The Northern Tier: American division of Canadian lands?

Let’s say that by some crazy means, the United States gains all of British Canada in the Treaty of Ghent. This means that by 1815, they have Upper Canada, Lower Canada, the Hudson Bay, all of it. How they get the land isn’t important. What I’m curious about is what do they do with it? Would the 49th parallel ever used for an interstate border? Would the Red River Colony survive as a state?

TL;DR America annexes Canada in 1815, what would the new states look like ?
 
The beautiful 49th parallel border is probably largely gone- OTL the only permanent cession of American territory of which I am aware was the straightening out of that border, with American claims North and British claims South of the parallel both renounced. TTL there's no incentive to do that- the American's claims North of the parallel will simply remain with the states concerned- I believe it was mostly the Dakota territory, but I could be mistaken. Rupert's Land is probably too big to govern efficiently as a single entity, so it will probably get broken up; but all of the political boundaries inside the territory post-date 1815 so the borders will probably be very different- and largely dependent on the needs of the political parties at the time the borders are drawn.

One factor there: how does the Hudson's Bay Company make out, in an ATL where their fur trade monopoly is presumably dead as a doornail? Without the HBC there's a huge power vacuum in Rupert's Land, and somebody's going to have to fill it...

Upper Canada and Lower Canada, not to mention Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, already exist as political entities. Changing their borders arbitrarily probably doesn't make much sense, although there's no guarantee that Upper Canada will get the huge chunk of Rupert's Land that became Northern Ontario or that Lower Canada will get quite so much in its border dispute with Labrador. To put it another way, a map of TTL's Upper and Lower Canada may look very different from OTL, but the major population centers are probably roughly in the same place (except Ottawa, which is more or less gone) and probably belong to the same entity as OTL. PEI is the odd man out, already a separate colony but somewhat likely to get folded back in to Nova Scotia simply because its kind of small- although as Rhode Island can attest, that's not necessarily an insuperable obstacle to statehood.

And now for the elephant in the room: slavery. All these potential states, which Americans- including many Southerners- have fought and died to "liberate" (meaning giving them up is unacceptable), are likely to become Free States if admitted to the Union. (Although Upper Canada's full emancipation process had not yet entirely finished, and the rest of the colonies did not ban slavery- but in spite of being technically legal it was vanishingly rare and increasingly unpopular.) This means that some members of the House of Representatives and Senate have an incentive to make any states admitted to the Union as large as possible to try to minimize their political power, and to delay their admittance as much as possible. This might have big effects on how alt-Canada ends up; but such effects are easily butterflied.

Does the US accidentally converge on Lord Durham's solution and combine Upper and Lower Canada (with at least all the problems that caused OTL, one would think)? Do they unite PEI, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick into one state (essentially similar to OTL's proposed Maritime Union, but part of the USA)? There's lots of possibilities there, but they're too hard for me to predict.
 
The beautiful 49th parallel border is probably largely gone- OTL the only permanent cession of American territory of which I am aware was the straightening out of that border, with American claims North and British claims South of the parallel both renounced. TTL there's no incentive to do that- the American's claims North of the parallel will simply remain with the states concerned- I believe it was mostly the Dakota territory, but I could be mistaken. Rupert's Land is probably too big to govern efficiently as a single entity, so it will probably get broken up; but all of the political boundaries inside the territory post-date 1815 so the borders will probably be very different- and largely dependent on the needs of the political parties at the time the borders are drawn.
The division of the Louisiana Territory hadn't happened yet either (apart from carving the eponymous state out of the southern end). No established states to assign their northern-neighboring lands to.
 
One of the biggest things I'm aware of long term is that Washington and BC would probably be one state, due to a geography that lends itself to it via the Columbia river.

And presumably some smart ass tennessean senator will still lead to a name change to Washington
 
One of the biggest things I'm aware of long term is that Washington and BC would probably be one state, due to a geography that lends itself to it via the Columbia river.

And presumably some smart ass tennessean senator will still lead to a name change to Washington
Tennessean here, we absolutely would pull that move.
 
What might become of the Red River Colony?
IOTL, it was set up in 1811, so it wouldn't be butterflied by TTL (given the POD of sometime during the war of 1812)

1644856581401.png
 
What might become of the Red River Colony?
IOTL, it was set up in 1811, so it wouldn't be butterflied by TTL (given the POD of sometime during the war of 1812)

View attachment 719025
I could imagine it being organized as a territory and gaining a bit more of Minnesota (everything north of 46 1/2 degrees north?), with its span of latitudes ending up as the standard size for states to its west. That'd leave enough space for a reasonably sized state or two in another tier along the northern edge of the Prairies in OTL Alberta and Saskatchewan.
 
I could imagine it being organized as a territory and gaining a bit more of Minnesota (everything north of 46 1/2 degrees north?), with its span of latitudes ending up as the standard size for states to its west. That'd leave enough space for a reasonably sized state or two in another tier along the northern edge of the Prairies in OTL Alberta and Saskatchewan.

I saw this map on Reddit, is it similar to what you're describing here?
1644860720521.png
 
Does the US accidentally converge on Lord Durham's solution and combine Upper and Lower Canada (with at least all the problems that caused OTL, one would think)?
As part of the US, they'd be no reason to keep the French speakers in Quebec loyal to the British anyways, so the unification never happens and Quebec becomes filled with American anglos.
 
As part of the US, they'd be no reason to keep the French speakers in Quebec loyal to the British anyways, so the unification never happens and Quebec becomes filled with American anglos.
No, the need would be to keep them loyal to the US- flooding them with Anglo settlers could work, but faces the same problem the British had with that solution: where do you find a massive population of Anglophones who want to move to a northern, agriculturally marginal, area already full of Catholic, francophone inhabitants?

OTL, migration mostly went the other way, with francophone families moving across the St. Laurence to Maine and New Hampshire as the best agricultural land in Quebec got overworked- reversing that trend to the extent of marginalizing Quebecois culture Louisiana-style would be very difficult.
 
No, the need would be to keep them loyal to the US- flooding them with Anglo settlers could work, but faces the same problem the British had with that solution: where do you find a massive population of Anglophones who want to move to a northern, agriculturally marginal, area already full of Catholic, francophone inhabitants?

OTL, migration mostly went the other way, with francophone families moving across the St. Laurence to Maine and New Hampshire as the best agricultural land in Quebec got overworked- reversing that trend to the extent of marginalizing Quebecois culture Louisiana-style would be very difficult.
When the slaves are freed, give them land up there?
 
From a US perspective, is a (presumably forcibly moved and therefore bitter, if you want really large numbers) African population really much better than an unhappy francophone one?
The Francophones would likely be easier to pacify if promised some greater level of autonomy by their new Yankee rulers.
 
The US trends away from larger geographic states compared to Canada - so you likely see a lot more, albiet perhaps slightly less populated states carved from what in OTL were Canadian provinces.

If I were a more talented map maker I've always wanted to see what Canada would look like carved up along the geographic lines used for many US states.
 
The US trends away from larger geographic states compared to Canada - so you likely see a lot more, albiet perhaps slightly less populated states carved from what in OTL were Canadian provinces.

If I were a more talented map maker I've always wanted to see what Canada would look like carved up along the geographic lines used for many US states.
I made a map of what I thought such divisions would look like, I'd appreciate y'all's thoughts on it:
 
Congress actually tried to evenly divide the territories when creating states. When first forming territories the large size of them was mostly until they had more population as many had little non native living there and were formed mostly for the law and order.
 
Congress actually tried to evenly divide the territories when creating states. When first forming territories the large size of them was mostly until they had more population as many had little non native living there and were formed mostly for the law and order.
Yea, that's why all the plains states are 3 degrees high
 
Compared to Lousiana, Quebec was far more French thanks to special privileges granted by the Quebec Act of 1774 which allowed them to preserve the old seigneur system and the Roman Catholic Church. Having an entire state with a majority French Catholic population will definitely increase anti-Catholic sentiment in the States.
 
Compared to Lousiana, Quebec was far more French thanks to special privileges granted by the Quebec Act of 1774 which allowed them to preserve the old seigneur system and the Roman Catholic Church. Having an entire state with a majority French Catholic population will definitely increase anti-Catholic sentiment in the States.

Or Catholics could be "encouraged" to move there.
 
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