MAlexMatt
Banned
It's often not widely understood, but there are significant rifts in American culture, much more detailed and granular than 'North', 'South', and 'West'. Those who understand that the South, for instance, is split up at least into the Upper South and Lower South, don't tend to get why this split exists. There are some agricultural reasons brought up from time to time (which crops grew in which areas, that is), there are ideas about climate, there are a million different possibilities that have been brought up.
But I've been reading about one root recently that's cultural that I haven't seen much before: The difference between the Upper South and the Lower South is the difference between how Virginia was settled and how South Carolina was settled. IOTL, Virginia was settled directly from England (and Scotland/Ireland as you get into Appalachia), by a mix of lower class Britons and the second and third sons of nobility. Social stratification was there immediately, but slavery itself wasn't. Tidewater Virginia was, essentially, an idealized vision of 'Merry England', with the stereotypical country gentlemen, operating under a cultural paradigm of noblesse oblige, benevolently overseeing a more or less static social structure of poorer freemen, themselves operating under a cultural paradigm of deference for their 'betters'.
It didn't always play out like that on the ground, but it was the cultural DNA early Virginians brought with them when the Chesapeake was first settled.
South Carolina was different. The earliest settlers didn't come straight from Europe, but were rather sourced from existing American colonies in the Caribbean. Initially this was the island of Barbados. They brought an already-existing slaveholding, cash crop planting culture with them. And this culture was brutal -- a constant stream of slaves was necessary to keep the island plantations adequately staffed because there was such a high attrition rate on sugar plantations. The Barbadian settlers of South Carolina didn't see themselves as Medieval England reborn, they saw themselves as ancient Greece reborn.
This difference ended up being vital in the longer run. Virginian politics had no trouble occasionally turning to abolition, and it was the hearth of Virginia in which early American republicanism was born. There's a reason Thomas Jefferson was from Virginia and not South Carolina. South Carolina was the home, on the other hand, of pro-slavery fireeaters for the entirety of the antebellum period. I can't think of a single Carolinan Founder who freed his slaves in his will, like a whole list of Virginians did.
Virginian culture had spread into parts of Maryland, Delaware, and North Carolina, eventually forming what we think of as the 'Upper South'. Similarly, Barbadian South Carolinan culture spread into the southern part of North Carolina, into Georgia, and across the old Yazoo Purchase into Louisiana and Arkansas.
This would have an immense effect on politics, as mentioned. The 'Lower South' states were the first states to secede after Lincoln's election, and this secession was almost unanimous. Meanwhile, the Upper South states were more reluctant, and didn't secede until it became clear that the Lincoln administration was preparing to use coercion to keep the Lower South in the Union.
But what if you rewound this and one half of the equation disappears? What if the early Caribbean sourced settlement of South Carolina (and the rest of the lower South) never occurs? Think of any PoD or set of PoDs you want: Sunk ships, disease, pre-emption, anything.
How would this change things?
One thing that comes to mind immediately is that Georgia is likely to end up resembling Australia, of all places. Georgia was first settled as a utopian colony where convicts (mostly debtors) were given land and encouraged to rebuild their lives in what was, by contemporary standards, a morally upright way. Combined with an emphasis on settling persecuted protestants from continental Europe, Georgia was a strange mix between Pennsylvania and Australia. IOTL this early settlement was overwhelmed by the spreading plantation culture of South Carolina. ITTL, it would probably survive.
Another would be in South Carolina itself. The earliest settlers came from all over, with the Barbadians being the ones to bring slavery to the colony. Before their arrival, the economy was based in fur trading. The Lord Proprietors would still exist in most scenarios, I think, so the aristocratic character of the area would continue. I could see a South Carolina that more closely resembles Virginia.
What do you guys think? Whence from here?
But I've been reading about one root recently that's cultural that I haven't seen much before: The difference between the Upper South and the Lower South is the difference between how Virginia was settled and how South Carolina was settled. IOTL, Virginia was settled directly from England (and Scotland/Ireland as you get into Appalachia), by a mix of lower class Britons and the second and third sons of nobility. Social stratification was there immediately, but slavery itself wasn't. Tidewater Virginia was, essentially, an idealized vision of 'Merry England', with the stereotypical country gentlemen, operating under a cultural paradigm of noblesse oblige, benevolently overseeing a more or less static social structure of poorer freemen, themselves operating under a cultural paradigm of deference for their 'betters'.
It didn't always play out like that on the ground, but it was the cultural DNA early Virginians brought with them when the Chesapeake was first settled.
South Carolina was different. The earliest settlers didn't come straight from Europe, but were rather sourced from existing American colonies in the Caribbean. Initially this was the island of Barbados. They brought an already-existing slaveholding, cash crop planting culture with them. And this culture was brutal -- a constant stream of slaves was necessary to keep the island plantations adequately staffed because there was such a high attrition rate on sugar plantations. The Barbadian settlers of South Carolina didn't see themselves as Medieval England reborn, they saw themselves as ancient Greece reborn.
This difference ended up being vital in the longer run. Virginian politics had no trouble occasionally turning to abolition, and it was the hearth of Virginia in which early American republicanism was born. There's a reason Thomas Jefferson was from Virginia and not South Carolina. South Carolina was the home, on the other hand, of pro-slavery fireeaters for the entirety of the antebellum period. I can't think of a single Carolinan Founder who freed his slaves in his will, like a whole list of Virginians did.
Virginian culture had spread into parts of Maryland, Delaware, and North Carolina, eventually forming what we think of as the 'Upper South'. Similarly, Barbadian South Carolinan culture spread into the southern part of North Carolina, into Georgia, and across the old Yazoo Purchase into Louisiana and Arkansas.
This would have an immense effect on politics, as mentioned. The 'Lower South' states were the first states to secede after Lincoln's election, and this secession was almost unanimous. Meanwhile, the Upper South states were more reluctant, and didn't secede until it became clear that the Lincoln administration was preparing to use coercion to keep the Lower South in the Union.
But what if you rewound this and one half of the equation disappears? What if the early Caribbean sourced settlement of South Carolina (and the rest of the lower South) never occurs? Think of any PoD or set of PoDs you want: Sunk ships, disease, pre-emption, anything.
How would this change things?
One thing that comes to mind immediately is that Georgia is likely to end up resembling Australia, of all places. Georgia was first settled as a utopian colony where convicts (mostly debtors) were given land and encouraged to rebuild their lives in what was, by contemporary standards, a morally upright way. Combined with an emphasis on settling persecuted protestants from continental Europe, Georgia was a strange mix between Pennsylvania and Australia. IOTL this early settlement was overwhelmed by the spreading plantation culture of South Carolina. ITTL, it would probably survive.
Another would be in South Carolina itself. The earliest settlers came from all over, with the Barbadians being the ones to bring slavery to the colony. Before their arrival, the economy was based in fur trading. The Lord Proprietors would still exist in most scenarios, I think, so the aristocratic character of the area would continue. I could see a South Carolina that more closely resembles Virginia.
What do you guys think? Whence from here?