United States of America

Demography

Regions

Interior

States

State of Anacostia

State of Cheyenne

State of Minasota

State of Missouri

State of Tahosa

State of Washingtonia

State of West Florida

National Preserve Territories

National Preserve Territory of Yellow Rock

Cities

Cities in the United States

Websteropolis

(*) Followed the outbreak of the Liberty and Union War (1868-76), new states not recognized by the Richmondite Government

(**) Fourteenth Amendment banned slavery in 1873; Richmondite Government overthrown, fled in 1876

-Without the War of 1812, the Maine statehood movement is much weaker, and after a certain point it falls into a stiff decline

-Democratic Maine being part of Whiggish Massachusetts means Massachusetts is somewhat of a swing state, and this gives Maine a strong position of influence when Populists come to power in the state

-The Louisiana Purchase never happened, instead it's obtained (along with Florida) in US's Wars > Luisiana War (1825-8)

-When the US conquers Spanish Louisiana, the OTL Louisiana state has enough population to be annexed immediately

-With a much later acquisition of Louisiana, Britain is able to get firm control over the Oregon Territory, the US buys the Olympic Peninsula and the right to build roads to and from it for an ample sum later on

-Mississippi Territory does not incorporate the Gulf coastline, and so instead of being divided north-south (to give both states access to the Gulf), it's divided east-west (to give both states access to the Mississippi)

-And needing to shore up the South's position in the Senate results in Florida (incl. the bits annexed by Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana) divided into two

-Without the Louisiana Purchase, there's a lot more southern migration into the Midwest, and it's enough to tip Illinois into ratifying a slave state constitution which gets approved by Congress after a brief sectional crisis, and as a result its boundary does not get revised northwards and it lacks Chicago

-Many of the southerners who went into Texas in OTL instead go into Missouri. With Illinois a slave state, they're able to open slave plantations on the Mississippi shore, and Missouri is far more securely a slave state

-Missouri is smaller (boundary at the Osage) due to a stronger North during the later Missouri crisis though

-Michigan gets the Toledo Strip, and as a result it doesn't get the Upper Peninsula

-Indian Removal is delayed relative to OTL, and because of them getting pushed by the states OTL attempts for Cherokee, Creek, others to move to Texas works

-and so far smaller reservations in OTL Oklahoma emerge, opening it to later settlement

-An OTL proposal to turn most of southern Minnesota into an Indian Territory to deport Midwestern tribes gets through with the Midwest more settled and Minnesota less than OTL

-Wisconsin initially wants to get the remainder of the Northwest Territory, but it gets blocked from annexing the St. Croix Valley and the Upper Peninsula, which instead goes to a separate state, called Ontonagon as was an OTL proposal (Congress refused to let it name itself Superior)

-Juniper (Iowa, named after the red cedar (juniper) tree for the Cedar Valley) gets a very different shape because the North, wanting to pack in more free states, secures for it a smaller western boundary extending Missouri's and, as compensation, gives it a bit of the North-West Indian Territory stretching to OTL Minneapolis as was an OTL proposal, then stretched further to construct railroads through it

-Pembina Territory gets opened up in order to open up a path to a northern transcontinental railroad, and also to satisfy land hunger for the South-West Indian Territory, but it gets settled very slowly

-Nibrasca Territory, consisting of land extending from Missouri, Juniper consisting of Nibraska, Kances, and land to the Rockies to make room for the railroad

-with Kances divided off to make room for a slave territory, is major battleground of slave way

-and Cimarron created in same burst

-Slavery tensions spark a civil war after the disputed 1868 election, goes much worse for the North but it wins by 1876

-In the interim, to prevent a pro-compromise candidate from winning the coming election, the North admits a number of states (not recognized by southern government)

-Liberty and Union War (1868-76) states

-Olympia, effectively a city-state centred around the city-state of the much larger Port Townsend (the only American port on the Pacific), gets admission

-West Virginia equiv is much smaller because the James River and Kanawha Canal gets constructed and turns the Kanawha Valley into a slaveowning region

-East Tennessee's statehood movement goes off and succeeds, with the name of its 1780s attempt

-Maine's statehood movement makes a return with Massachusetts becoming very much dominant-party to the detriment of its importance, and it gets it

-postwar

-Country folders/United States/Economy/Mineral rushes > Pikes Peak Gold Rush (1878) occurs in southwest part of Nibrasca territory, causes southward push, territory to be admitted of Tahosa, "Dweller of the Mountain Tops"

-Country folders/United States/Economy/Mineral rushes > Washingtonia Gold Rush (1882) sees that whole area populated by whites, settled and named after George Washington (this clunky name was proposed for OTL Washington by Stephen Douglas)

-precedent for city-state set, and so with DC having boomed way more thanks to Chesapeake and Ohio Canal built way earlier and Second Bank headquartered there, gets admitted as State of Anacostia, named after river

-Following Country folders/United States/Economy/Mineral rushes > Black Hills Gold Rush (1902), Sioux reservation put to an end

-Minasota has as its origins as the North-West Indian Territory, a pile of "useless land" to put Native American into (and also gets a bunch of Metis), and later it gets statehood when Country folders/United States/Economy/Mineral rushes > Black Hills Gold Rush (1902) puts an end to Sioux reservation and brings more pressure for settlement, land reorganization

-The remaining land also gets settled, with a small border adjustment giving it control of the whole west bank of the Missouri River because the federal government doesn't want it in the North-West Indian Territory in the name of security (thus why it looks like that), and it gets admitted as the State of Jefferson (a name proposed a few times in OTL)

-The North-West Indian Territory gets a number of other Native American tribes deported there (with a lot of friction between them and the Dakota) as well as a fair number of Metis fleeing the Red River Colony's annexation to Upper Canada, and they're reluctant for statehood because it would mean allowing white settlers, but with the frontier closed everywhere else there's an increasing land hunger for it, and so after some years of close but failed votes for opening it up, they apply for statehood as "Minasota" under a constitution giving them protection and get it, and they're able to manage the subsequent white settlement well

-run by separate service

-nobody permanent in the area

-citizens vote like abroad voters

-see National Preserve Territory of Yellow Rock

-area: 39,886 km^2

-area: 18,345 km^2

-OTL Marias Pass

-during construction of Northern Pacific Railroad, glaciers near Schuldt Pass discovered

-rising frenzy, pushed by railway company, to make it a park

-preserved as an American Alpine paradise for that purpose

-area: 30,481 km^2

-named after Spanish guy, not Islamic holy site

-but there are many jokes made on this vibe

-in the wake of Country folders/United States/Economy/Mineral rushes > Pikes Peak Gold Rush (1878), development of spectacular locales causes talk of preserving them

-results in reservation of Medina Pass [Fremont Pass]as federal land from settlement

-for national visits at large

-following US's Wars > White Knight rebellions (1878-94), which sees action in State of Tahosa, the US government dissolves the declared "Territory of Lowndes"

-the US government decides to separate out Medina Pass, and expand it dramatically, into a separate park

-turns this into a national tourist attraction

-almost sui generis due to huge population

-from New Orleans to Holy Ghost (non-inclusive)

-center of film industry

-aka "American Riviera"

The Middle West is, in many ways, the beating heart of the United States. It may be divided into two sections - the Northern Middle West, and the Southern Middle West - on lines rooted in the old sectional slave-free divide, which have residual demographic and urban implications. Within the Northern Middle West is Alleghania, Ohio Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsan, Juniper, and Ontonagon, and sometimes Pembina, Minasota, and Nibrasca; and within the Southern Middle West is Kentucky, Franklin, Illinois, Missouri, and sometimes Arkansaw, Franklin, and Tennessee. 

Ohio would be settled soon after the American Revolution, and in particular the region of the Western Reserve became an antislavery hotspot. Kentucky, and Alleghania too would be settled in short succession. Settlement slowly expanded - from the North, through New York and the Erie Canal, and from the South, through and over the Ohio River. Most of what was then simply the West became more northern than southern thanks to the Erie Canal, but Illinois got secured for slavery in 1818 thanks to southern settlement, after the Illinois Compromise that resolved a pretty drastic political crisis. Following the Louisiana War (1824-7), the entire Louisiana Territory got secured into American control, and various Native American groups got cleansed across the Mississippi, into a North-West Indian Territory (today Minasota). The Missouri region, already slaveowning, became subjected to southern settlement. When it sought statehood in 1836, it caused a political crisis over its slaveowning constitution, which threatened to expand the institution further westwards. This crisis only came to an end with the Missouri Compromise of 1837, which paired admission along with an explicit ban on the institution north and west of the state, a fugitive slave act, a ban on further slave importation into Missouri, and Indian removal. In practice, Missouri swiftly legalized slave importation, and northern juries nullified the Fugitive Slave Act; this was accepted swiftly as the Webster Proviso to the Missouri Compromise. Fugitive slaves, freed by jury nullification, made up free Colored communities in cities such as Millewackie and St. Paul.

Further expansion westwards only came under Daniel Webster; after he successfully forced South Carolina to back off during the Second Nullification Crisis, he successfully was able to pass acts making the territories of Juniper and Pembina, the latter for a section of a northern transcontinental railroad. The great divide between the northern and southern parts of the Middle West slowly increased into a chasm; though the Missouri River trade was highly important, the fugitive slave issue and jury nullification made it truly national. Settlers moving westwards radicalized the population of the area; Ohio and Indiana  became increasingly Northern and urban, while with the Panic of 1842, slavery expanded along the Missouri River and made Missouri state very, very slaveowning. St. Louis, already the great city of the Middle West, saw its position strengthened by the transcontinental railroad having its eastern terminus there. However, the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad also required opening the west to settlement, and Nibrasca (then including what is today Kansas and adjacent parts of the Interior) was organized as a territory in 1857. The resulting Bleeding Nibrasca saw slaveowners attempt to secure the west for slavery, and they did achieve the division of Kances from Nibrasca as a de facto slave territory. This directly sparked broad-scale sectional tensions, and ultimately civil war.

With the Liberty and Union War (1868-76), the Middle West got broadly divided on these slaveowning lines, with a few exceptions. The importance of the Ohio River economy meant that southern Ohio saw a sizeable pro-Richmondite rebellion, and in particular Indiana saw rivalling state governments - its Chief Justice Abraham Lincoln being an ardent Constitutionalist was decisive in keeping it from going Richmondite. For some time, it was only the town of Chicago that connected Wisconsan and the rest of the West with Indiana and the rest of the East, and this position gave Chicago a boom which gave it the nickname "Keystone City". But in the end, the Southern Middle West was taken.

Following the end of the War, a large section of Southerners chose to move to Buenaventura (particularly Texas), both because the economy was in tatters and many did not wish to take an oath of allegiance. This opened a frontier of sorts, and the Southern Homestead Act recognized this, both distributing land to freedmen and northern settlers. Missouri, with its large freedman population, had less land available for northern settlement, which directed northern settlers to the city - St. Louis, still a city of railheads, quickly bounced back and used the opportunity to modernize and strengthen its position as the United States' second city. But Kentucky and particularly Illinois became fairly rural, and despite the urbanization of the last few decades this remains the case today. In contrast, Ohio and Indiana became booming, dense, and urban parts of the nation, and urbanization increased in the remainder of the Northern Middle West, as cities like St. Paul, Millewackie, and Chicago made their place on the map as industrial and commercial hubs in their own right.

As the twentieth century proceeded, the Middle West secured further its position as the center of gravity of the American nation. Immigrants, particularly Germans and Brits, arrived in huge numbers, and along with the northern coast the Middle West is today a center of German-American culture. With industry came new investment in education and other institutions - in particular the hydraulic analyzer boom of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries turned the Middle West into a center of analyzer science.

Today, industry is by no means dead - but anxiety over its decline has led to strong Justicialist support at the expense of the Free Trade Party, and the tech boom and the inauguration of the Age of Silicon has seen a dramatic shift in its economy. Its large German-American population makes itself known in its large turner halls, and German remains a common language; in addition, the decline of the farming economy has seen the Southern Middle West urbanize, as well as a migration of southerners, including Colored-Americans, northward. Despite everything, the Middle West remains the heart of the American nation.

-Cimarron, Kances,

-large swathes of oil production

The Southwest, also known as Oil Country, spans Orleans, Arkansaw, Cimarron, Kances, and occasionally Missouri. This area is well-known for its oil production, and it is in large part this that its economy runs.

The region is entirely land conquered during the Louisiana War (1825-8), although immediately following the conquest the only area settled by whites was Orleans and to a much lesser extent Arkansaw. Orleans in particular had (and has) a strong Francophone culture and, at the time, it even had a notable Spanish-speaking culture, and its main city of New Orleans looked more to the Caribbean than it did mainland North America. Orleans boomed in the years following annexation, the Mississippi becoming the main artery of the nation, and it became a highly distinct part of the South due to its distinct non-Anglo roots - in other words, the Southwest, and the city of New Orleans quickly became a center of the trans-Caribbean slave trade from the US to Cuba and Brazil. With the Panic of 1842 and the interruption of the trans-Caribbean slave trade with the Granadine War of Independence (1848-52), the price of slaves collapsed, and this allowed for the rapid expansion of slavery into Arkansaw; with many slaveowners being worried about high slave densities allowing for a revolt, this increased pressure to expand slavery beyond the Missouri Compromise line.

-see Interior

Olympia is sui generis in that it is the United States' only exclave, and it exists to give the United States access to the Pacific. Almost all of the state's population lives in the city of Port Townsend, only second to San Francisco in being a great city of the West Coast, with a very small population in its hinterland. In practice its economy is heavily tied to neighboring Columbia - and indeed, Port Townsend is only a short ferry ride to that other great Pacific city, St. Genevieve. This has given it a very different political culture to the rest of the United States, more similar to Columbia and Pacific Buenaventura. Despite it, its fortunes are heavily tied to the US - Port Townsend became great because it was the western terminus of the transcontinental railroad, and the rise of the auto and the planophore have, though both weakened the stature of the railroad, not dislodged the city's position nor its ties to the Eastern 42.

1. abolished in 1857, as gradual abolition post 1860. ⮐
2. abolished in 1867, as gradual abolition post 1870. ⮐
3. Applied for admission in 1867, secured enabling act, and issued a constitution. Whether their constitutions met the enabling act's terms was disputed, recognition of their electoral delegations for the 1868 election was one of the disputes that caused the division of the United States into two governments in 1869 and the subsequent Liberty and Union War (1868-76). By the time it came to an end in 1876, their constitutions and statehood was struck as invalid and, by the First State Readmission Act, they needed to apply for statehood under strict terms. ⮐