Most Catholic possible USA

With a POD after independence, how Catholic can we make the United States by the year 2000? In OTL American Catholics peaked at 25% and are now 22% (although figures differ, depending on whether you count lapsed Catholics). I suppose a majority is out of the question, but could Catholics get to a nationwide level of 35-40%, as has happened in some New England states?
 
With a POD after independence, how Catholic can we make the United States by the year 2000? In OTL American Catholics peaked at 25% and are now 22% (although figures differ, depending on whether you count lapsed Catholics). I suppose a majority is out of the question, but could Catholics get to a nationwide level of 35-40%, as has happened in some New England states?

Annex Mexico in 1848.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Annexing all of Mexico would mean adding millions of brown Catholics to the US population, which most white Protestants would never accept.

The fact is that, although certainly controversial, plans to annex vast swathes of Mexico did exist, and could have been implemented. The Mexicans just wouldn't have been given voting rights, resulting in a stratified US society (presumably with a system based on 'the-lighter-your-skin-the-higher-your-status'). Saying the people wouldn't accept that is like saying, in an ATL where blacks were never moved to America as slaves, "white Americans would never just accept millions of blacks in their midst!" -- but that's just in-TL bias, because it assumes the Americans would have perfect foresight (knowing slavery would end, which means at some point those millions of blacks would be their equals). Clearly, in OTL, people lacked that foresight. Likewise, in an ATL where a skin colour-based caste system looks like a sure thing for the foreseeable future, you will not see overwhelming opposition to annexing Mexico.

We may rather safely expect that this caste system would not last, however, and the end result would be a very large USA with a huge amount of Catholics in it.
 
We may rather safely expect that this caste system would not last, however, and the end result would be a very large USA with a huge amount of Catholics in it.
Barring secession, of course. Mexico has a firm national identity by this point, one that is culturally, religiously, linguistically, and ethnically distinct from that of rest of the US. If the caste system fails, many will want to leave, and many in the rest of the country will support them. You might be able to keep them, but it's not something I'd take for granted.

As for the OP, you might delay the US acquisition of Florida/Louisiana/Texas/the Mexican Cession, allowing for the Catholic populations of those regions to grow further, or have significantly more immigration from Catholic countries, either European or Latin American. The forum is always fond of having the US annex this or that state in Central America or the Caribbean, taking more/all of Mexico, directly integrating the Philippines, or annexing French Canada, but all of these have problems with "but they're not WASPs" on the American side and with the desire for independence on the locals' side. With a 1783 POD, it might be possible to work around or prevent these attitudes and steer the US away from identifying as specifically white and Protestant and into something capable of integrating Quebec or Nicaragua without too many issues, but I'm not sure exactly how you'd do that.

Of course, the easiest route is to just have the US government be overthrown and flee to Puerto Rico or some other Latin American colony or possession a la Cuba in Reds!, which gets you a majority Catholic "United States" at the expense of that country being no more the United States than Taiwan is China.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Barring secession, of course. Mexico has a firm national identity by this point, one that is culturally, religiously, linguistically, and ethnically distinct from that of rest of the US. If the caste system fails, many will want to leave, and many in the rest of the country will support them. You might be able to keep them, but it's not something I'd take for granted.

The vague analogy I was thinking of was post-Apartheid South Africa.
 
Annexing all of Mexico would mean adding millions of brown Catholics to the US population, which most white Protestants would never accept.

Vice President George Dallas, Secretary of the Treasury Robert Walker, and Secretary of State James Buchanan were all in favor of All Mexico; there was likely more, but I haven't looked further into cabinet level positions. A large and growing faction in the Senate, increasingly dominant in the Northern states and having split the South, was also in favor of annexing Mexico:

The Slavery Question and the Movement to Acquire Mexico, 1846-1848 by John D. P. Fuller, The Mississippi Valley Historical Review Vol. 21, No. 1 (Jun., 1934), pp. 31-48:

In the Congress which assembled in December, 1847, the question of the acquisition of all Mexico appeared in the open for the first time. Among those who may definitely be numbered with the expansionists were Senators Dickinson and Dix of New York, Hannegan of Indiana, Cass of Michigan, Allen of Ohio, Breese and Douglas, of Illinois, Atchison of Missouri, Foote and Davis of Mississippi, and Houston and Rusk of Texas. The leadership in the fight, against imperialism fell not to the anti-slavery element but to pro-slavery Democrats. On December 15, Calhoun in the Senate and Holmes in the House introduced resolutions opposing the acquisition of Mexico. Other pro-slavery Democrats, Butler of South Carolina, and Meade and Hunter of Virginia, also registered their opposition.

Between October, 1847, and the following February the theme of the story underwent considerable alteration. By the latter date, as noted above, the National Era was advocating the absorption of Mexico, insisting that it would be free territory, and citing along with other evidence, Calhoun's opposition to annexation as proof that the anti-slavery interests had nothing to fear from extensive territorial acquisitions. In other words, the National Era was convinced that if there had been a "pro-slavery conspiracy" to acquire all Mexico, it could not realize its ends even though the whole country were annexed. This conviction seems to have come largely as a result of the propaganda, which was streaming from the northern expansionist press and the opposition of Calhoun.The editor probably reasoned that since Calhoun was opposing absorption the expansionists at the North must be correct. If the main body of the anti-slavery forces could be converted to this point of view, the movement for absorption which was growing rapidly at the time would doubtless become very strong indeed.

Care should be taken not to exaggerate the anti-slavery sentiment for all Mexico. It is evident that some such sentiment did exist, but there was not sufficient time for it to develop to significant proportions. The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo had already been signed in Mexico when the National Era took up the cry of all Mexico with or without the Wilmot Proviso. In a short while the war was over and whatever anti-slavery sentiment there was for all Mexico collapsed along with the general expansion movement. Had the war continued several months longer it is not improbable that increasing numbers from the anti-slavery camp would have joined forces with those who were demanding the acquisition of Mexico. Their action would have been based on the assumption that they were undermining the position of the pro slavery forces. It was, not to be expected that those abolitionists, and there were undoubtedly some, who were using the bogey of "extension of slavery" to cover up other reasons for opposition to annexation, would have ever become convinced of the error of their ways. They would hold on to their pet theory to the bitter end.

To summarize briefly what seem to be the conclusions to be drawn from this study, it might be said that the chief support for the absorption of Mexico came from the North and West and from those whose pro-slavery or anti-slavery bias was not a prime consideration. In quarters where the attitude toward slavery was all-important there was, contrary to the accepted view, a "pro-slavery conspiracy" to prevent the acquisition of all Mexico and the beginnings of an "anti-slavery conspiracy" to secure all the territory in the Southwest that happened to be available. Behind both these movements was a belief that expansion would prove injurious to the slavery interest. Had the war continued much longer the two movements, would probably have developed strength and have become more easily discernible. Lack of time for expansionist sentiment to develop was the chief cause of this country's, failure to annex Mexico in 1848. Even as it was, however, there might have been sufficient demand for annexation in February and March, 1848, to have wrecked the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo had it not been for the opposition of pro-slavery Democrats led by Calhoun. Their attitude divided the party committed to expansion in the presence of a unified opposition. Whatever the motives which may be attributed to Calhoun and his friends, the fact remains that those who feel that the absorption of Mexico in 1848 would have meant permanent injury to the best interests of the United States, should be extremely grateful to those slaveholders. To them not a little credit is due for the fact that Mexico is to-day an independent nation.

I'd also include The United States and Mexico, 1847-1848 by Edward G. Bourne in the The American Historical Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Apr., 1900), pp. 491-502 as he largely came to the same conclusions as this aforementioned work did.

The issue of race is also rather overblown, I think, as the situation at the time was far different than currently thought of. The media at the time propagated the idea of romance between American men and Mexican women as a means of assimilating the Mexicans, even going as far as to write poetry on such. These sentiments did not stop at rhetoric, however, as such inter-marriages were actually common in the parts of the Mexican cession that had existing, sufficiently large populations and were, apparently, considered respectable. Essentially, everyone outside of Calhoun's Pro-Slavery faction didn't really care and it was pretty well understood Calhoun's stance was born out of fears of additional free states entering the Union as opposed to his rhetorical concerns of a threat to the WASP ruling elite of the United States.
 
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We have a pretty prejudiced idea about what 19th C. prejudices consisted of. Their prejudices were real and strong, but they weren't just checking off every box in our 21st C. villains list.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Annex Mexico, Canada, Cuba and the Philippines. That’s probably the most Catholic the US could plausibly get

Some notes to this:

-- A USA that wants Canada should in most cases be a USA that gains it early. The relevant factor here is gaining Quebec, but even supposing the Maritimes stay with Britain (increasing the relative weight of the addition of Quebecois Catholics), holding historical 'Canada' means the USA will almost inevitably gain domination over the OTL Canadian west as well. Any additional ATL settlers going there will likely not be Catholic.

-- Arguably, a conquest of Cuba in the context of an early Spanish-American War (say, a decade after this ATL USA has annexed all of Mexico) could afterwards see US filibusters conquering the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico and Nicaragua (to name the most obvious candidates).

-- Conceivably, the annexation of all these Catholics could see some sort of discontent arise whereby a lot of rural, Protestant America eventually secedes from this ATL USA (one could realistically argue that a much bigger USA could very well be more decentralist, making secession a more acceptable and less preventable factor). Ultimately, everything west of the Mississippi and roughly north of the OTL Missouri Compromise Line (except California) secedes, including the (also primarily Protestant) Canadian west.

-- Presuming for a moment that this is a rather 'evil' USA, with the caste system I suggested above, and where north-eastern industrialists have opted to compromise with southern slavocrats to create an apartheid-like system that retains (quasi-)slavery, Britain might support such a secession movement, making it extra realistic. Secession of this (mostly agrarian, mostly white) region is furthermore realistic because it's an area that neither profits from the caste system, nor likes being part of a Union that holds so many catholics and non-whites.

-- Since California stays with the USA, a powerful interest in the Pacific is retained. This eventually gets the USA the Philippines. Even more Catholics!

-- Yet Hawaii... er.... 'the Sandwich Islands', that is, get nabbed up by Britain.

-- During a series of Banana Wars, and seeking to build a Panama Canal, this USA eventually annexes all of Central America, adding yet more Catholic denizens.

-- You end up with a USA that has as many Catholics as possible, while an area that was very Protestant has been cut off. This is probably the highest number of Catholics you can get, both in absolute and in relative terms.

-- When the horrid caste system eventually blessedly collapses, Catholics (and non-anglos, at that) will be an outright majority, bringing us to the prallel of post-Apartheid South Africa.

-- It's not even unthinkable that, when the system fails, the North-East at least tries to bail out via its own secession. An American analogue to the OTL South African white 'Volksstaat' suggestions would be more realistic than the actual OTL Volksstaat idea, considering the rather white nature of the furthest North-East, and its greater population. Supposing Catholics in NYC and Boston balk at this and the now-Catholic USA retains them, you'd see Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and the north of upstane New York forming this secessionist state, cutting off yet more Protestants from this ATL USA.

That's about it. I cannot for the life of me imagine a USA, with a post-independence POD, that would be significantly more Catholic than what I've sketched out here. It would look something like this (very crudely drawn, internal borders unedited, using the Canada coplour for the north-western secessionist state and grey for the north-eastern one):

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Conceivably, the annexation of all these Catholics could see some sort of discontent arise whereby a lot of rural, Protestant America eventually secedes from this ATL USA (one could realistically argue that a much bigger USA could very well be more decentralist, making secession a more acceptable and less preventable factor). Ultimately, everything west of the Mississippi and roughly north of the OTL Missouri Compromise Line (except California) secedes, including the (also primarily Protestant) Canadian west.

I don't think that those territories have enough population and importance to want and achieve independence before say 1870, and considering that migration from Quebec, Mexico and Europe can change the demographics there rather quickly they could make an even bigger Catholic majority.
 
Henry VIII never requests that annulment (or the Pope accepts it ITTL), England stays Catholic, colonizes the East Coast (the Treaty of Tordesillas clearly didn't stop the French from colonizing North America, so why would it stop the English?), and somehow the American Revolution (or something like it) still happens. Boom, a Catholic USA!
 
Henry VIII never requests that annulment (or the Pope accepts it ITTL), England stays Catholic, colonizes the East Coast (the Treaty of Tordesillas clearly didn't stop the French from colonizing North America, so why would it stop the English?), and somehow the American Revolution (or something like it) still happens. Boom, a Catholic USA!
Well, an Anglican Britain didn't create an Anglican United States.
 

Md139115

Banned
I’d say that barring any territorial changes, one could achieve a more Catholic US simply by not having the 1920 Immigration Laws. By that point, with the exception of Germany (for obvious reasons) nearly all the Protestant sources for immigration were being tapped out due to improving standards of living, but there were suddenly large numbers of Catholics fleeing the chaos of the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, the Irish War of Independence and Civil War, the formation of Poland and fighting off Lenin’s hordes, etc. Had they all been allowed to come to the US, it would have definitely made the US more Catholic (especially the Northeast... somehow...)
 
The problem is that if English-speaking, Protestant bits are seceding, then the peripheral Catholic bits will probably be seceding as well: it is very hard to imagine a US that loses Missouri and Maine but keeps Mindanao and Mexico State. This is especially the case if you've got a WASP supremacist caste system going on, as the bits that are being actively oppressed will be much more interested in leaving than the white Protestants who are regarded as members of the privileged elite. The "really big Catholic US" approach is probably best served by giving up on trying to hive off the Protestants (even if it means diminishing the Catholic majority) and just focusing on keeping the whole edifice together by making the US as accepting and disinclined to split as possible.

Well, an Anglican Britain didn't create an Anglican United States.
But a Protestant Britain did create a Protestant United States, and given that Catholic Spain, Portugal, and France all produced Catholic colonies in the Americas, I see no reason why we would not expect a Catholic Britain to do the same. Of course, this is all a moot point, because we're looking for a post-independence POD and that pretty firmly rules out anything involving Henry VIII.

Can we count any Catholics or only Roman ones?
Roman as opposed to what? The Eastern Catholics?
 

Skallagrim

Banned
I don't think that those territories have enough population and importance to want and achieve independence before say 1870, and considering that migration from Quebec, Mexico and Europe can change the demographics there rather quickly they could make an even bigger Catholic majority.

The problem is that if English-speaking, Protestant bits are seceding, then the peripheral Catholic bits will probably be seceding as well: it is very hard to imagine a US that loses Missouri and Maine but keeps Mindanao and Mexico State. This is especially the case if you've got a WASP supremacist caste system going on, as the bits that are being actively oppressed will be much more interested in leaving than the white Protestants who are regarded as members of the privileged elite. The "really big Catholic US" approach is probably best served by giving up on trying to hive off the Protestants (even if it means diminishing the Catholic majority) and just focusing on keeping the whole edifice together by making the US as accepting and disinclined to split as possible.

My thought was indeed that the secession of the north-west would happen in the latter 19th century, in a period corresponding to western agrarian populism in OTL. The reasons would also be similar. That kind of movement could be stronger in a region where southern plantations and north-eastern industry all benefit from a vast, oppressed and exploitable work-force, whereas the (north-)western farms were never plantation-style, and the settlers there only see themselves being outcompeted by the produce of pure exploitation.

As in OTL, I'd expect these states to be opposed to the immigration of Catholics and non-whites, and given the supposed social backdrop (and no Civil War after which national equality can to some extent be imposed) I could easily see the immigration of Catholics to those regions being prevented because those states just have "only whites allowed here; Catholics need not apply either" in the constitutions...

Considering that the WASPs are in charge everywhere, and the underxlass gets no vote anyway, secession of the Catholic-majority areas isn't realistic until they current regime is overthrown. As in OTL, we are looking instead at a conflict of interest between north-eastern business interests (which profit from the current situation), to which are added the ATL continued existence of southern plantation interests, which are even extended much further into the Caribbean and Central America (and which also profit from the current situation), versus the noth-western agrarian region (which suffers from the current situation).

I can see them splitting off, and the rest of the USA unable to prevent it because the secessionists have british backing, and the USA is constantly stretched to its limut anyway: if it devotes a lot of troops to fighting off the secession, they will not have enough left to maintain their draconian stranglehold over the black and Catholic underclasses.


None of this means I don't see the validity of your objections, by the way. It just means that I can imagine a scenario where those don't become crippling.
 
We have a pretty prejudiced idea about what 19th C. prejudices consisted of. Their prejudices were real and strong, but they weren't just checking off every box in our 21st C. villains list.

Thank you! Yes, anti-Catholicism was a real thing, and a major thing, but we too often have this stereotype in our heads, and there were plenth of other prejudices out there that conflicted with that particular prejudice. And anti-Catholicism didn’t stop the US from letting so many millions in that it is now the largest single religion in the country.

Anyway, I’d say the following options could lead to a greater percentage of the US population being Catholic:
- Annexation of predominantly Catholic territories. Mexico and Quebec are easy to imagine, but there’s loads of Caribbean and Central American territory that could be taken.
- Increased immigration from Catholic regions, and decreased restrictions on such.
- Decreased immigration from non-Catholic regions.

So, a timeline in which the US takes more land to our south, and in which there is no WW1 to screw up immigration flows and then the economy, hastening restriction of immigration, there should be a lot more Catholics.
 
We have a pretty prejudiced idea about what 19th C. prejudices consisted of. Their prejudices were real and strong, but they weren't just checking off every box in our 21st C. villains list.

This is very true. It's not simply darker=bad there was a ton of nuance and contradiction and many (perhaps most) times had more to do with money, connections, and perceived class than race or religion. Perhaps a better way to look at it is that money makes you "whiter" and the Mexican upper class had a lot of money.
 
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