In this TL, the Mexican American War was harder-fought and harder-won. After the defeat of Mexico in 1848, President James Polk sends diplomat Nicholas Trist to negotiate for the acquisition of land. He is instructed to obtain as much possible territory from the Mexican territories of Alta California, New Mexico, and the Nueces Strip, with an emphasis on obtaining territory west of the Colorado River. The government was willing to grant $20 million to Mexico for the territory, with an additional $10 million if Trist was able to negotiate for the territory west of the Colorado. As negotiations began, Trist began by trying to obtain all of Alta California, New Mexico, and the Nueces Strip. This was refused by the Mexican government. Trist was officially recalled by Polk, but refused, and instead continued to negotiate. Polk sent John Slidell to replace Trist, but by the time Slidell arrived, Trist had already negotiated the western border of the new state of Texas, which ran from the Nueces River to the 109th meridian west. Trist returned to Washington and was promptly fired, and assumed all of the debt for his visit to Mexico, which crippled him financially until the late 1870’s. Slidell tried to repeal Trist’s negotiations, but the Mexican government insisted that the line already stood. Faced with more debt for the United States if the war continued, Slidell decided to accept the Trist Line and abandon the Nueces Strip. He instead was able to negotiate the acquisition of all Mexican Territory north of the parallel 36°30′ north, called the Slidell Line. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was subsequently amended to allow states in the previously Mexican territories to practice slavery if they chose. This territory is now part of the present-day states of Kansas, Jefferson, Deseret, Sierra, and Athens.
As part of the Compromise of 1850, an unnamed state was erected in the westernmost portion of the territory gained from Mexico. It entered as a slave state, but was required to send one pro-slavery senator and one anti-slavery senator to congress to balance the senate. The people of this new state were given the option to name it, and instead of clinging to the name California, most of which still remained with Mexico, instead named their state Athens, after the ancient Greek city where democracy had begun. The borders of Athens extended north to the old US-Mexican border and east to the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The remainder of the Mexican Cession was reorganized as the territory of Jefferson, which allowed slavery and contained many unexplored mining sites in the Rocky Mountains.
The Civil War in the United States occurs very closely to how it did in our TL, except in the west. Soldiers from Oregon and northern Athens fought against pro-slavery soldiers from southern Athens. Without a general to lead them or many supplies, the army from southern Athens was quickly crushed, and Athens officially abolished slavery, becoming a free state. Quickly following this declaration was the Emancipation Proclamation from President Lincoln. The state of Sierra was broken off of the Jefferson territory and rushed into statehood to ensure Lincoln’s re-election in 1864. Sierra bordered Athens to the west, and was largely founded on silver mines found in the state.
After the Civil War, there was a boom in the west as mining operations in the Jefferson territory began expanding. By the turn of the century, the territory had been broken up into two states– Deseret and Jefferson. Deseret included the Great Salt Lake and had a large Mormon population. Jefferson straddled the edge of the Rockies, and thus had large farms and ranches in the east and mines in the west. Both states were known for their mining operations, which started out as mainly gold and silver mines, but later branched off into mining for other materials, such as radium and oil.
At the outbreak of World War I in Europe, the United States was occupying the Mexican port of Veracruz in response to the Ypiranga Incident. This irritated the already unstable relations between the United States and Mexico. Prodding by German advisors in Mexico City persuaded Mexico to launch a counter-attack and liberate Veracruz. Escalating events led to the United States going to war against Mexico, which was already embroiled in the Mexican Revolution. Within three years, the United States had beaten Mexico into submission a second time, this time setting up a weak satellite state, comparable to the Weimar Republic a few years later. In 1917, the United States turned its attention to Europe, formally joining the war on the side of the Entente.
Most of the same measures that were inflicted on the defeated Germany were similar to those in Mexico. A crippling debt and limited military destroyed most of Mexico’s economic and industrial capacity. The rise of fascism and the breaking of US-imposed sanctions united Mexico, and by the time Germany rose and declared war in the late 1930’s, Mexico was ready to tangle with the United States again. It officially declared war on the United States at the same time Germany did.
The discovery of uranium in several states, including Jefferson and Deseret, provided the United States a source of dependable uranium to work with, in addition to some already seized from a warehouse on Staten Island from the Belgian Congo. In addition to British and Canadian scientists, work began building an atomic bomb.
Unknown to the United States, Mexico had been collaborating with German scientists in developing a bomb for the Axis as well. There were no uranium sites readily accessible for the Axis powers to use, so, at the urging of German advisors, Mexican forces began pushing north into Jefferson and Deseret. The Mexican troops practiced Continuous Border Change – as soon as they captured an area, they rushed workers to the previous border to begin mining, creating a new border. Border skirmishes between the US and Mexico continued for over a year before the United States was able to regain control of its former territory. As soon as it was recaptured, the United States poured workers into the area immediately to begin mining for uranium and take estimates to see how much the Mexicans had obtained. It was unknown how much uranium Mexico was actually able to obtain, and the Allies feared that there was enough to create a nuclear weapon.
Uranium mining, as a result, became one of the biggest paying industries in the United States. Workers from all over the country rushed to Jefferson and Deseret to mine. In reality, the American mines yielded little uranium for either country.
American troops concentrated in the southwest meant that it was harder to subdue Hitler in Europe. By 1945, American, British, and Canadian scientists had created and successfully tested the world’s first atomic bomb. VA Day came in the summer of 1945, when the first American atom bomb as dropped on Mexico City, the biggest and most densely populated city in North America. VE Day came a few weeks later when a combined British-American force dropped a bomb on Berlin, killing Hitler and most of his government officials. The war in the Pacific theater dragged on into the winter of 1945, ending with the Allies dropping another atom bomb on Tokyo.
After the war, Germany was divided into military districts, and would not be reunited until almost 50 years later, after the Cold War. The United States forced Mexico to cede the Nueces Strip, Alta California, Baja California, and Nuevo Mexico. It effectively became a satellite of the US throughout the Cold War, with a few Red Scares. The Japanese Empire was dismembered, and the land went back to the countries it had invaded and occupied. The home islands were also divided, Hokkaido going to the Soviet Union, Honshu to the US, and Shikoku and Kyushu to Britain. These later evolved into the Peoples Republic of Japan on Hokkaido and the Republic of Japan on Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu.
The uranium mines in the US are still in use today, and provide a small portion of the country’s energy supply.
