Y'know that's probably just what Gran Columbia needs to unify the place on a permanent basis. A good prolonged and ineffectual invasion.
The Dead Skunk
- Thread starter Lycaon pictus
- Start date
Stolengood
Banned
AAAHHHH!!! The Indian Hitler?
Also... how far ahead do you plan these things, lycaon? Years in advance? Goodness me...
Lycaon pictus
Donor
AAAHHHH!!! The Indian Hitler?
Depends on who you ask.
I have a general idea of where I want to go as far as 1859, but there's a lot I haven't pinned down. Part of the reason I do this thing with the births is to give me something to plan around.
After 1859, the only thing I'm sure of is that the two Big Bad Ideas are Elmarism and aristism. (By the way, the main intellectual founder of aristism is a writer who was born well before the PoD. Can anyone guess who it was?)
Greek Fire (4)
Lycaon pictus
Donor
And while everyone's thinking about that (right?) here's the next update.
Páez’ army was larger than that of any of the Spanish armies that had landed on the north coast, but together they had him outnumbered by half again. His job, therefore, was to first prevent the Spaniards from joining their armies, then to defeat them in detail. Complicating the matter was the fact that he possessed limited intelligence on the approaching armies — he knew where they were and which way they were coming, but his information on their relative sizes was inaccurate.
For this reason, he launched his first attack on the smallest Spanish force — the one coming south from Puerto Caballo. At dawn on January 12, the Colombian army ambushed this force in the mountains northwest of Naguanagua and nearly destroyed it. The survivors beat a hasty retreat to Morón.[1] Instead of following them, Páez turned east. His army reached Maracay the next day, just in time to meet de la Torre’s army — which, having merged with the force that landed at Higuerote, was now slightly larger than his and possessed twice the artillery. Over the course of the next 24 hours, Páez was gradually driven back out of Maracay and into Mariara. Three regiments of men from the south, along with fresh supplies of food and ammunition, arrived just in time to change the course of the battle. Launching a sudden attack on the exhausted Spaniards, Páez drove them as far as Las Teques, halfway back to Caracas.
But while he was doing this, Carlos had taken Cuenca and turned west, pinning the retreating Colombians against the Pacific. By the time Sucre was able to regroup his forces, Guayaquil was under siege…
-Alpirez et al., History of the South American Nations
[1] Yes, there is a town in Venezuela named Morón. It’s northwest of Puerto Caballo.
[2] Antonio José de Sucre.
And so the dance resumes again in earnest.
If its not too forward, I would be interested to know how Lousiana's new territory is developing? Any chance Francisco will sell more land and would Louisiana be interested in purchasing more?
If its not too forward, I would be interested to know how Lousiana's new territory is developing? Any chance Francisco will sell more land and would Louisiana be interested in purchasing more?
Lycaon pictus
Donor
I'm getting to Louisiana soon. Suffice it to say that even with its excellent sources of income, the little republic is getting close to the limits of how much growth it can finance.
Interesting update. If Gran Colombia survives the onslaught, the experience might bind it together. Or not.
I am curious what good old Alexis de T is up to ITTL. I'm hoping he's not going to be the writer associated with Aristism- that would be ironic, but rather cruel.
I am curious what good old Alexis de T is up to ITTL. I'm hoping he's not going to be the writer associated with Aristism- that would be ironic, but rather cruel.
Ah so with the colossus to the North alliances with London and Mexico City will remain vital. The Americans will be back. Despite their brief stay I imagine they regard Louisiana still as 'their' territory. Not to mention the Mississippi trade.
Is there an expanse of local French literature in New Orleans ITTL?
Hrm.Depends on who you ask.
I have a general idea of where I want to go as far as 1859, but there's a lot I haven't pinned down. Part of the reason I do this thing with the births is to give me something to plan around.
After 1859, the only thing I'm sure of is that the two Big Bad Ideas are Elmarism and aristism. (By the way, the main intellectual founder of aristism is a writer who was born well before the PoD. Can anyone guess who it was?)
Aristism -> connotations of aristocracy, or Aristotle. Both of which indicate some sort of highly traditional (by modern structure) classist structure, effectively opposing Elmarism (who seems to be rather violently egalitarian.)
I can't find any references to aristism in the thread other than your hints though.
Lycaon pictus
Donor
Not him. He's still in school, but definitely has a future in politics.
There will be in time.
DING DING DING We have a winner!
Greek Fire (5)
Lycaon pictus
Donor
My 1000th post!
The 1816 caucus was a defining event in the history of the Democratic-Republican Party. The 1820 caucus, by contrast, was nearly a non-event, with many congressmen not even bothering to attend. Both were marked by unprecedented unanimity within the ranks of the party.
And then there was 1824. Once again, the party gathered at Gadsby’s Tavern in Alexandria — but this time, the mood could not have been more different. William Crawford had finally decided to make his bid for the presidency. His most prominent backer was John C. Calhoun, the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. His other backers — most prominently Nicholas Ware and David Holmes — were all Southern.
There was a reason why. Since the collapse of the Federalist Party, many of its most important members, such as Rufus King and Daniel Webster, had risen to prominence in the DRP — and a good many of them had no use for slavery. Paraphrasing Horace, Vice President Monroe joked that “captive Hartford[1] has taken captive her fierce conqueror, and brought abolitionism into rustic Virginia.” To Crawford and Calhoun, it wasn’t funny. They saw their position eroding year by year, and they were determined to halt the process. Their goal was not simply to elect Crawford president, but to establish the DRP as neutral if not friendly to the expansion of slavery into the territories.
By a vote of more than two to one, the caucus rejected Crawford in favor of Henry Clay and his running mate, James Barbour. Undeterred, Calhoun asked Clay where he stood on the settlement of Arkansaw, and whether he agreed with the position put forward by Sen. Martin Van Buren of New York. That position was that slavery was an evil. In those states where it existed, the federal government had no authority to tamper with it, but that government should not permit it to spread into a single territory.
In principle, there was no reason whatsoever to raise the question now. It would be some years before Arkansaw had enough settlers to justify its admission as a state. In any case, the caucus was hardly the appropriate venue. But since most of Congress was here in person, even if not acting in their congressional capacity, it was not completely irrelevant.
Clay’s answer was crystalline in its sheer vagueness. Although he personally continued to believe, as he had said in the debate over the Tallmadge Amendment, that the best way to weaken slavery was to “diffuse” it over as broad an area as possible, he would not attempt to “compel the introduction” of the institution into those territories “where there was no affinity for it.” He added, however, that “it would be against reason to impose a uniform law or condition governing the settlement of such broad and diverse regions as our territories.” In other words, slaveholders could continue to settle Arkansaw — maybe — but had best avoid Ioway and the other territories where free labor had already set its stamp.
Calhoun then asked if the admission of a future state of Arkansaw would be subject to the same conditions that Sen. Tallmadge had imposed upon Missouri. Clay replied, reasonably enough, that it was “far too early to say.”
This did not satisfy either Sen. Tallmadge or Rufus King. They already thought of Van Buren’s position not as a coherent legal and moral position, but as a middle ground between good and evil, one that condemned millions to slavery while offering vague hope for their grandchildren or great-grandchildren. Now, the compromise was itself being compromised by no less than the party’s own candidate for president. To abolitionists, it seemed that they were trapped in a sort of political Zeno’s paradox, doomed to meet the slaveholders halfway and halfway and halfway again while the slaveholders themselves never budged an inch.
But those slaveholders saw things very differently. Leaving the District and Missouri out of the equation, there were now ten slave states with the possibility of one more — perhaps two, said the optimists. (Very little was known at this point of the Kyantine River[2] region.) There were twelve free states, with the certainty of at least four more in time now that the boundaries of Mennisota Territory had been drawn. The ambitious and unflappable Crawford might set aside this defeat and set his eyes on 1828, but to Calhoun, the central government he had done so much to empower was beginning to look distinctly unfriendly. The Dead Roses had been good to him — and he bore a personal grudge against Randolph from last year’s debate over the niter tariff[3] — but neither gratitude nor bitterness could change the facts.
[1] A reference to the Hartford Convention, the New Englanders’ Never-Live-It-Down moment.
[2] OTL’s Canadian River.
[3] I probably should have made this into a separate post, but… as late as the Civil War IOTL, the U.S. was dependent on British imports of niter, which would have been a problem if the U.S. ever had to fight Great Britain. The tariff was intended to make it possible for a domestic niter industry to grow.
Randolph opposed this for two reasons. First of all, he didn’t like tariffs. Second, the main beneficiary of the proposed tariff (other than the U.S. armed forces) was the Alexandria apothecary/dyeworks Stabler & Sons, which had already achieved great wealth and political clout from being the official supplier of “Republican Purple” dye and now wanted to branch out into the niter business. Randolph saw this as political corruption. During the debate in the House, he managed to phrase his objections in a way that made it sound like he was accusing Calhoun of having been bought off by Stabler. Calhoun took grave offense at this. Henry Clay had to step in and defuse the situation before it escalated into a duel.
As for the tariff, it will come as no surprise to learn that the Dead Roses, and Stabler & Sons, got their way. (My poor Americans — not even a quarter of the way into the 19th century and they’re already developing their own military-industrial complex.)
The 1816 caucus was a defining event in the history of the Democratic-Republican Party. The 1820 caucus, by contrast, was nearly a non-event, with many congressmen not even bothering to attend. Both were marked by unprecedented unanimity within the ranks of the party.
And then there was 1824. Once again, the party gathered at Gadsby’s Tavern in Alexandria — but this time, the mood could not have been more different. William Crawford had finally decided to make his bid for the presidency. His most prominent backer was John C. Calhoun, the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. His other backers — most prominently Nicholas Ware and David Holmes — were all Southern.
There was a reason why. Since the collapse of the Federalist Party, many of its most important members, such as Rufus King and Daniel Webster, had risen to prominence in the DRP — and a good many of them had no use for slavery. Paraphrasing Horace, Vice President Monroe joked that “captive Hartford[1] has taken captive her fierce conqueror, and brought abolitionism into rustic Virginia.” To Crawford and Calhoun, it wasn’t funny. They saw their position eroding year by year, and they were determined to halt the process. Their goal was not simply to elect Crawford president, but to establish the DRP as neutral if not friendly to the expansion of slavery into the territories.
By a vote of more than two to one, the caucus rejected Crawford in favor of Henry Clay and his running mate, James Barbour. Undeterred, Calhoun asked Clay where he stood on the settlement of Arkansaw, and whether he agreed with the position put forward by Sen. Martin Van Buren of New York. That position was that slavery was an evil. In those states where it existed, the federal government had no authority to tamper with it, but that government should not permit it to spread into a single territory.
In principle, there was no reason whatsoever to raise the question now. It would be some years before Arkansaw had enough settlers to justify its admission as a state. In any case, the caucus was hardly the appropriate venue. But since most of Congress was here in person, even if not acting in their congressional capacity, it was not completely irrelevant.
Clay’s answer was crystalline in its sheer vagueness. Although he personally continued to believe, as he had said in the debate over the Tallmadge Amendment, that the best way to weaken slavery was to “diffuse” it over as broad an area as possible, he would not attempt to “compel the introduction” of the institution into those territories “where there was no affinity for it.” He added, however, that “it would be against reason to impose a uniform law or condition governing the settlement of such broad and diverse regions as our territories.” In other words, slaveholders could continue to settle Arkansaw — maybe — but had best avoid Ioway and the other territories where free labor had already set its stamp.
Calhoun then asked if the admission of a future state of Arkansaw would be subject to the same conditions that Sen. Tallmadge had imposed upon Missouri. Clay replied, reasonably enough, that it was “far too early to say.”
This did not satisfy either Sen. Tallmadge or Rufus King. They already thought of Van Buren’s position not as a coherent legal and moral position, but as a middle ground between good and evil, one that condemned millions to slavery while offering vague hope for their grandchildren or great-grandchildren. Now, the compromise was itself being compromised by no less than the party’s own candidate for president. To abolitionists, it seemed that they were trapped in a sort of political Zeno’s paradox, doomed to meet the slaveholders halfway and halfway and halfway again while the slaveholders themselves never budged an inch.
But those slaveholders saw things very differently. Leaving the District and Missouri out of the equation, there were now ten slave states with the possibility of one more — perhaps two, said the optimists. (Very little was known at this point of the Kyantine River[2] region.) There were twelve free states, with the certainty of at least four more in time now that the boundaries of Mennisota Territory had been drawn. The ambitious and unflappable Crawford might set aside this defeat and set his eyes on 1828, but to Calhoun, the central government he had done so much to empower was beginning to look distinctly unfriendly. The Dead Roses had been good to him — and he bore a personal grudge against Randolph from last year’s debate over the niter tariff[3] — but neither gratitude nor bitterness could change the facts.
Andrea Fessler, Rise of the Dead Rose
[1] A reference to the Hartford Convention, the New Englanders’ Never-Live-It-Down moment.
[2] OTL’s Canadian River.
[3] I probably should have made this into a separate post, but… as late as the Civil War IOTL, the U.S. was dependent on British imports of niter, which would have been a problem if the U.S. ever had to fight Great Britain. The tariff was intended to make it possible for a domestic niter industry to grow.
Randolph opposed this for two reasons. First of all, he didn’t like tariffs. Second, the main beneficiary of the proposed tariff (other than the U.S. armed forces) was the Alexandria apothecary/dyeworks Stabler & Sons, which had already achieved great wealth and political clout from being the official supplier of “Republican Purple” dye and now wanted to branch out into the niter business. Randolph saw this as political corruption. During the debate in the House, he managed to phrase his objections in a way that made it sound like he was accusing Calhoun of having been bought off by Stabler. Calhoun took grave offense at this. Henry Clay had to step in and defuse the situation before it escalated into a duel.
As for the tariff, it will come as no surprise to learn that the Dead Roses, and Stabler & Sons, got their way. (My poor Americans — not even a quarter of the way into the 19th century and they’re already developing their own military-industrial complex.)
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Lycaon pictus
Donor
The hurricane itself wouldn't be quite as bad — New Orleans hasn't subsided as far, and there's a lot more marshland to shield it from storm surges.
Recovery would be the hard part, especially if it happened after the U.S. had built its canal network in the south. Louisiana would need to take out some serious loans from the Bank of England to rebuild.
Ah the Slave Question, of course it gets kicked up. The Northern territory losses do not amount to the loss of prime Slaver territory. Still I think ACW style secession would be a harder sell with anti-Louisiana sentiment. But decades may pass yet ad sentiment can and does shift.
Are we sticking around North America for a while?
Are we sticking around North America for a while?
Stolengood
Banned
You should've let it escalate into a duel; it would've killed off John Calhoun before he tarnished his own reputation! Saint Calhoun, he would've been!
By the way... will there be at least one town, and a good hundred or so freed slave children, named after Tallmadge in the wake of his Amendment in Missouri?
Interesting to return back to where we started. Certainly nice to see slavery will hopefully be a fair bit less expansive and entrenched in TTL's USA.
Greek Fire (6)
Lycaon pictus
Donor
I apologize… again. Trying to write too many things at once. Again.
And once again, thank you, bm79. Now, where were we?
By all appearances, the Beauvais administration had been a success. The all-important levees were in good repair. The piastre, the new national currency, was holding its value (although, on the advice of George Canning, it was being kept slightly lower than the U.S. dollar). The Hôtel de la République was close to being finished. The Lycée Premier de La Nouvelle-Orleans had just opened. The Deuxième de La Nouvelle-Orleans and the schools at Bâton-Rouge and St-Martinville were scheduled to open within the next two years, with the Grande École de la République in Fauborg St-Jean to open in 1828.
Unfortunately for Louisiana, the T&T Canal would be finished in 1825. No one — not even Canning, who had surveyed New Orleans trade over the course of several years — was sure precisely how much traffic the canal would divert, but it was clear that there could be no further increases in tariffs on the river traffic. Indeed, it might be necessary for the government to lower tariffs, and to reduce national expenditures accordingly. Under the circumstances, Canning’s invitation to the Republic to take out more loans from the Bank of England was dismissed as too obviously a self-serving ploy. Instead, Jacques Villeré’s Conservatives promised to keep the Republic solvent through the difficult times ahead.
Then, shortly before the election, word got out of corruption in the roadbuilding industry. The Assembly had originally dictated that the road to Fort-Keane should be built according to the McAdam method[1], “except in such places as this shall prove impracticable”; i.e., where the water table lay within ten inches of the surface and could not be drained. In such places, it would suffice to lay a corduroy road, which would be a good deal faster and cheaper in any case — and therein lay the problem. Marigny’s government wanted the road built as quickly as possible, and was exercising little oversight over the construction process. It did not take long for unscrupulous surveyors and roadbuilders to see that here was an opportunity to line their own pockets. In April of 1824, after personally surveying the road from Port-de-l’Ouest[2] to Opelousas, Canning estimated that “for every mile of macadamized road the Republic has paid for, it has received roughly a kilometer; the rest is mere corduroy.” (This comment was the source of the oft-cited myth that the roadbuilders were taking advantage of the confusion between imperial and metric units.) This was unwelcome news at a time when the road was approaching the territory that would be most difficult to build in — the sloughs east of the Sabine.
Under the circumstances, it was not surprising that the Conservatives won the election of 1824, or that Villeré served his second and last term as president. More surprising was that although Villeré made no further loan applications to the Bank of England, he did retain George Canning as treasury minister. The new minister for domestic affairs, Jean Baptiste Noël Bouchotte, was given the nontrivial task of reining in corruption in national projects. Villeré, Canning and Bouchotte already had a proposal to send the government of the United States “regarding a project of mutual benefit to our nations” — but, since 1824 was an election year in the U.S. as well, they would wait for the new government to take office.
[1] John Loudon McAdam, Scottish engineer and roadbuilder. “Macadam” is named for him.
[2] OTL Port Allen. The road mostly follows the path of U.S. 190, skirting north of the Atchafalaya swamps.
And once again, thank you, bm79. Now, where were we?
By all appearances, the Beauvais administration had been a success. The all-important levees were in good repair. The piastre, the new national currency, was holding its value (although, on the advice of George Canning, it was being kept slightly lower than the U.S. dollar). The Hôtel de la République was close to being finished. The Lycée Premier de La Nouvelle-Orleans had just opened. The Deuxième de La Nouvelle-Orleans and the schools at Bâton-Rouge and St-Martinville were scheduled to open within the next two years, with the Grande École de la République in Fauborg St-Jean to open in 1828.
Unfortunately for Louisiana, the T&T Canal would be finished in 1825. No one — not even Canning, who had surveyed New Orleans trade over the course of several years — was sure precisely how much traffic the canal would divert, but it was clear that there could be no further increases in tariffs on the river traffic. Indeed, it might be necessary for the government to lower tariffs, and to reduce national expenditures accordingly. Under the circumstances, Canning’s invitation to the Republic to take out more loans from the Bank of England was dismissed as too obviously a self-serving ploy. Instead, Jacques Villeré’s Conservatives promised to keep the Republic solvent through the difficult times ahead.
Then, shortly before the election, word got out of corruption in the roadbuilding industry. The Assembly had originally dictated that the road to Fort-Keane should be built according to the McAdam method[1], “except in such places as this shall prove impracticable”; i.e., where the water table lay within ten inches of the surface and could not be drained. In such places, it would suffice to lay a corduroy road, which would be a good deal faster and cheaper in any case — and therein lay the problem. Marigny’s government wanted the road built as quickly as possible, and was exercising little oversight over the construction process. It did not take long for unscrupulous surveyors and roadbuilders to see that here was an opportunity to line their own pockets. In April of 1824, after personally surveying the road from Port-de-l’Ouest[2] to Opelousas, Canning estimated that “for every mile of macadamized road the Republic has paid for, it has received roughly a kilometer; the rest is mere corduroy.” (This comment was the source of the oft-cited myth that the roadbuilders were taking advantage of the confusion between imperial and metric units.) This was unwelcome news at a time when the road was approaching the territory that would be most difficult to build in — the sloughs east of the Sabine.
Under the circumstances, it was not surprising that the Conservatives won the election of 1824, or that Villeré served his second and last term as president. More surprising was that although Villeré made no further loan applications to the Bank of England, he did retain George Canning as treasury minister. The new minister for domestic affairs, Jean Baptiste Noël Bouchotte, was given the nontrivial task of reining in corruption in national projects. Villeré, Canning and Bouchotte already had a proposal to send the government of the United States “regarding a project of mutual benefit to our nations” — but, since 1824 was an election year in the U.S. as well, they would wait for the new government to take office.
Michel Beauregard, A History of the Republic of Louisiana
[1] John Loudon McAdam, Scottish engineer and roadbuilder. “Macadam” is named for him.
[2] OTL Port Allen. The road mostly follows the path of U.S. 190, skirting north of the Atchafalaya swamps.
Ah and old fashioned political corruption rears its head.
And the value of the river mouth is undercut. Still I expect The bulk of trade will simply have to flow up and down the river. Particularly as the Americans expand Westward.
So Canning is sticking around. Good, London politics is not a good place to be right now.
And the value of the river mouth is undercut. Still I expect The bulk of trade will simply have to flow up and down the river. Particularly as the Americans expand Westward.
So Canning is sticking around. Good, London politics is not a good place to be right now.