Seconding as I'll always be up for reading more on America in a North America where Canada and Louisiana won out in territory and demographics.
God is a Frenchman - a Timeline (Seven Yrs War POD)
- Thread starter George_Apley
- Start date
Hah! New England at least has its shit together regarding slavery. It’s regional identity is strong ittl.
Not significantly, no. Similar to OTL.
The lack of western lands to expand to was really the death knell for American slavery.
Thank you! Sorry for the humbling of Britannia.
It's the grand union flag:
The late-1700s iteration lacked the cross of St. Patrick, but has it in the 1800s.
I can do something like that. I'll add it to the list.
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As a Frenchman reading this timeline is the closest to a religious experience.
Perhaps it is because God is French here.
Joking aside, I really really like what you have here and the format in which you present it, it's very easy to read and understand with the dates allowing one to really get the timescale of the events. I appreciate the little side-chapters that delve into mentioned events like the visit of the Prince/King of Spain into the Americas and I would appreciate a bit more like those, perhaps an entry into relations between countries and feelings of those people in regard to the others?
For example, at this point, Spain and France have been allied for a long time right? Would a Spanish feel a sense of comradeship toward a French or still view them as the distant if friendly neighbour? Would the English be seen as perfidious in this timeline? What about the German?
Anyway, don't feel like I am pressuring you or anything, this is very much what I want to learn to get more immersion in the timeline, honestly, it is probably not even that constructive of a comment.
Thank you again for the time you spend writing it.
Perhaps it is because God is French here.
Joking aside, I really really like what you have here and the format in which you present it, it's very easy to read and understand with the dates allowing one to really get the timescale of the events. I appreciate the little side-chapters that delve into mentioned events like the visit of the Prince/King of Spain into the Americas and I would appreciate a bit more like those, perhaps an entry into relations between countries and feelings of those people in regard to the others?
For example, at this point, Spain and France have been allied for a long time right? Would a Spanish feel a sense of comradeship toward a French or still view them as the distant if friendly neighbour? Would the English be seen as perfidious in this timeline? What about the German?
Anyway, don't feel like I am pressuring you or anything, this is very much what I want to learn to get more immersion in the timeline, honestly, it is probably not even that constructive of a comment.
Thank you again for the time you spend writing it.
Thank you! I enjoy writing them too. I've gotten busy since the holiday season has passed but I'll keep in that in mind!
Thank You most kindly for your consideration.😊
If one might be so bold, what do you think are the most interesting Points of Divergence within this timeline? (Not necessarily the ones that would benefit Britain the most, but the ones with the most interesting potential consequences for this world of yours).
If I'm understanding your Q, thus far the successful invasion of England in 1774 is a big one. Had it gone differently, it's likely that British America could have successfully gotten some of the Ohio Country in exchange for concessions elsewhere. King Louis XVII's choice to marry the princess of Spain is another. The consequences of that pairing will reverb through the entire 19th Century.
1827
God is a Frenchman: 1827
| June, 1825-1829 | Greek Revolt (Year 3) As fighting continues in the Peloponnese, the Ottomans become increasingly impatient with the Greek elites in Constantinople. Officially the Orthodox Church is under the protection of the Sultan, and the Patriarchs are careful to toe the line and condemn the efforts of the Greeks to break away from Constantinople. Still many of the Phanariot Greek families in the Ottoman capital surreptitiously support their comrades in Rumelia. The arrest and execution of several prominent Greeks in Constantinople has a strong affect in the rest of Ottoman Europe, as many of the noble Boyars in Moldavia, Wallachia, and Bulgaria join the revolt against the Ottomans. Most of these elites share Greek heritage with the Phanariots of the capital and several prominent Boyards issue proclamations seeking to unite with the people of Rumelia to create a Greek Orthodox state. In the fall of 1827, mostly uninvited, Russian troops cross into Moldavia, claiming their actions are just to protect the orthodox Christians. The Russian move creates great rumblings in the rest of Europe leading into the winter. |
| 1827-1830 | Fourth Maratha War By the mid-1820s the French presence in eastern India has become more cemented and the Mughal court is increasingly suborned by the French envoy from Pondicherry. The constituent states of the Maratha become increasingly divided as smuggled goods from French outposts in Bombay and Surat become a major political issue for the Maratha central government, which seeks to maintain the beneficial trade relationship with Portuguese Goa. In 1826 the ruling Peshwa attempts to crack down on smuggling operations, many which are tacitly approved by local leaders. These political pressures lead to violence between several leading princes. When the Peshwa, supposedly the unifying figure across the Maratha states, condemns those fighting against the taxation of French goods, the conflict spreads. Soon all of west-central India is engulfed in civil war with states and princes fighting for the Peshwa fighting against those who want closer economic ties with France. France happily smuggles weapons and supplies to the rebels, but otherwise remains aloof from the conflict. A defining moment of the war occurs in 1828 when the sovereign Chhatrapati of Maratha endorses the rebellion against the Peshwa, leading to his arrest and confinement in Satara by the Peshwa's forces. This action impels the Chhatrapati cousin, the Maharaja of Nagpur, to enter the conflict. Nagpur had previously avoided involvement in the war among its fellow Maratha states and its involvement turns the tides as other princes in the north begin to switch sides against the Peshwa. The civil war proves to be the end of the Maratha union, which breaks apart in 1830. By the mid-1830s, Pondicherry has multiple alliances of protection with formerly Maratha states. The aftermath of the civil war greatly expands France's reach into India's interior and eliminates the largest competitor to French power on the subcontinent. |
| 1827-1889 | Reign of Maximilian I of Saxony Rising to the throne upon the death of his grandfather, Maximilian's reign is long and covers the turmoil of the mid-19th Century as the long tradition of Saxon neutrality fails to survive beyond the 1830s. |
| August, 1827-September, 1828 | Pinishwa's War By the late-1820s the population of the Quebec province of Ouabache is growing rapidly. Between the rising numbers of Métis and an influx of new settlers from Europe, the lifestyle of the region has shifted relatively quickly from the traditional model of the native Miaumie people to a more sedentary and blended one. For the bands of Miaumie who have pushed to keep to their traditional lifestyles, life is increasingly difficult, as disconnected territory and the increasing shortage of game harms their success. In 1827 a faction of Miaumie led by Chief Pinshiwa revolt, raiding towns and villages and stealing livestock and crops. Several farmers are killed in these raids and Pinishwa becomes one of the most wanted men in Quebec. Militia in the province muster throughout the fall and winter, trying to hunt down raiding parties with little success. Moving his village of nearly 400 proves difficult for Pinishwa to manage in the cold of winter and the militia attack there in mid-February, 1828. Pinishwa's scouts and traps are able to provide enough warning and disruption for the attacking militia that they are able to escape into Illinois and take refuge with a like-minded band of Potawatomie people. Raids and skirmishes continue into the spring and summer of 1828 until Pinishwa is assassinated by one of his hosts among the Potawatomie. A summit is agreed to by the government in Quebec in September held in the lake port town of Checagou and government officials commit to providing meat and vegetables as tribute for dwindling wild resources to the more traditional native peoples. Though a concession from the Quebecois to the natives, the Chegacou Treaty is later viewed as a dirge for traditionalism among Quebec native peoples, who gradually adopt the prevailing sedentary culture of their Métis and French neighbors. N.B. Ouabache includes OTL Indiana and western Ohio |
| 1827-1855 | Reign of Frederik VI of Denmark Early reign is marked by prosperity from the East India trade and minor rebellions in Norway. Denmark attempts to navigate the mid-century crises with mixed success under Frederick VI's leadership, which leads to growing efforts by liberals in Denmark and Norway to enact constitutional reform. |
| September-December 1827 | Tisserand Revolt The first large scale labor revolt in industrial France. Weavers in the Lyons area walk out and in some cases destroy machinery in protest of working conditions and pay. The leaders of the effort are either executed or transported to the French colony in western Australia. |
| September, 1827-March, 1829 | Bukhara War After successfully sweeping the Kazakh steppes Russia sets its sight on the other countries of central, first Bukhara. After several Russian envoys are tortured and beheaded by the Emir Russian cavalry sweeps into the region. Over a year and a half of vicious fighting leads to a treaty subordinating the Emirate of Bukhara to the Russian Empire. |
| October, 1827-1830 | English Compactor Crisis The industrial labor crisis in Britain escalates in 1827 as the Compactor movement revolts in factory towns and cities across the kingdom. The compactors smash up factories and dump debris into several canals. The Workers Compact by this point is widely distributed and Britain's swollen working class and many bourgeoisie are sympathetic towards the increasingly dismal conditions in urban Britain. The Compactors demand increased political and economic rights for the common man and reforms beneficial to the laborer. While movement results are varied, by 1830 several significant reforms are instituted by London designed to placate the Compactors. |
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Very interesting update ! Thank you for your work.
"The aftermath of the civil war greatly expands France's reach into India's interior and eliminates the largest competitor to French power on the subcontinent." Sic transit gloria mundi. Hopefully, the French domination will be somewhat kinder and less ruining.
Ah, the canuts lyonnais...I suppose it was sadly determined.
"While movement results are varied, by 1830 several significant reforms are instituted by London designed to placate the Compactors." What reforms did you have in mind, if you do not mind?
By the way, what about chartism in this alt UK?
"The aftermath of the civil war greatly expands France's reach into India's interior and eliminates the largest competitor to French power on the subcontinent." Sic transit gloria mundi. Hopefully, the French domination will be somewhat kinder and less ruining.
Ah, the canuts lyonnais...I suppose it was sadly determined.
"While movement results are varied, by 1830 several significant reforms are instituted by London designed to placate the Compactors." What reforms did you have in mind, if you do not mind?
By the way, what about chartism in this alt UK?
The French definitely have a different ethos to their colonization methods than the British.
Yeah the early labor movement is gonna be rough in any TL.
The Compact movement is mostly labor oriented but shares some of the goals of OTL chartism. British industrialization (and overpop) ITTL are ahead of OTL by a bit so we'll definitely see those impacts. The Whigs aren't quite on the same page as the working class movement so we'll definitely see political pressure amp up in Britain over time.
Is eastern Australia British?
and how is the cape evolving ?
If I remember correctly some of the Boers were French speaking calvinists.
and how is the cape evolving ?
If I remember correctly some of the Boers were French speaking calvinists.
Nope! Also French. British have northern Australia and western Australia is culturally mixed but under French control.
Here's about what's going on in Oz as of about 1830. More land claimed ofc but not controlled and settled.
Still a bit early there, but the French took it from the Dutch in 1817. With France rather extended in the 1820s they haven't done very much with it as a colony, mostly leaving the Boers to their own devices as long as they accept governance by a French Governor-General. Protestants still being rather poorly viewed, don't expect them to be a bridge between the Dutch Boers and the French colonial govt. Will be getting into South Africa more somewhat later.
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Dominion of America Government
Eventually I'll do a post for each of the three regions of the Dominion as well, but here's a start. @Tiro
The Dominion of America was created in 1793 due to unclear jurisdictional issues and internal unrest since the inauguration of the Provincial Union Congress in 1776. The Dominion created a formal central government between the thirteen British American provinces. The government was based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which remained the largest city in British America in the late-1820s. The Dominion government featured Congress, a bicameral legislature modeled after the Parliament from which a government was formed with the consent of the crown-appointed President-General. In the early years, the President-General came from Britain, a point of constant contention for many in America.
The First Minister who headed the government was typically a leader in the majority faction or party in Congress. In the Dominion’s early years the First Minister was often a member of the House of Lords, which was populated by the peerage created by King George III in 1777. In the House of Representatives, modeled after the British House of Commons, members were elected by the voters in each province based on constituencies determined by the provincial legislatures with the consent of the President-General. Congress held responsibility for maintaining the defense of the Dominion as well as inter-provincial trade policies with the assent of the President-General. Parliament was able to override Dominion law in times of war if necessary.
After the New England and Carolina revolts in the first decade of the 19th Century, reforms were put in place that altered the powers and composition of the Dominion government. Constituencies for the House of Representatives were regularized and based on population, while the House of Lords was narrowed in scope, with each province being allowed no more than a dozen members at a time. Membership in the lords was determined by a vote of the peers in each province every four years. The Lords also lost the power to initiate legislation, instead serving as a gatekeeper between the House of Reps and the President-General. The reforms also altered the nature of the Dominion’s Continental Army, the central government’s taxation powers, and also created a traveling Dominion Court to hear cases under Dominion law.
Following these reforms, the Dominion operated smoothly through the 1810s and into the 1820s, holding its own against the Quebecois during Talleyrand’s War from 1814-1817. King George III and then his son fell into the habit of leaving a President-General in place for up to a decade unless the appointee asked to be recalled. The First President-General William Pitt, went on to become a long-serving Prime Minister in Britain. He was followed by William Lygon who navigated the reforms in 1807, and Richard Wellesley who led the Dominion through the Talleyrand’s War. He was replaced by Henry Temple in 1818 who presided over relative prosperity until 1826 when provincial clamoring led to the first American-born President-General in Robert Paterson, a Tory peer and statesman from New Jersey.
While the President-General served as the commander-in-chief of the Continental forces and the figurehead of the Dominion, most day-to-day political power was held by the First Minister and his government. The inaugural First Minister of the Dominion was John Adams, a respected statesman and jurist of whiggish tendency from Massachusetts who served for nearly ten years, but was greatly frustrated by institutional problems and partisanship. He resigned in 1803 and returned to New England where he advocated for the reforms that would take place later that decade. Adams was replaced by John Tyler of Virginia before new elections were held in 1808 and Aaron Ogden, a Tory from New Jersey, became First Minister. Ogden embraced the new reforms and embarked on an aggressive program of internal improvements, particularly updating canals, roads, and port facilities. Ogden served through Talleyrand’s War and retired in 1819, when he was replaced by Ezekiel Rogers of New Hampshire. In 1821 elections were called and Rogers’ government fell to the controversial Whig Peter Andrew Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania, a strong advocate of freer trade between the Dominion and Quebec, a matter controlled by Parliament rather than Congress. Muhlenberg was also a major proponent of the abolition of slavery, which occurred during his tenure by act of Parliament in 1826 after multiple failed attempts in Congress. He had a frosty relationship with the President-General, but his broad popularity allowed him to maintain power and he outlasted Temple, serving through the appointment of Robert Paterson, with whom he likewise had a poor working relationship.
God is a Frenchman: Dominion of America Government (1793-1830)
The Dominion of America was created in 1793 due to unclear jurisdictional issues and internal unrest since the inauguration of the Provincial Union Congress in 1776. The Dominion created a formal central government between the thirteen British American provinces. The government was based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which remained the largest city in British America in the late-1820s. The Dominion government featured Congress, a bicameral legislature modeled after the Parliament from which a government was formed with the consent of the crown-appointed President-General. In the early years, the President-General came from Britain, a point of constant contention for many in America.
The First Minister who headed the government was typically a leader in the majority faction or party in Congress. In the Dominion’s early years the First Minister was often a member of the House of Lords, which was populated by the peerage created by King George III in 1777. In the House of Representatives, modeled after the British House of Commons, members were elected by the voters in each province based on constituencies determined by the provincial legislatures with the consent of the President-General. Congress held responsibility for maintaining the defense of the Dominion as well as inter-provincial trade policies with the assent of the President-General. Parliament was able to override Dominion law in times of war if necessary.
After the New England and Carolina revolts in the first decade of the 19th Century, reforms were put in place that altered the powers and composition of the Dominion government. Constituencies for the House of Representatives were regularized and based on population, while the House of Lords was narrowed in scope, with each province being allowed no more than a dozen members at a time. Membership in the lords was determined by a vote of the peers in each province every four years. The Lords also lost the power to initiate legislation, instead serving as a gatekeeper between the House of Reps and the President-General. The reforms also altered the nature of the Dominion’s Continental Army, the central government’s taxation powers, and also created a traveling Dominion Court to hear cases under Dominion law.
Following these reforms, the Dominion operated smoothly through the 1810s and into the 1820s, holding its own against the Quebecois during Talleyrand’s War from 1814-1817. King George III and then his son fell into the habit of leaving a President-General in place for up to a decade unless the appointee asked to be recalled. The First President-General William Pitt, went on to become a long-serving Prime Minister in Britain. He was followed by William Lygon who navigated the reforms in 1807, and Richard Wellesley who led the Dominion through the Talleyrand’s War. He was replaced by Henry Temple in 1818 who presided over relative prosperity until 1826 when provincial clamoring led to the first American-born President-General in Robert Paterson, a Tory peer and statesman from New Jersey.
While the President-General served as the commander-in-chief of the Continental forces and the figurehead of the Dominion, most day-to-day political power was held by the First Minister and his government. The inaugural First Minister of the Dominion was John Adams, a respected statesman and jurist of whiggish tendency from Massachusetts who served for nearly ten years, but was greatly frustrated by institutional problems and partisanship. He resigned in 1803 and returned to New England where he advocated for the reforms that would take place later that decade. Adams was replaced by John Tyler of Virginia before new elections were held in 1808 and Aaron Ogden, a Tory from New Jersey, became First Minister. Ogden embraced the new reforms and embarked on an aggressive program of internal improvements, particularly updating canals, roads, and port facilities. Ogden served through Talleyrand’s War and retired in 1819, when he was replaced by Ezekiel Rogers of New Hampshire. In 1821 elections were called and Rogers’ government fell to the controversial Whig Peter Andrew Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania, a strong advocate of freer trade between the Dominion and Quebec, a matter controlled by Parliament rather than Congress. Muhlenberg was also a major proponent of the abolition of slavery, which occurred during his tenure by act of Parliament in 1826 after multiple failed attempts in Congress. He had a frosty relationship with the President-General, but his broad popularity allowed him to maintain power and he outlasted Temple, serving through the appointment of Robert Paterson, with whom he likewise had a poor working relationship.
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Thank You most kindly for sharing this data - out of curiosity, might I please ask if the Army of the Dominion are bluecoats, greenjackets or redcoats? (I have a vague notion of light dragoons, line infantry & artillery wearing blue*, rangers in green - possibly rifle regiments as well - and Royal regiments wearing redcoats with blue facings).
*I also suggest that, unlike the US Army of our own history, the Continentals may well retain regimental facings & regimental lace.
*I also suggest that, unlike the US Army of our own history, the Continentals may well retain regimental facings & regimental lace.
Sadly I am hardly an expert in military dress and organization. I am happy for input from you all on that count.
Given their origin is quite different from the poorly funded, deliberately anti-British OTL Continentals/U.S. Army, the Dominion Continental Army will definitely have a more British character. I'm picturing the OTL loyalist regiments from the later War of Independence.
New England (1830)
I feel like this got a little redundant, but here is New England.
New Englanders were the most resistant British Americans to the ennoblement of prominent citizens by King George III in 1777 and numerous riots, confrontations, and other disturbances occurred through the early 1780s as formerly commonly-held land was granted to the new lords. Many of these peers, including most prominently Edward Holyoke and James Winthrop, opened much of their holdings either as commons or rented at very low rates, which placated all but the most strident anti-noble sentiments. Other peers leveraged their wealth and power into rebuilding communities devastated by war, particularly in coastal Connecticut and Cape Ann in Massachusetts. Politically, New England was generally in favor of increased autonomy for the provinces, that being from both Parliament and Congress. New England was also the most invested region of the Dominion in internal democratic principles. Indeed in 1830 New England was the only Dominion region in which all provinces granted suffrage to all real estate owners with no lower bound. Reflective of this is the official name of Massachusetts and later of Maine being denoted as “commonwealths” due to their high valuation of the “body politic” as described in numerous instances by statesman John Adams.
New England in general struggled to gain its economic footing until the early-19th Century when tax reforms took pressure off of the predominantly small freeholders who made up the majority of New England’s population. With the closure of the western frontier to British settlement, the subsistence farms across New England were rapidly becoming filled with multigenerational families and a land shortage threatened the stability of the region by 1810. Coastal cities grew heavily between 1800 and 1815 with young men and women from the countryside looking for work and lodging. Morality was increasingly a concern of the older generations who feared that the younger New Englanders would fall into debauchery. These concerns coincided with the beginnings of industrialization led by men such as Geoffrey Baxter, and Henry Sears Cabot. Cabot’s model in particular was designed in part with the purpose of providing steady work and clean living to the large numbers of rootless young adults. Cabot’s planned factory towns became common and were replicated elsewhere in New England and the Dominion by the mid-1820s. By the end of the 1820s, pockets of resistance began to foment against the draconian working and living conditions in Cabot-style factory towns, which would develop into a cohesive social movement in the late-1830s known as reclusionism.
The Commonwealth of Maine was the northernmost region of New England and was governed as a district of Massachusetts until 1821, when it received its own charter from King George IV after a multi-decade movement for autonomy from Boston. The territory was engulfed by French territory to the north and northwest and shared waters with Acadia to the east. Dense forests and rolling mountains made overland campaigns difficult, insulating Maine from attacks from Quebec, although Ethan Allen made a storied expedition through the Maine backwoods into Quebec in the 1770s. The border around the Penobscot River was devastated in the Restitution War, but by Talleyrand’s War border raids had settled into a strangely comfortable and familiar pattern of personal and multi-generational retribution. After the war’s conclusion and the beginning of growing peace between the British and French worlds, small-time smuggling between Acadia and Maine became increasingly common. Logging and sheep herding were the largest industry in the interior of Maine, while subsistence farming, fishing, and whaling dominated along the coast. Several successful factory towns sprang up in Maine by the late-1820s along the Saco at Biddeford and the Androscoggin at Anderson (OTL Lewiston). The capital at Falmouth (OTL Portland) was the largest settlement followed by Kittery, which stood across the Piscataqua River from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
The Province of New Hampshire was the other northern bulwark of New England, with the imposing White Mountains defending the region to the north. New Hampshire had absorbed much of the land south of the Green Mountains after the Treaty of Exmouth in 1775. New Hampshire’s geographic isolation, easy access to Massachusetts and its own heavily fortified port at Portsmouth lead to its rapid expansion in the late-18th and early-19th centuries with over 300,000 living in the province by 1830. While some of this growth was driven by a large inflow of farmers from 1790-1810, the advent of textile factories on the Merrimack River and its tributaries in the 1810s brought tens of thousands to settlements old and new up and down the river valley. Rumford (OTL Concord), Leeds (OTL Manchester), and Waterford (OTL Nashua) led NH’s population growth along the river. Portsmouth, the capital, grew into a major commercial center for both New Hampshire and Maine, becoming the largest British city north of Boston as of 1830. Textiles in New Hampshire were dominated by wool until around 1820 when cotton began to compete for space on the factory floors. Timber and sheep herding were dominant in the northern and western interior and a military-driven economy anchored the southwestern border regions with Quebec.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts was the oldest and most politically dominant of the New England colonies and it had the largest population by 1830 with over 650,000. The province largely dominated the culture and economy of the region and Boston was among the largest cities in the Dominion in 1830. In the late-18th Century Massachusetts was the most resistant to the granting of crownlands to a peerage and likewise several prominents turned down titles including John Adams who became the premier First Minister and only Dominion PM lacking a title before the 1830s. Trends in broader New England were all amplified in Massachusetts, with it’s relatively diverse geography and economy and the governor of the province had great sway in general. The Massachusetts coast was heavily invested in maritime industries as well as a number of mercantile centers aside from Boston, most prominently Newburyport on the north shore and the growing south coast center of New Bedford. The Cape and Islands were heavily invested in fishing and whaling, and also hosted the small number of remaining natives in New England of the Mashpee and Aquinnah Wampanoags. While subsistence farming, sheep herding and lumber remained prominent throughout the central and western parts of the province, factory towns became numerous between 1800 and 1830. Existing riverside towns such as Waltham, Haverhill, and Rockingham (OTL Pittsfield) began to industrialize alongside purpose-built factory towns like Sears (OTL Lowell), Choaton (OTL Lawrence), and Holyoke. The western reaches of the state maintained a strong military presence into the 1820s and Fort Greene at Greeneburg (OTL North Adams) hosted a Dominion military garrison responsible for the New England frontier.
The Province of Rhode Island and Providence had the smallest area of the Dominion provinces but not the smallest population. After the occupation of Newport by the French and raids against Providence in the 1770s, Narragansett Bay was heavily fortified and these emplacements were updated in the 1810s in the prelude to Talleyrand’s War. Little Rhode Island in many ways mirrored the economic development of Massachusetts but on a smaller scale. The bipolar economy of the province swung between Newport, the mercantile and maritime center, and Providence, which was initially a point of export for agricultural products, but evolved by 1830 to include the trade of manufactures built in the factory towns along the Woonsocket River. Canal construction in Massachusetts also allowed Providence to serve as an export center for products from Worcester. In the 1820s Rhode Island had the largest black population per capita in New England and second only to Massachusetts in total number.
The Province of Connecticut was the wealthiest New England colony after King Louis’ War in the 1770s, having only suffered a few raids on coastal towns. The population grew rapidly, mostly due to natural increase in the early-19th Century and by 1830 Connecticut had a population of nearly 350,000. Connecticut maintained the strictest religious policies of New England and members of the established Congregational Church held a privileged position in the province even still in the 1830s. Connecticut life was centered around coastal towns that competed for trade with inland farms and factories, as well as the highway between New Haven and Hartford. Long Island Sound was constantly trolled by numerous packets and other merchantmen moving from town to town, by far the easiest way to travel along the Connecticut coast. Factories sprung up in the 1820s in Hartford and western Connecticut, while farming and livestock towns covered most of the north and east of the province. New Haven and New London competed for the position as preeminent mercantile center in Connecticut. By 1830 New Haven was the largest commercial center, while New London dominated in the maritime industries and naval installations.
God is a Frenchman: New England c. 1830
The Provinces of New England were already a cohesive socio-economic region by the mid-18th Century largely led by Massachusetts. Despite its origins in calvinist Puritanism, the region’s social attitudes softened significantly by the time of the Six Years War. Following the disastrous King Louis’ War in the 1770s, New England faced the closure of its western and northern frontiers as the French seized the western Green Mountains, the woodlands in the north of Maine, and reclaimed the Acadian peninsula, requiring the resettlement of several thousand settlers back in Massachusetts. Border regions and port towns were heavily fortified in the late-18th Century and the population developed a warrior ethos divided along offensive and defensive instincts that battled in the political realm for supremacy during the Restitution War and Talleyrand’s War.
New Englanders were the most resistant British Americans to the ennoblement of prominent citizens by King George III in 1777 and numerous riots, confrontations, and other disturbances occurred through the early 1780s as formerly commonly-held land was granted to the new lords. Many of these peers, including most prominently Edward Holyoke and James Winthrop, opened much of their holdings either as commons or rented at very low rates, which placated all but the most strident anti-noble sentiments. Other peers leveraged their wealth and power into rebuilding communities devastated by war, particularly in coastal Connecticut and Cape Ann in Massachusetts. Politically, New England was generally in favor of increased autonomy for the provinces, that being from both Parliament and Congress. New England was also the most invested region of the Dominion in internal democratic principles. Indeed in 1830 New England was the only Dominion region in which all provinces granted suffrage to all real estate owners with no lower bound. Reflective of this is the official name of Massachusetts and later of Maine being denoted as “commonwealths” due to their high valuation of the “body politic” as described in numerous instances by statesman John Adams.
New England in general struggled to gain its economic footing until the early-19th Century when tax reforms took pressure off of the predominantly small freeholders who made up the majority of New England’s population. With the closure of the western frontier to British settlement, the subsistence farms across New England were rapidly becoming filled with multigenerational families and a land shortage threatened the stability of the region by 1810. Coastal cities grew heavily between 1800 and 1815 with young men and women from the countryside looking for work and lodging. Morality was increasingly a concern of the older generations who feared that the younger New Englanders would fall into debauchery. These concerns coincided with the beginnings of industrialization led by men such as Geoffrey Baxter, and Henry Sears Cabot. Cabot’s model in particular was designed in part with the purpose of providing steady work and clean living to the large numbers of rootless young adults. Cabot’s planned factory towns became common and were replicated elsewhere in New England and the Dominion by the mid-1820s. By the end of the 1820s, pockets of resistance began to foment against the draconian working and living conditions in Cabot-style factory towns, which would develop into a cohesive social movement in the late-1830s known as reclusionism.
The Commonwealth of Maine was the northernmost region of New England and was governed as a district of Massachusetts until 1821, when it received its own charter from King George IV after a multi-decade movement for autonomy from Boston. The territory was engulfed by French territory to the north and northwest and shared waters with Acadia to the east. Dense forests and rolling mountains made overland campaigns difficult, insulating Maine from attacks from Quebec, although Ethan Allen made a storied expedition through the Maine backwoods into Quebec in the 1770s. The border around the Penobscot River was devastated in the Restitution War, but by Talleyrand’s War border raids had settled into a strangely comfortable and familiar pattern of personal and multi-generational retribution. After the war’s conclusion and the beginning of growing peace between the British and French worlds, small-time smuggling between Acadia and Maine became increasingly common. Logging and sheep herding were the largest industry in the interior of Maine, while subsistence farming, fishing, and whaling dominated along the coast. Several successful factory towns sprang up in Maine by the late-1820s along the Saco at Biddeford and the Androscoggin at Anderson (OTL Lewiston). The capital at Falmouth (OTL Portland) was the largest settlement followed by Kittery, which stood across the Piscataqua River from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
The Province of New Hampshire was the other northern bulwark of New England, with the imposing White Mountains defending the region to the north. New Hampshire had absorbed much of the land south of the Green Mountains after the Treaty of Exmouth in 1775. New Hampshire’s geographic isolation, easy access to Massachusetts and its own heavily fortified port at Portsmouth lead to its rapid expansion in the late-18th and early-19th centuries with over 300,000 living in the province by 1830. While some of this growth was driven by a large inflow of farmers from 1790-1810, the advent of textile factories on the Merrimack River and its tributaries in the 1810s brought tens of thousands to settlements old and new up and down the river valley. Rumford (OTL Concord), Leeds (OTL Manchester), and Waterford (OTL Nashua) led NH’s population growth along the river. Portsmouth, the capital, grew into a major commercial center for both New Hampshire and Maine, becoming the largest British city north of Boston as of 1830. Textiles in New Hampshire were dominated by wool until around 1820 when cotton began to compete for space on the factory floors. Timber and sheep herding were dominant in the northern and western interior and a military-driven economy anchored the southwestern border regions with Quebec.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts was the oldest and most politically dominant of the New England colonies and it had the largest population by 1830 with over 650,000. The province largely dominated the culture and economy of the region and Boston was among the largest cities in the Dominion in 1830. In the late-18th Century Massachusetts was the most resistant to the granting of crownlands to a peerage and likewise several prominents turned down titles including John Adams who became the premier First Minister and only Dominion PM lacking a title before the 1830s. Trends in broader New England were all amplified in Massachusetts, with it’s relatively diverse geography and economy and the governor of the province had great sway in general. The Massachusetts coast was heavily invested in maritime industries as well as a number of mercantile centers aside from Boston, most prominently Newburyport on the north shore and the growing south coast center of New Bedford. The Cape and Islands were heavily invested in fishing and whaling, and also hosted the small number of remaining natives in New England of the Mashpee and Aquinnah Wampanoags. While subsistence farming, sheep herding and lumber remained prominent throughout the central and western parts of the province, factory towns became numerous between 1800 and 1830. Existing riverside towns such as Waltham, Haverhill, and Rockingham (OTL Pittsfield) began to industrialize alongside purpose-built factory towns like Sears (OTL Lowell), Choaton (OTL Lawrence), and Holyoke. The western reaches of the state maintained a strong military presence into the 1820s and Fort Greene at Greeneburg (OTL North Adams) hosted a Dominion military garrison responsible for the New England frontier.
The Province of Rhode Island and Providence had the smallest area of the Dominion provinces but not the smallest population. After the occupation of Newport by the French and raids against Providence in the 1770s, Narragansett Bay was heavily fortified and these emplacements were updated in the 1810s in the prelude to Talleyrand’s War. Little Rhode Island in many ways mirrored the economic development of Massachusetts but on a smaller scale. The bipolar economy of the province swung between Newport, the mercantile and maritime center, and Providence, which was initially a point of export for agricultural products, but evolved by 1830 to include the trade of manufactures built in the factory towns along the Woonsocket River. Canal construction in Massachusetts also allowed Providence to serve as an export center for products from Worcester. In the 1820s Rhode Island had the largest black population per capita in New England and second only to Massachusetts in total number.
The Province of Connecticut was the wealthiest New England colony after King Louis’ War in the 1770s, having only suffered a few raids on coastal towns. The population grew rapidly, mostly due to natural increase in the early-19th Century and by 1830 Connecticut had a population of nearly 350,000. Connecticut maintained the strictest religious policies of New England and members of the established Congregational Church held a privileged position in the province even still in the 1830s. Connecticut life was centered around coastal towns that competed for trade with inland farms and factories, as well as the highway between New Haven and Hartford. Long Island Sound was constantly trolled by numerous packets and other merchantmen moving from town to town, by far the easiest way to travel along the Connecticut coast. Factories sprung up in the 1820s in Hartford and western Connecticut, while farming and livestock towns covered most of the north and east of the province. New Haven and New London competed for the position as preeminent mercantile center in Connecticut. By 1830 New Haven was the largest commercial center, while New London dominated in the maritime industries and naval installations.
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I wonder if William Howe died shortly after Second Monongahela?* (It's quite curious that the commander who won the most outstanding British victory of King Louis' War doesn't seem to have made any other appearance in this timeline, so one can only assume that while not killed in the battle itself he might well have suffered an injury that contributed to his death not long after - also assuming, of course that had he pulled a Wolfe, this Heroic Sacrifice would have been explicitly mentioned - alternatively, the general might well have contracted some fatal illness while on campaign or died in transit over the Atlantic or suffered some other Act of God designed to leave the British lion pulling it's hair out).
*I also wonder if this battle might sometimes be called 'The Battle of the Forks' (i.e. 'Forks of the Ohio') or 'The Battle of Duquesne' (perhaps simply 'Montcalm's Defeat') to help set it apart from the unfortunate end of General Edward Braddock's career; my mental image is of the Marquis de Montcalm expecting a line-of-battle engagement on the order of Quebec (with his First Nations allies having previously weakened the British over the course of their march), only to find William Howe too strong in light infantry - this being Howe, not only American Provincials but Light Infantry of the British Army - and also too willing to slip around an opponent rather than bull through them, to the point where the Franco-Quebecois (marching to battle in line), are first shot to pieces by opponents making excellent use of cover and 'Indian Warfare', before being torn apart by a series of bayonet charges (possibly delivered by some previously-dispatched outflanking force).
Basically, Montcalm makes many of the same mistakes as George Washington, but does a far worse job of recovering from those errors (Being over sixty and rather set in his ways, as a Victorious Commander and rather a legend in his own lifetime by this point).
William Howe dies in the defense of Plymouth against the French invasion in late-1774. His recall to Britain was definitely mourned by the Americans.
Certainly so. This is a good interpretation of how this would tactically go! Montcalm got a bit too comfortable in his later years and being a heroic legend can make one feel a bit too invincible.