How would an ethnically homogeneous US starting in the 1780s evolve?

fashbasher

Banned
I sketched out a scenario in which the US deports its non-Anglo populations to *Liberia in the 1780s in exchange for an earlier abolition of slavery, thus attempting to create a more ethnically and racially homogeneous country similar to those in Europe; it didn't end well for most of the people in that the Southern states needed to find an, ahem, alternate way to keep King Cotton going and wound up enslaving poor whites instead. Could it be possible for a more "European" state (in which there isn't mass slavery, racial or otherwise) to form with roughly the US' borders while retaining the same level of prosperity and similar economic drivers? There is some evidence that areas similar geographically to the American Midwest and South - flat, fertile areas - tend to be more right-wing politically for economic reasons (cheap labor plus larger farm size) in a Europe-wide study.
 
Import a few million indentured servants from poor areas of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Indentured servants could be worked harder than black slaves because owners did not care if they survived their seven year indenture.
As for religion: plantation owners could build Protestant churches and import Protestant ministers.

The downside is missing African multi-rhythmic music, gospel music, blues, jazz, rock and roll, etc.
 
The Jeffersonian myth wouldn't exist, at least in the South. You'd have a society that was much more stratified by class, like Britain. King Cotton and cheap land would still probably produce a lot of nouveau riches, but it would be hard to imagine the OTL South where a subsistence farmer with a few acres of rocky hillside was considered equal to a planter, unless small landowners can distinguish sharply between themselves and white laborers. I don't think that can happen while white laborers still have the option of claiming land somewhere.

Maybe sharecropping arises earlier?
 
I assume this also includes all non-Anglo whites? Do the remaining natives also get sent to Liberia? Liberia will become quite the melting pot.
 
Would you force African-American freemen to go to Africa also? Forcefully deporting them against their will? Remember there were a number of freemen in all the colonies, even the southern ones. Many were small farmers, fishermen, laborers, house servants, etc. I don't think many of them would like to return to the jungles of Africa.

What about the people of mixed race, what are you going to do with them as well as the Native Americans, Jews, Acadians, Catholics?

Just wondering.

Thank You,
MrBill

Edit: Correct spelling.
 

fashbasher

Banned
Would you force African-American freemen to go to Africa also? Forcefully deporting them against their will? Remember there were a number of freemen in all the colonies, even the southern ones. Many were small farmers, fishermen, laborers, house servants, etc. I don't think many of them would like to return to the jungles of Africa.

What about the people of mixed race, what are you going to do with them as well as the Native Americans, Jews, Acadians, Catholics?

Just wondering.

Thank You,
MrBill

Edit: Correct spelling.

Give 'em their own country with blackjack and hookers...likely one that's less suitable for plantation agriculture. Think a blacker Canada; less agrarian, a bit more socialistic (while still capitalist), and quite multicultural even if it isn't an agrarian paradise and salaries for the upper middle class are a bit lower (the super-rich can go anywhere as there isn't that much impact paying $50m in tax when you are earning $100m a year, and the poor would love to go to Black Canada were it not for their visa policies, but the upper-middle-class dream of going to the Homogeneous States of America until they're ready to have kids and want a safety net. I'm not saying it's inevitable that you'd get an economically right-wing great power in somewhere with so much flat arable land and such a sparse native population, but it seems more likely than not in most timelines.
 
I don't think this scenario is feasible. Transporting such a large number of people to Africa is not feasible logistically, for something that has no financial benefits. Also, how are you going to force free African-Americans to emigrate?

I think a slightly more realistic way to achieve an ethnically homogenous United States would be to make a law that non-white people cannot marry other non-white people, and that anyone with at least three white grandparents is considered white.

The result would be that the African-American population simply disappears by diluting into the larger European-American population. By the present day most Americans would be of about 80%–90% European descent and 10–20% African descent; they'd just consider themselves to be "white" and not think about their African ancestors much.

Sort of like what happened in Paraguay IOTL. It'll be more difficult to achieve in the USA because of cultural attitudes against miscegenation, but it may be possible.
 
1600's: Slavery never take's off in America and indentured servants from the British Isles take up the slack.

1670's: Bacon's Rebellion succeeds with Nathaniel Bacon leading a coalition of poor and middle class white and black farmers and tradesmen to victory. Bacon becomes de-facto Governor of Virginia until his death in 1680.

As result of Bacon's Rebellion, the importation of indentured servants is limited and the importation of slaves is prohibited in Virginia.

By the early 1700's, slavery is illegal in all British North America and the former African slaves have either returned to Africa or intermarried with the English.

1790: The first United States Naturalization Law is passed. The law provided the first rules to be followed by the United States in the granting of national citizenship. This law limited naturalization to immigrants who were free white persons of good character. It thus excluded American Indians, indentured servants, slaves, free blacks and later Asians although free blacks were allowed citizenship at the state level in certain states. It also provided for citizenship for the children of U.S. citizens born abroad, stating that such children "shall be considered as natural born citizens." In order to address one's good character, the law required seven years of residence in the United States and one year in the state of residence, prior to applying for citizenship.

1795: The Act of 1790 was replaced by the Naturalization Act of 1795, which extended the residence requirement to fourteen years.

1798: The Act of 1795 was replaced by the Naturalization Act of 1798, which extended the residence requirement to twenty-one years.

1800: John Adams wins New York and the presidential election due to fewer immigrants being able to vote in New York.

1803: Secretary of State John Marshall secures the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon.

1804: Federalist John Marshall wins the presidential election over Republican James Madison.

1808: Federalist John Marshall loses reelection to Republican James Madison after Marshall's embargo on trade backfires. Republicans win control of the House while the Federalists retain a narrow majority in the Senate.

1810: War Hawk Republicans lead the Republicans to victory in the midterms.

1812: The Federalists successfully block a deceleration of war on Britain until word comes from across the Atlantic that the British had conceded to US demands.

Madison narrowly wins reelection. The Federalists retake the Senate.

1816: Rufus King wins the election over James Monroe.

1820: Rufus King loses reelection to Republican William Crawford.

1824: President Crawford retires and Federalist John Quincy Adams wins the election over Republican Henry Clay.
 
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Immigration from Europe is capped at 5,000 per year from the 1790's until 1845. Immigration levels rise to 15,000 per year after the Naturalization Act of 1845 passes the Republican Congress and signed by President Clay.

As result of the lower levels of immigration, wages rise and the middle class grows. New inventions to save labor costs are also invented sooner.

Another effect of this is that more progressive and socialist ideas fail to gain traction with an American electorate with a stronger middle class.

Number of Immigrants Annually Admitted into the US
1790-1845: 5,000
1845-1857: 15,000
1857-1873: 5,000
1873-1877: 20,000
1877-1914: 10,000
1914-1924: 100,000
1924-1976: 50,000
1976-1990: 100,000
1990-1996: 150,000
1996-Now: 125,000
 
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Please expand. Not sure where you're going.
Butterfly theory would ensure that the same people aren't going to be born after the POD. Even if the names and parents are the same, simple genetics, saying nothing of different events, will make them different people who live different lives and do different things.
 
Butterfly theory would ensure that the same people aren't going to be born after the POD. Even if the names and parents are the same, simple genetics, saying nothing of different events, will make them different people who live different lives and do different things.

Well said. For simplicity's sake, I'm sticking with less butterflies.
 
Presidents of the United States
  1. George Washington........1789-1797
  2. John Adams..................1797-1805
  3. John Marshall................1805-1809
  4. James Madison..............1809-1817
  5. Rufus King....................1817-1821
  6. William Harris Crawford..1821-1825
  7. John Quincy Adams I......1825-1833
  8. Martin Van Buren...........1833-1841
  9. William Henry Harrison...1841 [1]
  10. John Tyler.....................1841-1845
  11. Henry Clay....................1845-1850 [1]
  12. James K. Polk................1850 [1]
  13. David R. Atchison...........1850-1857 [2]
  14. James Buchanan............1857-1861
  15. John Bell.......................1861-1865
  16. William Seward..............1865-1869
  17. Horatio Seymour............1869-1877
  18. Charles Francis Adams I..1877-1881
  19. James A. Garfield...........1881 [3]
  20. John Quincy Adams II.....1881-1889
  21. John B. Gordon..............1889-1897
  22. William McKinley.............1897-1901 [3]
  23. Theodore Roosevelt.........1901-1909
  24. Charles Francis Adams III.1909-1913
  25. Champ Clark...................1913-1921
  26. Warren G. Harding...........1921-1923 [1]
  27. Calvin Coolidge................1923-1933 [1]
  28. Charles Curtis..................1933
  29. Franklin Delano Roosevelt..1933-1941
  30. Thomas Dewey.................1941-1949
  31. Robert Taft.......................1949-1953 [1]
  32. Richard B. Russell.............1953-1961
  33. Stuart Symington..............1961-1969
  34. Lyndon Johnson................1969-1973
  35. Richard Nixon...................1973-1977
  36. Ronald Reagan..................1977-1989 [4]
  37. Al Gore............................1989-1997
  38. Bill Clinton........................1997-2005
  39. George W. Bush.................2005-2009
  40. Hillary Clinton....................2009-2017
  41. Jeb Bush...........................2017-
[1] Died in office
[2] President Pro Temp of the Senate who ascended to the presidency since there was no vice-president.
[3] Assassinated
[4] Only president to serve more than two terms.
 
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THE TWO MAJOR PARTIES:

FEDERALIST PARTY (FNC) - The Federalists recaptured the Presidency in 2016, following strong off-year elections in 2014 (recapturing majority status in the US House) and 2016 (recapturing US Senate control). The FNC also holds several key Governorships (including FL, GA, MI, IL, MO, MA and MD). Federalists run the wide gamut from moderate leftists (Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama) to populists (John Edwards and Jim Webb) to the pragmatic centrists (Mark Warner and Scott Brown) to the center-right (Jen Bush and Marco Rubio) to the dwindling conservative right (Gene Taylor and Joe Manchin). The 2016 presidential nomination contest saw a competitive race between the traditional Federalist establishment (Bush) and the populist wing (Webb), in which the establishment prevailed.

REPUBLICAN PARTY (RNC) -
The Republicans won the White House in 2008 and 2012, won some key governorships, but lost control of the US House in 2014, lost the US Senate in 2016 and the White House in 2016 (while still carrying a plurality of the national popular vote by a margin of over one million votes). The Republicans could generally be classified into several different sub-sets: traditional establishment conservatives (Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Paul Ryan), the "Religious Right" (Mike Huckabee, Ted Cruz, Tony Perkins), libertarians (Rand Paul and Mike Lee), the populist wing (Jason Carter and Sarah Palin, Chris McDaniel), the "paleo-conservative" wing that backs strict anti-immigration controls (Tom Tancredo and Steve King), the rapidly dwindling "centrist" or "moderate" wing (Mark Kirk and Charlie Baker).
 
I assume this also includes all non-Anglo whites? Do the remaining natives also get sent to Liberia? Liberia will become quite the melting pot.
More like a...dying pot. Literal melting pot (can't think of anything witty)?

Liberia had a horrifically high mortality rate for African-Americans who went over in OTL colonization and the American natives were already dying off in droves from Old World diseases. Not to mention just crossing the Atlantic and hostile natives. You send anyone from the Americas to Liberia before the 1800s, especially natives or Europeans, they're pretty much all going to die.
Also fairly densely populated.
Again, all dead. Fairly densely populated...with bones.
 
I sketched out a scenario in which the US deports its non-Anglo populations to *Liberia in the 1780s in exchange for an earlier abolition of slavery, thus attempting to create a more ethnically and racially homogeneous country similar to those in Europe; it didn't end well for most of the people in that the Southern states needed to find an, ahem, alternate way to keep King Cotton going and wound up enslaving poor whites instead. Could it be possible for a more "European" state (in which there isn't mass slavery, racial or otherwise) to form with roughly the US' borders while retaining the same level of prosperity and similar economic drivers? There is some evidence that areas similar geographically to the American Midwest and South - flat, fertile areas - tend to be more right-wing politically for economic reasons (cheap labor plus larger farm size) in a Europe-wide study.

Well, some pro-slavery intellectuals believed that it would be just to enslave poor whites, based on Biblical laws regarding slavery. The elite's contempt for poor whites is well-noted in Southern history. It goes without saying that wouldn't end well, since poor whites would lose the only thing they really had--that they were superior to blacks, and weren't at the bottom of the totem pole.

I can't imagine what the cotton gin would do to this society. And that's the biggest problem--where will the labour come from? American Indians? A multiethnic society where Indian planters (mainly from the Five Civilised Tribes) own and trade the poorer members of their people with whites and other Indians? But have them sent to Liberia in your scenario. Because of the forcible deportation and Liberia's disease environment, they'd probably beg to walk the Trail of Tears instead if that was an option.

Maybe Chinese labour? It didn't end up well in many places it was tried, since many Chinese had an economic mindset to become small business owners instead, since sitting in a Chinese laundry all day is somewhat more preferable to all-day backbreaking labour in the brutal Southern humidity, especially since your boss is a fellow member of your ethnic community. Thus, the Chinese tended to eventually leave the fields in many places.

Your other option is European immigrants, but not many will be Anglo. They'll have to lure Italians, Irish, and other ethnic groups who weren't well-liked. That kinda defeats the idea of an ethnically homogenous United States, since none of those groups were considered white for many decades. And besides, if you're one of these immigrants, why would you want to migrate to the South, where you'll be treated like shit and forced into borderline slavery doing horrible work? Might as well go to the North, where it isn't quite as bad. Or go to Argentina or something. There's also the fact that many countries like Japan and Italy attempted to warn immigrants about emigration schemes (like those in Mississippi and Brazil), and Italy actually got the US government to look into the case of a Mississippi Delta planter using Italians as peons. So even that isn't reliable.

Best case scenario--you get banks willing to loan to small-scale yeoman planters of cotton and tobacco, and those small-scale planters dominate the landscape of the South. Organisations of these planters, with the help of powerful bankers, manage to gain the pull which large-scale planters did OTL, which is necessary for internal improvements in parts of the South like the aforementioned Delta region.

I don't think this scenario is feasible. Transporting such a large number of people to Africa is not feasible logistically, for something that has no financial benefits. Also, how are you going to force free African-Americans to emigrate?

I think a slightly more realistic way to achieve an ethnically homogenous United States would be to make a law that non-white people cannot marry other non-white people, and that anyone with at least three white grandparents is considered white.

The result would be that the African-American population simply disappears by diluting into the larger European-American population. By the present day most Americans would be of about 80%–90% European descent and 10–20% African descent; they'd just consider themselves to be "white" and not think about their African ancestors much.

Sort of like what happened in Paraguay IOTL. It'll be more difficult to achieve in the USA because of cultural attitudes against miscegenation, but it may be possible.

Agreed. For the 10-20% "black" whites, they'd think no more of their blackness than most African Americans (who are 10-20% white at least) think of their whiteness. After all, no one calls Obama white despite his ancestry.

1600's: Slavery never take's off in America and indentured servants from the British Isles take up the slack.

1670's: Bacon's Rebellion succeeds with Nathaniel Bacon leading a coalition of poor and middle class white and black farmers and tradesmen to victory. Bacon becomes de-facto Governor of Virginia until his death in 1680.

As result of Bacon's Rebellion, the importation of indentured servants is limited and the importation of slaves is prohibited in Virginia.

By the early 1700's, slavery is illegal in all British North America and the former African slaves have either returned to Africa or intermarried with the English.

Then British North America never takes off. If you have neither slavery nor indentured servitude, sharecropping, or some sort of peonage, then the economic value of British North America is very limited. I believe it was in 1776, the Southern colonies made up over half of the economy of the Thirteen Colonies. They kept good pace in growth the next few decades as well, before the industrial economy of the North surpassed them. I'm not even getting into the Caribbean, since that was also extremely profitable and full of slaves and indentured servants.
 
The result would be that the African-American population simply disappears by diluting into the larger European-American population. By the present day most Americans would be of about 80%–90% European descent and 10–20% African descent; they'd just consider themselves to be "white" and not think about their African ancestors much.

Difficult, as blacks make up quite a large minority in the US.

Maybe Chinese labour? It didn't end up well in many places it was tried, since many Chinese had an economic mindset to become small business owners instead, since sitting in a Chinese laundry all day is somewhat more preferable to all-day backbreaking labour in the brutal Southern humidity, especially since your boss is a fellow member of your ethnic community. Thus, the Chinese tended to eventually leave the fields in many places.

Or actual Indians, from India. The British used them to great effect as indentured servants across the Caribbean.
 
Difficult, as blacks make up quite a large minority in the US.

You'd get some areas (like the Lowcountry of South Carolina and the Tidewater of Virginia) where the population would be clearly mixed-race (and thus the "blackest" population aside from any recent immigrants from Africa), but overall blacks could easily mix in with whites, especially since there wouldn't be slave breeding and artificial means to increase the black population. Coastal Florida through Maryland would probably be the only major concentrations of blacks, since without slavery, the concentrations of blacks beyond Appalachia like in Alabama or the Delta region would never form (not that there wouldn't be blacks there, of course). Hell, there'd probably be black landowners there, as there were OTL.

Or actual Indians, from India. The British used them to great effect as indentured servants across the Caribbean.

True. I'd love to see the cultural fusion from that.
 
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