What if William Penn's land grant was west of Savannah rather than Delaware river?

raharris1973

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How would American history change if, prioritizing a southern buffer, the Crown had granted William Penn title to the frontier that later became the colony of Georgia in 1681, instead of the land grant for the territory west of the Delaware river?

How does the southern version of "Pennsylvania" develop over the next century?

How does what became Pennsylvania develop?

What unique aspects of the early generations of Pennsylvania (religious toleration, peace with Indians, diverse European immigration pool, high education rate, overall Quaker influence) persist in the southern environment and what do not?
 
Would be a very good timeline to write, being from a Quaker background I'd be very interested.

For starters the treaties and concessions he could make with native tribes could easily butterfly the Tuscarora/ yamasee war. A more multi racial east coast with significant abolitionist populations would massively affect the racial policies of colonial occupation.

Possible POD could be exile of quakers to the American south rather than the carribean.
 
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I suspect a southern "Pennsylvania" would ultimately be taken over by the slavery/plantation economy just like OTL Georgia was (after originally not having slavery).
 

raharris1973

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i do not think Pennsylvania would start off with an African slavery ban. Slavery was already big in Carolina but not as big as it would later become. The rice boom had not started yet and South Carolina was making money off of the fur trade and indian slave trade and cattle raising in addition to plantations.


Unlike Oglethorpe, Penn did not have a ban on slaves, liquor or lawyers. Both Oglethorpe and Penn got on well with the proximate Amerindian tribes.


Oglethorpe became an adopted son of and ally to Chief Tomochichi. 50 years earlier if the younger Tomochichi (he was an octogenareian when he met Oglethohorpe in the 1730s) or his predecessors were willing to be friendly, Penn and his staff would have been willing to reciprocate.


The biggest difference btwn penn and the Carolinians at this time would probably be on on indian slavery and its vital engine, raids on indian villages.


Pennsylvania south could reduce indian warfare and colonial raiding on spanish missions in Florida, unless Spanish or Indian aggression discredits Quaker pacifist biases early.

Natural increase of colonists would also be lower in Georgia low country and Philadelphia's southern incarnation compared to OTL Pennsy. Mainly because of more heat and humidity related disease.
 
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Might OTL Pennsylvania be part of the same colony as OTL New Jersey ITTL?

You might get Maryland getting all of its original claims, including all of the Delmarva Peninsula and up to north of Philadelphia. New Jersey might try to claim the rest, but New York will probably have more influence to push in and claim at least some of the lands .

Alternatively, What would be OTL Pennsylvania could become a Restoration Colony and become *Georgia. This would have some repercussions down the line for when the America colonies inevitably want independence, though that is so far after the POD that it would have some major butterflies.
 
The funny thing is that Ogelthorpe might put "Georgia" into this region. It might also get stuck into the Acadia region: Maine, Aroostook, New Brunswick, or Nova Scotia.

How does what became Pennsylvania develop?
Virginia gets Pittsburgh. Maryland and New Jersey squabble over the southeastern part of the area, but I don't think either of them get Delaware. The Susquehannock and Shawnee people do better.

Come to think of it, Connecticut has the strongest claim to the northern 2/5 of the area. West Connecticut (Wyoming as a name?) would stretch from Lake Erie to the Susquehanna River Valley (or even the Delaware River). New York didn't have a lot of settlement in that area, even by the French and Indian War. They will press a claim, but I don't expect it to go anywhere except for the Erie Triangle.

Here I show Connecticut's claim, below that I show New Jersey with all of the Delaware River's watershed, and Massachusetts goes north to include OTL Philadelphia. Virginia extends north towards OTL Pittsburgh (but TTL city would be founded on a different bank of the river). Delaware State is a little bigger too. The western portion of this grey area could be turned into an Indian Reserve; wouldn't that be a little nicer than OTL? Imagine the Iroquois in western New York, the Shawnee here, and then the Four Civilized Tribes in their respective southern homelands.

nopennsylvania.png


Moravians might make a much bigger impact in this area, especially among the tribes.

Here's a neat idea, without all those English Quakers there, the Scotch Irish squatters/settlers could potentially apply for their own colonial status (Annesland). After Bacon's Rebellion Annesland would present a nice alternative to some of the Scotch Irish who would have settled in Virginia, the Carolinas, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The Scotch Irish never had much political representation, and that was one of the contributing factors to the poverty of their settlements (in my opinion, but I may be wrong). Overall, I expect there will be fewer wars with the American tribes.

No wars of extermination against the coastal natives could mean tens of thousands more Indians living there.
Were there tens of thousands of indigenous people living in eastern Pennsylvania?

Also, we could see Moravians, and more Germans in general down in Penn's Transavannah colony. I don't think slavery is going to do so well in that colony due to the cultural issues. South Carolina's gonna be mad.
 
There was yellow fever in Philadelphia, and OTL Georgia did not collapse because of these things.

There was more yellow fever in Georgia. Who said anything about collapsing, though? Pennsylvania had the 2nd-highest population of the colonies, and Georgia the lowest (2nd-lowest when they began counting "the counties on the Delaware"), because of geographic and health factors.

Savannah isn't going to approach OTL Philadelphia as a port for generations in the best case scenario. Beyond Savannah, there is land much less attractive for use by free small grain farmers, no second highly economically useful river like the Susquehanna, none of the same spectacularly accessible and prolific sources of iron and coal. The Spanish are next door and little else is - OTL PA benefitted materially from earlier settlement in and trade with Maryland, Delaware, and West Jersey, both of which were substantial. The native groups are too large to assimilate or succumb completely to disease (or be pogrommed by alt-Paxton boys).

There will be no equivalent great influx of German, Scotch-Irish, and other settlers to TTL's province. The port's not great, the river is worse, the risks are much higher, and people who live around mosquitoes will drop like flies. Yellow fever depressed urban populations in the southernmost states into the first years of the 20th century, and enforcing an eradication campaign was a driving force for US intervention in Cuba.


Geography made Philadelphia a logical site for US capital; I happen to love Savannah, but uhm. Geography made PA the center of American westward settlement until the Erie Canal, and even that didn't alter Pennsylvania's existing cultural impact (e.g. the band of German-speakers that extended into Iowa and defined the Midwest into the early 20th century). Geography made PA an economic powerhouse and GA a series of plantation monocultures appended to South Carolina; a period of Quaker management changes that little. Geography allowed Pennsylvanian political reforms to have profound influence in the early US; not ITTL. Because of geography, Pennsylvania's economy could survive a gradual emancipation law, providing a political model that freed the North of slaves; not happening in Georgia. The Cumberland valley populated the Appalachians and points West in OTL; Georgia will struggle to compete with SC-derived groups for settlement of its own territory. I could do more, but I need to get ready for work.

The early period will be interesting if you're interested in early colonialism. After that, the Quakers, their co-moralists, and whoever else came will be swamped by immigration from SC. Assuming the cotton gin is on time, in a few generations Georgia will be lowland plantations, highland Scotch-Irish, and small, high-mortality cities. As OTL. The state/colony/province as a whole will have a peripheral political role defined by the economics and health factors of the Deep South more than its founders' peculiar ethics.


The impact on the "Civilized Tribes" aspect would be fascinating to explore.

The North would also be quite unrecognizable without the Penns. Germans would remain primarily a trickle into Virginia; the Midwest likely to be overwhelmingly anglophone. Perhaps a few Plattsdeutch speakers will end up in Dutch settlements in East Jersey and New York, but TTL has a lot of unspent pressure for emigration from Germany. Where will they go? No Welsh patches either. The eastern PA tribes are probably pushed to the Ohio or into the arms of the Iroquois relatively early. No big pushes for universal suffrage or prison reform coming out of the colonial Mid-Atlantic in this timeline. Will there be a PA replacement entity, or will the borders be unrecognizable? Maryland might extend further north. The Susquehanna might be an inter-colonial border, or perhaps one province "gets" the Delaware and another the Susquehanna.

The territory of OTL Pennsylvania was much more suitable for small-scale slave economies than New England, upstate New York, or the Iroquois lands - probably the frontier of cash crop plantations will fade out somewhere in the equivalents of OTL southern PA and southwest NJ. Ironworks run on slave labor may become the norm.

I'd read the TL. But I'd watch Penn Georgia skeptically.
 
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Is that why Savannah and Atlanta are tiny towns in OTL? /s

It's why Savannah and Atlanta took so long to become relevant. And it's related to why they then took so much longer to become major players in the US economy.

Philadelphia was one of the major cities of the Anglophone Americas almost from its founding. The city went from strength to strength, only ever declining in relative terms. Charleston in South Carolina, despite an early and excellent start, almost immediate found limits to its growth.

Would the province the Penn's founded go on to have an economy larger than small European countries centuries later? Sure. Would that entity have its long history driven by the role and ideals of a Quaker minority? No. Would it set the tone for the Deep South? Probably not, except possibly in Indian relations. Would it host a capital of America? Well, maybe a CSA-like entity!

Otherwise, see my other post.
 
For some reason this one is stuck on my mind. Particularly I've been wondering about the Anabaptists and the Yamasee.

The Amish, Mennonites, et al were ideological migrants, and as of the late 17th century they don't really have somewhere else to go. The Netherlands were at least getting tolerant, but for what they wanted Pennsylvania was about it. (I checked Russia, and discovered the Volga Germans got going in the 1760s. So theoretically their great grandkids could go, but a lot happens in that much time. Who knows.) I expect they'd scatter and stay home, both more than OTL. The initial arrivals into *Pennsylvania would probably be as historical, but with more back-migration and second destinations; probably fewer arrivals after the first decade or so. Some of them would have passed through New York and Charleston en route, maybe the Chesapeake. So I'd expect a sizable community in the Savannah area, a slight uptick in existing German communities in Virginia and Delaware, and another diffuse community centered on New York - most likely in northern East Jersey. Back in Europe, the Netherlands would have a larger Anabaptist population, and there'd be more remaining in Alsace and (maybe) Switzerland.

The bigger effect would be on the people who followed those religiously-motivated colonists. Once a patch of America was German-speaking, the floodgates opened. In this timeline, there's likely to be a much smaller effect south of the Savannah, and again there isn't an obvious replacement destination. So German immigrants will primarily be individuals or families willing to live among foreigners. The Rhine region will have a noticeably larger population of ambitious, unsatisfied people. America will be both more homogenous at its center, and less populous. As the disparity compounds down generations, it will be a big difference.

The Yamasee are the obvious place to look for a POD (for a non-expert). They were pivotal in opening up Georgia in our timeline, and the original trigger - Spanish attempts to sell some Yamasee in the Caribbean as slaves - was not unprecedented given prior Spanish behavior in old Florida. Had a Spanish governor done something similar 20-30 years earlier, England might have allied with them from the founding of Carolina Colony in 1663. Those circumstances might provide the two prerequisites to a colony: land empty of Indians and neighboring Indians willing to "sell" it. Historically the Yamasee created the space for Georgia by accident in the process of warring over it with tribes still loyal to Spain.

The Quakers won't be terribly excited to participate in such a war, but they might well enter in the aftermath of such wars. Arguably, PA grew into the eastern portion of lands the Iroquois had depopulated in the course of their wars. Perhaps if more Georgian Indians rebel against the Spanish alongside the Yamasee in the mid-17th century, the ensuing wars could open land up to settlement by the late 1680s? Then, in turn, William Penn could sign a treaty with the British allies to use the lower Savannah River in exchange for supporting them as they reclaim (or "reclaim") lands in central and coastal OTL Georgia.
 
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