Aside from slaves escaping to the USA, I would expect that there will be 'maroon' colonies of internal escapees developing in more remote areas. Certainly the Confederate authorities will do everything they can to exterminate them, but I believe that some will survive in one form or another. These are not going to be Revolutionay Socialist states as in TL-191, but tight-knit communities of internal escapees, some indigenous peoples, and even some renegade whites. Brazil provides a number of these examples. This will of course add to the militarization of Confederate society and I believe also serve to keep the CSA internally focused and not adventuresome in foreign affairs. Even considering this, I see no strong reason to suggest that the CSA will last, although de facto slavery will need to be abolished between 1890 and 1910 due to international pressure. Just my random thoughts, but I did want to introduce the 'maroons' here.
How long would the Confederacy survive?
- Thread starter Dude-a-Buck
- Start date
The CSA didn't have much mineral resources, or agricultural land for the expansion of poor Whites looking to escape the dominance of the Slavers. Tamaulipas to Sinaloa has a lot of resources which could help grow the CSA’s industry in the early 1900s. Northern Mexico was not heavily populated prior to the mid 1900s, so the Americans can get it from the Mexican American War if they had a better negotiator than Nicholas Trist. The Slavers wanted San Luis Potosi, but I think that was too valuable for Mexico to relinquish. Taking the Yucatan would be asking too much in this situation. When California becomes a state in this situation then Los Angeles will split off with Baja to make South California. If South California had the southern Central Valley then it might be able to cleave it's territory to create a Middle California based on Tulare Lake and the Central Coast. New Mexico Territory would go to the sea, and another blob territory will be organized call New Vizcaya. Congress would drag its feet on admitting the populated areas as states until a large American minority could settle in those lands.
After Secession the territories will be reorganized to facilitate local American political domination. I presuppose southern California goes with the CSA. The Tidewater culture will expand to Sinaloa and the Californias similar to how New Englanders jumped to the coast of Oregon Country. Tamaulipas will be an attractive designation for all Confederate American cultures, especially the Deep South. Relocating the seat of the Confederacy to New Orleans or Houston would be reasonable. The early 1900s would have significant economic development in Confederate Aridoamerica, and it would probably attract some immigrants from the USA and Western Europe. The CSA won’t be as rich as the USA, but it will have a lot of oil wealth. A populist labor movement will develop in areas away from plantation power. Even in comparison to OTL the mid 1900s would be a time of acrimonious local and national politics, and race relations too. The boll weevil could spread into the Black Belt in the mid to late 1800s, and it would exacerbate social issues.
Oklahoma could be independent. The native tribes in Confederate Aridoamerica won’t have it as good as Oklahoma. The CSA will ally with Spain if the USA tries to create a puppet Cuba, but won’t get involved for Puerto Rico, the Philippines, or Guam. The CSA will have a hand in France’s Panamanian Canal. If the two Americas don’t go to war over the Atacama, Hawaii, or Cuba I don’t think they will become belligerents in the First World War. The USA might be less friendly to France and England in this scenario.
It is hard to say what happens beyond that, but now it has some legs to carry it through it’s problems. I don’t know how this Secession would happen though because it’s predicated on the South not having its manpower destroyed in a war.
I've read several recent books on attempts at industrializing in the immediate antebellum, and actual CSA, South. The Confederate ideology of states rights and a sort of folk libertarianism was a myth; it was very much a police state, with tendencies towards invasive state intervention and control of everyone. I don't think that the CSA - a state ultimately built, of course, on the violent suppression of much of it's own populace, and the willing subjugation of the rest, economically, towards a small planter class - would ever last. Maybe it makes it's way into the modern day, sure - but not as a nation of any import. Think . . . Belgium. Evil, maybe important on the global stage in the margins, but as cotton gets less important, industry gets more important, the CSA would become more and more marginal. Maybe as a Saudi-style petrostate, once Texan and Gulf oil gets discovered.
That said, my gut says that Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona and New Mexico end up back in the Union, one way or the other; quite possibly Arkansas, Tenessee, and parts of Louisiana, too. The parts of the CSA that aren't dominated by the planter class, basically.
That said, my gut says that Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona and New Mexico end up back in the Union, one way or the other; quite possibly Arkansas, Tenessee, and parts of Louisiana, too. The parts of the CSA that aren't dominated by the planter class, basically.
The only way the South could win is if they got foreign backing from Britain. No outside help, they are doomed. The naval blockade killed the Southern economy and the manpower difference is stark. Britain doesn't like slavery, but it is possible for USA and GB to end up in a war in 1862 or whatever and the South would be allies of convenience. Their expected lifetime is how soon it takes for Britain to force the issue. Whenever they wanted, they could decide that a slaveowning nation they helped create should either go abolition or get reconquered.
They can tell Richmond "I made you. I can unmake you." At this point the plantar class of the South can decide to destroy their own plantation economy, since they are now so dependent on slavery it would take a major restructuring to fix things and many people find out they lose their biggest asset despite never breaking CSA law (I mean they broke USA law just by succession... so arguably they are criminals anyways, but they don't see it that way). Seriously they are so dependent even if some ASB made the plantar class decide "yeah good Christians shouldn't enlsave other faithful," there isn't a painless way to untangle it from their economy. Or they lose a war, lose their slaves anyways, and end up in the same situation as the first except the nation is physically a wreck instead of just economically one.
Now, assuming attitudes don't change much in 30 years, you know which one the South would choose and between being racist or having self-preservation, which one they will pick right? So honestly, I'd be surprised if the South outlived Queen Victoria. Maybe continued slavery in Brazil might make Britain decide "eh, let's not spend our international clout on abolition since we have less leverage over Brazil and why use clout to do a half measure?" But the long story is the South lasts as long as Britain wants it to as it couldn't militarily win without their help.
They can tell Richmond "I made you. I can unmake you." At this point the plantar class of the South can decide to destroy their own plantation economy, since they are now so dependent on slavery it would take a major restructuring to fix things and many people find out they lose their biggest asset despite never breaking CSA law (I mean they broke USA law just by succession... so arguably they are criminals anyways, but they don't see it that way). Seriously they are so dependent even if some ASB made the plantar class decide "yeah good Christians shouldn't enlsave other faithful," there isn't a painless way to untangle it from their economy. Or they lose a war, lose their slaves anyways, and end up in the same situation as the first except the nation is physically a wreck instead of just economically one.
Now, assuming attitudes don't change much in 30 years, you know which one the South would choose and between being racist or having self-preservation, which one they will pick right? So honestly, I'd be surprised if the South outlived Queen Victoria. Maybe continued slavery in Brazil might make Britain decide "eh, let's not spend our international clout on abolition since we have less leverage over Brazil and why use clout to do a half measure?" But the long story is the South lasts as long as Britain wants it to as it couldn't militarily win without their help.