Second this. The truth is that, bringing more black subjects in *would* further bring out the inner racism within America.
Btw, Sumner was on the right in this issue. Unlike people like Schurz, Sumner actually opposed it for the right reason.
Yup, gotta say I admire Sumner for sticking to his principles. Unfortunately, it made him detest Grant to the point that he joined the Liberal Republicans, showing why it's better to just sidestep the whole mess somehow. Btw, I just found that there's an Avenida Charles Sumner in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic's capital.
Maybe have butterflies successfully allow Spain to go ahead with annexing it?
That's not a good choice either.
On that note, such a comedy could be a combination of Downfall and The Death of Stalin with how it would illustrate the level of delusion and insanity the Confederates have even as the world around them falls apart.
Speaking of which, maybe we could also have Ben Tillman die during the last battles of the war or something along those lines?
You know what you all have convinced me. Tillman dies now.
Well, I hope Mosby makes it through the war. Mosby makes for a useful Republican and became a good friend of Grant. Maybe a political career in Virginia?
Huh, with better mental health, it would hopefully avoid the whole issue of committing her to an asylum. Speaking of the Lincolns, I wonder how Robert Todd and Willie do during Reconstruction and their place in politics. Speaking of Robert, I suppose that he is still in Harvard and has yet to join Grant's staff?
Assuming that he does join a coastal artillery unit, Ben Tillman would most likely find himself holding a musket rather than manning a coastal artillery piece by the time of the March to the Sea. Lots of coastal/garrison units were deployed for action to resist Sherman, who mostly bypassed them with a few major battles in North Carolina.
Speaking on the Philippines, I'm surprised that nobody has gone for the easiest solution to preserve its independence - have the US less involved in the fighting in the Philippines. In the 1898 war, the Spanish Navy had three naval squadrons - two in Spain and one in the Philippines. The latter was sunk in Manila Bay and one of the Spanish squadrons was sent to Cuba, where it caused the US a lot of concern over a possible raid on the East Coast before being bottled up at Santiago de Cuba and later sunk in a breakout attempt. The last squadron was earmarked to reinforce the Philippines - battleship Pelayo, armored cruiser Carlos V, three destroyers and 4,000 troops in transport ships. The force could probably broken Dewey's blockade, but a lack of foresight on coal supply, British interference over coal resupply (it appears that the British were hoping for the Spanish to lose) and a US bluff to raid the Spanish coast with an Eastern Squadron caused the operation to end. Thus, an earlier departure of the squadron may have forced the US to be more cautious on operations in the Philippines. Alternatively, a different president might have opted to not go for a land intervention in the Philippines. The pre-war plans only called for the USN to blow up the Spanish Fleet in Manila and establish a blockade.
Another alternative is to have the war occur earlier when the balance of power was less favorable to the US. The only reason why the Virginius affair had not broken out to war despite the willingness of the US public to do so was that the USN was horrendously underinvested after the ACW. When the affair occurred, the Spanish ironclad Arapiles had been in New York and it was an uncomfortable realization for the USN that they had no ships that could defeat it. Even after some build up, the USN was still underinvested and would not receive more funding until Congress found out that Brazil had received a battleship (Riachuelo) it had bought from the UK in 1883. A ship that the USN again had no answer to, with one officer pointing out that their entire fleet would most likely be sunk by the Brazilian battleship alone. Only then did Congress give the USN its purse for whatever it needed to rebuild its strength.
Yup. Implausible as it might seem, Mosby and Grant actually developed something of a friendship. Especially impressive given that Mosby's band once almost killed Grant. And yes, Robert is still in Harvard. Mary is better than IOTL, but she's still deadly afraid of losing Robert, understandably given that they still lost Eddie and the harsher war. Curiously enough, there would be an element of propaganda at work given that Breckinridge's sons were enlisted while Lincoln's son wasn't.
There was actually quite a bit of sabre-ratting against Spain. Now that slavery had been abolished many Americans who were reluctant to support imperialism in the ante-bellum came to fully support it. Many also saw it as a way to unite the sections. Grant's trusted friend, Rawlings, was actually one of the greatest advocates of war for Cuba, and if not for his untimely death he may have become a key figure in the Grant administration.
I don't know if improved is quite the right but I think it would have drastically different history if it became an American territory for one it wouldn't be under French debt obligations and may even get funding from the federal goverment but it would be under the American system of expansion which would be different then our timeline but it would not be a bucket of sunshine for them, hell they may not even become a us state and end up like Peurto Rico or the Philippians
edit: I posted this before I read your post on being done the debate, I will delete if you want me to, sorry.
That's alright, I'm not a mod to ask anyone to delete comments nor do I want to stifle conversation. I just wanted to make my positions clear and enunciate how imperialism would be depicted here. It's more of an emotional problem for me, really, because I find it odious to talk of some imperialism as better, but it's true that this American imperialism may be softer and less worse than IOTL.
Hello,
Maybe after a decade of the start of Reconstruction, would there be places where black exclusion does not appear, as opposed to OTL? Also, would groups start to appear sooner to promote the uplift of black society from education and arts to technology and industrialization?
The way in which this story has developed, it would appear that the rise of more prominent blacks would occur starting with Reconstruction. We could see inventors, writers, artists, musicians, etc rise to prominence more than in OTL. There is even a possibility of a few black millionaires appearing by the turn of the century. Also, would blacks be interested in reconnecting to their continental African cultures and history by the end of the 19th century?
The greatest problem with this is that Black people often segregated willingly. After years of identifying Whites as their oppressors, they preferred Black schools, Black churches, Black teachers and politicians, Black communities, over mixed ones. They only wanted public services, such as streetcars and legislatures, to be integrated - for their personal and community lives they vastly preferred separation from Whites. Some integration did happen in urban centers, and as the South industrializes we'll probably see much better integration, including the rise of a Black upper class and intelligentsia. I can see this group, however, trying to consciously separate themselves from anything African and instead insisting that they are fully Euro-American in all senses except skin color. After all, IOTL many Black prosperous men insisted they were nothing like the poor and stupid Black lower classes.
Hmm, what abou
Is a British protectorate possibly in the cards? That was the runner-up to American influence in Hawaii historically, although the big issue with that is obviously all the American settlers.
I also wonder if you might swing a “native treaty” with the Kingdom where America annexes the islands but establishes the sovereignty of the native nation, like the reservations of OTL but on a much grander scale. Obviously the borders of the native nation/non-native lands would be an issue.
I think a quite interesting conflict would be a greater rivalry between the US and the UK. We'll see.
Truthfully, if the Hawaiian king Kamehameha IV had lived longer, more resourceful relations with Britain might have been established. His wife, Queen Emma, was the popular contender for the throne when Lunalilo died, and Kamehameha's pro-British views were well known. If there's a way for the dynasty to survive (including his son) then its possible that Hawaii ends up more in the British camp as a protectorate rather than a potential annexation of the US.
That or some event or other causes Britain to decide to look into leasing Pearl Harbor as a coaling station, but not threatening to annex the island. Even the subtle threat of conflict might cause the coup plotters to not risk it.
Thanks for the info. I think it'd be an interesting idea, and wouldn't it be nice to have canny Native peoples outsmarting and playing divide and conquer tactics on the colonizers for once?
If I gave off that impression then I apologize as that was not my intent. I, myself, have family in the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina so I understand the aversion to imperialism entirely. My statement was more rooted in trying to see from the lens of the social mores of that time in how TTL’s USA would try to justify any imperialistic acts if that was ultimately the direction they go down.
There's no need to apologize! I did not mean it as a reproach, just wanted to make my own views clear.
Considering how there would be a more brutal insurgency than OTL and the junta is said to be people who would be “fleeing on the first steamer”, we could have the Confederate bushwhackers here, to make Reconstruction even more of a mess, nominally pledge allegiance to some sort of Confederate government-in-exile.
I'll consider it.
I believe black exclusion will still happen despite the lack of Jim Crow or a strong KKK, mainly due to blacks distrusting whites within their spaces due to lingering white supremacy and prejudice, preferring to go out on their own and build their own businesses and economy elsewhere. It's going to take time before both blacks and whites start to naturally integrate within their local towns or cities, especially in the South.
In fact, it's within those black-led economies where we see Black Americans become educated and wealthy members of societies like with Black Wall Street in Tulsa before they were disrupted or destroyed by whites. If there were protections against that kind of political violence at a state or federal level, no doubt we would see black society be allowed to progress faster than OTL.
As for a movement to reconnect with African culture, it's possible, but I highly doubt it will be a unified movement in of itself, rather an aspect of Black culture that emerges among the intelligentsia and can vary widely among different groups of people.
Exactly.
It would be nice to see Booker T Washington making a speech around the same time as OTL but where he urges blacks to ignore the anxiety they have because after a few decades there is much more opportunity than there was when they were growing up or in some cases when they were fighting for their freedom in the 1860s.
In fact,
@Red_Galiray , if you feel too burned out after part 2 that would make a fabulous close/epilogue for the series.
Hm that's a good idea. The Atlanta Compromise Booker presented IOTL was actually something of a sad affair for it was basically a surrender. A version that's instead a triumphal vindication would be nice.
I do think that Lincoln would probably retire and travel the world at some point; maybe he could meet Tsar Alexander II and Bismarck in person; both of them actually admired Lincoln despite being autocrats, largely because he was trying to force reform (in Alexander's case) or unify a nation (in Bismarck's place).
Perhaps he could do it after his presidency as sort of an informal embassy while en-route to Jerusalem...
He did say that he wanted to go to the Holy Land iirc
Of course. I do wish to write anecdotes about that.
Even in his retirement, that may be too much. Having a legitimate former leader visit would be too legitimizing for the powers that be to allow it.
There seemed to be no issue when Grant visited. In fact he was feted everywhere, and even asked to arbiter a dispute between China and Japan.
Britain will only step in America's way in Hawaii as a second-order consequence of some other foreign policy issue; if a Venezuelan or Samoan crisis cropped up at the same time as an attempted coup d'etat in Hawaii for example. Even then, just as in Samoa, Britain will want to back out of the islands (though it's possible that the process is marginally complicated by having to find some face-saving concession it can throw to the Australasian colonies, who had a substantial lobby for British rule over all Pacific Islands including Hawaii.)
I could see British influence as being the route which turns Hawaii into a nominal protectorate rather than a US territory- if the British are looking for a way to gracefully exit, being able to claim that they have 'saved' the independence of the islands while at the same time recognising that the Americans have a right to appoint a chief advisor to the monarch, to buy land, to settle workers, open missions et cetera...
It's a thin hope, but if you want to save the Kingdom you should look to the New Hebrides Condominium, the Tongan Protectorate, or the three-party negotiations over Samoa to see models of diplomatic manoeuvrings in the Pacific.
Thanks for the info.
Having many of these around the southern states would certainly help boost the Black Americans' situation, particularly if they are able to form some sort of network to prop each other up (and if they can tell the racist rednecks "up yours", all the better).
They did that a lot IOTL. Charity organizations, churches, political parties, schools, and Union League clubs were cornerstones of the Black community during Reconstruction. They were tightly interwoven networks that helped them defend themselves, help each other, and build up their communities. Unfortunately they were also rather vulnerable, because due to the nature of the Black communities a leader could occupy multiple posts - a pastor would be a leader not only in Church, but in politics, community affairs, education, etc. So terroristic campaigns of violence would deal terrible blows by taking out a single leader. These networks were never fully destroyed, however, even if their capacity for action was heavily curtailed. That's why the Black churches played and still play such an important role in African American communities - there's a reason many leaders of the Civil Rights Movement were Reverents.
If Mexico is stronger and has more economic weight that may influence Hawaii as well, especially if the Second Empire turns out better than OTL...
Oh, I still don't know what to with the Second Empire...
