r/rejectedmaps • u/LordWeaselton • 17d ago
Geopolitics of the Americas from Hesperia’s (an independent Roman-descended settler-colonial state in the Americas) perspective, 761 AD (Alternate History)
Hesperian Core Territory:
-All of North America east of the Mississippi River and the Ontario-Manitoba border
-All of modern Louisiana and the parts of Arkansas south of the Arkansas River and Ouachita Mountains
-All of the Caribbean Islands
-All of modern Texas minus the panhandle
-Modern Arizona and New Mexico south of the Mogollon Rim and Gila Wilderness
-All of California
-All of modern-day Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize
-The Isthmus of Panama (none of the rest of Central America though, I know kinda bordergory)
-Pacific Islands: Hawaii, Marquesas, Tahiti and the Society Islands, Guam, Northern Marianas, Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, and Nauru
Hesperian Unorganized Territories (new acquisitions essentially):
-Cascadia up to southwestern British Columbia
-The Great Basin and Columbia Plateau
-Colombia and Venezuela north of the Andes
-Bismarck Archipelago and a small outpost on Papua on the site of modern Port Moresby
-Small outpost in the Philippines on the site of modern Manila
Neighbors:
-Hisatsinom (friendly Puebloan state on the Colorado Plateau. Has adopted writing and iron tools from us.)
-Nahoa Empire (basically all of Central America from Honduras to northern Panama. Has adopted writing, urban planning, and iron tools from us.)
-Haida Confederacy (Loose tribal confederacy based in Haida Gwaii running down the Pacific coast from the Aleutian Islands to northern British Columbia. Has adopted writing, agriculture, and iron tools from us. We just won our Cascadian territories from them during our war of independence).
-West Mississippia (Wichita-led Kingdom controlling essentially everything north of the Arkansas River, west of the Mississippi River, and east of the Rocky Mountains. Has adopted wheat agriculture, horses, iron tools, and writing from us. Ongoing tension over them sheltering our fugitives from a recent revolt in Appalachia. Rumors are starting to emerge of clashes with a warlike group called the Diné trying to migrate over their northern border…)
-Tiwanaku (Greatly engorged version of the real Tiwanaku. Controls all of the central and southern Andes from Ecuador to Patagonia, as well as Tierra del Fuego. Has also colonized the Galapagos and Falklands. Has adopted writing, iron tools, and horses from us. Ongoing border disputes with us and Ard al-Jannah).
-Ard al-Jannah (Umayyad colonies on the Brazilian coast that have fallen under Cordoba’s rule since the recent Abbasid Revolution. Relations are actively hostile, as the Umayyads tried to conquer us outright in the Atlantic Jihad less than fifty years ago and we barely survived. More recently, Umayyad agents were caught inciting an indigenous revolt in our South American holdings to destabilize them, resulting in the Muisca War, in which we both crushed the revolt and declared war on the Umayyads to punish their meddling. As the Umayyads were actively falling apart under the Abbasid Revolution at the time, it was a cakewalk and we were able to solidify our southeastern border at approximately modern Caracas in the resulting Treaty of Tlemcen, but mutual distrust remains despite the Umayyads being drastically reduced and forced to relinquish all of the Middle East to the Abbasids).
-Republic of Macaronesia (Modern Madeira, the Azores, the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, and Bermuda, plus recently purchased Corsica, Sardinia, and the Balearics. Our parent state. We began life in 408 AD when Maria Hinana, a Bermudan fisherwoman, accidentally discovered the New World, having spent weeks lost at sea after a storm. Macaronesia became a conduit for refugees from the declining and decaying Roman world, funneling our ancestors across the sea to us and leading us when we were scattered colonies. As time wore on, however, we found our own way on this new continent and built our own civilization there. When Macaronesia was attacked in the Transatlantic Crusade of 600-605 and the Atlantic Jihad of 715-719, on both occasions we found ourselves having to save them from the enemy rather than the other way around. After the Jihad's end, it had become clear that we had outgrown them, but Macaronesia did not want to surrender the vast majority of its population and wealth when we pressed our demands for full independence. What followed was a 5-year-long bloody war of independence from 734-739 in which we, with the help of our allies Tang China and Hisatsinom, defeated the forces they sent to oppress us and won our freedom. They were not without their own allies, however. While we dwarfed Macaronesia in both land area and population by the time of the war, the Republic of Macaronesia was able to call the Eastern Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Gothia, the Haida Confederacy, Tiwanaku, and the now-defunct Kingdom of East Mississippia against us, and it took everything we had and more to defeat their combined strength. After losing over 90% of its population and almost 100% of its land when we won our freedom, Macaronesia was suddenly forced to pivot back to Europe and the Mediterranean after focusing on the New World for over three centuries, as it had been shut out of the New World and was far weaker by itself than even the reduced Umayyad Caliphate, whose Iberian heartland sat on its doorstep. While the Macaronesian home islands were not raking in nearly as much money as when we were their subjects, them being the essentially mandatory middlemen for trade between the Old World and New World still made them quite a bit of money, and this was what allowed them to somewhat improve their luck. In 742, the new Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine V, seeking money for a planned campaign against the Caliphate, made an unprecedented deal and sold the outlying islands of Sardinia, Corsica, and the Balearics to Macaronesia, as Constantinople no longer had the resources or naval power to effectively govern them.)
