Dominion of Southern America - Updated July 1, 2018

[Umbric Man]

Nice touch on Red River colony still existing...

 

[Glen]

Not for settlement, for industrialisation and urbanization based on energy resources and other minerals. And only eastern Indiana, the Birmingham-Atlanta fan south of the Tennessee river.

Ah, so perhaps a location for future friction?

 

[Russell]

If you look at Queensland, Australia you will realise that British Rednecks are entirely possible.

We have them here in the UK anyway - they're called pikies.

 

[Nugax]

Heres a question Glen - you mentioned the US canal transport systems, but is British South America going to build canals connecting the Tennessee and the Mississippi entirely within its borders or try for the gulf coast canal earlier than OTL?

 

[Glen]

Yeah, but TTL has already progressed to the 1840s, which means it's already past the point that OTL's first great Canadian migration, and heading towards the start of the Irish diaspora. Thus most of the migration to the DSA has already happened.

This is true, but I've lost the reason why you're making this point again?

The Welsh seem to have come in several waves. The earliest group were Welsh Quakers who settled in the "Welsh Tract" in Pennsylvania.

Yep, knew about them - and that of course happened before the POD.

There was then a later, second wave which moved into Pennsylvania in the late 18th century further west in the state (Cambria county was originally a Welsh "colony" within the state). Later migrations were more scattered, generally farmers in the early 18th century (settled anywhere) and coal miners (PA, OH), and slate quarrymen (NY, VT) later in the century.

Some of this is still likely to happen, though some will also potentially be siphoned off to the BSA.

I have to admit, the problem with mass Welsh migration is unlike other areas which were "cleared" pretty well, like the Highlands and parts of Ireland, Britain has a real reason to keep a large labor force in Wales, particularly once coal mining kicks into full gear.

True enough. Then again, you only need a certain amount for a seed colony, and reproduction can do the rest.

 

[Glen]

Whilst doing some scouring of the timeline for earlier maps, I came across this:

I think you are correct, but the water is flowing into the part of Southern California claimed, and I imagine they could still swing it just so long as the US doesn't divert the water first. Anyone have a good reference on this?

In response to a question on LAs water supply. I've got some points to make on the matter and California in general, cue map:

Firstly the region marked A on the map is the source of the LA aquaduct - as you can see it lies completely within US territory. The explosive growth LA saw in the OTL is thus IMO extremely unlikely.

Yes, that is true, but won't be a real factor until the 20th century. There'd still be enough water locally for 19th century population growth I believe.

However that won't actually matter as the original growth of LA was due to the Southern Railroad terminating there, and I don't think it will ITTL. Since you naturally want the shortest route I figure the British moguls will be funding a railroad from Galvaston Bay, squeezing along the bottom of the western territories to arrive at San Diego (B) or Ensenada (C), and save two hundred kilometers of track. In addition they are both far superior natural harbours to LA and LA only won out as the Terminus in the OTL US due to lobbying and the fact the US tracks were coming in from the North East.

That is certainly one possibility. However, the known route to California from Texas is in fact to the North East of all three locations, thus making LA a shorter terminus than San Diego or Ensenada if the railroad goes that route. They would have to scout a whole new route to do as you propose - which they might do.

The Railroads won't be stopping in the Gulf of California (D) as the regions the BSA have gained feature absolutely no useful harbours (All the texas won in that concession was some nice beaches!).

True, but the other thing that the BSA gained was SPACE to have a more southern route without having to be literally running along the BSA/Mexico border.

San Diego and Ensenada also have the advantage that they can be watered by a bunch of small aqueducts in the mountains east of them, that trap somewhat more rain than LA does.

A point - whether it will be enough of a deciding point remains to be seen.

From this I can see three patterns of settlement - you have a large port/tourism/industry nexus around the two large harbours of San Diego & Ensenada, this being the BSA door to the pacific, and it waters itself in the 1870-1950 (when the Colorado can be tapped) by being a long linear system rather than LAs clump. North of that (in green) you have a light agricultural zone which includes the small city of Los Angeles along the coastal mountains, whilst the Inland Empire around the Colorado (purple stripes) sees intensive plantation agriculture for citrus and the like. The rest of the region is lightly populated with some gold prospectors, though >90% of the gold is in American territory. It will be rather different from the OTL Southern California even before you throw in the changes in cultural stock.

Overall reasonable thoughts, but what do you think about Santa Barbara?

Finally we come to the red striped zone - this is the bit of the central valley that is in BSA territory, and it presents quite the problem - excellent farmland, incredibly easy to access for Americans, very hard for BSAians, and a source for the central valleys water (that BSA might be wanting to divert).

Well, yes and no. What you say is true about its features except that you have to remember that there is a LOT of Oregon and California people will go through before they ever get down that far in the Central Valley, and much of the primary interest of the first wave there will be prospecting. And there's not gold in them thar BSA hills, which means that the American prospectors won't really be that interested in the region. And while they're narrow, there are in fact at least two servicable passes at the Southern end of the valley.

This will be a huge flashpoint for conflict and probably filled with Americans. If I was negotiating for either side I'd try and trade it for something else to prevent upsets, but I know you've got your heart set on the 36 border all the way across. I think the BSA will at least make it a special district to keep in under control.

Oh, that 36-30 border isn't as set in stone as one might think, but every time I've looked into it, I find the reasons for just letting it be more compelling than those for changing it, at least so far....

PS. I hope you have either USAian or BSAian Californian states renamed to make things easier to distinguish - Washington and Colorado perhaps?

Yes, there will be some renaming in future!

 

[Glen]

Well some immigrant communities just get absorbed into another group and quickly lose their separate identity. A good example of this would be Protestant Ulster immigrants to NZ. From what I can remember something like a quarter to third of all Irish immigration to NZ was Protestant and the early leadership of the colony (political and business) had a strong contingent (including prime ministers).

I for one have an ancestor who was a Protestant manager of an Ulster estate that had Catholic tenants, who ran him off, ending up with him immigrating. I also have Ulster Catholic ancestors who as tenant farmers were dispossed somehow (detail lost to history) and immigrated at roughly the same time!

That's an interesting personal insight, thank you for sharing that story! We'll have to keep that in mind. I think there will be a bit of separation ITTL though.

 

[Glen]

Not by that much - even if you take every single immigrant from Britain proper that didn't go to Canada in this time frame you'll still only have 1.6 million at most. Much like all European immigration British movement only really kicked off in the steamship era.

Though if that did happen it'd have the interesting effect of 35-40% of the population being first and second generation British immigrants. That'd be a massive cultural change.

What do you think, call it 1.2 million?

 

[Glen]

Assumptions:
1)The post ARW population transfers resulted in a net gain of 100k for BSA (also includes people staying in the Floridas, Indians moving south) from the *USA.
2)
a) All of the British immigration to Canada went to BSA in the ATL.
b) 50% of the OTL British immigration to the US and Australia went to BSA in the ATL.
c) 25% of the Irish and others that went to Canada in the OTL goes to the BSA, the rest to the USA.

These numbers seem reasonable. Anyone have a different perspective?

d) The USA gets all of the OTL non-British immigration that went to the OTL US in this period.

Most, but not all, I'd wager. Most of the OTL non-British immigration to Canada will go to the BSA as well. Remember that the British tried to recruit protestants from the Continent to offset the Catholics in Quebec. This same policy will likely apply in places like Louisiana, Cuba, etc.

3) The shifted population had the same growth rate as the OTL populations of those areas.

Assuming similar Caribbean developments the BSA total has a combined population of 11.56 million in 1850, roughly half of Britains population. Some sort of defensive war where the mainland has to call up Caribbean conscripts would certainly help with unity .

Very cool.

 

[Arachnid]

Originally Posted by Nugax
Assumptions:
1)The post ARW population transfers resulted in a net gain of 100k for BSA (also includes people staying in the Floridas, Indians moving south) from the *USA.
2)
a) All of the British immigration to Canada went to BSA in the ATL.
b) 50% of the OTL British immigration to the US and Australia went to BSA in the ATL.
c) 25% of the Irish and others that went to Canada in the OTL goes to the BSA, the rest to the USA.

a) I agree with, but I beg to differ on b)
We are assuming elsewhere that 50% of OTL British immigration to Australia still goes. However with a larger, better known and more prosperous British America the lure of the US is less. I would argue that 60% of OTL British emigration to the US goes to the BSA along with all British emigration to Canada.

c) Why would Irish and non-Brits who in OTL chose the cold and remote Canada over the US chose the US in this TL? Far from 25% I would argue that it would be closer to 90% of non-British immigrants to Canada choose the BSA.

d) The USA gets all of the OTL non-British immigration that went to the OTL US in this period.

Disagree again, the BSA is a more attractive prospect than Canada in OTL, being:

a. Less cold.
b. Bigger and thus better to known to potential immigrants.
c. Better tied into trade networks, further boosting its reputation.

I'd say the US gets 85% of non-British OTL immigration.

 

[Glen]

BTW, the below entry on the "Loyalist Yell" is a pastiche of the wikipedia piece on the OTL "Rebel Yell".

The loyalist yell was a battle cry used by Loyalists in British Southern America during the Southern Civil War. Loyalist soldiers would use the yell during charges to intimidate the enemy and boost their own morale, although the yell had other uses. The exact sound of the yell is unknown and the subject of much speculation and debate. Likewise, the origin of the yell is uncertain.

Units were nicknamed for their apparent ability to yell during battle. The 5th Company of Carolina Cavalry "Smith's Cavalry" were given the nom de guerre of "Comanches" for the way they sounded during battle.

The sound of the yell has been the subject of much discussion and debate. Southern Civil War soldiers, upon hearing the yell from afar, would quip that it was either “Grimes, or a rabbit,” suggesting a similarity between the sound of the yell and a rabbit’s scream. The rebel yell has also been likened to the scream of a catamount. The yell is often portrayed as a simple “yee-haw” and in some parts of British Southern America, "yee-ha". The yell has also been described as similar to Native American cries, and indeed the allied civilized tribes were also known to use the loyalist yell. One description says it was a cross between an "Indian whoop and wolf-howl".

One classic Southern Civil War novel has a character giving the yell sounding as a "yee-aay-eee" upon hearing the war had started. Yet another from the same period, by contrast, has the yell sounding as a high pitched "yay-hoo" repeated several times in rapid succession. Some newspaper accounts document several Loyalist veterans performing the yell as a high-pitched "Wa-woo-woohoo, wa-woo woohoo."

In "The Slaver Uprising," Jones, notes that historians aren't quite sure how the yell sounded, being described as "a foxhunt yip mixed up with sort of a banshee squall". He recounts the story of a Loyalist veteran invited to speak before a ladies' society dinner. They asked him for a demonstration of the loyalist yell, but he refused on the grounds that it could only be done "at a run", and couldn't be done anyway with "a belly full of food". Anecdotes from former Confederationist soldiers described the yell with reference to "a peculiar corkscrew sensation that went up your spine when you heard it" along with a claim that "if you claim you heard it and weren't scared that means you never heard it".

Given the differences in descriptions of the yell, there may have been several distinctive yells associated with the different companies and their respective geographical areas.

The yell has often been linked to Native American cries. Loyalist soldiers may have either imitated or learned the yell from Native American groups, many of whom sided with the British. Some Texas units mingled Comanche war woops into their own, Confederationist version of the yell. The yell has also been associated with hunting cries. Perhaps loyalist soldiers imitated the cries of their hunting dogs.

Another plausible source of the loyalist yell is that it derived from the screams traditionally made by Scottish Highlanders when making a Highland charge during battle. At the Battle of Killiecrankie "Dundee and the Chiefs chose to employ perhaps the most effective pre-battle weapon in the traditional (highland) arsenal - the eerie and disconcerting howl," also "The terror was heightened by their wild plaided appearance and the distinctive war-cry of the Gael - a high, savage whooping sound...." Earlier documentation during the Roman conquests of Britain suggest the use of a particular yell uttered by the northern Celtic tribes of the region, in conjunction with wearing blue woad body paint and no clothing. The notion that the rebel yell was Celtic in origin is further supported by the fact that in 1790 there was a well defined ethnic division between the Northern States of the US and the Southern Provinces of the BSA. In New England 75 percent of the people were Anglo-Saxons in origin, while Celts outnumbered Anglo-Saxons in the South two to one."

A third explanation, with special reference to the rebel yells uttered by the Loyalist Bands of North Carolina is that the rebel yell was partly adapted from the specialized cries used by men experienced in fox hunting. Sidney Lanier, the poet and Confederate veteran, described his unit's yell as "a single long cry as from the leader of a pack of hounds."

Considering the existence of many differing versions of the yell, it may have multiple origins.

Contemporary Accounts:

• One of the earliest accounts of use of the yell comes from an order that was given during a bayonet charge to "yell like furies", which was instrumental in routing the slaver forces under Pinckney back to Charleston.
• A diary noted, “Then arose that do-or-die expression, that maniacal maelstrom of sound; that penetrating, rasping, shrieking, blood-curdling noise that could be heard for miles and whose volume reached the heavens–such an expression as never yet came from the throats of sane men, but from men whom the seething blast of an imaginary hell would not check while the sound lasted.”
• A newspaper account recorded, "It paragons description, that yell! How it starts deep and ends high, how it rises into three increasing crescendos and breaks with a command of battle."
• North Carolina Magazine account, “In an instant every voice with one accord vigorously shouted the ‘Loyalist yell,’ which was so often heard on the field of battle. ‘Woh-who-ey! who-ey! who-ey! Woh-who-ey! who-ey!’ etc. (The best illustration of this "true yell" which can be given the reader is by spelling it as above, with directions to sound the first syllable ‘who’ short and low, and the second "who" with a very high and prolonged note deflecting upon the third syllable "ey.")”
• Another journal account, "At last it grew too dark to fight. Then away to our left and rear some of Randolph's people set up 'the loyalist yell'. It was taken up successively and passed around to our front, along our right and in behind us again, until it seemed almost to have got to the point whence it started. It was the ugliest sound that any mortal ever heard -- even a mortal exhausted and unnerved by two days of hard fighting, without sleep, without rest, without food and without hope..."
• A war correspondent for The New York Times describes the loyalist yell as follows: “..the British Loyalist soldiers cannot cheer, and what passes muster for that jubilant sound is a shrill ringing scream with a touch of the Indian war-whoop in it.”

 

[Glen]

Oh dear, of dear, oh dear, these really aren't Brits, despite their loyalty to the Crown, any more but are instead proto-rednecks.

Sounds more like they think they're owls than wolves

That statement is.... head fuzzing...

Hey, just because I add a little local flavor and a twist on an old tradition doesn't mean that they are going to be "Crown Rednecks". Sheesh....

 

[Glen]

If you look at Queensland, Australia you will realise that British Rednecks are entirely possible.

And what is the immigrant background of that area?

 

[Glen]

Nice touch on Red River colony still existing...

Thank you very much! I thought Arkansas made a lot of sense for Douglas (OTL Lord Selkirk) as a parallel to what he tried OTL, and then there it was, this river with the same name, just begging to be used!

 

[Glen]

We have them here in the UK anyway - they're called pikies.

Ah. What is the origin of the term?

 

[Glen]

Heres a question Glen - you mentioned the US canal transport systems, but is British South America going to build canals connecting the Tennessee and the Mississippi entirely within its borders or try for the gulf coast canal earlier than OTL?

Yes, yes they are. That is in the cue, but there's some other stuff I'm trying to get out first.

 

[Falastur]

Ah. What is the origin of the term?

Pikeys and rednecks aren't exactly the same. Ignoring the slang taken up by some areas of the country for a while using "pikey" for "chav" (google/youtube it if you haven't heard the term, it's too hard to explain), "pikey" is a somewhat unpolitically-correct term for the likes of gypsies and travellers in the UK. The term comes from the verb "piking" from the 1500s which meant leaving somewhere - hence the term "turnpike" - because of their tendency to travel around. They're not like Rednecks really as they aren't characterised as being very in-bred (though they don't tend to marry outside their own) or the types to go around hooting or firing guns from pickup trucks etc, rather they tend to keep to themselves and act very introvertedly, and they hate other people going near their camps. Really their negative stereotyping mainly comes from the fact that they tend to disregard the law, not so much in a "we're better than the law" way but in a "we don't think we're the same as you therefore by definition we can't be subject to your rules" way, and so they get in frequent disputes for stuff like setting up camps on private property without permission and refusing to be evicted until they are ready to move on; refusing to pay tax; refusing to send their children to schools and the like; and most annoyingly having no shame in entering nearby property or shops and stealing anything they need on the basis of "we need it more than you".

So yeah...basically just think gypsies, only in recent times the younger generations have picked up the trash-talking and the fake-named-tracksuit-wearing style.

 

[Plumber]

I am very bored right now, and was wondering what Gregor MacGregor did in this TL. I don't think he would be butterflied away quite yet (born 1786). He lived until 1845, so maybe an obituary of him could be posted? I could definitely see him getting involved in Texas and the Mexican Wars of Reunification. Or if you don't feel like it, I could always right up a quick bio if that was okay with you.

 

[Hoyahoo9]

Ah. What is the origin of the term?

According to an article on the 2nd Boer War in a spring, 2010 edition of Military History magazine, the term "redneck" is derived from a perjorative Boer Dutch slang term for early English arrivals to the then-Dutch Cape Colony (as I recall, something like "roonieck"). It was intended both to prick their snippy, superior attitude and refer to their tendancy to burn like crazy in the hot, southern African sun.

Sorry I don't have the exactly accurate term or article reference: I'm at work and away from my source materials right now.

 

[Glen]

a) I agree with, but I beg to differ on b)
We are assuming elsewhere that 50% of OTL British immigration to Australia still goes. However with a larger, better known and more prosperous British America the lure of the US is less. I would argue that 60% of OTL British emigration to the US goes to the BSA along with all British emigration to Canada.

True enough. 50-60%? Maybe split the difference and call it 55%?

c) Why would Irish and non-Brits who in OTL chose the cold and remote Canada over the US chose the US in this TL? Far from 25% I would argue that it would be closer to 90% of non-British immigrants to Canada choose the BSA.

Maybe because they like cold? If they chose Canada from patriotism, they will definitely go to the BSA ITTL. If they chose Canada for the (shiver) climate, they will definitely go to TTL's USA.

Disagree again, the BSA is a more attractive prospect than Canada in OTL, being:

a. Less cold.
b. Bigger and thus better to known to potential immigrants.
c. Better tied into trade networks, further boosting its reputation.

I'd say the US gets 85% of non-British OTL immigration.

From those that went to Canada? Maybe. Then again, why wouldn't they go to the USA? One reason - Britain promoted Protestant immigration, and a pious Protestant may prefer the British to the Americans, even though the Americans are pretty Protestant still at this time....then again, those Deist Elites may give America a bad name in their eyes.