The Southern System

Made with the gracious help of Mattystereo !

Hello all, here is a new alternate history map. In alternate history, there is a popular trend to depict a surviving Confederate States of America past the American Civil War, stretching back to such books as 1953's Bring the Jubilee or 1997's How Few Remain. The reasons for this are many, but for other reasons I thought to fight against this trend. Why must we always suppose a winning Confederacy would survive past its victory, let alone thrive? Today I suppose that those exact things do not happen.

We must first establish the idea of the Confederate States of America winning, which itself is difficult. For the sake of this world, we may suppose Robert E. Lee's Maryland campaign in 1862 was rather more successful than in our own world, and did not result in the Emancipation Proclamation. We may also suppose that the Trent Affair worsened, casting the CSA in a better light to the British and turning them harder against the United States. Finally, these conditions and others, if we may continue to suspend our disbelief, may lead to the defeat of Abraham Lincoln in the 1864 Presidential Election by a Peace Democrat, further toppling the war cause for the Union. With these factors combined, there is the possibility of victory for the Confederate States.

But what comes after? The map illustrates the world that emerges. Victory against the Union, taking many years and vast amounts of men and resources, does not stop the many problems facing the Confederacy. Bread riots wrack the streets of Richmond as rich planters refuse to plant bread over cotton. Open rebellion against the Confederacy occurs throughout the south, from southern Georgia to Eastern Tennessee to northwest Arkansas and beyond. The Confederacy's money is worthless and treasury running empty, and their inability to pay their soldiers soon to come to fruition as their soldiers begin to figure out how little they are going to get from fighting that war. Finally, there is an active and massive slave rebellion occurring throughout the South in variance from armed conflict to slaves demanding--and receiving--paid compensation for their work. And the leaders of the Confederacy? They are consumed with grand, eugenicist fantasies of culling not just slaves but poor whites as well and letting only the "well-bred" survive.

It is suffice to say that in this environment the Confederacy is not long for this world. When the dust settles and rebellions quiet down, an entire new system of states has taken hold on what remains of the once-massive CSA, and the map displays them as they are by the halfway point of the 20th century.

First there are, principally, the four main states of The Southern System, which are Yazoo, Georgia, Gullah, and Liberty. These are states formed by rebellion against the CSA, largely by free black rebellions, though parts of Georgia came from rebellions by poor whites in southern Georgia who were already rising up against the CSA late into the Civil War. Together, these four states form a union in order to make themselves stronger than any of them could be individually. 

For example, Gullah is a state great for agriculture and tourism, but without any mineral deposits or natural gas or the like. Meanwhile, Yazoo isn't great for agriculture beyond cotton (which the boll weevil takes care of soon enough) but has massive deposits of natural gas. Southern Georgia, then, has lots of resources for making pharmaceuticals, but lacks the capital for creating an independent industry. Gullah and Liberty, however, have access to great amounts of capital to fund such an industry. So on and so forth, The Southern System is able to keep all four states alive and prospering in the face of tumult and uncertainty and creates a strong region for the south, lined with rail and connected by modern roads and powered by the people.

The Southron Republic, on the other hand, is a different beast. It was formed through rebellion by the destitute and struggling in cities overcrowded from the war who combined forces with disgruntled, unpaid soldiers who marched on Richmond, Atlanta, Raleigh, and other major cities. The dream of a more equitable republic never came to fruition, though, and the Southron Republic has largely remained a state of strongmen with only the trappings of democracy. It has the presumptions of a social welfare state and more freedoms than previously, but still struggles with social and political movements and a nasty habit of jailing the leaders of both.

There also are states on the periphery that managed to go their own way when the CSA fell, thanks largely to the backing of Europeans who wished to see the United States weakened but weren't particularly picky about who they backed. Thus, Florida, Texas, and (what remains of it) Louisiana are independent nations seeking to go their own way and fight their own struggles rather than join up with any of the others. They still largely have close ties to the Southron Republic and The Southern System, but maintain enough ties to foreign powers to keep their independence. They all have their own quirks, from Texas' slide towards petrostate status and conflict with its Comanche population that has ended in complication after complication to Louisiana's status as megacity with a state as far as New Orleans is concerned to Florida's burgeoning status as Latin America's outpost in the South. Their backing by Europeans has resulted in more cosmopolitan features and more reliance on the markets and goods of Europe, while acting as cultural and economic exchanges back towards Europe themselves. For many a European, what they know of that part of the world they know from Florida, Louisiana, and Texas.

Arkansas is of particular interest. After the northwest of Arkansas returns to the Union after chaos envelops the CSA, the rest of Arkansas went its own way rather than join The Southern System. This was due to the work of Governor Henry Rector during the war who managed to do much to snuff out the considering pro-union sympathizers in the rest of the state and have much of the economy get wrecked until the only ones with independent sentiment and capital were lawyers and such who could then transition into the lives of industrial and agricultural giants. Thus, Arkansas became a fief of powerful agricultural, mining, and logging conglomerates bootstrapping the region into an independent industrial power while also seeing the rise of a series of agrarian and farmer secret societies. By the modern day of the map, Arkansas is thus a strong state in its own right run by powerful interests who rose from the ashes of the post-war economy and devastation wrought by the pro-secessionists in the state they overthrew.

Together, all those states make up a complicated and intricate net of peoples and cultures that blanket what was once the American South and help make it a unique place that goes beyond border and map. It is far more than what a monolithic surviving CSA could provide and for that, I like to think it is a rather better world. Thank you for reading.