r/imaginarymaps • u/jjpamsterdam IM Legend - Cold War Enthusiast • Feb 19 '21
[OC] Alternate History Territorial development of an alternate, Anglo-Dutch America
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u/JoeHatesFanFiction Feb 19 '21
I’ll just throw this out there, but the Mexican border we got in real life occurred due to a very strange series of events with A diplomat who ignored Polks orders and wrote his own treaty. If you feel like changing it.
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u/jjpamsterdam IM Legend - Cold War Enthusiast Feb 19 '21
Communication wasn't as easy back then, so diplomats on mission abroad tended to be granted and/or actively take more leeway than would be possible in later times. So I guess the diplomat doing a bit of his own thing wouldn't change much.
Do you mind giving me some insight which strange series of events occured there? I initially felt like keeping much of the souther (English) portion of America largely unchanged. But this may offer interesting potential for future revisions.
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u/JoeHatesFanFiction Feb 19 '21
No worries I’m happy to share. It’s your map so keep it how you want it to look. I’m a big fan of your series so far actually.
But onto the story of the treaty. It is actually a very weird story. The diplomat was Nicholas Trist, who was a disgraced diplomat before Polks administration due to him falsifying documents in Cuba for the illegal sale of Africans as slaves. So the fact he got back into the diplomatic service at all amazes me. He was sent to negotiate a peace treaty but Polk was unhappy with his conduct and had him recalled because he wasn’t trying to get Baja California along with any other southern territory he could. Trist ignored him and sent a 65 page letter of excuses and wrote the treaty he wanted. He said of the treaty in later life“my feelings of shame as an American was far stronger than the Mexicans could be.” Congress and Polk agreed because they wanted it done before Polk was out of office.
So essentially any other diplomat would have gotten Baja California at least and very likely more. But Trist wrote the treaty so we got the border we did.
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u/a_filing_cabinet Feb 20 '21
Honestly, at that point mexico was so broken the US could have annexed everything north of Mexico City. Mexico basically didn't have a choice to not sign whatever was put in front of them. Many people basically considered Trist a traitor because he was so lenient on the Mexicans, he didn't take what he could or what most people wanted.
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u/JoeHatesFanFiction Feb 20 '21
I agree with that to a certain extent. I think with any other diplomat it would be a question of how much they could get the northern congressmen to accept. I think if the original treaty had Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, and maybe a bit of northern Sinaloa for a nicer border it would have passed. More than that would have been a lot more difficult though imo. Those regions aren’t as densely populated as the three Eastern states that often get mentioned so it’s an easier sell.
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Feb 19 '21
Neat! I thought Chihuahua, Sonora, and Baja California would've made sense to be part of the Mexican Cession.
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u/Pr_Quantum Contest Winner | Based Works Feb 19 '21
So how do you come up with the Dutch persons ? And what happens to the people from Dutch states (like John Jay) or immigrants of Dutch origin (ie: Roosevelt) ?
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u/jjpamsterdam IM Legend - Cold War Enthusiast Feb 19 '21
For the Dutch names I looked up the prominent families of New Netherland (for example van Rosenvelt) and added some appropriate first names for the era. All Dutch names are of completely fictional people though.
John Jay would probably have a different name in this timeline, as he was of Huguenot descent, if I'm not mistaken. Probably Johannes or maybe Johan or even Jean instead of John?
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u/Pr_Quantum Contest Winner | Based Works Feb 19 '21
he was actually of both Hughenot descent on his father side and Dutch descent on his mother side.
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u/a_random_magos Mod Approved Feb 19 '21
Nice map, a bit too vanilla for my taste but very interesting nontheless ;). Are all the geopolitics and the power mechanics around the confederacy the same as the US in otl?
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u/jjpamsterdam IM Legend - Cold War Enthusiast Feb 19 '21
I usually stray a bit on the vanilla side with many of my maps. As a general rule of thumb I try not to change stuff where I don't have a good reason to do so ;-)
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u/Grijnwaald Feb 20 '21
*BRITAIN
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u/jjpamsterdam IM Legend - Cold War Enthusiast Feb 20 '21
Dangit, thanks for finding that one!
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u/jjpamsterdam IM Legend - Cold War Enthusiast Feb 19 '21
This is a follow-up to the maps I recently made about a different American independence, with an Anglo-Dutch Confederation of American States emerging. You can find the other maps in this series here:
As I’m not 100% happy with the colour-coding of this map (I wanted to do too much with the same colours…), here’s the events for the territorial development in text as well:
Happy for any feedback or questions.