) can get even colder. Tierra del Fuego is wet in the west, and dry in the north and east. Summers are cool, cloudy in the south, and very windy. Winters are dark and cold. Snow can even fall in the summer in most areas as well. The arrival of electricity made Patagonia much more livable, with electric heating and lighting making the shorter days and colder months much more bearable.

What was formerly the Isla Grande de Chiloe became South Dunbarton Island, named for the Scottish officer, Captain William McFlynn, who first sighted the island after it was transferred to the British, naming it after his home shire. Tierra del Fuego began to be called Prince Albert Island, for the Queen's husband. Many parts of Patagonia were assimilated into British culture, and the territory was divided up into provinces:

1873:
Patagonia (formerly Argentina)

1881:
Colorado (OTL Rio Negro and Nequen)
Patagonia (everything south)

1885:
Colorado
Southumberland (north of the Deseado River)
Patagonia (south of the Deseado River)

Note: Southumberland's name began as a joke, as the three men who mentioned it were from Northumberland, and they arrived at Port Alnwick, a settlement of maybe 20 buildings and 50 people they were asked where they were from. They replied, "Northumberland." The local, Alexander Borton, quipped, "Well you're well in to Southumberland now!" It became a joke in 1876, and by 1885, that became the name of the province.

1892:
Colorado; capital at South Dublin
Southumberland (Chubut); capital at Wrexham
South Georgia (Santa Cruz north of Chico River); capital at Melbourne
New Connacht (Santa Cruz south of Chico River); capital at Charles Town
Prince Albert Island; capital at Southwold (Rio Grande)
West Patagonia (portion formerly Chile)

In 1900, South Dunbarton Island became its own province, its capital Boston. In 1913, the southern portion of West Patagonia was separated at the 46th parallel, and north became the province of Shetland, its capital South Lerwick (Chatien).

Settlements in Patagonia:
Windermere (Sarmiento)
Wrexham (Rawson)
Birmingham (Nequen)
Fort Chelsey (Punta Arenas)
Port Alnwick (Puerto Madryn)
South Dublin (Viedma)
Victoria (Las Grutas) - named for the Queen, and her daughter, Victoria, now the German Empress.
Melbourne (Puerto Deseado)
Canterbury (El Calafate)
Southwold (Rio Grande)
Boston (Castro)
Bangor (Puerto San Julian)
Charles Town (Rio Gallegos)
Port Nelson (Comodoro Rivadavia)
South Lerwick (Chatien)

Settlers came from Wales, Ireland, Scotland, England, and even Europe to Patagonia. Ranching became a way of life for many in the interior, with Patagonian Cowboys becoming a staple of life for decades, and even the focus of much of early and modern Patagonian literature, including some romance novels in the 1970s and 1980s. The rugged independence of the cowboy appeals even to modern Patagonians. Sheep, horses, cattle, and even some North American bison were all brought in for ranching, and meat and even wool.

With the growth of ranching came the growth of textile mills to process the wool into cloth. Farming, including onions, tomatoes, potatoes, and more, became important for locals. Coal would be discovered in 1893 in South Georgia and New Connacht Provinces, helping fuel the growth of the railroads in Patagonia, which in turn, helped fuel the growth of cities across the Dominion.

By 1900, there would be around 513,000 persons in Patagonia, which in 1913 would be named a Dominion, and Trelew would become the capital city, renaming itself Aberdare.

Parliament Building in Aberdare, Patagonia

Canada

Semi-official flag of Canada in 1867

To the north, Canada changed as a result of the American War. Confederation occurred in 1867, and united New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Ontario. Believing smaller provinces like New Brunswick and Nova Scotia would be better able to be managed to defend in case of an American attack from their south, with more rapid responses in case of defense, Canada began its trend of more, smaller provinces along its southern reaches. Ontario became bound by the Mattawa and French Rivers, and Lake Nipissing. North of that, became the territory of Canada in general, to be decided later. Manitoba, a small square of Rupert's Land, becomes a province in 1867.

In 1871, British Columbia (the remnant north of 52° N) became a province to help anchor the western part of Canada to the east. In 1873, Prince Edward Island became a province. In 1877, Ottawa divides up the west into 3° tall, 7° wide segments for provincial settlement. From West to East, Alberta (114 to 107 W), Saskatchewan (107 to 100 W), and Manitoba (100 W to 93 W) are created from the northwest territory. From 93 W, up to the Nelson River, and east to the northern line straight from the Ottawa River is Hudson Territory, from which Albemarle would be split in 1882. North of that, up to the northern border of British Columbia becomes Athabasca in 1888. Quebec, fearing being outnumbered over several years of new provinces joining Canada, agrees to split off its eastern portion into another French-speaking province, East Quebec. Quebec becomes bound by the Ottawa River, the 49th parallel, and the Saguenay River in 1879. South of the St Lawrence becomes Montérégie in 1889.

In 1898, Yukon Territory is created, a straight line from British Columbia north to the Arctic. In 1900, Athabasca is split at 107 W; the eastern portion becomes the Keewatin Territory, later a province.

Provincial Capitals:
Athabasca: Edmonton
Alberta: Calgary
Saskatchewan: Regina
Manitoba: Winnipeg
Albemarle: Sudbury
Hudson: Thunder Bay
British Columbia: Prince Rupert
Ontario: Toronto
Quebec: Quebec City
East Quebec: Sept-Iles
Montérégie: Drummondville
New Brunswick: Fredericton
Nova Scotia: Halifax
Prince Edward Island: Charlottetown
Territories: Yukon, Northwest, North Hudson (north of Quebec and not in Labrador)
Later, Labrador and Newfoundland, would become provinces. As of 1890, 14 provinces and 3 territories.

A Railway was built within 10 years linking British Columbia to Nova Scotia. Canada would go on to name many things 'Confederation' - Confederation Square, Confederation Station, Confederation Park, etc., similar to 'Union' in the US, 'Federation' in Australia, and 'Confederate' in the CS.

A Canal will be coming soon!

 

[Zoidberg12]

In light of the last update, I just updated my map of the world in 1885. If there are any mistakes, please let me know.

I'm planing on posting a map of the world in 1900 soon.

 

[JJohnson]

Confederate Presidents

In 1880, the Confederates had a choice between James Longstreet, and Gustavus Woodson Smith. Smith was in the new 'Populist Party' which wanted to focus the new, young nation more on its internal affairs and integrating its new territories into the Confederation, and building schools, infrastructure through interstate compacts, and friendly trade with the world. Longstreet promised a continuation of the Lee Presidency, while successful, the people wanted a change. Longstreet's campaign on the record of his time of Vice President didn't capture enough votes, as Smith won 146 to 139. After losing the election, Longstreet retired to a small farm of 65 acres in Georgia to become a planter.

Longstreet's home in Georgia

Longstreet's house stayed in his family over a hundred years and became a State Historic Monument in 1987

Confederate Census of 1880

As of 1880, there were 21,412,053 persons in the Confederacy, with an immigration quota of 1,498,844 persons for the next decade. As a result of this census, there were now 250 seats in the Confederate House:


Electoral Votes

Smith's Cabinet
Attorney General: Henry R Jackson
Postmaster General: Matthew Butler
Secretary of War: Thomas Rosser
Secretary of State: Fitzhugh Lee
Secretary of the Treasury: Benjamin Cheatham
Department of Navy: Duncan Ingraham
Secretary of the Interior: Lucius Lamar II

Attorney General Jackson worked on helping with black civil rights in the Confederacy. Most of his work was in Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi, while Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia proceeded a little more quickly towards black civil rights. Property rights in those three states were protected for blacks from efforts of some whites to take them, and efforts to segregate blacks met with resistance in those states.

Postmaster Butler, along with his assistant postmaster, Adams, successfully got an interstate compact organized for building postal roads and funds from both Congress and the states, since Article 1 allows Congress to set up postal roads, and thus, fund postal road construction. Some senators balked at what they felt was a twisting of the intent of the Constitution, so they compromised and allowed partial funding from both sides. Under Butler's work for the next 6 years, numerous post offices were built in many cities, many of them still standing to this day.

Central Post Office in Monterrey, capital of Rio Grande

Secretary Rosser took his time to reform the War Department, updating the uniforms to a more modern style. The officer braiding was removed from sleeves, as it made generals an easy target in battle. The various colors were updated for use on jacket collars and sleeve cuffs (artillery red, medical off-green, cavalry yellow, marine dark blue, infantry light blue, generals/staff officer white, quartermasters/pay corps dark green, engineers yellow ochre, dragoons orange). Artillery systems were tested and coastal defenses were updated in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Durango, and California.

Secretary Fitzhugh Lee made successful diplomatic missions over to Europe in the various countries, and received a number of foreign ministers to the Confederacy in Davis. In reaction to the UK's actions in Patagonia, both the CS and the US reiterated together, the first time they've agreed since the war, that Europe should not go on any colonial ventures in the western hemisphere. Lee also helped secure excess silver from the United States from Nevada, allowing the CS to coin some and put some in Confederate vaults in various locations across the Confederacy. At the same time, mining efforts in Alaska were yielding some gold for the Confederates, though not much.

Secretary Ben Cheatham undertook the effort to modernize the coinage and currency of the Confederacy. While the United States' nickel miners had succeeded in getting a five cent nickel coined, the Confederates continued to use the half dime coin. Silver coins, specifically the half-dime, dime, quarter, half-dollar, and dollar, used the same back, but featured an engraved George Washington on the back, the seal of the Confederacy, within the text. The front, formerly with a version of Liberty, the goddess on them, seated, now featured a standing Liberty, hand outstretched to the left; her dress bears the Southern Cross, the shoulder straps being the upper cross, coming down to her waist. The motto 'Deo Vindice' and the year '1880' on the front, and holding a sheaf of cotton, tobacco, and indigo, representing Confederate agriculture.

President Smith got a bill passed through the Congress, which helped commerce, authorizing silver certificates and gold certificates, so that people could carry something lighter than a purse full of silver and gold, but still have confidence in the currency being worth something more than the fiat currency up north and the graybacks from the war that had caused so much inflation.

Basic design for the 1, 2, and 5; the 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, and 1000 notes were roughly the same. On the back, similar to this note, the Confederates put the bust of the first Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, and General Robert E. Lee in the 1, 2, and 5. On higher notes, General Sam Cooper, Joseph Johnston, Albert Sidney Johnston, Bragg, Kirby Smith, Beauregard, and Hood appeared opposite Davis. Putting Hood and Bragg on the notes was controversial, given their performance in the war, and in the aftermath, it was discovered that Hood had been trying to undermine the Army of the Tennessee to get Johnston replaced with him so that he could court a woman he fancied. But the Treasury department felt it wanted to honor all the persons of General rank in the War for Southern Independence, so he stayed. The new series of currency was popular, and was readily convertible into silver or gold for higher denominations, and after about a year, most Confederates were comfortable with the bills and the new wallets they used to carry them.

Duncan Ingraham took his post as Navy Secretary and made a vigorous campaign for updating the Navy's ships. While President Lee had made some modernizations, Ingraham asked and got President Smith to request a naval base from the Kingdom of Hawaii at Pearl Harbor, which was agreed to by its king. Guam got a naval base to defend it. Both Cuba and Puerto Rico received naval bases for coaling, refitting, and defending the new islands. Santo Domingo got a base as well.

While serving as Interior Secretary, Lucius Lamar II focused on preparing the remaining continental territories (Arizona, Sonora, Durango, Jefferson) for statehood, as well as integrating Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo more closely into the Confederacy. Over the course of the Smith Presidency, continental Confederates moved to all three island possessions in greater numbers, and Cubans, Domingans, and Puerto Ricans moved to the mainland. Lamar visited the Giant Forest in South California, and impressed with the size of one of its trees, named it the General Lee. He asked California to protect the area as a state park, and managed to get several western governors to cooperate in an interstate compact creating the Confederate National Park Service. The parks would be owned by the states, protected from development, and free to visit for all Confederates. A former army officer, Jose Cleary, was chosen as the first National Park Commissioner to oversee the preservation efforts. Within the next 5 years, Carlsbad Caverns, the Grand Canyon, and Big Bend would all become National Parks.


Butler appointed William Wirt Adams, another former General, to be an assistant postmaster.

Justice William Taliaferro was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1881.
Notable Ministers:

To Spain: José Martí

Also in 1880, Cuba elected its first 4-year-term Governor, Calixto García, and Congress appointed Román Baldorioty de Castro as the Puerto Rican Territorial Governor. John Adams, a former General, was elected governor of Tennessee for a two-year-term.

John Adams continued former Governor James Porter's efforts to integrate freedmen into society. Porter had already gotten a medical school for blacks opened, and Adams supported opening three more schools which became the core of Tennessee's historically black colleges.

Former General Henry Wise's son, Richard, became the Speaker of the House, and his other son, John, joined a small 'Confederate Party' and served as Virginia's governor for a term.

 

[JJohnson]

Hawaii

King Kalākaua of Hawaii

Since the arrival of the Russians who escaped from California, Hawaii had maintained ties to both Russia and its colony in Alaska, and also kept New Englanders at arm's length, limiting them to land on the small island of Kauai. Not only Americans, but Confederates were interested in the islands, and neither of them wanted the British to have the islands, considering what happened in South America not too long ago.

Russians from Russian Alaska had visited the Hawaiian islands for food for its settlements up north and beginning with King Kamehameha, they were welcomed. Every year, he gave the Russians a ship of swine, salt, sweet potatoes, and other foods in exchange for sea-otter pelts at a fair price. Most years the exchange took place, but it sometimes skipped a year or two. The Russians who had left California established a mission for the Orthodox church in the big island, to try to counterbalance the growing influence of the British and Americans, and maybe the French and Spanish. Besides, Kamehameha reasoned that the Hawaiians could examine the foreigners through their religions and possibly gain an advantage in dealing with them.

So when the brig Thaddeus came to Hawaii, the king sent them to Kauai; the prince George Kaumualii was among them, and he was the son of the king of that island anyhow. For several years, Liholiho spoke with the Russians and with the Puritans, and found the Puritans to be stern, controlling, and demanding. So he was cautious with them. As King Kamehameha II, he allowed Dr Georg Anton Schäffer to settle about 2100 Germans on the Big Island, which was rapidly becoming a German-Russian settlement, with numbers exceeding the English speakers on the other islands. Unfortunately, the king died on a trip to Great Britain of measles, before successfully getting a promise from King George IV of British aid in the event of foreign aggression. In the absence of the King, Kaahumani had ruled as regent for her son, Kauikeaouli, who would become Kamehameha III when he reached 21; but the young future-king became rebellious under his controlling mother. He tried to escape both his mother, and the holier-than-thou social domination of the Puritans. He found a gentle guide in Father Herman, one of the Russian Orthodox priests, who to the young Hawaiian, appeared to be what he said and dedicated to his God. With their long talks, the young prince learned about Christ, sin and forgiveness, human history outside the islands, and the ways of the European race. It helped the priest was away from all the crowds and alcohol; it helped bring focus and clarity to their talks. The young prince learned of science, and grew to understand the need to be wary of political manipulations and schemers.

As King Kamehameha III, he reaffirmed the authority of the Council of Chiefs and of the kuhina-nui (his stepmother). By 1840, Hawaii's Kingdom had a Declaration of Rights (1839) and a Constitution (1840). They had 3 branches - executive, legislative, and judicial. The Executive was the king and kuhina-nui; Legislative a 'representative body' and the 'council of chiefs, including the king and kuhina-nui'; and the Judicial, with four judges appointed by the 'representative body' and the king and kuhina-nui. By this time, much of Hawaii's government was administered by men of full or partial European ancestry, some from the northeastern US. In 1845, Kamehameha III moved his residence to the palace in Honolulu, Oahu.

Former Palace of Hawaiian Kings; now the Governor's Residence

Flag of Hawaii, 1845

The Hawaiians could see land being transferred to 'naturalized' foreigners; they could see their islands being taken over acre by acre. In the 1840s, Russian refugees from California had come to Hawaii, and were welcomed as refugees to stay in the Russian Orthodox Church's mission on the big island. The growing distrust of foreigners didn't apply to these Russians, however. A law assuring the right of ownership of land in 'fee simple,' allowing inheritance of land, whether native or foreigner was passed around this time also. While families from the northeastern US grew to dominate commercial and much of the political activities, Russian and German families were making lasting friendships on the big island with the native Hawaiians, and all of then grew to distrust the Americans after hearing of the refugees' tales from America.

In 1854, Kamehameha III died without a son, and his nephew, Prince Alexander Liholiho was proclaimed as King Kamehameha IV, grandson to Kamehameha I. He knew Hawaiian and English, and had visited England with his brother Lot, and was more in favor of English influence rather than American. He married Emalani Naea Rooke, 1/4 British, two years before; her grandfather was John Young, and advisor to King Kamehameha I. This king was greatly concerned about the foreign influence, especially of the Americans, and tried to counterbalance it with a reciprocal treaty with the US to reduce tariffs and stabilize the relationship between the two nations, but his efforts were unsuccessful. He was successful in improving health care for the native Hawaiians, opening the Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu.

The original Queen's Medical Center

Their son, Albert died when he was 4 in 1862, and Lot, the King's brother, took the throne in 1863 as King Kamehameha V on November 30, and would reign for 9 years. He traveled with his younger brother, Alexander Liholiho, to America, England, and France under the guidance of Dr Gerrit Judd. He served on the privy council from age 21 to 24, and in the House of Nobles till he took the throne.

Unique to Hawaii was a voting provision granting votes to all men born before 1840 (24 years old in the first year of the Constitution, advancing thereafter), and for men born after, they had to read, write, and hold real estate worth $150 or a lease valued at $25/yr or an annual income of $75. This requirement would gradually reduce the voting power of native Hawaiians and increase that of naturalized foreigners. The new Constitution also abolished the kuhina-nui office and freed the executive from the influence of the privy council; this led to increased influence of the foreign-born cabinet, however.

During the reign of King Kamehameha V there was considerable agricultural progress on the big island and Lanai. A thriving pineapple operation had begun, and by 1872, a thousand acres were producing pineapples, and a cannery was processing the fruit for export (established by a subsidiary of the Russian America Company). Experts from South Carolina and Texas showed the Hawaiians how to produce cotton and turn it into fabric, and sugar cane growers from Louisiana showed the Hawaiians how to grow and refine it, and eventually make rum out of it. Some places in Hawaii could grow wheat, and there were even Texans and Rio Granders who showed the natives how to raise cattle for milk, meat, and hides. In the 1870s, some Irishmen brought sheep for wool, having 1000 head by 1874.

Around this time, Hawaii and Lanai were enjoying strong agriculture, while Oahu and Maui were more reliant on commerce and trade. Russians, Germans, Confederates, even Cubans and Mexicans were leading the economy in Hawaii and Lanai, while Americans dominated the merchant and political island areas. Hawaiians had to bring in more help to run the agriculture, bringing in Japanese and Chinese to Oahu and Maui, and Cubans and Mexicans to Hawaii and Lanai; it was like two separate culture in Hawaii were developing just like in America. King Kamehameha V died in 1872, succeeded by his son William Charles Lunalilo.

The foreigners and businessmen favored the other candidate, David Kalakaua, while most others wanted Lunalilo. Due to the overwhelming vote for Lunalilo he became called 'The People's King.' He was charismatic and popular amongst the natives, but was suffering from excessive drinking of alcohol and a lung infection, which eventually became consumption (tuberculosis). This king would be responsible for transforming Hawaii into a republic.

Lunalilo removed the property qualification for the vote, amongst about 30 other amendments to the constitution. Within 3 months of his inauguration it was becoming apparent to the people close to him that his lung infection was getting worse. The king sought rest and healthy nourishment, something lacking in town. So he went to the Russian mission, in the high country. A doctor there, Benjamin Malamed, from Germany, had come to the islands two years prior, and was given the task of treating the king.

Under the doctor's treatment, he didn't get worse, but he didn't get better. The clean air, sunshine, and diet were helping though. The alcohol vapor treatments may have helped also. In 1875, Lunalilo lay on his right side for weeks hoping a perforation in his right lung would close itself off, and it worked, but it was a warning sign. Both he and Emalani began working on transforming Hawaii from a kingdom with a king, legislature, and court to a republic with a president, legislature, and a court. Having a country dependent upon transferring power from father to son was not viable. Let the natives in a revised constitution elect a native to be their president in spite of opposition from the foreigners in Honolulu. When it was arranged, Lunalilo would abdicate and give power to the first president of Hawaii.

Emalani, a trusted advisor to the king, allowed Alberto Rodríguez, a Confederate from South California, and nephew of one of the heroes of the War for Southern Independence in South California, to visit with the king. He explained the difference between the Confederate States and the United States and how they worked, how the CS reserved the bulk of power in the states, while the US was centralizing its power in the capital, far from the people. He warned the king that the islands would eventually be conquered by a foreign power, like the United States, or by a political coup devised by the foreigners in Honolulu. He spoke with David Kalakaua as well, telling all three how the Kingdom of Hawaii could transform into a republic, and adopt a constitution that would allow them to join the Confederacy like they had added Alaska, Santo Domingo, and Durango, all of which were on the path to statehood.

The Hawaiians spoke with other Confederates including those who had fought against the United States, and were convinced something had to be done to prevent domination by the Americans. King Lunalilo passed away in 1878, but King David Kalakaua took the throne and promised to continue the plan to transition Hawaii to a Republic. First, though, power had to be restored to the Hawaiians.

The Constitution of 1878 restored much power to the native Hawaiians, and they dominated the new legislature, which began meeting in the 'Iolani Palace.

King Kalakaua ensured the new constitution had a vote for people of age 18, and included women in the vote as well; in Hawaii, people looked to women for leadership, and Hawaiians died too young, so they needed them to be able to vote. So the kingdom allowed all men and women 18 and older to vote. New representatives were elected under the new constitution, and it became effective August 6, 1878. He would reign for 10 years before finally being in a position where he felt he could abdicate and ensure the success of the Hawaiian people. In 1888, David Kalakaua abdicated the throne of Hawaii, and scheduled elections for November 5, three months after the new Constitution of 1888 was passed, transforming Hawaii into a republic.

There were 2 chief candidates - John Kapena, and Samiel Kipi. Kipi was from Hawaii, Kapena from Maui. Kalakaua declined to run for President as his own health was failing.

Samuel Kipi was elected President, and it was during his term of office, a 4 year term, that he was to face a coup in 1891. The Americans on Oahu, plus a German and an Englishman, plotted to overthrow Kipi and install their own man in office. John L Stephens was arrested along with Sanford Dole, accused of treason against the republic of Hawaii, plotting to have it annexed by the United States. Kipi was worried about this happening again. Even though President Cleveland showed no desire to annex Hawaii, what about the next one? How could Hawaii be protected? From his perspective it looked like Hawaii would be annexed at some point, and it looked like his choice was between the US and the CS. He remembered what King Kalakaua had been told from the Confederate commissioners and his own personal experiences with the foreigners. So President Kipi opened a dialog with President Allen of the Confederate States through his Secretary of State, John McCausland.

Fourth Secretary of State, McCausland (L during the war; R as Secretary of State)

Negotiations went on through 1892, and President Fitzhugh Lee would be the one to accept the annexation of the Republic of Hawaii into the Confederate States in 1893 as a state with full rights for native Hawaiians as Confederate citizens. As of 1893, there were now 23 states in the Confederacy.

Confederate Presidents

Following Smith was William W. Allen (1886-1892), the second in the Populist Party, who continued the policies of his predecessor, and remarkably hosted President Cleveland at the Gray House in Davis. After President Allen, Fitzhugh Lee became the sixth President, serving till 1898, when the former Secretary of State John Wesley Frazer, who negotiated the annexation of Hawaii, became the seventh Confederate President.

President Fitzhugh Lee

Notable amongst Lee's Presidency is the statehood of Puerto Rico in 1896, and of Santo Domingo in 1897, bringing the Confederacy up to 25 states. His election was a lopsided one, winning every state east of the Mississippi plus Texas, Cuba, Missouri, and California (259-58).

25-Star Confederate Flag

Confederate Presidents:
1. Jefferson Davis (1862-68)
2. John C Breckinridge (1868-1874)
3. George Washington Custis Lee (1874-1880)
4. Gustavus Woodson Smith (1880-1886)
5. William Allen (1886-1892)
6. Fitzhugh Lee (1892-1898)
7. John Wesley Frazer (1898-1904)


Henry Ford (1876)

The Confederate States were already well on their way to industrializing in 1876; the McCormicks were selling their reapers, reducing farm labor needs by the thousands. Those people, needing work, would go into the cities, increasing the urban population in factories. Some of those people were even experimenting with putting steam engines onto vehicles and farm tractors of various kinds, but chances of success for such things was limited.

By the time he was 16, Henry Ford was an apprentice engineer in Detroit in the US, but was soon fired. It may have been his difficulty with reading and math that caused it, but regardless, his other apprenticeships would fail too. By 1883, he was 20, and found himself back at his family farm. Five years later (1888), he inherited the farm from his father after he passed away.

At this point, Gottlieb Daimler in Germany had already built his 4-wheel gasoline engine (1886), and the French quickly followed. The United States, however, was far behind the Europeans in automobile technology. Hearing of those successes, he dreamed of building his own horseless carriage...but first he had to build a place for his own family.

Ford's family moved to Detroit, where he took a job in an electrical power generation and distribution company, replacing a night supervisor there who had been killed by electrocution. In 1893, two brothers built a four-cylinder gas engine horseless carriage, and 'sped' at five miles per hour down a street in Massachusetts. But Ford kept working on his own engine. He followed the progress of the fellow Michigander Charles Brady King who bought a gasoline engine and mounted it onto a vehicle he designed and built. Ford even rode alongside in his bicycle in a demonstration in 1896.

Ford made progress and patented a carburetor he designed. He managed to build a two-cylinder, 4hp engine that got to 20 mph, fast for a 500lb vehicle without brakes. Ford had been talking to Thomas Edison, the Confederate electrical scientist, and the two exchanged ideas. Edison encouraged him to keep going and that electric cars weren't going to be practical since they had to stay close to electric power stations.

In 1899, Ford scraped together money to create the Detroit Automobile Company, the first in the area to manufacture cars. He quit his job at the power plant to head the new venture. But at this point Ford was more interested in building a racing car than a family car. The directors of the company forced him out in 1901, and forced the company to close soon afterward. Ford continued with racing cars. Childe Harold Wills was the brains, and Ford was the enthusiasm. After eight months of work, Ford showed off his work against Cleveland car maker Alexander Winton. The pair raced at Grosse Point, with Winton's heavy 40hp car handling the curves much better than Ford's 24hp lightweight car. Spider Huff, Ford's Assistant, even jumped onto the inside running board to lean out like a sailor on a sailboat would to help with curves.

Ford and Huff in their race car

Ford took the curves faster and made headway; soon Winton's car was blowing smoke. Ford passed him and won the ten-mile race. A record crowd of 7,000 cheered the win and Ford made history, averaging 45mph.

Investors returned, and the Henry Ford Company was born. He focused again on race cars. Investors brought in Henry Leland from Connecticut, who pushed for luxury cars. Ford objected. So he resigned in 1902. But he kept the Ford name, and some of his race car team stayed with him.

Two weeks later, Ford got a letter from Edison urging him to come to Tennessee in the Confederacy, saying that he talked to Cyrus McCormick about a cooperative effort on trucks, farm tractors, and automobiles with his gas engines, and that the business climate is very favorable.

So Ford came two weeks later, meeting with Edison and McCormick, and they persuaded him to relocate. The two Confederates and several others easily brought together the financial support needed to get a quick startup by Henry Ford, Childe Harold Wills, and others on the team. From Europe, McCormick and Ford recruited experts in machining and metallurgy, soon catching up to the Europeans in car manufacturing, as well as truck and tractor manufacturing. McCormick already had a number of factories in several States in the Confederacy, making his reapers, planters, and other equipment currently drawn by draft animals, and Ford gained from the experience. Soon, McCormick's factories were soon making parts for Ford's cars. Soon, the two advanced both design and manufacturing efficiency which would be needed to create the evolving assembly line production methods which would need far fewer man-hours than ever though possible.

McCormick developed the Farmall tractor, and a few years later, the Ford tractor followed. These two tractors transformed Confederate agriculture from needing draft animals to using gas engine tractors. And soon the Model A and Model T would follow.

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943)

Nikola Tesla was a Serbian genius, fascinated by science, math, and the emerging marvels of electricity. His father was an Orthodox priest, and his mother was also quite clever and creative. Tesla got a good education in the Austrian Empire and learned several languages during his time there. He got his high school education by 16, took two years off, then studied at the University for 3 years. But he wasn't finished. He wasn't an ordinary genius. Tesla had eidetic memory and pictured complex problems in his mind without having to write anything down. While polite, normal social relationships were difficult for Tesla, and he was prone to bouts of excessive gambling. He slept very little, and he didn't graduate from the university. He really didn't need to.

In 1881 he was the chief electrician at Budapest Telephone Exchange. Next year he relocated to France and took a job with Continental Edison Company, designing and improving electrical equipment. He was hooked. In 1884, with his visa papers in hand, he was soon in Nashville, meeting with Edison himself. His mind was teeming with all kinds of new ideas of electrical equipment. He was 28 at this point, and he was sure that between his ideas, and Edison's determination, they could be great.

Edison gave Tesla a job redesigning the company's direct current electrical generators and motors to improve service life and efficiency. Edison was impressed, but didn't know how to keep the new genius under control. He worked day and night, seven days a week, on the designs. Edison mentioned his concerns to the Confederate chemist, August von Hofmann, who had recently retired from the University of Nashville, and to two locals, William and Selene Jackson.


During the war, Jackson had risen to Brigadier General, and married Selene in 1868, bringing a son with him from a prior marriage. The two bought Belle Meade, a historic farm of 2800 acres.

From his conversations, a plan was hatched to have him work 3 days a week, and take 2 diversions for his time - teach part time at the University of Nashville, complete with a lab, and give him a recreational outlet at Belle Meade's horse farm, and even encourage some female companionship. It worked.

Teaching helped relax Tesla's hyperactive mind and helped to improve his social abilities by giving him so much practice. Spending time on Sundays over at Belle Meade encouraged some badly needed exercise and some lighthearted social time. He loved working with the horses, and it turns out his social skills were enough to help him talking to the ladies there. They found him very interesting, and vice versa. Nikola got more sleep and was more stable emotionally. At this point, he was 30.

By 1886, Tesla and Edison were working together very well. In 1887, Tesla invented an induction motor which ran on alternating current (AC). In March of 1888 he got a patent on the motor, TN-744312. But Edison was pioneering DC (direct current) power distribution, lighting, and motors. They were great for street cars, because speed control was easy, but distribution was good for maybe a mile or so due to power loss because of low voltage and high amperage and high resistance. This would mean DC stations all over the towns, which was very wasteful of space. On the other hand, AC distribution would include transformers which could step up the voltage, reduce amperage, and thus reduce resistance and make long distance transmission practical. One AC station to serve a moderately-sized city. His patent was iron-clad. The Edison Company held the rights to the patent, and Tesla would be getting a portion of the royalties from other companies seeking licenses to make AC motors. George Westinghouse's company in the US soon came to purchase patent rights for the United States.

Tesla had been acclimating well to the southern hospitality he was receiving in Nashville, and one lady in particular, Elizabeth Anne Leavitt, took a liking to him. She was particularly good at working with temperamental horses, and took the challenge of Tesla, and fell in love with him. Nikola and Elizabeth were married in 1890. They were celebrities at the 1896 Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition, an event to honor 100 years of Tennessee statehood.

In one building, Tesla was showing off the wonders of AC current, with motors and controls that promised to electrify the country with large power plants spread across the Confederacy; in another building, his wife, Elizabeth Tesla was showing off champion horses in the agricultural pavilion

Centennial in Tennessee; right, lit up at night

Tesla continued to teach part-time at the University of Nashville, and stayed with Edison throughout his career until 1922, when he decided to retire from teaching and work to better enjoy time with his grandchildren, his horses, and traveling. Sometimes he even took his family back to Serbia, the country of his birth. Nikola and Elizabeth had five children, three boys and two girls. All were very bright, but none like their father. The Tesla's were able to build a fine mansion on Belle Meade Blvd, a residential area carved out of the old horse farm. They kept horses for the family and friends a little further out of town where the land was a little more affordable. When Nikola finally passed away in 1943, he was surrounded by his family, children and grandchildren and his wife, knowing that he was well loved.


Tesla's House in Belle Meade

Samuel Insull (1859-1938)

Sam Insull had impressed Thomas Edison's chief engineer, Thomas Johnson, during his time in London, while setting up the first telephone exchange for London. So Johnson invited Insull to immigrate to the Confederacy to take a position in Edison's company. He accepted and arrived in Nashville in January of 1881. Soon, Insull met Edison in early February. Edison was 34, and Insull was 21. The two worked to expand Edison's enterprises into a giant corporation called General Electric Company, to provide the Confederacy with cheap electricity to illuminate homes and factories across the Confederacy with Edison's newly invented incandescent light bulb, and later, drive machinery with Tesla's AC motors.

In 1890, Edison's company was responsible for rigging the Gray House in Davis for electricity, and President Allen was the first President to have electricity in the executive mansion.

Confederate Executive Mansion lit up at night

Insull was inspired by his mother to adopt a tireless work ethic. He seemed to be able to handle anything. While Edison, Tesla, and others were in the labs working on inventions, Insull was out and about, growing the enterprise. When Tesla invented the AC motor, it was Insull who was quick to persuade Edison to put aside his passions for DC power and motors and switch to the AC and high voltage transmission. He clearly realized a few large plants delivering electricity was far more economical than a plethora of smaller DC plants all over the towns. And Insull also realized the new steam turbines being created were much better at turning electricity generators than the reciprocating steam engines currently in use.

It took doing, but Insull managed to convince Edison to embrace AC power, supplied by large, central coal-fired steam turbine power plants which would turn the generator and using transformers to step up voltage for delivery, and stepping it down for delivery at homes. Acting as president of Tennessee-Edison, Insull oversaw the installation of steam turbines at Nashville-Edison Steam Station near the Cumberland River. In November, 1903, the equipment shook when started up, but soon evened out, and it became an obvious success. These turbines had been imported from the United States, but soon turbines equally as good would be manufactured in the Confederate States. In just a few years, small local generating stations would pepper the landscape bringing cheap electricity to the nation, thanks to Edison, Tesla, and Insull.

Statue of Liberty (1882)

The Statue of Liberty currently rests in Charleston Harbor, guarded on five sides by Fort Sumter, rising from the central courtyard of the fort. It was donated by the French people as a tribute to the persistence of the Confederate people to the republican ideals of the American Revolution and what the French called the 'Confederate Revolution,' which is what they viewed the War for Southern Independence as being; not a war to keep slaves, but to preserve state sovereignty and individual liberty. The statue had been proposed in 1870 by the French law professor Édouard René de Laboulaye. French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi would design the statue. Gustave Eiffel, whose tower had given his name so much fame, would build the statue. The inner structure would be steel and iron, and the skin of golden copper. The plan was for a huge statue of Libertas, the Roman goddess, robed and holding forward a torch and presenting a tablet evoking the law and two dates: July 4, 1776 and February 22, 1861, honoring the Declaration of Independence and the official founding of the Confederacy (recorded as July IV, MDCCLXXVI and February XXII, MDCCCLXI).

The Confederates were asked to finance and build a pedestal on which to mount the statue, and the French would finance and build it in France, then disassemble it and transport it to Charleston, where it would be reassembled. The statue would tower above the pedestal at 151 feet, towering well above the fortifications of Fort Sumter, the site of the start of Confederates' struggle for liberty.

The project proceeded as planned. Confederates were surprisingly eager to fund and build the pedestal. Subscriptions were sold across the Confederacy, with money coming in even from Cuba and Durango and even South California. Without being devastated by war, the South was able to finish financing the pedestal 13 months before the French arrived. President Gustavus Smith signed the bill to allow the statue to be built in the fort, turning over control of the fort to the Department of the Interior, with Secretary Lamar making it the first Confederate National Monument.


Fort Sumter, before construction


Fort Sumter, after construction

Surprisingly the French thought to build the statue in the United States, but got a lukewarm reception from their inquiries, which is why they turned instead to the Confederates. Henceforth, visitors and immigrants who arrive at Charleston are greeted by the Statue of Liberty, its golden skin still gleaming over a century later, welcoming them to their new homes. The statue was dedicated September 21, 1882 with President Smith attending with the Secretary of the Interior, Lucius Lamar, South Carolina's Governor, and maybe 70 others.

 

[JJohnson]

The US:

States: North California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Columbia, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut
Territories: Cook Islands, Fiji, Gilbert and Ellice Islands, Utah, American Samoa

The CS:

States: Hawaii, Cuba, Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, Sonora, Jefferson, Rio Grande, Durango, South California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, Florida
Territories: Mariana Islands (incl. Guam), Alaska, the Washington Islands

 

[Ace Venom]

It seems like things are going pretty well over here. Oil is going to be a major game changer here.

 

[JJohnson]

Yep! Oil and the Panama Canal are coming up. And then we'll see what Europe is doing.

 

[HonestAbe1809]

Are the Confederates going to the effort of regularly polishing away the patina of the Statue of Liberty? Because that seems unnecessarily expensive, all things considered.

 

[Zoidberg12]

In light of the latest update, here is a map of the world in 1900, the last year of the 19th century.

If there's any mistakes, please let me know.

 

[JJohnson]

Panama Canal

In 1846, a treaty between Colombia and the United States, the Mallarino-Bidlack Treaty, pledged the United States to maintain 'neutrality' in Panama in exchange for transit rights in the isthmus on behalf of Colombia. Roughly 40 years later, in 1885, Colombia reduced its military presence in Panama, sending its troops to fight rebels in other provinces. Without those troops, an insurgency developed in Panama. So the United States Navy was sent to keep order, in spite of invoking its obligations according to the treaty of 1846. The United States occupied the city of Colon, Panama. Chile, which had the strongest fleet at the time in the Americas, sent its cruiser Esmerelda to occupy Panama City in response. They were under orders to stop, by any means, an eventual annexation of Panama by the United States.

In 1899, and lasting till 1902, the Thousand Days' War was fought between the Liberal and Conservative Parties, which devastated Colombia, including Panama. This new civil war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Wisconsin, but the Liberal leader Victoriano Lorenzo refused to accept the terms of the agreement, and was executed in 1903. Two months later, the headquarters of the Panamanian newspaper El Lapiz were assaulted by orders of the military commander for Panama, General Jose Vasquez Cobo, brother of the Colombian Minister of War, in retaliation for publishing a detailed article on the execution and protests in Panama. This caused a rift and loss of trust between the Panamanian liberals in the Conservative government which was based in Bogota, and they later joined the separatist movement.

In 1903, largely due to the efforts of Teddy Roosevelt, a larger than life figure who fought in the Philippines and in China, the US and Colombia signed the Hay-Herran Treaty to finalize construction of a Panama Canal, but Colombia's Senate rejected the measure, despite having proposed it themselves. So the United States moved to support the separatists in Panama to gain control over the remains of the French attempt at building a canal.

Panamanians set November of 1903 as the time to separate. Colombia thought Nicaragua was going to invade and sent troops to occupy Colon; they were delayed by the Panama Railway employees who sympathized with the separatists. Colombia's gunboat Bogota fired shells on Panama City on November 3, causing injuries and mortally wounding Mr. Wong Kong Yee of China. The US sent the USS Baltimore, under command of Commander John Hubbard, which helped delay Colombian troops from reaching Panama.

With the troops delayed and suppressed, the Panamanians declared their secession as the Republic of Panama. Demetrio Brid became the de facto President of Panama on November 4 and appointed a provisional government junta to govern till a constitutional convention could be held. It would take Colombia 5 years before they recognized the new republic.

Shortly thereafter it signed a treaty with both the United States and Confederate States, authorizing them to act to build a canal. The United States would act as sovereign in the canal zone, while the Confederates would gain 30% of the revenue plus free use of the canal. Both countries would participate in construction, sharing the cost. That alone was the product of intense negotiation between the two countries, but President Frazer and President Roosevelt were able to work together to come to an agreement.

US President Roosevelt at the canal during construction

Canal under Construction

It would take 10 years to build the canal, which would open in 1914. During that time, Spanish-speaking Confederates moved to Panama to help translate and build up the infrastructure, which was nowhere near the level it was in Cuba, Puerto Rico, or even Rio Grande. Confederates began building electric power plants, electric lines, telephone lines, and even missionary efforts from Catholics, Baptists, and Methodists were started in the cities nearby. The nation of Panama advanced more in those ten years than in the last thirty. Politically the nation started moving away from the tendencies of other Central and South American nations, having military coups and dictatorships every few years, and began on the path of modernization and slowly becoming a truly free nation. Uniquely, Colombia would begin moving in the same direction largely of its own accord.

Land Sale (1866)

Grant's Farm is purchased from General Grant for $85,000, who moves to reside in Galena, Illinois.


Let's Go to the Zoo!

In Atlanta, businessman George V Gress purchased a bankrupt traveling circus, and donated the animals to the city of Atlanta. The city leaders opt to house the collection at Grant Park, which remains its location to this day. The original resident animals of the zoo included a black bear, a jaguar, a hyena, a gazelle, a Mexican hog, lionesses, monkeys, and camels.

New Orleans gained a zoo in 1887, on the site of the 1884 World Cotton Centennial Exhibition World's Fair. It would be expanded over the years with new additions, like sea lions, an aviary, and more.

Octagonal Building from Mexico exhibit


In Dallas, Texas, a zoo is begun with the sale of two mountain lions and two deer from a private seller in Colorado.

Texas Gold

In the 1850s, a process to distill kerosene from petroleum was invented by Abraham Gesner. World demand for petroleum quickly grew. Petroleum exploration developed in many parts of the world as a result. In 1859, Edwin Drake from Pennsylvannia invented a process to extract oil from deep within the earth by drilling. Drake's invention gave birth to the oil industry in the US and the CS. The first oil refiner in the US opened in 1861 in western Pennsylvania, during the Pennsylvania oil rush. Standard Oil, founded by John D Rockefeller in Ohio, soon became a multi-state trust and came to dominate the young petroleum industry in the US.

Texans knew of the oil which lay under their ground for decades, but for a long time it was seen as more of a problem than a benefit, because it hindered the digging of water wells. One man, Rancher William Thomas Waggoner, who later became a very influential oil man in Fort Worth, struck oil while drilling for water in 1902.

The story of Texas oil could be said to begin with Antonio Francesco Luchic, a man born in 1885 in Croatia, who graduated from Graz Polytechnic Institute. He arrived in the Confederacy in 1880. At 6'2", this strongly built immigrant became a Confederate citizen in 1885 in Norfolk, Virginia, and took the English name Anthony Francis Lucas. A few years later, in 1893, he began working in the gulf coast, in the salt mining region of Louisiana.

Lucas worked on his theory of stratigraphy of deep salt formations, and how earth's oil deposits could collect under rising salt domes. He heard of oil seepages over in Texas, and went to investigate. So Mr. Lucas went to a place called the Spindletop region to observe a gentle swell of a broad span of land, which rose about 15 feet above the level of the surrounding Texas plain. During his investigations he noticed a slight oil, salt, and sulfur leakage on the surface.

According to his theory that would mean oil below that salt dome. There were two problems - the oil was deep down, and the sand to be pushed through was prone to collapse into the drill hole when flushed with water alone, which was the conventional technique. So Lucas persuaded three Texas cattle ranchers to finance a new drilling technique which could theoretically go even deeper. He brought in Al and Curt Hamill, experienced drillers who brought in a new Sharps-Hughes hardrock rotary drill bit, recently invented by Howard Hughes, Sr. and Walter Benona Sharp.

Curt Hamill suggested digging a pond, and so cattle were set to stomping around in it to produce a steady supply of 'drilling mud' to replace 'drilling water' a new idea for the time. The men drilled deeper and deeper...700 ft, 800, 900, then 1139 feet. Then on January 19, 1901, they struck oil. A gusher shot up 150 feet in the air and continued for 9 days before they finally capped it.

Spindletop gusher

The gusher produced 800,000 barrels of oil, producing 100,000 barrels a day, more than the total production rate of all other North American wells currently active. Soon Beaumont became a boomtown; its population of 10,000 rising in 3 months to 50,000. Soon, new oil companies were born Texas Company (Texaco), Gulf Oil Corporation, Sun Oil Company, Humble (Exxon), and others. By 1902, 285 wells were dug.

Texas Gulf Sulphur Company would soon spearhead a huge industry supplying sulfur, an important fundamental chemical, in 1909. Large coastal refineries would be built from Louisiana to Texas, and down the coast of Rio Grande. The Confederate petrochemical industry was born, and along with it, the Sharps-Hughes Tool Company would be born, aided by its patent on that drill bit they used.

The Confederate Congress sought to preserve the oil for use in the Confederacy, and imposed an 80% excise tax on crude exports as a reaction to Standard Oil's attempts to grab Confederate oil for itself. With this, the Confederates helped enable their own future automobile, plastic, and modern industrial growth.

Trust Busting

In the United States, the Congress passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in 1893, after President Cleveland's first term in office, during President Harrison's first term. The act gave the government the authority to break up monopolies and near-monopolies which caused a 'restraint of trade' - an ambiguous term. The first target of this legislation would be Standard Oil, which would be broken up in 1906 as an 'illegal monopoly.' At this point in time, the Confederates had no comparable monopoly in oil, or other business, so they would not pass such a bill till 1903, under President Frazer, when the Confederate Congress passed the McLaurin Anti-Trust Act, which would go on to break up the attempted monopoly of Standard Oil in the CS in the Gulf Coast. Standard Oil left before the suit could be fully prosecuted, meaning it wouldn't be tested for another decade. In 1905, the Confederate Supreme Court ruled in the case Texas v. Confederate States on the legality of the act, but the Supreme Court ruled it legal, since it concerned interstate trade, not intrastate (within a single state) trade. Texas attempted to get the ruling thrown out, but not enough states passed ordinances to override the ruling (Article III, section 2, paragraph 4).


Silver and Gold Mining (to 1900)

In North Carolina, Davidson County produced gold, silver, and copper till the late 1870s, prompting the Confederates to move westward for more precious metals

In Texas, silver began to be mined in 1880. In Hudspeth County and Culberson, and a town which became Shafter in Presidio County, silver was mined in several thousand tons per year. In Garvin County, Oklahoma, the Oklahomans finally allowed both white and black settlers in restricted numbers to help mine the silver for their state.

Farther west, in New Mexico's Lake Valley, located in the Sierra County, a mine called the 'Bridal Chamber' was mined by Antonio Cleary, brother of the Major who fought in the War for Southern Independence, along with his nephew, Jose Cleary Jr, along with three of his friends from the State of Cuba. The mine produced over 2.5 million troy ounces from the 70s till about 1900. The Ortiz Mountains and Hillsboro's mines would produce $6.75 million Confederate Dollars' worth of gold by 1904.

Nine miles north of Fredericktown in Missouri, miners produced some silver for the state, helping pay down its debts and fund the construction of the new state capitol after the fourth one got struck by lightning in 1902.

Missouri's Fifth Capitol

In South California, Randsburg became a boomtown for its gold mines. Nearby Arizona's mines at Tombstone, Bisbee, and Longstreet (Globe) were producing record silver, along with gold and copper. Georgia's Gold Belt would continue to produce in small amounts until 1957, but would not be as famous as the western mines. It would be sufficient enough to pay off the debts of the State of Georgia from the war. Brewer Mine in South Carolina continued operating till 1988 producing Gold. Mines in Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, Durango, Sonora, Jefferson, and Rio Grande also produced gold, silver, and copper to help finance the nation's growth. The period between 1890 and 1900 would be a period of rapid electrification across cities in the Confederacy, as well as massive improvements in public sanitation and sewer systems. Diseases would become less common as cleanliness increased.

Wright Brothers and Flight

Back in 1899, the Wright brothers began their experiments in flight in Ohio, United States in 1899. In the fall of 1900, 1901, and 1902, the Wrights went to North Carolina to conduct their flight tests. By 1902, they were ready to install a gasoline engine on their glider. A young man by the name of Cyrus McCormick II, son of the late Cyrus McCormick, was in charge of the McCormick Harvester Machine Company's Virginia/North Carolina Division, and had heard about some flight tests being made in North Carolina's Outer Banks. He decided to venture out to see what was going on. He figured, if anything, he could get some good fishing in while he was there. So Mr. McCormick watched the brothers, and struck up a conversation with them, and made friends, being impressed by what they had achieved so far. Their method of experimenting and proceeding methodically, step-by-step impressed him, as they were advancing by steps just enough that they would really be able to achieve real flight, he realized.

Wright Brothers' 1901 Glider

1901 Glider with a controllable rear rudder

October 10, 1903 flight in NC

Cyrus invited the two to dinner, and they had some snapper he caught, along with sweet potatoes, baked beans, some sweet tea, and talked shop. Finally, McCormick offered to finance the Wright Brothers' work, and give them all legal rights to what they produced in exchange for a cut of the profits later. He even offered to get in touch with Henry Ford to get them a gasoline engine for their experiments.

The brothers returned to Dayton to think it over. Unfortunately, their partner Octave Chanute had been trying to sell their aviation secrets behind their backs, which made them furious. Chanute and Augustus Herring tried secretly to sell their secrets to Samuel Langley in Washington, DC. Fortunately, Langley hadn't cooperated with Chanute. That was the push that sent the brothers packing to immigrate into the southern states of the Confederacy. The two moved to Raleigh, North Carolina so they could work near McCormick's plant and have access to the Outer Banks as a test site.

Orville and Wilber set up a company, the Wright Aviation Company, with financial help from the McCormicks and Ford himself. The lawyers they secured assured the brothers they would be safe in any work they made into inventions, and they would get the patents. The brothers would make an airplane, but didn't have the knowledge to defend patents, so this made them much more confident in their choice to move south.

Their successful motorized flight was made October 10, 1903 in North Carolina at a place called Kitty Hawk. It was a short flight, but within a week, they would be making 1000-foot flights for over a minute. At this point, they would be using 'wing-warping' to make turns. But soon afterward, their associates at WAC would help them design an important improvement over 'wing-warping' - ailerons; hinged segments of the wings on the trailing edge which would pivot up or down, left or right, to control yaw and pitch. Soon the Wright Aviation Company was the recognized leader in aircraft design and manufacture, but it would be some time before it would be recognized for coastal or border defense. It would take a war to make that a necessity.

 

[JJohnson]

Suez Canal

The Suez Canal was initially built by the French, but became a joint British-French project in 1875, as both saw it as vital to maintaining their influence and empires in Asia. In 1882, ongoing civil disturbances in Egypt prompted Britain to intervene, extending a hand to France. The local government allowed Britain to take effective control of Egypt. British control allowed Coptic administrators into government for the first time in centuries, and soon, Coptic became a prestigious language again, and the Coptic church grew. Over the course of the next fifty years, as Egypt continued under British control, Egypt's Christians flourished more than they had in the last 8 centuries.

Fashoda Incident (1898)

In Africa, French troops tried to claim an area in Southern Sudan, when a British force purporting to be acting in the interests of the Khedive of Egypt arrived. Under heavy pressure, the French withdrew, which secured the Anglo-Egyptian control over the area. The status-quo was recognized by an agreement between France and the UK, acknowledging British control over Egypt, and French power in Morocco, but the defeat was humiliating for France and its Emperor, Napoleon III.

Russo-Japanese Incident (1904-1905)

Russia has for the longest time sought a warm water port that would be open all year long. Vladivostok iced over in the winter, and it had leased Port Arthur from the Chinese in the northeast of China. Japan wanted to create a sphere of influence on both Korea and Manchuria. Seeing Russia as a rival to its ambitions, Japan offered to recognize Russian dominance in Manchuria in exchange for Korea being within the Japanese sphere of influence. Russia unwisely refused and demanded Korea north of the 39th parallel as a neutral buffer zone between Russia and Japan. The Japanese perceived the Russians as a threat to their expansion plans in Asia and chose to go to war. After negotiations broke down in 1904, the Japanese opened by blockading Port Arthur and the Russian Fleet.

Seeing his options, and wishing to concentrate his energy elsewhere, the Russian Tsar was advised by his ministers to negotiate. Both the Japanese and the Russians negotiated with President Roosevelt and President Longstreet in Alexandria. The Treaty of Alexandria, negotiated in Arlington.

The two powers agreed that Russia would gain 'outer Manchuria' (light red, below) and the northern 2/3 of Sakhalin, while Japan would gain Korea as part of its sphere of influence. Russia also gained extraterritorial rights to Port Arthur as a Russian Cession and rail access to the port through Japanese-dominated Manchuria. In exchange, Japan would not place troops within 20 miles of its Manchurian border with Russia, if Russia did the same.

Avoiding a war and the casualties was great for both sides, but worse for Russia. It came out ahead in having its 1.55 million troy ounces of gold reserve intact, no casualties, no need for loans to pay for the war, and its three fleets remained intact. Unfortunately his unwillingness to win the war would boil over into the Russian Revolution of 1905.

Japan really came out ahead, as it showed an Asian power able to best a western power. Its victory gave it an edge in China, but the British, Americans, Confederates, French, and Germans all built up their Pacific Island bases and fleets as a result. Japan's emboldened military would take a more aggressive stance in China ahead.

China

In China, the Boxer Rebellion ended in its defeat in 1901. Before this, Christian missionaries had come from the west to evangelize in China. Even the Confederates sent missionaries starting in the 1870s, growing to the largest missionary group by the 1890s in China. They took their religious convictions seriously, viewing the relationship between God and an individual as a personal one, and one with which government must not interfere. Comparing their political philosophy with the various political philosophies they found in China, they professed that a Christian China would be the most successful if they adopted the Christian religion and the Confederate model - one of a strong local government and a limited national government. The Confederates professed this would give the Chinese a strong, modern, peaceful, and industrious nation, so long as they respected individual rights, promoted universal education and private property rights and the rule of law.

Confederate missionaries came from every denomination - Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, the AME, and even the Apostolic Methodist Church from Sonora, a splinter primitivist church based on the Bible and the Didache which worshipped on Saturday and integrated the Jewish festivals and calendar into their worship. Christianity's spread in China was impressive up until the time of the Boxer Rebellion, which targeted all western and Christian influences. Four hundred fifty Chinese Christians were massacred in Beijing, and outside was widespread murder - 250 foreigners, and 30,000 Chinese Christians were slaughtered. That was what brought in the eight nation military force to suppress the rebellion.

In September 1901, the Qing Dynasty gave western troops temporary control of Beijing and the port of Tianjin and allowed Christians to continue within China to convert people to the new religion. Confederates focused more in the central and south China areas, which were less devastated by the rebellion. The Yangtze River Valley from Shanghai to Nanjing, to Wuhan, to Chongqing, and on to Tibet, was where the Christian missionaries were most effective. They were also effective in Hong Kong and nearby Guangzhou (Canton), and west up the Pearl River in South China, north of French Indochina.

Confederates were seen as different by the Chinese. Unlike the French, British, Russian, or even US 'Yankee' (扬基). They were more often common folk, and their influence was widespread in China amongst the rural farmer, the urban worker, and the educated elite. Confederates were rightly proud of their country and its limited government; it let Texans manage themselves, Georgians manage themselves, and everyone kept out of the others' business. Georgia remained Georgia. Virginia remained Virginia. Every unique culture remained unique. As they traveled in China, they saw China was as unique and varied as the states in the Confederacy, and many people they met they told about their form of government and how it could work for them too; but they never pushed them or forced it on the Chinese like the colonizers from Europe. So the number of Christians in China grew.

A Nice Little Colony

In 1905, Napoleon IV visited the German colony of Kamerun on what was ostensibly a good will tour of his and Europe's colonies. He arrived in Kamerun and arrived near the northern borders of it, British Nigeria, and French Middle Africa, and commented that he was there to support the sovereignty of the Sultan, Tafewa, at N'Djamena, who had been fighting both the British and the Germans using bases in what would eventually be called Chad. His statement amounted to a very provocative challenge to the German and British influence in the region.

Germany, now under Kaiser Friedrich III, who was delegating more duties to his eldest surviving son, Prince Albert William Henry, sought a multilateral conference to call the French to account before other European powers. The French foreign minister, Theophile Delcasse, took a defiant line, declaring there was no need for such a conference. Count von Bülow, the German Chancellor, gave a calm assurance that war would result of they did not. Under Friedrich III, Prussian militarism was held in check, though it kept up enough that Germans did emigrate to the US, CS, and British and German colonies to escape military service.

The result of this diplomatic misstep was the Algeciras Conference, in Spain in 1906. Supporting Germany was Austria-Hungary, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Confederate States, which was present due to its large German immigrant population more than anything. France was supported by Spain, Italy, and Russia (Italy had gotten full control of Tunisia from France, and they were negotiating for the exact borders of Italian Libya). Realizing that their cause was not going to be won in the conference, the French agreed to a face-saving compromise, which resulted in Neukamerun being created for the Germans, France saying that the German colonial administration was best able to handle the security of its own colony.


Note: Bernhard von Bülow was born in 1849, and had served in the Confederate States, and then in the United Kingdom as a state secretary for foreign affairs. He even married a British Princess. His upbringing in Holstein, now Altona, Hamburg, was by governesses, giving him a grasp of English and French, and oriented him towards the British and their American and Confederate cousins.

Japan

France's colonies in Asia caused the empire to seek alliances, and found a possible ally in Japan. At Japan's request, Paris sent military missions from 1872-1880, and 1884-1889, to help modernize the Japanese army. Conflicts in China over Indochina climaxed during the Sino-French War (1884-1885). Admiral Courbet destroyed the Chinese Fleet anchored at Foochow. The treaty which ended the war gave France a protectorate over northern and central Vietnam, which it would divide into Tonkin and Annam. Under the leadership of Jules Ferry, the French Empire would greatly expand, gaining Indochina, Madagascar, West African territory and Central Africa, and Polynesia outside of the Confederates' Washington Islands.

Foreign Policy

To isolate Germany and its growing relationship with the United Kingdom, France went to great pains to woo Russia, gaining the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1894, and then the Entente Cordiale with Italy in 1904. By 1908, France managed, despite its alliance with Russia, to negotiate with the Ottoman Empire. The French promised Egypt to the Ottomans if they would fight a war on the French side. The Ottomans would agree in early 1909, despite France's alliance with Russia. Ottoman denial of the German-Baghdad Railway in 1900 was a blow to the Ottomans, who sought a deal the German Empire couldn't agree with - they gained too little with the concessions the Ottomans wanted (due to French back-channel influence). The Ottomans almost secured Russian aid, surprisingly, in the Turco-Italian War, but the Russian demand for what amounted to a Russian protectorate over Turkish lands scuttled the talk until 1909, when the Turks agreed to Russia's influence in Bulgaria in exchange for Turkish future influence in Greece, Macedonia, and Albania. The Turkish-Italian War was significant in that the two powers agreed to give Rhodes and a few islands back to the Turks, while the Turks recognized Italian authority over Libya, and gave favorable trade concessions to the Ottomans; this improved the Turkish economy and Italian economy, and helped smooth tensions between the two powers.

French Anglophobia was prominent in the early 20th century, after the Fashoda Incident. The Boer Wars in South Africa saw France's public opinion openly siding with the Boers, which was noticed in England.

During the Fashoda Incident, Germany secured closer British ties by supporting them with munitions during the Boer Wars that finally unified South Africa when the Dominion of South Africa, including Bechuanaland, was secured in 1905. By 1910, South Africa would have a population of around 5.3 million, of which 2.9 million were of European origin, and 950,000 were of Indian Origin. Bechuanaland never suffered any segregation as it had cooperated with the British, and were largely left alone; they did learn English and style themselves as the British did, and would largely assimilate into the wider South African society.

German Domestic and Foreign Policy

Kaiser Friedrich III ended the Bismark Kulturkampf and his new chancellor worked with him to agree to the use of Polish in schools and no punishment of Polish culture; in exchange, the Polish population in Posen, Silesia, and West Prussia would learn German and use it in court and in dealings with the government. The deal worked and the Polish in the east would embrace the German policy and government somewhat more fully, and even participate in colonization efforts, bringing with them their skills and knowledge to Tanganyika, Namibia, Togoland, Kamerun, and the pacific islands. German internal efforts at social programs soothed the public's desire for some government welfare, and cooled support for the SPD and its more radical Marxists, preventing a large build-up of communist sentiment in Germany. Reports from Texas Germans came back and even helped give the National Liberal Party a boost; the CS was free and successful due to its more unregulated and less heavy-handed government, so why not try it in Germany?

Colonial efforts began paying dividends, mostly in the western-most province of Kamerun, Togoland, German Samoa, and in Namibia with the restored Walvis Bay (1909). Kiautschou Bay also became a valuable export colony for Asian products, for which the Germans developed a fascination. Spices, silk, and other exotic Asian cultural items became prized in Europe. China (plates) became fashionable, and many in the nobility developed 'Asian rooms' in their palaces to show off things purchased from Asia.

Upon discovering the genocide in Namibia (German Southwest Africa), the Germans removed General von Trotha, who had damaged relations in the colony. German efforts to restore the confidence in their administration would earn public praise from the press in the United Kingdom; British had done much the same in the Dominion of Rhodesia, so they couldn't criticize too much what the Germans had done.

Bosnian Crisis (1908)

Austria-Hungary unilaterally declared its annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, timing it with Bulgaria's declaration of independence. Russia supported Bulgaria, and so did France, while the Ottomans opposed annexation of what it believed to be its province. This crisis nearly caused a full-scale war with Italy, Serbia, and Russia on one side, and Austria-Hungary on the other. Russia determined not to back down again and increased its military build-up.

Germany's slow and limited support strained relations with Austria-Hungary in the Bosnian Crisis, as Germany didn't want to risk a war with Russia at this point. Kaiser Friedrich III had just died and Kaiser Heinrich I was just getting control over the government at this point, and appointing a new chancellor.

Balkan Wars (1911-12)

The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkans in southeastern Europe in 1911 and 1912. During the first war, four Balkan states defeated the Ottomans, while Bulgaria, one of those four, was defeated in the second war. The Ottomans lost nearly all their holdings in Europe. Austria-Hungary was not a combatant, but was weakened as Serbia pushed for a union of South Slavic peoples into one nation.

The resulting wars increased international tensions between the Russian Empire and Austria-Hungary. It strengthened Serbia, weakened the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria, both of which might have been able to keep Serbia under control, thus disrupting the balance of power in continental Europe towards Russia (and its ally, France).

Russia initially agreed to avoid territorial changes as a result of the war, but later in 1911, supported Serbia's demand for an Albanian port. At the London Conference of 1911-12, it was agreed to create an independent Albania, but Montenegro and Serbia refused to comply. After an Austrian, then international naval demonstration in early 1912, and Russia's withdrawal of support, Serbia backed down. Montenegro didn't comply, and the Austrian council of ministers met and gave them one last chance to comply, or face military action. Facing military preparations, the Montenegrins backed down.

The Serbian government, failing to get Albania, now demanded that the other spoils of the first Balkan War be reapportioned, and Russia failed to pressure them to back down. Serbia and Greece allied against Bulgaria, which responded with a preemptive strike, triggering the second Balkan War. The Bulgarians crumbled quickly when Romania joined the war.

German support for Austria-Hungary was limited as Kaiser Heinrich I didn't believe Serbia was worth going to war, especially against the allies it had. Besides, Germany was more focused now on its colonies and currying British support than worrying about the Balkans. German diplomacy was pro-Greek and pro-Romanian, in opposition to Austria-Hungary's pro-Bulgarian views. Despite the strains, soon after the war's end in early 1912, the foreign ministers of both nations (Leopold von Berchtold and Heinrich von Tschirschky) managed to help smooth over their differences. But Serbia was not finished.

By mid-1912, France's alliances with Italy and Russia were set as were friendships with the Ottomans, strained as they were; German and British alliances with Austria-Hungary were set, and all it would take is one little spark to throw Europe into war.

Voyage of the Titanic (1912)

Showing off the impressive industrial might of the British Empire, the RMS Titanic, the largest and most luxurious cruise ship of the era sailed from England for New York and then south to Norfolk. In early April, it managed to hit an iceberg due to failing to heed ice warnings but its water-tight bulkheads closed shut quickly, and they managed to sail into New York safely.

RMS Titanic, which arrived in New York in April 1912

As a result of its encounter, new safety measures would be enacted in the British Empire, the United States, and even the Confederate States. Ships would need to carry life boats for the entire passenger manifest, taller water-tight bulkheads would be required, stronger water pumps, emergency evacuation drills (many civilians loitered about, hindering the crew's effective response), and stronger metals for hulls, as the metal used on the Titanic showed buckling, revealing its hull not to be as strong as claimed.