South Florida in a Confederate Victory TL

I don't have much to throw out here but the premise. However, in 1860, I believe there's very little south of Tampa besides Key West and a few forts and trading posts. How would South Florida develop in an independent CSA?

Most of the big developers of the Turn of the Century IOTL (Flagler, Tuttle, etc.) were Northerners. Might we still see massive Northern and European investment in and immigration to South Florida? If not, will we see the same kind of development from more populated and developed parts of the South?

What about the citrus culture? In an independent CSA, will it recover from the Great Freeze of 1894-5?

Is a Miami-analogue inevitable, or might we just end up with a larger Everglades and a couple coast towns? Alternatively, could the South Florida cattle culture survive longer, perhaps even until the present day? Could the Seminole/Miccosukee be more populous control a wider area, like the Navajo and Dakota IOTL?

What about heavy Cuban and other Latin American immigration? Will this occur regardless? Does Confederate acquisition of Cuba make it more or less likely?

In the much longer run, will Florida eventually become one of the most important and populated states in the CSA, as it did in the OTL US?
 
Most of the big developers of the Turn of the Century IOTL (Flagler, Tuttle, etc.) were Northerners. Might we still see massive Northern and European investment in and immigration to South Florida? If not, will we see the same kind of development from more populated and developed parts of the South?

Very unlikely, the South in OTL was rubbish at attracting immigrants, I doubt that will change post independence.

What about the citrus culture? In an independent CSA, will it recover from the Great Freeze of 1894-5?

No idea but presumably people will still want citrus fruit and it's a convenient place to grow them.

Is a Miami-analogue inevitable, or might we just end up with a larger Everglades and a couple coast towns? Alternatively, could the South Florida cattle culture survive longer, perhaps even until the present day? Could the Seminole/Miccosukee be more populous control a wider area, like the Navajo and Dakota IOTL?

Assuming less development in the absence of Northern retiree's and investors I assume cattle will remain a important product where agriculture isn't practical and in the absence of mass migration Miami stays a small coastal town.

What about heavy Cuban and other Latin American immigration? Will this occur regardless? Does Confederate acquisition of Cuba make it more or less likely?

Confederate acquisition of Cuba is an old and very unlikely trope and considering the likely performance of the CS economy I doubt there will be mass migration on OTL's scale.

In the much longer run, will Florida eventually become one of the most important and populated states in the CSA, as it did in the OTL US?

It will develop and catch up with the states to it's North but I doubt it will become the colossus of OTL.
 
South Florida will remain a minor part of the state which most people view as an inhospitable wasteland. Speaking as a person who grew up in Miami, that city will never exist without the intervention of wealthy Northerners and Europeans and Cubans would go into exile in the NE like OTL with few if any going to FL. The Confederacy couldn't annex Cuba as right when the Confederacy would be recovering from the war, the Cuban elites would be starting their war for independence which was largely based on abolition and the creation of a modern economy rather than the autarky imposed by Spain and which would be imposed by the Confederacy.
 
Well, what about development (if less than the OTL scale) driven by, say, Tennesseans seeking balmy winters at the beach? IOTL interior Southerners tend to flock to the so-called Redneck Riviera (Mississippi and Alabama Gulf Coasts and the Florida panhandle). But of course, Northeasterners and Midwesterners go a lot farther to get to South Florida, which is often held up as having qualitatively better beaches.

If not a *Miami*, might we see a *Palm Beach*?

As far as a CS Cuba, it sounds like I'm wading into deep waters here... but what about a cross between Jackson's occupation of Florida and Walker's Nicaragua filibuster, seizing Cuba as an "independent republic" and applying for CS annexation? Spain may fume, but her options would be pretty limited, unless the US, UK or France got involved.
 
Well, what about development (if less than the OTL scale) driven by, say, Tennesseans seeking balmy winters at the beach? IOTL interior Southerners tend to flock to the so-called Redneck Riviera (Mississippi and Alabama Gulf Coasts and the Florida panhandle). But of course, Northeasterners and Midwesterners go a lot farther to get to South Florida, which is often held up as having qualitatively better beaches.

If not a *Miami*, might we see a *Palm Beach*?

As far as a CS Cuba, it sounds like I'm wading into deep waters here... but what about a cross between Jackson's occupation of Florida and Walker's Nicaragua filibuster, seizing Cuba as an "independent republic" and applying for CS annexation? Spain may fume, but her options would be pretty limited, unless the US, UK or France got involved.

Without the Northeast and Europeans, there is NO South Florida. Confederate industry will develop very slowly because the poeple who voted for secession were the same people in favor of backwards autarky, so you will see few railroads and no investment, which was the driving force behind the dveelopment of South Florida.

On the Cuba question, it's not Spain you have to worry about. In 1868, the first independence war starts, called the Ten Years War OTL. It is an anti-colonial, abolitionist, national independence movement and no one, I MEAN NO ONE, who has any sway in that movement would support joining a country based on rebelling against industrialisation and abolition. José Martí would later say that the Cuban nationality is based not on skin color or religion or birth, but on a love for the country, a yearning for independence, and the supreme importance of liberty. In no way shape or form is Cuba a possible place for expansion for the CSA unless they want to fight constant guerilla wars against a unified population of blacks and whites who view the USA and likely the CSA as imperial behemoths which Latin America needs to unite in order to oppose.

EDIT: All the CSA fan-boys should really read a book about Cuba. It's clear that they just Wiki "Knights of the Golden Circle" and think all the places they wanted to annex would be fine with slavery, autarky, and repression.
 
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On the Cuba question, it's not Spain you have to worry about. In 1868, the first independence war starts, called the Ten Years War OTL. It is an anti-colonial, abolitionist, national independence movement and no one, I MEAN NO ONE, who has any sway in that movement would support joining a country based on rebelling against industrialisation and abolition. José Martí would later say that the Cuban nationality is based not on skin color or religion or birth, but on a love for the country, a yearning for independence, and the supreme importance of liberty. In no way shape or form is Cuba a possible place for expansion for the CSA unless they want to fight constant guerilla wars against a unified population of blacks and whites who view the USA and likely the CSA as imperial behemoths which Latin America needs to unite in order to oppose.

I accept your premise; however, Spain fought exactly that war with some measure of success for thirty years and was only defeated when the conflict was internationalized. The Confederacy is a lot closer and also somewhat stronger during this time period.
 
I didn't say they couldn't win, just that it would in no wya be profitable. As well, the Cubans were very close to winning before the US intervened. All that was left to do was finish taking the cities in the west, they had everything in the eats and the western countryside locked down.
 
South Florida will be much less populated than OTL. Miami probably doesn't exist, and if it does, it's a small coastal town.

Northern and Central Florida will see more focus in the state's economy, now I can imagine places like Tampa, Jacksonville, Tallahassee and Pensacola take up some of the slack from what would have been OTL's Miami in terms of growth, for example, Daytona was founded by a guy from Ohio and the land it's on today was carved from a plantation that was destroyed in the Second Seminole War in the 1840s, so *Daytona sprouts to life later than OTL, expect the same for Miami. But other than that Florida remains a primarily rural state with it's Northern half used for Cotton and Citrus farming, it's Central region remaining rural with the only Cattle/Cowboy culture in the CSA outside of Texas and with it's Southern half remaining a largely Seminole swamp into the 20th Century.
 
As someone who's moving to Central Florida from New Jersey in a few months, and who has visited there several times, I'd take many of the comments about ATL South Florida's lack of urbanization and apply them to large parts of the rest of the state as well, particularly the central part. In fact, I'd apply them to most of the OTL "Sun Belt" region. (I did an entire thread on the subject for those interested, so I'll try not to repeat most of it.) The town I'm moving to, Merritt Island, is economically dependent on NASA, to the point where the whole area (Melbourne, Cocoa, Titusville) is called the "Space Coast". Needless to say, an independent CS butterflies away the Kennedy Space Center, and with it the entire development of that area.

And then you have to account for the tourism industry. American (here meaning "Northern/Yankee") tourists will prefer to visit destinations that don't require a passport and fussing over exchange rates and foreign laws, removing one of the advantages that OTL Florida possessed over other warm, sunny Caribbean locales. There goes Orlando, the bedrock of Florida's tourism industry -- that area's OTL theme park infrastructure is going to develop on the other side of the US/CS border. Plus, an independent CS butterflies away the entire system of land-grant universities (at least south of the border) that developed immediately after the Civil War, meaning that you'll have fewer and smaller Southern universities and, with it, fewer Southern co-eds to send down to Florida every March. (Less university development also has huge, detrimental butterflies for many other industries, but that's beyond the scope of my post.) This means that Florida Spring Break is going to rely on American students... and unlike OTL, where easy travel and lack of passport requirements made Florida the de facto destination for millions of spring breakers, here it will have to compete with the Bahamas, Mexico, Cuba, and all the other Caribbean islands.

Ditto for retirees and the housing industry. Florida will be just one of many warm, sunny places along the Caribbean where people can move to, instead of the one where they don't need passports to head back North to see their families (and vice-versa). Plus, given that the existence of everybody involved with the Cuban Revolution is butterflied away, so too is the Cuban exile community in Miami.

TL;DR -- the foundations of Florida's post-1945 economic development are completely butterflied away in a world where the CS wins the Civil War. It will remain a largely agrarian state with most of the power and urban development in the north, cattle ranching and, later, citrus groves in the center, and a swampy wilderness to the south. It could very well be a major agricultural region for the Confederacy, but its population and urban development will be a fraction of OTL. Unless another Fidel Castro emerges to wreck Cuba (highly unlikely, given the butterflies), Havana takes Miami's place as the dominant urban center in the Caribbean.
 
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South Florida will remain a backwater, as will Florida in general. It will be in the ATL one reason the American Crocodile may never reach the endangered species list.
 
What are the possibilites of Florida dividing into two or more states in this ATL? IOTL there have been several plans to create a West and a South Florida.
 
What are the possibilites of Florida dividing into two or more states in this ATL? IOTL there have been several plans to create a West and a South Florida.

Who the hell would live in them? I think we've pretty effectively made the case that Florida south of the panhandle would be effectively barren with settlement few and far between. It'd be the least populous state ever.
 
Florida has the agricultural base to become a productive state and will produce crops year-round, it might be turned into a breadbasket of the Confederacy over the coming decades. Miami will likely remain a smaller port city/naval base to defend the Straits if Key West secedes and a railway to supply it is quite plausible but will not be finished until the 1890s at the earliest. Cattle will dominate the region initially, then oranges, then mixed produce with oranges and other fruits higher on the list. It will never attain the prominence that it has in OTL but I could see Northern retirees making their way South as Americans do in Mexico and CEntral America these days. IF the Confederate economy is just that bad they might even set up for a large Northern colonization of the area, leading to a Cancun-style domination of the region. It would not be recognizable as Confederate within two generations if that happens, and jokes might reflect the status Miami has within the US even now. But Hispanic immigration will be more limited barring the total collapse of Cuba or somesuch, and I doubt Miami would ever exceed a population of 250,000 and the region would probably stay at less than double that with West Palm Beach or Jupiter more likely becoming the dominant city in the area.
 
Florida has the agricultural base to become a productive state and will produce crops year-round, it might be turned into a breadbasket of the Confederacy over the coming decades. Miami will likely remain a smaller port city/naval base to defend the Straits if Key West secedes and a railway to supply it is quite plausible but will not be finished until the 1890s at the earliest. Cattle will dominate the region initially, then oranges, then mixed produce with oranges and other fruits higher on the list. It will never attain the prominence that it has in OTL but I could see Northern retirees making their way South as Americans do in Mexico and CEntral America these days. IF the Confederate economy is just that bad they might even set up for a large Northern colonization of the area, leading to a Cancun-style domination of the region. It would not be recognizable as Confederate within two generations if that happens, and jokes might reflect the status Miami has within the US even now. But Hispanic immigration will be more limited barring the total collapse of Cuba or somesuch, and I doubt Miami would ever exceed a population of 250,000 and the region would probably stay at less than double that with West Palm Beach or Jupiter more likely becoming the dominant city in the area.

It should be noted that most of the Everglades pretty much everywhere between OTL Fort Myers, Miami and Fort Pierce in South Florida was a de-facto Seminole Reservation.

And if what you are saying is right M79, Miami and other coastal towns in South Florida (barring Key West, which undoubtably would have a military presence) would resemble places like Cancun and Cabo San Lucas in terms of tourism.
 
I might borrow some of these ideas for my Confederate steampunk TL (which I promise I will post here once it's more developed).

I don't think the cast will ever visit Florida, but there might be references to a punitive expedition against the Seminoles for harboring runaway slaves or something like that being launched from Tallahassee.
 
This is interesting. The consensus in this thread seems to be that South Florida in this scenario becomes a Seminole reservation, with little White American immigration.

Thing is, by the time the civil war came around there were only dozens of Seminoles left in Florida-Not really enough to absorb hordes of runaway slaves. Would it be possible for a black maroon quasi-state to be established in South Florida in a CSA victory scenario?
 
This is interesting. The consensus in this thread seems to be that South Florida in this scenario becomes a Seminole reservation, with little White American immigration.

Thing is, by the time the civil war came around there were only dozens of Seminoles left in Florida-Not really enough to absorb hordes of runaway slaves. Would it be possible for a black maroon quasi-state to be established in South Florida in a CSA victory scenario?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seminole_Tribe_of_Florida

Frell. Even today, there are only around 2,000 of them.

Maroonage and regular extermination attempts strike me as much more likely.

However, if you want to get really weird, have runaway slaves culturally Seminolize. There's a book I read once featuring the former U.S. wracked by a new Ice Age and apparently at some point, a lot of whites had sought the assistance of the Indians who had better survival skills.

The end result was Indian tribes whose rank-and-file were white but whose aristocracy were Native American.

Problem is, too much of that and it'd be the Indians getting assimilated, especially due to the very small numbers of Seminole in this scenario. The Egyptians were ruled by a black African dynasty at one point and they vanished into the larger gene pool.
 
Having read this thread and thought about it a bit while South Florida is unlikely to develop as it has in OTL in a CSA victory scenario Yankee's are still going to want somewhere hot, sunny and coastal to go on holiday and South Florida is the best place in the CSA for that. Now as it's a different country there will be less Yankee's but that's not the same as no Yankee's.
 
The Florida keys were pro union. Baring all but the most catastrophic union defeat, I can see union siezing and keeping the Keys for naval bases. Even after the confederacy re-joins the union - re written as "a union of distinct states" (1890s), the keys are not returned to Florida. They remain a federal territory today.
 
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