Hey guys, I am glad to have the Part 150 mega update out, and before New Year’s at that. I’ve decided that my next update will be about the Commonwealth of America. More specifically, it will be a revisiting of the country’s demographics and settlement patterns. I’m running it by you guys beforehand so I can get your input, but I’ve got some things in mind.
I’m pretty sure that I’ve already discussed this beforehand, but I think that I overshot the Commonwealth’s population in the past. 190 million by 1940 is definitely way higher than it should be realistically. I’m thinking something like 100-120 million at that time is more plausible, which would be around 135-150 million by 1970. This would change everything from the size of cities and provinces to the wars with the French and Spanish not being so lopsided (though the Commonwealth would still win).
Speaking of provinces, I’ve got a few changes that I’m thinking of making. First, some names. I’ve had the idea of renaming New Scotland, the former Scottish colony turned Commonwealth province that encompasses OTL’s Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI and most of Maine to New Caledonia, both to make it more poetic (Caledonia being the Roman name for Scotland) and because New Scotland is kinda generic (
the Pacific island would receive a different name ITTL, especially since it’s German). Then again, New England is still used as a name ITTL, so keeping New Scotland would make sense. Perhaps the two would be combined into a broader region called New Britain ITTL (with
another Pacific island also getting a different name under the Germans). Furthermore, other locations in the Commonwealth, whether they be provinces or cities may also be renamed, in which case I will let you know in the update or in a separate post. I also am considering redrawing some of the provincial boundaries. For example, there were proposals IOTL for new British colonies in Appalachia (
Vandalia) and in the Midwest (
Charlotina), as well as another called
Transylvania that was founded without support from the crown in what is now Kentucky and Tennessee. Implementing these into the TL in some form would be both plausible and a cool historical easter egg. In addition, I’ve considered making an Iroquois territory in what is now Upstate New York, though without the French in Canada the Anglo-Iroquois alliance very well may not exist. On that topic, there’s no guarantee that New York or Pennsylvania would expand across the Appalachians like they do IOTL, perhaps TTL’s western (and northern for New York) would be the Eastern Continental Divide, with an alternate province taking up the space on the other side. Reworking some of the borders in the Midwest to be less like OTL is also something I’m considering, though of course I’ll take your feedback before I make anything final.
Another alteration I want to make would be to historical migration patterns. According to the book
Albion’s Seed (which I haven’t read, unless you count
the Slate Star Codex blog post on it, so take my words with a grain of salt), there were four main groups of settlers in Colonial America that would go on to shape the culture and politics of the United States. Those were the Cavaliers in the Chesapeake, the Quakers in Pennsylvania, the Puritans in New England and the Scots-Irish/Borderers/Ulster Protestants in Appalachia. Now, I don’t see the first three groups settling in different locations from OTL, but the Borderers are a different story. With so many of them having Scottish origins, I think it’s inevitable that a large percentage of migration of Ulster Protestants to America would go to New Scotland/New Caledonia instead of Appalachia. This would have significant cultural and political ramifications for the Commonwealth. The Canadian Maritimes and Northern New England could have a culture more like OTL’s West Virginia or Kentucky and much of the Great Lakes and Upper Midwest would be more redneck than in our world. Given their tendency to push the frontier IOTL, I could also see a lot of them becoming involved in the fur trade, including the creation of TTL’s equivalent to the Métis.
If you have any feedback to leave, please do so. I’ve created a map showing my revision of the Commonwealth’s provinces east of the Mississippi, which I’ll share with you guys once this is posted. I hope to have the actual update out by the end of the month, it’s already over a thousand words and I haven’t even left the east coast, so it’s looking to be quite a long one. I’ll also post a poll on whether I should change New Scotland’s name to New Caledonia and likely one on whether I should revise the provincial map. UOTTC is also due for an update, I’ll just need to work out more of the details for that one. Regardless, I hope to hear from you guys regarding these plans.
EDIT: Made an edit to the previous update changing the Commonwealth's population from 176 million to 156 million.