AltHistory Scenario #26: What if Matthew Perry Failed to "Open" Japan?

Civilization VI just came out on Friday, and I've spent all my free time of the past weekend (in between watching my brother try Portal 2 for the first time) playing it, and loving every moment. Despite everyone's fears that it's cartoony art style would mean it was taking a simpler, free-to-play Mobile game approach, Civ VI has proven to be a huge step forward, much better than it's predecessor was when it was in Vanilla. Although there are a few issues I have, like religion never seeming to restore itself in it's own holy city and not being able to negotiate a peace treaty at certain times (and not explaining why I can't get a peace treaty), over all, it's a good game.

Okay, review time over. Back to Alternate history! But since it's a bit late, and I've been procrastinating all weekend, instead I'm going to try something different, and instead write a short timeline instead of the long, drawn out explanations. So tell me what you think at the end!.

Timeline:

July 1853: The arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry's American fleet to Edo, Japan, results in a firefight when Japanese sailors tried to board the USS Mississippi. The American ships proceed to bombard the ancient capital of Japan, destroying the small wooden ships in the harbour, and land a force of Marines to capture Edo Castle. The sickly Shogun, Tokugawa Ieyoshi, died of a heart attack before he could be captured. The Council of Elders assembled to rule Japan in place of Tokugawa's son, seeing the death and destruction caused by the American weapons, surrendered. Matthew Perry, realizing how backward the Japanese were, drew up a treaty that would place all of Japan under an American Protectorate, which the Emperor Kōmei was forced to sign.

Matthew Perry, seen here, on his way to meet the Emperor of Japan to discuss Phoebe's new cat and Joey's lost keys... 

September 1853: The news of what happened in Edo reaches America, and in Washington, D.C., President Millard Fillmore, Congress and the nation at large is suddenly faced with the fact that the US had just basically taken over Japan as a colony. In a huge debate in the Senate over wether the treaty should be accepted or not dragged on for weeks, until in a narrow vote, it was approved, with Northern industrialists and southern Landowners working out a deal to make Japan an "associate state" that would never be given statehood (and not upsetting the delicate balance of slave and free state) while it would be made a free economic territory for the whole US. Perry was appointed American Military Governor of the Japanese Empire, and a small force of 4,000 soldiers, including Colonel Robert E. Lee, the commandant of West Point, to establish a garrison there.

I'm going to avoid a Civil War joke here, because I General Lee don't find them that funny.

1854-1860: American businessmen began to invest in the backward nation, selling new factory equipment and tools to the populace, while pushing through major American reforms, including dismantling the Shogunate, getting rid of the Samurai class, heavy promotion of Christianity (Methodist and Baptist missionaries traveled to Japan to convert the Buddhist and Shinto populace, compulsory education and many other "western" motives and mores. This lead to resistance, especially amongst the deposed Samurai, the associates of the former Shogun, and conservative Buddhist and Shinto priests and practitioners. But many Japanese, especially in the lower class, traders, scholars and the Crown Prince Mutsuhito support the reforms, and the 4,000 strong garrison soon had 40,000 Japanese auxiliaries that helped to suppress those that want to hold Japan back to it's isolationist path. The Japanese economy begins to boom with it's close ties to the US, and the final armed uprising, in northern Honshu, is suppressed in 1860. Tensions would continue to remain, but under first Perry, and then later Lee as Governor, Americans came to respect the quickly modernizing Japanese.

Though the Americans had serious questions about Japan's taste in headwear.

1860-1870: The American colonial experiment soon begins to blossom. Places as diverse as Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Canada, Alaska, Mexico, Western Africa (where Liberia, the home for freed slaves in the Mother Continent, had been set up in the 1820s) , and the Philippines all are soon seen as possible areas to further push "Manifest Destiny." Trading companies, with a larger US Navy to back them, begin to set up trading posts in Africa and in the Pacific. Hawaii is annexed in 1863, followed with the purchase of Alaska in 1865. A brief war between the US and Spain in 1869-70 results in Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico being taken over as further Protectorates. Liberia begins to expand, as the generous provisions of the Bill of Emancipation, pushed by Representative Abraham Lincoln of Illinois in 1863, resulted in the US government basically purchasing slaves and freeing them, many electing to go back to Africa, ending slavery as painlessly as possible. This money was then often invested back into the US, with northern manufacturers selling automated machinery to the South to take up the slack. The entire US boomed, with Industry roaring ahead in the north, food, cotton and tobacco from the south being sold all over the world, and the colonies growing quickly as Immigration filled the "Homeland."

And, uh... okay, I've never actually seen the show. MOVING ALONG...

1870-1873: The American Empire hit it's first major stumbling block in the summer of 1870, when tensions between the US and the British Empire finally reached a head when an American ship owned by the Vanderbilt family was impounded in India, with a member of the crew (an immigrant from Scotland) being arrested for desertion from the army. President Schuyler Colfax, taking the affront as an insult directed from an "old and tired kingdom on a new, vigorous Republic," got Congress to declare war. In months, the first American troops began to march on the recently formed Dominion of Canada. However, the Canadian militia managed to stymie the Americans into the long and cold winter of 1870-71, and allowed British troops and the Royal Navy to sail to the Canadian's rescue. The war would last for three years, but despite efforts by the Royal Navy to interdict American trade between American and it's colonies in the Atlantic and Pacific, American troops took over all of Canada. The Treaty of New York ceded all British holdings in British North America, who then turned east, to India, Egypt and for allies in Europe.

Though, tbh... it's not exactly hard to find redcoats in white snow...

1873-1900: The next quarter century was America's Golden Age: with colonies around the world and one of the quickest growing populations and economies in the world, and with an entire continent to itself (Mexico was made a protectorate in 1881 after yet another civil war and military coup made the nation too unstable). However, the quick expansion and the military to protect it, funded mostly through tariffs, was proving too much. Income tax was introduced in 1881 to prevent the nation from going into default, but it was hugely unpopular measure. Questions also began to rise about the nature of American imperialism: was America going to eventually liberate the countries they took over, and make them independent? Or were they to remain in a permanent limbo between full statehood and full independence? And what was the boundary to make it clear? In some cases, like Canada, it was easy: once enough white men lived in an area, it could be entered as a state. This lead the America adopting the 60 star flag by 1900 with the introduction of Saskatchewan as a state. But in areas like Japan, Liberia and Cuba, the question was more fraught: racism and economic interests formed a powerful bulwark to preventing those nations from going their own way. It was only a matter of time before something gave.

And then the whole world will be flooded with all the weird Japanese memes

1905-1910: That something was the Great War of 1905-1910. Europe found itself at war as tensions between France and Germany finally resulted in war. Britain, coming to the aid of it's ally Germany, put up a blockade against France. France, reeling from the double blow of German invasion and British blockade, was only helped by Russia, who's ineffectual army was soon destroyed by the German and Austro-Hungarian forces it opposed. But the Royal Navy sank several American ships that continued to trade with France, and soon President Theodore Roosevelt was pushing his nation to fight the British once again. The US and Royal Navies soon began a running battle across the ocean, while British troops invaded American colonies in Africa and Asia, and vice-versa. However, the steady supply of troops and resources prevented France from loosing the war, while Russia descended into a brutal three war civil war by 1908, with Republicans, Communists and the Czar's Loyalists all fighting for the nation, and the outside world unsure of who to help or hinder. But the war in France ended in a stalemate: British and German forces were not enough to overcome French and American troops, but the US and France were not in any shape to fight back. So the Treaty of Brussels ended the war with all four major powers (and Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Turkey and Italy as minor players) dividing the world between them.

Just draw the lines where you want them. That's basically what the Europeans did.

1910-1929: But the world of Empires, however, soon began to strain. The colonies of the Europeans were underdeveloped and slowly bleeding the homelands white from the cost in money, men and morals, while the Americans were struggling to deal with the high costs of the war with their increasingly resistant populations. American Exceptionalism that drove the empire was now tearing it apart: The belief that because America had built their nations up not just for the betterment of the homeland but for the people that lived there blinded them to the fact that they were just like the American colonies in the mid 1700s, seeking to break free from a disinterested homeland that only saw them as a source of income and burdens of defence. And in 1929, three years after the New York and London Stock Exchanges crashed, destroying the global economy, the American colonies in Japan, Liberia, Mexico, the Philippines and Cuba all rose up, and began to fight the American oppressors.

I've picked on Japan enough. Time to go to another Asian country and make a silly reference about them!

1929-1935: The American Colonial Wars, also known as the Independence Wars and the Second American Revolution rocked the nation and it's Empire. Japan, the oldest and most developed of the territories held by the US, was the first to rise up, under the leadership of Japanese Nationalists like
Isoroku Yamamoto and Hideki Tojo, followed a few months later by the Philippines. Cuba, which was poor and even still held slavery in several places, had a violent insurrection of the black populace that was brutally put down by the Cuban National Guard, only for it to constantly flare up again and again, leading to a long running guerrilla war. Mexico, after a few precious decades of peace, demanded freedom again (and a long running fight between Liberals and Conservatives there would cause even more damage). Canada and Liberia also had their moments of resistance, but except in a few isolated instances in Quebec and in the deplorable Indian Reservations, it was mostly peaceful, with constant demonstrations and demands for rights. President Herbert Hoover, elected in 1928 to try to solve the Great Depression, was now faced with a multi-front Colonial War which he was increasingly incapable of handling. More and more soldiers were sent to Japan, Cuba, the Philippines and elsewhere, and the casualty lists grew longer and longer. Taxes at home went up to pay for it all, which only pushed the US even deeper into debt.

Because there is no American political crisis like one over spending money, not raising taxes to cover it, then borrowing it, and then engineering a crisis because of an arbitrary borrowing limit!

1932: Bombings, assassinations, blackmail and gang wars at home by blacks, Japanese-Americans, Mexicans, the Mafia and other groups soon ended with the Assassination of Herbert Hoover in early 1932, the first American president so killed in history. Vice-President Charles Curtis, now the President, declared Martial Law, suspending the US Constitution for a year (and later continuously extended as the crisis continued), imposing censorship which ended up shutting down many newspapers and strangling the radio and motion pictures in it's infancy, and ordering the army, the FBI, the Secret Service and other police forces to round up all suspected revolutionaries, deporting many to hastily constructed prison camps in the wilds and unpopulated areas of Ontario, Dakota, Manitoba, Alabama, Louisiana, Nevada and Alberta. This only inflamed Americans at home, and soon Communists, Fascists, Canadian and Quebecois Nationalists, and "Minutemen" democratic patriots were fighting at home. The American Civil War had begun.

From this picture, you'd think the civil war was over if the flag looks better in stripes or in a cross...

1932-1937: Five years of bloody war left the US a wreck. It's Colonies one by one had gained their freedom (Japan in 1933, Liberia in 1934, Mexico in 1935), and the Canadian states, along with Dakota, Montana, Michigan, New England, Oregon and Washington had all seceded and formed the Union of North American States. Communists in Pennsylvania, New York, Illinois, Ohio, New Jersey and Wisconsin had joined together and formed the People's Republic of America, lynching corrupt bankers and industrialists and attempted to build a true communist society compared to the totalitarian hellhole that was Stalin's Soviet Union. In the South, lead by Southern plantation owners, many of whom had land and prestige, but little money, and white-power supremacists that still resented the Emancipation Bill sixty some years before, established a Fascist Confederation of Southern States that attempted to undo decades of as of yet unfinished civil rights and virtually re-enslave African Americans. Texas went their own way, along with Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma. The US Government had fled from Washington, D.C. and set up a temporary capital in San Francisco, with California and other western states now under brutal military rule by the remnant of the old United States. By this time, Liberia had established itself as a mostly democratic state that would, in the future, provide a blueprint for the colonies of Africa when they managed to leave their European masters.

Nature, however, is still there. And terrifying. 

But what do you think? What would have happened had the US decided to go on a colonizing spree? Or if you have a topic or idea you would like me to talk about, please leave comments below, email me at tbguy1992@gmail.com, or tell me on Twitter @tbguy1992.

Alt History Scenario #21: What if Abraham Lincoln Wasn't Assassinated?

Five days after General Robert E. Lee and the Confederate States of America surrendered at the Appomattox Court House, President Abraham Lincoln was convinced by his wife Mary Todd to attend Ford's Theatre to watch the popular play Our American Cousin, a British comedy. Unbeknownst to Lincoln, a plot was afoot by Confederate sympathizers, lead by actor John Wilkes Booth, to kill the President, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward, crippling the Union at the moment of victory, and hopefully convincing the Confederates to rise up again.

Booth himself went after Lincoln, but Lincoln's bodyguard, standing inside the door to private box was hit as Booth opened it. In the commotion that followed, Lincoln turned around in time to see the would-be assassin. Booth tried to shoot his pistol at Lincoln, but the President managed to leap out of the way. Lincoln's guest in the box, Major Henry Rathbone and the guard managed to subdue Booth as Lincoln rose up. The audience and actors below looked up to see the President standing, and he gave the immortal words to the silent crowd: "Worry not for me. The show must go on."

I honestly have no idea what Lincoln would have said. Something motivational most likely.

Although Lincoln survived his attack, Secretary Seward was not as lucky. Recovering from a carriage accident from a few days before in his Washington home, the bedridden Seward was attacked by Lewis Powell, using a knife to strike Seward after gaining admittance into the home claiming to be delivering medicine from the doctor, and overpowering Seward's son. Despite the jaw splint used to repair Seward's injuries from the accident, Powell's knife sliced open Seward's jugular vein, and within moments Seward was drowning in his own blood and he choked to death.

Andrew Johnson, on the other hand, escaped unscathed, as the assassin got cold feet and drank the night away.

The news the next morning of the attempt on Lincoln's life, and the death of Seward, shocked Washington, and quickly the nation. Radical Republicans in Congress immediately blamed a secret plot of the dying Confederacy, and advocated for even harsher Reconstruction, including removing Second and First amendment rights on anyone in the South, and to burn every plantation and cotton bale as punishment. However, Lincoln wasn't going to be pushed by the Radicals, instead advocating for a "rebuilding of the United States, and not strangling half of it." Lincoln's eulogy at Seward's funeral was used to calm the nation, saying that he held no ill will against those that believed they were doing right. It wouldn't save John Wilkes Booth or Lewis Powell however, as they would be tried for attempted murder and murder, and sentenced to hanging.

Hanging: the old fashioned way to say that you really don't like someone.

By the middle of May, Lincoln gave what would be called the "Richmond Address." Just over a month after the end of the war, Lincoln traveled to the former capital of the Confederacy, and gave an outline of his plan for Reconstruction. In return for Negro enfranchisement, 10% of the male voters of a state signing an oath to the US, and passing the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments within a year of being re-established with a state government, states that had been in rebellion against the US government could be readmitted into the union, and would be given large grants by the federal government to rebuild the war torn areas and to modernize the economy, as well as a paid emancipation for all slaves in territory that remained in the union (and a fractional payment in areas where the Emancipation Proclamation was in effect).

This was a dangerous gamble: Radical Republicans wanted a military occupation of the South until all vestiges of the Confederacy were destroyed and didn't want to give a single cent to those that owned slaves, while Democrats and the Southern Elite were horrified of granting blacks the right to vote. But Lincoln, knowing that he was at least giving something to both sides, held the line. After the 1866 House Elections gave a slight minority to moderate Republicans and Democrats that were willing to support Lincoln's plan, the appropriate legislation was passed. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were passed in 1865, 1868 and 1869 respectfully, and the reconstruction of the US continued apace.

Lincoln left office in 1869, considered a hero in the north, and a worthy opponent in the south. However, his efforts at Reconstruction and dealing with both those that thought he was going to far, and those that said he wasn't going far enough, along with the pressures of the war, left him mentally and physically drained and exhausted, and he died in Chicago in 1873 after a long illness. General Ulysses S. Grant, with the help of the black vote in the south, easily won the 1868 election for President on a platform of continuing Lincoln's Reconstruction policies, and Republicans would be in the White House until 1884, and dominate Congress until 1896.

Though, 2016? I have no idea...

However, organizations like the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups, along with the so-called "Jim Crow" Laws, seemed designed to undo all the work that was done. The later issue was dealt with when the Federal Government took the State of Georgia to court over several of the quickly passed laws in 1868, and in 1871 the Supreme Court, dominated by Republicans, ruled the laws unconstitutional in light of the newly passed amendments. Radical Republicans also strengthened the "Freedman's Bureau," under Senator Charles Sumner, giving it the power to give medical aid and physical protection in the face of the KKK, especially after newspapers in the north printed sensationalist headlines of the atrocities caused by the "men in white." The US Army under General Sherman was also instrumental in protecting African-Americans, intervening in the Nashville Riots to keep blacks and white separated and from lynchings. The Freedman's Bureau, which also helped poor whites and veterans of the Civil War besides African Americans, was later to become the foundation of the Department of Labor, Education and Health in the US.

By 1875, Reconstruction had done it's job. While racism was still prevalent and the KKK continued to be a thorn in the side of the US government and those states that supported and even tried to woo the support of the enfranchised blacks, slavery was gone, the South had been extensively modernized with new factories, railroads, and mechanized agriculture, and peace in North America was assured. However, the influx of cheap labor in both the north and south, and the rise of capitalism, lead to another major issue, the rise of Socialism in the US. A coalition of poor black laborers in the south, impoverished immigrants in the north, and struggling farmers in the west, in the face of high prices of consumer goods, low wages in factories, racism and expensive education and healthcare, and quickly became the Socialist Party of the US, and become a major third party in the government and challenged the status quo. But it wouldn't be until after the First Great War that the US was dragged in by Republican President Teddy Roosevelt in 1910 and the anger at the casualties and expense, and the Great Depression in the 1920s and 30s, that the Socialist Party would claim the White House and build a newly social-democratic state in the US.

This would most likely still apply though.

Notes: The US Civil War is a topic I don't usually talk about, mostly due to my admitted lack of knowledge in the area. However, I was always fascinated about what would happen if Lincoln was in charge of Reconstruction, which I think would meant that the US would go in a more moderate, less racist and possibly more socialist by the 1930s.

But what do you think? What would have happened had Lincoln dodged the bullet at Ford's Theatre? Or if you have a topic or idea you would like me to talk about, please leave comments below, email me at tbguy1992@gmail.com, or tell me on Twitter @tbguy1992.

Editorial: Could the Confederacy Survive Independence?

For being an Alternate Historian, I still haven't talked about the American Civil War much. Part of the reason is that while it's interesting, I just don't know enough about it to write a full POD/TL with a Civil War theme. Also, because of the current political climate in the US, I really don't want to start a huge flame war, even if it won't directly effect me. Being a Canadian has its advantages and disadvantages.

By the way... THIS is the actual Confederate National Flag. Actually, one of them. The "Stars and Bars" was a battle flag, not the national flag. The more you knooooowww...

But, I'm not going to talk about how the CSA is independent. Instead, I want to talk about if the CSA could actually survive as an independent state in the long run. And, to be honest, the prospects don't look good.

First, a few things I'll mention. This though came up when I recently started re-reading Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. Their basic argument is that only society's that allow political and economic inclusiveness, i.e. allowing the vast majority of people to have a say in politics and have little to no barriers to participating in the economy will have constant, steady growth. On the flip side, "extractive" societies that have neither political or economic freedom or a large percentage of the population may have the illusion of growth, but eventually would collapse without "creative destruction," infighting amongst elites, or the destruction of the state by outside forces. Also, as AltHistorians would be pleased to know, they are very much supporters of the ideas of small changes changing everything. They call it critical junctures, but it's basically a Point of Divergence.

This is a very brief and simple oversimplification, but I want to use this model for explaining how an independent Confederate States of America would act.

Pretty sure this won't be the way. And, frankly, I don't give a damn what you think. This is my blog!

So, which is more important in the inclusive/extractive divide? The politics or the economics? Acemoglu and Robinson claimed that both are necessary, and you can't have one without the other, but that either inclusive politics can lead to inclusive economies, or inclusive economies to inclusive politics. But they also stressed that changes to make things more inclusive can also be reversed to make them extractive.

What is the Confederacy that would theoretically start in 1865 be then? It would, by far and large, be an extractive economy with minor inclusive, but mostly extractive politics. The biggest reason is slavery.

The CSA had about 9.1 million people in the 1860 Census, of which 3.5 million were African-American slaves. That's over a third of the population held in bondage, mostly on agricultural plantations growing cotton and other produce mostly for export. Of the non-slave population, there were only 132,000 free blacks, and then only 316,000 slave owners. For the most part, as a bit of a generalization, the slave owners were the political, economic, and military leaders of the CSA: the majority of the government and the top military leaders were either slave owners or fully agreed with the idea of keeping blacks down. So, that leaves 5.2 million white men, women and children in the rest of the country, and most of them were farmers, but mostly ill-educated, growing food on subsistence levels on land that wasn't as good as the wealthier plantation owners could purchase and grow cotton on, with whatever extra they made being sold in local towns for products they couldn't make on their farm.

After all, you can't exactly eat cotton. 

So, with a small percentage, like 2.89 percent, of the population owning another third that had no rights at all, this isn't exactly an "inclusive" economic of political situation. The CSA is also a major Agricultural nation, with "King Cotton," the dominate product being produced, mostly for export to European factories. The North, on the other hand, was rapidly developing industry, railroads, technology, etc. that was far ahead of the South, with a very small industrial capacity, with a large chunk of the workers being slaves. It's often said that the North basically out built and out produced the South in everything, even food production, during the war. This wouldn't change after the war.

But this is details that most people who have an interest in the Civil War knows. What I want to know is if the CSA could survive as an independent nation. And my answer is: if the CSA doesn't reform it's society and economy (free the slaves for a start, then not allow something like Jim Crow develop), then it wouldn't survive as an independent nation without outside support, say from the UK and France.

With a large chunk of the economy and the population owned by a small portion, who jealously guarded their rights, land and property, it's hard to see how the CSA could experience economic growth as the Industrial Revolution began to spread out from the UK and the USA around the world. If the plantation owners want to keep their slaves on the land, they wouldn't like factories that could offer a chance, however slim, to allow slaves to increase their standard of living (even if the wages are a fraction of the wages that whites would be paid). There would also be poor white farmers, muscled off their land to allow plantations to grow bigger to grow more cotton or food, who would go to the cities to industries, where they would be closer together, and eventually agitate for more rights. This is seen time and time again in history, as poor farmers/peasants left the land to the cities to work in the factories for a wage barely above living, who eventually demand, strike, and fight for better wages and conditions. The US, UK, Germany, France, Russia... they all had it. The CSA would be no different. But would a small elite that made it's wealth from plantations allow factories, owned by other people, to make fortunes and join them? Maybe, sure. If a middle class develops, would those same individuals allow them a bigger say in government? Perhaps. Would they allow slaves? Very unlikely.

And... uhh... *sigh* you know, it's really hard to make jokes about slavery. It's just generally depressing.

This doesn't even take into fact that, by the end of the Civil War, the UK and France had gotten India and Egypt to grow more cotton to make up for the blockaded CSA. Where before the war the South was the biggest source of cotton in the world, by the end of the war, Egypt had taken the title. So even if the South won, the cotton that was backed up in warehouses all over the South would be virtually worthless. King Cotton was no more.

So, unless the political leadership of the South, mostly powerful plantation and slave owners, were willing to free the slaves, and allow them to compete with poor whites in a broad, market oriented economy, the South wouldn't be able to survive economically. In the long run, tensions between the US and the CSA would most likely lead to more wars. Every decade after the Civil War, the US would grow more rich and powerful, while the CSA may have some growth toward an industrial economy, but never to the same degree. As long as the CSA has allies in Europe that aren't dragged into other wars (say World War 1), then the CSA could survive for a long time. But if those alliances falter, the US has a chance to knock the CSA down a few pegs without anyone in Europe caring.

Even if the CSA survives past a possible World War, it's unlikely they would make it to a second one, especially if a third of the population is still considered a second class (or slave) to the whites, and a few people control the vast majority of the wealth and political power, and their economy lags behind as the rest of the world advances in an industrial revolution.

This is just one theory, and mostly based on a book that some people agree with and some people don't. I won't get into that.

This is the book I'm talking about, and you can get it from Amazon here. It's not Althistory, but it can help to explain why things in history happened the way they did, which is important!

But what do you think? Could an independent Confederacy survive the Civil War? Or if you have a topic or idea you would like me to talk about, please leave comments below, email me at tbguy1992@gmail.com, or tell me on Twitter @tbguy1992.