Amerika: The History of the Amerikaners

[CatoMinor]

Empire Continued

The coming years were transformative for the Amerikaners. Many former Liberaals who lost everything in the civil war resettled out west in Lakotah, only to become caught up in Botha's plans of westward expansion and the Sioux Wars. Further South, with the desire to begin expanding their influence into the Caribbean, Botha led Amerika to war with Spain in 1863. Botha claimed that with Spain in decline they could no longer protect the large Amerikaner population of southern Florida, declaring war when Spain refused to cede Florida. Amerika won a quick victory in Florida, annexing it as a new territory, but after a disastrous navel defeat off the coast of Cuba the Amerikaners were prevented from piercing any deeper into Spanish territory. The Treaty of Lisbon ended the war in January 1864 with Florida being ceded to Spain.

Painting the war as a triumph of the Amerikaner people and a taste of what the future could look like under his leadership, Botha called for a plebiscite for the Amerikaner people to vote for transforming the Republic into the Amerikaans Empire with Christiaan Botha being the first of a Botha dynasty to lead it. The vote was open to every male aged 21 and over however voter intimidation in many anti-Botha places prevented a great many from voting. The plebiscite was held on May 20, 1864.

Empire/Republic Plebiscite 1864
Ja - 58.7%
Noi - 41.3%

On Christmas day 1864 Christiaan Bothawas crowned by the Pastor to the Hoeraag, as Emperor Christiaan, First Emperor of the Amerikaner People. Upon receiving the crown, Emperor Christiaan stood and declared
"By the will of God and the Amerikaner people I have been chosen to lead this nation. Like a shepherd I will protect my flock from the wolves that surround us and wish to do us harm. Unite behind me and our people will take their rightful place in the world!"
Christiaan then took his seat to the roaring applause of the Hoeraag.

The Amerikaans Empire in 1864


Next, Age of Industry

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

So is Botha some sinister combination of Grant, Napoleon, and Hitler? Fascinating stuff.

[CatoMinor]

So is Botha some sinister combination of Grant, Napoleon, and Hitler? Fascinating stuff.

I was thinking along the lines of someone similar capabilities as Bismark but with a Leopold II kind of dark streak on the inside. We will see that in upcoming parts where Christiaan moves to establish an Amerikaner colony in South Africa and clashes with the Zulu.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

So is Botha some sinister combination of Grant, Napoleon, and Hitler? Fascinating stuff.

I was thinking along the lines of someone similar capabilities as Bismark but with a Leopold II kind of dark streak on the inside. We will see that in upcoming parts where Christiaan moves to establish an Amerikaner colony in South Africa and clashes with the Zulu.

Ah, I was wondering when we'd finally seek an empire outside our own continent. I was assuming it would happen through filibusters in Latin America, but it looks like Amerika will have to wait for the Spanish to heave their last breath in order to launch the banana wars. Did the Haitian Revolution happen?

[CatoMinor]

Did the Haitian Revolution happen?

The Haitian Revolution still goes down, although slightly later. In rl the Haitians inspired by the French Revolution in 1789 rose up themselves in 1791, in Amerikanerverse the Haitians rose up in 1808 in hopes of taking advantage of the Cromwellian Wars that had engulfed Europe by then. It was still just as brutal and ended the same with a sick and tired French Army abandoning Haiti by 1819.

[CatoMinor]

Part 10: The Age of Industry and Scramble for Africa

While the period between 1864 and 1903 was known for many events that would reshape North America's borders and alliances, what defined this period most was the rapid rise of industrialization across the Amerikaans Empire. Men such as Johann D. Rockefeller and Cornelius van der Bilt helped to drive this age as their lust for money and desire to bury their competition allowed for massive economic growth.

Cornelius van der Bilt, born on Staten Island in 1792, was a decedent some of the first settlers of the New Netherlands Colony who came over as indentured servants in 1650. By the time of the Amerikaner Civil War Cornelius had established himself as a captain of industry in railroads and shipping. During the Civil War he had been instrumental in helping to provide Nationaal forces with steamships to counter the large naval advantage held by the Liberaals. Much of the post war growth was to be fueled by the oil and gas industry led by Johann D. Rockefeller. Creating the Amerikaner Oil Company in 1870, Rockefeller would gown on to control over 90% of the oil industry until public pressure would eventual force the Empire to break the company up. By the 1870's the amount of rail had doubled from the previous decade, connecting New Amsterdam with the Rocky Mountains.

Along with growth in the railroads came a booming steel industry centered in the provinces of Sylvania, Allegheny, and Erie. To fuel this growth the Empire needed raw materials and to that end Emperor Christiaan soon set his sights over seas after his victory in the Cotton War. By 1880 several expeditions had been made to the Kongo river region in Africa as well as the southern Cape of Good Hope. While resistance to one degree or another was inevitable anywhere the Amerikaners attempted to subjugate native people, none resisted fiercer than the Zulu Empire.

Amerikaner Empire in North America, 1880


Next, Age of Industry and Scramble for Africa Continued

[CatoMinor]

Age of Industry and Scramble for Africa Continued

By 1880's several European powers as well as the Amerikaners had began the process of claiming large portions of Africa in hopes of taking advantage of it's vast economic resources. In 1884 and 1885 a conference was held in Berlin, setting the guidelines for all the agreed parties on how a claim could be recognized as legitimate and settling disputes. With the Berlin Act as the foundation Africa was quickly devoured whole by the major powers. Many of the European colonies broke apart traditional tribal boundaries and pushed the indigenous populations down to 2nd class status, however non compared to the horrors of the Amerikaner colonies.

The Amerikaans Empire established two large colonies in the Kongo River Basin, Midden-Afrika, and in the south, Zuiden-Afrika. In Zuiden-Afrika the Zulu population refused to go down without a fight. For nearly 3 years the Amerikaners battled the more numerous yet less armed Zulu. At the Battle of Isandlwana the Amerikaner forces were decimated by the attacking Zulu. Resorting to extreme tactics in order to win, Amerikaners began forcing executing all Zulu soldiers captured and forcing entire villages into camps to be neglected and starve. By the end of the conflict the Zulu peoples were on the verge of extinction and Zuiden-Afrika was securely under the control of Emperor Christiaan. Meanwhile in the colony of Midden-Afrika to the north the atrocities mounted even higher as millions of natives were forced to work in mines and on plantations, feeding the Amerikaans Empire with its materials. Although the real number can never be known, it is estimated that between 1890 and 1903 anywhere from 3-15 million Africans died as a result of disease and abusive working conditions.

Africa 1900

Amerikaans Empire - Orange
Kingdom of France - Blue
English Commonwealth - Pink
Kingdom of Portugal - Purple
Austro-Prussian Empire - Burgundy
Swedish Empire - Yellow
Ottoman Empire - Dark Green
Republic of Spain - Light Green
The Netherlands - Brown
Liberia and Ethiopia - Dark Gray

Back in Amerika an aging Emperor Christiaan had been grooming his son Frederik to eventually succeed him. Where Christiaan was known for establishing order, many saw Frederik as hope for reform. Responsible for leading the efforts to improve working conditions and creating the nation's first welfare program, Frederik became a beacon of hope for people who missed The Republic. Strategically this worked to deflate the growing labor movement. Then on February 12 1903, at the age of 72, Emperor Christiaan Botha passed away in his sleep. At age 52, Emperor Frederik I was crowned in New Amsterdam. While Frederik was ushered in with excitement and the hope for reform, for many this was not enough and soon be made apparent in provincial elections, where democracy still existed.

[CatoMinor]

Part 11: The Republicans Strike Back

With the ascension of Frederik as Emperor many had, for the first time in years, hope for reform. Years earlier, under Emperor Christiaan, the Hoeraad was replaced by the Bundraad and the Provinciaalraad.
The Bundsraad was to be a council of 3 representatives elected from each province and led by a Ryk-Kanselier appointed by the Emperor. The Provinciaalraad was a council consisting 1 representative from each province appointed by the governor. This change to the structure of the Amerikaans government would enable the rise of several of the most skilled politicians the Amerikaners would ever see.

The first was Gustaav Vroom. Born in 1860, near Fort Orange, Gustaav came from a wealthy Liberaal family that had lost almost everything in the Civil War. Not long after graduating from college the young Vroom was elected to represent Ohio's 3rd seat in the first Bundsraad in 1882. Typically seen as sympathetic to workers, he had been a voice for laws to keep industries in check. In 1889 after a worker's strike in Youngstad had escalated into a violent standoff the Emperor ordered the strike put down by force, quickly crushing it with the provincial militia. Vroom publicly backed the strikers would cost him his seat in the in the 1890 election, however would be elected again in 1894, defeating his opponent by a razor thin margin of 15 votes.

A close friend of Vroom, and seen by many as his political equal, was Theodore Roosevelt from Oyster Bay on Long Island. A decedent of Claes van Rosenvelt, Theodore had a heritage that stretched back to the early days of New Netherlands. Born in 1859, Theodore was elected to the first Bundsraad in 1882 representing New Amsterdam. In 1886 he successfully ran for Governor of New Amsterdam Province, where he served for half his term before accepting Emperor Christiaan's appointment as Ryk-Kanselier in early 1889. As Ryk-Kanselier Roosevelt would with other reformers such as Vroom and Prince Frederik in creating an early version of what would eventually become the Amerikaner welfare system.

In April 1903, barely two months into Emperor Frederick's reign, while visiting a small factory town in Allegheny Province Emperor Frederik was shot and killed by the radicalized republican John Swifton, a farmer of Pennsylvanian-English decent. A schocked Empire scrambled to figure out what to do next. Vroom argued passionately before a mixed Bundsraad that while Frederik's death was tragic the time had come to restore the republic, a speech met with equal amounts of cheers and shouts of "traitor!" Meanwhile Roosevelt felt he was duty bound to honor the line of succession and recognize the 5 year old Prince Augustus as Emperor. On the floor of the Bundsraad Roosevelt warned his friend Vroom and all other republicans against taking any actions that would throw them into a point of no return. Vroom responded with his last effort to avoid civil war, a compromise of that would keep the monarchy so long as limitations were placed upon it giving the Bundsraad greater authority and the ability to choose their own Ryk-Kanselier. Despite extremists on both sides opposing the compromise, moderation won the day by a thin margin.

The Vroom-Roosevelt Compromise:
                  Ja       Noi
Republicans 29       17
Monarchists 20       30
Total           49       47

Despite the compromise's success there was still a feeling of unease around the Empire. Monarchists wanted retaliation and revenge for the loss of their Emperor and what seemed like a showing of weakness in response by limiting Augustus's powers. Meanwhile republican radicals emboldened began openly calling for revolution. In the Bundsraad Roosevelt was chosen to remain Ryk-Kanselier and for the first time in decades partisanship began to reappear as four new factions emerged. Led by Vroom was a reborn Liberaal Party, previously having been banned following the Civil War. The radical republicans formed the Volken Alliance. The Monarchists remained within the Nationaal Party however internally were divided among the Moderates led by Roosevelt and the Absolutists who had opposed the compromise. The coming years would see bring massive change to the Amerikaners.

Up Next: Part 12, A Specter Haunts Amerika

[CatoMinor]

Part 12: A Specter Haunts Amerika

April 14, 1906

As the noise began to settle down in the smoke filled and crowded Checagou Coliseum, Eugeen V. Debs began to address the crowd.

"Dear brothers and sisters, we make history today! No more will we accept the crumbs that the capitalists throw our way. For too long has the working man been used and then cast aside, while the aristocrats and their minions who exploit us call themselves "arch-patriots." Every solitary one of these exploiters and abusers claims to love this nation while simultaneously crushing the very soul of it. Together we stand loudly and proclaim "No more!" Let this first gathering of the Amerikaner Werkers Party send a message to all who oppose labor, that the socialist specter that has been growing for so long has at last taken bodily form and can no longer be ignored!"

Gathered before Eugeen were more than 5,000 delegates gathered from all across the Empire. As industrialization began to reshape the economy years prior labor movements arose with it, however for decades remained divided and achieving little success as small occasional reforms tended to appease the masses and during the reign of Emperor Botha being vocally hostile to the status quo was dangerous. However as a new chapter was starting in the Empire labor organizers became more emboldened. Eventually Eugeen V. Debs from the Province of Shawnee called for a national convention to be held in Checagou where the delegates voted overwhelmingly in favor of merging their smaller groups into the new Amerikaner Werkers Party, devoted to the emerging socialist ideology. While conservative and radical factions emerged during this convention they all agreed to come together and begin challenging those in power.

The Bundsraad Election of 1906 would place the AWP firmly on the radar of Roosevelt as the group he had written off would go on to win their first seats.

Bundsraad Election of 1906
Nationaal Party - 48
Liberaal Party - 20
Volken Alliance - 17
Amerikaner Werkers Party - 14

Provincialraad Composition
Nationaal Party - 18
Liberaal Party - 12
Volken Alliance - 2
Amerikaner Werkers Party - 0

Many would credit the performance of the AWP as the result of the Liberaal/Volken split. In several cities, such as Milwaukee, the AWP would take control of the city councils and mayor's offices. In the coming months many prominent business men such as Rockefeller began plotting how to stop the rise of this new threat to their power.

To be continued....

[CatoMinor]

Part 12 Continued

The coming years were marked by turmoil as Debs and his AWP, inspired by their electoral gains, became more vocal in calling for radical change. At industrial sites across the Empire workers began to strike for higher wages, often times being put down violently by provincial militias. Ryk-Kanselier Roosevelt rejected calls by many prominent leaders of industry and Nationaal Party members to allow legislation formally banning the Amerikaner Werkers Party and and socialist organizations as they were direct threats to the Empire. Roosevelt was convinced if he could make the right moves he could co-opt the labor movement into the more conservative Nationaal Party and simultaneously dilute the influence of the extreme right wing of his party, however fate would not work in favor of Roosevelt's plans.

For several weeks in the summer of 1908 workers at the Heemstede Steel Works facility in Heemstede Allegheny had been threatening to strike if their demands for better wages and safer conditions were not met, then early in the morning on the 14th of June all hell broke loose as the workers and their families rose up and seized control of Heemstede. Well armed and well dug in, the small community walled itself in for a siege lasting nearly four months as they repelled attacks from hired mercenaries and then provincial militia. Debs and most of the AWP denounced the violence on both sides while trying to broker a peace between the two sides. Finally after a similar uprising was put down in Ohio that was inspired by Heemstede, the Ryk-Kanselier lost all patience an hope for a peace settlement and directed the army to act. Late in the evening on September  7th the regular army arrived and after giving a final chance for surrender began shelling the starving rebels over the next 16 hours street by was reclaimed until all the defenders were either dead or surrendered.

This violent episode finally forced Roosevelt's hand as he brought before the Bundsraad sweeping new proposals to ban outright the Amerikaner Werkers Party and most current labor or socialist organizations. A banned list of socialist literature was created as well. Backed by a small coalition of Liberaals who feared losing their seats to the socialists, the proposals became law. The hopes that these measures would crush the socialist movement were in turn crushed however as the next election returned even more to the Bundsraad than ever before, only under a new name and as independents.

Bundsraad Election of 1910, 99 seats
Nationaal Party - 40
Volken-Werkers Alliance - 27
Liberaal Party - 17
Independents - 15
 
Provincialraad
Nationaal Party - 17
Liberaal Party - 10
Volken-Werkers Alliance - 6

[CatoMinor]

Part 12 Continued

By mid 1915 the Bundsraad and Provicnialraad where as divided as ever. The Volken-Werkers Alliance had reformed itself into the Arbeit Party with a growing radical wing calling themselves the Meederheid and led by an extreme Bundsraad member named Wilhelm J. Bryan. Raised in a very Liberaal family, Bryan knew little but hardship growing up in the years following the civil war. After struggling to make a name for himself and his legal career, Byran decided to move west where he could be more influential. Out in the province of New Lakota, Bryan began to find an audience of poor farmers and the few remaining natives. Quickly becoming know as an atheist and socialist firebrand, WJB would claim his first victory in 1910, winning by less than 100 votes to the Bundsraad.

Old enough now to begin exercising more authority the teenage Emperor Augustus, a young but wise and intelligent monarch, understood the threat that the Meederhied and larger Arbeit Party posed to his reign and the stability of the Empire. On the night of July 19th, 1915 across the Empire thousands of known Meederheid and Arbeit supporters and leadership were arrested an executed. Of the few survivors was Wilhem J. Bryan who was able to escape his house with his wife and flee to Canada where he would try and organize a community of survivors in the Maritimes. Over the next three days The Great Purge as it would be known, would kill 3,087 and see more than 10,000 arrested. Most prisoners would be sent to work mines out west and in the colonies, with Emperor Augustus declaring that "It is altogether fitting that the party that calls themselves labor shall experience it first hand!"

After the purge few would dare to speak against the monarchy. Emperor Augustus had a vision for his Empire and no one would stand in his way of achieving it.

[Elcaspar]

I just managed to binge this timeline today. It's amazing, keep up the good job!
On another note, RIP the socialists and the labour movement for the time being, i hope they will return at some point.

[CatoMinor]

Part 13: Pax Amerikana

August 27 1915, standing before the Bundsraag, Emperor Augustus rose to address the legislative body on the anniversary of New Amsterdam's refusal to surrender to English invaders. Declaring that "just as our ancestors refused to bow to foreign invaders, neither shall I allow those who would see our great Empire diminished. This is why I cleansed this land of the socialist threat, and why I have relieved Ryk-Kanselier Roosevelt of his duties." The Emperor would go on to explain his plans for reorganizing the provinces and the further projection of Amerikaner power abroad with unprecedented naval expansion and modernization.

Over the coming years, fueled by plundered resources in Africa, the Amerikaner Empire's economy grew at seemingly exponential rates. With a Grand Imperial Fleet containing 21 modern battleships and designs for at least 10 more planned, the Amerikaner Empire would set off a naval arms race with other great states vying for more power. In the summer of 1919 Europe would see itself torn apart by what would become known as the Great War. In a series of events too comical and complicated to be written here, nearly every major European power was drug into the war by the end of the first year. Initially ambivalent to the conflict, Emperor Augustus began to see it as an opportunity. Siding with the Austro-Prussians, French, and Ottomans against the English, Swedes, Hungarians, Russians, and Poles, the entry of the Amerikaners was enough to tip the scales. The Battle of the Atlantic, over the first 3 days of March 1921 would see nearly half of England's Atlantic Fleet sunk and much of the remainder severely damaged, leaving the Grand Imperial Fleet the undisputed power in the Atlantic.

By early 1923 the Amerikaners seized all of England's African colonies and a combined force of English and Swedes was shattered at the 4th Battle of Ypres. By June the English led coalition, completely depleted on both manpower and moral, was ready for peace.

The Treaty of Straßburg 1924

With the war over the great powers met in Straßburg to discuss the terms for peace.
- England would lose all of it's African colonies to the Amerikaners and Austro-Prussians.
- Russia would lose the Caucuses, and Ukraine to newly independent states.
- The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth would lose land to Austria-Prussia and the Ukraine.
- Strict naval limitations would be placed upon England.
- Large war reparations to be payed to the victors.

In New Amsterdam parades were thrown celebrating the triumph of the Amerikaner forces. Off on his private estate to the north, Emperor Augustus contemplated how to capitalize on his success, staring at a map of Asia. For now though he was content to enjoy his victory.

Meanwhile in underground in places like Checagou and Milwaukee, a new generation of Meederheid revolutionaries were plotting their revenge, adopting the motto "We shall never forget, nor forgive."

To be continued... 
 

[CatoMinor]

Part 13 Continued

Following the Great War Europe entered into a new era. In England socialist street protests turned to riots and on September 3, 1925  Westminster fell to the mob. A brief but violent civil war would see both England, Wales, and Scotland consumed by the Union of British Socialist Republics. While the Ottoman Empire was on the side of the victors their fragile empire was beginning to crack. In Russia a wave of nationalism was on the rise, threatening their grip on central Asia.

Across the Atlantic in North America the Amerikaners were enjoying the fruits of their success. With Virginia only a shadow of their former self, Carolina struggling to keep their until recently enslaved population suppressed, Deserete keeping to isolationist policies, Mexico more focused on internal problems, and Canada too little populated to be a serious threat, the Amerikaner hegemony was undisputed.

By the late 1920's it was estimated that the the Empire had reached a population of 68,000,000.
Amerikaans was now spoken at home by 73% of the population, followed by French at 9%, German at 8%, Dutch at 4%, English at 3%, and the remainder being largely a mix native languages and small mostly urban pockets of eastern European immigrants.

Through a deal reached with Mexico, by 1927 a rail line connecting New Amsterdam with San Francisco was completed. With the rise of automobile usage there came a sharp increase in the number of paved roads and highways connecting the far parts of the Empire. The underground Meederheid continued to plot their return with the quiet support of the UBSR. Augustus meanwhile continued plotting with his generals a plan to carve out a large foothold in Asia, with their eyes set on an very large yet increasingly weak and fractured China.