The Even Wilder West

So, I had an idea and I just want to throw it out there. Its a very broad idea and probably needs some fine-tuning but ah well.

1840s
Polk goes to war over Oregon and gets his ass handed to him. In desperation, he attempts to go to war with Mexico but Congress refuses to allow it. Only Texas leaves Mexico, the rest stays in Santa Anna's republic. The South gets louder over the issue of slavery and the unfair division between north and south.
Mormons found a nascent state in Mexican territory, and actively compete with Mexicans and Indians for their isolation and independence, so as to maintain their faith in the face of hostility.

1850s
Civil War breaks out and the South secedes. Receives some limited support from Britain, though not enough to win the war. The Civil War goes on for seven years, and at the end of it there is a strong sense of wanting vengeance on the Southerners. Dixian identity is to be destroyed, and the Freedmen put in control of the military districts. Thousands of former Confederates flee into the west, coming into conflict with Mormons.
However, the next government after the Radical Republican government after the Civil War is a Nativist government that is deeply unnerved by black rule over the South. They enact persecutory legislation, signing a treaty with Liberia to settle Freedmen on their land. Upset at being signed away to another country, many flee into the emptiness of the west, bumping into the Mormons and Confederates who have settled there before. Mexicans and Indians also come into conflict with these new settlers. The Southern Military Districts are turned into Territories.
Gold is unearthed in California, and this excites many former Confederates and the Freedmen who hope the gold will build their fortunes. The general chaos and conflict further east makes migration west very unattractive. Doesn't stop many from going, particularly those ethnic groups persecuted by the Nativist regime. Their national identities re-establish themselves on the Frontier and each nationality tends to congregate with others of their kind.

1860s
The French attempt to conquer Mexico and establish a puppet government, but it goes wrong, and the French rapidly withdraw leaving some troops behind. They withdraw to the sparsely populated north, where they act as yet another antagonistic party.

So there we go the setting for a Wilder West of intrigue and backstabbing...
 
The Mormons did settle in marginal country, Utah, but could have gone many directions and given how many had come from England, the most successful missionary work was there early on, as well as New England, heading into Canada's Manitoba or Saskatchewan after Joseph Smith's death would have made as much sense, more actually, especially if they weren't departing from Missouri where heading due West was what everyone was doing.

Texas had already broken free from Mexico and was a standalone nation for a decade. Don't know if Texas could have gotten wilder in that era.

French troops heading North into West Texas, Arizona, New Mexico 1867-8 would be no different than many former soldiers from many armies who came to the West. Some would enlist in the frontier cavalry or Texas Rangers, some would cowboy, many would head to the farmland (most would likely have come from farms themselves) and the city boys to New Orleans most likely. Doesn't seem like many butterflies from that although the food would be better in the Anglo Southwest at that time.

Freed slaves fleeing the South and Reconstruction are estimated to be about a third of the Wild West's cowboys (except in Hollywood's casting calls) and many homesteaded farms but what gets left out of the homesteading story is one needed to be middle class in assets to do that (wagon, team, plow/implements, tools, livestock, seed, supplies, shotguns, spouse, bunch of half-grown children to help out, preferably adult siblings or parents accompanying...pretty tough outfit for a freshly freed slave to afford.) To move more freed slaves into the West you'd have to strike a deal with the federally subsidized Western railroads to provide free passage and access to homesteadable land, which would have been possible just after the war when these negotiations were the most heated and vastly cheaper than the Liberian resettlement that had been tried.
 
Can we get a map of the region? Where does Texas begin/end? Does Mexico shatter into an independent California, New Mexico, Rio Grand Republic, and Yucatan Federation in the wake of France and the Gold Rush? What are Utah's borders and what becomes of the Pacific Northwest (southern Idaho will look rather attractive to Mormon settlers)?
 
Montanian
- I didn't know that about the Mormons. Can I suppose that we can use that information to spread the Wildness north? However, my idea does involve antagonistic groups being in close proximity. Could the Mormons split? With half going to Salt Lake and the other half to Canada?
- At least part of Texas is American. This is also a terrified rump Republic.
- I see where you're coming from with the French.
- Parts of your arguements about the freedmen make sense the more I think about them.
 
Montanian
- The one problem I have is the railroads. The more of them you have the easier it will be to bring law and order to the West. And that'll defeat the purpose of this thread.

M79
- I haven't actually made a map but I have an image in my head of how the West will look.
- I never thought about breaking Mexico up, though no doubt it'll help spread the Wildness. My only worry is whether the Americans will take advantage of fragmentation to try and conquer the Southwest.
 
M79
- Though to be honest, any invasion will have to deal with bandits and so on attacking their supply trains. And they have enough on their hands with the South returning to Territory status. Also the Nativist government will likely be uncomfortable with conquering the people of the area due their foreigness.
- I do have some ideas for the Northwest. The Wildness will spill over national boundaries.

Thanks for the attention so far.
 
Done the map you requested.

evenwilderwestmap.png
 
There weren't that many Mormons, and most at this point were young women from New England and English textile/apparel factories so population concentration is essential as they're outnumbered considerably by just about any of the West's Indian tribes. Heading North into Canada which had much less risk of all sorts and a shortage of settlers would make settling Northwest of the Great Lakes from the Mormon's first city/colony effort at Nauvoo, Illinois make sense. Utah was just so remote and undesirable that it's isolation was the primary attraction.

Railroads needed towns both for the land sales/appreciating values which were how they were paying for the construction of the lines themselves. POD would be the quite reasonable failing to secure Congressional subsidies and land grants (see Richard White's book "Railroaded"") which would have limited the West to steamboat/river boat supply which worked for small mining camps and the Indian trade but not large towns. That'd reduce the number of Army forts away from the Oregon, California, and Santa Fe Fe trails, Bozeman Road, etc.. The mining camps typically only lasted a few years and without the railroads to bring in their heavy mining, smelting, dredging, steam engines, equipment and workforces, the mines would play out very quickly. So California and Oregon/Washington would grow while between them and the Missouri River would be a few mining towns, trail forts, river trading posts like Fort Benton, Ft. Union, Mandan, Council Bluffs Nebraska, Ft. Osage, and vast open range ranches without most of their markets (reservations, forts, railheads to ship to Chicago. That would be a vast lawless land still dominated by the tribes.
 
There weren't that many Mormons, and most at this point were young women from New England and English textile/apparel factories so population concentration is essential as they're outnumbered considerably by just about any of the West's Indian tribes. Heading North into Canada which had much less risk of all sorts and a shortage of settlers would make settling Northwest of the Great Lakes from the Mormon's first city/colony effort at Nauvoo, Illinois make sense. Utah was just so remote and undesirable that it's isolation was the primary attraction.

The map is really a mish-mash of possibilities. Isolation is the watchword however. The Mormons went out there so they wouldn't be persecuted and to practise their faith in quiet. In wilcoxchar's exemplary Union and Liberty, there are two Deserets, a British Dominion in Manitoba and a Territory in the Republic of California.

Railroads needed towns both for the land sales/appreciating values which were how they were paying for the construction of the lines themselves. POD would be the quite reasonable failing to secure Congressional subsidies and land grants (see Richard White's book "Railroaded"") which would have limited the West to steamboat/river boat supply which worked for small mining camps and the Indian trade but not large towns. That'd reduce the number of Army forts away from the Oregon, California, and Santa Fe Fe trails, Bozeman Road, etc.. The mining camps typically only lasted a few years and without the railroads to bring in their heavy mining, smelting, dredging, steam engines, equipment and workforces, the mines would play out very quickly. So California and Oregon/Washington would grow while between them and the Missouri River would be a few mining towns, trail forts, river trading posts like Fort Benton, Ft. Union, Mandan, Council Bluffs Nebraska, Ft. Osage, and vast open range ranches without most of their markets (reservations, forts, railheads to ship to Chicago. That would be a vast lawless land still dominated by the tribes.

Thats a good idea. But I did have an idea that railroads could have been built to get rid of those troublesome Dixians and then the black population, then it ends up falling into disrepair as hold-ups of trains increase and the Dixians building their Western Confederacy decide to destroy the link the Easterners can use to crush them.

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