We now return to Patagonia, the upstart British colony at the Southern end of South America. By 1845, only about 5,000 settlers lived in Patagonia, most of them clustered around Williamstown. The other British settlements I mentioned in my previous Patagonia update are just small fishing outposts, albeit with permanent residents. Ships coming from Britain would arrive with supplies and settlers every month or two, keeping the colony afloat while parties kept exploring up the Clear River for arable land. After hundreds of miles (and what must’ve felt like 40 years) wandering across the desert, the Andes were finally reached. The climate pretty abruptly went from bone-dry to soaking wet (an extreme rain shadow), and the terrain from rolling steppe to soaring, snow-capped peaks, but in that transitional zone lay fertile, pleasant valleys. While this area wouldn’t be settled immediately, it would be on the mind of the colonial authorities for the future.
In the meantime, there was a much more pressing matter at hand: famine. Not in Patagonia, even with the limited farmland, there was still more than enough to go around with such a small population, but in Ireland. I’ve already talked about the Irish Potato Famine (which still occurs ITTL, just pushed back by a few years) in a previous update, so no need to go into the details here, but I didn’t go into the effects it had on Patagonia because I planned to talk about it in a future update, and that time is now.
The Patagonia Company figured that this was a prime opportunity to attract a large amount of settlers fleeing the famine, so soon after the famine began in 1848, the company began recruiting across the Emerald Isle. Between 1849 and 1853, about 12,000 Irish (about 6,500 Catholics and 5,500 Protestants) settled in Patagonia, as well as 8,000 others, many of them Scots fleeing a similar famine in the Highlands. The population soared from 5,000 in 1845 to 35,200 in 1855, a more than seven fold increase. Seeing the increasingly Celtic character of Patagonia as a positive, a Welsh colony was founded in the Early 1860s, being given land in a newly discovered valley, with the primary Welsh settlement being Jonesville, named for the visionary behind the Welsh colony. Irrigation from two nearby lakes provided the water needed for agriculture in this arid landscape, and soon the Welsh valley was the breadbasket of Patagonia.
By 1870, the population had grown to 87,000, due to consistent immigration from the motherland and a high birth rate, typical of settler colonies. The following decades in Patagonia would see a major change in the colony, but that is a story for another time, farewell from The Land at the End of the World.
While overshadowed by the massive empires that the British, Spanish, French, Dutch and Portuguese possessed, Denmark had its own small colonial empire. Denmark had colonies in the Caribbean and West Africa for centuries, but when compared to the other colonial powers, though, the Danish empire were pathetic.
In order to boost Danish prestige, King Christian VIII ordered the creation of a new Danish colony. Locations such as Patagonia and Northern Australia were initially considered, but rejected due to Patagonia already being a British colony and Northern Australia having an unhealthy climate. Finally, in 1837, a location for the colony was determined…
Sailors that had been in the South Pacific noted that the islands the Dutch had called Nieuw Zeeland (a name that also works perfectly in Danish) were a suitable place for a colony, with a pleasant temperate climate and fertile soil. While the islands did have inhabitants, they were quite sparsely populated and divided amongst themselves into different tribes.
Thus, on October 4th, 1838, the colonial fleet carrying supplies, seeds for crops, livestock and several hundred Danish settlers departed from Copenhagen, bound for the south seas. Lutheran missionaries already present in New Zealand negotiated a deal with the local Maori chiefs for a plot of land around a key strategic isthmus, which was to be the site of the first colony. Finally, the fleet arrived in New Zealand on February 19th, 1839, over four months since they had departed from Denmark.
The settlement, named Frederiksby after their king (who would die later that same year) prospered in the mild, pleasant climate and fertile soil. News of the colony’s success soon reached the mother country, and the new king Christian VIII sanctioned several more settlements on the North Island. By 1845, the Danes had founded many new settlements across the North Island, the most notable of which were Tarashavn, Brasebugt, Strandbjerg and Storhavn.
However, the news of the success of the Danish colony did not stay exclusively in Denmark, as the news soon reached the government of Denmark’s age-old frenemies in Sweden. The Swedish king Gustav I was quite intrigued by the news, and thus began to prepare a fleet to colonize the South Island of New Zealand. Departing in April of 1841, the Swedish fleet reached the South Island in August, and the Swedish settlement of Gustavstad was Founded on August 24th, 1841.
Danish whalers discovered the Swedish colony a few months later, bringing the news back to the colony’s base at Frederiksby, who’s response was basically “ah lort, just what we needed”. After some bickering and even the Danish colony’s leaders contemplating seizing the Swedish colony, the two colonial authorities met up and signed a treaty granting the North Island to Denmark and the South Island to Sweden.
With the security of the treaty, Sweden continued to strengthen its hold on the eastern coast of the South Island, founding settlements up and down the coast, the most prominent examples of which were Valbukta, Timaru, Nya Göteborg and Södrakullen. A small but steady stream of colonists made their home on the other side of the world, in this, The Improbable Colony.
The Viceroyalty of New Spain was a vast and diverse place, both geographically and in the people that inhabited the land. With the jungles and volcanoes of Guatemala in the south and the deserts and mountains of Alta California in the north, some form of internal administration was needed. There was already the existing system of Audiencias, but by the Mid 19th Century, it was time to update the system. So, New Spain was divided into four Governorates, those being California (based out of San Diego), Bravonia (Laredo), Mexico (Puebla) and Guatemala (Guatemala City), while still being part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain in Mexico City. Mexico was the most populated, Guatemala the most indigenous influenced and the other two were sparsely populated by indigenous tribes and the occasional Spanish mission and/or hacienda.
With this new division, the governor of Bravonia went about promoting settlement in the colony. Large land grants along the Rio Bravo were given out to families looking to settle in the new world. Many of these families came from the Canary Islands, which had been a large source of Spanish settlers to the new world for centuries, as the small, yet climatically diverse islands had quite a small carrying capacity. Many others came from Southern Spain, as well as from further south in New Spain. With it’s new status as the regional capital, Laredo grew from just a small outpost to a thriving city within just a few decades, not in small part due to the railroad. You know what, I think that deserves a full update, so let’s do that, shall we?
Beginning in the 1840s, the Spanish Empire realized the potential the railroad had in improving transport and communications within their New World empire. The first railway in New Spain was built from the Viceroyalty’s capital in Mexico City to the port city of Veracruz in 1844, with the second one built from Mexico City to the main Spanish Pacific port of Acapulco in 1846. The main reason to build railways was obviously economic, but the secondary reason of building railways, connecting the far-flung Spanish settlements to the rest of the Viceroyalty was the driving factor to build railroads into California, with the railroad arriving in San Diego in 1862. Bravonia saw it’s fair share of railroad construction as well, as the aforementioned Laredo was connected in 1857. I wish I could do some solid outro, but I really don’t know how to end this, so I’ll just call it a day right here. I’ll see you guys next time...
As the French in the Southeast of North America continued to expand westward from the Atlantic Coast and up the Mississippi River, it was clear that the French Viceroyalty of La Floride (the official name of the colony that I will be using until it ends up gaining independence in the 20th Century) needed a new capital city that was more central geographically than the existing capital of Richelieu, but also near the bases of power along the Atlantic Coast and Mississippi Delta. Being surrounded by a mosquito infested swamp, Richelieu was no place that a Viceroy would desire living, not to mention that the palace was nothing special.
So, the search for a new Colonial Capital was now underway. Sites that were considered included Rocheville, Chatougue and Grande Fontaine were considered for the capital, but they were ultimately turned down for one reason or another. However, not far from the existing Fort Toulouse, the site of the new capital was found…
The central stretch of the Rivière des Alibamons, known as the Plaine Noire had recently grown incredibly wealthy off of growing cotton to be used in textile mills in the Commonwealth of America and in Europe (grown and harvested off the backs of slaves, might I add, but that’s a subject for another time). When the Viceroyalty of La Floride declared that it was going to move the capital of the colony, this region quickly became one of the prime candidates, especially since it was near exactly halfway between the two largest cities of Richelieu and New Orleans. Towns in the area such as Bienville and Fort Toulouse were booming, so naturally both sent petitions to the government as to why they should become the new capital.
After the viceroy looked through the proposals, he decided that the capital would be located in the Plaine Noire, but not willing to pick either Fort Toulouse or Bienville just yet. However, the initial plans to choose an existing city soon changed, as a proposal to build an entirely new capital city in the Plaine arose.
The city, named Villeroyale, was to be located 10 miles south of Fort Toulouse near the existing town of Ecounchaty (incorporating Ecounchaty into the city). It was to be laid out in a simple grid pattern (I’ll do a mini-post on it) and would house the Viceroy’s residence, the Viceroyal Legislature and other governmental offices, as well as plans for other important things that a major city needs, such as a cathedral, train station, parks and a river port. The plans were for a population of 100-200,000 by 1900 (not unfeasible, considering that the population projections made by the Viceroyalty at the time were for a population of around 15 Million by 1900). Because the city would be located closer to Fort Toulouse than Bienville, Bienville received a new university, the Royal University of Bienville, as a consolation prize, which would be a boon to that town as well.
The Viceroyalty soon acquired about 100 square kilometers to build their new city upon, the grid was surveyed and laid out) and construction on the new home of the viceroyalty commenced in the spring of 1847, marked as the official founding of the city. The Viceroyal Château was completed in 1851, and the Viceroy officially relocated in 1852. By 1860, the city had a population of 8,000, growing further to 35,000 by 1870, with growth fueled by the Richelieu-New Orleans rail route that had a stop in the new capital. When Villeroyal was granted a Catholic diocese in 1866, construction began on the Cathedral of Villeroyal, which was completed in 1884. The Viceroyalty of La Floride now had a long-term home, with room to grow and places to go...
It’s now time to return to the Commonwealth of America, a rising power that was bound for global domination. From Newfoundland to New Westminster, the Thirteen Stripes now stretched from Sea to Shining Sea. With a rapidly growing population of 24 Million in 1850, British North America east of the Mississippi River and south of the Canadian Shield was either already heavily settled or well on it’s way to being so. However, that’s just one half of the continent, and in between the Mississippi and Pacific lie thousands of miles of wilderness. The British presence on the west coast of North America was steadily increasing, and there needed to be a better mode of transport to the West Coast than a wagon trail that took half a year to travel. Proposals emerged for a Transcontinental Railroad, which would be a grand engineering project the likes of which The Commonwealth had never seen.
The First Transcontinental Railroad in the Commonwealth of America broke ground in Omaha on the Fourth of April in the Year of Our Lord 1800 and 61. It basically followed the route of the old Oregon Trail, but on a much larger scale. By the end of 1862, the railroad had been constructed out to Miapate, over 400 miles from Omaha. However, building across the rolling plains was the easy part, as some more challenging terrain was now approaching. The railroad continued across the High Plains, traversing the South Pass before finally facing the Rocky Mountains.
The railroad chose to build in the Shawpatin River Gorge, since it provided a natural route through the mountains, but even that was incredibly difficult. Construction in the gorge commenced in the spring of 1865, and even with thousands of laborers, many of them Irish, construction almost ground to a halt, as it took until the fall of 1866 to traverse the 40 miles of the gorge.
Meanwhile, construction from the western terminus of Oregon City headed east began in 1864 (using many Chinese laborers, as IOTL), making its way to the Snake River Valley by 1867. Finally, on September 8th, 1867, the two lines met up in the newly-founded town of Twin Falls. After six years and much blood, sweat and tears, the first Transcontinental Railroad was completed. America now had a permanent link from coast to coast, and while there had already been significant American settlement on the West Coast, the amount of settlers making their way out west skyrocketed after the railroad was completed. More transcontinental lines were soon constructed, and cities on the west coast such as Tacoma burgeoned. The Royal Navy also had a new supply of timber coming from the massive, untapped forests of the Pacific Coast, and by the end of the 19th Century, the West Coast was a military and trade hub.
Of course, the effects of Westward Expansion on both the ecosystem and the indigenous inhabitants was far less rosy, but I plan to cover that in a future update, so stay tuned.
I’ve ignored this region for too long, so it is now time to pay a visit to the Indian Subcontinent. With a population as large as (and if not larger than) Europe and a size of almost 4.5 Million square kilometers, many different languages, cultures and religions, the peoples of the Indian Subcontinent cannot be reduced to some monolith.
While there had been the occasional European traveler who made his way to the subcontinent, European presence in India really began at the tail end of the 15th Century, when Portuguese sailor Vasco da Gama made his voyages to India, acquiring the port of Goa. Over the following centuries, the European colonial powers continued to acquire colonies and gain influence in the subcontinent, and with the collapse of the Mughal Empire, the colonizers were quick to fill the void.
To start, we’ll talk about the primary European power in India, the British. The British East India Company, based out of Calcutta, gradually expanded its reach from the mouth of the Ganges up the river, and by the Mid 19th Century pretty much all of Northern India was under British influence in some way. Now, not all of it was under direct British control, as a lot of British India was actually governed by local rulers, or Maharajas, while direct British rule was most prevalent at the mouth of the Ganges. A major revolt against British rule occured in 1857, leading to the East India Company’s control of the colony being stripped and handed to the Crown.
Now, we move south to the French-controlled areas of India. French India consisted of the East Coast south of the Mahanadi River (except for the Danish territory of Trankebar) and most of the Deccan Plateau, with the French rule being based out of Madras. Similar to British rule being concentrated along the Ganges, the French rule in India was most pronounced along the coast, as most of the interior was still ruled by Maharajas, the only French presence being the occasional diplomat, garrison or missionary.
Portugal had built it’s Indian colonies mainly along the west coast, as they had two separate areas under their control, one of them being the area around Diu, and the other being the southwestern coast of India including Goa and Cochin. The Dutch owned the island of Ceylon, while the Danish had both the small area around their aforementioned post of Trankebar, as well as the Frederiksøerne, which is actually closer to Southeast Asia than to India itself.
The effects of colonialism in India are… complicated. On the one hand, the colonizers often built important infrastructure and operated schools, but also extracted resources and ruled as an occupying foreign power. This is not a topic that I’m in any place to cover in depth, so I’ll just leave it at that for now. Now I’ve got to figure out what the heck to do with Europe, see ya next time.
After finishing the update on India, I forgot to talk about TTL’s Indian Diaspora, so I’m gonna talk about it here.
The British began using Indian laborers, known as coolies, on sugar plantations around the time that Slavery was abolished, with a sizeable Indian community developing in Trinidad, Guyana, Mauritius, Natal and Fiji, as well as giving the other European colonial powers the same idea. France soon thereafter began importing Indian coolies to Réunion and the Americas (including La Floride, but that’s a topic for another day). Portugal also used indentured servants from India, most notably in the Portuguese Australian colony that I will eventually get to (spoiler alert). I think that’s good for a mini-update, so I’ll see ya in Part 44.
Correction: It was the French that first used Indian Coolies IOTL, not the British.
The Portuguese Empire had been in decline for a good century or so by the Mid 19th Century. Once viewed as a European powerhouse, Portugal was now viewed as a backwater, overshadowed by its semi-independent dominion of Brazil, which was dozens of times larger than the motherland and had long surpassed it in terms of population. Portugal also still possessed the colonies of Angola, Moçambique, East Timor, Diu and Goa, but it was clear by this point that Portugal wasn’t the superpower that it’d once been. In order to boost Portuguese prestige, the crown began to search for a new colony.
The conclusion of the search was that the best place left to colonize would be the unclaimed northern part of Terra Australis. The colony of East Timor was nearby, and while most of northern Australia was utterly useless for agriculture, it was speculated based on the recent gold discoveries in the south that there’d be rich mineral resources. Thus, on the Fifteenth of June of the Year of Our Lord 1800 and 54, the first fleet of Portuguese Australia departed from Lisbon. Five and a half months and over 15,000 miles later, they arrived in Terra Australis, founding the city of Advento (named because they arrived at the beginning of Advent). The settlers constructed a fort on top of a local hill, built a pier for fishing and for arriving ships and, most importantly, they cleared land and planted sugar. Sugarcane had long been a ridiculously valuable cash crop, fueling the European colonial empires in the New World. The French colony of Saint-Domingue was the most profitable colony in the world, and other sugar colonies were not far behind, including Portuguese Brazil. There’s no need to get into the cruelty and inhumanity of the system of enslavement that made the sugar industry possible, at least at this moment, and it’s not relevant to this post, because the Portuguese decided not to use African slave labor in their Australian colony.
Just a year and a half after the colony’s founding, the first Indian coolies arrived in Advento, hired to work on the sugar plantations as indentured servants. Originating largely in the areas that were under Portuguese rule on the West Coast of India, the Indian coolies could basically be considered one or two pegs above African slaves, the only difference being that Indians worked for 5-10 years and had the option to return home. Other indentured servants came from China and Southeast Asia (the Philippines in particular). By 1870, the population of Portuguese Australia was 34,000, of which 18,000 were Indian, 8,000 Portuguese, 5,000 East Asians and 3,000 others, including the first mixed-race Mestiços. The colony quickly spread up and down the northeastern coast of Terra Australis, to the north there was Baía Trindade, and to the south was Necessidades. The British, being age-old allies of the Portuguese didn’t really mind Portuguese settlement north of them, and they quickly set a border at 23.5 Degrees South, or approximately the Tropic of Capricorn. Now having their border set at the Tropic, the Portuguese Colony adopted the name of Capricórnio (the Portuguese word for Capricorn) and got on their merry way.
Ahh Greece, the cradle of Western Civilization. Home to some of the West’s greatest philosophers, scientists, theologians and conquerors, Greece still held a large cultural influence on Europe and European-colonized regions over the millennia. However, despite its cultural clout, Greece at this point was merely a province of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, as it had been for the past four centuries. Greek Nationalism had been building up for the past century or so, and by the 1850s, there was widespread discontent across the Greek-speaking territories of the Ottoman Empire.
Now, the Ottoman Sultan Abdulmejid I was making attempts to reform and modernize the Empire, and there were indeed improvements towards the status of Christians in the Ottoman Empire. However, one minor problem with that was the increased centralization of the Empire, so despite the improvements, the Greeks felt as though they were losing their autonomy, and falling even more under the thumb of the Turk.
Thus, in the Spring of 1854, a revolt broke out in Thessaly against Ottoman Rule, quickly spreading around the Greek-speaking regions of the empire, before being promptly quashed. However, there was one small little problem for the Ottomans… RUSSIA. The Russian Empire was outraged by the oppression of their Orthodox brothers (even though, once again, things had improved for them, centralization aside, but whatever), and thus intervened on the side of the Greek Rebels, while also supporting Slavic nationalism in the Balkans. Thus, the Greek Revolution turned into the Greek Wars, beginning about a year later in the Spring of 1855.
The Russians, having a significantly larger army, were able to advance rather quickly along the Black Sea and into the Balkans, as well as fighting their way through the Caucasus. Just as the Russians and the Greeks were outside of the gates of Konstantiyye, the Ottomans sued for peace, considering that losing Constantinople would be a great humiliation, which was exactly the first thing the Russians and Greeks proposed in the peace treaty, to which the Ottomans responded “yeah, not a chance in hell”. Eventually, the Ottos and the Russians agreed upon giving the newly independent Greek Republic everything from the Peloponnese to Macedonia, as well as some of the Aegean islands. Thus, not only was Greece now a sovereign and independent country, but also served as an inspiration for other stateless ethnic groups across the continent to fight for their own independence. I really don’t know how to end this, so I’ll call it a day here.
With a rapidly growing population, surging immigration from the old world, rapidly expanding railroads and an expansionist mentality, the Commonwealth of America was quickly establishing hegemony over the plains in between the Mississippi and the Rockies. In 1864, the Dominion Land Act was overwhelmingly passed in the American Parliament, granting 150 acres of land to any American or European settler willing to live on and cultivate the land for at least five years (with that number later being expanded in areas less suitable for agriculture). Settlers, both American-born and European immigrants (mainly British, Irish, German and Scandinavian) flooded into the western lands, solidifying Anglo-American control over the west (at the great expense of the Natives, but that’s a topic for another day).
By 1880, the American Commonwealth had added the new provinces of Dakota, Oregon, Columbia and Nebraska, with a population of 61.1 Million, with Laurentia still being the most populous province in the country at 6.86 Million people. Mount Royal’s population had continued to boom, growing to 880,000 by 1880, while Kirkeston had grown to 625,000. New Scotland’s population as of 1880 was 4,965,000, with the largest city of Saint John being home to 550,000, many of them Irish or of Irish descent. Other cities like Chicago, Sturarton, Toronto and Bawitigong had also boomed over the previous three decades, as the Great Lakes served as the core of the country, while cities were springing up across the west left and right.
However, westward expansion was by no means limited to the Commonwealth, as the French colony of La Floride had also been expanding to the south. With a rapidly growing population, it was only a matter of time before the Floridiens expanded out onto the Great Plains. As this area was too dry to support cash crop plantations, it was mainly settled by small farmers from out east, including free Afro-Floridiens, who were now allowed to own property (although discrimination, whether it be legal or cultural did prevent many Afro-Floridiens from actually being able to own land). Other settlers to the Floridian Plains mainly came from France, Italy (more on Italian immigration in a future update) and other Catholic European countries. The main driver for settling the plains, however, was the livestock industry, particularly cattle and sheep. The French picked up the Spanish vaquero culture, giving rise to the vacheurs, men who herded and transported cattle across the plains. While herding cattle wasn’t exactly the most glamorous job, the vacheurs later took on a legendary status in Floridian culture, much like the gauchos of La Plata and the cowboys of America. Railroads were also built across the Floridian plains, terminating at the growing city of Hautchamp.
The plains also became a major wheat growing region, as farming methods were introduced, often times by Mennonites that were emigrating from parts of Russia and Ukraine that had a very similar climate to the plains of North America. Areas that were too arid for farming were home to a large ranching culture, although some tried to farm there anyway, mostly failing (it turns out that ten inches of precipitation per year is too little to support large scale agriculture). Meanwhile, on the West Coast, both Oregon (basically OTL’s Oregon) and Columbia (Western Washington and Southern British Columbia) had been upgraded to Commonwealth Provinces, having full representation in Parliament. Both of the Provincial Capitals, Oregon City and New Westminster were now bustling cities of tens of thousands of people, and while they didn’t compare much to the megacities of the east (at least not yet), they could definitely hold their own on the national stage. Even in areas that weren’t provinces yet, cities had sprung up, such as Edmonton, Saskwaton, Silver Bow and Fort Sutayo, mainly along westward railway lines. Silver Bow in particular grew into a large industrial center due to its copper reserves, and was the largest city between Winnipeg and Fort Vancouver. From Sea to Shining Sea, America had now completed it’s coast to coast expansion, destiny had been manifested.
It’s been a while, but alas, ‘tis the time to return to Africa, specifically South Africa, because I am an ignorant white boy who knows jacques merde about the rest of Africa. So, back to the Republic of South Africa. The Boers had recently migrated from the Cape Region up onto the Highveld, coming into contact with the different Bantu peoples that already inhabited it. The Highveld had recently suffered a massive depopulation during the wars ofShaka Zulu, so the Bantu population was lower than it otherwise would have been.
In addition, there had also been a large influx of Dutch settlers fleeing the civil war and its aftermath during the 1830s and 40s, thus growing the non-Indigenous (White and Colored) population to 404,000 by 1850. Kaapstad was home to 52,000 people, or over 10% of the population, and was by far the most populous city in the Republic, with a majority of the remaining population living on the coastal plain to the north and east of Kaapstad. Recent Dutch and German immigrants had greatly boosted the population, many of them buying up farmland that had recently been vacated by Boers that had departed for the frontier.
Meanwhile, the Brits had their colony of Natal based out of Port Natal. The coastal plain of Natal had a much higher native population than both the Cape and the Highveld, thus the Natal colony retained a solid African majority. First used as a supply and refueling station for British ships headed to India and Australia, the Brits later started growing Sugarcane, importing Indian indentured servants to work the fields. Anyways, back to the Republic of South Africa.
The trekkers had made their way past the Orange River by this point, having explored the highveld and settled as far as Bloemfontein. As they explored, tales of vast, untapped riches spread, inspiring even more to seek their fortune in the bush, but that’s a story for another day.
Before I get to more of what is going on in Europe, it is time to return to the Land Down Under, Where Beer Does Flow And Men Chunder (no, I will not stop making these Men At Work references when I talk about Australia). We resume after the Victorian Gold Rush, where massive deposits were discovered across the colony of Victoria in Southeastern Australia. Not only did this bring massive wealth and notoriety to British Australia, but it also convinced the Dutch and French to pay more attention to their own Australian colonies. The colonial governments of both New Holland and Terre Bourbon sent out expeditions to discover gold or other minerals, with varying degrees of success. While there wasn’t a ton of gold discovered like in Victoria, other resources such as Coal were discovered, mainly in New Holland. For Terre-Bourbon, on the other hand, the main economic resource would be something quite different…
Beginning around 1860, the phylloxera grape pest was inadvertently introduced from North America to Europe due to the increased speed of new steam ships allowing them to survive the voyage across the pond. While North American grape species were partially immune to the pest, the Old World Grape had not been exposed to the pest, and was thus ravaged, wrecking the wine industry across Europe.
Before long, thousands of French wine growers were out of work, their livelihoods having been destroyed by a little bitty bug (although it wasn’t clearly known at the time). Meanwhile, Terre-Bourbon had already gained a reputation as a wine grower’s paradise, with its Mediterranean climate and unusually fertile soils for Terra Australis, and since it was on the other side of the world, the pest couldn’t survive the voyage. Down on their luck wine growers soon migrated en masse to Terre Bourbon, soon making wine the largest export from the colony and making Terre Bourbon the world’s largest per-capita wine producing region, in addition to growing wheat and raising livestock. The European population of Terre-Bourbon had grown from 22,000 in 1850 to 95,000 in 1875, and French settlement had expanded from the area around Louisport to other coastal regions, with some notable French settlements being Taparie, Ouaiala, Port Champagny and Thevenard.
Now, let us go to the Dutch colony of New Holland. With a population of 104,000 in 1875, the Dutch had expanded around the Southwestern Corner of Terra Australis, which had a temperate climate, unlike the desert that covered most of the territory claimed by The Netherlands. Dutch settlements extended as far north as Pelsaert, and as far east as Hoopstad. Wheat was grown in more fertile areas, while livestock (mainly cattle and sheep) dominated in the less fertile areas. While New Holland’s wine culture was nowhere near as storied or significant as Terre-Bourbon’s, viticulture still played a role in the economy of New Holland. The Coastal Plain still held a majority of the population, centered around the growing Twin Cities (strange to refer to Twin Cities that aren’t Minneapolis and Saint Paul) of Fort Vlamingh and New Utrecht. As mentioned in my first update on New Holland, there was a surprising amount of ethnic and religious diversity found in the colony, as aside from the dominant Dutch population, there were also populations of Germans, Scandinavians, Portuguese, Jews and Indonesians in New Holland, along with the Aboriginal people that originally inhabited the land. Germans in particular formed a large part of the population (around 25%), largely because of the high amount of emigration from the German states and because Germany had no major settler colonies of their own, with the Dutch being the most culturally similar of the nations that did have settler colonies (although a strong majority of German emigrés went to the Commonwealth of America). Now, that does not mean that the Germans didn’t have any colonies, because they did (Neu-Kaledonien being the most prominent example), but they simply didn’t have any that would be attractive to large amounts of settlers.
Finally, we now pay a visit to British Australia, the most populated and influential of the European colonies in Terra Australis. With a population of almost two million and a longer history than any of the other colonies, it was no question that the Brits were the big fish in the Australian pond. Melbourne and Sydney were the two largest cities on the continent, while others like Brisbane, Newcastle, Wollongong and Geelong could hold their own. However, it wasn’t as if British Australia had no problems. For one, they treated the Aboriginals like s**t (as did the other European colonial powers in Australia), but I’ve got a full dirty laundry update coming once this TL gets to 1900. There was also the Eureka Rebellion by miners against the British authorities, which was promptly crushed but also led to the development of an Anglo-Australian national identity. By 1875, British Australia was divided into four separate territories, those being New South Wales (Sydney), Victoria (Melbourne), Tasmania (Hobart) and Queensland (Brisbane). The Anglo-Australian economy was primarily based off of agriculture, mining, forestry and livestock during this period, and the opportunities found Down Under lured many Brits to try their luck on the other side of the world.
Terra Australis, the Great Southern Continent, the Land Down Under, Where Women Glow and Men Plunder, the new land of opportunity for those brave souls who were willing to try their luck on the other side of the world. They’re living in a Land Down Under, Where Beer Does Flow and Men Chunder. Can’t You Hear (X2) The Thunder? You Better Run, You Better Take Cover...
The Hawaiian Islands, an archipelago of well over 100 mainly volcanic islands is the most important landmass between Asia and The Americas. Originally settled by Polynesians around 900 AD, the first European to stumble across these islands was Captain James Cook, who’s second visit to the islands went quite badly, ending with Cook attempting to abduct the king and getting killed. Despite that incident, Anglo-Hawaiian relations continued, and British influence over the islands steadily grew. Aside from a brief attempt by the Russians of all people to colonize one of the islands, British influence went rather uncontested. British and Anglo-American Christian missionaries of various denominations also arrived in Hawaii, converting many of the locals. The Royal Navy frequented the port of Pearl Harbor as a supply station on their trans-Pacific voyages. However, the biggest impact that the Brits had on Hawaii was the influx of investments from both Britain and America, namely in one extremely lucrative crop…
In the colonial Carribbean, Sugarcane had been the most lucrative cash crop, making the landowning elite immensely wealthy at the expense of the masses of slaves that grew and harvested the crop. Given the tropical climate and fertile volcanic soil of Hawaii, the British investors figured that they could make a butt-ton of money off of sweet, sweet sugar. The influx of sugar money to the island had… mixed results to say the least. On the plus side, new infrastructure was built and jobs were created, but on the other hand, many native Hawaiians lost their land and were now under the thumb of the sugar moguls. I’ll talk more about Hawaii in the future, but this is basically a filler update for my coming update on Europe. So, let’s get to that, shall we?
The British Isles are fully under the control of the United Kingdom.
Belgium does not exist, rather the country is split between the Netherlands and France.
Luxembourg is part of France.
Southern Europe:
Iberia is pretty much the same.
Britain controls Gibraltar, and Spain has the North African exclaves of Ceuta, Melilla and Oran.
Italy is not unified, but rather split between Sardinia Piedmont (Dark Tan), Naples (Purple), Tuscany (Gold), Venice (Brown) and The Papal State (Light Tan). Malta is under the control of the Knights Templar, and South Tyrol is part of the Habsburg Empire.
Greece is now independent, while the rest of the Balkans are still under the control of the Ottomans.
Central Europe:
Northern Germany has consolidated under Prussian Rule, while Southern Germany has also consolidated under Bavarian Rule.
The Habsburg Empire is the dominant power in Central Europe, spanning from OTL Ukraine in the East to Croatia in the West.
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth still exists, and serves as a buffer state between Prussia, the Habsburgs and Russia.
Switzerland is as neutral as ever, just chilling out in the mountains.
Eastern Europe:
R U S S I A
Northern Europe:
Denmark controls Schleswig-Holstein, Norway and Iceland, while Sweden controls Finland.
Part 50: The Global War Part 1: The Gathering Storm
Europe during the 19th Century had been a strangely calm place. By 1860, there hadn’t been a continent-spanning conflict since the Seven Years’ War a century prior. While there had been smaller conflicts like the Greek Revolution and Franco-Austrian war, those were regionalized and didn’t affect the whole of Europe. However, Europe by the Mid 19th Century could be described as a powder keg waiting to blow. The British were concerned over the increasing power of the French and Prussian navies, Austria and Russia had border disputes and the Balkans were as messed up as ever. All it would take is one wrong move, and it would quickly turn really ugly…
The Russian Empire had ambitions to expand further into Europe, particularly into Poland-Lithuania, whose eastern fringe primarily spoke East Slavic languages (Belarusian and Ukrainian) and followed the Eastern Orthodox faith, in contrast to the West Slavic/Baltic and Catholic heartland of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. Russia also desired expansion further south along the Black Sea into Moldavia, Wallachia and Bulgaria, areas that were currently under Ottoman control.
In the Summer of 1866 (I desperately wanted to make it the Summer of 1869, but I decided not to), the bottle of Coke and Mentos that was Europe finally burst, as border skirmishes between Poland-Lithuania and Russia broke out, prompting the Russian Emperor to declare war on Poland. Austria came to Poland’s aid, as did the Ottoman Empire, thus creating a quite awkward alliance, considering the history that the Turks had with Austria and Poland. Prussia, wanting a piece of the Polish pie intervened on the side of Russia, as did France due to their rivalry with the Habsburgs (thus bringing Spain, Sardinia Piedmont and Naples into the war as well). Britain, wary of the growing power of the French and Prussian navies and of course fearful of growing Russian expansionism into Central Asia sided with Poland and Austria (Portugal also joined with Britain due to their centuries-old alliance). Thus, the stage was set, and the Global War had begun…
The Coalition: Russia, Prussia, France, Spain, Naples, Greece and Sardinia-Piedmont
The Alliance: Poland-Lithuania, Austria, Ottoman Empire, Britain, Portugal and South Germany
The conflict that had started on the border of Poland and Russia in the Summer of 1866 had spread worldwide by the Summer of 1867, and North America was no exception. Tensions between the British to the north and the Spanish/French to the south had been building for decades. Anglo-Americans had ambitions to expand into French claimed territory for decades, and the British viewed the San Francisco Bay (part of Spanish California) as one of the key ports on the Pacific, and with a far larger population and industrial base than the Spanish and French put together, they had the muscle to pull it off.
Late in 1866, France (and thus their Bourbon allies of Spain and Naples) officially intervened on the side of Russia in the growing war. Britain, weary of the growing power of the French navy, officially joined on the side of Poland and Austria, dragging their colonies into the war alongside them. The Commonwealth Army, led by generals Hiram Grant and Edward Lee (yeah, screw the butterfly effect) had the simple strategy of overwhelming the French and Spanish with sheer manpower and industrial might, while the French and Spanish had to rely on the home field advantage they would inevitably have when the Anglos crossed into their territory.
The Anglos quickly went about establishing control over the Upper Mississippi River, thus severing much of the connection between the eastern and western regions of French Florida. French forts west of the Mississippi were quickly seized, and the British Army quickly advanced down the Great Valley, this time capturing Rocheville, the town at which they were stopped in the Seven Years’ War just over a century prior. Along the Atlantic Coast, the Brits advanced through the region of Neusequia (Eastern North Carolina), getting closer to Richelieu, the economic center of Florida. The British also had one more secret weapon: slaves.
With almost 1/3rd of the Floridian population being enslaved, and the slave population being over 75% in some regions, the British saw a massive opportunity to not only frame the war as an anti-slavery crusade, but to also recruit Floridian slaves to take up arms against their oppressors. Whenever the British American Army came upon a slave plantation, they would liberate the slaves and then offer to train them to become soldiers for the British Army, promising abolition for all Floridian slaves if the war was won. It is estimated that around 50,000 Afro-Floridian slaves joined the Commonwealth Army, along with over 100,000 African-Americans, who’s gradual emancipation was nearly complete (and would be fully complete by the end of the war, as the Commonwealth promised full abolition after the war was complete).
Now, we move west to the war between the Commonwealth of America and New Spain. As I mentioned, the British wanted to acquire the San Francisco Bay, the largest natural harbor on the Pacific Coast. Rumors of vast natural resources in California had already spread through the Commonwealth, and California was only lightly settled by the Spanish, especially in Northern California. Anglo settlers (many of them Smithians, a new breakaway religious sect) had already illegally settled in Spanish-claimed territories, such as around the Great Salt Lake, who the Spanish were annoyed by, but didn’t take much action due to the distance from their northern base in San Diego.
Now, the British and Spanish were at war. As mentioned just a few sentences before, the distance between the heartlands of the British and Spanish empires in North America was massive, as was the distance between the British and Spanish bases on the West Coast (the distance from Fort Vancouver to San Diego is 940 miles as the crow flies, or greater than the distance from Amsterdam to Madrid). However, both the British and Spanish had built transcontinetal railroads, so they were able to ferry troops from their power bases to the frontier. There was another catch, though, that being the terrain. The western third of North America is dominated by seemingly impenetrable mountains and vast, sparse deserts. So, much of the initial conflict was done on the high seas. The British quickly beefed up their West Coast Fleet (thus leading to an economic and population boom in major shipbuilding cities), planning to transport troops down the coast in order to invade the Central Valley of California by sea rather than cross the rough terrain between Oregon and Northern California. British troops landed at the north end of the San Francisco Peninsula (near OTL’s Golden Gate Bridge), siezing the city of San Francisco and gaining control over the bay, then turning south to seize the historical (but not current) capital of Monterrey. The fertile (and mostly unsettled) Central Valley was also seized by the British, which would eventually become a breadbasket for the west coast. Further inland, the British moved south along the Front Range of the Rockies to capture Santa Fe. By 1872, La Floride had been completely subdued, as New Orleans and Richelieu had both been conquered and Villeroyale was close to falling, and the Brits had naval dominance in both the Atlantic and Pacific, so the Spanish and French both threw up the white flag and sued for peace.
Britain will acquire all French holdings north of the Acansa River and west of the Mississippi River.
Britain will acquire all Spanish holdings west of the Continental Divide and north of the 37th Parallel, as well as the island of Puerto Rico.
France will begin the process of abolishing slavery in the colony of La Floride, all children born to slaves from this day forward are to be free, all that that are currently children are to be emancipated at age 21, and all slaves above that age are to be freed at the age of 50.
Britain is to acquire the islands of The Philippines, as well as other Spanish possessions in the Pacific.
While South America hadn’t seen as many international conflicts as Europe or North America over the years, conflict would not escape the continent during the Global War. Spain sided with their Bourbon allies of France and Naples on the side of Russia in the war, while Portugal honored their age-old alliance with Britain, thus dragging their colonies in South America into the war as well.
The war wasn’t just due to geopolitical obligations, though, there were more practical reasons as well. Britain’s colony in Patagonia lacked adequate farmland, as most of it was cold, dry steppe only useful for light grazing, not something that could support a burgeoning population, and the Pampas to the north were a perfect breadbasket for the Patagonians. Portugal and Spain had long disputed whose territory was whose (Uruguay in particular), and the Portuguese/Brazilians wanted to conquer the French colony in Guiana. With all those territorial disputes, the colonial powers jumped on the opportunity to duke it out on the battlefield and see who comes out on top.
Alas, the war in South America was now officially underway in the Fall and Winter of 1877 (the Northern Hemisphere’s Spring and Summer). The Spanish Army in Rio De La Plata and the Portuguese Brazilian Army clashed in the plains of Uruguay, while the British pushed up from Patagonia (although their Patagonian army and local militia was quite small). The Royal Navy and the combined naval force of the Spanish and French empires clashed in both the Caribbean and the Southern Seas, putting the previously mentioned Bourbon Naval Buildup to the test. Meanwhile, Britain sought to turn the discontent of the Indigenous and Mestizo populations of New Granada and Peru into a liability for the Spanish Crown, while the Spaniards sought to incite slave rebellions in Portuguese Brazil (which had already proven to work against the French in North America, so why not turn it around on Portuguese Brazil, who had over a million angry and discontented slaves).
Despite the recent buildup, the strength of the Royal Navy (plus the respectable Portuguese/Brazilian navy) proved to be too much for the Spanish and French, as while they put up a strong fight and even won some notable battles, the British were still clearly their superiors in the naval department, as they were able to capture Buenos Aires (as they did in OTL’s Napoleonic Wars) and Montevideo. Portugal/Brazil gained and kept control over the Parana and Uruguay Rivers, and a Brazilian force captured Cayenne/Caiena in French Guiana. Combined with the British supporting the Mapuches in Chile and the Andean Natives protesting conscription into the Spanish army, it was clear that the Alliance had won in both theatres of the Americas.
Portugal-Brazil is to annex all Spanish lands North and East of the Parana River.
Portugal-Brazil is to annex all disputed lands in the Amazon Basin, as well as French Guiana.
The boundary between Spanish La Plata and British Patagonia is to be set at the Salado/Salt River, 35th Parallel South, Crest of the Andes and Bio Bio River.
The British are to give the Mapuche an autonomous buffer region between Patagonia and Chile.
The Spanish are to give indigenous tribes immunity from conscription in future wars.
Land between the Rio De La Plata and Salado River is to remain under Spanish control.
You can now read reposts of this TL on my BlogSpot page, which I will be posting this TL on along with this site. The reason I'm reposting all my updates on BlogSpot is so I can continue this TL if I ever get banned from this website, so if I'm ever sent off to Coventry, you know where to find me. https://gabingstonalthist.blogspot.com/
