Immigration in the CSA?

Was not a large part of New Orleans' draw though that it would serve as a short cut to the west rather than having to take the standard long route from New York, Boston and the like.
I wouldn't see New Orleans being such a draw here.

No, its main draw at first was very simple: more boats left Liverpool for New Orleans than anywhere else in North America. And while many did eventually move upriver to St. Louis and Chicago, back then New Orleans was the third largest city in the US, and OTL wouldn't fall out of the top 10 until 1900. After French/Creole, the main cultural influence to this day in N.O. is Irish. I myself am part Irish, and I live in a part of town called "the Irish Channel." As for other European groups, the part of town now called the Bywater was known as "Little Saxony" in the mid-1800s, and the French Quarter by 1900 was a thoroughly Italian neighbourhood. A good example of the cultural diversity here in the 19th century is the density of Catholic churches, each serving a different community. In my immediate area (8-10 block radius), we have Our Lady of Good Counsel (for the Irish), St. Henry's (Germans), and St. Stephen's (French).

Also, we're looking at immigration in the 19th century through 21st century eyes. For many of these poor, un- or barely-educated, often illiterate people, they didn't realize that there was more than one country in North America. Many of the ancestors of the large Italian and Jewish populations in Montréal, for example, weren't people choosing Canada over the US but instead ended up buying passage on a boat that wasn't landing at New York or Boston. Given the amount of traffic that passed and still passes through the port of New Orleans, it would have remained a major point of debarcation for Europeans well into the 20th century. Whether they stay or not is a good question, but there can be no question that European immigrants would have arrived in large, if not impressive numbers, into New Orleans and other Southern ports, since, if for no other reason, many of those arriving won't know the difference until they get there :confused::D.

As for Britain and cotton-
No, during the ACW other,better sources of cotton popped up. Britain was largely switching on these.
Then of course there's the moral factor; you'd get people embargoing companies that use confederate cotton forcing them onto more humane Egyptian stuff.

Actually, the British used Egyptian cotton (better quality, but much more expensive) as a stop-gap, but in late '62, as it became clear that a Southern victory would be long in coming (if ever), they began a process of switching from opium poppy to cotton production in Bengal. Partly this was because of the severe supply crunch, partly because of "humanitarian" concerns (it's hard to bring Christ to the heathen Chinese when they're always doped up), partly because the Chinese had finally been forced to accept payment for tea in other than silver (silver the Brits got by selling opium to the Chinese), and partly because the British had finally begun producing decent quality tea in Ceylon and Assam, creating less of a need for the Chinese variety.

In a best-case scenario for a CSA vistory, say an end to the CW by no later than late fall/early winter 1863, the Brits will be able to cash in their cotton bonds and will continue for some time to buy the majority of their cotton from the South, if for no other reason than it's cheaper to buy and ship from New Orleans, Charleston, Savannah or Wilmington. Suez wasn't built until 1869, and until 1882 it was under Franco-Egyptian-Ottoman control. Indian cotton wasn't a "better" source at the time, it was a "British" source. They'll still continue to develop cotton production in Bengal (for security reasons if nothing else), but probably at the same time try other crops in their switch from opium cultivation since the supply crunch will have been alleviated. Over time, the Union and France will replace Britain as the main buyers of cotton, since neither will have any other ready source for it, and other countries, such as Germany, will enter the market, and their most likely source will be the CSA.

During this time, the mid-late 19th c., the CSA will begin to transition to a more industrialised economy. The Civil War will have taught the South a good lesson, and many of its early leaders were quite progressive thinkers for their class, place and time. Besides, by the outbreak of the CW, slaves were already becoming too expensive to buy and support. It's horrible to talk about people in these terms, but a young, fit black field hand in good health in 1860 sold in New Orleans for up to $1000 (£220). This is unskilled labour I'm talking about! :eek: And this doesn't include you having to feed, house, and clothe them. Southerners might have been obstinate in the face of Northen pressure, but left to their own devises I can't imagine that slave society would have continued on very much longer. Already, ante-bellum, the "wharf rats" in New Orleans were Irish, hauling the bales of cotton onto the ships from the levee while the slaves worked on the top- and lee-sides. This is a paraphrase, but I can remember my grandmother relating some story to me with the line: "the slaves were always up top since they were worth a thousand bucks while we Irish came a thousand a week..."
 

Hendryk

Banned
alright lets see:

German
Mexican
Polish
Irish
Afrikaan
What's with this idea that Afrikaners would move to the CSA in meaningful numbers? For one thing, they already had a country to colonize; and for another, in the latter decades of the 19th century there was only, what, a couple million of them? Even if they somehow decided to migrate en masse, that wouldn't make a big demographic difference.
 
alright lets see:

German
Mexican
Polish
Irish
Afrikaan

Is that it?
I believe I mentioned before why Germans were unlikely to come/be welcome in the CSA, and MerryPrankster and others helped illuminate that point better. I also echo Hendryk's point about the Afrikaners, although the rest of your choices seem plausible.
 

Hendryk

Banned
According to this website, the entire population of South Africa in 1900 was a whopping 5 million, out of which I suppose the Afrikaners were a quarter at best. So I'd like someone to explain to me why I keep coming across the idea that the CSA would be populated by Afrikaner immigrants. There weren't enough of them just to populate their own country.
 
But slaves are a significant capital investment, to the point where only a reltaively small portion of the Confederate population could afford it. Why would the State start giving them away?

I never said they would give away slaves.

I said the Confederacy might use that tactic to try to lure white immigrants.

"False advertising." :)

Of course, if there's a large slave surplus and a declining white population (because the native-born whites are all emigrating to the United States), the CSA might just do that out of desperation.
 
According to this website, the entire population of South Africa in 1900 was a whopping 5 million, out of which I suppose the Afrikaners were a quarter at best. So I'd like someone to explain to me why I keep coming across the idea that the CSA would be populated by Afrikaner immigrants. There weren't enough of them just to populate their own country.

In OTL, there are a lot of ex-South Africans who have left the country after the end of apartheid.

Most of those I know were Jewish, but if apartheid ended--particularly if apartheid ended violently--there might be a larger exodus of Afrikaners who might want to find a place where they could live something resembling their old white-supremacist lifestyle.

(Assuming slavery or at least something resembling Jim Crow are around if and when apartheid collapses in South Africa)
 
In OTL, there are a lot of ex-South Africans who have left the country after the end of apartheid.

Most of those I know were Jewish, but if apartheid ended--particularly if apartheid ended violently--there might be a larger exodus of Afrikaners who might want to find a place where they could live something resembling their old white-supremacist lifestyle.

(Assuming slavery or at least something resembling Jim Crow are around if and when apartheid collapses in South Africa)

In the 19th century? :rolleyes:
 
In the 19th century? :rolleyes:

The OP does not specify a set time. The Confederacy might abolish slavery in the 1920s and maintain Jim Crow indefinitely and if:

1. Apartheid is established in South Africa

2. Apartheid falls

Racist Afrikaners who don't want to coexist with blacks as equals might find the Confederacy attractive.
 
The OP does not specify a set time. The Confederacy might abolish slavery in the 1920s and maintain Jim Crow indefinitely and if:

1. Apartheid is established in South Africa

2. Apartheid falls

Racist Afrikaners who don't want to coexist with blacks as equals might find the Confederacy attractive.

So Afrikaaners will want to escape from a country where kaffirs make up 80% of the population to a country where they only make up 35% of the population? This is absolutely silly.

Even if the South had won, slavery would have died out there about the same time it was finally ended in Brazil and Cuba, in the 1880s: slaves had become too damned expensive. As I stated in my previous post, a healthy young black field hand sold in the New Orleans market for $1000 (£220) in 1860. At the time, that amounts to 10-15 years' wages for a factory worker, and doesn't include having to feed and clothe them. Southerners aren't that stupid; they'd figure out soon enough that free labour is cheaper than indentured service.
 

Hendryk

Banned
The OP does not specify a set time. The Confederacy might abolish slavery in the 1920s and maintain Jim Crow indefinitely and if:

1. Apartheid is established in South Africa

2. Apartheid falls
That's two ifs right here.

Racist Afrikaners who don't want to coexist with blacks as equals might find the Confederacy attractive.
In the same way that South Africa has seen a massive wave of Afrikaner emigration in OTL?
 
That's two ifs right here.

In the same way that South Africa has seen a massive wave of Afrikaner emigration in OTL?

1. Obviously we're dealing with an ATL, so there will be butterflies. There might not be apartheid in TTL, but the antecedents of apartheid existed in the Boer Republics prior to the Boer War--I remember reading about black laborers burning their passes when British troops arrived, and the pass laws were a big part of OTL apartheid. We might still get some kind of apartheidish system in South Africa in TTL.

2. The transition in OTL occurred relatively non-violently and with truth and reconciliation on all sides. In TTL, it could end rather badly and that could trigger a much higher rate of emigration.

Plus it's not like there haven't been Afrikaner emigrants since 1994. Although most ex-South Africans I knew were Jewish, I know one who had an Afrikaans surname and another who I suspect was English-South African based on his last name.

The following article seems a bit, ahem, hard-edged, but a lot of the info is backed up by the Newsweek article:

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/267776

http://www.newsweek.com/id/184783

This brochure here said there are 300,000 Afrikaans-speakers in the UK and other communities elsewhere.

http://lang.nalrc.wisc.edu/resources/press/brochures/afrikaans.pdf

Lest Marius accuse me of claiming Afrikaners are all evil racists, I posted those links in response to Hendryk's apparent position that there has not been substantial Afrikaner emigration since 1994. Most stuff I've read indicates the emigration is driven by job recruiting from outside and fear of crime.
 
So Afrikaaners will want to escape from a country where kaffirs make up 80% of the population to a country where they only make up 35% of the population? This is absolutely silly.

Even if the South had won, slavery would have died out there about the same time it was finally ended in Brazil and Cuba, in the 1880s: slaves had become too damned expensive. As I stated in my previous post, a healthy young black field hand sold in the New Orleans market for $1000 (£220) in 1860. At the time, that amounts to 10-15 years' wages for a factory worker, and doesn't include having to feed and clothe them. Southerners aren't that stupid; they'd figure out soon enough that free labour is cheaper than indentured service.

Apartheid as you undoubtedly already know isn't the same as slavery. So even though slavery in the South has long been abolished, it could have still been a primary choice for Afrikaners to migrate to, because of similarities in culture and most of all separation of blacks and whites.

What I think the others are trying to say is that something like Apartheid would most likely result out of the abolishment of slavery.
 
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