Empires of Liberty

JJohnson

Banned
Iroquois Confederacy

The fate of the Iroquois...

A Short History of the United States, (c) 2001

Chapter 8: Indians in the 19th century

After the Revolutionary War, the ancient central fireplace of the League was reestablished at Buffalo Creek. Captain Joseph Brant and a group of Iroquois left New York to settle in the Territory of Canada (present-day Ottawa). With the influx of settlers coming with statehood, the Iroquois were again moved northward and westward during the 1830s and 1840s, out of their original land grant on the Grand River. Brant's crossing of the river gave the original name to the area: Brant's ford. By 1847, European settlers began to settle nearby and named the village Brantford. The original Mohawk settlement was on the south edge of the present-day city at a location still favorable for launching and landing canoes. In the 1830s many of the Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca, Cayuga, and Tuscarora relocated into the Northern Indian Territory, later called Manitoulin, and Wisconsin.

Later in that same chapter...
The Indians who moved to Manitoulin were left to their devices for much of the 19th century, without as much of the European settlement until after the Civil War. The town of Monroe (OTL Sudbury, Ontario) was founded when a railroad was finally constructed by the Quebec Northern Railroad company, after a railroad employee David Van Der Kemp discovered large deposits of Nickel-Copper ore at the site. This attracted a number of Iroquois to construct railways and buildings, some of whom stayed in town for economic opportunities, abandoning their languages and ways of life for more "American" names and occupations.

And finally...

Today, there are approximately 152,943 people who claim Iroquoisan ethnicity according to the 2010 census. Of those, a majority (62%) claim to speak Iroquoian (including Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Tuscarora) at home and for business a majority of the time, followed by English and French. During the 1870s, a group of twelve missionaries from New York worked to create an alphabet for the Indians, eventually translating some passages of the Bible into Mohawk, and then the other five languages, upon realizing there were, in fact, differences between them. This simple act, upon the initiative of the priest, William Berkhof, from New York, preserved the Indian languages, and gave them a literature. Literacy spread slowly until the 1860s, and by the 1880s, over 80% of the Iroquois could read and write their native language. By 1900, over 95% were literate in Iroquois. Unfortunately, due to economic opportunities in Monroe, Thunder Bay, and across the Lakes in Michigan, and south in Ottawa, English made quite a number of inroads as Iroquois moved to the cities to seek a better life. The decline in Iroquois continued until roughly 1975, when a revival in interest in Iroquois, partly helped by the Travellers' song "Mohawk Man," aided both tourism and revived cultural pride that had been swelling since World War veterans returned from Europe, having been valued code-talkers in their units. Having sunk to less than 50% usage in the 1960s, the revival was such that now, over 2/3 of Iroquois can speak their native language, aided by Iroquois-language signage and print media being widely available in Manitoulin.

In this timeline, Iroquois is written differently from OTL. Nasal vowels are written like Portuguese (ẽ, õ), and the semi-open æ as ä. Long vowels are indicated by an accent mark (á) which developed from a macron first written underneath, then over, then finally shortened to what looks like an accent. Stress is written with a downward accent (à) over the vowel.
 

JJohnson

Banned
Telegraphs

Early long-distance communications arrive

Telegraphs and Telephones: Changing the World, (c) 1984

The first widespread long-distance communication system came from the work of Samuel Thomas von Sömmering, a German scientist working in Bavaria, in 1809. This design used 36 wires to electrolyze acid in vials inscribed with letters and numbers. It was a bulky system, but did make its way to Hanover and the Kingdom of Prussia, and through there, to the territory of New Brunswick in South America and Prussian Guiana to the north.

The improved communications in the two colonies spurred development in long-distance communications, notably the Cooke and Wheatstone Telegraph in 1837, which used needles to point to letters, which quickly supplanted the acid-using German telegraph in the British and German colonies, and was popular amongst business owners who didn't want to have to train their staff to use codes.

Independently developed in the United States, Samuel Morse developed his own telegraph in 1837. By 1863, the transcontinental telegraph line was completed, ending the Pony Express. Telegraphs started springing up across the United States, from Halifax to San Diego. The first Halifax-New York message was sent in 1843, and the first Houston-Monterrey message in 1844.
 

JJohnson

Banned
States and Borders

First off, 36°30' in the east.

How the States Got Their Shapes, (c) 2011

Virginia's Southern Border

At the western end of Virginia, the segment surveyed by Thomas Jefferson's father, Peter Jefferson, veers farther to the north. By the time the line arrives at the southwestern corner of Virginia, it was actually over 5 miles north of 36°30'. This was discovered when Tennessee applied for statehood, and its border needed to be surveyed. Colonel James Edward Abramson, a veteran of the War for Independence, was also an extremely talented surveyor. He surveyed the border for the western end of Virginia, and found that the old line of its border, 36°30', was further south than the current border by several miles. In 1791-92, the line was resurveyed, resulting in the current southwestern border of Virginia. Without this, Virginians living in Bristol might be calling themselves Tennesseeans, along with people living in Kingsport, VA.

And now Kentucky...
Kentucky's Southern Border

When Kentucky applied for statehood in 1792, its southern border was a simple continuation of the existing border of 36°30' it inherited from Virginia, or so it thought. When drawing the boundary between Kentucky and what would become Tennessee, Dr Thomas Walker's line mysteriously began veering north until it reached its terminus at the Tennessee River. Kentucky objected when it sent its own surveyor in 1796 to the Tennessee River, and found the line was about 12 miles north of its perceived border at 36°30'. When Tennessee gained statehood, its agreed northern border would be that exact latitude, which was eventually given a compromise in 1803, at 36°36'.

The border was extended when General Jackson purchased land from the Chicksaw Indians in 1819, dividing it between Kentucky and Tennessee at the original border of 36°30'. The issue would be revisited one last time in 1868, during a dispute in Clarksville over the border between the two states that attracted the attention of the Governor, Cyrus Jackson, who had kept the state in the Union, and happened to be a childhood friend of Chief Justice Wilbur Davidson. Kentucky successfully argued for the border of 36°30', despite Tennessee's protest, but given its recent rebellion, its argument fell on deaf ears, and the border shifted south to the same parallel as the Jackson Purchase of 1819.

So, a few slight map changes to KY, VA, and TN.
 

JJohnson

Banned
Methodism back in Germany

The Church in Germany, (c) 2000

Georg Großmann, a German priest from Hanover, had travelled to the United Kingdom in 1784, and happened upon the preaching of a man named John Wesley. He had been taught English and had years before had the chance to preach one Sunday before King George III years prior. This priest had admitted to experiencing some doubts of his direction in life, but one Sunday, he met the open-air preaching of John Wesley, and was transformed.

Großmann felt God calling him, and he converted to the Anglican Church, of which Wesley was a member, but when Wesley left to ordain Thomas Coke as the bishop of the Methodists in America, Großmann travelled with him. He became enamored with Wesley's style and learned with him the entire voyage. Großmann preached in Georgia and South Carolina along with Wesley before returning to England, and then, Hanover.

In Hanover, the church experienced some success, which was spread south into the slightly more liberal-minded Baden, Rhineland, Württemberg, and amongst the German-speaking Alsatians. The Catholic South stayed true to the Catholic Church by and large, with only a few churches opening in Bavaria, and in Austria, including Bohemia and Moravia, and then into Silesia. the EmK (Evangelisch-methodistische Kirche) grew at the expense of the Calvinists, with its doctrines of salvation a notable contrast to that of the Elect in Calvinism. By 1900, there were around 2.1 million members of the Evangelisch-methodistische Kirche, which grew to 7.1 million by 2000. The EmK appears strongest today in the Bavarian Palatinate, Rhineland, Hanover, Baden, Saxony, Württemberg, Silesia, and West Prussia.

220px-Logo_EmK_CMYK.svg.png

New Logo as of 1998
 

JJohnson

Banned
Joseph-Bernard Planté

A slight addition to the literature of the age...

Constitutionalism in America, (c) 1974

It later became known that John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, and James Monroe wrote what came to be called the Federalist Papers, along with several additional articles by Jacques Perrault in Quebec for the French-speaking population there. What happened after became a seminal reference for the Constitution for the next century and a half. Perrault and Monroe got into an argument with Joseph Planté concerning the extent of the Constitution after its passage, and before the passage of the Bill of Rights, as to the extent of the powers of this new government.

Planté argued that the general welfare clause could be used to allow anything at all without anything limiting it, contrary to the assurances of both Monroe and Perrault that the new federal government was limited only to those foregoing powers that were explicitly delineated. A series of letters between the three men included a series of hypotheticals that Planté thought could occur without explicit limits on this new government, such as giving money from printers, merchants, and ship-builders to vagrants and drunkards to continue their vices and not sober up, or sending money to foreign governments to fund their wars and depredations, or even allowing a foreigner to the Presidency without explicit definitions in the Constitution.

As early as 1792, Planté's fears seemed to come to fruition concerning the General Welfare Clause, when as a member of the House of Representatives for Quebec, a bill to support agriculture in New England came up for a vote. When New England was suffering a crisis in one of its most important economic industries (fishing), some Congressmen proposed that federal funds be used to subsidize that troubled industry.

James Madison quickly asserted that such a proposal was unconstitutional, explaining: Those who proposed the Constitution knew, and those who ratified the Constitution also knew that this is . . . a limited government tied down to specified powers. . . . It was never supposed or suspected that the old Congress could give away the money of the states to encourage agriculture or for any other purpose they pleased.

Madison then warned about the consequences of allowing Congress to expand the narrow meaning of the “General Welfare Clause”:

If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the “general welfare,” and are the sole and supreme judges of the “general welfare,” then they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county, and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the United States; they may assume the provision for the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, everything from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police would be thrown under the power of Congress, for every object I have mentioned would admit of the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the “general welfare.”

According to Madison, if the original intent of the General Welfare Clause were ever expanded, then Congress would begin an unbridled intrusion into areas that were deliberately designed by the Constitution to be under the control of the state and local governments. Two specific aspects of the Constitution were intended to prohibit such federal encroachments: (1) the Enumerated Powers Doctrine, and (2) the Bill of Rights – specifically the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.

Concerning the first, the Constitution authorizes Congress to address only eighteen specifically enumerated (that is, individually listed) areas and responsibilities; this is called the Enumerated Powers Doctrine. As affirmed by Thomas Jefferson:


Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but is restrained to those specifically enumerated, and . . . it was never meant they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers.

Many other Founders were equally outspoken about Congress’ limitations under the Enumerated Powers Doctrine.


Concerning the second point (the Bill of Rights), the Founding Fathers – dedicated students of history, government, and human nature that they were – knew that the federal government would invariably try to step beyond its enumerated powers; they therefore added the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution, directly stipulating that all areas not specifically listed in the Constitution were to remain under the jurisdiction of the states and local governments, which thus included areas such as education, criminal justice, energy, agriculture, and many others. As Thomas Jefferson affirmed:

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: that “all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people” [the Tenth Amendment]. . . . To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.

James Madison agreed:

I declare it as my opinion that [if] the power of Congress be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations . . . of the limited government established by the people of America.

Jefferson further explained:

Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance and from under the eye of their constituents . . . will invite the public agents to corruption, plunder, and waste. . . . What an augmentation of the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-building, and office-hunting would be produced by an assumption of all the state powers into the hands of the federal government!

As Jefferson summarized it:

The states can best govern our home concerns, and the [federal] government our foreign ones.

Revised in several later editions, but first printed in 1792 in both French and English, was the work called Constitutional Republicanism by James Madison and Jacques Perrault. Each piece of the Constitution received its own section, some several pages, explaining the origin of each individual power of the Congress, President, Vice-President, and the Supreme Court, and their limitations, the justifications, and historical precedents. The work ended with the conclusion that the federal government is a limited and defined compact between the states, and is given specific powers, while the states reserved all other powers.

The most important revision came after Marbury vs. Madison, when the Supreme Court assumed for itself the power of Constitutional Review, something none of the Founders still alive at the time had imagined, and people like Perrault and Senator William D Johnston from Ottawa had thought was wise. If the federal government were the arbiter of its own limits, they reasoned, then it would never limit itself, and continue to grow out of control. Before, the 11th amendment was adopted to override Chesholm vs. Georgia, but the 13th amendment was soon written over the outrage by a number of politicians in several states:

Thirteenth Amendment

Section 1: Upon three-fifths vote of the House of Representatives and the Senate, Congress may override a majority opinion rendered by the Supreme Court.

Section 2: The Congressional override under Section 1 is not subject to a Presidential veto, and shall not be the subject of litigation or review in any Federal or State court.

Section 3: Upon three-fifths vote of the several state legislatures, the States may override a majority opinion rendered by the Supreme Court.

Section 4: The States' override under Section 3 shall not be the subject of litigation or review in any Federal or State court, or oversight or interference by Congress or the President.

Section 5: Congressional or State authority under sections 2 and 4 must be exercised before twenty-four months have passed from the date of the Supreme Court rendering its majority opinion, after which date Congress and the States shall be prohibited from exercising the override.

This amendment was an important step in keeping Quebec in the Union, at a time when it threatened to secede over the thought that the Supreme Court could simply overrule the state's laws, and force Quebeckers to speak English or outlaw the church in Quebec.

And with Planté in the mix, the 12th Amendment is changed as well. He argued that a Frenchman could come to Quebec and have a son become President with no allegiance to the republic, having parents who are not citizens, and teaching their son in the ways of monarchy and tyranny, as the Constitution did not explicitly say what 'natural-born' meant. Future generations could take that to mean that one is simply born in the United States.

Twelfth Amendment

The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and all persons voted for as Vice-President and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate.
The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.
The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.
The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.
No person who is not a natural-born citizen of the United States, in having both parents a citizen of these United States at the time of his birth, and born within the sovereign States or territory thereof, or a citizen at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, shall be eligible for the office of President or Vice-President.

One President, the Republican Chester D Tavington, was removed from office in the late 19th century when it was discovered his father was not a citizen of the United States until he was 15 years old, meaning that Tavington was not eligible for the Presidency.
 

JJohnson

Banned
Russia goes at it with the Ottomans

Russians and Ottomans in the 19th Century.

Russian Military History, (c) 2007, Moscow Press

The Russo-Turkish War of 1789-1792 occurred along the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe. Russia gained Bessarabia and notable land in what is now the country of Georgia. It was a largely successful war, in that the Russians had taken the lessons of the Seven Years' War and the end of the prior war in 1774. Russia became the official protector of Orthodox Christians in the Empire, and took that role seriously. An unfortunate shipment from the newly Russian Crimea of goods to the Ottoman Constantinople had a number of rats in the hold, which ran loose in the Ottoman city when it docked, leading to an outbreak of plague in the city amongst a number of the military and civilian populations there, leading the Ottomans to believe in the so-called "Greek Plan," and the two powers again entered a war, where the Ottomans' army was disorganized and mutinous.

Another war followed in 1806-1812, again leading to another Russian victory after a difficult beginning, and without British support. The victory was more decisive than previously thought, and the Russians were able to cross the straits without Ottoman impediment for the first time. This ended after 10 years, and soon, in 1826, the Ottomans found themselves in another war with Russia. Shipments from Russia, unfortunately, had led to several smaller outbreaks of plague in Anatolia and in Constantinople with the rats held on board, and this four-year war faced another twist, in the support of both France and the United Kingdom of the Russians.

This war was sparked by the Greek War of Independence (1821-32), and included also the Egyptian-Ottoman War of 1828-1836, where the Egyptian sultan threatened Constantinople itself, while the British and French managed to send naval forces into the region in an attempt to make economic gains for themselves. The alliance was an odd one, but proved useful, and the Greeks proved a useful proxy ally for the Europeans, who had faced mounting public pressure when the news of the hanging of Orthodox Patriarch Gregory V on the city gates made headlines across Europe, and a painting by Delacroix was made. Ottoman atrocities were widely publicized, and Ionians were not stopped from being recruited into the rebellion by the British, and numerous freelancers fought in the war, including two American privateer ships.

In the Treaty of Adrianople, Greece independence was recognized, along with that of Serbia, and Russia gained control of Wallachia and Moldova. Greek territory included Thessaly, Crete, Western Macedonia, Epirus, and the Ionian islands, provided that British goods would be allowed into Greece duty-free, and Britain gained a naval station on Crete, while the straits were opened to commercial trade, opening up Russian goods to the warm water Mediterranean.

Modern Greece, (c) 2001

It was helpful that many of the Greeks escaped Constantinople before they could be massacred during the war of independence, into Russian controlled territory. Grimly, the number of Turks who had fallen to the plague also meant that the number of Greeks who were massacred was dwarfed by the number of Turks the Greeks had killed during the war. By war's end, about 920,000 Greeks populated the tiny nation.

Greece was fortunate to be led by John Capodistrias (Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias) in its formative years, and having played an integral part in the war for independence, negotiating a border for the fledgling nation that encompassed the Cyclades, Crete, Peloponnese, Continental Greece, Epirus, and Western Macedonia. The United Kingdom agreed to this in part due to outrage over the massacres of Christians, notably Patriarch Gregory V by the Ottomans, and also with the agreement to a British naval station on Crete. The Greeks got the unspoken British protection and economic aid, which Capodistrias used to full effect.

Capodistrias had entered service under the British crown in 1809, as ambassador to Switzerland, helping to organize its cantons into a unified country, and was later present at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 along with Viscount Castlereagh. His British experience led Capodistrias to admire the British system of governance as more advanced than those of other countries. When he was put in charge of the governance of Greece, he put his time with the British into practice. He worked with a number of reformers and liberals and helped set up a National Assembly, elected by universal male suffrage, with 350 members, and a Prime Minister selected by him, but confirmed by the Assembly. He was elected by the assembly as the first Governor of Greece, with a six-year term. He introduced land reforms, and the potato as a crop, made military reforms along the British model, though an American Colonel Nathan Walker spearheaded those reforms, having fought several battles in the War for Independence. Walker's style for explaining why he did things won him praise amongst his troops. Capodistrias introduced the new currency, the phoenix, along with a modern quarantine system, and a modern tax system that enabled the new currency to flow into government coffers.

A number of Greeks wanted to recapture Constantinople and urged war with the Ottomans, believing themselves able to take the city with a short war. Capodistrias, however, by this time in his second term as Governor, persuaded the Assembly not to go to war, and instead build up Greece and her military, and pursue commercial strength first, then reclaim the "future capital" of Greece. In 1843, his brother Augustinos succeeded him as Governor, and weathered the storm of 1848 well, as riots and revolutions broke out elsewhere in Europe. There were some riots up near Epirus and Macedonia for more liberalization, and some amongst the Maniates, which were brought under control with a program of liberalization in the National Assembly, which was split in 1849 in two: the upper Senate, and lower National Assembly. The upper had 80 members, and lower had 400. The lower house's election was every 3 years, while the upper house had 6 year terms. Augustinos negotiated with Britain in 1854 for a naval treaty to patrol the sea with the British, and with upgraded firearms for their military to 'secure British interests' in the region, or namely, to prevent Russian naval vessels from escaping the Dardanelles. By 1855, the small nation boasted a population of 1.4 million, and by 1865, 1.9 million.
 
You could have a different Russia (or China, or a combination of both) be the big bad of TTL, along with France and (maybe) Austria-Hungary.
 
Just be careful with the cross and flame logo. The United Methodist Church is very picky about its use, reserving it for official branches only. So a semi-official group of laypeople for instance cant use it, and a parallel organization in a universe where the UMC will never exist better not.

Edit. Showed my comment to my wife, and she pointed out that the two flame cross was invented in the 60s of OTL, and the two flames specifically represented the EUBs and the Methodists, who merged to form the United Methodist Church. There is a different cross that would be more appropriate, such used by the World Methodist Council. Eg worldmethodistcouncil.org its a cross on top of a globe. Eg the brithish methodists use a cross on a circle.
 
Last edited:

JJohnson

Banned
Loyalists Abroad spark new ideas...

Joseph Galloway; b 1731, d 1804, Hanover.

Joseph was a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly until the Revolution, and became an outspoken advocate for the American Loyalists, and their resettlement abroad, and urged the crown to create as many settler colonies as possible with those loyal to the crown. He believed that Britain would make up for the loss of the colonies with the creation of new colonies and their new revenues to the Crown's Treasury. Galloway was rewarded for his loyalties by raising up Hanoverian settlers for the crown, bringing his family to the European continent, along with several other Loyalists who were able to speak German.

Galloway was moderately successful in his endeavors, as Hanoverians did move to British South America, South Africa, and even as far away as Australia and New Zealand. But what historians have often forgotten, is his day-to-day interactions with Hanoverians, where he discussed his time as a colonist, his Plan of Union, bringing together all the British colonists together under the Crown with a President-General appointed by the Crown, and delegates appointed by the individual colonies. His idea was heard by a young Friedrich Dahlmann, who happened to be in Copenhagen at the same time Galloway was, eagerly absorbed his ideas, and spread them in the west of Germany, and even as far away as East Prussia. The idea of self-rule, having a say in one's own taxation, free speech, no censorship, and ability to defend oneself appealed to Dahlmann, and would eventually appeal to even more on the continent.
 

JJohnson

Banned
Presidents

A few notes on the early Presidents...

Life of Jefferson, © 2003

Martha Jefferson was her husband's constant companion while he travelled to France as the minister to that kingdom from 1785 to 1789, bringing their young children, Mary "Patsy," Jane, and Peter, while "Polly," Lucy Elizabeth, and Thomas G were left in the care of friends back in Virginia. He sent his children and wife home to Monticello immediately when the French Revolution broke out.

Thomas met an accomplished Swedish-English painter, Christina Cosway, also an accomplished musician of 28, while he was in France. She was married, and the two corresponded until her husband died in 1790, on the voyage to Newfoundland, while Jefferson was also grieving the loss of Martha who had passed away shortly before George Washington would ask him to become his Secretary of State. Her death was due to complications of childbirth, and perchance Ms. Cosway had a financial dealing in Maryland with her former husband's brother, who had stayed in the colonies and become a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses.

Her arrival was a godsend for the distraught Jefferson, who fell in love with her, and the two married after only seven weeks. Jefferson even taught himself Swedish over the course of six weeks, riding back and forth from the Federal District. In the ensuing years, she would give him five more children, including three sons.

The Road to 68 States

The American Republic started with 15 states, yet it was 13 who set in motion the Constitution, and that is why there are still 13 stripes on the flag, to remind Americans that it takes only a concerted few to overthrow tyranny.

Aside from states such as Nova Scotia, Georgia, New York, and Massachusetts, there were islands that were part of the United States, namely Bermuda and the Bahamas. Both had such a low population and little representative government, that Virginia assumed ownership of Bermuda, while Georgia assumed the Bahamas, until the Missouri Compromise of 1820, creating the first set of island states in St. John's Island, and Bermuda.

John Adams, (c) Nova Scotia Press, 2005

From the chapter on the Vice Presidency.

At the start of Washington's administration, Adams became deeply involved in a two-day-long Senate controversy over the official title of the President. At first, Adams favored grandiose titles such as "His Majesty the President" or "His High Mightiness, the President of the United States and Protector of Their Liberties." Upon hearing of such nonsense, President Washington took Adams aside while at dinner, and informed him that the plain "President of the United States," or even "Mister President," was enough. Washington took Adams firmly out of the room, and though it was not recorded what was said, Adams' behavior in the Senate changed markedly. The perceived pomposity of his former stance, along with his being overweight, led to Adams earning the nickname "His Rotundity." His term as Vice President proceeded thence with markedly more tact and restraint, preserving the Vice Presidency's active role in the Senate, built upon by Thomas Jefferson's tenure as Vice President during Adams' term of office.

I have a list of the first ten Presidents with some changes to OTL, but we have to get to those presidents when we get to them.
 

JJohnson

Banned
Spelling changes still happen this timeline...

Webster's Dictionary

analog (US, SA spelling)
analyze (US, SA spelling)
artifact (US and UK spelling)
centre
color
honor
mold
orient (US, SA spelling; UK, AU often orientate)
saber
theater
wagon (US, now UK, AU, SA as well)

Note:
AU - Australia
NZ - New Zealand, often follows Australian spelling conventions
SA - South Africa
UK - United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (including Gibraltar, British Guiana, and Malta as constituent countries)
US - United States of America
 

JJohnson

Banned
The burning of Quebec City...

The motives for the burning of the city of Washington and that of Quebec City is said to be the looting and burning of the assembly of Newfoundland, at St. John's by a Quebecker, Captain Pierre Renaud of the USS New Hampshire, who decided to fly the flag of Quebec underneath that of the US Flag bearing 20 stars (Louisiana had just become the 20th state).

Later in 1814, Rear Admiral George Cockburn sent Edward Jessup's Rangers north to Quebec, and Major General Ross' troops south in retaliation.

A force of 2,500 soldiers under Major General Robert Ross arrived in the Chesapeake aboard HMS Royal Oak, three frigates, three sloops, and ten other vessels.

Sailing up the Patuxent, the combined British naval and land forces dislodged the Maryland militia from "The Plains", a plantation on the south side of the river that was being used as an observation post and military barracks. The actions of the British naval and land forces at "The Plains" were part of an effort to neutralize any potential resistance by the Maryland militia to the subsequent landing of British troops on 19 August 1814. British army officers landed and threatened to destroy property. Their threat effectively resulted in the hesitancy of the local Maryland militia to oppose the invaders. The farm that the Maryland militia retreated to was probably Chesley’s Hill.

Jessup's force sailed far afield of Halifax, and up the St. Lawrence River. His force of 1500 soldiers landed at Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, capturing the town, and then marched south to Quebec City. Quebec militia slowed the troops, but were forced to retreat on August 20th after a defeat at the Battle of Beauport, Quebec.

After neutralizing American resistance, the Royal Marines already under Cockburn's command and Ross landed at Benedict, Maryland on August 19. His forces routed the US Navy's Chesapeake Bay Flotilla, a detachment of US Marines, and the inexperienced American militia at the Battle of Bladensburg on August 24.

Immediately after the battle, the British sent an advance guard of soldiers to Capitol Hill. Major General Ross sent a party under a flag of truce to agree to terms, but they were attacked by partisans from a house at the corner of Maryland Avenue, Constitution Avenue, and Second Street NE. This was to be the only resistance the soldiers met within the city. The house was burned, and the British raised their Union Flag over Washington.

200px-Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg.png

Flag that was raised over Washington briefly in 1814


The buildings housing the Senate and House of Representatives—construction on the central rotunda of the Capitol had not yet begun—were set ablaze not long after. The interiors of both buildings, which held the Library of Congress, were destroyed, although their thick walls and a torrential rainfall that was caused by a hurricane preserved the exteriors. Thomas Jefferson later sold his personal library of more than 6,000 volumes to the government to restock the Library of Congress, along with Henry Alline sending 2,500 from the Library of Halifax, most of which were one-for-one replacements for burnt books.

The troops turned northwest up Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House. After the US government officials fled, the First Lady Dolley Madison remained behind to organize the slaves and staff to save valuables from the British. Her role increased her popularity, even as it was embellished by newspapers.

320px-The_President%27s_House_by_George_Munger%2C_1814-1815_-_Crop.jpg

Ruins of the White House, 1814.

320px-US_Capitol_1814c.jpg

The burnt Capitol building, 1814.

320px-Chateau_Saint-Louis.jpg

Chateau Saint-Louis, from an engraving in 1802, former residence of the Governor of Quebec.

In Quebec City, Edward Jessup took delight in setting fire to Château Saint-Louis on Rue Saint-Louis, and his troops took to the Legislature Building a short distance away, burning it with such vigor that the smoke was seen across the St. Lawrence and as far away as Montreal. A new governor's mansion was built in 1817 in the federal style.

British-American Treaty of 1818, excerpted

Resolved, that the border between the United States and the British Rupert's Land be the Hudson Bay watershed as opposed to the St. Lawrence watershed, to be marked by mutual surveyors, and thence eastward to a line due north to the mouth of the Canniappuscaw River, following thence northward to the oceans of the Atlantic.

Resolved, that the Hudson Bay Company shall have access to and free travel of, the lakes known as Huron, Superior, Erie, Michigan, and Ontario for commercial purposes, and that of the St. Lawrence River, and of the Rainy River from the Lake of the Woods, and of the Pigeon River, to the Great Lakes.

Resolved, that the northern border between the United States and the British North American territory shall be the northern tip of the Lake of the Woods, thence south, and thence along the 49° parallel north to the Stony Mountains.
 
Great story, glad to see some more of your work. Just a quick comment about an older section.

An Island-Hopping Nation is the United States.

I'd think that the Marquesas Island natives wouldn't suffer such a big population crash this time 'round. Smallpox inoculation was well understood by the doctors of the time, and many lives could have potentially been saved. Additionally, slave-raids from South America also decimated the native populace - the presence of an American naval squadron and the American flag would likely go a long way towards halting this practice.
 

JJohnson

Banned
Colonialism in the first half of the 19th Century

Since France was removed from the Americas, its attention went elsewhere...

European Colonialism, ©2003, Chaîne Histoire Press

France, 1815-1855

After the Napoleonic War, France was removed from the Americas. It lost St. Martin to the Netherlands, Guadeloupe and Martinique to Sweden, French Guiana to Prussia, Hispaniola to Spain, Reunion to Hanover (now Charlotte Island), and St. Pierre et Miquelon to the United States (even though the United States had no part in the wars). India became British, along with Mauritius and the Seychelles.

The country really began its Second Colonial Empire in 1830 with the invasion of Algeria, the first of several during the expansionist phase of the French Empire. To this day, Algeria claims the region surrounding Constantine (containing the capital, Philippeville (OTL Sakikdah) and Constantine), Nemours, and Cherchell, all three today integral provinces in France.

(OOC: Sakikdah, Constantine, and Annaba make up the French province of Constantine)

Cherchell:
200px-Dz_-_42-00_Wilaya_de_Tipaza_map_-_daira_de_Cherchell.svg.png

Nemours:
200px-DZ-13-07_-_Ghazaouet_-_Wilaya_Tlemcen.svg.png


Spain, 1815-1855

Spain was not to be left out of the African colonial game, as it soon conquered what became known as Spanish Morocco, and like France, integrated this territory into the country, and sent settlers who within four decades, outnumbered and overpowered the native Moroccan population.

500px-Morocco-spanish-protectorate-1955-a.svg.png

Next for Spain came the Spanish Sahara, easily reached from the Canary Islands, and soon after Spanish Guinea. This small slice of territory was surrounded by Dutch Equatorial Guinea to the south.

History of the United States of Colombia, © 1999, Colombian Republican Press

excerpted:

If there were any one person who could be said to be responsible for the creation and independence of the United States of Colombia, or Colombia, as most Colombians call it today, it would be President Simon Bolivar (born: Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco). He was born in 1783 in Caracas, but due to unknown circumstances, his parents left for the British colony of Cuba, where he spent the first seven years of his life, before travelling to the United States of America for another eight years, until they returned to his hometown of Caracas.

The experience profoundly affected Bolivar, as he began to see the numerous British and American merchants in Caracas and Bogota not as outsiders, but as Colombians. Cuban British had settled in Colombia (estimated up to 12% of the population at the time), and some even took Colombian wives, who spoke both English and Spanish, like Bolivar himself. He saw first hand how British and American culture had brought freedom, peace, and immense prosperity, and he began reading voluminous amounts of American and British books, and ancient works, including Tacitus, Cicero, Livy, Adam Smith, and numerous other authors.

170px-Sim%C3%B3n_Bol%C3%ADvar%2C_1800.jpg

A young Bolivar in 1801

Bolivar served in the military at the Milicias de Veraguas, after having witnessed the inauguration of President Jefferson in 1800 in Washington, DC, on a voyage taken by Don Simón Rodriguez and his parents on the way to Virginia to secure an investor from Richmond. This left a profound effect on the young man, who wished to emulate the peaceful, simple, republican transfer of power for the people of his native land. When still a boy, Don Simón taught Bolívar how to swim and ride horses, and, in the process, taught him about liberty, human rights, politics, history, and sociology, steering the boy towards a number of British and American authors.

He surveyed the land while in the military, and served with distinction, but his career would take another turn when the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence was made in 1811. The junta lasted for 2 years, and was defeated, as was New Granada in 1816. Spain's direction for the colonies of New Granada and Venezuela turned the economy sour. In 1819, however, the Congress of Angostura was convened by Bolivar, other prominent Spaniard and British merchants, and local former military, 42 in all. They met for months to work out their differences and what their goal was. They came to the conclusion that independence was the only way to secure their own fortune and that of their countrymen, and wrote out a new Declaration of Independence.

The United Kingdom took the chance to support the rebellion, funnelling men and arms through Cuba, whose merchants had opened numerous markets in South America and whose wealth was dependent in some ways on the well-being of that land. British from the neighboring newly established British Guyana journeyed west to aid the rebellion, ironically the opposite of what they themselves fought against not less than 40 years prior.

It took several years, but the country finally acheived its independence on May 24th, 1824, when the Spanish finally capitulated at Puerto Caballo. Celebrations lasted two weeks, when the business of governing came to the fore. Drawing upon his influences, and the connections he had made serving in the military, where he passed along both a knowledge of English and his classics, the first constitution drew heavily on the American constitution in its basic framework; Bolivar saw hereditary leadership antithetical to America and including an abolition on life appointments to any government position.

The country would have an elected President and Vice-President, a Congress made up of a Senate and a Chamber of Representatives, and a High Court of Colombia, as founded. Senators served 6 years, Representatives 2 years, judges up to 12 years, and the president up to two four year terms.

The constitution also divided up the territory of the newly formed country into 12 states:
300px-Mapa_Gran_Colombia_%281824-1830%29.svg.png


While Bolivar was busied with forming his new country, he exiled the royalists into Peru, a noted royalist stronghold, which nevertheless declared independence not four years later. Some members of the Senate desired reclaiming Essequibo (now part of the British Territory of British Guyana), but as part of the treaty establishing Colombia, Bolivar and his fellow delegates to the treaty ceded all claims in perpetuity to any lands then held by the British Crown.

After two terms, Bolivar's presidency was at its end, and true to his word, he stepped down as President, letting his Vice President, William O'Leary, assume the Presidency after an overwhelming vote put him into office ahead of José Perez. O'Leary spoke fluent Spanish, and helped establish precedent that Spanish would be used to address the nation, but often used English with his British compatriots in Cuba. Bolivar was elected to the Chamber, and served to rally support against the Monteverde Rebellion.

Bolivar kept his word to José Padilla, a prominent black Colombian, and freed the African slaves in Colombia, though they would endure hardships for another twenty years until a series of laws assured their rights in Colombia.

To this day, Bolivar is remembered as the "South American Washington," for his leadership in the early years of Colombia, and his willingness to step down from the Presidency after two terms, unlike what was experienced in Peru and Bolivia after they declared independence, as both countries suffered decades of instability and dictatorship without the stabilizing influences of the British and Americans to the north.
 
Last edited:

JJohnson

Banned
Colonial expansions continue...

Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples, (c) 1994, with illustrations

Excerpted:

It is with great respect we must remember Lord Charles Somerset, the first Governor-General of Cape Colony, who began and led with great vigor the colonisation efforts in what we know call the Dominion of South Africa. For twelve years he sent out surveyors, soldiers, engineers, and settlers to tame the southern lands.

110px-Lord_Charles_Somerset.png

Lord Charles Somerset

Lord Somerset sent petition to the United Kingdom of the Netherlands for settlers in the eastern lands, and to the Parliament of our own empire for settlers in the west. Four thousand Netherlanders came in 1820, and another four thousand in 1822. In the same time, 12,000 English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish settlers came to the western and central plains of the land. Somerset had the arriving settlers stay in boarding houses for up to four months until passage could be arranged to the interior of the country.

He was succeeded by Sir Henry Barron, who continued his work from 1826-1840, in a period of great turmoil and growth for our southern dominion. In his efforts to encourage colonists to settle in South Africa, as opposed to Australia, New Zealand, or the Dominion of Southern America (as it became known in 1837), Barron encouraged architects from London, Greenwich, Manchester, and Edinburgh to settle and draw up the plans for the capital city of the colony, Cape Town, redrawing a number of streets into north-south and east-west grids, with a number of open-air parks to break up the towns buildings. The whole of the city was transformed by Barron, its main streets King George Street and Parliament Street, at opposite ends flanked by the Parliament Building, which was later replaced with the new Parliament Building after the fire of 1861, and the Cathedral of St. John opposite a seven-block open-air park.

292px-PBcath.jpg

Cathedral of St. John, which holds 2000 parishioners each service.


In Port Rex, which we now call East London, South Africa, the former Xhosa tribe started a war with the fast-growing settlers. Sir Barron and the settlers sent in troops, aided by the Mfengu tribe, and fought a five-month campaign against the Xhosa, ending in their surrender after the death of their leader. In the first of six major wars in South Africa through the rest of the 19th century, as British and Netherlander settlement encroached inland, most of the native black Africans attempted to massacre the settlers, but each time, the combined force of the Royal Army, including the Netherlander settlers, overwhelmed them. It took until 1908 before the final tribe, the Swazi, surrendered to Lord Harrington's force of 80,000.

Sir Thomas Cole became governor-general in 1840, and in his decade of service to the Crown expanded the railroads in the colony, linking Cape Town, Port Rex, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Kimberley, Barronstown (OTL Mbabane), and Zuid Rotterdam (OTL Durban) together in full within the decade. Cole's time also brought the unfortunate First Boer War with the Orange Free State, an unrecognized breakaway republic of Voortrekkers, a war finished in four months' time.

The Crown believed it needed a firmer hand in the South African lands, and General Sir William Maitland fit the role well in his sixteen years of service, to 1866, the third of five sons.

184px-Peregrine_Maitland_Portrait.jpg

General Sir William Maitland

As Governor-General, Maitland dealt with the untimely Second Boer War of 1854, a mere four years after the first, when Boer settlers in the declared, but unrecognized South African Republic, started a war with the Xhosa tribe, who then started massacring loyal subjects of our realm in an indiscriminate fashion, leading to a swift response by the General, in what became a six-month campaign he did not truly consider a war. The British Army, aided by rail and the new Snider-Enfield rifles, capable of twelve rounds per minute, forced the Boer and Xhosa to surrender and retreat until their final surrender in 11 November, 1854, when Josias Hoffman and Chief Maqoma were taken and executed.

Most of the tribes had been cleared by this point from the eastern half of what we call the Dominion of South Africa, with scores of black Africans having chosen to adopt English, Dutch, or Walloon French, and converted to Christianity. The former so-called "Boer Republics" were a source of difficulty in their treatment of black Africans, in opposition to those areas south and west, preventing them from participating in the franchise as was by 1875 the custom in the Cape Province. It took the investigative determination of Sir Phillip Cameron, in his report "On the Condition of Black South Africans in His Majesty's Dominion" to spur the Parliament to enact a series of reforms to counter their mistreatment. Having since served with excellence and bravery in His Majesty's Royal Army and Navy, we can say that the Black Africans are as loyal as any other soldier to the Crown and Empire.

Modern border of South Africa:
dae72a37eb47ad35929dcb9c2623fd8b-d6haeft.png


Note: By the 1940s, South Africa had a population of roughly 8.2 million, of which 5.9 million were listed as White, 1.3 million Black, 0.5 million Coloured, and 0.5 million Asiatic. The categories used at the time did not distinguish tribes, however by the 1960s, due to demographic shifts and populations moving about the country, such distinctions have lost almost all meaning. Black South Africans of today tend not to think of themselves in terms of tribes, but as South Africans. The population of the country today (2010) is roughly 49 million, of which 79.4% were listed White, 8.2% listed Black, 8.8% listed Coloured, and Indian or Asian at 3.6%.

First Language:
English: 63%
Dutch (African Dialect): 21%
French (African Dialect): 12%
German: 1%
Various indigenous languages: 2%
 

JJohnson

Banned
The Territory of British Guiana

Overseas British Territories (excerpted from Wikipedia, 2013, apologies for loss of original markup)

Name: British Guiana; (fr. Guyane britannique; nl. Brits-Guiana)
Flag:
320px-Flag_of_British_Guiana_1954-1966.png


Official Languages:
English: 83%
French: 8%
Dutch: 5%
Native Languages: 3.1%

Population (2010): 2.9 million

Ethnic Makeup:
European: 71%
Afro-Caribbean: 12%
Indian: 11%
Asian: 2.9%
Native American: 3.1%

Capital: Georgetown (population: 1.1 million)

Current border: recognized 1890, by US arbitration between Colombia and the United Kingdom in Jacksonville, Florida.

Guyana_regions_numbered_%28GINA%29.png

List of current provinces and their capitals:
1. Somerset; New Somerset
2. Queen Anne's Land; Anna Regina
3. West Demerara; Vreed-en-Hoop
4. East Demerara; Paradise; also contains the territorial capital Georgetown
5. North Berbice; Fort Wellington
6. Berbice; New Amsterdam
7. West Guyana; Churchill
8. Prince Edward; Nelsontown
9. Essequibo; Lindenburg
10. Midland; Tannenburg

As a result of the Colombian Crisis of 1889, a series of border forts were constructed, with roads and bridges connecting them to Georgetown and each other. Soon, railroads were constructed, and towns sprang up around these forts. Fort Lethem soon became a moderately-sized town on the Takutu River, and changed its name to Churchill in 1948 in honour of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
 

JJohnson

Banned
Do the BBC

An article on BBC in this new world:

Excerpted from Wikipedia, on 11-2012.

BBC Channels:

BBC One (1 Nov 1936)
-BBC One Ireland
-BBC One Scotland
-BBC One Wales
-BBC One Gibraltar
-BBC One World

BBC Two (8 Mar 1963); first colour station, with more 'highbrow' programming.
BBC Three (4 Apr 1971); originally rebroadcast American TV Shows in exchange for broadcast rights to BBC archived shows, mainly on DBC, but also NBC, ABC, and CBS, and translated into French for QBC.
BBC Four (18 Jun 1971); originally BBC Kids on BBC1, separated out into its own channel to handle new programs from the US, along with British versions, both cartoons and contest shows. Now targets kids, teens, and twenty-somethings.
BBC Five (23 Nov 1983); originally programming from abroad, such as Australia, Southern America, South Africa, New Caledonia, New Zealand, along with newer science fiction and action shows.
CBBC - originally part of BBC4, focuses on kids age 6-14
CBeebies - channel focusing on ages 6 and under with educational and entertainment programming, sometimes importing American shows as well.
BBC Movies - screens new and classic movies, typically from the 1960s to the present.
BBC Classics - screens classics from the UK and the US, including companies such as First National Pictures, RKO, and Universal.

Non-Fiction Channels:
BBC News (9 Aug 1996); first 24 hour news station to compete with Sky News
BBC Business (1 Feb 2007); UK's first 24-hour business news channel.
BBC Parliament (5 Sep 1985); broadcasts Parliament meetings from the UK Parliament and from 1994, after the Devolution Bill, the Scottish, Irish, Welsh, and English Parliaments. In 1995, four new BBC Parliament channels were created for each of the devolved assemblies.

Non-English Channels
BBC Alba - Scottish Gaelic language channel, all programming and news in Scottish
BBC Éire - Irish language channel, all programming and news in Irish.
BBC Cymru - Welsh language channel, with all programming in Welsh.

The Irish and Scottish channels originally subtitled most of the shows when they began in 1969 after a suit was brought against BBC for not providing a national media for the plurality of Irish and Scottish speakers, soon followed by BBC Wales. The first three years held mostly subtitled programs, with news and adverts in the local language. By the mid-1970s, however, locally produced and in-language programs had begun to air on the stations, and local dubbing talent had stepped forward in dubbing the long-running series Avengers, Doctor Who, Star Trek (from the US), Stratford, and From the North. Today, most programs from BBC1 to BBC5 are translated well in advance of airing and are aired dubbed in Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Cornish, and Maltese, with an SAP (second audio programme) in English.

The regional variations, BBC One Ireland, et al., have different station idents, regional news, local current affairs, and may opt out of the mother station's programming for local programs. BBC1 Ireland is the most different from its English home channel, owing to BBC Ireland, based in Dublin (the capital), scheduling about 35% of its programming on that channel.

Starting in 2008, a digital HD switchover came from the 625i to 1080i high-definition resolution, with eight hours of HD programmes available a week (three Mondays and Fridays, and two Wednesdays), reaching 20 by January 2009. As of 23 November 2012, all BBC channels are available in HD, with the analogue versions switching off on 11 January.
 

JJohnson

Banned
Separatism within the United States

Within the US, and its vast resources of land, there were many who came for religious freedom, and others to practice a 'purer' form of their religion.

Religious Separatism in the United States, excerpted from We the People: A Story of Freedom of Religion in the United States, © 2011

A number of people came over after the Pilgrims seeking religious freedom, and a number of new sects arose in the fertile grounds of the early American west. Notable today are the Amish, a group that left Europe starting in the 18th century, along with the primitivist group the Constantinians, which form the Constantinian Church in Utah and the surrounding area.

The Amish Mennonites began migrating to Pennsylvania in the 18th century as part of a larger migration from the Palatinate and neighboring areas. This migration was a reaction to religious wars, poverty, and religious persecution on the Continent. The first Amish immigrants went to Berks County, Pennsylvania, but later moved, motivated by land issues and by security concerns tied to the French and Indian War. Many eventually settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Other groups later settled in, or spread to Alabama, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Maryland, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Maine, Manitoulin, Manitoba, and Ottawa.

300px-Lancaster_County_Amish_03.jpg


In the early 18th century, many Amish and Mennonites immigrated to Pennsylvania for a variety of reasons. Today, the most traditional descendants of the Amish continue to speak Pennsylvania German, also known as Pennsylvania Dutch. However, a dialect of Swiss German predominates in some Old Order Amish communities, especially in the American state of Indiana. Both have been affected by the continuance of High German teaching and speech, especially after the second World War, when a large number of refugees and asylum seekers from the former Volga SSR, Transylvanian Saxons, and Polish-Prussian Germans, who first moved to Germany, and then to the United States. Even unintentionally, Pennsylvania German has begun shifting towards High German in writing and pronunciation with the availability of German-language newspapers, books, and other media nearby.

As of 2000, over 295,000 Old Order Amish live in the United States and approximately 9,500 live in Ottawa/Quebec. A 2008 study suggested their numbers have increased to 357,000, and in 2010 a study suggested their population had grown by 10 percent in the past two years to 449,000, with increasing movement to the West.

Amish church membership begins with baptism, usually between the ages of 16 and 25. It is a requirement for marriage, and once a person has affiliated with the church, he or she may marry only within the faith. Church districts average between 20 and 40 families, and worship services are held every other Sunday in a local church building, reminiscent of older church buildings found in New England, which act as a meeting hall and communal building for other activities during the week. The district is led by a bishop and several ministers and deacons. The rules of the church, the Ordnung, must be observed by every member and cover most aspects of day-to-day living, including prohibitions or limitations on the use of power-line electricity, telephones, and automobiles, as well as regulations on clothing. Most Amish do not buy commercial insurance or participate in Social Insurance. As present-day Anabaptists, Amish church members practice nonresistance and will not perform any type of military service.

Members who do not conform to these community expectations and who cannot be convinced to repent are excommunicated. In addition to excommunication, members may be shunned, a practice that limits social contacts to shame the wayward member into returning to the church. Almost 90 percent of Amish teenagers choose to be baptized and join the church. During adolescence rumspringa ("running around") in some communities, nonconforming behavior that would result in the shunning of an adult who had made the permanent commitment of baptism, may meet with a degree of forbearance. Amish church groups seek to maintain a degree of separation from the non-Amish (English) world. There is generally a heavy emphasis on church and family relationships. They typically operate their own one-room schools and discontinue formal education at grade eight (age 13/14). They value rural life, manual labor, and humility.

Middle Dutch
A group separated out in the early 19th century, calling themselves the Middle Amish, commonly called "Middle Dutch," seeking to get even closer to their own heritage. There are about 95,000 in the upper midwest who call themselves Middle Dutch, and speak Middle High German, influenced by the fervor in the country with the 1820s Great Revival, which reached even these Middle Dutch. Their numbers were buoyed by incoming Northern European immigrants in the 1840s-1850s seeking to escape the turmoil of Europe at the time, who found the group something familiar and reassuring.

The Middle Dutch sought to restore their cultural and linguistic heritage, while at the same time covering their culture in patriotic imagery from their adopted home country. This group sought to change their speech to Middle German, including letters such as ë, ʒ, and æ, and creating local printed literature, including Bibles, poems, newspapers, and periodicals, all in Middle German. Originally printed in Gothic miniscules, lack of availability led to that typeface quickly falling to Baskerville and other common American typography, which aided the spread of literacy in the region, and in helping the Middle Dutch communicate with one another.

The Middle Amish intentionally brought their clothing styles back to the styles used during the High Middle Ages, allowing colors to be used amongst themselves, unlike the common misconceptions of the other Amish. Men typically wear pants, boots, and long-sleeve shirts with jackets, except on hot days where short sleeves are worn. Women typically wear dresses with long sleeves, though younger ladies will wear pants and shirts when doing manual labor on the farms.

Somewhat anachronistically, the Middle Amish brought out new musical instruments and styles to their church worship, including the Nyckelharpa, Bagpipe, Hurdy Gurdy, violin, viola, piano, harpsichord, organ, guitar, cello, sticks, cittern, drums, and recorders, with polyphony, chants, rounds, and other styles that are very simple, but put together create a complex musical sound that exploded in the 1990s with several popular bands who imitated it on the radio.

A number of new Middle German songs have actually spread to the surrounding states of Manitoba, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Montana.

Faun-Webgrafik-2013.jpg

The band "Faun," an American German band inspired by the music of the Middle Dutch, whose costumes are also inspired by them.

These Middle Amish are pacifist, but each house has at least one weapon for defense, and every able-bodied man is part of their local militia for the defense of their neighbors and families. They largely self-govern in neighborhoods of tens, hundreds, and thousands, and elect their own representation in each. Many Middle Amish are farmers, though a number in the upper midwest have formed small towns with craftsmen who come into town for trade. These towns resemble a mixture of colonial American Federal architecture and German architecture.

There are no such things as Mormons, not in this world.
Religious Separatism in the United States, excerpted from We the People: A Story of Freedom of Religion in the United States, © 2011

Constantinian Church

Arising from the research of John Smith and Joseph Martin in the early 1820s, the Constantinian Church came about after the finding of the Codex Hierosolymitanus in 1818, and its translation in 1819 into English. John Smith was in England from 1816 to 1820, as his father was an Anglican priest and wanted his son to follow in his footsteps.

Sometime after reading the Codex's translation of the Didache and the Epistle of Barnabas, John Smith claims to have had a vision while praying in Westminster Abbey to restore the church. He had a printer friend print off two dozen copies of the Codex (even at this time it cost quite a bit to print such a book) and returned to the United States. Smith was an ordained priest in the Anglican Church, but felt so strongly in his calling that he spoke to Joseph, his brother, and Joseph Martin in Pennsylvania and convinced the two that the church needed restoration to its 'purer' more original form. They took the early name Archanglican, and began researching the early Christian church and its beliefs and practices.

The Didache and a number of early church writings went into the making of the Book of Mormon, whose second edition was titled the Way of Constantine, after the first Roman Emperor who legalized Christianity. Early rumors of this new sect in Illinois, and later Mississippi forced them to move out west into what would later become the state of Utah, and led to a very self-sufficient mindset amongst the Constantinians. Their book, the Way of Constantine, was a mixture of a large body of early Christian texts, and the patriotic fervor of the time. Their early settling in Illinois brought about an abolitionist mindset, which was one of the large reasons of their expulsion from Mississippi, along with Mississippians believing them unchristian for not celebrating Christmas on December 25th, and their habit of 'adopting' widows, which got confounded into charges of polygamy, which was never the case.

Smith became the first Constantinian bishop, and led a number of 'reforms' to get rid of things he believed had strayed from the original church. Joseph Martin and Smith calculated that Christ was born on September 14th, 5BC, and readjusted the calendar to include the Jewish holidays, such as Passover (instead of Easter), the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles, along with such Christian holidays as All Saints' Day, and new holidays such as Mother's Night on December 24th, to celebrate Mary, the Mother of God, and all mothers, and the new year, which he recalculated should begin on the Winter Solstice, since that was the day when the days began getting longer. He renamed the seasons to their Anglo-Saxon equivalents (Lenkten, Summer, Harvest, Winter), and produced a calendar that most Constantinians use to this day (the year 2016 in their calendar reckoning).

The Constantinians took from the Middle Dutch their use of archaic instruments and musical styles, and also their love of large choirs and large families, and grew rapidly in number. They spread through Utah, New Mexico, Sonora, Rio Grande, Texas, Idaho, Montana, and even up into Athabasca, Columbia, and Yukon. John Smith's last act was to appoint his son, John Smith II, as the second archbishop of the church. It was John Smith II who began the Constantinian fascination with gothic architecture and romanesque-victorian architecture, with federal influences, as can be see in the cathedrals of the Constantinians and their smaller churches.

To this day, there are about 21 million Constantinians, who consider themselves Christians, even though they are not in communion with the Roman Catholic or Anglican church. The first African-American bishop, Charles Wilson, a freedman, was consecrated by John Smith II in 1846. To this day, however, the Constantinian Church, like the Roman Catholic, does not have female priests. However, women serve in a large number of positions of authority outside the priesthood. It has a unique leadership formed by the Quorum of the Twelve, where the church divides the US into twelve districts, each headed by an archbishop and twelve bishops each with twelve priests and deacons, reflective of the twelve apostles; aside from this is the President of the church, who runs the financial side of the church, its charity functions, schools, and stores.
 
Last edited:
Top