The Dead Skunk

[Lycaon pictus]

Glad everyone's enjoying it! (I hope you're still enjoying it after you get to the end of this next update.)

The U.S. isn't totally isolated, but (and this is their biggest problem as far as foreign policy goes) of all their allies, only one—France—might conceivably be able to help in time of war. That's the one they most want to keep happy.

Florida​

At first glance, it appears that little has changed for the worse in this growing colony. Over a thousand immigrants came from India, Southeast Asia and China this year. Rice, honey, preserved fruit, Florida water, sugar grown by free labor (for a given value of “free”)—the market for these things hasn’t gone anywhere. But the pace of immigration and growth has slowed in the past two years, mostly because of the credit crunch. This has somewhat strengthened the position of the Creek and Seminole tribal organizations as lenders, even as those tribes await the next census knowing they’ll find they’re quite thoroughly outnumbered by the new immigrants.

There has been one change right at the top. Governor Charles MacCarthy turned 70 this year, and decided to tender his resignation and retire from Florida. Replacing him is the 51-year-old Joseph Wanton Morrison, who served with distinction as a general in the war in Burma—and before that as a lieutenant colonel in the War of 1812, inflicting an embarrassing defeat on the Americans during the invasion of Canada. His appointment to this post is a rather obvious message to their northern neighbors not to try anything stupid.

Governor Raffles divided Florida into seven provinces. In the northeastern province of Augustinia, blacks and Jews alike have learned from the Creeks how to plant the Three Sisters together, so the beans enrich the soil and the hairy squash leaves ward raccoons away from the corn. They’ve learned to soak the corn in limewater to make it safer and more nutritious. They’ve learned to care for the various wild fruit trees they find to increase their production. Above all, they’ve learned from Cantonese and Bengalis how to cultivate and prepare the rice that now grows in profuse abundance along the St. Johns River. The poorest people in Augustinia go to bed every night with bellies full of boiled rice and veggies.

David Levy Yulee and Judah P. Benjamin are not the poorest people in Augustinia. Both of them are bright young lawyers working in the provincial capital of St. Augustine. Yulee in particular is the son of Moses Levy, the most powerful and respected man in Florida’s Jewish community and the main driving force behind the existence of that community. He took the surname “Yulee,” the name of one of his Moroccan ancestors, as a way to literally make a name for himself rather than staying in his father’s shadow.[1] Benjamin is the guy whose account of his Spanish adventure was getting him free drinks for most of a year before it was eclipsed by Fed’s account of his escape from Savannah. Yulee and Benjamin both go to bed with bellies full of jerk chicken or fried fish, or beefsteak on special occasions (and there are still few Hindus in St. Augustine, so they don’t get any dirty looks for the steak) and the beds they go to are surrounded by drapes of scented cheesecloth to keep out the mosquitoes. The one drawback to their wealth and status is that even in Florida they’re expected to dress like they’re in London, and this time of year that’s almost comfortable.

Especially right now—Christmas is in two days and Hanukkah begins in four, but this Tuesday evening Yulee and Benjamin have gotten the last of their business wrapped up for the year, and are celebrating with sweet, fragrant lychee wine in a local pub, the Menorquín. They’re flirting with the waitress, a pretty Balinese girl from down the coast. And they’re keeping their ears open for gossip. The Menorquín draws a crowd of their fellow Jews, the Minorcan Spaniards who’ve been living in this town since long before it was British, the small handful of immigrants from the British Isles, the occasional Creek or Seminole on business, and even a few black people.

By the standards of 1834, St. Augustine is a model for racial harmony, but that’s saying almost nothing. The Jewish, Spanish and black parts of the city are practically separate towns with not a lot of socialization between them, and though the black part of town holds nearly half of its roughly 5,000 people, it holds a lot less than half of its wealth. But the Menorquín is one of the holy places where the races meet[2], which makes it a place where Yulee and Benjamin can tap the flow of information that goes up and down the southern Hidden Trail. The word they’re getting now is that up in Georgia, Governor Berrien is spending a lot of time in the company of Isaiah Hart, an American slaveholder who lived near what is now Sepharad before the war, and has never quite gotten over the loss of his land. That has to be bad news. Good thing Morrison is in charge.

Neither of these men is an abolitionist. Both of them grew up in the Caribbean—Yulee on St. Thomas, Benjamin on St. Croix. They don’t remember slavery as being all that bad, since their experience was more of the having-them than the being-one variety, and for a long time they felt like Florida was missing out by not having it. But they’ve been without slaves for some years now, and the majority of their neighbors in Sepharad never had any to begin with. And after the Paixão de Cristo and Savannah, even they have a hard time arguing that Raffles made a mistake—especially since the Empire’s gradual emancipation program is causing Florida no disruption at all, unlike Jamaica or Guiana.

And there are other ways of getting work done. On the east bank of the St. Johns south of Sepharad, Jews from the Netherlands, Portugal, Morocco and what is now the Kingdom of Turkey own more acres of paddy than they can ever hope to cultivate, even with the help of the water buffaloes that someone brought over as calves and that are now big enough to be ready for work. But there are Muslim boys in Florida who already know how to grow rice, whose parents come from India, Malaya and Java and are willing to hire them out for a little money and—for the boys—a lot of education. Florida is not richly supplied with imams and has no madrassa, and most of the colony’s religious schools are Christian and inclined to proselytizing.

Florida is definitely a cultural mosaic—but right now it’s an abstract one, its various elements forming no obvious pattern. For example, if you ask Mani Jiya Menon of the Narinna district of the province of Tequesta, north of Lake Mayaca, she would tell you she’s a Travancoran woman living in Florida—and by the way, she’s definitely of the menon caste. (Nobody in Florida can prove otherwise.) And, Jiya would say, the same is true of her 9-year-old daughter Teji (full name: Mani Teji Menon), who she insists is the child of her dear departed husband. Everyone agrees that judging by Teji’s appearance, said husband must have been a particularly handsome man—and must also have been much lighter-skinned than Jiya.

Jiya and Teji only speak Malayalam when they’re at home. The rest of the time they speak English, and Jiya makes Teji practice her English as carefully as she judges the ripeness of an ackee[3]. Jiya is one of the hardest workers on the Seminole-owned fruit orchards and apiaries in the district, where they grow a particularly delicious breed of lime, but she wants to make sure her daughter gets a ticket into a better life in Florida.

Likewise, Josie Shepherd thinks of herself as a black woman in Florida. She lives in the mostly-black village of Angola at the northwestern tip of the province of Charlottea[4]. Her husband of three years is named Akinwale, but everyone calls him Wally. He was one of the Paixão de Cristo rebels, and only speaks a little English. They agreed on the surname “Shepherd” on account of their job, which is helping raise the expanding herds of meat and dairy sheep. Because these herds are still meant to be expanding, few sheep are slaughtered until they’re old enough to have gotten some breeding done. Local butchers run the tough, gamy mutton through grinders, hickory-smoke it, salt it and spice it, then pack it tight into the casings and smoke the sausages again. British sailors love this stuff—it lasts for months at sea, it goes well with the lime juice ration, and best of all, it isn’t hardtack. Hindus, Muslims and Jews will also buy it because it’s guaranteed not to have any beef or pork in it, and it’s good with the fermented fish sauce they make in Zarazota a little ways south.

Already helping out in the fields is Josie’s 8-year-old son Gordon, who’s quite obviously not Wally’s son—where Wally is one of the darkest-skinned men in Angola, Gordon is several shades lighter than his mother. This, plus his precocious charm, are why he’s been nicknamed “Golden.” His biological father used to help out with money, but he passed away a couple of years ago.

Choi Ming lives in Trafalgar itself—in fact, she has a room in the governor’s mansion and works in the famous botanical gardens alongside a young man from India, who has taught her the art of fixing a good curry and whom she’ll marry next year. He’s agreed to adopt as his own her son, 6-year-old son Choi Yin, who’s already a bit tall for his age. Which is good—her own parents were far less accepting. Yin is due to have a Hindu stepfather, but as far as Ming is concerned he’s perfectly Chinese, even if his deep-set eyes, the subtly different texture of his hair, and his taste for clarified butter would stand out back in Canton. She’s taught him the bare handful of characters that she knows, but has made sure he also has a start in speaking and writing English.

And back in St. Augustine, Ni Made Dewi has learned a lot she didn’t know in her childhood in Bali, or later in the fishing village of Tebanan[5]. She’s learned how to brew the strong rice beer called choo, how to flirt with young lawyers without making any promises and look graceful and self-possessed while dodging their hands, and how to hold her head high when talking about her 3-year-old daughter, Ni Wayan Suardika[6], whose father crossed the ocean two years ago and never returned. And yes, if you asked her, she’d say that she and her daughter are both perfectly Balinese.

Because nobody ever sets out to create a new ethnic group. Different tribes and nations can and do exchange ideas, skills, the odd strand of DNA, and even whole languages with each other, but as Anil Malakar will one day say, “Identity and pride—whether it be that of an army, a faith or a people—are forged by the Creator in the fires of shared travail.” British Florida is hardly a generation old, and apart from the bad hurricane back in ’28 and a couple of outbreaks of yellow fever, it’s not a place where much shared travail has happened… yet.

Louisiana​

Some of the news is bad, and some of it is downright horrifying, so let’s start with the good news. John Keane (remember him? Soldier? Louisiana’s conqueror-turned-savior? Very model of a modern major-general?[7] Man who still has no idea how much he’s changed the world?) is back in New Orleans, and he’s been named Minister of War for the Republic of Louisiana.

The presence of all these British officials in their government is starting to become controversial. The stated rationale is that these guys are just better at what they do. After all, Louisiana has a population of just under a quarter of a million, of whom over forty percent are slaves. At last census, the UK had a population of 24 million people just in the British Isles. The men who come from London to serve New Orleans are drawn from a talent pool two orders of magnitude greater, and Louisiana should be grateful they’re here. Still, most people are well aware that this is the Crown’s protection turning, little by little, into domination.

But this is Keane—they can’t be mad at him. When he arrived last September after eighteen years away, the city outdid itself in revelry to celebrate his return. He went on a tour of the little republic, and was greeted as a hero in the border forts and the small but growing town named after him. The only sign of trouble was that people kept wanting more reassurance that Queen Charlotte wasn’t going to abolish slavery in Louisiana, and he kept having to tell them that the Crown could not and would not do that here.

As minister of war, Keane has already made one important decision—the Army companies that use rafts and pirogues as transportation will remain in the Grand Army of the Republic rather than being placed under the Navy’s jurisdiction. But the Navy isn’t complaining much, because Keane came with a gift for them, courtesy of their friends in the Royal Navy—24 long nines and enough inch-thick iron plate to allow them to complete a unique warship, the Volonté de la République.

They’re calling the Volonté “Louisiana’s demologos” but it isn’t really one. It’s smaller and lighter, with (as might be expected for a strictly brown-water vessel) a much shallower draft. It doesn’t have the monster columbiads that can fire a hundred-pound[8] cannonball through an enemy’s hull below the waterline. But it’s not like Robert Fulton is going to come to Louisiana and tell them it didn’t pass certification. When built, it will be fully armored above the waterline, able to fire 24-pound heated shot from its bow and stern chasers, and with the long nines the British were kind enough to provide, it will be able to steam up the middle of the Mississippi and kill invaders on both banks.[9]

Keane is hoping this formidable vessel never sees action. After the war, he was very happy to return to his wife, and she was very happy to have him back—so happy, in fact, that they had three sons in as many years.[10] The oldest of those sons is now in the Army, and the others are likely to follow suit. He’s proud of them for their choices, but he does not want war.

And things here are bad enough as it is right now. Where the global recession has touched Florida lightly, it’s smacked Louisiana hard. A lot of cotton brokerage firms are headquartered in New Orleans for tax reasons, but those lower taxes didn’t save them from this year’s collapse. Biddle’s attempt to corner the market is making it harder for them to get hold of cotton that doesn’t come from Louisiana itself. Trade in general has declined, which is bad for a number of reasons—the lower the volume of trade from the American frontier to the Gulf of Mexico, the higher a percentage of it can be funneled through the T&T Canal, meaning even less money for Louisiana tariff collectors, brokers and shippers. Land prices haven’t fallen as far as they have in Canada and the United States (this is one of the rare cases where being small and at the limits of possible growth is an advantage) but they’ve gone down enough to hurt the speculators. And of course the market in fur has collapsed, ruining those who depend on searching the bayou for muskrats and other hairy things to kill. The result is the same problems they’re having in New York and Charleston, and a government with no power to address them.

Even the wages of sin are getting low. Prostitutes aren’t doing as badly as fur traders[11], but they have had to lower their prices, which is hell on their self-esteem. Most of the gamblers still coming to the casinos are either addicted or desperate. They’re the sort who are pretty reliable about losing their money, but don’t have much money to lose.

When most people think of the little republic, they think of the city of New Orleans, but only one in five of Louisiana’s people lives there. Much of the rest of the country is dominated by the cotton and sugar industries. It’s the familiar pattern—big farmers can devote more of their land to growing cash crops, so they make more money and buy land from their neighbors, grow more cash crops and so on. And they need that land, because cotton and sugar are both hard on the soil. But there’s a limit to how far this expansion can go. Louisiana is (it bears repeating) small, and much of its land is wetland which can’t be drained because it’s at sea level or because it’s haunted by small semi-legal communities of runaway slaves which it would take a war to get rid of. Then there’s the fact that in Britain, one of Louisiana’s two biggest trade partners, slave-grown sugar is out of fashion. So even as food production was going down, cotton and sugar were already running into trouble. The, of course, the economy went south—which in Louisiana means it sank into the Gulf of Mexico.

And as elsewhere, voters are starting to look angrily at their government. Louisiana has had less of a political monopoly than the U.S., but the Conservatives have been in power since 1824. If Jacques Villeré were still alive, they’d probably make him president again.[12] Since he isn’t, last year they chose his oldest son, René Philippe Gabriel Roy Villeré, mostly as a sort of placeholder until Bouligny can step in again. He has no idea how to handle this situation.

He is getting some suggestions. André B. Roman, leader of the opposition, is of the opinion that what Louisiana needs is debt relief for farmers and small businessmen and tax breaks for the production of food. Like the Populist Party in the U.S., his main concern is keeping people alive and in business. The Conservative party whip, a young up-and-comer named Alexandre Mouton, is of the opinion that Louisiana should just ride this out and not do much of anything.

And then there’s what’s happening in foreign affairs—specifically the United States. A number of newspaper editors and Tertium Quid politicians have been putting forward the idea that Louisiana should cast off British protection and rejoin the United States. This would accomplish two goals—protecting slavery in Louisiana from the abolitionism of the British Empire, and give American slaveholders domestic allies to protect slavery within the United States.

This suggestion is not going over very well, and the person doing the most to sabotage it is Thomas Hart Benton, U.S. Secretary of War. He still remembers Andrew Jackson fondly, and he thinks of the Louisianans as the people who betrayed and murdered him. He wants to conquer Louisiana by force, and has no problem saying so.

As it happens, Louisianans also remember Andrew Jackson. For those in their thirties, who were born around the turn of the century and are just getting into politics, one of the defining memories of their adolescence was learning that the general they trusted to defend their city was trying to burn it to the ground.

And no one born after 1810 has any clear memories of life under the United States. The younger generation—especially those connected in some way with trade—think of Louisiana as the northern edge of the Caribbean as much as the southern edge of North America. They look to New Spain, Florida, Spanish Cuba and Tehuantepec, and beyond them to a great variety of places, especially the French-speaking Guadeloupe, Martinique and Cayenne. (Quite a few whites from Guadeloupe and Martinique are moving to Louisiana in response to the abolition of slavery there.) They think of Louisiana as a unique and special place in the world, and they don’t want to trade that uniqueness for two senators and four representatives in Congress[13].

One of these young people is Corporal Augustin-Frejus Toutant-Beauregard[14], youngest of the Beauregard children, whose father was killed at the Battle of Pearl River before he was born. He’s nineteen years old and has been in the Army for the last two years. He’s too young to have taken part in the Ichacq War, and in fact has spent his entire service in a unit stationed near the capital to protect it from a potential slave revolt. Since there hasn’t been a slave revolt, you’d think his service would be pretty forgettable. In fact, he will never forget his service, no matter how much he wants to.

Back in January, when everyone was still talking about Savannah and afraid that something like that was going to happen here, a couple of city gendarmes came to the barracks accompanied by an emaciated, terrified-looking slave woman. This woman reported that there was a revolt being planned in the slave quarters of the LaLaurie mansion on Rue Royale, they had weapons, and someone had to go there and stop them right now. The gendarmes figured they’d need some backup for this one. They didn’t even have time to obtain permission from the mansion’s owner, Dr. Leonard LaLaurie, who claimed to be able to treat hunchbacks and was out arranging a shipment of drugs from Virginia.

Beauregard, who had never seen any real action before, figured he was ready for anything as he led the charge to the mansion, shouldering the door open as soon as someone answered it. When he glanced in the kitchen and saw the cook chained to the stove, he wrote it off as a case of harsh discipline, and he assumed the gauntness and heavy scarring of the other slaves was due to unusual cruelty and parsimoniousness on the part of the LaLauries. Like anyone who grows up in a place where slavery is widespread, he’d gotten used to a certain background-noise level of horror… but it didn’t prepare him for the slave quarters, which were basically a Hieronymus Bosch painting made out of people.

There was an old woman with an open head wound, somehow still alive. There was a bedridden man whose arms and legs had been stretched as if on a rack, to the point where they no longer functioned. There were women hanging from the ceiling, alive but tied up, with their limbs forced into positions that a professional contortionist would have had a hard time duplicating. There was a man chained to the wall, with an iron collar around his neck lined with spikes on the inside, trying to keep awake for as long as possible so as not to cut himself.

Suspicion immediately fell on Dr. LaLaurie—some of the things that had been done to the slaves looked vaguely like some sort of medical experiments, and he didn’t help his case when he insisted that what went on in his house was his own business. But as the authorities interviewed the slaves, they learned that the perpetrator was his wife Delphine.

That made it worse. Delphine LaLaurie was a beautiful and popular socialite who’d always seemed perfectly pleasant, and the slaves she brought out in public with her had been in perfect health—she’d even freed a couple. There had been rumors about her for a long time, and she’d been investigated more than once due to rumors of cruelty beyond what the republic’s laws allow. Louisianans have always taken pride in having a legal structure to protect slaves and limit what their masters can do. They might have expected this sort of thing to happen in some backwoods plantation in America, but not on Rue Royale. And as they dug up the garden and found the bodies, it became clear to everyone in the city that their trusted institutions had failed.

And to top it off, Beauregard and his men had the thankless job of guarding this woman-shaped thing through the trial, so that an angry mob didn’t decorate a lamppost with her before the court could enforce its own justice. Her lawyer and son-in-law, Auguste Delassus, tried to make a case that she was insane. It didn’t work. She was found guilty and hanged. The family was busy slinking off in various directions, so the corpse was sold to anatomists—the Edinburgh Phrenological Society bought the head and had it defleshed so they could examine the skull structure and try to work out where the evil bits are.

So at least in one small way, Delphine LaLaurie did boost the local economy.


[1] He did the same thing IOTL when he converted, but for different reasons.
[2] h/t Leonard Cohen
[3] A fruit, originally from West Africa and ITTL imported to Florida via Jamaica, parts of which are toxic when unripe.
[4] Named not after the current queen ITTL, but after Charlotte Harbour, which in turn was named after George III’s wife.
[5] OTL Fort Lauderdale
[6] This makes sense in the context of the Balinese naming system.
[7] IOTL by this time he’d been promoted to lieutenant-general.
[8] Supplying ammunition for pre-1815 artillery pieces are an area where the U.S. still uses traditional weights and measures.
[9] Designers anticipate that as a riverine vessel, the Volonté will be more likely to confront other vessels to fore and aft, and land-based armies to port and starboard.
[10] As IOTL.
[11] Because those who’ve purchased sexual favors in previous years don’t usually turn around and sell them to others at a lower price.
[12] Here's the list:

1. 1815-18 Jacques Villeré
2. 1818-21 Bernard de Marigny, Radical
3. 1821-24 Armand Beauvais, Radical
4. 1824-27 Jacques Villeré, Conservative
5. 1827-30 Charles D.J. Bouligny , Conservative
6. 1830-33 Jean-Baptiste Labatut, Conservative

[13] By my calculations.
[14] IOTL an older brother of P.G.T. Beuaregard.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

New Spain and Tehuantepec​

Agustín de Iturbide has been dead for two years now. The first prime minister of New Spain, the father-in-law of Prince-Viceroy Francisco and grandfather of his children, the man who designed the flag of New Spain… was executed as a traitor.

It hurt. Well, obviously it caused Iturbide some pain, since New Spain favors the garrote for executions, a much slower way out than the guillotine or a properly-done formal hanging. But everyone was left unhappy. Francisco, along with Prime Minister Valentín Gómez Farías, proclaimed it a day of mourning throughout New Spain. Even liberals and federalists were left feeling more sorrow than anger, and conservatives and unitarians—those that weren’t too close to Iturbide and didn’t have to flee to Madrid or Lima—went around in black for months. But he was killed to send a message—no matter who you are or whose backing you think you have, this is what happens when you try to overthrow the government. That’s a good precedent to set, even if it means occasionally having to sentence somebody you like to die with a gradually tightening leather strap around his neck.

Unfortunately, not all the precedents they’ve set are good. Very few army units took part in Iturbide’s coup, and the rest either supported the government in exile or stood aside, but they exacted a price for this. Any military intervention outside New Spain’s borders, even at the behest of the mother country, must pass a vote by the top generals to be acted on. So must any change in the Army’s budget greater than five percent. In other words, civilian control of the military has been compromised.

But New Spain's army is certainly no longer subject to commands from Madrid. And New Spain has its own constitution, and its own legislature and judiciary whose laws and rulings hold sway within its borders. The government in Madrid wanted Iturbide to remain true master while Francisco held onto his ceremonial role, and that didn’t happen. Now, it’s becoming more liberal even as Spain itself turns toward conservatism. Even the name “New Spain” is falling out of favor. Young people are speaking of it as “Anahuac” and are referring to the capital not as Ciudad de México, but just plain México. So you may be wondering—in what sense is this still a part of the Spanish Empire?

Mostly in its economy and foreign policy. It still serves as a supplier of raw materials and a market for Spanish goods, and if it can no longer be counted on to wage war on Spain’s enemies, it at the very least will not ally with them.

But these too are being compromised. Thanks to the role played by Zavala’s government in defeating Iturbide’s coup, Farías’ government regards Tehuantepec as a loyal ally. King Carlos regards it as an unfortunate accident. Tehuantepec itself continues, selling rope and cocoa beans for whatever price they can get.

And not only is New Spain developing its own olive groves and vineyards, but Farías wants it to industrialize, especially in the area of railroads, textiles, steam engines, guns and ammunition. This point Madrid won’t compromise on—industry in Spain is having a rough enough start, and they need New Spain buying their textiles and manufactured goods rather than making its own. As for weapons, Spain looked at the Austro-Italian War and decided it was time to modernize the army, and (when they get the money) the navy. But even equipping the army with revolvers is expensive. One way to offset the expense of buying a lot of new guns, of course, is to sell the old ones. This is where an empire comes in handy. So New Spain is getting a lot of guns… just not the latest model.

And there’s another problem. The border with Tehuantepec is loosely guarded, and Tehuantepec has low tariffs with the U.S. and France. So if you’re a rich man in Mexico and you’d like to buy, say, one of those new thimmoniers for your wife, you can take a trip to Veracruz, buy the machine[1] and take it back. Even if you end up having to bribe a customs official, it’s still cheaper than buying the machine in Tampico. And the same thing is true of many other manufactured goods, which doesn’t create much incentive for industry in New Spain.

But the one thing everyone agrees on is that New Spain needs railroads. Iturbide’s coup discredited the unitarian cause, making it seem like a bad idea to put too much power and importance in any once place. (That’s one reason young people are calling this “Anahuac,” not “Mexico.”) But if this is to become a federal state, then railroads will be needed more than ever to allow the various provinces to come to one another’s aid quickly.

The army, with its newfound clout, firmly agrees—without railroads, this viceroyalty cannot possibly defend its northern frontier. It can’t even rule it—once you get north of the Tropic of Cancer, you start running into people who were never all that pleased that the royalists won, and further north are native tribes who neither know nor care that King Carlos and Prince-Viceroy Francisco claim dominion over them. More ominously, there are stories out of Tejas that American immigrants are already settling land in the northeast, near Arkansaw and Mississippi. But again, with so little investment capital this is a bad time to begin a big project.

Even so, Farías’ government is doing what it can and making the most of the opportunities that present themselves. New Spain is starting to get immigrants from Spain itself—Castilians who don’t like the way things are going in Madrid—from Ireland, and a few Czechs from the Austrian Empire. There are quite a few people who want to immigrate to a Catholic-majority country, but not one as theocratic as the Most Holy Viceroyalty of South America.

Farías is taking advantage of this to try to speed development of Tejas before somebody else does, building Fuerto Castellano north of the Old San Antonio Road beyond the town itself [2], and Fuerto San Patricio even further north[3]. This has basically meant war with the Comanches, but that is a cause the Army can get behind. Settlers are starting to come up the road as far as Nacogdoches, mostly on the north side.

Why mostly on the north? Because south of that road, stretching all the way over the northwest border of Louisiana, is the huge forest known as the Selva Conchate or the Forêt des Conchates[4], a sprawling tangle of dense subtropical woodland as impenetrable as any forest on Earth… which is to say, not completely impenetrable. Some people have already come through it, and those people are black.

Yes, there is a third Hidden Trail, and white abolitionists weren’t involved in the making of this one. It runs through the woods and bayous of southern Louisiana, then up the Sabine and over the border through the Conchate into New Spain, where slavery is not legal.

Farías and Francisco weren’t too bothered when they heard about this. True, these people don’t speak Spanish, but neither do the Irish or Czechs. The important thing, from the capital’s point of view, is that coming from Louisiana, they’re at least nominally Catholic—it’s not their fault there’s no churches in the Conchate. And, yes, they’re black—but there’s less than a thousand of them, living in little villages they hacked out of the northern Conchate, and as escapees they’re self-selected for cunning and enterprise.

And if those slave-happy Americans were to come for them, they would most certainly fight.

Central America and the Caribbean​

Carlos learned a lot from governing the Viceroyalty of South America, especially about Spain’s relationship with its colonies. He still thinks of Central America, Cuba, Puerto Rico and the rest as cash cows that exist to enrich Spain, but the thing about cows is, it’s not enough to fence them in—you’ve also got to keep them healthy and well-fed. Investing a little more in these places will strengthen their economies and increase revenue.

For example, the highlands in the province of Costa Rica grow some of the finest coffee in the world, and this would bring in a lot of money if they could get more of it to market. The problem is that the best Atlantic ports are on the north coast of Honduras, and the roads in between are a bit of an issue. Improving them will not only increase trade, but bind the Central American provinces together.

In better times, this would be paid for by loans, on the understanding that the profits from increased trade would cover the interest. Carlos can’t get loans like that now—not for this—but he thinks he has a brilliant way to get a lot of the work done cheap. In the Viceroyalty there was a thing called the mita, a tax on native peoples that was paid in labor, and he used it to great effect there. Time to introduce it to Central America. What could go wrong?

In Cuba, Captain General José Antonio Saco has crushed the rebellion. The Cuban aristocracy has reluctantly accepted his rule—the alternative is running for the hills and becoming a guerrilla, and it’s kind of hard to do that and bring your slaves along. Now comes the hard part—putting the Black Codes into effect. It’s (comparatively) easy to pass laws, harder to enforce them, and hardest of all to enforce laws that were always on the books but never taken seriously… especially when hardly anyone not directly in your pay is really on your side.

To the extent that life on Cuban sugarcane plantations is becoming longer and less hellish, it’s not so much because of any reforms from Havana as because—with the transatlantic slave trade reduced to a trickle—if you work a slave to death you might not be able to replace him. The word “him” is a deliberate choice there. There’s still a severe gender imbalance among the slaves, and it’s causing the aristocracy to worry about where the next generation of slaves is going to come from. In other words, Cuba needs women—and again, thanks to the Royal Navy it’s much harder to haul them over from Africa.

But there is another source. East of the Central American province of Nicaragua is a British protectorate, labeled on maps as “the Mosquito Coast.” (For some reason, it doesn’t draw a lot of tourists.) Until recently, this kingdom sometimes kidnapped natives from other tribes and sold them to Jamaica as slaves. But the British crackdown on the slave trade and emancipation within the Empire ended that revenue stream… for a while. Now it’s started up again, and this time the Miskito are attacking native villages in Honduras and Nicaragua, killing the men and boys and stealing the women and girls.

This isn’t supposed to be happening. King Robert Charles Frederic officially abolished slavery within the Miskito Kingdom a year after emancipation passed in Parliament[5]. But the Miskito Kingdom is really more of a tribal confederation than a unified polity, and many of those tribes figure what the king doesn’t know won’t hurt him. As for the ships carrying the slaves, they’re the notoriously hard-to-catch Baltimore clippers, crewed by hardened Middle Passage slavers that find it very amusing to protect themselves by sailing under British colors. To summarize, the native peoples of Central America are about to be asked to accept a form of part-time slavery on behalf of a government which is failing to stop their enemies from killing them and stealing their women… and those enemies are supposed to be under the control of an allied nation.

Looking at the British territories—Jamaica, the Bahamas and other islands, British Honduras—it seems like nobody’s very happy. The planters are convinced that emancipation will be the ruin of the West Indies, but it’s clear Queen Charlotte has made up her mind and they know better than to rebel—if it didn’t work in Cuba, it won’t work anywhere. As for the slaves, they and their advocates are still trying to send messages to a distracted London to speed things up some more. They’re doing this because telling someone the exact day and hour on which they will be free, and sticking to that timetable, is very much a gesture of control.

That timetable has already been changed for the sooner—current plans call for a final end to slavery on June 30, 1836. Partly this is because of activism by Sam Sharpe and others, and partly it’s because the planters are irritating Whitehall by dragging their feet on things like improving working conditions and providing better food, clothing and medicine for their “apprentices.” Every time the issue comes up, they plead poverty, and with the economy in general cratering and the price of sugar fallen in particular, who can prove them wrong?

A lot of people in Louisiana and the American South are watching events in the West Indies. Mostly they’re rooting for injuries, hoping for something terrible to happen that will prove slavery cannot be safely abolished in any place where it dominates. But some are watching in a different spirit, looking for a sign that it really is possible to disassemble the peculiar institution without turning into Haiti.

Speaking of Haiti, with the Spanish gone there is no one to challenge Jean-Pierre Boyar’s rule over the whole island of Hispaniola… and, since he isn’t open to democratic reforms, that means he has all the problems of ruling. He’s redistributed just enough land to his veterans, and to former Spanish slaves on Santo Domingo, that everybody’s more or less content at the moment—although the thousands of Dominicans leaving for New Spain or Gran Colombia might disagree. The biggest problem is that Haiti just doesn’t have much of anything that Britain or Spain can’t get from their own tropical possessions. He’s having to do business with the old colonial master France, which is a double humiliation as it means competing with Pays-Crou in the sugar market. Much of the country has reverted to subsistence farming.

But the thing about subsistence farmers is, at least you know they’re eating. And after that long, terrible war, things don’t seem so bad right now.


[1] Tehuantepec has its own money, named the cacao after the old Maya tradition of using cocoa beans for currency, but most places in Veracruz will take Spanish, British, French or American money.
[2] Fuerto Castellano is on the OTL site of Austin, Texas.
[3] On the OTL site of Dallas.
[4] IOTL it’s called the Big Thicket.
[5] As IOTL.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

South America​

Gran Colombia has seen the passing of a giant. Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte-Andrade y Blanco (see, he even had a giant name) died of tuberculosis on February 1.[1] The eulogy by President Jose Tadeo Monagas was translated and printed in newspapers from Buenos Aires to Stockholm.

The nation Bolívar leaves behind is in a similar position to the United States—threatened at sea, and on land to north and south, by its former colonial master. The difference is they’re worried that they might actually be conquered. At the very least, they could be blockaded and forced back onto their own resources, and they have a lot less to work with than the United States. Which means things like textile mills are as much a part of national defense as gunsmiths.

Minister of the Interior—and likely successor to Monagas—José Ignacio de Márquez has a plan. The economy right now is dominated by planters, and what they’re producing is a reliable source of cash. Some of that cash can go to Bogotá to be invested in factories in interior cities, which are less subject to attack. Some of it can go into railroad-building—Colombia has coal, iron ore, and plenty of cheap lumber. All they need is the know-how, which means the third thing to spend this money on is schools.

But all this is going to have to be paid for with taxes, not tariffs. Everything the planters grow is also grown somewhere else. Putting big tariffs on their sugar and coffee[2] would just price it out of the market. They don’t even have a monopoly on coca leaf—and even if they did, the biggest single buyer of coca leaf is Stabler & Sons, a company chartered in an allied nation Colombia already has trade agreements with. And with the state of the world economy, the profits that these taxes are coming out of are not much to begin with. So developing Gran Colombia is going to be a long, slow uphill struggle—but this is an Andean country. They know about struggling uphill.

The three colonies to the east aren’t independent, and so don’t have the problems of trying to maintain independence. British Guiana, like the Caribbean, is trying to adapt to the apprenticeship system and the end of slavery. This colony has its own recent history of slave uprisings in 1822 and 1829, both of them small and relatively nonviolent as slave revolts go.[3] In the latter case, one of Queen Charlotte’s first acts—once she’d heard about it—was to pardon all rebels except those who had personally committed murder, which was good news at least for the ones who hadn’t already been executed.

Another decision was to promote Sir John Gladstone[4], an old ally of George Canning who’s technically a Tory but hasn’t been too fond of either party since the Caroline affair. Both rebellions began on his estates, not so much because he was particularly cruel as because he owned so much of the colony that the odds weren’t in his favor. And in both of them, Sir John urged clemency for the defeated rebels. To be honest, he only did this to make himself look good to London society. A classic absentee landlord, he’s never set foot in a single one of the plantations he owns and he cherishes his ignorance of their management, preferring to trust the word of his overseers that they’re being governed with kindness and Christian principles. He just doesn’t care that much.

But no good deed goes unpunished, no matter what ulterior motives may have prompted it. The government took him at his word and figured that a man who urged clemency for rebellious slaves would be the perfect governor for a Guiana where slavery was ending, which is how he got the job. And just to brighten his day, when he got to Georgetown he found another Gladstone already waiting for him—Jack Gladstone, a former slave on one of his plantations (hence the surname) and a leader in the 1822 rebellion, one of those who he’d urged clemency for. Jack was sent to St. Lucia, but has since been pardoned and released, has returned, and has become one of the leading advocates for the soon-to-be-ex-slave population of Guiana.

To the east is the Dutch colony of Suriname, which has some of the same problems as Cuba—slave ships still sometimes manage to sneak past Cayenne and up the coast to Paramaribo, but not very often. And while communities of runaway slaves can be found everywhere from the United States to Brazil, in Suriname the Maroons are a power in their own right. The colonial government has signed treaties with them, and sometimes even pays them tribute to keep them from raiding. What do you do with a colony that has so many people who refuse to be governed by you?

Import some more. What was the Sulu Sultanate is now a Dutch possession, and those who resist the conquest are taken and shipped here in chains—although in slightly less horrible conditions than those in real slave ships—along with Acehnese pirates whenever they are captured alive. The Dutch are quick to emphasize that this is not slavery or slave trafficking, it’s prison labor for convicted criminals (everyone still fighting for an independent Sulu is a pirate, dontchaknow) followed by indentured servitude, not so different from what the British themselves are doing in Australia. This excuse is enough to keep the Royal Navy off their sterns. And don’t feel too bad for the captured pirates—many of them were slave-takers themselves.

In Cayenne, former governor Sir Neil Campbell has been replaced by the 40-year-old George Stephen, fresh from London. Some say that the fact that Stephen has been granted a colonial governorship proves that Queen Charlotte has forgiven him for his minor role in the D’Issy Commission and his siding against the Queenites in the Caroline affair. Others say the fact that it’s the governorship of Cayenne proves the opposite.

When Stephen got to Cayenne, he found that one of Campbell’s pet projects was already underway. The former governor felt that Cayenne’s timber industry had a lot of potential, but the colony was so lightly populated there weren’t a lot of people to cut trees and haul them. Inspired by the successful introduction of water buffaloes to Florida, he decided to try something bigger—importing elephants and elephant handlers from Asia. This is the sort of thing that takes a while to orchestrate, but once there are teams of elephants established in the back country, they’ll be breeding like… elephants. Don’t expect them to overrun the continent any time soon.

Now that Carlos is back in Madrid, the Most Holy Viceroyalty of South America has another viceroy—and as it happens, this one is also a Prince-Viceroy. Don Sebastián Gabriel de Borbón y Braganza, a cousin of the royal family and Carlos loyalist[5] who was given the title Infante of Spain in 1824,[6] has come to Lima to rule in the name of God and King Carlos, just barely in that order.

The Infante Sebastián was 21 when he got this job—and, like Auckland in Canada, he’s inherited an existing power structure that he’s more inclined to reinforce than mess with. It’s been described as theocratic, and it is, in the sense that—to a much greater degree than in other majority-Catholic countries—the guiding force in society is the Catholic Church, and particularly the conservative elements within the church that dominate here. But being an archbishop or a cardinal is already a full-time job, so the Viceroyalty depends on a cadre of lay officials who’ve adapted to the general tone of things. The three most powerful of these are Treasury Minister Casimiro Olañeta, who among other things is in charge of the mita, Interior Minister Diego Portales, and War Minister Jerónimo Valdés, who is already planning the next war.

But that war can’t happen just yet. The slowdown in trade has affected the economy here as elsewhere, and they have the same problem as New Spain—they’re not self-sufficient, and nobody in Madrid wants them to be. And the mita, which Carlos thinks is such a roaring success, has its drawbacks. Every minute a native man spends helping build roads and bridges through the Andes, he isn’t growing cash crops, mining silver or helping grow the crops to feed his people. Landowners and mine bosses are starting to complain[7], especially when their workers leave for the mita and never come back at all. In the Andes, where cliffs are high and paths are narrow, a moment’s carelessness or a little bad luck is all it takes. Olañeta and Portales are in disagreement on this point— Olañeta thinks Carlos overused the mita and it should be dialed back a bit, while Portales thinks the status quo is perfectly fine. Sebastián is listening to Olañeta at the moment, just because he’s the one counting the money.

Two thing that aren’t problems are guns and gunpowder—like New Spain, they’re buying Spain’s old guns cheap, and those are plenty good enough to fight any war on this continent. And the Viceroyalty has charcoal, sulfur, and (thanks to its epic guano deposits) more saltpeter than anybody has any idea what to do with.

Entre Rios has also seen a change in leadership at the top. Earlier this year, Juan Lavalle, president and effective dictator, was wounded during a failed coup attempt. The coup was defeated, but the wound turned septic and Lavalle died. He was very good at making sure none of his subordinates in the army trusted each other or accumulated too much power, so they found a fairly popular naval war hero and installed him in office. Which is how Entre Rios came to have the Irish-born William Brown as president. He’s in the process of planning elections to restore civilian, democratic rule.

In the same way that people who think of Louisiana mostly think of New Orleans, people who think of Entre Rios mostly think of Buenos Aires. But even more than Louisiana, Entre Rios has a rich agricultural hinterland, which they call Mesopotamia. This is another place that’s drawing immigrants from Spain and Central Europe to produce grain, beef and flax for the world market. These are not the most lucrative products, but they’re always needed.

Unlike Louisiana, Entre Rios is an ally of Britain, not a protectorate, and it shows. Tariffs are low for everybody—whether you’re British, French, American, Italian, Russian, Egyptian or whatever, if you came all this way to do business, they want to make it easy for you to spend money here. And as with New Spain and Tehuantepec, when Brazilians want to avoid tariffs on manufactured goods, here’s where they go.

Entre Rios is affecting Brazil in other ways. What Brazil calls the Cisplatine Province has never been too happy about being annexed, and all the more so now that Entre Rios is weathering the bad times better than Brazil. Slaveholders are the only people in the province with any loyalty to Brazil, and only because there is no slavery in Entre Rios. What there is in Entre Rios is a lot of people who went there to flee Brazilian rule and would support an effort to retake the province. President Brown isn’t planning to do this—nothing seems more likely to turn Entre Rios into a British protectorate than getting entangled in a war with a much larger nation.

This much larger nation has much larger problems. Its sugar industry has the same problem as Cuba’s—not enough slaves to replace those who die, so plantation owners and overseers have to figure out how to make the ones they’ve got last longer. But that’s just the beginning. Last year Pedro, like Carlos before him, left his South American realm to become king of an Iberian kingdom. The difference is that Brazil is an independent nation, not even in personal union with its former colonial master. To accept the crown of Portugal, Pedro had to lay down the crown of Brazil. His plan is to remain in Lisbon and pass the crown down to his oldest daughter, Maria, who just turned twelve, and for his oldest son, also named Pedro, to take the throne of Brazil. That will sort out everything and finalize the independence of the two countries.

But Pedro Junior is fifteen[8]. He’s finally returned from London and is completing his education in Rio, but it will be two and a half years before he reaches the age of majority and becomes emperor. In theory, a regency council is exercising authority on his behalf—but this particular regency council doesn’t really have that kind of power. Right now the only people in charge of Brazil are the General Assembly, which isn’t set up to govern the whole country by itself. For example, senatorial elections only choose the three most popular candidates for the office—the emperor must choose one of these three to be senator. The regency council doesn’t have this power, so senators who die or retire aren’t being replaced.

The result is a prolonged interregnum, where nobody’s really in charge and disputes never get settled. As early as last year there were already several small rebellions in the provinces over charges of local electoral fraud that no one in Rio had the authority to investigate. Throughout Brazil, there was a single thought: June 10, 1837. That’s all. If we can just get to that one date without the whole country dissolving into chaos, we’ll have Emperor Pedro II and everything will be okay. They were seriously considering lowering the age of majority so the boy could take charge right away… and then he just had to go and open his mouth.

You see, Prince Pedro spent his formative years getting an education at London and Oxford, and one of his early influences (some say his first crush) was Queen Charlotte. So no sooner had he returned, in August of this year, then he stood up in front of the General Assembly and announced his fervent opposition to the institution of slavery and his intention to do everything in his power to abolish it forever.

Since then, rebellion has broken out in the northeast, Minas Gerais and the province of Rio de Janeiro itself. The latter two are especially worrying—the first is the province where the gold comes from, and the second of course puts the capital at risk. The resulting state of civil war is doing almost as much to undermine slavery as the emperor himself ever could. Slaves are fleeing deeper into the interior, founding new quilombos[9] in Goiás, Pará and beyond. This is bringing them into contact with indigenous people, some of whom are so isolated that this is the first time they’re finding out Brazil is even a thing. Sometimes these natives prove friendly, and form alliances with their local quilombos. Other times, not so much. In effect, Brazil now has a second civil war going on that it doesn’t even know about. Things will get even more complicated next month in Salvador, when the Malê decide to take action towards their own freedom, rebelling against the rebellion.

Argentina seems to have a lot of problems, but it really only has two. Their nation’s founding idea is its rebellion against tyranny, whether that of Madrid or that of Buenos Aires. And since Buenos Aires spent so long under a dictatorship, they feel pretty vindicated.

You can overthrow tyranny, but you can’t overthrow geography. The settlers in the north and west still depend on a working port at Bahía Blanca, and on local governments maintaining the roads through Santa Fe, Córdoba and San Luis, but the central government in Tucumán can only encourage these things, not command them.

The second problem is that from the point of view of international traders, Bahía Blanca’s motto might as well be “like Buenos Aires, only farther away and with less stuff.” Trade was slow, money in short supply and growth limited even before the slowdown in the economy. This year, Argentina’s provinces have started defaulting on their loans from the Second Bank of the United States.

Which is good. The rest of the world needed something to laugh about.


[1] IOTL he died at the end of 1830.
[2] As IOTL, sugar is the larger export at this point.
[3] IOTL there was one in 1823, which also had a rather low body count.
[4] IOTL and ITTL the father of William Ewart Gladstone
[5] He supported Carlos in OTL’s Carlist Wars.
[6] As IOTL.
[7] So are the populations from which these workers are drawn, but nobody else is listening yet.
[8] TTL’s Pedro was born more or less in place of OTL’s Maria.
[9] Communities of runaway slaves.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

The United Kingdom​

Things have changed. You can see in in the fashions people are wearing—which we’d better talk about now, because when future K-graphists create period pieces set in the earliest years of the Charlottean/Second Napoleonic era, their costume departments are going to get it wrong. Armed with magazine illustrations, but no photographs, they’re going to depict all the men in London wearing the dramatically high-collared, wide-lapelled tailcoats made popular by Prince Consort Leopold and the women wearing flowing, pleated silk confections that grace and flatter the lines of a plus-size woman[1] but make a slender woman look like she’s being eaten by the drapes. And this is how a lot of people dress, because looking like you don’t need to worry about money—especially when you do—never quite goes out of style.

But the majority of the people you see on the street are wearing old clothes, many of them dating to the 1820s, all patched up and thimmoned into something that can be mistaken for respectable. This is especially true in Dublin, where the Duke of Wellington has been serving in Dublin Castle as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for the past five years now, backed up by Chief Secretary for Ireland William Sharman Crawford and (though his duties are extremely limited and he spends the bulk of his time on schoolwork) Leopold Prince of Wales.

Once again, as with the Caroline affair and the Roman Catholic Relief Act, Wellington finds himself butting heads with people who are ideologically on his side. His biggest headache is the Tithe War, which for a moment there looked as though it really was going to become a civil war. Since Irish Catholics have stopped paying their tithes to the (Anglican) Church of Ireland, the Church enlisted the aid of the constabulary in going around seizing property by force. There were a dozen incidents of violence in 1830 and 1831, and in one of them—at Dunnamaggin in February of 1831—the constables lost. Twelve of them were killed, and the rest were injured or driven away.[2] Several people were arrested, but all the trials ended in hung juries. (It was very hard for the jurors to concentrate on the evidence with all the noise outside from the angry mobs consisting of their friends and neighbors.)

Archbishop of Canterbury William Howley has never been shy about stepping into politics, voicing opposition not only to the Roman Catholic Relief Act but (going so far out of his lane he was practically in oncoming traffic) the Great Reform Act. Having pissed off both the last PM and the current one, he decided it was time to call in all those favors he’d earned.

First he called upon the Duke of Wellington to use his famous martial prowess to enforce the Church’s rights in Ireland. Wellington—not a man who cares to admit his own helplessness in any matter—told him bluntly that the Church of Ireland has had almost three hundred years to bring the Irish around, and they shouldn’t come crying to him if they can’t get it done.

He next appealed to Queen Charlotte, reminding her of her coronation oath to defend the Church of England. Charlotte (whose grudge against him is far more personal than the Duke’s) replied, “What would you have me do, Your Grace? Abandon my other duties, take ship to Ireland and ride about the island plundering cattle in the Church’s name?”

Reluctantly, the bishops of the Church of Ireland decided to suspend collection of tithes from the unwilling until such time as Parliament would take action to guarantee their security. Parliament has had better things to do.

So has Wellington—on top of this mess, he’s been trying to encourage the railroad industry in Ireland. (If there’s another rebellion, he wants to be able to move troops in and squash it quickly.) This means dealing with a lot of landowners, many of whom of course are not in Ireland at all and aren’t good at responding to missives from Dublin Castle. But Wellington is nothing if not stubborn, and now there’s the beginnings of a railroad grid in County Dublin, northern County Down and southern County Antrim.[3]

The Duke’s other job has been preventing anything serious from happening between the Cub (a nickname which doesn’t really suit him any more, as he turned 17 a month ago and he’s over six feet tall) and Crawford’s 16-year-old daughter Mabel.[4] It will be a relief when the young prince joins the Army next year, and Wellington dares hope the young prince will prove halfway competent—certainly better than his maternal grandfather.

The UK is now five years into the reign of Queen Charlotte and the government of PM Grey. If the beginning of this era felt like Christmas morning for Radicals, the present feels more like Boxing Day—all the gifts have been given, and at least some of them are what they always wanted, but the world is starting to return to normal.

By any measure, Grey has gotten more things done in five years than Wellington did in seven. The Great Reform Act, the Municipal Corporations Act of 1834 which increased accountability and popular participation in local government, the Truck Act of 1830—these are systemic reforms whose effects people are only beginning to see. The repeal of the Newspaper and Stamp Duties Act was a blow for freedom of expression. And of course there’s the abolition of slavery in the Empire.

But the global recession is hitting Britain hard. In the 1832 elections, Grey’s government expanded its majority—you can read all about it in Charles Dickens’ articles in The Mirror of Parliament—but there’s another round coming up next year and no one’s sure they’re going to do so well. For one thing, although property requirements have been lowered, they still exist, which means some people who were able to vote in ’32 won’t be able to vote in ’35.

The biggest domestic thorn in the side of Gray’s government has been the Corn Law. Repealing it, as some Radicals and free-trade Tories want, would make life easier for the urban poor, but as it stands it makes life easier for the rural poor. Even after borough reform, there aren’t enough votes to change it.

Then there’s the New Poor Law, which was passed just last year—if it had come up this year, they might have thought twice about it.[5] This law (in accordance with the 1830s’ best economic theories, which are roughly on par with its best medical theories) was actually designed to make things worse, ensuring that workhouses will not be better than the poorest person’s house. Grey’s government may be liberal, but its constituency is middle-class. The poor are no one’s constituency, because—it bears repeating—they don’t have the vote… even though there are now more of them. Queen Charlotte can and does practice and advocate charity on their behalf, but that’s about it.

Some of the new poor are in Lancashire, where the cotton mills have been slowed down by Biddle’s cotton monopoly attempt, bringing many people who had little to begin with much closer to destitution. The Manchester Champion has been a relentless advocate for the workers, but has directed most of its editorial anger at the United States.

And so, it seems, has everybody else in Britain. Not that the U.S. is the only country they’re angry at—alleged ally Spain is raising tariffs on products from all countries, but especially on British wool—but the rage against America is immense. To get the full unpleasantness of all this, let’s look at it from the point of view of a small, frail young American student. His name is Alexander Hamilton Stephens, and there’s a million things he’d rather be doing right now. He graduated from Franklin College in Georgia in 1832 at the top of his class, and moved on to Oxford to study the sciences, especially meteorology—but the storms he’s been seeing this year are not the kind he came to learn about.

Back in January, Home Secretary Brougham gave a speech in front of the Commons commemorating the life and death of a British sailor by the name of John Glasgow. It particularly emphasized his misfortune at the hands of the American authorities, and his choice to die fighting for his freedom rather than live as a slave, and to make the entire city of Savannah his personal funeral pyre, “like Samson destroying the ungodly with his final act.” Stephens knows this because the speech was reprinted in full in The Times, which thanks to the railroad is now available in Oxford only a few hours after it hits the London streets. He gave it a hate-read, and was chilled at Brougham’s ability to elicit rage and loathing from his listeners toward his intended target without sounding angry or hateful himself.

This speech captured the attention of the British abolitionist movement, briefly drawing it away from Grey’s government. Although that government has pushed up the timetable for emancipation, the movement believes it’s still taking too long. Radical MP George Thompson has been getting impatient, and at one point the Prime Minister’s own son (serving as Undersecretary of State for War and the Colonies) threatened to resign his post if the timetable wasn’t pushed up again.[6] But since Brougham spoke, it’s harder to make the case that the problem is the government that’s trying to free enslaved people at whatever pace, rather than the government that tried to enslave a free person.

Even the Tories are angry. Black or white, they say, Glasgow was a British sailor, born on their sacred soil and serving in their semi-sacred merchant marine. He was British. How dare those arrogant little colonial slaveocrats lay hands on him? They made such a to-do over impressment of American sailors back during the war, and now they do this?

Stephens can’t believe these people actually mean what they say. Not only is he convinced in his bones of the superiority of the white race, he’s sure the British are convinced of it too. All this claiming of John Glasgow as our black brother—he’s never heard the phrases “virtue signaling” or “performative wokeness,” but he’s definitely thinking the concepts.

So winter and spring were an awkward time to be an American in Oxford. Most British don’t seem to know or care about the differences between American states, but those who do… well, Stephens’ home state is Georgia. His fellow American students tried to be sympathetic, but a lot of them were from free states and feel like Stephens and his slave-state ilk were giving them all a bad name. He got very tired of people hearing his accent and accosting him to ask how many slaves his family has. (None. They sold the last of their slaves years ago so they could buy more books. They’re that sort of people.)

Speaking of literature, the magazines which were once the bookish Stephens’ delight have become unbearable to him—most of the best poets are Radicals, and every single one of them seems to want to compose the definitive epic on Glasgow’s heroic death. Stephens has retreated to the conservative publication Fraser & Fraser’s Journal[7]. There he discovered the later parts of Sartor Resartus, a philosophical treatise thinly disguised as a novel by Thomas Carlyle[8]. This was a source of solace, or at least distraction, to Stephens, mostly because the writing was so passionate. Yes, of course, from any standpoint within time the most important historical figures and the most dramatic and traumatic events are as transitory as cloud formations, vanishing like ghosts at dawn, whereas from outside time even the least of life’s ephemera stands eternal and imperishable as if frozen in crystal. These are not new ideas. Carlyle’s gift is to write about them like a man who cares. Stephens kept getting the urge to read it out loud.[9] He’ll definitely be following this author in the future and recommending him to his friends back home.

And he can hardly wait to go back home, because it turns out the months when everybody was badgering him about slavery were the good part of the year. Now, people are angrier than ever at Americans, and this time it’s about… MONEY. Specifically it’s about all those securities that, as it turns out, weren’t. It seems like everyone in Oxford either lost a lot of money on state bonds or canal shares or knows someone who did. American bonds in particular were popular in Britain because they had a much higher rate of return than British bonds (“had” being the key word).

And the bonds are what everyone’s so bitter about. In the first place, the worst of the stock collapse was more than a year ago. (And not everyone lost out on it. Two years ago, Charles Babbage and a few of his friends got some money together and used it as collateral to borrow canal shares valued at £13,700, and then sold them as a package for an even £15,000. Six months later, they repurchased that package for £5,000 and returned the shares to the original owners—still in mint condition, gilt edges and everything. No one knows who was the brains behind this bit of short-selling, but Henry Brougham spent the next few weeks looking more than usually smug.) In the second place, wise investors know that getting mad because your stocks collapsed is like losing money at the track and blaming the horses. But a bond is a promise. America is breaking a lot of promises right now—and not just to Indians anymore.

Whitehall isn’t making any particular effort to stir the pot here. As Lord Palmerston said, people who buy foreign bonds “do so at their own risk and must suffer the consequences.”[10] But there’s a sense in Britain that the Americans are doing this just because they can, because with the aid of British loans they’ve grown big and strong enough that it isn’t worth going to war to make some investors whole. Stephens himself has not grown big and strong, and suddenly men twice his size (and women about a third again his size) are grabbing him by the patched and threadbare lapels of his one cold-weather coat and demanding to know what he personally did with their father’s pension. All he can think at times like this is if I’d gone into law, I could be in Milledgeville starting my own practice right now.[11]

Between the stress, the English weather and his own not-so-great physical constitution, Stephens has fallen ill, and his fellow students don’t want to catch whatever it is he has. So his only companion this Christmas is an American visitor, Henry Lee IV (known to those who will admit to being his friends as “Black-Horse Harry”) who’s living in Oxford working on a history book.

This is an odd pairing. Technically they’re both Southern gentlemen and men of letters, but in addition to being a full quarter of a century older, Lee is a man who grew up with everything Stephens dreams of in life—strength, health, respect, good connections, enough money to have both books and slaves—and threw a lot of it away in various scandals. That’s how he ended up in Britain. And until recently he paid his expenses by selling Virginia state bonds, so he’s one of the people who should be catching all the flak Stephens is getting.

But they can commiserate over how the British are treating Americans. Clubs in London have turned respectable American gentlemen away at the door, and they’ve also turned away Henry Lee IV. And what really makes him angry is that Virginia’s bonds are being devalued along with those of all the other states. Okay, so a few no-account places like Mississippi have defaulted, but this is Virginia we’re talking about. The home of Washington and Jefferson, of the Randolphs and Carters and his own renowned ancestors, would never repudiate a debt! Her very tobacco, wine and opium are fragrant with honor! How can the British not know this? (Stephens has little to contribute to this part of the conversation. Georgia was one of the defaulting states. Having your main port burn to the ground will do that.)

Moving away from these two privileged-but-not-feeling-it men, there’s a larger debate going on in Britain over what America’s failures mean. The Tories are saying it proves that a country really does need kings and queens and titles of nobility. To them, what’s missing from the Americans is a capacity for shame based on personal ideals, an instinctive sense among the people in charge that breaking your word and swindling others out of their money is actually bad. (As Croker put it, “The Americans have truly taken the u out of honour.”) They’re also saying it proves that a government based entirely on majority support will always choose the path of immediate gratification, no matter where it leads.

This is making life harder for Radicals, who’d gotten used to waging a war of ideas against unarmed opponents. One more thing to blame on the Americans. They’re not just crooks and slavers—as the world’s proving ground for democratic principles, they’re a disappointment.


[1] As you’ve probably guessed, the model for womanhood in this era is Charlotte herself. She happens to be on the heavy side, more because of genetics and multiple pregnancies than any excess of diet—she’s making a conscious effort not to end up like her morbidly obese father.
[2] Something similar happened at Carrickshock IOTL.
[3] This is a little further along than Irish railroads were IOTL.
[4] Not OTL’s Mabel Sharman Crawford, who was born in 1820.
[5] It did pass this year IOTL.
[6] He did resign over this issue in 1834 IOTL.
[7] Fraser’s Magazine IOTL
[8] Which was published in Fraser’s at this time IOTL
[9] IOTL and ITTL, Carlyle himself often did (very) dramatic readings of his work when he was on tour.
[10] He said this IOTL.
[11] He did set up his practice at about this time IOTL.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

France​

Like London, Paris has trendsetters such as Napoleon II and Alfred Count D’Orsay, and of course the failing economy to give people a reason to keep their old clothes mended. But here more than anywhere else, there are other forces governing fashion.

One of these is Stabler & Sons. Hardly a year has gone by since the mid-1820s that they haven’t come out with a new indigine-based dye for a new shade of blue, purple, mauve, yellow, or red. Their latest dye is fuchsine, which produces a vibrant pinkish-purple the Americans call pinkle, the British call rosolet and the French call rose-d’Adélaïde in honor of the young princess.[1] In the short term, this gives tailors and dressmakers something new to play with on a regular basis. Ironically, though, the long-term effect will be to make later eras of high fashion much less colorful than the Georgian/ancien régime era. Bright colors just aren’t a status symbol anymore.

Other things are being democratized too. France is where the Thimmonier machine was invented, and where its use is still the most widespread. Entrepreneurs in Paris, Anvers, and Bruxelles have discovered that by installing a bunch of these machines on a factory floor, they can mass-produce clothing for men, women and children. In France, the Off-the-Rack Age has begun, and within the next year Britain, the U.S., Italy, and Hannover will—forgive me—follow suit.

The good news is, this means new and affordable clothing will be coming back. The bad news is, there’s a reason it’s so affordable. The women who do this work (everyone knows this sort of thing is women’s work—plus they tend to be smaller, so you can stuff more of them into the same space) are very low-paid. Conservatives, hearing about all these lower-class women working for long hours in cramped conditions, feel that this raises an important question about French society—what if they’re all having SEX in there? Conservative members of the Assembly are demanding inquiries into the factories to make sure they aren’t dens of prostitution and that the female employees are being held to the strictest standards of personal conduct. (These factories have actually allowed some women to get out of prostitution. The pay is lower but steadier, with better long-term prospects and practically no risk of syphilis. And having a wife or daughter working in there has kept some families just barely financially afloat. Don’t tell the Conservatives any of this—they’re having too much fun wallowing in moral panic.)

Thankfully, this is pretty far down on the list of issues occupying the minds of the Peers and Representatives[2]. The big issue, of course, is the economy. The declining fortunes of cotton have led to unemployment in Mulhouse, in Bordeaux they’re finding that not many Americans can afford their wine these days, and in a hundred little ways things are sliding downhill everywhere.

Especially in the financial sector. With a slightly smaller economy, France had invested about as much into American state bonds and canal shares as Britain had—they weren’t just making money, they were strengthening an ally. Like Britain, they’re paying the price, and like Britain, they’re unhappy. Intellectually, they understand that if a state government is unable to meet its obligations, it can’t very well choose to pay off its favorite bondholders, but not the others. Still, this feels like a betrayal by a friend. In Anvers, James de Rothschild, head of the French branch of the family empire and effectively France’s other finance minister, is telling anyone who will listen that the Americans “cannot go to war, because they cannot borrow a dollar. Not a dollar.”[3] (He isn’t quite practicing what he’s preaching. He’s noticed that U.S. federal bonds, unlike their state bonds, still look quite solid. He hasn’t said so publicly, of course, because no self-respecting Rothschild is going to divulge a hot tip like that free of charge.)

But the French government is more concerned with its own finances than America’s. Currently toiling away in the Treasury is Évariste Galois. Connections he made during the civil war got him a job in the revenue department. This year he finally finished his paper on the solvability of quintic equations by radicals and submitted it to the Paris Academy of Sciences.[4] It hasn’t made the splash he intended, mostly because the Paris Academy of Sciences are still trying to understand it themselves, but Galois is hoping it will land him a position at a university. In the meantime, he’s doing this.

For a mathematician of his caliber, working to collect taxes is like a four-star chef working the grill at McDonalds. Out of sheer boredom, he’s started looking at the data he’s collecting—where the money’s coming from, types of industries, revenue per capita, revenue per hectare—in search of patterns. One day this will grow into the science of tributology, the study of taxation and public expenditure as a subset of economics, and be of great benefit to humanity. For now, it’s keeping him sane.

One of the bright spots in the French economy is the expansion of the railroad grid, but even this has created some unexpected splits in the French government. Casimir Pierre Périer, who heads the Commercial Bloc in the Chamber of Representatives, has been a big champion of the railroads, but his own bloc is divided on it—the road and canal businesses don’t want the competition. The result is that the railroad grid is, at the moment, growing in such a way as to be more or less evenly distributed over France, even though the northeast could use a bit more of it.

Like the Commercial Bloc, France itself is divided on how to handle the downturn. On the one hand, they’ve been listening to the same economic theories as the British. On the other hand, even people who weren’t born when the Revolution hit feel like they remember it personally and don’t want to make the mistakes that led to it. But on the gripping hand[5], the French government, even more than the British government, is by and for the rich and upper-middle-class.

The reason for this is simple—the Representatives weren’t directly elected by the people. They were elected by the electoral colleges of each department, which are dominated by the biggest taxpayers of each department. This is an incentive not to cheat on your taxes, even if you don’t happen to know that one of the mathematical geniuses of the age could be checking your work, but it isn’t an incentive to try to represent the poor.

(In fact, it’s right now that people are realizing how stable the French government is. Maybe too stable. President Jacques-Charles Dupont de L’Eure took office in 1822, and, after a civil war, a new emperor and economic woes, he shows no sign of being about to leave. The only real concession has been to replace Jacques Laffitte at the treasury with Jean Maximilien Lamarque.[6])

Thus, the discontent in France is manifesting as calls for electoral reform, to put the vote directly in the hands of the people. No one party has taken up this cause, but it has its advocates in all three—but especially in the Conservative and Jacobin parties, the parties least attached to the status quo.

Of course, Conservatives and Jacobins are not coordinating their efforts at all. They both feel that the Representatives should represent the masses… just not those masses. If you ask them, they’ll even make logical-sounding arguments for their positions. Conservatives will tell you that farmers are the most important people in the world because (a) they can feed themselves, and (b) without them everyone else would get very hungry, very quickly. Jacobins will tell you that yes, farmers can feed themselves—that’s the problem. Who is likely to be the truest ally of the complex web of interdependence we call civilization? The man who knows that whatever else happens out there, his family will never starve? Or the man who knows that if the city falls, he and all he loves will fall with it? In keeping with this, Jacobins—but not Conservatives—would like to see the Chamber of Representatives expanded, and more populous departments given greater representation. They cite Louisiana’s parishes as an example of how this can be done.

Another thing the Conservatives and Jacobins have in common that they would not admit to under threat of the guillotine is that since the late unpleasantness in the south and west, they’ve both been going through an identity crisis. The Conservative Party spent years building up a reputation as the safe, non-terrifying, non-bloodthirsty alternative to the dominant Liberals. Then they pissed it away in a single failed insurrection, which lasted just long enough to make it clear that many of them were just playing along with the whole concept of representative government until the king came back.

Not just in the south and west, either. Last year the National Police got hold of correspondence revealing that the Conservative Party’s man inside the Commercial Block, Henri Barbet (representing Seine-Maritime, the department that includes the city of Rouen) was a monarchist—specifically an Orléanist, which means it was probably a Legitimist that exposed him.

But what the Conservatives learned in the war was that a majority of the French actually weren’t secretly pining for the Bourbon return, and neither force nor persuasion could make it happen. Meaning, now they actually have to do the job they claimed to be doing before—speaking for rural areas and devout Catholics within the existing system.

And then there’s the Jacobin Party. If, when you read the phrase a few paragraphs up—“ally of the complex web of interdependence we call civilization”—your first thought was that that didn’t sound at all like the Jacobins we know and love, you’re not alone. No less a social observer than Honoré de Balzac has seen this. Back in ‘32 he released a novel which he called Les Épateurs de Montmartre because 19th-century French doesn’t really have a word for “edgelords.” It tells the story of a group of radical young Parisian Jacobins who sign up for the civil war, and their various adventures and misadventures along the way.

What the novel makes clear is that the Jacobin volunteers were (in their minds) defending meritocracy, religious toleration, secular schools and all that made France respected and feared among nations, against those who would destroy what they could not understand. In other words, the Jacobins’ finest hour was when they were doing something… conservative. Small-c conservative, but still conservative. They didn’t die Montagnards, so they’ve lived long enough to see themselves become the bourgeoisie.

And some of them are a little more than that. They’re the nouveau riche of Paris, Anvers and the industrial cities of the north. They love modern, secular schools that produce the engineers their industries need. They love the religious freedom given to Protestants, Jews and Orthodox immigrants (there are some). But mostly they love money, and the freedom to make more of it without having to worry that it will be taken away.

Which brings us back to those early-model sweatshops. If you happened to be hiding by the windows of a townhouse in one of the better neighborhoods of Bruxelles around dinnertime on this particular night… you’d be a strange and creepy person, but you would also overhear a loud argument over dinner, mostly in Dutch, between a father and his teenage son. The subject of the argument is the conditions in the new clothing factory of which the father is part owner. The son is protesting that no, he wasn’t visiting that factory just in the hopes of getting laid, and that forcing anybody to work in such conditions for so little is a violation of their family’s supposed Jacobin principles. The father is insisting that nobody’s being forced to work anywhere, and that the money they’re making is paying for the son’s education and will pay for the son’s planned travels overseas and eventual entry into high society, and maybe he should think about that before criticizing it.

He needn’t worry. Young Guillaume Georges Elmar is most definitely thinking about that.


[1] IOTL we all call it magenta.
[2] Previously called “Deputies” because my research is not always infallible. Sorry.
[3] James de Rothschild said this in 1842 IOTL.
[4] IOTL he submitted it in 1830, but it was rejected as incomplete and then he got killed in a duel.
[5] h/t Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
[6] As fans of Les Misérables know, IOTL he died of cholera two years earlier.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

Spain and Portugal​

Here are two countries, once great powers but no longer, looking at each other and both thinking the same thing: “There but for the grace of God go I.”

Portugal is rebuilding from the civil war. Political freedom has blossomed with the defeat of the Miguelists and the ascent of Pedro—although some would call it questionable, since Miguel’s old supporters are leaving Portugal. Some of them are settling in Tangeria—we’ll get to what that means when we talk about North Africa, but for now let’s just say it’s not pretty. For those who are too hardcore to want to live under King Pedro at all, there’s always room in the Viceroyalty of South America.

Unlike Britain, France and the U.S., the economy is actually growing, but at a snail’s pace and from a very low point. Once you get away from the navigable parts of the rivers, the roads aren’t much to speak of, and with so little iron and coal, building a railroad is going to be a problem. In the short term, the government is relying on trade, but of course this isn’t the best decade to be doing that in. Not only that, the government’s free-trade policies make it hard to favor Portugal’s allies (specifically the UK) over, say, France. Cynics claim that this is Lisbon’s way of getting back at London for declaring war on the slave trade that brought Portugal so much money.

But the long-term investment Lisbon is making is in human capital—education. Portugal has had the beginnings of a modern educational system since the Marquis of Pombal’s reforms, and the current government is trying to expand it. Most of the population is completely illiterate, so there’s a lot of room for improvement.[1]

Spain is taking a different direction. One of the best places to get a look at this is Barcelona, where Henry Hungerford is in the Old Hospital de la Santa Creu. He is very ill, and won’t last the winter, but he can still read the Diario de Barcelona.[2]

At this particular moment, the news is that Spain is still in mourning. A few days ago María Isabella gave birth to a son, Carlos Fernando… who died the next morning and is currently being buried in a tiny closed casket. The resulting outpouring of national grief is not far short of what happened in France when Princess Adelaide-Louise died.

But the good news is that Isabella Luísa continues to be the healthiest child the royal family has seen in many years, right down to the tips of her fingers and her toes and the cute little dimple in the middle of her chin. This is especially impressive because she was born a mere 248 days after the wedding night. So the people call her la Infanta Milagrosa, and with good reason—calling her something else[3] would risk breaking the recently strengthened laws against slander or defamation of the royal family.

The bigger picture is, of course, the economy. The government is responding to the slowdown in trade by imposing tariffs to encourage industry in Spain. As with Portugal’s free-trade policy, this makes it hard for Spain to favor its allies. And as in the UK, the shrinking economy is shrinking the electorate with it, and making it slightly more conservative.[4] The electorate is also developing a bias in favor of the old—Article 25 of their constitution states that “From the year 1830, those who enter on the exercise of the rights of citizenship, must have learned to read and write.” The article doesn’t specify any particular language (we’ll get to that battle later), but when this article was written, it was understood that there was going to be some sort of epic educational reform to ensure universal literacy by this date. Alas, that never happened.

More importantly, the Tradition Party, now in power, is doing everything it can to stay that way, although this puts difficulties even on them. In Carlos, Spain’s conservatives finally have the strong, devout, capable king they always… thought they wanted. Only it turns out that a lot of them were hoping for positions of power in the new government, and while many of them are getting positions, right now there is only one real position of power and Carlos is sitting in it. In the new order, it pays to be good at disguising your ambitions.

And no one is better at this than Francisco Tadeo Calomarde, which is why he is now President. He’s making the most of the fact that the king of Spain, whose powers are strictly limited by the constitution, is in charge of all aspects of law enforcement. There is now a national police force which answers to him, and the laws against sedition have been strengthened—and the new judges being appointed are inclined to take a very broad view of those laws. Censorship of the press is taking place in Madrid, Valencia and Seville… but not, apparently, in Barcelona, because Henry Hungerford can read about it.

That’s the strange thing — politically, Barcelona might be the most liberal place in Spain, and it’s the one place where peaceful protests can still take place without the government making them suddenly very unpeaceful. The reason they vote solid Tradition Party with the rest of Catalonia is that the Constitution Party has consistently favored the Spanish language, as spoken in Madrid, for everything from schools to court proceedings to street signs. In doing so, it has made enemies out of those who speak other languages — Catalan, Galician, Basque, Asturian, etc. This is especially a problem because two of the economic hubs of Spain are Catalonia, where the textile industry is strong, and the Basque Country, where the good iron ore is.

If it sounds like the Constitutionists have played stupid games and won stupid prizes, it might help to understand where they’re coming from. In Spain in 1834, everyone in power is old enough to remember the Peninsular War, and all their political views are informed by the horrors of that war. To conservatives, of course, it was an invasion of left-wing foreign jackals who preached liberty, equality and fraternity while practicing tyranny, rapacity and atrocity. To liberals, the essential fact was the failure of the Spanish state and army in the face of this aggression. They want Spain to be as strong and modern as it can possibly be, and especially as united as it can possibly be, so this never happens again. The conservative love of fueros, regional dialects and local peculiarities of custom seems to them like a luxury the nation can’t afford. The youngest Constitutionists, with no memory of the war, have a different perspective, but nobody’s listening to them just yet.

And Basques and Catalonians are starting to think that at least a few of the fueros can be retired. For example, here and there, the new railroad tracks cross transhumance routes, which means that at certain times of the year the conductors are legally obligated to bring the train to a dead stop at the crossing so they can get out and check for oncoming sheep. Right now the trains in Spain are relatively small and slow, so this is just barely manageable from a physics point of view, but it’s still a hell of a way to run a railroad.


[1] IOTL Portugal had a 20 percent literacy rate—not illiteracy, literacy—in 1900.
[2] This newspaper is mostly in Spanish, not Catalan.
[3] Such as la Bastarda Real, la Hija del Violador or la Cuco Inglesa.
[4] Spain doesn’t have property minimums for voting, but Article 25 of the Spanish constitution specifies that the rights of citizenship are suspended in cases of bankruptcy and unemployment.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

I'm glad everyone's being so patient with how long it's taking to finish this state-of-the-world recap. The good news is that in between researching for this, I've been doing a little writing ahead. So here's a Christmas present—something from 1835 that I wasn't sure where else to put.


“What after all is a slave? A slave is a man or woman bound by law to serve a particular role. His time and labor are not his own to spend, and he is far more limited than any of us in what he may do with his few free hours. But there is law for the slave as well as for the free. Even as this law binds each day of his life to his master’s purposes, it protects his life from the excesses of cruelty and power. His master may chastise him, even with force, but must not kill, torture or mutilate him—such power belongs to the law alone. Where it proves otherwise, there we have failed.
“And what is a master? A master is a man or woman charged by law to serve a particular role. It is not merely for his own sake that he is granted rule over another, but for the sake of the slave as well, and for the society they share. The law that affirms his ownership mandates that he provide his chattels with food and clothing—and should his slaves be joined to one another by marital or paternal bonds, he may not break those bonds through sale. More than this, it is in the health and well-being of the slave that the master proves his worthiness.
“I doubt I have uttered a single word that any man in this chamber disagrees with. The time has come to commit ourselves in earnest to the enforcement of these principles.”

Andre Roman, speaking January 12, 1835 before the Louisiana General Assembly
As quoted (Eng. trans., emphasis added) in Richard Marshall’s Beyond the “Wise Men”: Social Conservatism and the Roots of Aristism​

And, of course…

 

[Lycaon pictus]

The United Kingdoms​

Italy (and Sardinia!) haven’t been hit quite as hard as France or Britain, because more of their money was invested at home—but then, Italy was never as rich to begin with. So the Hiemal Period has been less a contraction than a slowdown in an economy that didn’t need a slowdown, especially since Italy needs to maintain a strong force on its northern border and a naval force in the Adriatic. Keeping these things going in an age of tight budgets is a major problem for Prime Minister Guglielmo Pepe and War Minister Annibale Santorre di Rossi.

At the moment, Pepe is focused on something a little more life-threatening. Over the last decade, cholera has become a problem in the U.S. and Europe. Nobody has a cure, nobody has a vaccine, and nobody knows how it spreads—they know it hits poor communities hardest, but they haven’t looked at the water quality. All anyone can do is quarantine the community and let it burn itself out. Lady-in-waiting Allegra Byron (not yet 18, and already a fixture of King Achille’s quirky court) reports that according to her half-sister Ada’s letters, scientists in Edinburgh have been working on a way to keep patients alive via saline injections. Unfortunately, they’re still trying to get the mineral balance right.[1] And since the sort of medical equipment they’re using in Edinburgh is harder to find in Italy, none of this is much help.

But at least with cholera and Austria, everybody agrees they’re bad. Some things—land reform, for instance—aren’t so clear-cut. The government in Terni can’t come to an agreement on it, so when it’s happening at all it’s happening on a regional level. In the case of Sardinia, giving the people a voice in government has brought the enclosure of the commons to a screeching halt, and even reversed it in places. In Sicily, it continues, but slowly, making relatively rich farmers (who can afford to buy plots of land) richer and making the rest angry. Southern Italy continues to be dominated by wealthy landowners who have no intention of giving up their land, and who are well aware that peasants need to be able to use the commons if they want to pay rent.

In keeping with the theme of looking at societies from the point of view of outsiders, let’s look at Italy from the point of view of an American music student at the Milan Conservatory[2]. One of the things he’s realized in his years of study is the extent to which he is an outsider here, even though he was born in Parma and spent the first three years of his life there. Italy has been kind to him, but it’s the kindness of a gracious host to an honored guest, not a parent to a child. And he loves Italy, but he loves it for its exotic beauty and many-layered history—nothing about it feels like home to him. The man who in another history would have been the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi is, at his core, the American composer Joseph Fortune Francis Green (Jeff to his friends).

For Green, the greatest struggle of the past five years has been just absorbing the sheer quantity of musical knowledge to be found here—while at the same time hanging on to the influences of his youth, which his tutors here see as strange tastes at best and bad habits at worst. Last year when he presented his Toccatina in G Major, a bright, cheerful piece of work perfectly in keeping with Italian musical traditions and an exemplar of modern Neo-Pastoralism, they assumed he was “cured.”

Shortly after that came the war. Everyone in a position to make decisions in Italy has personal, traumatic memories of the Other Peninsular War, so even music students are expected to train and fight if necessary. Green and Boott, as visiting Americans, weren’t asked to participate, but since all their friends were signing up, they felt the least they could do was serve as combat medics, which were mostly what we would call stretcher-bearers. (They didn’t know any medicine, which in this decade made them slightly less likely to kill people than those who did.)

The closest they got to the front line was at the Battle of Vicenza in June of ‘32, where the fighting bogged down into house-to-house combat between the Bacchiglione and the Palladian Basilica. Neither of them was physically wounded, but they both saw things they’d pay a lot to forget. Since then Green has been thinking a lot about music and narrative as forces for order and meaning in a world that desperately needs both. It’s enough to make him understand trucescuro art and music as something that takes the worst horrors imaginable and puts them in a context where they kind of make sense.

This year Queen Maria[3] asked the Milan Conservatory to recommend a music student to start off the court’s Christmas concert, so they sent their best. They said to be sure to ask Green to conduct a performance of his splendid Toccatina in G Major, not his weird and off-putting Southern Summer Sonata. They forgot this affair was being run by King Achille, who once had a live hippopotamus imported from Egypt and sent to the royal kitchens just to see what it tasted like. “Weird and off-putting” is his jam.

The journey to the Palazzo San Valentino[4] wasn’t as long as Green thought it would be. Terni (center of Italy’s steel industry as well as its capital) is at the center of a small but growing railroad network that crosses the peninsula from Civitavecchia to San Benedetto del Tronto and reaches Perugia and the outskirts of Rome. The city itself still looks raw and half-finished, but the Palazzo, on a hill just north of town, is magnificent.

The Southern Summer Sonata was a hit. The blue notes, the violins doing call-and-response—all the things that sounded like mistakes to his instructors in Milan—nobody in Terni had ever heard anything like this before. The rest of the evening was devoted to performances of traditional music by Jews and Arabs from Girba[5], while Green listened and frantically took notes on the musical styles. (Celebrating Christmas with music from non-Christian cultures is a very King Achille thing to do, and his court finds it much more tasteful than the infamous Casu Marzu Incident last year.)

Green also got to talking with Allegra Byron, who pointed out to him that he’s an awfully big fish for such a small cultural pond as the U.S. Why not stay in Italy permanently?

Tempting, but no. Partly this is because he’s tired of only being able to do half the things he wants to do in Italy’s well-established and rather conservative musical world. But mostly, when he listens to the latest works of Bellini or Donizetti, he thinks My country needs this. Why settle for success in the opera scene when I can build a new one?


[1] In particular, if they get the potassium wrong, the patient either just keeps getting sicker or dies of a heart attack.
[2] Ironically, he didn’t get to join the Conservatory IOTL.
[3] Maria Anna Luisa Borghese, b. 1812
[4] St. Valentine is the patron saint of Terni.
[5] Djerba, annexed to Italy after the Barbary Partition.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

Central Europe and the Balkans​

In Austria, Emperor Francis is dying. He might make it to New Year’s Day, but he won’t see another spring.[1]

Even when he was healthy, Francis depended on his advisers, especially Metternich. His eldest son and heir, Ferdinand, is no more capable of ruling the empire than he is of understanding Galois’ paper. His younger son, Franz Karl, means well and was lucky enough not to suffer the same degree of genetic damage, but is a profoundly boring man of transcendent mediocrity. He has no aptitude for leadership and is just barely smart enough to know it.

Just to ensure stability, Francis has already let his government know what’s in his will. His brother, Archduke Louis, will be in overall command of the State Conference. Metternich will deal with matters of foreign policy and everything to do with security. Count Franz Anton von Kolowrat-Liebsteinsky, a popular and capable Czech nobleman, will deal with domestic policy and everything to do with money. Franz Karl will sit in on meetings and (everyone hopes) learn enough so that if anything happens to one of the other men, he can step in and possibly not ruin everything.

Everyone agrees that after the war with Italy, Austria needs to rebuild its strength, especially at sea. In the 1820s, Austria built up its fleet the cheap and easy way—they bought up used British vessels (some of which had originally been taken from the French as prizes), crewed them with people who couldn’t get into the Army and spoke six or seven or eight different languages among themselves, and said “Now we’re a naval power.” Italy did it the hard, expensive way, building modern shipyards, building new warships in those shipyards, and training, training, training. The result was that at the start of the War of Sardinian Succession, Austria actually had a larger navy than Italy did… but not for long. In fact, by the end of the first four months they had no navy at all, and what was left of their merchant marine was huddling in Tripoli, Malta and the Oranian ports under British protection. So not only does Austria need a new navy, they need to build it the right way this time—which again, is much slower and more expensive, at a time when money is in short supply.

Of greater concern to Metternich is the alliances. Although Austria ended the war needing Britain more than ever and trusting it less than ever, its alliances with lesser powers such as Baden, Württemberg, Bavaria and Saxony are still very much intact—which is remarkable in itself. After all, the original rationale for the alliance was that (a) French belligerence was, and would remain for the foreseeable future, the greatest threat to peace in Europe, and (b) Austria would be strong enough to defend the German states against France, with their assistance. And then Austria invaded Italy for dubious reasons and was defeated while France looked on, smiling.

So Metternich is uneasy. Baden, Württemberg and Bavaria aren’t sticking with Austria out of some feudal fealty to House Hapsburg, loyalty to whatever it is Austria stands for these days (absolute monarchy with figurehead monarchs? defending Christendom from the now-fallen Turk?) or because being part of the Sudzollverein is so much better than closer trade relations with France. They’re sticking with Austria because they would rather be junior partners to a German monarch than a French one. In other words, they’re doing so out of nationalism—not a feeling he wants to encourage.

He also has his eye on the Balkan states. Wallachia is a reliable ally and Sudzollverein member, but the others—Greece, Bosnia-Rumelia, Albania, Montenegro, Serbia—need watching.

Five years ago, the Greek government’s writ didn’t run outside Attica. But in 1830 King Paul’s younger daughter, Pauline, married Ioannis “the Brave” Kolokotronis, son of Theodoros Kolokotronis and a hero of the War of Independence. And just like that, the Peloponnesus came under the control of Athens… well, Athens by way of the Kolokotronis family. Since then, Athens has gotten the northwest and the islands more or less under control. Where to go from here?

Greece’s most likely enemy is their northern neighbor Bosnia-Rumelia, which includes many territories Greeks consider rightfully theirs—Thessaly, Macedonia, Thrace… not to mention Constantinople itself, of course. Athens would also like to pry Cyprus away from Egypt, and possibly Izmir/Smyrna away from Cairene vassal Turkey.

So who would be the best ally? Greece is friendly with Russia and its king is friendly with Austria, but Russia can’t get its navy into the Mediterranean (more on that in a bit) and Austria no longer has a navy. France is strong and Italy is a rising power, but there’s only one nation that would certainly be capable of coming to Greece’s aid against any opposition—or, for that matter, invading Greece as an enemy. That, of course, is the world’s foremost naval power by a large margin, Great Britain.

Whether you call it Bosnia-Rumelia or the Gradascevician Empire, Europeans see it as nothing but a lawless collection of leftover Ottoman eyalets under the nominal control of an indecently lucky bandit. They’re right, but that bandit is the one holding the Golden Horn, which means he gets to decide if Russia will or will not have a naval presence in the Mediterranean. If Tsar Alexander were pragmatic enough to ally with Sultan Husein, the world would be a different place right now. But that wouldn’t be compatible with his reinvention of himself as the great champion of Christianity in the East. As it is, the only thing stopping him from invading Bosnia-Rumelia is that Austrian ally Wallachia is in the way[2]… and if he can build up enough of a fleet in the Black Sea, that won’t matter.

The problem is that no one—not Italy, not France, and especially not Britain—wants Russia to have a naval presence in the Mediterranean. So while it’s in Greece’s interest to ally with Britain, it’s in Britain’s, France’s, and Italy’s interest to ally with Bosnia-Rumelia.

Just as Sultan Husein can keep Russian ships bottled up in the Black Sea, Sultan Muhtar of Albania can keep Austrian shipping bottled up in the Adriatic, and much more easily now. This means both Italy and Austria want Albania as an ally. Muhtar is still playing them off against each other.

There’s another nation in the Balkans that Austria itself is cutting off from the sea—tiny Montenegro. The Bay of Kotor is part of Austria’s Dalmatian territories. One of the reasons why Metternich agreed to come to the negotiating table during the war was that he found out that Italy was in talks with the young Prince-Bishop of Montenegro. If Italy had taken the Bay in an amphibious assault, they could have given it to Montenegro in exchange for an alliance and a permanent naval base there, and Italy’s control over the Adriatic would have become absolute.

Like Greece, Serbia is interested in expansion at Bosnia-Rumelia’s expense. This to Metternich is unacceptable. Yes, there are majority-Serb territories in that not-much-space-filling empire, but guess who else rules over majority-Serb territories? Austria. Metternich can’t stamp out every new idea in the world, but to him Serb irredentism is one that absolutely must be nipped in the bud, whatever else.

So Metternich has permanently shelved the idea of conquering Bosnia-Rumelia, which he only ever wanted to do in the first place just because he thought a strategic region like that should have a real country in charge. Like the other Western Powers, he finds himself needing an alliance with the Balkan monarch he most despises… and the one whose rule is most obviously built on sand.

There’s another problem in the Balkans, and it involves the Kingdom of Serbia—yes, that’s the Kingdom of Serbia, not the Principality. No sooner had Husein Gradaščević taken Constantinople than Miloš Obrenović took the bodyguard and police force he’d built up into an army and attacked the Turkish garrison just as they were decamping in search of greener paychecks. The garrison fled for the border, followed by Turkish landlords carrying all the gold they could hide on their person without it looking obvious to bandits. Now-King Miloš is embarrassed it took him this long, but Serbia is a small state sandwiched between larger ones whose closest ally is Russia, so keeping a low profile is a smart play.

Miloš is trying to rule as an absolute monarch, granting himself rich lands taken from those landlords, some lucrative monopolies, and a royal carriage so fancy he can’t even use it on what passes for roads in Serbia. But he has powerful opponents, some of whom want Serbia to be a modern constitutional monarchy, while others want to avenge family members Miloš killed in his rise to power. (It’s the Balkans. Blood feuds are literally an institution in some countries.) Speaking of family problems, Miloš’ 16-year-old son Milan[3] has taken teenage rebellion literally, fled Kragujevac[4] and is rallying his father’s enemies to his banner. Civil war is at hand. Meanwhile, in the tiny and should-be-unimportant-but-somehow-isn’t Prince-Bishopric of Montenegro, the young prince-bishop Petar II is implementing the beginnings of similar reforms without a civil war.

On the one hand, Metternich doesn’t want to see more constitutional states on the border—it might give people ideas. On the other hand, as Kolowrat never tires of pointing out, at this point that horse has been out of the barn so long its grandcolts are running free. And he really doesn’t want to step in somebody else’s civil war and antagonize Russia so he can have King Miloš as a puppet—a puppet who just got done slicing the fingers of the last people pulling his strings.

This has gotten Kolowrat suggesting that Austria needs to get with the times. Constitutional government is good for business—people will invest more readily if they know there are limits to the state’s ability to confiscate their wealth. And what’s good for business is good for revenue, which is good for the army and navy, which is good for restoring Austrian power.

And although Kolowrat is far more liberal than Metternich (it would be hard to be less so) he acknowledges that Spain and Russia are proving that constitutional rule can still leave the state with a good deal of room to act… especially if the rulers write the constitution itself instead of waiting for one to be imposed on them. But what kind of constitution would be suitable for a land as diverse as the Austrian Empire?

As it happens, there’s an example right next door of how it might be done right. Switzerland (much smaller, but also a land of multiple languages and creeds) has not one constitution but many—each canton has its own. Over the past few years they’ve been reforming them with downright stereotypical good order.[5]


[1] He died around this time IOTL as well.
[2] When Constantinople fell, King Carol had Wallachia seize bits of the coast. Austria backed him on this, since it gave the Sudzollverein an outlet on the Black Sea. Russia gave him no such permission regarding Moldavia. Being a vassal of two different foreign kings is a complicated job.
[3] Not IOTL’s Milan Obrenovic, who was born a year later.
[4] The capital of Serbia, since Belgrade is right on the border with Austria.
[5] As IOTL.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

Northern Europe​

Like Portugal, the Netherlands is a tiny nation that once bestrode the world but now has fallen behind it. Willem I[1] still rules as something close to an absolute monarch, having turned the States-General into a rubber stamp. This wasn’t how he wanted things to be. He wanted to be a modern, enlightened monarch well within the rule of law, with a constitution and everything. But he also wanted his entire kingdom, and for Talleyrand not to try to overthrow him in the (less populous) half he still got to keep. We don’t always get what we want.

In lieu of freedom, he offers his people propaganda. This propaganda is focused on three subjects.

The first is the promise of vengeance against France and liberation for Antwerpen and Brussel (the French forms of the names are actually illegal to use). This vengeance is supposed to be achieved with the help of the Netherlands’ stalwart allies, Britain and Prussia. The problem with this is that Britain isn’t showing any inclination to resume the war against France, and even cooperated with them during the Barbary Partition. As for Prussia, as a military ally it has its own problems which we’ll get to later. Anyway, although the Dutch are indeed still angry that France ate half their country, many of them are in correspondence with family south of the Waal, and know that those family members are enjoying more freedom and prosperity than they themselves are.

The second theme of Willem’s propaganda is the growth of trade and the glory of the Dutch Empire. Every newspaper in Amsterdam and the Hague carries glowing stories based on royal press releases and dockside gossip: Check out the growth of our sugar plantations in Suriname! And our trade missions to Asanteman, Benin and Burma! And our heroic victories over Aceh! Temmasek is becoming a hub of commerce in the East! Oh my—we just conquered Sulu! Read all about the visit of Dutch ambassadors and missionaries to the king of the Sandwich Islands!

King Willem and his ministers are doing their damnedest to make this look like some kind of rebirth of national power, and arguably it is one. But it’s done nothing for the economy except make a few rich people richer. The trade associations the “King-Merchant” founded were doing better, but the Hiemal Period has taken even that away from him. Ambitious young men are moving to Hannover or France, or overseas. The Netherlands is becoming a place to leave.

And more so than most people realize. Willem’s third theme is the spiritual revival of the Dutch people, and he has help with it. Back in 1820 he ordered an investigation of his predecessor Louis’s old Dutch tutor, the lawyer and poet Willem Bilderdijk. What he heard was such a pleasant surprise that he gave the man a royal audience. Bilderdijk’s political conservatism and devotion to the Dutch Reformed Church were just what the king was looking for.

Bilderdijk died two years ago, but his circle of friends still includes many of Willem’s closest advisers. One of these is Abraham Capadose, a Jewish convert with all the proverbial zeal of converts. The problem is, he (like Bilderdijk, whose experiences with opium pills may have left him with a skepticism toward the received wisdom of medicine) is opposed to smallpox vaccination, and has managed to convince the king that it’s contrary to God’s will.[2] Willem can’t quite get the States-General to outlaw the practice, but his control of medical licensing means that for at least six years now, it’s been effectively unavailable in the Netherlands. The well-to-do can afford a trip abroad to get their children vaccinated, but everyone else can do nothing but pray.

Frederick William III, King of Prussia, has found a different way to use religion to inflict pointless harm on his people. One of his biggest priorities has been making sure the forms and ceremonies of Lutheran worship are completely uniform throughout Prussia, and as are “authentically” Lutheran—as much like he thinks old Martin would have wanted—as possible. There has been so much resistance to this, and he has cracked down so hard, that it basically amounts to religious persecution. A lot of pastors (not to mention their congregations) are trying to raise money to emigrate, which is harder in this economy. Prussia, even more than the Netherlands, is looking like a place to be from, not a place to be.

This is especially worrisome in the Rhineland. When Frederick William III first took over this land, he of course forbade any dissent from his rule, but left the legal code and structure the French had built mostly intact. It was easier than trying to restore every last feudal privilege of every last lord.

For once, the easy thing to do was also the right thing. For more than a decade, the Rhineland was the most prosperous place in Germany, only being edged out by Hannover around 1831. Even now, it’s the heart of Prussia’s economy and industry, and the place that’s paying for everything Frederick William wants to do. And for all this time, Rhinelanders have been wondering how long their king was going to keep leaving them alone. The “Prussian Union of Churches” doesn’t directly affect their bottom line, but they can’t help wondering what damage FW3 would inflict on them if he ever decided to make west Prussia more, well, Prussian.

FW3 isn’t hearing much from these people. He is hearing from Louis II, Grand Duke of Hesse, and wishes he weren’t.

This is another thing that goes back to the Congress of Vienna and the Battle of Velaine. Louis I, father of the current grand duke, lost the Duchy of Westphalia to Prussia in the Congress. To make up for it, they granted him land around Mainz. Then Napoleon and Masséna took that away from him.

Louis I died in 1831, still mad about it. His son is no less insistent that “Mayence” must, must, must be liberated from French tyranny and restored to its rightful ruler at whatever the cost. Louis II is something of a joke in Berlin because his wife responded to his philandering by kicking him out of her bed many years ago and spent the ‘20s giving birth to five children who look nothing like him, but he does occupy a strategic position on the border and has one of the better armies in the Nordzollverein. (There’s a reason George III hired Hessians.)

FW3 is going to have to say no. Prussians know war, but part of that is knowing when you’re outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered, and outplanned. Intelligence reports that France has better weapons, more gunboats on the Rhine, and a canal grid and nascent railroad grid that already can get more men to the front lines and keep them in supplies. Five years from now, Prussia’s army will be reformed… again. Ten years from now (if they’re being optimistic—it’ll probably be at least fifteen[3]) they’ll have a railroad grid of their own. But right now, in the event of war, Prussia would quickly lose everything west of the Rhine and would be lucky to ever see any of it again. Austria (whose ally Bavaria also lost Rhenish Bavaria after Nancy) might be an ally… if they hadn’t just underperformed in a war with France’s ally Italy. No help there.

The success story of the Germanies has been the tiny third Zollverein of Hanover and Oldenburg, plus the independent cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven. Hannover’s railroads are farther along than Italy’s, and Hanover has much less ground to cover. Even now, this kingdom is attracting more people from other parts of Europe than it’s losing to the U.S. These days investment capital is hard to come by, not least because in a deflationary economy, a savings account or a sock full of cash under your mattress is an investment of sorts. But the genius of Carl Gauss and Wilhelm Weber and the money of the Fitzclarence family have produced a guaranteed winner—a new invention called the telegraph. Following their successful test in Göttingen last year[4], Gauss and Weber installed lines in Hannover[5], allowing the king, parliament and ministries to communicate with each other using a code written by Gauss himself. With the money from this contract, they’ve opened commercial telegraph offices for the public and plan to expand their lines to Hildesheim, Celle, and Walsrode next year, following the railroads and revolutionizing communication.

For intellectuals of all sorts—scientists, philosophers like Arthur Schopenhauer, poets—Hannover and the university city of Göttingen have become… not Meccas. Pilgrims go to Mecca, but then they leave again. The poets and writers, in particular, are embracing the blue flower, a symbol so mystical and arcane nobody can say exactly what it’s a symbol of, and certainly nobody would be so dorky as to ask. The idea is to act like you already know.

In all seriousness, it does mean different things to different people. To the poets and Romantics, it can represent either the longing for something unknown or ineffable or the reaction of the soul to overwhelming beauty. To the Germanists, it represents a longing for, well, Germany—one whole, independent of other nations and at the very least not ruled by decrepit dynasties like the Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns… possibly not ruled by any king at all.

Even if it weren’t for this, there would be friction points between Hanover and the Nordzollverein. The entire reason Hanover didn’t join is that FW3 was leaning too heavily on the smaller members of the customs union. But what keeps coming up between them is disputes over trade, especially with all those exclaves. Hanover and Oldenburg both have chunks of territory inside the Nordzollverein, and some Nordzollverein states have bits inside Hanover. Worse, Göttingen itself is in the middle of a large exclave, separated from the bulk of Hanover by the Duchy of Brunswick… and here’s where things get complicated. (Not making any promises, but these maps might help.)

The current duke of Brunswick is Charles II[6], nephew to the late Queen Caroline of Great Britain, which means Queen Charlotte and King Wilhelm are both cousins of his. (It also means he’s the grandson and direct heir of the man who put his name on the Brunswick Manifesto, thereby plunging Europe into three decades of horror. People who meet him find this easy to remember.) He inherited the duchy at the age of ten, when his father was killed at Velaine[7], but was placed under the guardianship of Prince Regent George, who didn’t actually do any guarding. By agreement, he was deemed to have reached his majority in 1823. Wilhelm wanted him to join the Hanover and Oldenburg bloc, but he resented his British cousins and admired the Prussians his father and grandfather served. Wilhelm tried to get Brunswick to approve a constitution that would turn Charles into an effective vassal, but Prussia intervened. Charles has been ruling as part of the Nordzollverein ever since.

He’s not a popular ruler in his own territory, and he depends on his own army and Prussian support to keep him in power. He’s even less popular in Hanover, since he isn’t letting them build a railroad through his land to connect Hannover to Göttingen, and anyone who goes through by road has to pay tolls twice. A lot of Hanoverians are avoiding this by claiming to be from Thedinghausen, a Brunswick exclave inside Hanover. This sometimes works—Charles’ regime is corrupt, inefficient, and subject to bribery—but sometimes not.

Needless to say, under these circumstances no lawyer ever goes hungry. Especially not a brilliant and ambitious young lawyer from a Junker family back east, who’s fresh out of the Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen and already having to turn away work.

21-year-old Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck-Schönhausen is feeling torn—he loves his homeland and means to return there one day, but he’s in love with Hannover. It’s an exciting place to be right now, much more so than Berlin or Frankfurt. Poets and radicals are calling it the Zukunftsbrückenkopf[8], the place from which the future is beginning its conquest of the world. It’s a place where people can literally communicate at the speed of electricity—that’s more than even Paris or London can claim, never mind Berlin. It’s a place where ideas that would trigger a riot or a crackdown back home are tossed about like toys over coffee or beer. Hannover is exhilarating.

Best of all, you sometimes meet English girls there. For young Bismarck, English girls are a turn-on. It’s the accents.

Speaking of lands with a reputation for cold weather and hot women… Scandinavia. Denmark is yet another former center of wealth and power that feels like history has set sail without them. In some ways, they’re worse off than the Netherlands—at least King Willem doesn’t have to pretend to be France’s ally. And instead of great overseas victories to celebrate, there’s news of the British taking over and shutting down their slave-trading outposts in West Africa. King Frederick VI has been quietly modernizing his army and fleet, but… that damn Hiemal Period again.

In Copenhagen, Hans Christian Andersen has the usual problems of a full-time writer in a bad economy, but he lucked out back in ’32—the king gave him a travel grant to visit Hamburg, Hannover, France and Italy, and his travelogue has proven somewhat popular. In spite of this and the sale of a novel called Mermen[9], right now Andersen’s just barely scraping by, but he’s hoping to turn things around next year. As long as people keep procreating, there’ll be a market for children’s stories.

Sweden and Norway are doing as well as anywhere in the world right now. The iron and steel Hanover is buying in bulk for tools, railroads, locomotives, and other things is from Swedish iron ore, shipped via Norwegian ports.

Stockholm isn’t Paris or Hannover, but it does have its own literary scene. One of the stars of that scene is writer and newspaperman Magnus Jacob Crusenstolpe, who has recently caught the ear of King Charles John. Since the king can be proud and censorious, having his attention even in a good way is an uncomfortable thing. Just to keep things awkward, Crusenstolpe has also become drinking buddies with Konráð Gíslason, Jónas Hallgrímsson, Brynjólfur Pétursson, and Tómas Sæmundsson, four men who absolutely will not shut up about how THEY ARE BEING SILENCED!! ICELANDIC VOICES ARE BEING SILENCED!!!

These men are in Stockholm to print Fjölnir, an annual Icelandic journal aimed at raising Icelandic national consciousness and advocating independence from Sweden.[10] Despite the subversive character of their writing, the hard part wasn’t getting permission to print—it was paying for the press and finding someone to make the type for the letters thorn and edh. Crusenstolpe agrees that Iceland definitely should have something better than a dependency, although he’s not sure how much influence he has with the king.

Why has Sweden-Norway, a personal union between two nations that outsiders can barely tell apart but that don’t like each other very much, lasted so long? It’s not that everyone trembles in fear of King Charles John, and it’s not just the economic convenience of a common market. Left to themselves, it appears likely to everyone that Norway would end up junior partner to Britain and Sweden would need Prussia to protect it from Russia. Sweden-Norway has more options than either nation would have alone, including the best option of all—staying out of trouble.


[1] The Netherlands and Hanover are both ruled by kings named William I, so I’m going to try to keep them distinct.
[2] IOTL, fortunately, Capadose’s medical advice had the opposite effect—Dutch parents made extra efforts to get their children inoculated. ITTL, alas, he’s being heeded by someone in power. (I should mention that Willem’s rule here is very different than it was IOTL, mostly because of the post-Velaine defeats and the aftereffects of Talleyrand’s mischief.)
[3] IOTL the first railway in Prussia was the Berlin-Potsdam railway, which opened in 1838.
[4] This happened in 1833 IOTL as well.
[5] Again for the sake of clarity, in this post I’m using “Hannover” for the capital and “Hanover” for the kingdom.
[6] IOTL he was deposed in 1830. Here, Prussia is keeping him on his throne.
[7] He was killed at Quatre Bras IOTL.
[8] Let me know if I got the German wrong.
[9] An expansion of “Agnete and the Merman” and “The Little Mermaid.”
[10] IOTL they did the same thing from Copenhagen.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

Russia​

History books will describe this as a time of modernization in Russia, but modernization is relative. At this moment, if you were to use the city of Hannover as your baseline, you’d say that New York, London, Paris, and Anvers clearly need to modernize. In places like Portugal, Russia, and the Cairene Empire, modernization means trying to catch up to nations that are already in an all-out sprint forward—or at least were before the Hiemal Period began.

In the case of Russia this year, modernization means building coal gas plants so St. Petersburg and Moscow can have gas lighting in the next few years. It means paying railroad engineers whatever money they demand to come and teach their trade in Russia—in such an enormous land, the value of railroads is obvious. It means paving streets and establishing new universities in other cities… universities that are, of course, under the control of the Ministry of Spiritual Affairs and Popular Enlightenment.

Lots of things in Russia are under the Ministry’s control these days, including the new-model prisons. There are several of them in the Moscow and St. Petersburg areas, and one outside Kiev. These are prisons for minor offenders, people the state would like to make its displeasure known to without banishing them to Siberia. The building plans were cribbed from Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia (which means these prisons have some of the best indoor plumbing in Russia) and the methods used are very similar—enforced silence, hoods and felt shoes for the prisoners, time spent gardening and reading the new Russian-language Bibles. If you’re an introvert, this is a little too much of a good thing. If you’re an extravert, it’s hell.

The good news is that these sentences are relatively short—usually three to six months, and rarely more than a year—and the prisoners do have more opportunities to interact than those in Eastern State. They get to sermons and make confession to a starets once a week. It’s not much, but it keeps the isolation from doing permanent damage. Prisoners tend to develop an attachment to the starets (the only person they get to talk to) but the Ministry sees this as more a feature than a bug.

And for the late-stage alcoholic or the young aristocrat with a morphine problem, these prisons are literal lifesavers. After three or four months on herbal tea, cabbage soup, black bread, and a whole lot of cold turkey, addicts find they’re well past the physical stages of withdrawal and are rediscovering how it feels not to NEED all the time… or at least not to need their drug of choice. They might still feel like they need the Ministry to keep them on the straight and narrow. Again, the Ministry is okay with this.

The bad news is that the Ministry (not exactly unbiased observers doing controlled experiments) are treating these successes as validation for the whole program. This sends the message that (a) this is what prisons are supposed to look like, and (b) good things happen when you put the Ministry in charge.

And now, the Ministry is even taking a hand in foreign affairs. In St. Petersburg, at the old Holy Synod headquarters, the Ministry is hosting a meeting over the winter between religious and political representatives of Serbia and Greece. Officially this is to sort out the jurisdiction of the Metropolitanate of Belgrade, which functions as the Serbian Orthodox Church within Serbia proper, and how much independence it and the Orthodox Church within Greece have from Constantinople. For some reason, nobody from Constantinople is at this meeting, but the Tsar’s foreign minister is. It’s probably nothing. Don’t worry.

There are places where the Ministry’s claim of governance over all Christian churches in Russia is really creating problems. The Catholic Church in Poland is still loyal to Rome, and absolutely refuses to give an inch to Moscow. They’re backed up by Grand Duke Konstantin in Warsaw, who’s privately skeptical of this whole spiritual reform movement. The Lutherans in Finland are having the same trouble with the Ministry that the ones in Prussia are having with their own king.

This is part of a larger problem in Poland and Finland—both were Russia’s testing grounds for constitutional government, but the government keeps going outside the limits of said constitutions. The people were promised a greater degree of freedom, but that promise isn’t being kept. And just outside the borders of Poland is the Free City of Krakow, which serves as a convenient meeting place for anyone who might want to talk about their plans away from the Grand Duke’s ears.

The Middle East​

The Cairene Empire has been growing steadily for the past few years, to the point where it now rules most of the old Ottoman Empire. The kingdoms of Syria and Iraq are modernizing (again, relatively speaking) under the rule of Muhammad Ali’s sons Tusun and Ibrahim. Cairo dominates the Arabian peninsula either directly or via its Rashidi, Saudi and Kuwaiti vassals, Turkey and Kurdistan are also vassal kingdoms, the Berber tribes on the borders of the European powers’ North African possessions are reluctantly turning to it, and it’s expanding further up the Nile into Sennar and Ethiopia.

When an empire grows so quickly and so large, other powers—however distracted they may be—invariably notice. Palmerston in particular is devoting attention to this. His chiefest concern right now is that the biggest thing between the Cairene Empire and the Raj is Persia, Persia is in a state of civil war, and Muhammad Ali seems to have taken an interest in that war. Abbas Mirza, who holds the province of Fars, is backed by the Cairenes. What makes things worse is that the other contender, Ali Mirza, who holds Tehran and the north, is backed by Russia.

Palmerston would dearly love to grab a bag of popcorn and say “Let them fight,” but (a) the popcorn machine hasn’t been invented yet, and (b) if all he does is let them fight, there’s a serious risk that one of them will win. A Cairene ally that close to India could ally with Afghanistan and the Sikh Empire and threaten Britain’s hold on north India. If Ali Mirza wins, Russia will have access to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Neither option is acceptable to him. So for most of this year he was trying to find a third party that would accept British backing.

And then he got word of Delijan and Nimvar.

On September 25, 1834, Ali Mirza’s army met Abbas Mirza’s army a little northeast of Delijan, defeated it and cut off its retreat to Isfahan. Three days later, they caught up with it at Nimvar, and what happened next was somewhere between a rout and a massacre. When it was over, Abbas Mirza was dead. His Persian troops were fleeing in all directions, and the Arabs from Egypt, Iraq, and Arabia who had marched with him were mostly dead.

Cairo’s seemingly unstoppable winning streak has, for the time being, stopped. Iraq has claimed Khuzestan and Kurdistan has expanded a little, but other than that they’re taking no further interest in this war.

It appears as though the Tsar has handed the Persians, Muhammad Ali and Palmerston a fait accompli… but the war isn’t over yet. There is still resistance to Ali Mirza’s rule. Abbas Mirza’s son Bahram Mirza has escaped Isfahan, and on this day—December 23—he has arrived in the port of Bushehr and is sending word with a British trader that he’s ready to make a deal with Whitehall.

Persia isn’t the only place where Palmerston would like to set limits to the expanding power of Cairo. The good news is, there are four Middle Eastern states not yet bending the knee to Muhammad Ali—Bahrain[1], Oman, Yemen, and Lahej. The bad news is, Britain has antagonized the first, is at war with the second, and the other two are at war with each other.

In the case of Bahrain, this was the Royal Navy doing its usual anti-piracy thing in the Persian Gulf in the 1820s. Oman’s entire economy depends on the slave trade in East Africa, which Britain is doing its level best to destroy.

Then there’s Yemen and Lahej. Lahej is a breakaway state at the southernmost tip of Arabia, which Yemen has been trying to reconquer. It doesn’t look like much on the map, but it contains the city of Aden, which happens to be the perfect location for a coaling port…

North and East Africa​

It’s easy to look back at the career of Alexander or Napoleon, point to that one moment when they were at the height of their power, and say, “Why didn’t he stop here? Why did he go on, wasting his strength on wars he couldn’t possibly win? Why didn’t he quit while he was ahead?”

With the benefit of hindsight, anyone can do this—including other conquerors. Especially a conqueror who’s smarter than most people, now rules many of the places Alexander once conquered, and has personal memories of Napoleon. Muhammad Ali rose from Albanian mercenary to Ottoman viceroy by exploiting divisions on his own side. Since then he’s become king of Egypt, founder and sultan of a new empire, and single most powerful man in the House of Islam. The secrets of his success have been sucker-punching the weak, imposing order wherever chaos emerges, and above all, staying out of the way of the Powers until his empire is strong enough to join their ranks—and one of his sons or grandsons might see that day, but he knows he will not. In the meantime, he won’t make the mistakes others before him have made.

But he has been enormously, extravagantly successful, and for a while there it was starting to go to his head. When you’re on a winning streak, it is very hard to spot the moment when you should collect your winnings and call it a night—especially since stopping at any previous moment would have meant missing out on a big prize. When you suspect people are thinking of you as a lucky jackal, it’s hard to resist the urge to prove yourself a mighty lion. And when you’re a devout Muslim and God Himself appears to be blessing you with success and good fortune, it feels wrong to deny yourself whatever further blessings He might have in store. Hence the intervention in the civil war, risky as it was—the prospect of a Cairo-allied Persia was too great a prize to resist.

Then Nimvar happened. It wasn’t entirely a disaster for the Sultan—though the Arabs who fell there were loyal to him, they were also some of the more traditional-minded soldiers who objected to further modernization (this is part of the reason he sent them on this dangerous mission) and their defeat will make it easier for him to carry out such modernization while persuading his own armies not to mutiny like the Janissaries. But for him it was a much-needed reminder of why he has always chosen the path of opportunism and risk minimization. There is still a certain frailty to his empire, after all. Plenty of ex-Mamluks and petty lords would be happy to carve their own little realms out of his great one, if it seemed like he was about to fall.

So he will make no further efforts to provoke the Powers directly. But where he has a chance to expand his power and influence without running up against them, he will continue to do so. For instance, although his usual rule is to leave Christian-majority lands alone, the collapse of Ethiopia into warlordism has made it a target of opportunity. Likewise, British interest in Lahej means that Yemen proper may be open to an alliance. Berbera and the other Somali city-states still treasure their independence, but they don’t mind serving as conduits for guns that happen to end up in the hands of Omani fighting the British. It’s just business. And it’s better than trying to send weapons by caravan across the Arabian desert—not everyone in Saudi lands is reconciled to the Sultan’s rule.

More important is building up strength at home, in the form of education and industry. The cataracts of the Nile power cotton mills (although the collapse of the cotton market has hurt here too). Egypt has some iron, Syria has coal, and deeper in Africa there is plenty of timber. Ali has imported steam engines from Britain and France, and has set people to work on building more. The one missing ingredient is… once again… investment capital.

European engineers are well-paid in Muhammad Ali’s Egypt, but other scholars are welcome as well. Though his health is failing, Jean-François Champollion[2] found the strength for a final journey last year. It wasn’t a great success as far as archaeology went, but in Wadi al-Hitan, he found bones so old and massive he asked some paleontologists to come and check them out. They’re now confirming the existence of a prehistoric beast they call Leviathanus pharaonicus, the sea monster like a king of ancient Egypt.[3]

The biggest thorn in his side is, of course, the Barbary Partition. When the War of the Sardinian Succession began, the Sultan did have the beginnings of a plan to use this to free at least part of northwest Africa—ally with Austria to free Tunisia from Italy, then ally with Britain to chase France out of Algeria. It wasn’t very realistic, but it was better than trying to take on six nations at once. But before he could so much as draft a letter to the Austrian ambassador, facts on the ground rendered all his plans irrelevant.

In January of 1832, a rebellion broke out against Austrian rule in Tripolitania. Since the Austrian garrison had no chance of resupply or reinforcements from home, it seemed as though they were doomed. The rebellion failed, for two reasons:
• At the head of the rebellion was Ali, son of the deposed Turkish pasha. Ottoman rule in Libya was no more gentle than Austrian rule, and the Turks claimed a lot more territory. Ali was chosen because the various Berber and Bedouin tribes couldn’t agree on a leader among themselves. He quickly wore out his welcome by having people he perceived as his rivals assassinated. The rebels then rebelled against him, killed him, and spent the rest of the year trying to manage the uprising by committee.
• The British government anticipated this problem and, not wanting any part of the Barbary Partition to fail, was quick to order a few regiments to Tripoli as reinforcements.

So Austria’s rule over Tripolitania is still pretty solid, even if it’s still enforced as much by Britain as by Austria. Tunisia is a peaceful state with just enough army to keep order in its own territory, independent except for having to run its defense and foreign policy decisions by Terni, where the Bey of Tunis has sent his son Ahmad so he can learn how the strong nations do things. The islands off Tunisia’s shore are being gradually settled by Italy, but via gentrification rather than genocide.

Hussein Dey has been dead for the past year, having been killed at Lakhdaria. The scattered resistance to now-direct French rule and French settlement is being led by Abd al-Qadir, who has to divide his attention between the French in Algeria and the British in Orania. Joseph Dupuis, British governor of Orania, controls the city of Oran and the coast. He’s trying to encourage the growth of cash crops—wine (fairly successful), prickly pear (less so), and gum arabic (too early to tell—the trees aren’t fully grown yet). Trouble is, coastal Oran is about as cool a climate as the trees in question[4] can take, which will limit productivity. Dupuis has heard from botanists that Australia has many species of acacia—“wattles,” they call them—that are more suitable for the climate, and is trying to get samples.

In Morocco, Abd al-Rahman is not doing too badly. He’s stamped out the rebellions, gotten his sultanate’s finances in order, and started to modernize his country (again, relatively speaking). There are Spanish officials in Fez being far more intrusive than the Italians in Tunis, but they can’t always get the attention of Madrid, which has imperial territories all over the world to keep track of.

But the biggest problem is what’s happening to the west, in Tangeria. It would be an exaggeration to call it genocide, but not by nearly enough. There’s usually some village along the coast that isn’t paying taxes to Lisbon or is showing signs of rebellion, which is all the excuse the Portuguese Army needs to go in and… well, few things are dirtier or messier than ethnic cleansing. Portugal can usually find settlers to replace them.

Abd al-Rahman is under a lot of pressure to take action. People are telling him: This is the Crusades all over again. You call yourself our leader, but if you don't lead us into battle against these murderers, we'll find someone who will. Really, he’d love to, but it would mean fighting two countries with not enough army to face one.

When a smart man is forced to do something stupid, that man becomes very dangerous. He starts thinking of smarter, more effective, more hey-we-might-actually-live-through-this ways to do it.


[1] Which at this point rules Qatar as well.
[2] He died in 1832 IOTL.
[3] IOTL Basilosaurus isis
[4] Senegalia senegal or Acacia senegal

 

[Lycaon pictus]

West Africa​

West Africa: a land of contrasts.

No, seriously. You can find every level of social organization here, from societies where each village is effectively its own state, to feudal aristocracies, to empires that wouldn’t have been out of place in the ancient world, to states with institutions that are almost up to code for the modern world, to colonies like Freetown and Ajudá.

The one commonality is the effect of the slave trade, which has been reduced to a single bloody trickle but has not been entirely cut off. That trade destroyed the weak and hideously distorted the strong. Take prisoners, trade them for guns, use those guns in war, take more prisoners, etc., etc. To survive, and to keep your people safe, you had to be a ruthless sociopath willing to launch unprovoked attacks on innocents and subject them to a terrible fate. Otherwise you’d have no way of defending yourself and your loved ones when somebody else tried to do it to you. Which is why, even though every state in Europe has turned against the slave trade, kingdoms like Danhome, Oyeau, and Benin are still making under-the-table deals with the slavers who still operate. Palm oil, peppers, and even ivory just aren’t the same.

Asanteman—the Ashanti Empire—is possibly the strongest of the West African states, and certainly the one least affected by the diminishing of the slave trade. The reason is, Asanteman has gold. Europeans even call this place “the Gold Coast,” which tells you why they care about it. Gold always finds a buyer, but it’s almost impossible to overstate its importance at this particular moment. In a deflating world economy where most currencies are either gold-backed or bimetallic[1], gold is like water in the desert—every drop is needed by someone. So Asanteman is one of the few places to draw a net benefit from the Hiemal Period. Every country in Europe with a seaport trades here. (Britain and friends don’t like them trading with France, but France has revolvers and thimmoniers. Hard to say no to that.)

What complicates their relationship with the rest of the world is their traditional religion, which does involve a certain amount of human sacrifice. The authority of the king and government is built around this belief system, so they can’t just all convert to Christianity or shout the shahada and be done with it—not without a revolution. Of course, there are missionaries from several Christian denominations at work in the ports.

It isn’t just Asanteman that has gold. So do the neighboring, much smaller kingdoms to the west, Sanwi and Indénié. A little further west is what was the kingdom of the Baoulé before it collapsed into warring families… which turned out to be an even worse move than usual. The Crou are to the west of the Baoulé and expanding, from what Europeans call “the Pepper Coast” into what they call “the Ivory Coast.” The Crou were already looking for more land and more slaves, and you can imagine their reaction to finding out that Baoulé country has gold in them thar hills. You might also be imagining the Asantehene[2] Kwaku Dua I’s reaction to seeing his neighbors under threat of conquest. The smart move would be to ally with Sanwi, Indénié, and the Baoulé against this obvious growing threat… right?

In another part of the world, yes. But this is West Africa, where (it bears repeating) for close to three centuries the smartest move you could make was to sucker-punch your next-door neighbors. The level of trust necessary for even the simplest defensive alliance between kingdoms just doesn’t exist here. Besides, what the Asantehene is really worried about is Dagbon, the Muslim kingdom to the immediate north. West Africa is experiencing a breather in the Fulani wars, but nobody expects this to last, and when they start again, Dagbon will be on the side of the Fulani, because of course the part of West Africa where alliances actually work would be this part. So the Baoulé are fighting, and losing, alone.

Central and Southern Africa​

The Zulu Kingdom (Zululand, as it will be known to the outside world for at least the rest of this century) has a new king. Umhlangana has, with British aid, overthrown and killed Shaka and taken over. He isn’t bad as kings go, but the moment when Shaka saw the palisades and mud-brick walls of his kraal knocked down by British artillery will become a metaphor for sorrow, failure, and defeat among the Zulu people even when nobody else knows what they’re talking about.

With this, Zululand, Basutoland under Moshoeshoe I and Swaziland under Sobhuza I have become the equivalent of princely states. They’re not fully independent, but they at least have the right to bar others—specifically Europeans—from swooping in and settling their land. Good news from their perspective, not so much to the Boers.

Madagascar’s civil war is also over. With a little help from the Royal Navy, King Rakotobe is establishing control over the whole island. His supporters are setting up new vanilla plantations in recently conquered lands.

A lot of people in high places try to claim that the things they do aren’t really their fault, and Rakotobe can make a better case than most. If he hadn’t fled the country after his aunt seized power, she would have killed him. If he hadn’t been willing to try and take his kingdom back, the British might have handed him over to his aunt as a peace offering. And to get his kingdom back, he needed British help, and all that that implies. Like openly converting to Anglicanism and letting them set up missions and schools all through his kingdom. Or signing very favorable trade agreements with representatives from Whitehall.

Another key reform—setting up a real police and court system. Determining guilt or innocence by feeding poison to the accused and seeing if they survive is exactly the sort of thing that makes the British roll their eyes. Worse (from Rakotobe’s point of view) it doesn’t really tell you if your aunt’s old loyalists are plotting against you. Speaking of loyalists, this reform lets Rakotobe set up his followers as police and magistrates all over the island, cementing his control.

We turn our attention from the lands where the colonizers have won to the land the colonizers are barely aware of the existence of. In the land of lakes and mountains, well to the southwest of Ethiopia, are a number of small kingdoms—Ankole, Buganda, Bunyoro, Burundi, Rwanda, Tooro and others—some of which trace their founding to the breakup of the old empire of Kitara. Two of them (Buganda and Bunyoro) both saw the accession of a new king this year. In both of these kingdoms, succession is a lot more complicated than just the king’s eldest son inheriting—in fact, in Buganda the eldest son is specifically barred from the throne. And if you’re picturing two men engaged in single combat at the top of a waterfall, what happened in Bunyoro was even more cinematic than that.

In the rising power of Buganda, King Kamaanya’s rule spanned an even twenty years.[3] The ruling council had long since chosen the next king from among his 62 sons, but in accordance with custom had kept their decision secret so nobody would know whom to assassinate. They chose 13-year-old Ndawula[4], which was something of a hint that they intended to exercise real power through him for as long as possible.

In the declining power of Bunyoro, which more than any of the others is the Kitara successor state, Nyamutukura had ruled for nearly fifty years[5], and his sons were starting to get old. He had chosen Mugenyi[6] to be his successor, but in order to be accepted as king, Mugenyi had to preside over his father’s funeral—and as it happens, Nyamutukura was just outside the capital when he passed. The result was a sort of combination state funeral, coup d’etat, and very bloody game of Capture the Flag, in which Mugenyi was the first to reach the body, but was killed by the prince Kamasura[7] and his retainers, who stole the king’s body, brought it back to the capital and buried it with all proper ceremony while fighting off an attack by Prince Isagara and his men. If all this sounds like it should have been accompanied by a death metal rendition of “Yakety Sax,” bear in mind that Bunyoro’s system guarantees that whoever ends up as monarch will at least be decisive and competent, without the national self-harm of a civil war every generation. More than one empire has failed at this. And now that they both have kings, Buganda and Bunyoro can get back to doing what they do best—fighting over land. Buganda will probably win. That’s the safest bet these days.

At the moment, none of these developments matters much outside the Great Lakes region of Africa. It will be some time before this part of the world is… slated for development.


[1] Right now, as IOTL, the pound is gold-backed, while the franc and the U.S. dollar are bimetallic.
[2] The Ashanti king
[3] He died in 1832 IOTL.
[4] IOTL, Kamaanya’s successor Ssuuna was 12.
[5] He died in 1835 IOTL.
[6] His successor IOTL
[7] Who tried to overthrow his father and was killed IOTL

 

[Lycaon pictus]

India and Afghanistan​

In the British Isles, replacing George IV and the Duke of Wellington with Charlotte I and Earl Grey has made a big difference. In the West Indies, it’s made all the difference. But in India… meet the new boss, same as the old boss. The captive markets of the subcontinent are the sacred cash cows of the British Empire. No one in the Government wants to mess with them in any way, except to expand and strengthen London’s control. Just this year the East India Company conquered the small South Indian statelet of Kodagu, or Coorg.[1]

The island of Ceylon has been under direct rule for most of twenty years, with the last trace of rebellion brutally snuffed out fifteen years ago. With the last king dead, the island is now a British crown colony. The highlands are being devoted to tea and coffee plantations, which means British coffee importers will have a stronger hand when negotiating with Franco-American-aligned Gran Colombia, not to mention the Spanish Empire.

The strongest of India’s princely states is Hyderabad, and its Nizam, Nasir-ud-Daulah, has spent the last five years trying to minimize British influence and reform his state. It helps that he has an independent source of wealth, because Hyderabad is a center of gold and gem mining. Forget the gems—the gem market has the same problem as the fur market, but worse because (compared to even the best-maintained fur) diamonds really are forever. But as in Asanteman, gold makes up for everything, and much of the revenue from mining ends up in the royal pocket. So there is basically no part of India under British control better placed to show independence. How’s it going?

Not well. While the Nizam is trying to thumb his nose at London, his nobles are thumbing their noses at him, stealing land from the poor and withholding taxes. Many of these nobles have been taking out loans from the Royal Bank, and given the choice between paying their Nizam and paying the British, well, they know who scares them most. Aristocrats like this are the reason The Governing Elites is going to be (a) well over a thousand pages long, and (b) an international bestseller despite being banned by many of the world’s governments.

The last part of India not under British rule is the northwest. It is dominated by an alliance of sorts between the Sikh Empire, under Ranjit Singh, and Afghanistan under Shuja Durrani. Ranjit helped Shuja reclaim his throne a few years ago, but what’s keeping Afghanistan friendly is not so much honor or gratitude as better opportunities elsewhere. Persia is weaker and more divided than it’s been in a long time. That’s an opportunity for Afghanistan and Balochistan to help themselves to western territory. (Also, as far as the Pashtuns are concerned, Ranjit Singh is the boogeyman. They’ve fought him before and do not wish to do so again.)

The Sikh Empire has one big problem. In order to do a proper job of modernizing, it needs access to the sea. The most direct path is the still-independent state of Sindh, at the mouth of the Indus. But last year, Sindh experienced an unexpected change of government.

A reformist Islamic scholar named Syed Ahmad Barelvi has been knocking around India for the past fifteen years or so, preaching and distributing his writings. His main concerns are Shi’a Islam—he’s against it—and certain practices which look to him too much like idolatry. He has attracted an enormous following—a following so large that it’s basically become his own personal army, and in a surprise move he led that army to Sindh and conquered it before anyone could react.

Why not go after the British? Because he tends to think of them as more of a symptom of the problem than a cause. As he sees it, God wouldn’t let Christians rule over Muslims unless the Muslims had somehow fallen into error. One state of the faithful doing things right will be invincible—just look at Muhammad Ali and all he’s accomplished. (Religious reform is all he really knows how to do, so of course he thinks it’s the most important thing in the world.)

So now that he’s had about a year to straighten out the Sindhi, what next? Will he turn south to begin liberating the Muslims of India from British rule? Or will he join the Afghans and Balochs in their war against the motherland of the Shi’a creed he so hates? Now would be a great time to take a big sip of your beverage of choice, because Syed Ahmad Barelvi’s next target is…

…the Sikh Empire.[2]

The British in Calcutta are laughing their heads off. The two men in India that they’re most afraid of are about to be at war with each other.


[1] As IOTL.
[2] IOTL he’d already been killed at this point fighting Ranjit Singh.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

Well, it's taken most of a year, but the Interlude of Unusual Size is finally done.

Ahhhhh.

Japan and Korea​

This November in the great city of Edo, the autumn leaves fell.

This is a poetic way of saying the city burned to the ground.

Not for the first time, either. Edo is Japan’s capital[1] and largest city, and at over a million people is more than half the size of Greater London and about the same size as Paris.[2] And with all those people using lanterns and charcoal, there are many, many opportunities for accidents every day. Also the city is mostly made of wood and paper and floored with tatami. If the Japanese heard of the Savannah Fire, they’d wonder what the Americans were making such a fuss about. They’ve actually gotten used to their capital burning down every once in a while.

It’s much worse that this year, Hokkaido and northern Honshu were hit by severe flooding that destroyed much of the harvest. Japan is a nation of 27 million—more than the British Isles—and has to rely on itself for food. It’s never more than one bad harvest away from famine.[3]

Shogun Tokugawa Ienari is 61 years old and has ruled Japan for 46 years. He hasn’t been a particularly attentive or diligent ruler, but even he can see troubles ahead, not least because his grandchildren by his son and heir, Prince Teijiro, keep getting sick and dying young. Luckily, he has lots of concubines. One of his children just has to live.

Japan at this point has a reputation as a hermit kingdom that tolerates no outsiders, and that reputation didn’t come out of nowhere. Last year some Japanese mariners whose ship was wrecked by a storm were picked up by a French merchantman—but when the French tried to return them, they were shot at. They had to transfer the mariners to another ship that sailed to Dejima under Dutch colors.[4]

But this worked because Japan’s policy of sakoku isn’t complete—the Dutch have an enclave on the artificial island of Dejima, in Nagasaki harbor. The fact that the Netherlands came out of the last war in such bad shape has made the Japanese even more comfortable with them—they don’t seem like a threat. (Although after the conquest of Sulu, some people are starting to wonder about that.)

The important thing is that the Dutch have become a conduit for Western knowledge—what the Japanese call rangaku—into Japan. A community of scholars has formed to study this knowledge, and the more they study, the more worried they get. The distant Western powers are getting really good at military organization and weapons manufacturing. The American demologoi and British Congreve rockets, in particular, sound like monstrous versions of the turtle ships and hwacha the Koreans used to such effect against them more than two hundred years ago. These scholars are trying to tell the government that Japan had better start catching up before it’s too late, but most people still see this dire warning by academic experts as rather, well, academic.

Not all the Dutch are exactly Dutch. One of the most prominent men in Dejima is Philipp Franz von Siebold, who teaches Western medicine to the Japanese, has a Japanese common-law wife and has smuggled out numerous botanical specimens.[5] And as we’ve seen, some of the Dutch are… well, they’re ethnically Dutch, they speak Dutch (although they have to spend months on board ship learning to disguise their accents before meeting other Dutch in Dejima) and their ships fly the flag of the Netherlands whenever they’re anywhere near Japan, but they’re actually citizens of France whose home port is Anvers and who work for the Compagnie de Commerce de L’Orient.

This company was founded sixteen years ago. If you’re wondering why you’re only just now hearing about it, it’s because it hasn’t been much of a success. In China, their traders are thought of as “like the British, only weaker and poorer,” so they don’t get a lot of respect. They’re outright barred from Temmasek and other Dutch-controlled ports, and they’ve only had access to Manila for the past two years (Napoleon II returning the Spanish royal rock collection helped there). The situation in Siam and Vietnam is changing in ways we’ll get to later, but for most of this time the only places they’ve really been welcome are Rangoon and Honolulu, and the Burmese always want to be paid in gold because they still have indemnity payments to meet.

But the Compagnie has cultivated the virtues of patience, persistence, opportunism, and an absolute lack of anything resembling pride or shame, and now it’s paid off. One of the sailors they rescued last year happened to speak some Korean (again, sakoku isn’t total—there is some contact between Japan and Korea) and he put them in touch with others who spoke it even better and were willing to work for the right salary. In Dejima this year they learned that the king of Korea, Sunjo of the Joseon dynasty, had just died, and that Crown Prince Hyomyeong (now King Monju)[6] was planning his coronation.

So much of life is all about timing. Korea at this point is at least as isolationist as Japan. At any other time, French overtures to Korea would have been rebuffed out of hand. But here was a young monarch coming into his own and feeling ready to try new things, and here were representatives of a barbarian nation bearing marvelous mechanical gifts and being as obsequious as they knew how to be—which from his point of view meant they had the right attitude.

The coronation was mainly a showcase of Monju’s skills as a writer, composer, and dance choreographer. The poetry of course was lost on the French envoys and the music was not to their taste at all, but the jeongjae, the formal court dances, were impressive.[7] Of course, the French were effusive in their praise for everything they saw and heard.

Monju is a showman at heart, and there’s nothing a showman loves more than an appreciative audience. And he could see from the thimmonier and the revolvers that these barbarians were clever. He commanded them to give his advisers a tour of their ships. They were especially interested in the steam engine, which the engineer explained ran on coal.[8]

Once the coronation fun was over, King Monju issued his decree. The French would not be permitted to live or engage in trade on the peninsula itself, but would be permitted to take shelter in Korean ports and purchase food, water, and coal. The trade (silk for manufactured goods) would be conducted on Jeju Island—Monju and his court see Jeju as kind of a disreputable, backwater place to begin with, and they don’t mind so much if foreigners get their cooties all over it.

We’re talking about a tiny volume of trade here, and not just because the ports on Jeju Island are so small. The silk industry ultimately depends on the white mulberry, Morus alba, that silkworms live on. It’s fast-growing, for a tree, but it will still be a few years before Korea can seriously increase silk production.

Which suits Monju just fine. He can see that army will get some use out of the revolvers, and of course the thimmoniers will make women happy, but ultimately his interests lie with art, literature, music, and dance. And he still believes in keeping foreigners at arm’s length, especially since Korea is supposed to be a Chinese vassal, and he’s not sure the Chinese would approve of any of this.

But he’s not the only one looking at these things. Korea has its own tradition of engineering and innovation, which produced those weapons the Japanese still have nightmares about. That tradition may have fallen by the wayside in the country’s isolation, but there are still those who can look at the French contraptions and figure out how they work. And precisely because they will be few and expensive, there will be room in the market for someone who figures out how to make more of them.

China​

China has finally crushed the rebels in the west, and the northern and western frontiers are at peace. But now Korea is opening itself (slightly) to foreign trade, beyond Tibet the Sikh Empire is becoming a formidable power, and Siam seems poised to dominate Southeast Asia. China launched an unsuccesful invasion of Burma back in the 1760s, and their military intervention in Vietnam to restore the Lê Dynasty was such a flop that it still leaves a bad taste in their mouth nearly fifty years later, so seeing both of these nations brought low (oops—spoiler!) is filling them with a mixture of schadenfreude and nervousness. After all, one of these days they might have to fight Siam themselves. So how is China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs preparing to respond to all these developments?

Trick question. China, at this point in its history, doesn’t have a Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A number of different agencies handle different aspects of China’s relations with the outside world. For example, the Ministry of Rituals handles all relations with Confucian/Chinese-influenced states like Korea and Siam. Their job is mostly making sure these states are properly subservient and respectful of China’s superior culture. King Rama is perfectly capable of observing the Confucian forms, and Monju, of course, eats ritual for breakfast. So this Ministry’s officials, although not completely blinkered, haven’t found anything they feel like they can complain about.

And they’re about the only ones who haven’t. One of Earl Grey’s reforms concerned the HEIC’s opium trade with China. Seeing this company foisting addictive drugs and ruining Britain’s good name, Grey decided… to end their monopoly on opium and let other British traders join in.[9] This year, the British sold nearly 30,000 chests of opium to China, and each chest held between 130 and 160 pounds (that’s the weight of the drug, not its value in British currency).[10] Add to this the opium from Stabler’s traders, and there’s a massive drug epidemic going on.

Even in a society with as many tools for self-monitoring as China, it’s hard to quantify the damage caused by opium addiction, but people in all walks of life can see it happening—especially among the richer and more important families, who are more likely to be able to afford opium. Particularly outspoken is Zeng Linshu, who has just passed the imperial examinations.[11] Zeng has been driven in his career by the memory of his brilliant son Zicheng, who could have had a great career in the civil service, but who developed an opium problem. He went off the drug for a while, but relapsed and died of an overdose. No one will ever know what Zicheng might have accomplished if he’d lived[12], but there are a lot of families like the Zengs trying to get the ear of somebody important in the Forbidden City. Normally, being outspoken in matters of public concern is a bad idea in China, but here the government doesn’t mind so much because there are foreigners to blame.

Blaming foreigners is one thing, but punishing them is another. Again, China—famed throughout the world for its all-encompassing bureaucracy and the professionalism of its civil service—hasn’t put any one authority in charge of all this. The Ministry of Rituals handles the more acceptable foreigners, the military handles relations with the central Asian tribes (despised as barbarians, but also feared for their power), and the emperor’s household has an office that handles missionaries. In Canton, there’s an official called the Hoppo (don’t ask) by Westerners and the Administrator of the Canton Customs by Chinese, who governs trade in that city. In matters of law, the East India Company and other traders are under the jurisdiction of local magistrates[13], although Beijing has handed down regulations that govern how magistrates punish infractions by traders. Nobody thinks this is fair—traders think it’s unfair that there’s no appeals process for magistrates’ decisions, and Chinese gentry think it’s unfair that the magistrates aren’t allowed to beat confessions out of traders, which is something that often happens to Chinese suspects. And that’s without taking into account the effects of bribery and corruption, which are considerable.

No country as big as China ever has just one problem. One of China’s problems, in fact, is that it is so big. There are close to 400,000,000 people in China. It is, by a considerable margin, the most populous country in the world. As in Japan, this means that famine is never more than one bad harvest away, but it means more than that. There are only so many positions in the government or in trade, which means the examinations are getting more demanding. When Zeng Linshu passed the imperial examinations, he achieved what less than 1% of Chinese students in his time manage to do. In this, the most proudly self-sufficient country on earth, there is one thing in desperately short supply—opportunity.

In a grim way, the opium crisis is easing some of this pressure—by ruining so many lives, it’s cutting down on competition in the aspiring class. But even with that, Chinese society feels like it’s heading toward a breaking point. A good person to ask about this is Gong Zizhen, a 44-year-old scholar who’s made a special study of the Spring and Autumn Annals. Gong is one of those people who wants to be an optimist. He wants to believe in progress towards order and peace, until China becomes the perfect and timeless kingdom its greatest minds dream of.

But Gong is of the empirical school of thought known as kaozheng. That means he can’t ignore the evidence, and the evidence is not good. Opium is a society-wide catastrophe. Foot-binding, he says, is also a society-wide catastrophe, but one that people are used to.[14] The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting children, the British opium dealers are getting the better of them all, and something’s got to give.

Certainly the scholar Hong Huoxiu, nearing his 21st birthday, feels this way. He’s certainly one of the best minds of his generation, but again, only the top scholars pass the imperial examinations. His friends have tried to tell him he can retake the tests again, but he knows that’s no good—it costs money, and there are always more and more young people to compete with. If he doesn’t pass the tests and do his family proud, he’s just going to go crazy.

Southeast Asia​

Burma is still in a bad way. Next year, they’ll have their indemnities to Siam and Britain paid off. King Bagyidaw is worried that this might make them less safe, not more. Britain had no need to try conquering a nation that was already handing over its lunch money. When those payments stop, either Whitehall itself or the East India Company will start getting hungry again. If that doesn’t happen for a few years, Burma might be able to rebuild its strength—but Siam has gotten used to not having to worry about their western neighbor, and might not let them do that.

For the past year, Siam and Vietnam have been at war. Bagyidaw would dearly have loved to use this as an opportunity to get back some of his own, but—in more senses than one—he couldn’t afford another war. In fact, if Siam turns his direction again, he might have to seek British protection. That would make his humiliation complete.

Turning to that war, both countries are to blame for it. Minh Mang has been assisting Lao and Cambodian rebels in Siam, and Siam has retaliated by backing a coalition of Christians, Chinese settlers and other disaffected Vietnamese under the nominal leadership of Prince My Duong but the real command of Le Van Khoi.

Who is Le Van Khoi? He’s the son of the late general Le Van Duyet, and he’s rebelling against Minh Mang to avenge his father. The funny thing is, even though Minh Mang and Le Van Duyet hated each other, the Emperor of Vietnam didn’t kill Le Van Duyet—he just waited until Duyet died of natural causes, then desecrated his tomb.[15]

While Minh Mang was making needless enemies, Rama III was making useful friends, playing French and British representatives off against each other until both agreed to help fund and arm him as much as they could in this economy. My Duong, meanwhile, promised that as emperor of Vietnam he will grant France trading privileges and the right to send more missionaries.

The result is that for the last two months, Siam’s forces have been moving steadily up the Vietnamese coast toward the capital of Hue. And after years of fighting Lao rebels, Siam has many soldiers trained in the art of mountain warfare, which Rama has organized into an army. Once the Siamese reach the Perfume River[16], that army will strike through the mountains and cut Hue off from the north, placing the capital under siege.

But the important thing is, the Emperor of Vietnam got to scribble “eunuch” all over a tomb. Totally worth it.

Oceania​

Governor George Arthur[17] is very pleased with the work he’s done in Australia. He’s been able to lift martial law in Van Diemen’s Land, as the natives have become peaceful (mostly because so many of them are dead) and he’s implemented the New System so thoroughly that there’s a place in it for everyone. For recently-arrived convicts, there are the mainland prisons. For free settlers who want convict labor, there’s Sydney, Perth, and the outlying towns. For free settlers who want nothing to do with convicts, there’s the towns of Greyhaven and Kinjarling. For ex-convicts who turn recidivist, there are the prisons on Van Diemen’s Land, Arthur’s old post. For convicts who commit crimes while still in prison or on work gangs, there’s Norfolk Island, a long way away from everybody else. For the natives, there are various tiny islets and remote stretches of outback where white people will teach them English and Anglicanism but otherwise leave them alone, because Arthur’s a humanitarian (just ask him). And for those free settlers who so disappoint him as to either commit crimes (very few—most of them don’t want to be mistaken for convicts), interfere with the New System, or speak out against his rule where a convict might hear (basically anywhere outside the two aforementioned towns), there’s a new prison in the most disappointing place in Australia, Macquarie Harbour on the west coast of Van Diemen’s Land.

If the late Lachlan Macquarie had ever gotten a good look at this place, he would never have named it after himself. For anything bigger than a sloop, it’s one of the few harbors that’s actually more dangerous than the open sea. Entering it means trying to thread your ship through an obstacle course of rocks, shallows, and treacherous tidal currents while that ship is being pounded in the butt by the humongous waves of the Southern Ocean. There’s a reason sailors call it “Hell’s Gates.” Arthur’s most outspoken opponents, newspapermen William Wentworth and Robert Wardell, have not gotten any fonder of the New System since being sent here last year[18].

In fact, almost everyone in Australia hates Arthur and his System, except for prison guards and a few rich settlers who will accept almost any tyranny in exchange for cheap convict labor. They also hate Sir John Russell, and Queen Charlotte herself is none too popular. Some people have left Australia entirely—not to return to Britain, but to go to the new town of Grahamport[19] on a bit of recently-acquired territory in New Zealand. Most are simply trying to get word back to the mother country of how bad things are and waiting for a change of days. It will come, but not in a way anyone expects.

In the South Pacific, HMS Chanticleer[20] is about two years into its five-year mission to explore strange new islands, seek out new people and new civilizations, and give them venereal diseases. (Disclaimer; this is not the actual mission statement.) But they’re spending Christmas in Tahiti, which is already well known to British explorers. All the Chanticleer’s explorers are pleased to see the progress that Christianity and the forms of what they think of as civilization have made in Tahiti… except for a young gentleman traveler named Charles Darwin, who’s mainly interested in studying birds and other wildlife.

The previous king of Tahiti, Pōmare II, has recently died of typhus. His 21-year-old daughter ‘Aimata, now Pōmare III (it’s a dynastic name)[21] is the new queen of Tahiti, and is trying to command the respect of the elders, all of whom remember her as a toddler. With a total population of about 6,000, the kingdom of Tahiti really is a small town, where it’s hard to overcome first impressions, even if your name means “eye-eater.”

Hawaii (which Westerners still think of as the Sandwich Islands) is much larger, but has had the same problems of losing people—including monarchs—to epidemics. That’s why Kamehameha III has taken the throne. His parents died of measles last year.

For a place at the end of every trade route in a bad economy, Hawaii is doing surprisingly well. British, French, Americans, Russians, Dutch—everybody comes here, and the only reason the king hasn’t converted to Christianity is that choosing a specific Christian church would be like taking sides. But in recent years they got a windfall from Spain of all places.

This is a side effect of the Haitian War. The number of troops from the Philippines that could be shipped across the Pacific in a given convoy was limited by the fact that the ships had to carry enough food and water to keep them all alive. Shipping them back was a little easier, because the westward currents ran far enough south that it was practical to stop in Hawaii and buy more food. This encouraged Hawaiians to plant more food, and the Spaniards were happy to share more tropical food crops with them. That’s pretty much over, but the net effect is that right now Hawaii is well-fed and flush with Spanish silver… which they’d gladly spend to get back all the people they lost.

But the biggest news is in the Philippines. When he took the throne, King Carlos decided to send a fresh crop of civilian and military officials to Manila to assert his authority. What they lacked in experience, they made up for in mother-country arrogance. Colonel Andrés Novales, a hero of the Haitian War, was demoted to captain basically because he wasn’t a peninsulare.

For Novales, it was the last straw. He contacted his old war buddies, found them equally dissatisfied, and took up arms. They spent years getting a masterclass in guerrilla warfare from the Haitians, and now they were ready to teach what they had learned. Beyond the city of Manila, the island of Luzon is on fire with revolt, as Creoles and natives alike rally to Novales’ banner.

Things are no more peaceful in the southern Philippines. After the Dutch took the Sulu Sultanate, the pirates moved to ports in the north of Mindanao… and went right back to piracy. (This is all they know how to do. It’s not like learning to code is an option.)

Of course, the Dutch (in addition to expanding their control of the Indonesian archipelago) are attacking these pirate havens. The problem is, the havens are in Spanish territory, and Carlos is getting pissed off. To him, a few pirates here and there are part of the price of doing business, but a foreign navy in Spanish waters is a challenge to his authority. The Dutch are responding by saying the same thing they said about Sulu—join us or stand aside.

This is driving Palmerston up the wall. The Netherlands and Spain are both technically British allies. More to the point, if Napoleon II wakes up tomorrow and decides he wants to be about his father’s work, it will take many nations joining forces to stop him—especially if he has Italy’s help. The British foreign minister can’t afford any splits in the Next Coalition.

But some things even he can’t stop. Both countries have been having a rough 19th century and feel the need to prove their strength to the world, and both are ruled by kings who feel the need to prove their own strength to their own people. So next year, Spain and the Netherlands will be at war over an island neither of them wants very much.

That’s the trouble with being an overseas imperalist. If the sun never sets on your empire, when are you supposed to sleep?


[1] Although the emperor lives in Kyoto, which also burns down, but not nearly as often.
[2] IOTL and ITTL, Greater London at this point has a population of about two million.
[3] IOTL the Great Tenpō Famine began in 1833.
[4] A similar incident with an American ship happened at about this time IOTL.
[5] IOTL he’d been kicked out of Japan at this point after being caught with maps of the country.
[6] IOTL he died at 20, never became king, and was given the name of Monju posthumously.
[7] You can see one of these dances here.
[8] France’s larger freighters are steam-and-sail combos like the Turenne-class frigates. The engines are mainly used to cross the doldrums.
[9] As IOTL
[10] This is roughly extrapolated from OTL sales figures.
[11] IOTL he only passed the prefectural examination in 1833.
[12] At least, no one ITTL. In IOTL we know him by the name he later chose, Zeng Guofan.
[13] These magistrates have both police and judicial powers. Basically, they are the law, except in cases where somebody higher up finds out what they’re doing and overrules them.
[14] He isn’t the only one who feels this way. IOTL and ITTL, Li Ruzhen completed a novel called Flowers in the Mirror in 1827, which was sort of a Chinese Gulliver’s Travels. It featured a chapter called “The Country of Women,” about a merchant who travels to a land where gender roles are swapped, and ends up having his feet bound.
[15] As IOTL.
[16] The river that runs through Hue
[17] Who is not Sir George Arthur, as he hasn’t been knighted yet.
[18] IOTL Wardell was killed by an escaped convict this year.
[19] IOTL Auckland
[20] A ship of the same class as the Beagle.
[21] IOTL Pōmare II died in 1821, and there was a six-year rule by a child king. ‘Aimata became monarch after his death.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

The Class of 1824: Ten Years Later​

John Coffee Hancock turned 10 on January 11, and is the top student in his year at Norristown Academy. His father’s a schoolteacher, so his family didn’t do as well as most during the good time, but haven’t been hurt so much by the bad times either.
“Keep your men in good order and your supply lines open, and there is no disaster that cannot be put right.” — Gen. Hancock

Denton Johnson Brooks turned 10 on February 15. He’s a decent student, but can’t stop getting in fights.
“For more than two years, every time I sat down to wine and pizza with my friends, I heard them say, ‘It’s dreadful, somebody ought to do something, somebody should do something.’ Well, now somebody has.” — Denton Brooks

Elizabeth Miller turned 10 on March 27. She has two older brothers, a younger half-sister and a younger half-brother, and her once-thriving family is, like a lot of families in Charleston these days, struggling with debt.
“I have seen two wars, and between them the Troubles. When actuaries tally up the number of human lives lost to violence, they find all the years of the Troubles scarcely add up to one battle, but mark me—the Troubles were the worst. The wars were titanic monsters whose roar could be heard long in advance of their approach. The Troubles were a small but deadly serpent that might strike from anywhere.” — Elizabeth Miller

Francisco Agustín de Borbón y Iturbide turned 10 on April 9. He’s an okay student, but (like both his paternal grandfathers) an excellent horseman. He treats his younger brothers and sisters well. The plan is that he will learn to be a soldier, be promoted to general and—when his father dies—become the strong right hand of whichever younger brother of the Miraculous Princess is sent to New Spain to become the new Prince-Viceroy.
“We will hold the Misión de Álamo against Hell itself if necessary.” — Francisco Agustín de Borbón y Iturbide

Charles Brady turned 10 on May 1. With the economy the way it is, his father’s had to go into the timber industry in the mountains around Lake George—the railroads always need more wood—and to bring Charlie’s older brother and himself along. Charlie likes the woods. He’s growing up on folktales from Ireland and elsewhere, and wants to hear whatever tales come from the Adirondacks. But there’s hardly anybody left in the Adirondacks who isn’t cutting trees, so Charlie’s having to make them up himself.
“Seven men stood on the height overlooking the Klondike. They gazed upon a vista of hills like a crowd of balding men, naked crowns of rock and heatherish tundra rising above sparse forests of spruce and fir. They heard the cries of ravens, but saw no other living creature than themselves in any direction…” — The beginning of The Wendigo by Charles Brady

Edward Allingham turned 10 on June 20. His mother died in childbirth this year, and the baby died a few days later. Edward and two younger siblings, Charlotte and John, remain.
Edward is a devout Anglican from a long line of such, and his elders are still talking about the Tithe War and how the government will rue the day it let those “grubby Papists” win. He himself can’t help wondering why the Church of Ireland has to keep hitting up the supposedly poor, second-class Catholics for money.
“Do as you will with me. I will not oppose these people in arms again until their concerns have been addressed.” — Gen. Allingham

Solomon Parsons Morton turned 10 on July 24. His family moved to Springfield, Vermont a couple of years ago. He’s an okay student, but a leader among his peers.
“Can I continue pressing the attack? Only until I die, sir. I offer no guarantees for my performance afterward.” — Col. Morton

Josephus Starke turned 10 September 21. In the hills of northern Alabama, it’s becoming harder and more dangerous for the sheriffs to enforce eviction notices. Too bad for the Starke family that they’re at the opposite end of the state. Plantation owners can organize to resist evictions, but they don’t try to protect little farms like the Starke place— they’re thinking that when times get better, one of them can buy the land from the bank cheap. Which is how the Starkes wound up in North Carolina working for the railroad from Salem to Charlotte. Josephus can’t wait until he’s old enough to help his family earn some money. That’s the height of his ambition… at the moment.
“Kentucky is mine. Get your own damn state.” — Josephus Starke

Dheerandra Tagore turned 10 October 13. He already reads and writes six languages. The Company is particularly strong where he is, and his parents are hoping he can get a job serving it. They always need more translators.
“Queen Charlotte freed the slaves, but she did not free us. Very well. We’ll do it ourselves.” — Dheerandra Tagore

Karl Peter Frederick, son of the Grand Duke of Oldenburg, turned 10 on November 19. He’s already sharp enough to follow the debates in the newspapers. Two years ago his father granted his people what was more or less a copy of the Hanoverian constitution, and there are no customs barriers between Hanover and Oldenburg. This has actually diminished the calls for unification with Hanover—it’s easier to leave the status quo in place, and that amounts to practically the same thing. Plus, Oldenburg is a Grand Duchy. It wouldn’t be grand anymore if Grand Duke August became the vassal of King Wilhelm.
The railroad between Hannover and Oldenburg (okay, really the railroad between Hannover and Bremerhaven[1], but it connects Oldenburg) was completed this year, which means Karl can visit Hannover often, and does. Prince Victor Alexander is like the cool older brother he never had.
“Berlin or Hannover—one of these two must fall. I do not know which one will win, but I know where I will fight.” — Grand Duke Karl

Nathanael Greene Whitman turned 10 on December 22. He’s still in school. He’s a somewhat better-than-average student, but his artistic skills are well in advance of his years.
“When I heard the learn’d chemist discourse on the wonders of the argentograph[2], and show the proofs that this mechanical marvel could create more realistic images of the natural world than those of any human hand, I became sick and sad. Then the thought came into my mind that human imagination still must govern the composition of every image, and that this mere machine, like the pen and brush, might itself be made an instrument for the expression of art.” — Nate Whitman


February 11, 1835
U.S. Capitol
Senate Majority Leader—and President emeritus—Henry Clay had anticipated that this was going to be a difficult term. He hadn’t realized how difficult. The Democratic-Republican majority in the Senate still existed, but had been reduced. His felllow Kentucky senator, Richard Mentor Johnson, had been replaced by Joseph Desha, a Quid and a man he personally detested. That one-eyed grump Governor Harrison of Ohio was still sending him angry missives about the Supreme Court decision last year.

And now this—the publication of an open letter, which was the reason he and the two most powerful Dead Roses in the House were meeting in Webster’s office. “‘Whereas the peculiar institution of the South is the mainstay of its agriculture and the backbone of the industry that supplies so much of our exports…’” He didn’t trouble to read aloud the rest of the justifications.

“‘Be it known that if the Democratic-Republican delegation to the United States Congress were to put forward any further proposals having in their effect the diminution of this institution in the states where it is currently lawful, we the signatories would be compelled to resign our membership in said party…’” (The signatories, not the undersigned. Just to make everyone’s day complete, the letter was a round robin. The signatures were around the edges in an irregular pattern that concealed which of them might have been first to sign it, although Clay would have bet half his railroad shares on Rep. Taney of Maryland.)

“Twenty-five,” said Speaker of the House Webster. Everyone in the office could do the math. If only fourteen of the signatories made good on this threat, the Quids would have a majority and Webster would have to hand over his new position to Calhoun.

“The Liberationist delegation has informed me,” added Majority Whip John Quincy Adams, “that if we don’t publicly defy this missive at once, they will leave our coalition.”

Clay smiled grimly. “Both of them?”

“Strictly speaking, there are three. Sumner from Massachusetts, Stevens from Pennsylvania, and… someone from Kyantine who I haven’t met.[3]”

“From Kyantine? Not a Negro, surely?” Even Clay would have found it embarrassing if a Congressional representative were kidnapped by slavers, which was a risk in D.C.

“A white man. I’ve heard a little about him, but I can’t recall his name. I know it’s something quite forgettable—John Smith, John Jones, John White… no, not John White, but something of that sort. All I remember about him is that his family settled at a place called Oak Hill[4] and they have a tannery there. I suspect he owes his election to the fact that they thought it best to find a white man for the position and had very few of any merit to choose from. In any event, he does not vote, so we needn’t worry about him. For all practical purposes the Liberationists have only two.”

Clay turned to Webster. “What say the Populists?” Half the reason Webster had been chosen as Speaker of the House was that he seemed to get along better with the Populists.

“They leave the matter in our hands.” That was only a little better. Depending on the Populists meant making choices that might make some voters happy in the short term, but—Clay greatly feared—would harm the nation in the long term.

“You both know these men better than I do,” said Clay. “How likely are they to make good on this threat? This fellow from New York, for instance…”

Adams snorted. “Rep. Fillmore is a weathervane with feet. He represents whatever he believes the consensus to be.”

“A weathervane? No sense getting angry at him, then. The problem is which way the wind is blowing.” Clay pointed to another signature. “And this one’s from New Hampshire. Is he serious? What’s his name—Franklin… Pence?”

“Pierce,” said Webster. “Newly elected. I’ve met him. Young fellow—no more than thirty, and he looks like a schoolboy.”

“An ambitious young man.”

Webster nodded.

“And yet willing to risk his career over this. And what worries me are the other names. These are all our remaining representatives in Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, and most of our Maryland and Virginia delegation.” Clay shook his head. “If they go over to the Quids, who will be the national party then, and who the regional party?”

“I agree,” said Webster. “We can’t risk it. And consider—did any of us have plans to take action against slavery within the states where it holds sway?”

“Unfortunately, no,” said Adams.

“Then it costs us nothing but a touch of pride to heed this warning. And after all, they aren’t asking us to expand slavery. ‘In the states where it is currently lawful’—those are their exact words.” He pointed at the sentence on the page. “Michigan is already a free state. And when other territories apply for statehood, what will these signatories do? Deny them representation? Force them to accept slavery in order to join? I doubt it. We have suffered a great defeat, this is one of the consequences, and we must needs endure it. But in this matter, Time remains our friend and ally.”

“When you say ‘our,’” said Clay, “are you speaking of the Dead Rose caucus, or the anti-slavery caucus?”

“I am speaking,” said Webster, not missing a beat, “of those whose loyalty to the party is greater than their loyalty to slavery.”

Clay nodded, keeping his expression neutral. Bringing up future states in this context had brought to mind something he tried not to think about too much. Wisconsing, Ioway, Mennisota, Kaw-Osage… none of those would be a problem, come the day. If the Tertium Quids tried to bar them from the union in the name of slavery, the very next election would send them right back to minor-party status where they belonged, and the voters in the new states would be of a mind to hold them there forever.

But what of Kyantine? Could there be a state in this Union where whites were not the majority? All right, there already were such states—South Carolina and, by a narrow margin, Mississippi—but could there ever be a state where the white man did not rule? Could Congress be persuaded to accept this?

It seemed unthinkable, yet the Constitution offered no bar. Clay had that text well-nigh committed to memory, and in it the words “white” and “Negro” were nowhere to be found. It spoke of “free Persons” and “other Persons” instead, and the blacks of Kyantine were indeed free persons. That America was in all its parts to be ruled exclusively by white men was a tacit agreement, and if something were to contravene that agreement…

A problem for another day, thank God.


[1] The city of Bremen is the third member of the Hannover-Oldenburg group outside the Nordzollverein that everyone always forgets about, including me.
[2] IOTL daguerrotype
[3] Each organized territory sends a nonvoting representative to the House.
[4] IOTL Tulsa. It should be noted that the Brown family lives and works on the other side of the river from Oak Hill proper, which is at the southern end of Kaw-Osage territory.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

I need to know more about the offhand reference to pizza

You just inspired me to write an extra post.

May the Lord above forgive me for what I must do this night
I have shared their wine and pizza—now we fight!
(Susan Grace, Act III, scene 2)​

And may the Lord above forgive me for quoting grand opera—and Susan Grace at that—in what is supposed to be an informal, generally positive guide to the American South. But this is the part where we talk about pizza, so I just had to throw that in.

If you ask where pizza was invented, anyone from Fort Gaines[1] will tell you, “It was invented here, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!” According to actual historians, people started putting toppings on flatbread and then baking it almost as soon as they invented the oven. Tomatoes entered the picture in the 16th century, and around 1800 or so, dockworkers in the port of Naples were eating something vaguely similar to modern pizza. It was cheap and easy to make, and they could eat it quickly and get back to work.

Then came the Other Peninsular War, which was a pizza of death with all the toppings—famine, guerrilla warfare, murder of civilians, and in Naples in particular, Morisset, a tyrant like something out of a K-dread[2]. No surprise that a lot of Italians were heading for someplace less blood-soaked and horrible.

Which brings us back to America. The South didn’t normally draw a lot of immigrants—if they wanted cheap labor, they had slaves for that—but the creation of the Southern Inland Navigation Company created a sudden demand that they couldn’t completely fill. So from October through May of every year, there were Italian-Americans digging the ditches that would become the T&T and Grand Southern.

Workers need to eat, and canal-building creates a lot of displaced earth—especially the clay subsoil that’s great for building earth ovens. Walking along the banks of a canal, you’ll still see these ovens today. From a distance they look like lumps in the ground covered in moss and surrounded by weeds, but if you find the entrance and look really close, you can just about get bitten in the face by a possum which is trying to raise its babies in this little man-made lair.

As in Naples, pizzas were something cheap to make and quick to eat, but the pizzas they ate while working along the canals were even less recognizable than the early Neapolitan pizzas. All they had to work with was flour, cheese and salt pork, and maybe a little lard. Tomatoes (fresh or preserved) were almost never available. Worse, the flour was cornmeal, so the bread shattered into what one observer called “edible potsherds” as soon as you picked it up. Authentically made canal-crew pizzas are almost impossible to find these days, but I’ve tried a few. Trust me, you’re not missing anything.

But again, this was October through May. It was SINC’s way to use slaves for the hotter months of the year. So what did the Italians do during the summer? Well, some of them had used their earnings as collateral to get loans from the Bank and purchase little bits of land for subsistence farming. Others went up into the mountains and started vineyards—little ones, not the great vineyards of the Frescobaldis and Antinoris. And some of them sold food.

So by the time the canal bubble burst, there were pizza bakeries in every town and city along the canals, not to mention the wine-market towns like Salgemma[3] and Yadkinville. At this point, they were still mostly using corn, with just enough wheat flour to hold the bread together into slices. But as they made more money, they could afford more wheat flour, which improved the quality of the bread, which made them even more popular. They could also afford to mix vegetable oils in with the lard, although it would still be a big deal when (generations later) cheap olive oil came to the American market.

Which isn’t to say that they were immediately popular. At first, they were thought of as places where poor white people ate—or, in some neighborhoods, freedmen—and some of them were suspected of being stops on the Hidden Trail. This was sometimes true. The one confirmed example is Baldy’s Best Bakery in Peacross[4], owned by the Baldy (formerly Garibaldi) family, where Joseph Marius “Wild Joe” Baldy would sometimes hide out after one escapade or another. (Don’t bother looking for it. It was destroyed during the Troubles, and the site is now a fishing supplies store.)

Things changed in 1833. The Hiemal Period was hell on most businesses, but the bakeries survived. Their ingredients were cheap and deflation made them cheaper, and while some people could no longer afford to eat there, others who wouldn’t have been caught dead there before found that the local pizza bakery was the only place they afford to eat out. And like so many before them, they found out that pizza is delicious.

The Savannah Fire had a more dramatic effect. You can’t burn down a brick oven, so the bakeries were among the first places to recover and reopen after the fire, and became places for the suffering community to meet and take notes on how they were coping.

Upper-class Southerners, of course, were great correspondents, and word spread everywhere. People who’d never seen a pizza bakery were getting instructions on how to make their own pizza—or, more likely, how to get the slaves to do it—when friends and relations came to call. According to scholars, “wine and pizza” first appeared as a metaphor for friendship in the South around 1840.

An Informal Guide to the American South​

[1] Larger than OTL’s Fort Gaines, Georgia, because the Grand Southern goes through town.
[2] Horror movie
[3] OTL Roanoke, Va.
[4] OTL Elba, Alabama.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

March 2, 1835
10 Downing Street
“Thank you all for coming,” said Grey. “We have a decision to make.”

He was sitting at one end of the table in the Cabinet Room. At his right hand was Viscount Melbourne, Chancellor of the Exchequer. On his left was Home Secretary Henry Brougham (now Baron Brougham and Vaux[1]), using all his mental discipline to convey an air of calm in front of the rest of the Cabinet even as he wondered if he’d have an office or a career when this meeting was over.

Nothing he’d done in the past six years could be considered a failure, but in the last election the Whigs had gone down from 445 seats to 369. They still had a majority, but the writing was on the wall. If the material condition of the nation did not sharply improve within the next few years, they would lose the next election. In the meantime, going forward without major changes in the Cabinet would be the height of arrogance—and Brougham had enough self-awareness to know that his standards of arrogance were quite high to begin with.

“Under the circumstances, I can no longer serve as Prime Minister. Myself and William”—he gestured to indicate Lord Melbourne—“will step down and return to the back benches. I propose we replace him with Earl Spencer.”

“Spencer would be an excellent choice, if we can persuade him to take the position,” said Melbourne. The third Earl Spencer had been raised to the Peerage and inherited his father’s estates two years ago.[2] Since then, he’d spent most of his time on his estates with his two children.[3] “If he refuses, I’d suggest either Charles Poulett Thomson, or recalling young Canning from Paris[4].”

Brougham was hoping Spencer could be persuaded. Given the nature of the troubles that had struck the realm, it was natural that whoever was holding the office of Exchequer at the time would have to step aside whether it was his fault or not. Brougham wasn’t sure anyone could fix what was wrong, but Spencer was trusted, and rightly. Even if he failed, the public might not hold the Government responsible for his failures.

“There are other retirements, mostly due to age,” said Grey, “but first we should decide whose name to offer to Her Majesty as Prime Minister.”

As it happened, seated at the other end of the room were Lord Palmerston, Foreign Secretary, Lord John Russell, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, and Lord Durham, Lord Privy Seal—all in a row, framed by the two sets of pillars behind them. Grey’s gaze swung from side to side like the needle of a metronome at its slowest setting, not favoring one of them over another, not looking to anyone else in the room.

Palmerston in his fifties, all pragmatism and cynicism. Durham in his forties but looking younger and full of idealism. And right in between them physically and in outlook, Russell, in his forties and looking it.

The three men glanced at each other. None of them spoke. False modesty? thought Brougham. Or something more?

Seconds ticked by on the clock, one after the other. Everyone had their eyes pointed at those three men. Palmerston. Russell. Durham. Palmerston. Russell. Durham. In the silence, each tick seemed to be louder than the last.

Brougham’s mind raced. None of them wants the office. Not this year. They all think we’re going to be trounced in ’38, or sooner if we lose a vote of no confidence. They think the Prime Ministership has become a poisoned chalice, and they daren’t take a sip. They think being in charge for the next three years will ruin their prospects. And they’re probably right.

But if Grey picks one of them, he can’t very well say no on the grounds that it would jeopardize his future career.

But Grey doesn’t want to do that to one of them.

But we need somebody to be Prime Minister.

And this year Brougham would turn 57—though he still felt quite young[5], he could do the arithmetic. This opportunity might never come again. They were hardly going to give you the job when everything was going very well. They fear you too much for that. Here was another moment like the one fifteen years ago, when the time had come to face down Lord Liverpool’s government—Wellington and all—and tell them that their mischief was at an end. That hadn’t been easy, and neither was this. He drew a deep breath and lifted his head.

“I am willing.”

Everyone in the room stared at him.

“We face greater difficulties than we imagined,” Brougham continued, “but it was too much to hope for that peace and prosperity would last forever. Are we going to complain because our ship is in rough waters now? I for one am ready for the challenge.” In his younger days, he would have smiled and said I am eager for the challenge or something similar, to cement his reputation for bold ambition. Looking back, he might have cemented that reputation entirely too well. Even now, further seconds were ticking by and the little oil lamp was flickering as the others pondered the question of whether they really wanted to risk giving him this much power.

He stood and turned to the three men Grey had been looking at. “You are all serving superbly in your current offices,” he said. “You in particular, John”—he nodded to Russell—“are managing the transition away from slavery in the West Indies with great skill. And with so many crises overseas, this is not the time for an untried hand at the Foreign Secretary’s tiller. The next Prime Minister will need each of you at his side.”

No one spoke.

“And of course there’s the royal wedding to plan,”[6] Brougham added.

Another long stretch of silence. Brougham sat back down, fighting the urge to hold his breath. Had he gone too far? Shown too much of his hand? Were they all determined in their minds that it could never be him, whatever else? And if they said no to him now, what would it do to the remainder of his career?

Then Grey nodded. “Kill or cure,” he said. “And at least we know Her Majesty will approve. Whom do you propose for Home Secretary?”

“Thomas Spring Rice,” Brougham said without hesitation. At times like this, it paid to know the names of everyone who might be considered as your replacement. “He’s capable and committed to further reform. His appointment will spend a message to our Irish subjects—or our West British subjects, as he likes to call them—that we are alert to their needs, but we must have their loyalty.”

“So be it,” said Grey.

Russell spoke up. “One point. It has been many years, but I doubt the Opposition has forgotten the role you played in quashing the Pains and Penalties Act, and that one particular speech—I think you know the one I mean?”

“The ‘standing upon the brink of a precipice’ speech?”[7]

Russell nodded. “In the spirit of conciliation, perhaps… an apology? If nothing else, to set at ease the minds of our more moderate members?”

Brougham shook his head. “Credit to you, John, but no. What I said that day admits of no middle interpretation. It was either a laudable stand against folly and caprice on behalf of the British people—worthy of an apologia rather than an apology—or else it was a base act of extortion for which no apology could possibly suffice. And would I be here if this Government believed the latter?

“No. If after these fifteen years the Tories wish to re-litigate the entire Caroline affair from beginning to end, with defenses of every single action they took… well, apart from the waste of time, that is a battle I would relish.”

“I very much hope it will not come to that,” said Grey.


[1] As IOTL
[2] The second Earl Spencer died in 1834 IOTL.
[3] The third Earl Spencer died without issue IOTL.
[4] George Charles Canning (who died in 1820 IOTL), eldest son of the late George Canning, currently serving as U.K. ambassador to France.
[5] IOTL Brougham lived to be about four months shy of 90.
[6] Leopold Prince of Wales is now officially betrothed to Julia Louisa of Denmark. The wedding is scheduled for next summer.
[7] In case anyone has forgotten what they’re talking about (it’s been a while) here’s the link.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

In 1835, the Tertium Quids had at long last come into their own as the alternative to the establishment Democratic-Republicans—in most parts of the nation. But in the Carolinas, they themselves were the establishment. That North and South Carolina were the only two states that still had property qualifications for voting was both a cause and an effect of the Quids’ success there. This meant that the anti-establishment spirit of the mid-1830s, which the Quids profited so greatly from elsewhere, gave them no benefit. In South Carolina, the planters’ hold on power remained secure, but in North Carolina it was a different story.

The North Carolina state constitutional convention began on June 4. The population of the western half of the state—less suitable to plantation agriculture than the eastern half—had been growing steadily since the turn of the century, to the point where the Piedmont was now more populous than the eastern counties, even leaving out the western counties. However, there were 38 counties in the east and 31 counties in the west, and representation in the General Assembly was for the most part apportioned by county (the exceptions being the representatives from the towns large enough to be designated as boroughs) and the governor was elected by the Assembly, not the population. Now, with the town of Salem becoming a major railroad junction and Yadkin and Swannanoa wines becoming both more popular and more widely available, the people of the west had both numbers and money behind them, and were ready to claim their due representation.

The General Assembly had not been blind to the issue. In December of 1834, with Nathaniel Macon ineligible for another term[1], the General Assembly had voted to elect David Lowry Swain of western Buncombe County as governor, after he reluctantly switched from the moribund state Democratic-Republican Party to the Tertium Quid Party.[2] They soon found that changing his political affiliation had not changed his politics. As governor, he was a constant advocate for a branch of the U.S. National University, more schools and more railroads. Only in the last did he achieve success within his own term of office, establishing the eastern portion of the route that the Raleigh & Mississippi Railroad would one day take. He also called for an expansion of the franchise to all white male citizens.

Thus, slavery was not the only issue at stake. Indeed, no one at the convention was—or at least, would publicly admit to being—anti-slavery. However, ever since the Savannah Fire, there were those willing to make the case that some forms of slavery were more dangerous than others, and that small farmers, vintners and businessmen should not be asked to shoulder the risks that large-scale plantation slavery imposed on the community. News from abroad, of the Malê revolt and other uprisings in Brazil and the rebellion against the mita in Honduras and Nicaragua[3], drove home this point.

The Salem Tribune spoke for many in its April 5 editorial, which began with a sugary panegyric to small-scale slavery:

“The slave on the family farm knows and loves his master. Like a faithful hound or a good son, he shares in his master’s fortunes and misfortunes, sleeping under the same roof and eating from the same kitchen. Over the course of his daily work, he must turn his hand to many tasks, both inside and outside the home, and not a day ends but he can see how his master’s life and his own are the better for his labors—the chicken he killed served for supper, the grain growing heavy in the fields he weeded. He would never countenance harm to the home in which he lives, or the family that cares for him.”​

Its assessment of slave life on plantations was more realistic:

“How different is the lot of a field hand on the great plantation! He knows no companionship but that of his fellow slaves; rarely catches a glimpse of any white face save the grim countenance of the overseer; knows his master only as a remote figure in the Big House, whose joys and leisures he shares no part of; and sees the fruit of all his labors stacked, baled and shipped to destinations of which he knows nothing. How easily his mind may be twisted to mischief and rebellion! And how much more easily when his owner is not a man, however distant, but an institution—a bank headquartered in far Philadelphia!”​

The risk of rebellion was not the only concern of western counties. The Tribune pointed out in its May 24 editorial that “where a plantation owner may hire out a dozen slaves and not feel the loss in the operations of his own property, there is little work to be found for the free white laborer.” This tied the issue of slavery to the issue of property requirements on voting—if a North Carolinian was not already a landowner or homeowner, competition with slaves would make it much harder for him to earn enough money to purchase it.

The proposed solution in the west was not to abolish slavery, but to constrain it—to place limits on the number of slaves that any one home or business could own. In May, Swain’s own home of Buncombe County was the first to limit each household or business to five slaves.

To former Tertium Quid presidential candidate Nathaniel Macon, the 77-year-old “first of the Romans” who had been chosen to preside over the 1835 convention, this was anathema. He accused Buncombe County of seeking to “trample upon the rights of successful white men” and sought to include provisions in the new constitution that would forbid local governments from passing such ordinances.

At this point, Swain chose to intervene in the convention process:

“It is Macon and his allies who seek to interfere with the right of white men to secure the well-being of their families, homes, and livelihoods… None here dispute that a man’s house is his property, nor that gunpowder is a necessity; yet if a man seeks to store gunpowder by the ton in his townhouse, what do we say to him? We say, ‘No, sir, you may not do that. You may not jeopardize the lives and property of your neighbors.’ And the rebellious slave possesses initiative and intent which makes him a greater threat to white men’s lives than ten times his weight in powder.”[4]​

Swain also weighed in on the issue of universal white male suffrage: “The rich are well-equipped to tend to their own affairs, and have many means to recover from life’s disasters. It is the poor who most need representation in this government.” Representatives of the western counties rallied behind him, with some threatening to secede to Tennessee unless their demands were met.

In the convention, Swain’s views on suffrage prevailed, although the eastern counties insisted on removing the suffrage from free blacks regardless of property.[5] Macon’s push to prevent counties from limiting slavery (which he ultimately lost) made the convention drag on a month after other issues were settled. The convention adjourned on August 15[6], with everyone exhausted and Macon visibly ill. He died two weeks later[7].

The mood when the Assembly reconvened was bitter. Many blamed Macon’s death on the stress and acrimony of the convention, and were less inclined to cooperate with Governor Swain on other matters—and as the Assembly was more powerful than the governor’s office even under the new constitution, this doomed his hopes of accomplishing anything for the remainder of his term. On October 26, Swain announced that he was founding a new party. He outlined its platform, which was not markedly different from that of the Populists—except in one respect. Where the Populist party favored the “diminution and ultimate abolition of slavery, in such time and by such means as may not be injurious to the body politic,” Swain’s new party favored reforming the Peculiar Institution, encouraging limits on the number of slaves and Black Code-style laws to protect them—hence the name “Reform Party.” He was joined not only by the few Democratic-Republicans, but by a third of the Quids in the Assembly…

Charles Cerniglia, The Road to the Troubles: The American South, 1800-1840​

[1] By state law, the governor was elected to two-year terms, and no one could serve more than three years within a six-year period.
[2] IOTL he was elected two years earlier, as a Whig. (And yes, at this point NC governors were elected by the Assembly, not the voters.)
[3] Naturally, there is great debate among historians as to whether this one should count. Cerniglia is here treating it as a sort of honorary slave rebellion.
[4] This isn’t a reductio ad absurdum—remember those illegal gunpowder stockpiles in Savannah? One of the effects of the big fire was that towns and cities across the U.S. are cracking down on those.
[5] The 1835 convention IOTL kept the property requirements AND disenfranchised free blacks. Because of course it did.
[6] It adjourned on July 11 IOTL.
[7] He died in 1837 IOTL.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

Slavery is definitely in a worse place than it was at this point IOTL. Trouble is, a lot of very rich, very powerful people have noticed this. And despite everything the DRP could do to unite the country, it's still fairly politically diverse even within the South, so that one state can be taking more steps against slavery while another state is having an anti-anti-slavery backlash.

My dear Ellie,​

I hope this letter finds you and your family in the best of health, and that the good fortune you shared with me in your previous missive has continued. It still inspires me with wonder to think of it—a woman of eighteen years accepted among the students at Mount Greylock! And of course I can only imagine the excitement with which you and your fellow students have greeted the return of Halley’s Comet, and I hope the skies in New England sare proving clearer than those in Va. I have endured so many nights with nothing to observe but the underside of a carpet of clouds over the heavens. I feared I might never see it!

But yesterday afternoon, God be praised, there was a breath of cool and pleasant wind out of the north, and last evening the skies cleared. And there was the comet in the western sky, clear as anything, south of where the sun had just gone down. Now whatever else, I can say I have seen the comet that appears once in a lifetime, and I hope to make more observations of it over the next six weeks. I can only imagine what you and your fellow students are making of it, with your superior telescopes.

From what I can determine (you know that in addition to our latecome status in Va., our views are not so popular here[1], and this limits my intercourse with the neighbors) even with the appearance of our heavenly visitor, the sole subject of interest in all Va. remains young Mr. H.H. Stabler[2].

Naturally, every family with a daughter of eligible age is trying to proffer her as a possible wife. Even my own father, who I thank God has given me free rein in such matters, has extended invitations to him to come to Stratford Hall—and I can scarcely blame him for trying his luck in this matter. So long as the man is not a brute or a tyrant, I should not object to such a match myself.

What astonishes me is that so many of our neighbors seem to think young S. will wish to purchase land and become a plantation owner! Imagine the cheek! For all that our slaveocrats present themselves as lords and ladies, half of them struggle to keep up appearances while paying off debts. It affords me no end of amusement to point out the threadbare patches and thimmoned hems in their fine clothes. Meanwhile, even in these “grey days of hiemal hunger,” young Mr. S. helps rule a commercial empire that trades from Egypt to China the long way around, and this without a single slave to his name. Yet still the fools imagine that he envies them, and would gladly set aside his business affairs for the prestige of owning a plantation and holding men and women in chains.

Much of this I know from the recent visit of a gentleman called, an attorney and plantation owner by the name of C.C. Lee, who visited this past Sat. It took me some time to realize that he had come here to woo me[3]—at first, he scarcely spoke to me at all and addressed himself primarily to Father, who finally had to upbraid him for his inattention to me. When he at last realized his suit was as cold as a tombstone, he began to speak on behalf of his brother Robert. He assured me that R. is not yet thirty and “most loving and devoted to his infant daughter” and, indeed, could not visit because he was helping care for that daughter, who was ill. Then, after he departed, Father informed me that the interest these Lee men were showing in me might have something to do with the fact that our home once belonged to their family.

More pleasant—but still not quite enough to put me into a marrying mode—was the visit, on July 25, of a young French scholar named Richard. He was a year younger than yourself, and his English was nothing like so good as that of Alexis and Gustave whose visit I told you of last year, but he was interesting—or perhaps anyone seems interesting when one has met enough of these self-important would-be beaux. He was in America on commission from the Frescobaldi family, to plant French grapevines in the Shenandoah Valley and crossbreed them with the American varieties.

Happily, his conversation was by no means limited to the minutiae of viticulture. He spoke of many observations he had made which in his judgment put the lie to the prevailing theories of Dr. Lamarck, that certain characteristics acquired in life by man or beast may be imparted to the offspring thereof. It was his opinion that, to the contrary, no such change—good or ill—could ever be inherited. To this I replied, “What of the sin of Adam?” I meant it in jest, but for a moment he was silent, and I began to wonder if I had offended him. Father was giving me that look that meant that I had said something inappropriate again. Then I heard him mutter “Vraiment!” After this, he said little, and appeared as if lost in thought. I never will understand Papists.[4]

Apart from that breath of cool wind that cleared the skies for us, the weather continues far too sultry. I trust that you will find Mount Greylock a more pleasant climate when you begin your studies, and pray that it will not be too frightful in the winter.

Your friend,

Anna​

P.S. Have you any novels to recommend? Your taste in literature has always proved excellent!

—Letter from Anna Ella Carroll to Eleanor Roxana Beecher, dated 9/20/35 at Stratford Hall. Often cited as evidence for her later claim to have inspired, or even invented, the doctrine of idiolapsarianism.[5]​

[1] Anna Ella Carroll and Eleanor Roxana Beecher met when Carroll’s father brought her to an abolitionist convention in Providence.
[2] Henry Hartshorne Stabler, who turned eighteen this year and joined his older brother on the board of what was Stabler & Sons and is now Stabler Brothers. Possibly the most eligible bachelor in the world after Napoleon II.
[3] If you think this is creepy, bear in mind that IOTL Charles Carter Lee didn’t marry until 1848, and the woman he ended up marrying was 20—so 29 years younger, and the same age Carroll was in 1835.
[4] IOTL, Carroll’s anti-Catholic prejudice was stronger, to the point where she was actively involved with the Know-Nothing Party. If you care what specific form of prejudice this was, she was a liberal who saw the Catholic Church as the enemy of freedom and progress. (To be fair, at the time of her involvement with the Know-Nothings, Pope Pius IX was basically jumping up and down and screaming “OOGA BOOGA, I’M THE ENEMY OF FREEDOM AND PROGRESS!”)
[5] An alternative to Original Sin, which proposes that humans are born free of sin but, with one exception (guess who) always fall at an early age through their own misbehavior.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

October 26, 1835
Hôtel de Ministre des Affaires Étrangères[1], Paris
…for these many reasons I enjoin you to grant these missionaries no access either to Korean translators, or to Quelpart[2]. A day will doubtless come when the Koreans are too accustomed to our trade and its many conveniences for their king to bar us from his kingdom as the Japanese do. When this day is upon us, it will be time to consider a change of policy.
In the meantime, let Christians rejoice; for under the rule of the new monarch of Viet Nam, there is to be no bar to missionary work in that kingdom. Moreover, the kings of Siam and Burma have both agreed to permit a greater presence by missionaries. Here are opportunities enough for a generation…

Once Foreign Minister Étienne Maurice Gérard had finished the letter to the Compagnie de Commerce de L’Orient, he considered what to tackle next. Strictly speaking, now that France ruled Algeria it was no longer a matter for the Foreign Ministry, and British Orania lay between Algeria and Morocco… but it was largely Moroccan mischief that had led to the Barbary Partition in the first place, so it paid to keep an eye on them even if that was supposed to be Madrid’s job.

Especially since the target of Morocco’s latest mischief wasn’t the Spanish garrisons in Fez and the towns of the Mediterranean coast, but the Portuguese on the Atlantic coast, in what was now Tangeria. The rebels were attacking the coast between the town the Portuguese called Rebate and the town they called Casa Branca. They were under the leadership of Abd al-Qadir, who seemed to have moved his operations west from Algeria and Orania. Sultan Abd al-Rahman was swearing he had nothing to do with any of this.

Before the Partition, al-Rahman’s insistence that coastal tribes who engaged in piracy were outside his control had rightly been dismissed as excuses.[3] Now, Gérard couldn’t help wondering if the Sultan was using al-Qadir to pursue the fight that he was in no position to wage. Anyway, Portugal was committed to this war, but Spain was already fighting two wars in the Philippines and a third in Central America. They wouldn’t take action in Morocco unless they had no other choice.

Brazil was in chaos. The slaveholders were in rebellion, the slaves were in rebellion, and their boy prince was trying to get the government in Rio to ally with the slaves against the slaveholders, but so far to no avail. This wasn’t officially French policy, but French ships were smuggling powder and shot to the Minas Gerais rebels in exchange for gold. Whatever put more gold in French hands was something Gérard couldn’t argue with right now.

The conflict on the Indus, which had seemed to spell doom for the last independent powers of India, had instead opened up an opportunity. Barelvi (or possibly Barelwi—his sources couldn’t agree on how to spell it) had taken a fort on the Indus, at a place called Mithan Kot, and massacred the Sikh garrison. His plan had been to secure the fort and hold it until the monsoon began and made large-scale military maneuvers impracticable, giving him months of grace period, and then… had he planned at all beyond that?

Probably no one would ever know. Ranjit Singh had arrived too late to save his coreligionists, but in plenty of time to avenge them. He was the most feared general east of the Cairene Empire, and Barelvi was an amateur at war who’d mistaken a streak of good luck for the favor of Allah. Soon the Sikh commander had the invaders surrounded and trapped inside the fortifications they themselves had just finished destroying. The battle was short. There was no quarter. The bloodshed ended just in time for the monsoon to begin and send all those bodies floating down the Indus to let Sindh know how the situation had resolved itself. Singh found some Sindhi prince who’d survived Barelvi and put him on the throne, on the understanding that Sindh and the Sikh Empire would henceforth be “the closest of allies”… which meant that the Sikhs now had an outlet on the Indian Ocean.

How long this would last was anybody’s guess. The East India Company was still the greatest power in India, and from their point of view a strong, independent native state was already like a naked flame in a powder mill. Would Britain permit it to exist and trade with the outside world for any length of time? Gérard doubted it. This Lord Brougham was liberal, but not that kind of liberal. Whatever we do to strengthen Ranjit Singh, we’d better do it now, and we’d better do it quietly. The HEIC will surely have spies in the villages of the Indus delta. The CCO was already trading in those villages. That would provide cover for his ministry to slip a few documents—blueprints for factories, descriptions of modern manufacturing methods—into Singh’s hands. It wouldn’t turn that little state into the next Hanover, but it might be enough to tie down the British at some crucial point, somewhere in the future.

Apart from missionary work, Burma seemed like less of a good investment—a weak state that might at any moment choose to become a British protectorate just so some major power would have a reason not to allow it to come to harm. Better to encourage strength and independence in Siam. Precisely because the British are better able to project their own strength overseas than we are, they value dependency rather than strength in their Oriental allies. We can turn this to our advantage.

Much closer to home—but still rather far away—the Tsar was building up his fleet in Sevastopol. When that little egg hatched, it would be the least surprising surprise attack in history.

Turning to events in America… they were just depressing. Yet another state—someplace called Maryland—had defaulted on its bonds. The United States of America had been the nation of the future for as long as Gérard could remember. It would be nice if it started being the nation of the present.


[1] A smaller and more neoclassical structure than the OTL building, which wasn’t even begun until 1844.
[2] The French trading post on Jeju Island, named for the European name for the island.
[3] Morocco wasn’t a completely unified polity before the Partition—parts were and remain under the Sultan’s central control, while other parts were and are under the control of allied tribes. Needless to say, the people who did the Partition neither knew nor cared.