Yep precisely, occupied by Brazil but contested and not yet recognized by treaty.
Thank you!
The World of Tricolors and Traditions: Human History Without Napoleon
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Yep precisely, occupied by Brazil but contested and not yet recognized by treaty.
Thank you!
Looks like the 19th century is already shaping up quite differently! The situation in Poland is still pretty tough, but avoiding the complete partitioning of their nation is a big plus. It’s interesting to see how German nationalism is beginning to form along different lines in the HRE. Hopefully France and the Spanish Republic can reconcile somehow, since I think having a liberal regime there so early compared to OTL is interesting. Even if they fail to survive long-term, having enough time to implement lasting reforms would be helpful.
Part 15: Short Disco
"A cat that can catch mice doesn't purr."
-Chinese proverb
Excerpt from: Personal Writings of an East India Companyman by Hugh Elliot
[...] yet, moving beyond Awadh was quickly made impractical, purely for a lack of manpower and sufficient arms to threaten the Hindustani heartland.
Indeed, the road seemed open and clear to the old Imperial capital of Delhi, where the Moghul Khan himself, ripe for the plucking off of his chair! But my urgent letters, in fact, my begging, went greatly unheeded. Of course, I do not dispute the need for arms that the looming war in Europe demanded, and I could not deny the threat of daggers pointed into the heart of the Kingdom from across the channel [...] still I wonder what could have been. Before us fell the Moghuls and Marathas in kind, and the squabbling feuds of native Princes a grand chance to retake much of what had been lost prior. What was given was paltry at best, and could not truly be leveraged into success on the battlefield.
[...]
The Indian Subcontinent in 1825
[...]
and thus distance from the brutalities of war played an important role in Bengal's economic development. Isolated from the fervours of conflict, governed not by a Kingdom readying for war but a Company with distinct realities, Bengal became a hotbed of economic activity, commerce, and industry. Calcutta ballooned in size, growing from around 120,000 souls in 1750 to more than half a million by 1800, growing out and up to meet the demands of entrepreneurs and the state for hands and work. Textiles, long a premier art of India, became the backbone of the Company's production, with centralized textile Mills coming to dominate the urban landscape of not just Calcutta, but many prominent Bengali cities. Seemingly overnight, the mighty waters of the Bengali Delta were tapped - Dhaka became known as "the city of waterwheels" for a reason. [...]
Excerpt from: A New History of the Continent of Australia, by Erina Pendleton, 1899
To live on the Australian frontier was to know bloodshed, intimately. Windradyne's early successes against the small farming settlements which dotted the countryside surrounding Botany Bay and Sydney obliterated much of the progress achieved by convicts and colonists alike. Indeed, it was said that 'the British had slaughtered the kangaroos and now the natives would eat beef.' A low-intensity insurgency, mostly cattle raiding, slowly escalated as Windradyneand his cohorts were emboldened. A counter-raid against Windradyne's home village found the area abandoned, emptied and scoured for goods.
Statue of Windradyne, aka the Chief Saturday
Botany Bay, New Wales, Cooksland
Yet among the deserted settlement was found a single rifle cartridge, determined to be of French make. Of course, it had been unofficial British policy to conduct diplomacy and supply covert support to the aborigines along the Western coast of the continent, in an effort to displace the French settlement of St. Alourane. Yet to find that the French were returning the favor came as an unpleasant shock, and sparked significant recriminations regarding native policy. The Botany Bay treaty had proved quite inadequate for the purposes of securing a colonial frontier as settlement had expanded beyond a narrow strip of coastline, and it was determined that new negotiations were necessary.
However, Britain chose to first strengthen their bargaining position by improving their strategic position. Some small amount of exploration had already been conducted towards the Southern coast, and a naval fort had been established on the northern tip of Van Dieman’s Island, yet it became apparent that the only route covert French support could flow through was the Bass Strait. To this end, the colony of Charlotte was settled, centered on the small settlement on Sullivan Bay, and the United Kingdom officially claimed Van Dieman’s land.
In response, French expansion accelerated to the South as well. Having already concluded tentative agreements with the Malkana, Yinggarda, and Nhanta tribes, a formal treaty with the Noongar allowed an informal claim to Nouvelle-Vendée, to yield the settlement of Nouvelle Poitiers at the continent’s most Southwestern point. Australie had been a convenient method to relieve political dissent at home, and the new colony’s nomenclature reflected the large presence of exiles from France’s politically conservative northeast. While successive radical governments had maintained the settlements around Turtle Bay as something close to penal colonies, a more politically centrist government under Sieyes had seen a shift in colonial policy. Most political prisoners, while not permitted to return to the Metropole, were essentially given rights as freeholders, and allowed to move South. The territory of New Vendee was thus quite royalist and generally conservative, and was from the start dominated by legitimist exiles who sought to regain their former glories as hereditary landholders on a new continent [...]
Excerpt from: Selected Writings (1920 - 1969) by Nguyễn Sinh Cung
Particular note should be given to the economic development of the Mekong Delta during this time. The conquest of the Mekong region, largely from the Champa, was largely completed by the dawn of the 19th century, yet the Mekong River Delta remained largely untamed and untapped, under only tenuous control from the imperial city of Hue. The nationalist concept of Nam tiến, the ‘march to the south,’ involved the settlement and, indeed, colonization of the wild Mekong Delta. Key to this strategy was the city of Saigon, captured in 1798 as a base of operations for the Ngyuen against the Tay Son. While the military frontier against the Siamese lay nearby in the Khmer heartland, the growth of Saigon became a prominent aim of the Vietnamese and French alike. For French missionaries, Saigon became the primary point of contact to the Ngyuen, and likewise, for French investors, Saigon became the most prominent port of call.
Saigon was a convenient relief valve for the burgeoning class of wealthy Frenchmen abroad, seeking to escape both war and a Jacobin class they inherently distrusted, and proved a little oasis for Gallic traders. “Le Quartier Français,” known today in English as Saigon’s Frenchtown, blossomed overnight (in spite of the climate which so many Frenchmen despised) into a heart of investment for the growth of domestic industry in Vietnam.
Excerpt from: A New History of These Islands, by Koesno Sosrodihardjo
[...] it was unpredictability that truly ruined the Batavian project in the East Indies - an irony, considering that the capital of said realm, in Java, was titled Batavia.
Colonial administration and treaty obligations across Southeast Asia were made problematic by the realities of war. Java in particular was invaded and counter-invaded numerous times over the first three decades of the 19th century, having switched allegiances through naval landing and native revolution some three times in the Great Revolutionary War alone. Qualified administrators and Dutch merchants fled the colony, and during periods of British occupation, admirals and occupational authorities usually preferred not to stay.
By the mid 1820s, European control over Sumatra and anything East of the island of Java, save Portuguese Timor, was ephemeral at best. The best example of this could be found in the Padri movement of Sumatra, an Islamic revivalist movement intent on expunging syncretized practices, the adat. Despite appeals to the Batavian officials and the British navy alike, little was done as the movement grew across the Minangkabau highlands. The establishment of the Padri Sultanate went little-noticed in Europe, by then already consumed by the renewed fires of war, yet marked a significant failure for European colonial policy in Southeast Asia.
With colonial influence restricted to just beyond the boundaries of Batavia/Jakarta, native states began to pay little heed to the whims of the foreigners. Anglo-Batavian competition did continue: Bali fell to British occupation in 1817, and the Straits settlements were reinforced, as per the policy of Resident Governor Sir Stamford Raffles of Bencoolen. As noted above, the Portuguese Empire remained in control of the island of Timor, and grew to include the island of Flores by 1821. Batavia retained the nominal fealty of the petty kingdoms across the islands of Sulawesi, the Moluccas, and southern Borneo, but in reality they did not have the military presence necessary to actually bend those states to their will.
[...]
The experience of the ailing Spanish administration in the Philippines was similarly difficult. The collapse of colonial authority across the Americas was not precisely replicated in the Spanish East Indies, though the chaotic questions of legitimacy did provide an opening for native powers, the Sulu and Maguindanao Sultanates, to re-assert territorial control after decades of military pressure from the Spanish. Instead, a Manila Junta was assembled, composed largely of Filipino creoles. Long ignored in favor of peninsulares, an undercurrent of nationalism had been gradually growing for some decades as the creole intellectual class grew in wealth and clout. It was this community, close-knit and independently minded, which was thrust into the spotlight with the collapse of royal authority eliminating from Madrid.
Reproduction of the flag flown by the Manila Junta
The Creole government set about expanding its governance beyond Manila, exercising control over native armies and ensuring local delegations were managed, at least on a de jure basis. The acting governor-general, Mariano Fernández de Folgueras, had long been favored in Manila for his well-known sympathy to creole governance. Folgueras earned the favor of locals when he made his opposition to the importation of Peninsulare administrators well-known, earning his place as something akin to a figurehead executive of the Manila Junta. While fealty was theoretically still paid to Madrid, in practice this was the birth of the Filipino Republic.
[...]
The rise of the Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam was not ignored by the region’s other major power, the Rattanakosin Kingdom of Siam. The ascent of Siam had been about as swift as Vietnam’s: despite having only been founded upon the ashes of the old Thonburi Kingdom in the early 1780s, the Lao principalities of former Lan Xang had been conquered or forced into a tributary relationship by the 1810s. Yet Vietnamese expansion to the south, and the subjugation of the Champa, proved a direct menace to the Thai.
The main bone of contention would be over the lands of the former Khmer Empire of Angor. Cambodian lands, rich and densely settled, had been in a state of flux since the fall of Kambuja, and now proved ripe for the picking by both Vietnam and Siam. Small skirmishes broke out over the region between the two, including minor proxy conflicts after an usurpation of a pro-Vietnamese kingdom by pro-Siamese forces resulted in a power struggle around the area of Phnom-Penh. Yet the two would fully come to blows by 1826, when a pro-Siamese revolt in an area of Vietnamese suzerainty resulted in a full-scale invasion of Cambodia by Thai forces.
Through their base of operations in India, British support of the Rattanakosin Kingdom turned the war with the French-backed Nguyen Empire into a full-scale proxy war, foreshadowing the Great Revolutionary War which would erupt in the next few years. Of course, neither side knew this for certain, though both knew that as agricultural conditions improved at home, conflict seemed likely. Yet until then, both Britain and France opted for a strategy of war-by-proxy. This is not, of course, to say that the Siamese-Vietnamese wars of the early 19th century were merely pawns acting out parts in a larger game. Yet the international dimension of the Anglo-French conflict cannot be ignored, and indeed would prove critically important to the coming development of Asia, and the world.
The long prosperity of the Qing Empire came to an end in the first decades of the 19th century.
Long the richest and most powerful polity on earth, Manchu-ruled China faced existential threats to its continued prosperity though the 1800s, and ultimately proved unable to survive near-continuous assaults upon its stability from both within and without. China entered the 19th century amidst the brutal and catastrophic White Lotus Rebellion, and to put it simply things did not get much better for the Celestial Empire in the years to come.
Putting down the White Lotus Rebellion had been costly, bloody, and largely incomplete even by the 1810s, some thirty years after the revolt had broken out. A smaller offshoot of the White Lotus movement struck perhaps a greater blow against Qing rule than it’s progenitor ever had: the Eight Trigrams movement, led by a sect of the White Lotus millenarians, stormed the Forbidden City and managed to kill Crown Prince Mianning, heir to the throne and favorite son of his father, the Jiaqing Emperor. Heartbroken, the Jiaqing Empire became something of a recluse, and the court eunuchs usurped yet more power. Rumors persisted of eunuchs who backed the Eight Trigrams and perhaps even permitted them access to the Forbidden City, yet the historical record ran dry. The Emperor died, a pale shadow of a man, some five years later in 1818. The Qing ‘tradition’ of eldest sons failing to succeed their father would continue.
In the place of Mianning, Prince Miankai would ascend to the throne under the era name Huijing (恢徑), ‘restored path.’ Yet any effort of the new emperor to put the Qing Dynasty back on a path to stability would prove for naught. Rebellious millenarian movements continued to plague the countryside, roving corps of bandits managed to seize control of entire towns as the domestic economy slumped and livelihoods dried up, and the Forbidden City became a hotbed of complicated political intrigue as court officials began to scrabble only for their own pockets rather than the success of their country. It was a time of decay.
Mianning proved inept and easily-swayed. Manchu eunuchs convinced the emperor to reinforce the Willow Palisade system, diminishing legal migration into Inner Mongolia and the Northeast Provinces, and increasing penalties for those farmers who had already moved into the old Manchu heartland. Theoretically this move could be framed as an effort to restore traditional Manchu prerogatives in their homeland after centuries of sinicization within the ethnically Manchu leadership of the Qing Empire. In reality the scheme was one among many designed to increase tax revenue, partially to fill a growing gap in the imperial coffers, more likely a means by which new opportunities to skim funds ‘off the top’ could be created. Simultaneous schemes attempted to levy new tariffs on trade with the outside world and even to increase tax burdens on peasants, in the end only serving to increase discontent.
Indeed, much as the Proclamation Line of 1763 proved a turning point in the development of a distinct, and rebellious, identity among the 13 Colonies, the re-emergence of the Willow Palisade gave rise to a restored vigor for Han nationalism. The actions of the outside world did not go unnoticed among the intellectuals of the empire, and sympathy for the White Lotus and Eight Trigrams movements became fairly widespread among the average Chinese villager - the Qing crackdown had been fierce and perhaps indiscriminate, and when paired with increased taxes and decreased opportunities to settle elsewhere, generated even further unease. Things would not yet come to a head, but the foundation was laid for the chaos that would soon follow.
Lin Qing, leader of the Eight Trigrams Movement
Sketch, anonymous,,1813
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It looks like the French Revolution is dealing a heavy blow to colonial efforts around the world.
Very nice to see India and Indonesia avoid total colonization. Hopefully the EIC keeps promoting Bengal's textile industry rather than de-industrializing it for the benefit of British factories. I'm also excited for the Philippines to gain independence this early. These changes are clearly setting the stage for these regions to have a very different 19th century and beyond, marked by less rampant colonial extraction from their economies. Whether China ends up better off here will be interesting to see....
Finally got around to reading this all. Its a fascinating journey so far, with some interesting surprises and roads not taken that I didn't expect. And for that matter, some roads taken that I didn't expect either.
I do somewhat have to question the European situation being so stable for so long with so many hotspots tho. For instance, France and the Empire seem to have been just sat on either bank of the Rhine for nearly three decades at this point.
I do somewhat have to question the European situation being so stable for so long with so many hotspots tho. For instance, France and the Empire seem to have been just sat on either bank of the Rhine for nearly three decades at this point.
Wow, this story is incredible.
I would like more research into the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata and who is in charge. I also saw that there was talk about the federals in La Plata and I wanted to know if there are no internal divisions, (knowing that There was a division between Unitary and Federal), and what happened to José de San Martín in this TL. Also several countries that were created in our TL, such as Alto Peru and Chile, (also Uruguay but I don't think it was formed due to the circumstances). Also, what will happen to the indigenous tribes of Patagonia?
greetings and keep it up
I would like more research into the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata and who is in charge. I also saw that there was talk about the federals in La Plata and I wanted to know if there are no internal divisions, (knowing that There was a division between Unitary and Federal), and what happened to José de San Martín in this TL. Also several countries that were created in our TL, such as Alto Peru and Chile, (also Uruguay but I don't think it was formed due to the circumstances). Also, what will happen to the indigenous tribes of Patagonia?
greetings and keep it up
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