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Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM |
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This Day in Alternate History Blog
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Avenge
the Alamo ©
Final Sword Productions LLC 2004 Texas
independence was a quite near run thing. San
Jacinto is one of those victories that had one read about it in fiction, one
would dismiss as melodramatic tripe. However there was another possibility. Jackson stood on
legalities and refused to fight. The
man is and remains an enigma. He
was by and large an ineffectual President.
His destruction of the Bank of the United States set the US back for
decades financially. However he did
face down South Carolina over nullification and create the modern Democratic
Party. He had also previously essentially run wild in a campaign
that essentially forced Spain to sell Florida. So
presume that Mexico managed to insult him diplomatically.
Perhaps a crack about his wife, marriage, her divorce, the Burr plot,
…any of the many things an arrogant ambassador could have been quoted as
saying by the partisan press of the era. Jackson
asks for and gets a declaration of war. The
US of 1836 was much weaker than in 1846-48.
However it was also more united. Fewer
elements would have opposed a nationalist exercise.
Also the theater of war would have been closer to the US supply sources
in New Orleans. So instead of San Jacinto Jackson takes the field with an
army of Dixie and Midwestern volunteers stiffened by the few regulars.
The USN could still have blockaded the coast but would not have been
large enough for a Vera Cruz to Mexico City expedition.
So the probable course of the war is that we take all of Mexico’s ports
on the Atlantic and Pacific AND most of northern Mexico [essentially Taylor’s
campaign of OTL carried a city or two further plus an expedition through Santa
Fe into Sonora]. Let
Marty Van become President in 1836. Jackson
stays on as field commander. The
war drags on till 1841 seeing Van Buren into a 2nd term.
The net effect is that Mexico is restricted to being a landlocked nation
in the Highlands. We get far more
than OTL. This means we have new
slave states to balance out Kansas, Oregon, California, etc.
The whole slavery dispute over the Western territories takes place at a
much lower decibel level. He basic
sectional balance preserves itself. It
also means that California gold and Nevada silver probably comes on line sooner
which is a boost to the worldwide economy.
This
in turn gives a chance that the USCW can be finessed or at least postponed.
It also becomes quite likely that a US administration will back
Walker’s Nicaraguan expedition with at least a protectorate and perhaps
annexation. US probably also takes
Hawaii. Oregon probably still turns
out roughly as in OTL. It would
have been a truly stupid war on both sides for territory of minimal import.
Once we concede Vancouver Island… It
also means the whole Ostend Manifesto push for the Spanish Caribbean probably
comes to fruition. US probably buys
Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic in the 1850’s.
Slavery is still likely to end before the turn of the 20th
century – British pressure, changes in memes, decline of King Cotton as other
sources [India, Egypt] come on stream. All
from an insult by an ambassador.
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