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alternatehistory.com
This is a revision of my “United States of the Americas and Oceania” TL, done with the aim to correct some details that in a reexamination proved unrealistic or suboptimal for the scope of the story. The goal and main course of the story remains the same, some turns may differ. Since part of this revision was done as the result of developing a collaborative variant of the TL, attribution and credit for many ideas (e.g. Brant’s Dream and Hamilton's book) and their proper development has to go to Aranfan, my co-author for the other TL and priceless all-around advisor for the present one. Other credit goes to Helios-Ra, the official TL mapmaker. Yours truly remains, of course, the main culprit for the story hereby told.
Unless the TL specifically tells otherwise or is clearly incompatible, it may be assumed that major political, cultural, economic, and scientific events that are left unmentioned follow a course broadly similar to OTL.
1774: A minor protest about the Protestant Oath that government officers have to take occurs in Quebec, Governor Guy Carleton manages to resolve it peacefully. However, while he is negotiating, his house burns down. By the time news reaches London that it was an accident, a problem with his stove, the newspapers had already whipped the population, and the Parliament into a frenzy against "Popist terror", which further worsens the British mood against agitation in the American colonies at large. King George III, never one to cut much slack to Catholics or to rebellious subjects, exercises his considerable influence in the Commons to further enhance the mood shift towards an harsh treatment of the unruly colonies.
The Quebec Act that was being discussed loses all of its concessions, becoming in almost all respects an extension of the Irish-aimed Penal Laws to the Colonies, which burden Catholics with a crippling amount of legal penalties and discriminatory measures. Additionally, the territory that would have been annexed to Quebec, instead is awarded to the Hudson Bay Company. This act gets wrapped in a legislation package with the other “Intolerable Acts” aimed to the other American colonies.
The news of the legal restrictions being heaped on them whips the Canadian population into a massive outrage, much as the other Intolerable Acts do in the other 13 colonies. Carleton, seeing all his efforts to keep his colony quiet ruined by the British government's rashness, loses faith in the British political system and aligns with the Patriot movement. Quebec sends delegates to the First Continental Congress.
The annexation of everything between the Ohio River, Mississippi River, and Appalachian Mountains to the Hudson Bay Company greatly angers all of the North American colonies, generating much Patriot sympathy in Nova Scotia as well.
1775: Quebec and Nova Scotia join the thirteen colonies in the American Revolution. The Continental Army liberates most of Canada by spring of 1776. A lucky offensive lead by Jonathan Eddy secures most of Nova Scotia for the Patriots as well, although Halifax remains a British stronghold. Nova Scotia sends its delegates to the Continental Congress.
1776: The 15 colonies sign the Declaration of Independence. New York and Quebec City are captured by the British but the Americans stubbornly fight on. Joseph Brant, one of the leading chiefs of the Iroquois Confederation and previous staunch advocate of cooperation with Britain, has an epiphany in the form of a prophetic dream, which causes him to unexpectedly switch to a pro-Patriot stance, leading the Iroquois Confederacy to join the American Revolutionary War on the side of the Patriots. Iroquois support for the American Revolution shall greatly mold US culture towards an assimilationist acceptance in American society of "civilized" Indians and mixed-bloods that adopt European culture and lifestyle. Brant's Dream gradually becomes a rather popular component of US political mythology (as well as the inspiration for the US Great Seal), since it apparently foretold Patriot victory in the ARW and America's rise to continental hegemony.
Brant’s Dream: "Many nights ago, as I returned from London, God gave me a sign in a dream. I was walking by the seaside in the dawn, and a great Lion rose from the waves in the east, and a fierce Bald Eagle coalesced from the north and south, and they fought long and hard, and the earth trembled with their battle. And the Eagle stood, bloodied but victorious, and its cry of triumph pierced the sky, and the wounded Lion fled into the sea. And the Eagle took flight, and grew immense, and its wings spread from horizon to horizon. It seemed as if it carried fifteen arrows in its left talon, and an olive branch with fifteen leaves in its right talon. And I knew that the arrows meant destruction, and the branch prosperity. Suddenly, the Eagle locked eyes with me and spoke, 'It is upon you, Thayendanegea, which talon I grasp your people with. Remember when I fight the Lion.' Then I awoke, and over breakfast the Captain of the ship boasted that 'the British Lion will easily defeat the Colonial Eagle'
Often in the past I have advocated closer ties with Britain as a defense against the colonists. This must now stop, or our people will face sure destruction."
1777: France joins the American Revolutionary War. The Americans win great victories liberating Quebec City and besieging New York. Benedict Arnold dies a heroic death during the battle of Quebec City and becomes a patriotic icon for Canadians and Americans.
1778: Spain joins the ARW. The Americans and the French beat back British assaults on Georgia and Florida is captured by the French and the Spanish.
1779: New York is finally captured by the Continental Army, Howe flees to Halifax. The peace party seizes control of the British Parliament. Due to the contribution of the Canadians and the French to the liberation struggle, Alexander Hamilton later in life becomes an uncommitted pragmatist about American relationships with France and Britain.
1780: Benjamin Franklin goes to Paris to secure a peace treaty with the British. Negotiations begin with Britain. During the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, Britain conquers Capetown.
1781: Britain agrees to a peace treaty with France, Spain, and the Americans. It recognizes the 15 colonies as free and sovereign States (Canada, Georgia, Nova Scotia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island) and cedes them the territory between Florida, the Mississippi river, and the Allegheny mountains. Florida is ceded to Spain. The treaty guarantees ownership of Rupert’s Land to the Hudson Bay Company for 99 years, the United States may buy it at a later date. The HBC cannot cede the area to the British Crown or any other foreign state without the assent of the United States. All British forts will be turned over to the Americans as of 1788. United States fishermen are granted fishing rights off the coast of Labrador territory and British fishermen across the Great Lakes. The United States shall allow access from Rupert’s Land to the Great Lakes for Britain's fur trapping and fishing. British may still use the Mississippi river for trading with Spanish Louisiana and Great Britain and the United States are each to be given perpetual access to the Mississippi River. Prisoners of War on both sides are to be released and lawfully-contracted debts are recognized to be paid to creditors on either side. The Congress of the Confederation will 'earnestly recommend' to state legislatures to provide for the restitution of all estates, rights, and properties, which have been confiscated belonging to Loyalists to prevent future confiscations of property of Loyalists still within their boundaries. The latter provision shall never be acted upon, and the Loyalists begin an exodus from the United States. The Loyalists shall eventually settle in newly conquered South Africa mostly, and to a lesser degree Australia, southern South America (after the British conquest), and Ireland.
1784-85: At the end of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, the peace treaty confirms British ownership of Capetown. London creates the Drake colony (so named to honor sir Francis Drake), to organize the territory which is getting quickly settled by exiled Loyalists.
Note: this is where the main divergence between the USAO TL and the “Vive La Revolution” TL happens. In this TL, Ben Franklin and young Napoleon Bonaparte never meet during the former’s sojourn to Paris as Ambassador, and Napoleon follows a course much similar to OTL in his later career. In the latter TL, they meet and befriend. Their conversations influence Napoleon to give his later empire a bent more akin to the American system, and the history of Europe is radically changed. In the present TL, events in Europe remain basically similar to OTL up to 1814, although they diverge radically in a different way out of cumulative butterflies afterwards. Events in the New World remain convergent in both TLs, however.
1786-87: The Constitutional Convention meets in Philadelphia. Jefferson becomes the new American ambassador to France, while Ben Franklin returns to America to attend the CC. The Constitution is mostly similar to OTL, with some important differences. Every state is guaranteed respect of its "domestic institutions". The Congress is forbidden to establish a national language. The President gets a line-item veto on appropriations and the explicit power to nominate and fire subordinate executive officers. Every law may relate to but one subject. The Congress is empowered to give subsidies to commerce. The Congress may acquire territories, set up territorial governments, and admit new states to the Union from territories and foreign republics alike. Copyright is given a maximum duration of fifty years and cannot infringe freedom of speech or scholarship. Former Presidents are granted a non-voting lifetime seat in Congress. Amendments to the Constitution are made by integral changes to the text. Copies of the Constitution text are drafted in English and French.
1787-88: Debate rages across the 15 states about the ratification of the Constitution. Hamilton, Madison, and Jay write the Federalist Papers. To win the ratification debate, the Federalist supporters of the Constitution make a pledge to have a set of Amendments ratified that safeguard basic liberties at the federal level, addressing the main objection of the Anti-Federalist opponents to the Constitution.
1789: All 15 states but Rhode Island, which joins the following year, have by now accepted the Constitution. George Washington is elected first President and inaugurated in New York with the first Congress.
1791: Kentucky joins the US as the 16th state. A set of Amendments to the Constitution, the so-called “Bill of Rights”, gets ratified, and it becomes a new Article in the Constitution. It is mostly similar to OTL, except for some changes that give increased protection of civil rights (explicit protection of privacy and freedom of conscience, forbiddance of disproportionate and inhuman punishments, protection from statements obtained by coercion) and make some of them enforceable against the states. A widespread slave revolt explodes in the French colony of Haiti.
1792: George Washington is reelected President. Vermont joins the Union as the 17th state. Black revolutionaries largely control Haiti. The French Legislative Assembly grants civil and political rights to the free men of color and dispatches a expeditionary corps to Haiti in an attempt to control the revolt. Such efforts turn largely unsuccessful.
1793: Washington declares US neutrality in the French Revolutionary Wars. In Hispaniola a confused multi-way war ensues between the Black revolutionaries, France, Britain, and Spain, which controls the rest of the island.
1794: The Whiskey Rebellion occurs and is suppressed by federal troops without bloodshed. Jay’s treaty is signed between Britain and the USA. The British agree to vacate their forts in the Midwest and Northern territories outside of Rupert’s Land, provide compensation for US ships confiscated during 1793-94, and are granted freedom of navigation in St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes. The Americans get the British West Indies reopened to their trade. The boundary between US territory and Rupert’s Land is established on the 51° parallel north. The British receive Most Favored Nation status. Debate about the ratification of the treaty, although eventually successful, helps structure the US First Party System in the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans.
The French National Convention in order to forestall military disaster in Hispaniola, abolishes slavery and grants civil and political rights to all persons of color in the colony. One of the most successful Black revolutionary commanders, Toussaint Louverture, brings his forces over to the French side and begins to fight for the French Republic.
1795: On the example of Vermont and Kentucky, Canadian settlers decide to split off the territory of OTL southern Ontario. The territory joins the Union with the name of Arnold and becomes the 18th state, while the rest of Canada renames itself Quebec. In time, Canada becomes the name to indicate all the American states that lie above the Great Lakes. Arnold has a French-speaking majority and a large English-speaking minority, with most of the population made up by settlers from Quebec and New York, but like Quebec it also receives a sizable Catholic immigration from France (owing to the French Revolution), Scotland, and Ireland.
Hamilton retires from politics temporarily, having been seized by inspiration to write a book about Federalism. He manages to bring his partners Madison and Jay from the Federalist Papers to collaborate with him.
1796: George Washington declines serving a third term as President, quoting health reasons. He mostly retires to his farm, although he reluctantly accepts the lifetime non-voting seat in Congress granted to him by the Constitution, which he attends infrequently. By now the Federalists (led by Adams and Hamilton) and the Democratic-Republicans (led by Jefferson and Madison) are firmly established, despite Washington’s misgivings about a party system. The success of the federal government in its first years help former Vice-President Adams win the presidential election, with Thomas Jefferson as Vice-President. Tennessee joins the Union as the 19th state.
Madison and Jay bring Jefferson and Adams in on Hamilton’s book, although Adams is too busy as President to contribute equally. The book has grown to encompass more than just Federalism, to many of the questions facing the young republic.
In Haiti, Toussaint Louverture is largely successful in fighting off the British and the Spanish; he essentially restores nominal control of Haiti to France, although he begins to rule the country effectively as an autonomous entity.
1797: French seizure of American merchant ships turns US-French relations sour. The XYZ Affair occurs, setting off a firestorm of anti-French sentiment in the USA.
“Thoughts on the American Political Experiment” by Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, James Madison, and John Adams is published. Each of them wrote the main body of two chapters, except Adams who only wrote one, concerning a particular issue facing the republic, from Federalism and Constitutionalism, to States Rights and Foreign Policy, while the other authors commented on the chapter and each other’s comments in footnotes. All of the authors disagreed with each other on something, and some chapters ended with two of the authors at each other’s throat only for the next chapter to see the same arguing together against who had been with them previously. The book becomes another of the seminal texts of US political theory alongside the Federalist Papers and cements the authors’ positions alongside Washington and Franklin as Founding Fathers of America.
1798: Repeated French impressments of French-speaking Americans fans the flames of anti-French sentiment. The Congress declares war on France. The US Navy and Marines capture the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and forces under General Alexander Hamilton invade French Guiana. The British do not cooperate operationally with the Americans, but they do sell naval stores and munitions to the Americans from the Bahamas and their other Caribbean possessions. Washington, coming out of semi-retirement, delivers an impassionate speech from the floor about “American liberties”, and persuades Congress not to pass the Alien and Sedition Laws. Haiti defeats a British expeditionary force, putting an end to British involvement in the island.
1799: US Marines invade Guadalupe and Martinique, defeating the local French forces.
1800: The Mortefontaine peace treaty is signed between France and the United States. France cedes French Guiana, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Guadalupe and Martinique to the USA. America still recognizes Haiti as a nominal French territory. The Americans and French agree to free travel of all goods, save war provisions, stop impressments, and all French citizens who fled to the US are granted citizenship once they register. All prior agreements concerning alliance and mutual trade are rendered null and void. The Americans agree to return all prisoners of war to the French. Spain cedes Louisiana to France after the peace treaty between France and the USA. President John Adams, riding on a wave of popularity for the victory in the French-American War, easily wins re-election, with John Jay as Vice President. (Hamilton did not run because he was busy being in Guyana.)
1801: America starts the First Barbary War in response to Barbary pirates' demands of tribute from American merchant vessels in the Mediterranean. The Federalist Congress and Administration use the French-American War and the First Barbary War as justification to pass a Naval Act and a Preparedness Act to enlarge and mandate proper training, funding, and equipment of the Army and the Navy.
Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture conquers Santo Domingo, and declares himself governor-for-life of the entire island of Hispaniola, abolishing slavery and instituting reforms. In retaliation, First Consul Napoleon sends a French expeditionary corps to Hispaniola and attempts to reinstate slavery to make the area profitable again. The island explodes in widespread rebellion. Still angry at France from the French-American War, the USA uneasily sides with Haiti, covertly providing food and arms to the Black revolutionaries.
1802: Uneasy US aid to the Haitian revolutionaries begins to dry up as fears of the precedent created by an independent nation founded by slave revolt grow among the slave-owning Southern elite and their representatives in the federal government. Nevertheless, the French expeditionary force faces mounting losses from the rebels and disease, and the Haitians feel considerable good will towards the US for aiding them at all. Toussaint Louverture is captured by the French and later dies in prison but the independence struggle carries on under the leadership Jean-Jacques Dessalines.
In response to French attempts to re-conquer Hispaniola, President Adams enounces the “Adams Doctrine”, by which further efforts by European countries to colonize land or interfere with independent states in the Americas would be viewed by the United States of America as acts of aggression requiring US intervention. Despite the controversial nature of American aid to Haiti, the Adams Doctrine in time acquires universal non-partisan consensus in the American public and becomes a cornerstone of US foreign policy.
Hamilton and John Adams have a falling out. This split threatens to tear the Federalist Party apart.
1803: Napoleon admits defeat and pulls out the expeditionary force. Jean-Jacques Dessalines declares the Republic of Haiti spanning the whole island and is elected as its first President, for a term of six years. America recognizes Haiti, although the treaty establishing relations only passes by one vote. Although poor and split linguistically, the island nation manages to attain a measure of stability.
Napoleon, seeing the course of things, decides to divest himself of the Louisiana Territory. The Louisiana Purchase, costing some $18 Million in money and debt cancellation combined, nearly doubles the size of the United States. The issue of Haiti shatters the strength of the Adams wing of the Federalist Party in the South. Ohio is admitted as the 20th state.
1804: The First Barbary War ends with a treaty between Tripoli and the US which frees American prisoners without ransom. Adams declines to run again, owing to the controversy over the Haiti issue. Thanks to faithless electors, a three way electoral tie occurs between Jefferson, Burr, and Hamilton. None have a majority, and the election is thrown to Congress. Jefferson and Hamilton become President and Vice President respectively on the 58th ballot in the House.
1805: In response to the flaws in the Presidential election system which surfaced in the election of 1804, as well as concerns about possible Presidential inability from past illness bouts of Washington and Adams, an Amendment to the Constitution is passed. It revises the Electoral College system for the election of President and Vice President, and regulates the cases of Presidential incapacitation and President-elect inability to qualify. Since it includes the Bill of Rights and the satisfying revision of the faulty original Presidential election system, it is passed within the lifetime of the Framers, and it stands unchanged till the Civil War, the 1805 version of the Constitution becomes what later Americans generally acknowledge and venerate as the “original” version of the US Constitution.