Southern States Keep land claims in west?

Which of these colonies had the best chance forming thier own sustainable nations?

  • New Hampshire

    Votes: 1 1.4%
  • Massachusetts

    Votes: 2 2.9%
  • Vermont (claimed by NY and NH)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • New York

    Votes: 10 14.3%
  • Rhode Island

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Connecticut

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Pennsylvannia

    Votes: 6 8.6%
  • New Jersey

    Votes: 1 1.4%
  • Delaware

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Virginia

    Votes: 33 47.1%
  • Maryland

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • North Carolina

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • South Carolina

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Georgia

    Votes: 1 1.4%
  • West Flordia (up to 31N')

    Votes: 2 2.9%
  • West Flordia (up to 33N')

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • East Flordia

    Votes: 1 1.4%
  • Upper Canada

    Votes: 1 1.4%
  • Lower Canada

    Votes: 3 4.3%
  • Louisiana

    Votes: 9 12.9%

  • Total voters
    70
  • Poll closed .
Paladin, what sort of good north-south rivers are there going between Virginia/Kentucky and the midwest? You have the Ohio river to move goods west and raw materials east, but I don't know if there are decent rivers besides that. I think even canals would have to be a little long to make it economical, at least for decades. That's why I think NY would be able to get disproportionate power... We have much better and earlier access to the midwest. A Virginian B&O is likely, but it'd take time to jump start. You're probably not going to see good rail access from Virginia to the midwest until the 1860s or so. The historical B&O didn't good real access to Ohio until the 60s and 70s, and I don't think there'll be as big an economic need for it. Baltimore really fucking needed that boosted trade. Richmond will probably be wealthy enough anyway. And with Maryland and the midwest two entirely separate nations, there's less of a chance Baltimore will be making the railroad itself.

The extra coal would be a huge help, but I don't know how conducive Virginian culture would be to an early industrial revolution. It's an economic shift that I don't really see strong impetus for, even with early emancipation. Virginia's whole society, based on a wealthy land-owning elite, isn't the sort of merchant-oriented society you'd see in New York and New England. You very well might see an earlier industrial revolution in the northeast, but I think Virginia would miss out on it (or only develop industry later on, as a reaction).

The likeliest result I see is a Virginian industrial revolution at roughly the same time as OTL, but resulting in a bigger boom.
 
Also, I agree with the sentiment that Virginia will become a free state relatively quickly. Most of the impetus for keeping slavery came from the plantation owners south of the James river. North and west of there, the climate and soil isn't really conducive to that sort of large scale cultivation. This will be the case even more with all that extra territory and people.
Wasn't virginia a major slave state? Seems to me they will hold out a long time and keep it. Those slave owners practically ran the government.

Anyway I have a challenge for everyone, List the states in order which they get destroyed as independent nations (Vermont can count). And which you think will eventually reunify the country if at all
 
Solo-

I see your point, and you're probably right. More than likely, then, the Industrial revolution ITTL will follow our:starting in New England with the textile industry, then spreading south and west, along with the railroads. Still, once VA finally gets into the swing of things (probably starting in the 1860s, but not reaching full crescendo till the 1880s) it will be much better off than IOTL (though no civil war would obviously help).

Earl of Sumerset-
Actually, VA came close to banning slavery in 1831 in the aftermath of the Nat Turner revolt. The measure didn't pass only due to the aforementioned slave owning political class that populated the lower James river valley. However, in this TL, they would be balanced out by the representatives from the western counties, who were generally anti-slavery. So my guess is there will be a similar revolt, and slavery will be abolished, especially since there will be nowhere as much economic impetus to keep it going (no Deep South to provide a market for slaves).
 
Slave Free States

Ok, by the way everyone is putting it, it seems as if we will have 3 slave states NC SC and GA, am i mistaken? or would there be others or less maybe:confused:
 

elder.wyrm

Banned
Delaware as an independent country isn't viable; it has barely enough people for the "statehood" guideline (in fact less) and was until 1776 part of Pennsylvania.

Just like you're wrong about PA having no Western claims, you're wrong about this. Delaware and Pennsylvania only shared a legislature for a brief time in the 17th century. The Lower Counties, while still part of the Penn proprietorship, were separate from Pennsylvania.

No states are going to conquer other states, at least not immediately. They all have more than a century's worth of experience with independence from another and their citizens would expect to remain so. The most that might happen is there might be a war in Vermont, but the balance between the claims of New Hampshire and New York might still be enough to secure Vermont's independence.

Likewise, settlement of the Ohio Country and the Sun Belt is going to happen. Demographic pressure guarantee this. Hell, if settlement of the Louisiana territory, Spanish, French, or whoever else is the owner, is pretty damned likely for exactly the same reason. You don't stick 3 million people having huge families in a more or less stable, growing society on one coast of a sparsely settled continent and expect them to not spread across it.

Settlement along the Western coast, however, might be more securely butterflied. Even trans-Mississippi settlement is likely to be less extensive.

This is all assuming immigration is less. Again, there were demographic pressures in Europe that produced huge amounts of people who needed somewhere to go. Whether they still go to America is an open question.

A few interesting changes are going to happen in Native-Colonial relations, though. I don't feel I know enough to say exactly what they will be.
 

elder.wyrm

Banned
Wasn't virginia a major slave state? Seems to me they will hold out a long time and keep it. Those slave owners practically ran the government.

Anyway I have a challenge for everyone, List the states in order which they get destroyed as independent nations (Vermont can count). And which you think will eventually reunify the country if at all

Virginia (and the rest of the Upper South) always had a smaller slave population as a proportion to the total than the Sun Belt lower South states. While the planters did indeed run the government, there was an idealism to their administration that was lacking in, say, South Carolina. Discussions of manumission or some other kind of gradual abolition were being had in Virginia as late as the 1830's and Nat Turner's Rebellion.

In a way, Virginia was the hearth of the early American Republic, and an independent Virginia will be no different. The first four American presidents, who are all remembered fondly by those who care to study the antebellum period, were all Virginians.

And this idea that there will be constant war or something amongst the states is silly and anachronistic. No states will be 'destroyed' early on, and what happens with Vermont is a toss-up. They did establish an independent republic early on, and it was a mountainous region conducive to defensive conflict. Most likely, if the Confederation falls apart for some reason and is replaced by nothing on a national scale, smaller, regional confederations pop up to fill the gaps. New England will certainly unite in some fashion, and who joins with whom in the future of TTL depends on the exact circumstances of disunity.

What I'm interested in is the social situation in New England. A Massachusetts that has no national government to turn to for protection is going to have to be even more conciliatory to the Western counties in order to secure the government in Boston. If things are handled well and the peace is secured, I see no reason why the status quo cannot go on for decades. If it isn't, then upheaval in the North is all put guaranteed. You might see up-state New York, especially along the Mohawk valley, secede from lower New York to form yet another 'New Englander' state. The tensions between Yankee settlers and the Anglican-Dutch establishment IOTL was somewhat ameliorated by the situation existed then, changing that situation has the possibility of changing the outcome.

EDIT: And exactly who gets the West is likely to be based on 'boots on the ground', as it were. Considering who had the demographics to spread and who didn't, Virginia and New England are going to have much stronger claims than New York. Even Western New York state itself was heavily settled by Yankee New Englanders, rather than any of the Dutch or Anglican protestants from the Hudson valley.
 
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