Immigration of a Disunited States of America

Following reading one little "Disunited States" short story involving a sideways hopper and a very German Pennslyvania and Turtledove's "Disunited States of America" involving a superpower California I have wondered about migration and immigration patterns. With a POD following a failed Constitutional Convention how would North America be settled?
 
Well in OTL every state in the Union after Georgia was majority settled by those born in America (even Minnesota) so I would expect that with the exception of California, Texas and a still French southern Louisiana that would hold true. The 13 colonies have very high birth rates and only so much prime land and thus a surplus of population meaning there is inevitably going to be western migration. As Texas proves stopping that is very difficult.
That doesn't necessarily force a United continent as you can have Mormon Deseret, British Oregon, American Indian Montana, French-Canadian Ontario etc.
 
A transcontinental railroad would be a pain in the ass to set up, so even if these American states extend their territory all the way to the Pacific, I doubt it'll be as heavily settled as IOTL. The Transcon RR was heavily subsidized by the federal government, protected by federal troops, etc, which wouldn't be possible in the scenario we're positing.
 
Internal (as in not including foreign immigrants) migration patterns OTL tended to be pretty straight from East to West. Southerners stayed South, Northerners stayed north and "Middlers" stayed in the Middle. This is seen most obviously the modern linguistic divides, which spread from east to west. There's a little dip south for the Middlers west of the Appallachians, but that's it.

This pattern starts to break down around the Great Plains, and is almost completely gone by the time you get to the West Coast. This is probably around the time that the railroads are making it easier to travel perpendicular to the rivers, plus things like the California Gold Rush drawing people in from all regions.

Also, since there's a lot less good land west of the tall-grass prairies until the other side of the Rockies, it's hard to keep that pattern up, hence at this point migration is along the major trails going to the west: California, Mormon, Oregon, etc.

I'm of the opinion that migration patterns east of the Rockies will remain pretty much the same as OTL in any British Colonial timeline, barring blockage by foreign powers such as French or Spanish Louisiana or Spanish New Mexico and California.
 
I'm of the opinion that migration patterns east of the Rockies will remain pretty much the same as OTL in any British Colonial timeline, barring blockage by foreign powers such as French or Spanish Louisiana or Spanish New Mexico and California.

I'd say East of the Great Plains but otherwise completely agree.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
Until the 20th century, the difference wouldn't be that major; apart from Virginia and New York, no state had serious claims to the midwest (and no, Cleveland doesn't count as serious; although CT could always have tried selling it to PA to be assholes). The over population of the eastern half of the united states in 1901 was 57 million (vs 19 for the rest). While immigration would probably lower that amount, there's relatively good chances that the north American republics may still have a very very large part of the american population, although certainly not the overwhelming 45% that the United States had in 1901. I would expect the disunited states to consolidate themselves in 7 or 8 countries (with New England banding together, the deep south banding together, Delaware and PA reuniting, leaving us Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey and New York, plus maybe Vermont which did fight against New York for independence, so if it joins anything, it's as a NE state)

I also suspect that the 48-ers who moved from Germany (and the rest of Europe to a lesser extent) would be more spread out; a number of them did get to Mexico IOTL after all, and without the Mexican American war, there might not be such things as the Santa Anna presidency.

I'd thought at some point about making a reverse America thing, where instead of Brazil and the US holding together, the Spanish colonies somehow managed to hold as three or four countries and the portuguese and british colonies fell apart instead. I had a significant part of the great plains acting as the equivalent of OTL Bolivia and Paraguay (i.e. native majority nations)
 
I also suspect that the 48-ers who moved from Germany (and the rest of Europe to a lesser extent) would be more spread out; a number of them did get to Mexico IOTL after all, and without the Mexican American war, there might not be such things as the Santa Anna presidency.

I suppose it's possible, but they aren't going to just randomly go all over theAmericas. There were reasons the 48-ers picked the places they did: two of the major reasons were 1) a political landscape that allowed them to live the way they wanted to and 2) climates that supported crops they knew how to grow.

#1 would be workable in a more liberal Spanish America. However, a Disunited States, while the government is less stable, also gives more potential for newcomers to guide the future development of unmanaged territory which is only barely claimed by another nation.

#2 is workable in some parts of Spanish America -- they were happy in the climate of OTL central Texas.

But there's also a third criteria that was equally important: 3) an area already inhabited by people they knew who came there before them. This was very important for immigrants to the U.S., not just for familiarity, but they needed to be assured that there would be people they knew they could depend on if they failed in the new world. Not to mention, these locations were where the booster pamphlets published in their native languages were coming from, and they were more likely to settle in places they'd heard good things about.

Pardon me if this doesn't make sense, it's getting late.
 
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