Well that's a significant increase from a total of 80 million in the US and Canada combined in 1900 in OTL. What does TTL Canadian prairies and arctic look like? To what extent are the British exploring their arctic holdings and extracting resources therefrom? Speaking of the arctic, what does Antarctica look like in TTL?
English Canada/French Carolina: A Timeline
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Well that's a significant increase from a total of 80 million in the US and Canada combined in 1900 in OTL. What does TTL Canadian prairies and arctic look like? To what extent are the British exploring their arctic holdings and extracting resources therefrom? Speaking of the arctic, what does Antarctica look like in TTL?
1. The Canadian Praries have been settled by this point, both by Americans moving west and European immigrants (mainly German, British and Scandinavian). The Arctic is still the Arctic, though, so not many people have moved there.
2. There have been a few gold rushes in the Arctic, but aside from that there's no real reason to move there.
3. Still full of Penguins.
Part 64: From The Cape to The Kalahari
In the second consecutive update on the Land of the Blessed Rains, I’ll go more in depth on the only region of Africa that I have a shred of credibility covering, Southern Africa. In 1850, the non-Indigenous population of the Republic of South Africa (Whites and Coloureds, basically) was 404,000 (1. I have absolutely no idea what the native African population was in 1850, and 2. I doubt that the South African government would’ve counted them)., growing at a steady clip due to a high birth rate and steady immigration from The Netherlands and Germany. After the explosion of immigration following the Dutch Civil War in the 1840s, the influx cooled down to about 2,500 per year during the 1850s, before reaching 5,000 per year by the end of the 1860s. The population grew to 558,000 by 1860 and 772,000 by 1870. After that, however, several key events would lead to a surge of European immigration to South Africa and change the course of the nation forever…
In 1872, Diamonds were discovered on the farm of Vooruitzicht in the Northern Cape, sparking a Diamond Rush that drew thousands of eager prospectors to the desert, both from inside South Africa and from overseas. Permanent immigration more than doubled from it’s previous levels from 1872-1875, before cooling down a bit after the rush concluded. However, that would only prove to be the warm-up, as the main event was still to come.
In 1885, gold was discovered in the Witwatersrand region of the Highveld, sparking a gold rush. However, this wasn’t any ordinary deposit of gold, but one of, if not the largest deposits of gold in the world. This seemingly endless deposit of gold (which is still being mined IOTL as of 2020) drew well over 100,000 prospectors turned settlers (I’m not counting those who returned home later on) through the latter half of the 1880s, and European settlement remained high throughout the 1890s. Goudenberg, the main center of the goldfields went from nonexistent in 1880 to a population of 125,000 in 1900. Kaapstad grew from 50,000 in 1850 to 275,000 in 1900, still the largest city in South Africa. The South African Government had also expanded northwards into the Namib and Kalahari deserts, the major settlements in those northern regions being Walvisbaai, Windhoek and Olijfhout.
By 1900, the White and Coloured population of South Africa had grown to 2,400,000, making up nearly half of the total population of 4.96 Million (the rest were almost entirely made up of Native Africans). Aside from the aforementioned Goudenberg and Kaapstad, some of the major cities and towns in South Africa included Stellenbosch, Paarl, Graaff-Reinet, Oudtshoorn, Swellendam, Mosselbaai and De Baai. Now, time for a brief touch-up on the neighboring British colony of Natal.
In contrast to the racially split South Africa, Natal retained a solid African majority of about 80%, due to its high Native population density. The non-African population was split pretty evenly between Whites (mainly British) and Indians, largely descended from laborers on sugarcane plantations. Aside from the capital of Port Natal, the major settlements in Natal were Richards Bay, Port Shepstone, New London, Umtata, Ladysmith and Newcastle. As with most of my updates, I don’t know how to close it out, so I’ll say farewell for now.
So, any other ideas for East Asia (China, Korea and Japan) in the Late 19th Century? That's gonna be my next update.
Poll on how much of East and Southeast Asia is colonized ITTL. IOTL, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos were all colonized (many of those names originate from the colonial era), while Thailand (then known as Siam) and China for the most part escaped colonialism. The Philippines are already under British control and India is already a hodgepodge of European colonies and puppets ITTL, so they're out of the question. You guys elected for less of Africa to be colonized ITTL as compared to our own, but maybe you guys will decide a different fate for Asia. Alright, here's the poll: https://www.strawpoll.me/19343885
Part 65: Asia in the Late 19th Century
Part 65: Asia in the Late 19th Century
Instead of my normal style of update, I’m gonna be doing a brief rundown of East Asia in the last few decades of the 19th Century by country and/or region:
- Japan: Japan continued to reform and westernize, developing a sizeable industrial base and taking large amounts of influence from Britain and America, the latter housing a sizeable Japanese diaspora (more on that in a future update).
- Korea: After being hesitant to western influence at first, the Joseon dynasty reformed into the Korean Empire, while also being contested between the three dueling powers of Japan, Russia and China.
- China: The Chinese governance system was steeped in millennia of Confucian tradition, but by the Late 19th Century it’d become clear that the system was in need of some serious reforms in order to keep up with the West. Military reforms were instituted after humiliation by the British and Russians, but it was an often long and tiresome process, since the Chinese elite was by and large Conservative (and for good reason, don’t fix what ain’t broken). Many European exclaves exist on the coast of China, the most notable being Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhouwan and Port Arthur, while the Japanese have their eyes set on the aforementioned Port Arthur, as well as Taiwan.
- Indochina: Indochina remains mostly untouched by European colonialism, as except for the coast of Burma and select British outposts in Malaya, this region is entirely independent.
- Indonesia: Most of Indonesia is under Dutch rule, but the islands of Timor and Flores are Portuguese, while native states like Aceh and Brunei remain independent.
- India: Pretty much where it was at the end of the First Global War
Part 66: América Española
Part 66: América Española
It’s been far too long since I’ve looked at Spanish America, so I’ll do just that. On the surface, the Spanish Colonial Empire is a behemoth, second only to the British, but dig deeper and one would wind that Spain by the Late 1800s is a shell of her former self, only propped up by her much more powerful ally, France. Despite this decline, Spain could still claim to be a Great Power, albeit not like in the 16th and 17th centuries. So, what’s going on in the Spanish colonies?
First, the northernmost colony of New Spain. This colony spanned from Costa Rica in the south (at least initially) to the 37th Parallel in the North (although the upper Rio Grande valley went a little bit across that line), the difference between the north and south of New Spain might as well be that between two entirely different countries. Northern New Spain was of predominantly European origin, while the south was of mainy Amerindian origin. Spanish settlers continued to establish new communities across the northern frontier of New Spain, including Las Ánimas, Porciuncula, Fresno, Los Robles, Papago, Campo Verde, Tres Rios, Alamosa and San Angelo, while also contributing to the growth of other Northern cities like Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Santa Fe, El Paso, Chihuahua and Monterrey.
In contrast to the unified New Spain, the Spanish colonies in South America were divided into three distinct viceroyalties. In the northern part of the continent, there was New Granada, based out of Bogotá, a centrally located city in the Andean highlands. Further south lied the Viceroyalty of Peru, comprising what was the heartland of the Inca Empire. The coastal port city of Lima served as the capital. Finally, in the southernmost part of the Spanish Empire was the Viceroyalty of Rio De La Plata, the capital of which was Buenos Aires. Rio De La Plata covered much of the La Plata Basin and stretched all the way up to Lake Titicaca, but funneled down into a small coastal strip that was sandwiched between Patagonia and Brazil. New Granada and (Southern) La Plata saw significant immigration from Spain and other parts of Catholic Europe, while Peru (and Northern La Plata, I.E. OTL Bolivia) maintained a larger Indigenous influence.
The biggest story in Spanish America, however, was the ongoing construction of the Panama Canal, spanning the 35 miles across the Isthmus of Panama, thus connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and cutting thousands of miles off of the shipping journeys from the Atlantic to Pacific. While a railroad across the isthmus already existed, it could only carry so much, and a shipping canal would greatly increase the capacity. A joint Franco-Spanish project, it was initially assumed that the canal would be an easy, quick project, since this was twice as short as the Suez Canal, whose construction had gone swimmingly. However, the conditions in Panama were quite different from the Suez. While the Suez Canal was built through a flat desert plain, the Panama isthmus was rocky, hilly and comprised of thick jungle, filled with dangerous animals and deadly tropical diseases. The mortality rate for workers in the early stages of the project were through the roof, and it became abundantly clear that this was not going to be an easy feat to accomplish.
While the Spanish administration of their American colonies had slowly liberalized over the past century, they still ruled their colonies with a heavier hand than the British did, and that left many Spanish Americans desiring independence, or more autonomy at the very least. The colonies had long surpassed Spain herself in terms of population, so it was only a matter of time at this point.
Australia and New Zealand in 1900 (This probably won't change much over time)
My next update is going to be on the Jewish Diaspora, followed by an update on Asian immigration, but after that will come the Second Global War, taking place around the same time as OTL's WW1. I expect this to be a pivotal event in the TL, shaping most of the 20th Century. However, I will need some suggestions for such a momentous event, so if you guys have any ideas on the following, just hit me up.
- What will be the flashpoint?
- Who will be on each side of the war?
- What'll be the major theatres of the war?
Part 67: Jewish Diaspora
Part 67: Jewish Diaspora
The Jewish people have had a long and complicated history. Originating in the Levant and having a long and storied religious tradition, the Jewish people were expelled from their homeland after the Jewish-Roman Wars of the First and Second Centuries, becoming a population scattered around Europe and the Middle East. In their new homes, the conditions they had to face ranged from some degree of tolerance to outright persecution and expulsion. While the status of Jews in Europe had improved in some countries by the Late 19th Century, there was still an undercurrent of Antisemitism in even the most liberal of countries.
Due to the centuries of scattering, Jews from different regions developed their own regional identities. The largest Jewish group in the world by far were the Ashkenazi, the Jewish populations in Central and Eastern Europe that spoke Yiddish, with the largest concentration of Ashkenazi Jews being found in Poland. Azhkenazi Jews made up the vast majority of the world’s Jewish population, some estimates putting it above 90%. The other major Jewish groups were the Sephardic Jews, originating in Iberia, but due to the expulsion were now scattered around the Mediterranean region, Mizrahi Jews, who had remained in the Middle East and North Africa and other smaller Jewish groups scattered around the western half of Eurasia.
In the second half of the 19th Century, however, another option opened up for Jews: Emigration. While Jewish communities had existed in the Americas since nearly the beginning, the second half of the 19th Century was when it really began to take off, especially to the Commonwealth of America. While Spanish America had seen the settlement of Crypto-Jews in the past, it was mainly closed off to non-Catholics, and while settlement in La Floride was open to any French subject, there simply weren’t enough French Jews to form a large Floridian Jewish population. However, the Commonwealth of America had religious pluralism and freedom baked into its very identity and offered abundant opportunities for migrants. Millions of Jews settled in the Commonwealth of America in the Late 19th and Early 20th centuries, largely in major cities like New York, Mount Royal, Philadelphia, Chicago and Kirkeston, forming their own communities in the process. Smaller Jewish communities also appeared in the other British colonies of Australia and Patagonia, as well as in Dutch speaking South Africa and New Holland.
To millions of European Jews, emigration provided a fresh start away from the troubles of the old world, a place to begin anew, and this isn’t the last time I’ll talk about a specific immigrant group, so stay tuned for my next update, and until then, have a great day (or night, I’m posting this at 11:00 PM local time).
What does the Hapsburg realm look like as of now? I'm sure the First Global War shook them up and hurt their economy as well as resulted in a wounded population with most families having at least one maimed family member. I remember that the realm was the highest in the polls for a republican revolution, so maybe it rises from the ashes left behind by the fire that was the FGW?
Yeah, I'm gonna change that to New Albion, the original British name for the West Coast.
Part 68: Asian Emigration
Part 68: Asian Emigration
In the last update, I talked about Jewish emigration from Europe to the Americas, and that won’t be the last update about a specific immigrant group. In this post, I’ll talk about East Asian emigration to The Americas and elsewhere.
With the increasing European influence in the Far East, there was naturally going to be a degree of emigration from the Far East. Many East Asian governments, however, were reluctant to allow emigration at first, and Western Colonies were just as (if not more) reluctant to allow East Asian immigration their countries.
However, a sizeable diaspora did eventually develop, as more Asians saw opportunities overseas and their governments became more favorable to emigration.The Japanese government relaxed emigration rules in 1885, seeing as there was a need to ease the population pressures. Across The Lake (the Atlantic is called The Pond, and the Pacific is bigger, so I’ll call the Pacific “The Lake”), the American West Coast was booming, and there was a large demand for labor for the lumber industry in Columbia and the agricultural industry in New Albion. Large Japanese communities developed in major West Coast cities, as well as in areas where the Japanese were brought over as workers, such as in the rice producing areas in New Albion and the forestry and fishing communities on the Pacific Coast. Many Japanese also worked on British plantations in Hawaii and the Northern half of Australia (which remember only goes up to the Tropic of Capricorn ITTL). In 1895, a numerical limit of 10,000 Japanese immigrants per year was set for the Commonwealth and 1,000 per year for Australia, giving priority to the educated as well as the relatives of Japanese who’d already settled overseas.
The Chinese had been settling all around Southeast Asia for centuries, but during the 19th Century, they started to settle outside of East Asia. Thousands of Chinese men emigrated to America during the New Albion Gold Rush of the 1850s, but most eventually went back. Chinese workers also helped build the railroads west of the Rockies, but once again, many of those also returned home. Most Chinese immigrants came from Southern China, especially Guangdong. By the end of the 19th Century, however, there was a steady stream of Chinese immigrants coming to America, as well as in Australia and Latin America, where many helped build the Panama Canal. As with Japanese immigration, a numerical cap was set, with the same familial and education priorities put in place. There was also a sizeable amount of immigration from the British colony of the Philippines, especially to Hawaii. Altogether, East Asians made up around 10-15% of the population of the Pacific Provinces by the outbreak of the Second Global War.
The Habsburgs lost a lot of land in Central Europe to newly independent states. After that, they formed a political union with Bavaria, forming the Kingdom of Austro-Bavaria (not sure how plausible that is, but hey, let's just go with it).