EC/FC Parts 16-20

 Part 16: The New Nation​

So, the Commonwealth of America was now a semi-independent nation, using the Plan of Union as the basis. The American Parliament, based out of Albany, New York, had a President-General that was appointed and supported by the Crown. The Parliament was comprised of Delegates appointed by the Assemblies of each of the Thirteen Colonies (that number was soon to expand), roughly proportional to the Colony’s population, although with a cap to make sure that things didn’t get out of hand. The American Parliament would have a veto on taxation and tariffs passed in the British Parliament, and would have to approve of any taxation or tariffs on America. At the time of the Commonwealth’s autonomy, Albany was a town of about 4,500 people (larger than IOTL) and had been a center of colonial politics for some time by 1776, and the Albanians (not to be confused with the country in Southeastern Europe) were thrilled to become the new Capital. Initially, the Parliament met in a smaller structure, with plans for both an expansive Parliament Building and a luxurious Château for the President-General in the books.

Speaking of the President-General, the first P.G. was none other than Benjamin Franklin, who had spend much of his time in London, and was one of the most accomplished men of his time, while notable Delegates included Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts and Robert Anderson of Laurentia (an fictional figure from this TL that I will do a post on). Early issues in the country included the balance of power between the National Parliament and Local Assemblies, Taxes/Tariffs and, of course, Slavery (slavery will be abolished earlier ITTL unless the British conquer the Mississippi River Valley from the French).

An issue that wasn’t controversial, though, was expansion. Pretty much everyone in the American Parliament was for expansion westward into unsettled territories, with Virginians and Pennsylvanians wanting to expand into the Ohio River Valley, while New Englanders and Laurentians wanting to expand into the Great Lakes region. However, the crown demanded that land deals be made with the Natives before settlers arrive, with deals being made with tribes around the Great Lakes. Soon, Anglo-American settlers were crossing the Appalachians and moving down the Saint Lawrence and Odawa Rivers by the tens of thousands, establishing towns such as Belleville, Ochaway, Portage and Erie. The numbers of Anglos moving westward were supplemented by immigrants from Europe, whom at this point were primarily British, but were also joined by some Germans and Irishmen. The new Commonwealth also worked on infrastructure, building the Hudson Road from Mount Royal to New York City, passing through Albany, as well as planning a new Canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson River. The population of British America by 1800 had reached over 3 Million, and was growing rapidly with a high birth rate and increasing immigration from the Old World, and it this point it seems as though the potential of the American Commonwealth is boundless...

Part 17: Sunshine State and Golden State​

During the difficult times of the 1770s and 1780s in France, migration to La Floride surged, with the largest amount arriving in the Late 1780s. While a large amount went to the Atlantic Colonies, expansion in peripheral territories like the Gulf Coast and the Mississippi were encouraged, with French reach in those areas expanding after the seven years war. Expansion to the Baie de Tampa was finally undertaken, with the colony of Havre D’Esprit being founded in the 1770s. The Gulf Coast itself already had a decent amount of French settlement, but further inland, with the exception of some forts, it was still more Indigenous.

French settlement along in La Louisiane was mainly centered along the Lower Mississippi River (mainly for plantations), Riviѐre Rouge (more small-scale farms) and the Coastal Plain, with major centers of settlement being Post du Rapides, Opelousas, Petit Manchac and Calcasieu, with civilian settlement going as far as Rondinville and Pinѐde. Other areas saw settlement as well, such as the region between Saint-Esprit (the Fort part of the name had been dropped by then) and Fort Toulouse, with the towns of Dubreil and Bienville being the main two settlements between the two aforementioned locales. Expansion east of the mountains occured as well, but I’ll get to that in another post.

Of course, French military installations and trading posts either existed or were set up far beyond there, with outposts existing far up the Acansa and Pekitanoui Rivers, as well as other rivers west of the Mississippi Basin. This was useful both to trade with and evangelize to the Natives, solidify French influence against the Spanish and British, and for exploring the North American continent. Notable examples of this was Saint-Louis, located at the confluence of the Pekitanoui and Mississippi rivers and Fort Padoucas at the confluence of the Caquinampo and Ohio rivers. Once again, this is something for another post, as I’ve got other things to get to now…

On the other side of North America lies the mysterious land of California. While California had been known of since the Mid 16th Century, it remained untouched by European powers up until the Mid-Late 18th Century, when the Spanish began to found Missions in California. Starting with the Mission San Diego de Alcalá, the Spaniards established missions along the California coast as far north as San Francisco de Asis, totaling 18 Missions in California by the close of the 18th Century. The primary motivations of the Missions were to convert the Natives to Christianity and to integrate them into Spanish culture. The missions had… mixed results. On the one hand, the Missions provided education and health services to the natives, but on the other hand, often used cruel treatment and coerced labor. Regardless of what one thinks of the Spanish Missions in California, this was the beginning of the settlement of California, as over time more settlers, whether they be Peninsulares, Criollos or Mestizos would move to California, and over time the area would become more Hispanicized. California was not the only region of New Spain that would see increased settlement, though, as Hispanic settlers established more missions and settlements in New Mexico and across the Rio Bravo, the mission of San Antonio de Valero being an example. While Europeans, whether they be Spanish, French or British continued to expand across North America, new lands Down Under were coming onto their radar...

Part 18: Land Down Under​

From ancient times, there had been a speculation that there was a Terra Australis, a great Land Down Under. These legends took off again once the Age of Exploration began, and numerous countries got involved in searching for this fabled land over the centuries. The first Europeans confirmed to discover Australia was the Dutch explorer Willem Janszoon in 1606, quickly followed by Spaniard Luis Vaez de Torres, although they didn’t know about each other’s expeditions. Numerous Dutch trading vessels washed up on the (rather useless) West Coast of Terra Australis over the years, using a route following the trade winds of the Roaring 40s, mapping the western half of the mysterious continent, as well as an island discovered by Abel Tasman.

It was in the Mid-Late 18th Century that exploration of Terra Australis really began to take off, with the British and French competing over the exploration of this land. Of particular note was British Admiral James Cook’s 1770 exploration of the Eastern Coast of Terra Australis, being the first European to explore this part of the continent. His second exploration a few years later confirmed that there was no land further south of Terra Australis, at least land of any use. With the Commonwealth of America being unwilling to take in British convicts, the Brits figured that Terra Australis would be a good place to send some undesirables…

On the Thirteenth of May, 1787, 11 Ships carrying over 1,000 people departed from the English town of Portsmouth for a land where women glow and men plunder. After over eight months at sea, the British convict fleet finally arrived in the land where beer does flow and men chunder. While their original landing sight of Botany Bay had gotten good reviews from James Cook, it turned out to not be quite so swell, so the colony relocated soon thereafter relocated a few miles up the coast to Port Jackson. However, even with the relocation to a better location, the colony still struggled, and almost starved on more than one occasion. However, even in this alien land, the colony got off the ground, and only five years after the first convicts arrived, the first free settlers arrived in New South Wales.

The British would be alone in colonizing Terra Australis for several decades, expanding along the Southeastern Coast of the Continent. However, by the 1820s, other European Nations would begin to take interest in colonizing this mysterious land on the other side of the world.

Part 19: Vive La Révolution ou Vive Le Roi?​

France in the Late 18th Century was… a mess. The ftax structure exempted the Nobility and Clergy (although the Clergy exemption mainly benefitted those at the top of the Church hierarchy, who often times also happened to be Nobles), thus putting the tax burden on the peasants and growing urban middle class. The government had racked up a lot of debt from the Seven Years War that hadn’t been paid off yet, and the government was unable to raise taxes to reduce the debt. While France was already in need of reform, the calls became increasingly visible as Enlightenment views became more widespread among the upper class (contrary to popular misconception, Louis XVI was not opposed to Enlightenment reforms, he just wasn’t able or competent enough to push them through). However, the biggest cause of instability in France during the 1770s and 80s were the food shortages that struck on multiple occasions during these two decades, due to both natural causes (such as a volcanic eruption in 1783 causing a strong El Nino, and thus failed harvests in 1788 and 1789) and a botched attempt at deregulation of the grain market, leading to the Flour War of 1775.

Just a quick note, due to the American Revolution being butterflied and France having a profitable cash crop colony in La Floride, the French economy is not as bad ITTL as it was IOTL.

At the very end of the 1780s, the Estates General convened. Now, I don’t know the specifics of how this’d be done, but let’s say some reforms are made to stabilize the economy and make the social classes as equal as you could reasonably achieve in 1790s France. The conditions in France steadily improve throughout the last decade of the 18th Century, or at least until Europe’s next major war breaks out at the turn of the Century, but more on that in another update.

Anyway, let’s get to France’s colonies overseas. Inspired by the Spanish mission system, France established their own missions across the colonies to tribes that hadn’t been converted. Some notable examples of French missions included Saint-Denis de Chisafocque, Mission Saint-Dominique and Saint-Thérѐse de Quainco, among others established throughout French-claimed territory. Meanwhile, as mentioned in a previous post, the 1770s and 80s were a time of massive emigration from France to La Floride, with almost 10,000 emigrating in the 1770s and almost 25,000 in the 1780s, with 11,000 arriving in 1789 alone. About 2/3rds of these emigres settled in the old colonies along the Atlantic, while 1/3rd ventured further and settled either on the Gulf Coast or in Louisiana. The white population had grown to 305,000 by 1780 and 435,000 by 1790, a massive increase over the course of just two decade, with a black population of 260,000, most of whom were enslaved. The black population varied significantly between different parts of the colony, with the Haut-Pays being over 80% white, while the Coastal Lowlands of Armandie and the Mississippi River Delta being majority black. Keep in mind that this is quite oversimplified, as under the general umbrella of “black” were included the Gens de Couleur, of mixed African and European descent, and who formed a middle caste between full-blooded blacks and full-blooded whites, while the “white” category included many with either distant African ancestry or more recent Indigenous ancestry (Métis).

Back to Europe now. Even without a French Revolution, Europe was still due for another war, which would break out around the turn of the century, so I’ll get to that in a future post.

Part 20: 1800​

Here we are, the Year of Our Lord 1800. To begin, I’ll go over the situation in the Commonwealth of America. The Commonwealth of America has a total population of 5,575,000, with the most populous province being Laurentia at 960,000 and the most populous city is New York at 60,000, with Kirkeston in second place at 52,000. In addition, areas west of the Appalachians and along Lake Ontario were being settled rapidly, as good land in the older colonies was running out. The most prominent settlements developed around existing British forts and trading posts that I’ve already mentioned in this TL, and with deals being struck with the natives, settlers poured into the new territories, with land agents advertising large plots of fertile land. The leader of the American Parliament was now John Adams, while other prominent politicians in the Commonwealth included Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton.

Now, let’s go south of the Roanoke River to La Floride. By 1800, the population of La Floride had grown to around 915,000, of which around 300,000 were enslaved Africans. Of the 585,000 Floridians of primarily European origin (many had significant Indigenous ancestry, sometimes up to ¼), about 40% of them lived in the Region of Neusequia, which had a ¾ White population. This area had developed largely around small-scale farming and the lumber industry, not the plantation cash-crop agriculture that dominated areas further south. Speaking of those areas further south, the Region of Armandia, which was majority African. The swamps and marshlands were the perfect location for massive rice and indigo plantations, worked by many African slaves (no need into getting how shitty the conditions were, we all know already that it’d suck), with a White overclass on top. There was a significant community of Multiracials, who numbered at least 20,000 and formed a middle caste between the Black slaves and White slave owners. The other major slave colony was the Mississippi River Delta, which had effectively replaced Martinique and Guadeloupe as a sugar growing area (although still paling in comparison to the money bucket that was Saint-Domingue, aka hell on earth for the 90% of the population that was enslaved there). The Haut-Pays were beginning to be settled by pioneers looking for land, and thus were majority European.

Anyway, let’s go across the pond to Europe, and see how things are shaping up over there…

In Europe, a new major war had broken out. Tensions between Prussia and Austria over control of the region of Silesia had been building for years, and in 1796, the Austro-Prussian War broke out. The Ottoman Empire allied itself with Prussia, while Russia allied itself with Austria, and soon Europe had a new Continent-wide conflict on its hands. Now, I’ll post a Strawpoll that will let you vote on who wins the war, which is something I’ll do with a lot of wars FTR, and my next update will be on this war.

ECFC Parts 11-15

 Part 11: Early 18th Century​

With the War of Spanish Succession over, we now resume peacetime in the Early 18th Century. By the war’s end in 1715, the population of the Colony of Canada had grown to 81,550 with settlement dipping slightly due to the war, but the birth rate remaining high as ever. Settlers continued to spread out around the Saint Lawrence River Valley, migrating up the Williams River towards Lake Pibago, founding the town of Falton at a set of rapids along the river. Falton grew quickly, due to it’s strategic location at the furthest navigable location upstream along the Williams River, while also being near Mount Royal. Other towns founded during the Early 18th century included Rockford, Arabasca, Shecootimee and Moose Point. The fur trade on the frontier was the main source of wealth for the Canada colony, with fur traders, mainly of Gaelic origin, exploring as far as the confluence of the Red and Asiniboyan rivers. The other prevalent economic sectors of Colonial Canada were agriculture (wheat, barley, corn etc.), forestry and shipbuilding, with the shipyards of Kirkeston being among the largest in the British Empire.

Meanwhile, in La Floride, the French population grew to just under 38,000 by the end of Queen Anne’s War, with a major colonial push occuring after the war. Between 1715 and 1730, over 5,000 Frenchmen settled in La Floride, the largest amount settling to farm on the frontier, as well as the largest settlement push in the history of the colony up to that point, as the colonial authorities began to encourage more immigration after Queen Anne’s War. This was in part to increase defenses against the English and lessen the population disparity, but a more cynical motivation: to keep the slave population a minority. Nonetheless, after the main settlement boom, immigration still remained in the hundreds per year. Settlers came from not just French-speaking regions, but also from French-controlled Alsace and the French Basque Country. With this increase in settlement, the White population of La Floride increased to 85,000 by 1740.

Part 12: Man, I Really Suck At Coming Up With Titles​

By the Year of Our Lord 1740, it has been a quarter century since the end of Queen Anne’s War, and tensions between the British and the French in North America are building up again. The British continue to gain influence throughout the Great Lakes and Ohio River Valley, while the French expand along the Gulf Coast and the Lower Mississippi Basin. Settlers continue to pour down the Saint Lawrence and Kichisipi Rivers, including a significant amount of German and Scottish settlers, with towns such as Pine Falls and Petawawa being established by. Speaking of Scotland, the colony of Nova Scotia has spread far enough to come into contact with the New England colony to the South, with the border being set along the Penobscot River. The Scots expanded onto the nearby island of Epegwed, with the two main settlements on the island being St. Andrews and Annestown. There were also settlements along the Saint John’s River such as Welamuco and along the coast such as Machias and Conasamuc.

The Scots also expanded along the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to New Inverness and Nipisigy. By 1740, the Nova Scotian population had expanded to just under 130,000, with the largest city being Saint John at 6,700 inhabitants. Canada’s population in 1740 was just above 170,000, with Kirkeston being the largest city in North America with 12,500 residents.

Part 12.5: La Louisiane​

Now, to La Floride. As mentioned in the previous update, France continued to expand its influence and reach along the Gulf of Mexico and Lower Mississippi valley, establishing the colonies of Zarazote, Fort Crevecoeur, Fort Saint-Pierre, Fort Sabine, Port Saint-Hyacinthe and Port Des Bras. While there’d been a brief attempt to settle the Lower Mississippi between La Nouvelle-Orléans and Bâton Rouge in the Late 1710s, the company that had organized the colonization went broke in 1721, and The Mississippi was put on the backburner. In the 1740s and 50s, though, the Mississippi was back in the spotlight, as between 1740 and 1755, thousands of settlers went La Louisiane (as well as several thousand African slaves... what you thought I was just gonna gloss over the dark side of history). While the plantation economy of Louisiane paled in comparison to the French money bucket of Saint-Domingue, many still got rich off of plantations in the Mississippi valley (and many, many more unfortunate souls were enslaved doing so). Despite that, most settlers in La Louisiane were simple farmers growing crops for their family (and many died of disease early on, as with colonists in La Floride a century prior).

Speaking of La Floride, there was a military conflict between the British and French from 1744-48, with the results being inconclusive. Nearly a thousand Floridians died in the war, mainly in the border regions near British Virginia, while immigration during the war slowed down significantly. After the war was over, immigration to the New World resumed, with the White population of the French North American colonies growing to slightly under 134,000 by 1755. By 1755, however, a new conflict was brewing between the Great Powers of Europe, and this conflict was sure to erupt in North America as well...

Part 13: Seven Years War​

Note: This post on this alternate Seven Years War will focus mainly on North America, as butterflies have not hit Europe to a significant enough extent to change the war over there. Anyway, here’s to the update.

After the War of Austrian Succession in Europe, European politics and diplomacy underwent a huge reversal. France and Austria, traditionally rivals, entered an alliance, while Britain and Prussia did the same. However, this TL is not primarily European-focused, and the war’s result in Europe was quite similar to OTL, so let’s get back to North America.

Both the British and the French had their own advantages in the North American theater of the war. On the one hand, the Brits had a vast, vast population advantage of 10:1, but the French on the other hand had more native allies and had held off the British in other colonial conflicts.

There were two main fronts in the North American Theater of the Seven Years War: The Coastal and Frontier Theaters. The Coastal Theatre was fought East of the Appalachians, while the Frontier theatre was fought west of the mountains.

In the coastal theatre, the British militias had a numerical advantage, and the British Royal Navy was superior to the French Navy, so the British made advances on the coastal plains, both with victories on the land as well as the Royal Navy bombarding coastal settlements into surrender, culminating with the capture of the capital of La Floride, Ville-Marie in 1758.

On the frontier, though, it was a more even fight. Here, the British did not have the vast numerical advantage that they did in settled areas, and the French had more native allies, notably the Salaguis and Mascoquis. The British militia made an offensive down through the Great Valley/Grande Vallée, capturing the French trading post of Mûreposte along the way, towards the French fort and outpost of Rocheville. However, the militia was held back by a combined force of Frenchmen and Natives. An attempted British invasion of the Mouth of the Mississippi also failed, so the scores were rather close to even in this game of war.

During the peace negotiations, the British offered to let the French keep the Atlantic coast, while giving the Brits the Mississippi Valley (even though the British seized the Atlantic Coast, while they failed to take the Mississippi Valley during the war). However, the French for some reason decided to cede the incredibly profitable Caribbean Sugar Islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique to the British, who had taken it during the war, in exchange for keeping both the Atlantic Coast and Mississippi Valley (yes, this wouldn’t have happened in reality, but it’s my TL and I want a large French North America ITTL), while also keeping the even more profitable sugar colony of Saint-Domingue. 

Part 14: The Flames of Rebellion​

It’s now the end of the Seven Years War, and discontent was brewing in the British American colonies. The American colonies up to this point had been mainly autonomous, so the Crown introducing taxes on the colonists (even if it was to pay back debts from the Seven Years War) was quite upsetting. In order to maintain good relations with the natives, the British Government put restrictions on settlement west of the Appalachians (or west of the headwaters of the St. Lawrence at Lake Ontario in the case of Canada), which also stirred up discontent among the American colonists. With the population of British America soaring from 325,000 in 1700 to 1.29 Million in 1750, and continuing to soar due to a high birth rate and large waves of immigration, land east of the Appalachians and along the St. Lawrence was filling up fast, and with the Great Lakes and Ohio River Valley beckoning, it was only inevitable that Anglo-Americans would spread across the mountains, whether the Crown approved of it or not.


Meanwhile, south of the Roanoke/Roanoque River, the non-Indigenous population of French Florida was about 230,000, of which around 40% were Afro-Floridians. Despite my mentioning of frontier settlements, most of the non-Indigenous population lived in the coastal lowlands. Most of the 133,000 Europeans in La Floride or Louisiana as of 1750 had origins in Northern and Western France, with smaller amounts having Other French, Basque, German, Irish or Indigenous ancestry. At the end of the Seven Years War in 1763, the European population of La Floride et La Louisiane had grown to just more than 160,000, 1/9th that of the English colonies to the North. After the war, King Louis XV, with his foreign minister Étienne François, duc de Choiseul recruited tens of thousands of new settlers to La Floride, with promises of land and a new start (IOTL the settlers were sent to Guiana, where most of them starved or caught malaria, and while disease is present in the South, it is nowhere near what it is in the Amazon Jungle). It worked, as between 1764 and 1770, around 20,000 settlers arrived in La Floride, barely offset by a minor disease outbreak. Most of the new arrivals became farmers, while others went into forestry, craftsmanship, construction or fishing. New settlers established towns and villages, as well as contributing to the growth of existing inland towns like Saint-Denis, Boischeville and Hocquart. Thousands of settlers also went to La Louisiane, further solidifying French control of the Mouth of the Mississippi.

Anyway, back to British America. By 1760, Kirkeston had grown to 17,500 inhabitants, the third most populous in North America, after Philadelphia and New York. Kirkeston was a thriving port city, exporting grain, furs, fish and timber. Most important to the city was it’s shipbuilding industry, as the docks of Kirkeston had become the Royal Navy’s unofficial shipbuilding base. Further up the Saint Lawrence, Mount Royal had also grown to population of 7,150, making it one of the ten largest cities in the British American colonies. Mount Royal was the base of the Great Lakes fur trade, and thus furs were the mainstay of Mount Royal’s economy in the Mid 18th Century. Otherwise, Canada was mainly a colony of small scale yeoman farmers inhabiting either homesteads or small villages surrounded by trees of green and fields of gold.

As for Nova Scotia, Saint John was the largest city in the colony in 1760, with a population of 6,300, with the port town of Halifax (same city as OTL) the second largest at 3,500. Along the coast were scattered numerous small fishing villages, many of them inhabited only seasonally, and many were venturing further inland to find land. Contrary to one of my earlier posts ITTL, the land in Nova Scotia was/is heavily forested, and thus not good for raising sheep or cattle, but limited ranching did take place in less forested areas. Wheat was the main crop grown by farmers in Nova Scotia, and as implied by the text above, forestry and fishing were the other main economic sectors.

Anyway, I have a poll between a Successful American Revolution and Greater Autonomy Within The British Empire, so go and vote on that if you haven’t already (poll closing within a few days of this post), and have a good day.

Part 15: The Deal​

As mentioned in the last update, there was increasing discontent with the status quo in the Thirteen British American colonies. The imposition of taxes on the Colonies without any representation in Parliament did not make the Colonists happy to say the least, nor did the restrictions on settlement west of the Appalachians.

However, most American Colonists still viewed themselves as loyal subjects of the Crown, and with the French to the south, they still wanted to be under British protection. A plan had already been drafted a decade earlier detailing a separate American government that still had influence from the Crown. A delegation from the American Colonies, lead by one Benjamin Franklin was sent to the crown, making the case for America autonomy. One of the points made was that the Colonial population was growing at a much faster rate than in the Motherland, and that American separation from the British Isles was inevitable, so why not make it peaceful and keep American ties to the Crown intact?

The King somewhat reluctantly approved, and the American Commonwealth Act was approved, ratified on July 4th, 1776 (yes, that was absolutely intentional), giving the Americans their own parliament based out of Albany (which would act in tandem with the British Parliament based in London), with a President-General appointed by the Crown and the delegates to be appointed by colonial legislatures. This would give the colonies more control over their issues, notably taxation. The Colonies would still cooperate with the Homeland militarily and economically, notably against the French if need be.

As for the settlement restrictions, those were for the most part lifted, but immunity from settlement was given to tribes like the Five Nations in parts of Upper New York and tribes could request land to be off limits to settlers.

Thus, the Commonwealth of America was formed, a collection of 13 British Colonies, from Virginia in the South to Newfoundland in the North.