WI the US annexes Baja California?

This is one of the smaller POD's, internationally speaking, it's entirely plausible and wouldn't hurt Mexico much. They might have never been invaded by the French, given the USA would presumably have paid more, leaving a better financial situation. US side of things, well, if it's an independent state, it's another left leaning Pacific state, probably more marginal elections go blue (or whatever TTL). If not, it is a part of massive union dominating behemoth California. Which is a good thing.

Why would the politics of Baja CA be similar to CA?

Also, if we have a large butterfly net, and assume the rest of history proceeds recognizably, Hollywood might not develop as the center of the film industry, depending on how much further away this pushes the border, exactly.
 
Yeah, Trist was ordered to get several Mexican states annexed to the US, including Baja, but he disobeyed orders and we got the borders we have now. Assume here that Trist decided to get only Baja, for whatever reason...
 

Marc

Donor
A few observations: Baja California really has only two decent harbors but neither of them significant. In fact, lack of good harbors is a problem all along West Coast. Unlike the East, Out West, coastline translates into great beachfront property, but not much else. So that wouldn't an issue about Baja and Alta California being one State.
Baja is mostly desert, and mountains, and very dry scrub-lands with limited settlement appeal (annual rainfall is about 3-4 inches). There is a small amount of gold mining, a touch more in the late 19th century, but nothing to get excited about, and that is mostly it.
Since it has a really low utility value I'm pressed to see why the US would want it, but if they did, my guess is that it would be treated as a separate territory - California almost surely would be disinterested as it likely would been seen both as an expense and as source of more Mexicans...
If so, it can get interesting in having Baja as a long term territory, a la the Arizona Territory, but both poorer and heavily Latino.
Shall we say interesting as in awkward?
 
Baja California was barely populated save a few natives in the 1800s, so it wouldn't take much Anglo-American settlement to outnumber the preexisting Mexican population - I suspect it would demographically look pretty similar to Arizona. I agree with people saying San Diego will be bigger than OTL, but you'll never see a major city in the south of the peninsula - even as a resort city - for one reason: water. Unlike the deserts of the western US, there's no nearby well-watered mountains to fall back on for water supply.
 

Brunaburh

Banned
Why would the politics of Baja CA be similar to CA?

Also, if we have a large butterfly net, and assume the rest of history proceeds recognizably, Hollywood might not develop as the center of the film industry, depending on how much further away this pushes the border, exactly.

It will be settled in the same way as California, it will be geographically dominated by California, it will have a large Latin immigrant population. The West Coast has a lot of cultural and political factors in common.
 
It will be settled in the same way as California, it will be geographically dominated by California, it will have a large Latin immigrant population. The West Coast has a lot of cultural and political factors in common.

Why would it be settled the same way as CA and not AZ or NM?
 
I would expect Cabo San Lucas to become a mix between a Navy town and the tourist town it is today. In the late 19th/early 20th century a convenient small coaling station with some patrol craft, some expansion in WWI. WWII sees the completion of the RR to Cabo, possibly some areas of double trackage if the RR is there with an expansion of the base and an active air station given the Japanese naval threat in early WWII. I expect activity there will diminish even during the Cold War, although the almost daily good weather and lots of emptiness in Baja may make it a significant training area (perhaps like 29 Palms). As the Cold War ends, more of a Coast Guard hub especially concerning drug smuggling.

Like what is going on in the Med, I expect you'll have issues with small boats setting out from Mexico across the Sea of Cortez to land immigrants in Baja. Likewise humanitarian issues with rickety boats sinking, and the Lord help poor fools who are dumped on the Baja beaches - the death toll will be large due to the lack of water...
 

Brunaburh

Banned
Why would it be settled the same way as CA and not AZ or NM?

Because it's a coastal province, attracting both coastal and land migration. It would also receive "overflow" from much more populous California, as Washington and Oregon did. I would view it as an extension of a common West Coast culture.
 
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Because it's a coastal province, attracting both coastal and land migration. It would also receive "overflow" from much more populous California, as Washington and Oregon did. I would view it as an extension of a common East Coast culture.

But its comparably very arid, so I would imagine very different settlement patterns.
 
I imagine NASA would move there instead of Florida.

Enough empty Federal land and further south is better for launching rockets into space
 

Marc

Donor
Have any of you all actually been to Baja? As I noted before, it's almost all desert, with no access to water - why, outside of the the very tip south and along the US border, it's empty. It makes Arizona look lush.
And Cabo as a port? There is no harbor worth mentioning - try La Paz if you want a tiny deep harbor port.
13,000 Mexicanos (exluding indigenous) scratched out a living in 1850, I seriously doubt that the Anglo population would pass it for generations, if ever.
Baja is a beautiful wasteland, says someone who did the 800 mile run, way back when.
 
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Yeah, Trist was ordered to get several Mexican states annexed to the US, including Baja, but he disobeyed orders and we got the borders we have now. Assume here that Trist decided to get only Baja, for whatever reason...

Simply enough, why bother to only get one California and not the other? The map of North America is weird with Baja still being Mexican. So non-contiguous.
 
Have any of you all actually been to Baja? As I noted before, it's almost all desert, with no access to water - why, outside of the the very tip south and along the US border, it's empty. It makes Arizona look lush.
And Cabo as a port? There is no harbor worth mentioning - try La Paz if you want a tiny deep harbor port.
13,000 Mexicanos (exluding indigenous) scratched out a living in 1850, I seriously doubt that the Anglo population would pass it for generations, if ever.
Baja is a beautiful wasteland, says someone who did the 800 mile run, way back when.
Baja California using modern figures would be under the average population density of the US, but still far from being the least dense, a dozen state or so are less dense than Baja California is today.

Also why wouldn't the Anglo population surpass the Mexican one? It did so in Arizona, California and even New Mexico as far as I can tell and Mexico today is even less densely populated than Baja California.
Even if they settle only in the northernmost portion, surpassing 13k settlers isn't some sort of impossible task, especially with some settlers trickling from California.
 
It will be settled in the same way as California, it will be geographically dominated by California, it will have a large Latin immigrant population. The West Coast has a lot of cultural and political factors in common.

I can't really see people coming across the great trails to go and live in Baja without some sort of incentive - free land is all well and good, I guess, but if it is not workable then its useless.
 

Brunaburh

Banned
I can't really see people coming across the great trails to go and live in Baja without some sort of incentive - free land is all well and good, I guess, but if it is not workable then its useless.

Yes, I wouldn't disagree, but I would still view it as part of common coastal culture rather than as part of the Southwestern culture.
 

Marc

Donor
Baja California using modern figures would be under the average population density of the US, but still far from being the least dense, a dozen state or so are less dense than Baja California is today.

Also why wouldn't the Anglo population surpass the Mexican one? It did so in Arizona, California and even New Mexico as far as I can tell and Mexico today is even less densely populated than Baja California.
Even if they settle only in the northernmost portion, surpassing 13k settlers isn't some sort of impossible task, especially with some settlers trickling from California.

Baja's current population is mostly predicated on being a border state with United States. Take that away and the numbers drop by 90%.
No one is going to trickle down to settle when there is a huge amount of very attractive arable land north of Baja. And, any real estate that is marginally decent is already owned - well, granted, that can be fixed with shotguns and taxes I guess, just like they did with Alta California.

As a I said before, and now for the last time. Baja California has a certain bleak beauty, but otherwise, it's pretty worthless.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
I would not be surprised if a big chunk of Baja ends up as a military base. These bases tend to go on low quality land, and assuming the USA still gets the Panana Canal, then it makes a natural location for a Marine training area.

Yes, I know I killed off a few species of butterflies here.
 
We very likely get a North and South California as states - that is entirely way too much coast to give to one state.
for my own project, i've thought that both Alta and Baja California would be admitted together as one state and then, decades later, they split amicably with their territory being mostly the same as the current Californias, except for San Diego, which is part of Baja as its state capital and largest city
Doubtful it would be a slave state... plantation agriculture just does not work out west.
the other factor for Baja being a free state is also what California itself got IOTL--yes, most of California was below the Missouri Compromise line, but firstly it wasn't part of the United States when the Compromise was made, but also there was no history of it in Mexican California before that and that was part of the issue--"do we make this state without slavery into a slave state all of a sudden or should we leave it as is?"--and i think, in this case, it would go the same direction as IOTL for the same reasons as IOTL
 
Why is it assumed the borders between California and the Baja are the same as OTL? Since the USA took both territories as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe in this new time line, why couldn't they just adjust the borders between these two new states north a little so that San Diedo is in the Baja state? Maybe give this State of Baja both San Diego and Imperial counties, while California is still the rest of its OTL form minus the two southern counties. Now the entire San Diego/Tijuana metropolitan area is in the State of Baja.
 
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