Thursday, January 20, 2011

North America : 1882

(click map to see enlarged version)

North America circa 1882.

Highlights :

--Britain, and its large dominion ally, The British Dominion of Windsor, control Canada, Newfoundland, the northern extent of the Great Plains, the upper mid west, and the Ohio Valley region, also dominating the Great Lakes.

-- Quebec, more heavily settled by France than in OTL, is a full fledged province of the French Empire.

-- The Confederation of New England gained independence from Britain in the 1760's and seized control of upstate New York from the Dutch over the next 50 years.

-- South of New England lie the two 'New Dutch' Republics of Pennsylvania and Dutchland, carved out of the former New Netherlands after the British and New England defeated France and the Netherlands in the 2nd North American War in the 1820's. The New Dutch still claim upstate New York where a restive ethnic Dutch population longs to rejoin their cousins to the South

-- South of the New Dutch Republics lie the isolated slave Republics of Virginia, Carolina, and Georgia. All three left the British Dominion peacefully after the British demanded that they end the institution of slavery. Though isolated diplomatically, the export of Cotton has fueled their economy and Virginia has begun to industrialize. In Virginia, slavery was formally ended in 1881 but a legal system of enshrined racial segregation and codified white-rule is firmly established. In Carolina and Georgia, slavery lives on.

-- Florida, minus the panhandle, is a thinly populated swampland that no one much cares about. It is still a Spanish colony, mostly because no other power has taken an interest in it

-- Texas controls the southern Great Plains, Texas itself, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. But this is much different place than our Texas; It is heavily influenced culturally and ethnically by the French and Spanish, with the Anglo influence being in third place and distinctly the minority. Houston, named 'New Provence' in this timeline, is under the control of the Republic of Louisiana which also rules in Louisiana itself and Arkansas

-- North of Louisiana is the Cherokee nation, backed by the Republic of Louisiana and formed from out the Cherokee and other native American tribal groups who were pushed west by Virginia, Carolina, and Georgian settlers.

-- On the West Coast, the Republic of California gained independence from Mexico following the Gold Rush of the 1830's. It has a mixture of Spanish, British, French, and even Russian influence(in the northern parts). It controls California, eastern Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona.
The British, who competed with the French for influence in northern California during the gold rush, control the port of San Francisco and some of the surrounding Bay Area.

-- North of California is New Russia, an independent Republic that broke from the Russian Empire after British settlers instigated a revolution in the 1840's. The region had been settled heavily by Russia in the late 1700's, and when the region later gained Independence the 'New Russia' name was kept to appease the substantial minority of ethnic Russians
New Russia consists of Washington and northwestern Oregon. The French have a substantial enclave on the northwestern Coast of Washington and the British control Seattle, Puget Sound, and Victoria island. Russia maintains control of Alaska and the western coast of Canada. A strip of territory in the Rocky Mountains sitting between the British Dominion of Windsor and the Pacific Coast Republics and Russian America is controlled by native America tribal nations.

-- To the South, Mexico exists largely within OTL's border except that the Yucatan peninsula is divided between two ethnic Mayan states. Central America and the Caribbean is divided between the British, French, and Dutch. In the northern part of South America, The Republic of Grand Columbia controls most of the region while Britain and France have colonies on the north coast. The northern part of the Empire of Brazil is also visible

5 comments:

  1. One question Bobby while i can recognize the country’s that belong to their colors which colors on the map belong to the Dutch' Republics of Pennsylvania and Dutchland.

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  2. Dutchland and Pennsylvania are the two yellow-ish nations south of New England, basically covering our timeline's Pennsylvania, down-state New York, and northern New Jersey. Dutchland is the Eastern one, Pennsylvania is the western one.

    The Dutch colonies in the Caribbean and central America are also yellow, but they are actual colonies of the Netherlands and not independent

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  3. Thanks for answering that question Bobby.

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  4. The Border between the Rio Grande and the border between Upper and Lower California is exactly the same as OTL. *very unlikely* Also, your native nation in the Upper Rockies appears to have the OTL borders between Washington State, Oregon, Idaho and Canada in it...

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  5. Well, the Rio Grande would make for a natural geological frontier in the region, so its not a huge stretch to imagine it becomes a border again.

    That said, you are right that some of the borders are probably a bit too close to OTL. I think a lot of the borders were based on lines of longitude and latitude in OTL, so one could argue that some of the borders would end up looking similar for that reason. I'll probably go back and revise the maps at some point to be more ATL-ish.

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