I think that it'll be closer to British spelling, as there isn't necessarily that cultural staple of British antagonism like the newly independent United States had. I do think the Commonwealth of America, Britain, and their colonies in Australia and Patagonia will develop individual but very interlinked cultures, like the various regions of the United States today. It may be a bit closer to the integral nations of the United Kingdom, almost. We may see this in the spelling and language as well, didn't you mention that Patagonia was mostly settled by Weslshmen, or am I misremembering that?
English Canada/French Carolina: A Timeline
- Thread starter Gabingston
- Start date
Patagonia had a lot of Welsh settlers, as IOTL. Overall, Patagonia will end up being a lot like OTL's New Zealand, the quiet, peaceful Anglo country at the far end of the world.
How do you guys think that the decolonization of India and Indonesia will occur ITTL? By this point in the TL (1920s/30s), there have been two major global wars that have likely weakened the European empires to a significant degree (sans The Netherlands, who have been neutral in both wars). Indians have fought in both wars for their respective colonizers, and I'd reckon that nationalism is beginning to surge in India. Meanwhile, Indonesia is probably just too large for The Netherlands to hold permanently.
One thing I've thought of is dividing both India and Indonesia further than they were IOTL. For example, instead of Indonesia being a thing, each main island would be a country, so Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi etc. would be independent countries. Feel free to leave suggestions or thoughts.
One thing I've thought of is dividing both India and Indonesia further than they were IOTL. For example, instead of Indonesia being a thing, each main island would be a country, so Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Sulawesi etc. would be independent countries. Feel free to leave suggestions or thoughts.
Part 97: The Crash
Part 97: The Crash
I’ve alluded to a coming economic crash in the Late 1920s in several different posts, so how about I talk about it now? For the winners of the Second Global War, the postwar period was a time of jubilation (this was particularly true in the Commonwealth of America, which was least affected by the fighting). After a brief period of adjustment from war to peace, the economies in the victorious countries prospered, the spirits flew high and the period became known as a golden age. However, nothing lasts forever, and this update will go over the collapse of that golden era, and what it would lead to. During the Late 1910s and most of the 1920s, the Stock Market saw an unprecedented explosion, as millions of ordinary citizens invested their money for the first time. However, with that growth in the value of stocks came a bubble, as many of said stocks were priced higher than they were actually worth. While some financial analysts had predicted a coming decline in the stock market starting around 1926, it wasn’t clear when or how it’d happen, nor was it of much concern to the shareholders who were getting rich. However, this would all come to a dramatic and sudden end in the Autumn of 1928…
On Wednesday, September 19th of 1928 (I looked up the calendar from 1928), Wall Street opened up to a massive drop in the prices of stocks. Panicked investors rapidly sold stocks in order to get as much of their money back as possible, only furthering the tanking of the market. News spread overseas, and the London and Berlin stock exchanges both plummeted the following morning. The stock market crash of Dark Wednesday would not cease after the final bell rang, as both Thursday the 20th and Friday the 21st would see massive declines in the market. With the bursting of the stock market bubble, the economy began to tank, with unemployment rising from 4% in August of 1928 to 12% by the end of the year, rising further to 20% by the end of 1929. While there had been financial panics in the past, this was far, far worse than anything that had been seen in a very long time.
Politically, the crisis caused great shifts within Commonwealth politics. The Liberal/Whig Party had prospered during the Golden Dozen, winning both the 1920 and 1925 Parliamentary elections over their historical rivals of the Conservative/Tory Party and the newer but rising Labour Party. The Liberals generally believed in letting the free market do its thing, and that was a generally successful economic policy during most of the decade, the public wanted the government to provide relief, which the Liberals were reluctant to pursue (out of the fact that it would cause large deficits). The Bank of the Commonwealth (the central bank that controlled the money supply, sort of like the Federal Reserve of OTL) was hesitant to print more money out of concerns over inflation, which inadvertently led to the country sinking further into economic turmoil.
The Labour Party had been founded around the turn of the century in order to represent the interests of working-class industrial laborers, and had won their first seats in Parliament in 1905. Over the following decades, they grew popular among the urban working class (particularly among Catholics and Jews), as well as among Black people both in urban and rural areas. By 1925, they had won around a fifth of the seats in parliament, but it was in the 1930 election that the party really took off. In that election, the Labour Party surged from just under 20% of the seats to just under 40% of the seats, becoming the largest party in Parliament (the governing Liberals took a huge hit, while the Conservatives lost a few seats here and there), as well as taking control of over a dozen provincial governments. New Scotland MP John McKay became the first Labour head of government (as well as the first Catholic head of government). Now that the Labour Party was the largest party in Parliament, they could get to work pursuing their economic goals. While not officially Socialist (although possessing a Socialist faction), the Labour Party was in favor of greater worker protections, a social safety net and government spending on public works projects to rebuild the economy. While they didn’t do anything too radical (some Labour MPs proposed nationalizing major industries, which even much of the party found to be a step too far), they did go and pursue a program of direct state investment into the economy in order to try and rebuild from the crisis (which peaked in 1931, right at the beginning of Labour’s five year term in office). Large sums of money were sunk into public works projects like roads, dams and railways, unemployment relief was provided to millions of unemployed workers and establishing programs like payments to the elderly. While recovery was slow, the Labour government was sufficiently popular to retain their status as the largest party in 1935, winning just under 40% of the seats in parliament. Similar governments were elected in other countries like Britain, Australia, Patagonia and the German States, while in other countries, their responses to the economic crisis were… a bit more interesting, but I’ll get to that in another update. For now, however, this has been an update on the state of the Commonwealth of America during TTL’s Great Depression. This is going to be my last update of 2020, so I wish you all a happy end to this miserable year. See you guys in 2021!
On another note, my next update is going to be on Africa. Any suggestions as to how a less colonized Africa would develop?
Quick hint for the title of the next update.
EDIT: This post is effectively obsolete now. I was originally planning on calling Part 98 "Nants Ingonyama Baghiti Baba", which is the famous opening line in The Lion King, but I backed off due to it being too stereotypical.
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I feel like even if the Europeans decide against outright colonialism, we will likely see dividing of native powers into spheres of influence and as potential consumers of Imperial products. Some states may be able to leverage this into a form of industrialism, perhaps? I do think France would at least attempt some form of settler colonialism in North Africa, this had been a topic of discussion for hundreds of years. An attempt by Anlgo-American authorities to settle freed slaves may also occur, even if the slave population in British North America is much smaller.
Also, Happy New Year! I've really enjoyed this timeline.
Also, Happy New Year! I've really enjoyed this timeline.
Thanks! France had controlled the coast of Algeria and the area around Tunis before the Second Global War, after which their control was reduced to a few coastal cities. I'm sure there would've been some degree of French settlement there, although their fate after the war is uncertain. As for the British/Americans settling freed slaves in Africa, it's a possibility, but I'm sure that they'd be hesitant to do so, out of fear that the freed slaves would defect from the British and side with the Native Africans.
You could take a look at the history of Sierra Leone or Liberia for an example of what may occur. I suppose it depends on how they are viewed in the wide society of the Commonwealth.
You may have mentioned this already, but are the British Caribbean colonies under the control of the Commonwealth?
I don't think that the British Caribbean would be part of the Commonwealth, too much of a geographic separation. There will be close ties between the two areas, with Americans traveling to Caribbean beach resorts and a good number of Caribbean immigrants heading to the Commonwealth (especially when the Commonwealth grows less racist towards Blacks), but the Caribbean most likely won't end up as part of the Commonwealth.
I can agree with that. Perhaps there's a Caribbean commonwealth, Britain has seen some success with federalizing its colonial territories in this timeline, after all.
There's a possibility that'd happen, but there's an equally strong chance that the Caribbean is split into multiple different countries due to the geographical and cultural differences (cultural regarding Puerto Rico, which is mainly mixed race and Spanish-speaking in contrast to the rest of the British Caribbean, which is mainly black and speaking English-based Creole languages).
Part 98: Back In Africa
Part 98: Back In Africa
Hey guys, and welcome to the first update of 2021! I was originally gonna do an update on Russia, but A: I had no idea how to approach it, and B: I haven’t done an update on Africa in about a year, so I think it’s time to revisit The Land of the Blessed Rains. This timeline’s Africa is a bit different than our timeline’s Africa, as European colonization is largely limited to the coast. Now, that’s not to say that there isn’t European influence in the interior of the continent, as the Portuguese and Dutch-descended South Africans have conquered the entire southern 30% of the continent (aside from Natal, which is British), but other than that, the interior is still under direct Native African rule. However, any sort of outside influence is much more indirect than IOTL, as most European presence in the interior of the continent is from missionaries, merchants and explorers, rather than direct conquest. On the coast, Europeans expanded out from trading posts to establish control (whether direct or through protectorates) over most of the coast (rhyming intended) of Sub-Saharan Africa. Even further inland, many of the native African states took on a lot of European influence,with the Sahel becoming a battleground of European states gaining influence, Portugal and Prussia influencing the Congo and Ethiopia becoming more influenced by the French out of Djibouti. In North Africa, direct French control over Algiers (and Spanish control over The Rif) was reduced to just a few coastal cities after the Second Global War, but Cisalpina and Naples retained control over the coast of Libya, with Tripoli and Benghazi becoming quite Italianized, although the Italians remained a minority in the region. The many French settlers in Algeria either retreated to the French-controlled port cities, returned to France (the most common option) or moved to other French colonies like Terre-Bourbon. Speaking of the French, they expanded their base in Djibouti to include a bit more of Somaliland, building a second base at Berbera whilst turning the Somali states into protectorates. Otherwise, some of the main native African states were Egypt, Morocco, Sokoto, Ethiopia, Zanzibar and Merina. Austria-Bavaria acquired a slice of desert coast in Mauritania and Western Sahara, establishing their main base at Weißekappe, which while extremely dry had much more tolerable temperatures than other parts of the colony.
As mentioned earlier in this post, the influence of Europe on TTL’s Africa is much more subtle and indirect than on OTL’s Africa, which was almost entirely conquered by the European powers. Many of the native African states (particularly in the Sahel and in East Africa) looked to acquire new technology (particularly military tech like firearms) in order to secure power and expand their realms, seeking to trade with the Europeans who were based on the coast, who were hungry for Africa’s natural resources. As a result, the Sahel states like the Toucouleur, the aforementioned Sokoto, Ashanti (no, not that one), Kanem-Bornu and Futa Jallon expanded and conquered neighboring tribes. Much the same played out in the Congo and the Great Lakes, with Lunda, Luba and Buganda all growing due to the new technologies. On the east coast of the continent, the aforementioned Zanzibar Sultanate expanded out from the coast into the interior, with the aid of anti-malarial medicine. Ethiopia (with weapons acquired from the French) expanded south from their highland abode into the desert. Yeah, I know it’s a lot of space-filling imperialism here, but I’m an ignorant westerner who knows next to nothing about Africa beyond The Lion King, but I think there is one region that I know at least a little more about…
Yes, I’ve gone the entirety of this update with only a passing reference to South Africa, the one part of the continent that I have even the slightest bit of knowledge about (and not coincidentally the most westernized part of the continent). Having taken advantage of the chaos and warfare in the Highveld in the Early-Mid 19th Century, the South African Republic had expanded as far north as the Zambezi, with easily the largest population of Europeans on the continent. Probably the most powerful country in all of Africa, South Africa had a total population of nearly 10,000,000 by 1930, with a near even split between native Africans and the non-native White and Coloured populations. To put it mildly, the South African government’s policy towards the native African ethnic groups like the Sotho, Tswana, Xhosa and Pedi… wasn’t exactly friendly. Due to the superior military tactics and technology of the newcomers and due to longstanding hostilities between the different Black ethnicities, the native Africans were ultimately defeated by the Boers. The tribal chiefs and kings had no choice but to sign treaties that relegated them to be subjects of the South African Republic, took much of their nations’ land and reduced their people to second class citizens. When it came to the Coloureds, there was a large debate as to whether they should be put as a middle group between Blacks and Whites or to give them equal status in the hopes that they would be gradually assimilated into the general White population (this was especially prevalent in the Cape Province, which had the largest Coloured population).
(It’s very awkward for me to talk about this, because I am on a music site that is very left wing politically and thus I assume are not very keen on taking things like racial terminology in other countries in context, and I use the same username over there, so if you are from that site and find this post: spare my life, and I will grant you three wishes).
Either way, the continent of Africa was in a period of rapid change, and whether for the better or the worse, this is far from the last time I’ll be revisiting the Land of the Blessed Rains.
Oh yeah, fill all that space, just slap empires all over it.~
I kid. Not a bad update! At least you tried something different than just smacking colonial empires all over the place. What's going on in Madagascar, then? There was an abortive effort to colonize it by the British during the golden age of Piracy (twas a notorious den of pirates), perhaps they snagged it in this world? Forgive me if you've already mentioned it.
I kid. Not a bad update! At least you tried something different than just smacking colonial empires all over the place. What's going on in Madagascar, then? There was an abortive effort to colonize it by the British during the golden age of Piracy (twas a notorious den of pirates), perhaps they snagged it in this world? Forgive me if you've already mentioned it.
Could you make a map of La Floride by black population percentage? Like every one of the different provinces on the map you could give it a percentage
Part 99: Hello From The Far East Side
Part 99: Hello From The Far East Side
For the final post before my Part 100 Special, I’m going to return to East Asia. I’ve already talked about China (and to a lesser extent Japan), but I still have a lot more to go over in the Far East.First, I’ll talk about the most modernized and powerful country in the Far East, Japan. Starting in the Mid 19th Century, Japan had gone through a massive shift from an isolationist, medieval-esque state to an industrialized and modern powerhouse of the Far East. Tokyo and Osaka had become some of the largest cities in the world, and Japan could now count itself as one of the world’s Great Powers. The Japanese Imperial Army was well-trained, disciplined and ferocious, and the Navy had grown to be the most powerful in the region, save possibly the British Imperial Pacific Fleet (I mean, being an island nation will do that to you). With Japan’s meteoric rise visible to the entire region, it wasn’t long before another country began to try to replicate its success…
Korea had been in a similar predicament to Japan. It was quite an isolationist country, keeping it’s distance from the outside world (with the exception of China, to whom it was a client state). Seeing the success of Japan (who was exerting ever more influence on Korea), the Joseon Dynasty began its own period of reforms, becoming the Korean Empire. Public schools were established, infrastructure was modernized and the military was revamped, among other things. While Japan had a bit of a head start on modernizing, Korea was following the same course, for better and worse.
Going further south, I’ll touch upon a region that I don’t think I’ve ever talked about: Southeast Asia. Now, unlike IOTL, mainland Southeast Asia (apart from a few port cities in Malaysia and the coast of Burma) remains uncolonized, but that doesn’t mean that European influence was nonexistent in this area. The European Powers (The Netherlands, France, Portugal, Prussia and especially Britain) were all interested in establishing ties with the Southeast Asian kingdoms of Siam, Cambodia and Dai Nam, including access to ports, allowing missionaries to proselytize and the drafting of trade deals (often times unfair trade deals in their favor, but trade deals nonetheless). Whether fair or not, mainland Southeast Asia became more influenced by the Great Powers of Europe (and also by the aforementioned rising power of Japan, which came to see itself as the new leader of the East). In the Malay Peninsula, the cities of Penang, Malacca and Singapore were under direct British rule, while the rest of the peninsula was divided between the British protectorate of Malaya and the southern portion of the aforementioned Siam.
In the island archipelago known as Indonesia or Nusantara, there was much more direct European rule. Starting out of their main base in Batavia, the Dutch had expanded their rule to cover most of the Indonesian archipelago, including the entirety of Java and Sulawesi, Sumatra apart from Aceh, the southern 2/3rds of Borneo (the northern third being under Bruneian control) and innumerable other smaller islands, plus the western half of New Guinea. Portugal controlled the islands of Flores and Timor, and the Prussians controlled the eastern half of New Guinea, although I’ve talked about that in a previous update. The Philippines were still a colony of the British, with Manila being home to one of the largest bases of the aforementioned British Imperial Pacific Fleet. Among the thousands of Pacific Islands, various European powers (plus Japan) were in a scramble to nab them up, with Britain, Prussia, France and Japan all acquiring little islands across the vast Pacific Ocean.
Across the European colonies in the Far East, nationalism and independence movements were on the rise. In the British Philippines, talks of becoming a dominion or even full independence were becoming more common, while in the Dutch East Indies, there was nationalism both for each island and for the idea of a united Indonesia. With high population growth and exhaustion from the Second Global War (at least for the British), it was going to get harder to keep large-scale colonies over time, so there was some discussion about decolonizing peacefully rather than being forcibly pushed out in the future, but it was rather minor for the time being in the home countries. Either way, this has been an update on East and Southeast Asia, and the final update before the milestone of Part 100, so I’ll see you then, so farewell for now and have a good day!