The Atlantic Republic could best be described as the sum total of the impact of the different waves of religious groups that arrived on the shores of North America from Europe, and how they dealt with the various Native, African, and other religious groups they encountered. For centuries, the lands were occupied by the Lenni Lenape, or Delaware, tribe. Europeans who dealt with them back when they had a sizable population and government universally agreed that they were a most benevolent and prosperous society, easily willing to help the early settlers out, and only turning hostile after a long train of injuries in the mid-1700s. The first true European settlements in the area were those of the Swedes, who settled along the banks of the Delaware River and Bay. They were never large in number, but their presence would mark the beginnings of the Lutheran Church in the area. The first major wave of English speakers was that of the Quakers, who, under the leadership of William Penn, founder of the Colony of Pennsylvania and considered by many to be the grandfather of the Republic, settled what is now the Greater Philadelphia region. The unique pacifist beliefs of the Quakers caused them to set up their colony on the principles of full religious tolerance. At the same time as Penn, the English Catholics came and settled to the south in the colony known as Maryland, while an unrelated group of Quakers bought and settled the Colony of West Jersey.
The next large wave was that of the German Lutherans and Anabaptist sects, which took advantage of the tolerance and burgeoning economy of the Pennsylvania Colony to settle to the Susquehanna Valley west of Philadelphia, where even today their mark on the land can be seen in place names like King of Prussia and Germantown. They also developed a unique creole tongue of English and Low German that would become known as Pennsylvania Dutch (after a corruption of “Duetsch” and not related at all to the Netherlands). This wave started in the 1750’s and continued all the way to the war for independence from Great Britain.
In the great Revolt of the Colonies, the four colonies that would eventually make up the Atlantic Republic played a major part, but not without some degree of tepidness and hesitation. Though all four contributed large numbers of troops to the Continental Army, the men of Maryland in particular being singled out for praise by General George Washington for their courage under fire, enthusiasm was not as pronounced as it was in New England. Indeed, the Quakers of Pennsylvania and West Jersey would come to constitute the largest unaligned faction of the war, due both to their pacifism and a canny desire to be in the graces of the winning side, whomever it may be. Despite this, Philadelphia, being the largest city in the colonies (and the largest city in the British Empire after London), was the natural choice for the capital of the Continental alliance, and would host both the First and Second Continental Congresses. It was at this second congress that Benjamin Franklin and the two Adams cousins from Massachusetts, working in concert with Thomas Jefferson and George Mason of Virginia, were able to successfully convince their fellow colonists that the time had come for the departure from Britain.
With the passing of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin would depart for France, where he would serve as minister plenipotentiary and help negotiate the entry of the continent on the Colonial side. George Washington would lose New York City, but retaliate with lightning strikes on Trenton and Princeton, capturing thousands of British and Hessian mercenaries. Philadelphia would continue to serve as the capital until 1777, when it was captured by the British. At which point the Congress would go on to occupy a number of cities (far too numerous to list here) as the de facto capital, all of which were within what would become the Atlantic Republic. However, it was during this phase of the war, between 1777 and 1781, that what would become the Republic suffered most severely, as Briton and Continental alike would drench the soil in blood and suck the food from the land for forage. It was only partially, following the abandonment of Philadelphia in 1778 by the British, and then completely, after the Continental victory at Yorktown, that the region was able to recover and take the first steps towards nationhood.
Following the war, immigration slackened off due to a combination of instability following the collapse of the unity government the Thirteen Colonies had created, and the Wars of the French Revolution greatly disturbing transatlantic trade. This, however, was not of great concern to the fathers of the Atlantic Republic. Rather, they sought to unite the mid-Atlantic Colonies into something survivable. The first and most immediate problem was the Pennamite-Yankee War, which was fought between the Republic of Connecticut and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania over their respective claims in the Ohio Valley. Although Connecticut itself was of no great concern to the Pennsylvanian Government, not having a land border with that state, the Republic of New Jersey was, as it was allied with Connecticut and was undertaking measures to close down the Delaware to foreign trade.
To understand what happened next, it is perhaps best to recall Ben Franklin’s declaration that “New Jersey is a barrel tapped at both ends.” Despite having one of the longest coastlines of any of the colonies, New Jersey suffered the enormous curse of not having but one decent river along this coast to penetrate the pine scrub forests that made up much of its interior. Furthermore, the one river, the Raritan, emptied out just below Staten Island anyway. As a result, the farmers who settled along the Atlantic Highlands and the eastern shores of the Delaware River were forced to rely on New York City and Philadelphia respectively for their seaports. The founders of the colony grasped this, and had split it in half. West Jersey being the Delaware settlements, and East Jersey being the Atlantic settlements. It was only the intervention of the Crown that had forced the colony back together in what many considered an artificial arrangement.
This enabled President Ben Franklin to go to the Republic of New York, which at that point had been a mild supporter of Connecticut, and propose a deal that would come to be known as the “Jersey Partition,” despite including other important clauses as well. In essence, New Jersey would be split along the old East/West Jersey border, with the West Jersey counties of Morris and Sussex going to New York in exchange for New York halting infiltration of Connecticut militias through their land. New York also agreed to sell Pennsylvania the Erie Triangle for $500,000 [OOC: This is a retcon of my earlier post, since there is no darn way Pennsylvania could have made it all the way to Cleveland, and Erie is the only good port between Cleveland and Buffalo, it’s not like New York really needed it anyway], and agreed on a general border at the 42nd Parallel to the Delaware otherwise. On October 6, 1788, the partition was carried out. In spite of the best efforts of the New Jersey government, resistance was effectively useless, with most militia having already resigned themselves to rule by the larger states (and the economic benefits that went with having access to the ports tariff free). Only resistance outside of Mount Holly and Morristown marred what was otherwise a non-violent occupation. This had the effect of de-facto ending the war between Pennsylvania and Connecticut, as the latter could no longer effectively attack the former. The war, however, was never ended de-jure until the two successor states humorously added in a few clauses confirming the end of hostilities in an 1843 trade treaty.
The Jersey partition kicked off the great wave of consolidation of the former colonies, with Delaware going next into the expanded Pennsylvanian state, and New England consolidating into a Massachusetts-led federation. This left Maryland in the position as the last of the small republics, sandwiched in between Virginia and Pennsylvania. It was obvious, even to the Marylanders, which their republic was not long for the world, but the larger question remained: Virginia or Pennsylvania? To the slave-holding Catholics, this was an agonizing choice. Both former colonies had traditionally been hated. Pennsylvania was already moving towards the abolition of slavery, while, in spite of Thomas Jefferson’s and George Mason’s sincere proclamations to the contrary, none of the Marylanders really expected Catholicism to remain protected for long in Virginia. There was also the issue of geography to consider. The Mason-Dixon Line was an artificial construct that Pennsylvania could easily cross at any time, while the Potomac at least offered some protection from the south. However, Virginia clearly controlled the entrance to the Chesapeake and could strangle them all if it so chose. Faced with a choice over the lesser of two evils, in that most distinctive of North American customs, it was decided to put the issue to a vote.
For much of the tense summer of 1789, the pro-Virginia side held the upper hand, and it appeared all but certain that Maryland would join her neighbor to the south. However, two weeks before the vote, Ex-president Franklin tossed the equivalent of a live grenade into the situation. He revealed that part of the reason why Pennsylvania had yielded the two upper West Jersey Counties and paid so much for Erie (which had been a matter of speculation and criticism by many) was so that New York could fund and construct a canal linking the Delaware with the Hudson. Furthermore, Pennsylvania was prepared to fund an equivalent canal linking the Delaware and the Chesapeake. All it took was a quick look at a map to see that this would have the effect of creating a giant free trade zone from the Potomac to New York, and shorten Baltimore’s connection with the Atlantic by a third. On September 24th, Maryland voted by a 56% margin to join Pennsylvania in the Atlantic Republic.
All applauded the brilliance and cunning of Ben Franklin, and many large banquets and fetes were held in his honor. Regrettably, this greatly aggravated his gout and obesity, and on February 27th, 1790, Ben Franklin died of a massive attack of pleurisy. Even in his final moments though, his wits did not desert him, so at the moment of his death, a messenger was already half-way to Baltimore with an astonishing request. And so it came to pass that on his funeral three days later, the residents of Philadelphia were astounded to see none other than John Carroll, Bishop of Baltimore and head of the Catholic Church in the former Thirteen Colonies, leading a procession of every clergymen in Philadelphia in a massive interfaith funeral service. Afterwards, responding to the sharp rebuke from the Vatican, Bishop Carroll was reported to have said: “Let them excommunicate me if they wish! I have just given the Church a mighty foundation in the New World that even Peter would be proud off!”
Sentiments notwithstanding, what happened next would solidify the unity and religious cooperation of the new Atlantic Republic far more than any mere gesture. Virginia never accepted the vote of Maryland, considering it a rigged election (there may be some truth to this, as votes in those days were done by open ballot), and was utterly beside itself at having been made the laughingstock of the civilized world. Accordingly, it declared war on May 1, 1792, and achieved total surprise, crossing the Potomac before the local militia even got out of bed. This revealed an awkward problem for the new Republic, as the Quaker populace refused to fight on religious grounds. Fortunately, the Germans rose to the task, marching south by the thousands to shore up the militias. Although much of the Maryland countryside would be laid to waste by the brutally effective Virginia cavalry, the chief cities of Baltimore and Annapolis would never be captured.
The war also had the effect of resolving another little knot for the leadership of the Republic. Prior to the invasion, all the graduated emancipation plans in put forward in the assembly had failed on the grounds that there was too much vitriol and too little money to invest in anything workable. With the war though, suddenly many owners in Maryland were willing to accept fire-sale prices for slaves, rather than lose them all to the raids. Also, many Quakers, having earned much ire for not shouldering a musket, decided to open their pocketbooks quite a bit more as a patriotic gesture/moral crusade/way to avoid getting killed either by the enemy or their own countrymen. The resulting act would be known as “The Great Freedom Contract;” all male slaves above the age of 18 willing to fight for the Republic would be purchased from their owners by the state, and would be freed at the conclusion of the war. The act also stipulated that any offer made for a female slave at market value (to be determined by a judge) had to be accepted by the owner, the idea being that the wages paid to the ex-slaves during the war could be used to purchase their brides from slavery. The effect was electric. Almost 30,000 slaves and freed Africans would serve in the Colored Regiments before the end of the war, and many Virginians would speak for decades afterwards of the horrors of facing “the Devil’s Beasts.”
The war ended in favor of the Atlantic Republic in 1795. The resulting treaty of Mt. Vernon, overseen by Martha Washington herself, was admired as an evenhanded treaty with only minor territorial changes, Garrett and Allegany Counties in what had been Maryland were exchanged for Ohio, Accomack, and Northampton Counties from Virginia. In the wake of the treaty, Virginia began a brutal crackdown on slaves, seeking to prevent any of them from getting any ideas, this caused many of them to flee north. This, plus the large population of now ex-slaves in the Republic, resulted in severe social tensions. At this point, the British stepped in with an offer to allow former slaves to immigrate to their new colony at Sierra Leone. About 40,000 took up the offer, helped on their way by the Quaker-backed African Colonization Society. Many of these were escaped slaves from Virginia and the Carolinas, not wanting to risk repatriation.