Death of A Republic; A Monarchical USA Timeline

[Schnozzberry]

Hello all, I've been posting my own timeline on AH.com for a while now, but after stumbling on this forum while AH.com was down, I've decided to post my own timeline Death of a Republic here too, albeit with a few tweaks as I'm somewhat  If this isn't allowed, my apologies in advanced.  I'm always interested in new perspectives and opinions, so any thoughts, good or bad are more than welcome!  



"We are now in a state of Anarchy and Confusion bordering on Civil War."
     —James Warren



In late 1786, the newly-founded United States of America was in peril. Unity between the states was slowly slipping, the Congress of the Confederation was barely capable of assembling a quorum to hold sessions, and a growing number of citizens began to believe the country should be divided, so as to establish stronger and more stable countries. In no state was the situation more dire than Massachusetts.

Unlike many of the other states, militant protests against high taxes and corrupt courts were unable to be halted by the Massachusetts state government. On September 5th, Governor James Bowdoin called the militia to take arms against the protesters; the militia refused to assist, as many militiamen were allies of the protesters. The protesters, who called themselves Regulators, began to grow increasingly bold, shutting down courts across Western Massachusetts. By late September, a leader had emerged amongst the Regulators: Captain Daniel Shays, a former Revolutionary war soldier. Under Shays leadership, an army of nearly five hundred Regulators assembled in Springfield to shut down the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.

On September 26th, when the Court assembled in Springfield, William Shepard, the local militia leader, was able to turn out three hundred men to defend the court. In light of this, Daniel Shays ordered his men to demonstrate, rather than try and shut the courts down. However, a single shot was fired by an unknown Regulator, which struck Shepard, killing him instantly. Following the shot the Regulators and militia clashed, with the Regulators defeating the militia and capturing Springfield. As word of the Regulator victory spread, farmers across Massachusetts begin rallying behind Shays and the Regulators. By the end of September the cities of Northampton and Petersham were also taken over by Regulators.

News of the defeat of the Springfield militia by the Regulators reached Boston early on the 28th of September. Amongst the elite of Boston panic began to set in, which led Governor Bowdoin to draw up a Riot Act which suspended Habeas Corpus, ordered the arrest and execution of “any and all persons” committing acts of treason, and forbade speech critical of the government of Massachusetts. Unfortunately for Bowdoin, the Riot Act only further fueled the Regulators’ cause and made many within Boston sympathetic to the Regulator movement.

By October 15th, the majority of Western Massachusetts had fallen under the control of the Regulators. This lead to Secretary of War Henry Knox calling for the states to raise militias to help put down the rebellion. According to Knox:

“It is not just Massachusetts that is in danger of utter destruction, but it is the entirety of America that shall be cast over the brink should this crisis not be abated.” ​

However, on November 7th, the Continental Congress voted on whether or not to take action and five states: Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New York, South Carolina and Virginia voted against the proposed actions blocking any action by the Continental Congress.

The same day that the Continental Congress refused to take action, the Regulator Army which was now numbering over four thousand, marched into Concord, and seized the city without a single life being lost. With the fall of Concord, the Regulators were only two days march from Boston. When the news of the loss at Concord reached Governor Bowdoin, the Governor fled to Rhode Island. The following day, riots broke out across Boston and a mob led by one Clark Hopswood seized the State House of Massachusetts, with Hopswood proclaiming himself the leader of Boston. Two days later, on November 10th, Hopswood sent an invitation to the Regulator Army, granting them control over Boston. With the surrender of Boston the Regulators controlled the vast majority of Massachusetts, but the red horse had yet to finish his ride across the commonwealth.

[James G]

Welcome to the forum. I am sure that the Admin and Mod team have no issue with you cross-posting; I have in the past and others are doing now.

I have always liked the idea of the whole or part of the new USA reverting to a monarchical system. The republican system in France quickly faltered to an Empire and there is no reason why it couldn't happen in America.
I remember reading in one of Bernard Cromwell's Sharpe books how one of the Loyalist American characters was convinced that would happen in the new America. Dukes of New York and Barons of Pennsylvania IIRC.
Good start with the POD; keep it coming. You have my interest.

[Schnozzberry]

“I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing”
—Thomas Jefferson

Following the Regulators' triumph at Concord and Boston, panic began to set in amongst the higher classes of the United States especially in the north. Similar protests had already occurred throughout several northern states. Although the more militant protesters in other states had already been put down, the same issues which drove the Regulators in Massachusetts: inflation, corruption and overly high taxes had not been solved in the rest of the Northern States. This caused some of the Northern States to begin enacting Riot Acts in a manner not dissimilar to how Massachusetts had. Some states, such as Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, were capable of keeping a stable situation. However, New York and New Hampshire saw the resurgence of militant protests against taxation and corruption. By the end of 1786, protests in New York were beginning to shut down courts in the northern parts of the state.

On November 13th, Clark Hopswood, the self-proclaimed “Leader of Boston” met with Daniel Shays and Job Shattuck, the leaders of the Regulator army. Hopswood believed that the Regulator movement was the second phase of the American Revolution and that the Regulators would go on to liberate the whole of the Americas from tyranny. While both Shattuck and Shays disagreed with Hopswood on the idea of liberating the whole of the Americas from tyranny, Shattuck agreed with Hopswood that Massachusetts represented the next stage of the American Revolution. Shattuck believed that Massachusetts should leave the other states and go on to found a nation free of corruption and tyranny. Daniel Shays, on the other hand, believed that the Regulator’s duty was to make peace with the government should it agree to reasonable demands. After all, the Regulator revolt was born out of issues involving high taxation and the acceptance of paper money; it was not a revolutionary movement in Shays' eyes. While the three men parted in peace, the leadership of the Regulators would soon be thrown into chaos. On November 20th, an army of nearly three thousand New York militiamen led by General Benjamin Lincoln crossed the border into Massachusetts. Two days later, the New Yorker army met a smaller force of four hundred Regulators in the town of Great Barrington. After a brief skirmish, the Regulator army scattered.

The news of the Battle of Great Barrington drove the leadership of the Regulators apart. Shattuck refused to cooperate with Shays, due to Shays’ plan of attempting to negotiate before attacking the New Yorker army. As such, the Regulators were split into two groups. The force loyal to Shays, numbering thirty-two hundred, marched on to meet Lincoln’s army. Shattuck’s forces, numbering near four thousand, remained in Boston, planning to hunker down for the winter and wait for warmer weather to resume military operations. Following the split, Hopswood once again met with Shattuck, attempting to leverage his way into the leadership of the Regulators. Shattuck was hesitant; Hopswood was neither known for trustworthiness nor competency. However, Shattuck also realized that he would need the support of the Bostonians and Hopswood’s ideals were growing more popular in the city due to a pamphlet called The Grand Revolution, which had been circulating for the past week. As such Shattuck allowed Hopswood to serve as an advisor.

Early in the morning of December 6th, the New Yorker army reached the town of Springfield and captured the city without conflict. Later the same day, the Regulator army approached the town. As Lincoln marshaled his troops, a single rider broke free from the Regulators and rode forward under a white flag. Much to General Lincoln’s surprise, the rider was not a messenger coming to either demand or offer surrender, but rather Daniel Shays himself. Shays hoped that he could negotiate acceptable terms for peace, and avert the bloodletting which would certainly fall upon the Regulators should peace not come. Lincoln accepted Shays' offer to negotiate and the two met within the Springfield courthouse. As day turned into night, the negotiations went smoothly. John Cramer, an advisor to General Lincoln, wrote that:

“The General and the Captain [Shays] talked through the night, at times, the negotiations were fierce, but they always remained civil. Often, the negotiations would be interrupted by stories of past endeavors, and triumphs. As a general whole, they were merry, and had one not known of either before this day, one would have assumed that they were old friends, sharing in drink and debate.”

Two days later, the negotiations ended. Under the agreement, the heavy taxation would be ended, the state would accept inflated paper money for payment of taxes, Bowdoin would remain governor, and the Riot Act would remain in effect. While Lincoln and Shays had created terms which were acceptable to both, they still had to get an agreement with the rest of the Regulators and the government of Massachusetts. On December 9th, messengers were dispatched to bring the peace terms to Governor Bowdoin, the Massachusetts government in exile, and the remainder of the Regulator leadership in Boston. When the news reached Bowdoin and the Massachusetts government, it was accepted by both with Bowdoin claiming that “Order is within our grasp, I pray that we shall keep a firm grip upon it.”

When the news of the peace terms reached Shattuck, he was furious. While the peace terms had solved most of the abuses, it allowed Bowdoin and the Riot Acts to remain in place. Shattuck refused to agree to the terms and publicly denounced Shays. Hopswood seized upon this opportunity and inspired by The Grand Revolution pamphlets which were circulating in Boston, wrote a new pamphlet Our Republic. Our Republic advocated for the establishment of an independent republic of Massachusetts led by Regulator ideals. It proved a very popular opinion in the areas controlled by Shattuck’s Regulators. As 1786 came to a close, Shattuck met with Hopswood once more to determine whether or not the Regulators should establish their own republic. Hopswood, ever the revolutionary, was able to convince the reluctant Shattuck to move towards the establishment of an independent Massachusetts Republic.

[Schnozzberry]

Mar 25, 2018 0:00:41 GMT James G said:

Welcome to the forum. I am sure that the Admin and Mod team have no issue with you cross-posting; I have in the past and others are doing now.

I have always liked the idea of the whole or part of the new USA reverting to a monarchical system. The republican system in France quickly faltered to an Empire and there is no reason why it couldn't happen in America.
I remember reading in one of Bernard Cromwell's Sharpe books how one of the Loyalist American characters was convinced that would happen in the new America. Dukes of New York and Barons of Pennsylvania IIRC.
Good start with the POD; keep it coming. You have my interest.  

I'm glad the forum allows crossposting, I figured that a different forum would be perfect to get new opinions on my writing, I've only begun writing relatively recently, so anything to improve! I'm still getting used to this forum, like how it doesn't have the "New Posts click to see them" thing when writing a post, so I'll probably need a pinch of patience.

The idea of a monarchy in the USA has always been kind of interesting to me as well because it was what was entirely expected to happen. The republican nature of the USA was revolutionary and seems largely based on massive amounts of fortune. Taking that away seem almost easier than keeping it, especially the fortune part. When one considers how pretty much no other New World country had this same level of luck, I think it opens up a huge amount of possibility within the 'story' of a timeline.




Also, are there threadmarks or something equivalent?

[Schnozzberry]

“You can't stop people printing what they want to print.”
—Alan Sugar

Clark Hopswood’s name should by all rights have faded into history. He was short, only five feet, one inch tall, and his left arm was withered from birth. Most descriptions of Hopswood reveal that he was also an excellent writer, if a somewhat less successful orator; his voice was high pitched, and often slurred due to a nearly perpetual state of drunkenness Hopswood maintained. Despite having been born to a relatively rich merchant family, Hopswood struggled economically having drank his inheritance away by the age of 35.

In 1770 at the age of 37, Hopswood became a printer and ran a fairly successful printing business in Boston. After reading (and printing bootleg copies of) Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, Hopswood became an earnest supporter of the independence movement, publishing an irregular pro-independence newspaper The Plain Truth. Following the American victory in the Revolution, The Plain Truth continued to be published, advocating for America to expand and “Liberate the People of the American continent; the White Man from Europe, the Negro from his Masters, and the Savage from Himself.” When the Regulator movement began to grow in popularity, Hopswood began to promote the Regulators with The Plain Truth. Luck struck Hopswood on November 8th, 1786, when in the early hours of the morning Hopswood, relatively sober from having spent the night writing, rather than drinking, happened to walk by a group of protesters while going home for the day. Seeing the crowd had no direction, Hopswood seized the initiative and convinced the crowd to occupy the State House of Massachusetts. From this point forward, Hopswood became an instrumental part of the war in Massachusetts.

[Schnozzberry]

“These are the times that try men’s souls.”
—Thomas Paine

The winter which struck New England in the later half of November was unusually cold. By December, Shays and Lincoln had called winter quarters at Worcester, only two weeks march from Boston. However, in Boston trouble brewed. Shattuck and Hopswood along with fourteen other Regulator leaders were assembled in the State House drawing up the plans for a new, free Republic of Massachusetts. By December 19th, a constitution for the “Free Regulated Republic of Massachusetts” was adopted by the committee. Amongst its provisions were:

All males above the age of 18 could vote for their representative.
The governance of the Republic would consist of a legislature and an executive council.
The legislature would have one member for every ten thousand citizens (36 representatives in 1787).
The executive council would consist of five Executives, with a Chief Executive elected from amongst them to serve as the head of the council.
Every citizen is entitled to ten acres of land.
Debtors prisons were abolished.
All able-bodied males are required to serve five years in a militia.

The committee, now styling itself the “Provisional Legislature of the Free Regulated Republic of Massachusetts” adopted the constitution unanimously. On December 20th, the final draft of the Massachusetts Declaration of Independence was read before the Provisional Legislature. Three days later the weather cleared sufficiently for a public reading of the Declaration. Christmas Day saw the inauguration of the Executives: Clark Hopswood, Job Shattuck, Edward Price, Martin Horn and Taylor Hammond. The Executive Council chose Clark Hopswood to be Chief Executive.

News of the Massachusetts Declaration of Independence spread fast. When the news hit Worcester, despite the horrible conditions, Lincoln mustered his men to stop the secessionists. Shays, concerned over the welfare of his men, attempted to hold Lincoln’s plan to march on Boston until the weather had warmed. Lincoln refused to delay, however, as he feared the secessionists would be able to sway other towns across Massachusetts to swing to their side if they were not put down. Not wanting to divide the armies, Shays rallied his men as well. There would be only one chance to strike the F.R.R. down. On December 30th, the six thousand men, a combined force of New Yorker militia and Regulator began marching for Boston.

The weather however was not on their side. A blizzard blew through Massachusetts on January 3rd leaving the army slowed, freezing and confused. By the time the army reached Boston, on January 14th, one in every three men, some two thousand in total had died, with General Lincoln falling to the cold as well on January 13th. Upon reaching Boston, the beleaguered forces were met with the secessionist force of thirty-seven hundred men. Despite a valiant effort by the Regulator and New Yorker forces, the well fed and rested secessionists defeated the army and captured Daniel Shays who had refused to flee. Of the six thousand who left Worcester on the 30th, it is believed only one thousand survived. With the secessionist victory at the Battle of Boston, the secessionists became the dominant force throughout Massachusetts.

News reached the Confederation Congress, then assembled in New York, on the 23rd of January. Although the Congress was not in session at the moment, an informal session was organized by the President of the Congress, Arthur St. Clair. Over the next three days, the Continental Congress hammered out an emergency act, the Clark-Pinckey-Griffin Act, which called for the establishment of an emergency army, to be lead by a provisional executive. The Act drew inspiration from the idea of the Roman Dictator, as the emergency executive position was to be dissolved six months following their election. While the Act had been popular with members of the Congress from northern states, who saw the secessionists in Massachusetts as being a serious threat to their home state’s stability, many Southern delegates were unhappy with the Act. Despite agreeing that something had to be done, the Southerners feared that the election of an executive would lead down the road to despotism. Thus, when the act was first voted over on January 26th, 1787, the United States of America rejected its first action towards creating a united government. With the growing instability, a single question was on all delegates minds as they left the conference hall that night: “How much longer will the Union last?”

[lordroel]

Mar 25, 2018 0:00:41 GMT James G said:

Welcome to the forum. I am sure that the Admin and Mod team have no issue with you cross-posting; I have in the past and others are doing now.

I have always liked the idea of the whole or part of the new USA reverting to a monarchical system. The republican system in France quickly faltered to an Empire and there is no reason why it couldn't happen in America.
I remember reading in one of Bernard Cromwell's Sharpe books how one of the Loyalist American characters was convinced that would happen in the new America. Dukes of New York and Barons of Pennsylvania IIRC.
Good start with the POD; keep it coming. You have my interest.

We definitely have no issues with people cross-posting, in fact we encourages it as it allow people to share their timeline with many people across the internet, also as steve has said many people here are also doing it already.

I also like the of a America being a monarchy so i will watch this timeline with interest and see how it will evolve. 

[stevep]

Schnozzberry

Welcome aboard and your TL definitely looks intriguing.

At this point it sounds more like there will be several republicans and/or kingdoms but the title suggests a unified state will survive. Looking forward to seeing what happens and will follow with interest.

[raunchel]

Welcome! This certainly looks like it will be very interesting.

I'm not sure if the original Union will survive intact, I could easily see it falling apart before being reunited later on, by someone 'bringing order to the chaos'.

[Schnozzberry]

Hello everyone, sorry for not responding to you all, I've been without internet for the past week and a half. I'm glad to see interest in this timeline, and while I won't give everything away, stevep and raunchel, you have pretty well hit it on the head of what will happen in the long run. Anywho, I'm back at university so I've got internet now and so I hope to be able to post (at bare minimum) 1 update a day. I could go quicker, but I've been editing each update from the original thread for grammar/spelling/continuity errors.

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?"
—Patrick Henry

The Clark-Pinckey-Griffin Act, despite having been rejected by the Confederation Congress, still had some potential to be revived. Despite the Act having received support from Northern Congressional delegates, Southern Delegates fears that this as a plan to establish a Northern-led tyranny in the style of the Commonwealth of England kept progress from being made. Unbeknownst to the anti-Act Southerners, a crisis was brewing in their states as well.

As the secessionists’ revolt burned in Massachusetts, embers of rebellion spread through the whole of the American nation. One ember ignited in the heart of a free black preacher, Abram. Born Robert Meriday, he was a slave who was freed upon the death of his former master and became a farmer possessing a small plot of land in Northwestern Virginia. Sometime in October 1774, he reportedly saw a vision from God, where he was told to “Save his people.” Taking the name Abram, he began to travel the American south trying to free the souls of the slaves. Few records of him exist in this time period, however it is known that sometime in 1780 Abram was in Massachusetts where he met Clark Hopswood. The two would write letters between each other, the contents of which remain unknown. Abram would serve as the model for “Free Nigger Bob,” a recurring character in Hopswood’s anti-slavery writings. Although it is unknown exactly when sometime in 1781 Abram came to South Carolina. Eventually, through a mixture of Hopswood’s letters and news of the events in Massachusetts, Abram began to prepare to liberate the worldly bodies, rather than the souls of America’s slaves.

Although exact records are lacking, it is believed that by the end of 1786 Abram was able to recruit nearly five thousand slaves into the plot of rebellion. The beginning of the rebellion proper occurred entirely by mistake. On March 12th a slave, whose name history has regrettably forgotten, beat to death a white overseer following a beating. Following this, approximately eighty slaves stormed the plantation manor and whipped their former master, the plantation’s white workers, and the master’s family to death. Two days later Governor Thomas Pinckney heard the news of the event, he called out the local militia to deal with them declaring: “We shall make short work of them.”

Over the next two weeks, slaves began rising up throughout South Carolina particularly in the area around Charleston. On the 29th of March, Governor Pinckney’s militia was defeated in the Battle of North Charleston. This defeat spurred on the slave revolt and by the end of March, twenty thousand slaves or roughly one-fifth of the slave population of South Carolina were rebelling against the slavery. On April 2nd, Pinckney fled Charleston in light of an approaching black army, which arrived in the city the next day. The Battle of Charleston was barely worthy of the title, far more resembling a massacre rather than a battle. Only six thousand of the nearly seventeen thousand civilians of Charleston were alive the following morning.

As news of the slave revolt spread, nervousness began to set in throughout the Southern leadership. Slave revolts were a perpetual threat and the current revolt was of a larger scale than any other. In other slave states crackdowns began to occur with 24 slaves being hanged in Delaware alone. The largest change however, was in the attitude of the southern states towards the idea of establishing an emergency government. Although they had rejected in the Confederation Congress the establishment of an emergency army, the southern states began to approve of the idea despite the fact that Governor Pinckney himself had stated that the action was “a step from tyranny.” However, the threat of the slave revolt spreading to other states swayed their opinions. On April 18th, Virginia became the last state to ratify the Clark-Pinckney-Griffin Act and the emergency army (officially the United States Army of Internal Defense) came into existence. The office of the emergency executive was granted the title Dictator, drawing inspiration from the early Roman Republic.

The question of who should become Dictator saw little debate. George Washington was the first choice for receiving the office with the news of the passing of the act reaching him on April 23rd, departing for New York the following morning. Washington was noted by many to be very reluctant to take the office, with many believing he would turn it down entirely. Despite his reluctance, Washington took the office on May 1st, 1787 and immediately set out to end the growing number of crises stood in his way. The militias in the north were losing ground to the Massachusetts Republic, slaves across the southern states were in revolt, Natives were attacking settlers in the west, and the central government was barely able to summon the quorum needed to function. Despite all of this, Washington vowed to save the union.


“My Country has called upon me, in its darkest hour, to once more fight for the Liberties and Freedoms which we had, so few years before, fought and died for. Heaven has ordained upon us the sacred duty to defend the Fires of Liberty, and the Republican form of Government. It is for the security of the Nation, the favour of the American people, and the progenity of all Free people of this Earth that the Union must hold.”
-George Washington.

[James G]

Glad to see you back and for the story to continue!

[lordroel]

Apr 5, 2018 17:39:53 GMT Schnozzberry said:

Hello everyone, sorry for not responding to you all, I've been without internet for the past week and a half. I'm glad to see interest in this timeline, and while I won't give everything away, stevep and raunchel, you have pretty well hit it on the head of what will happen in the long run. Anywho, I'm back at university so I've got internet now and so I hope to be able to post (at bare minimum) 1 update a day. I could go quicker, but I've been editing each update from the original thread for grammar/spelling/continuity errors.

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?"
—Patrick Henry

The Clark-Pinckey-Griffin Act, despite having been rejected by the Confederation Congress, still had some potential to be revived. Despite the Act having received support from Northern Congressional delegates, Southern Delegates fears that this as a plan to establish a Northern-led tyranny in the style of the Commonwealth of England kept progress from being made. Unbeknownst to the anti-Act Southerners, a crisis was brewing in their states as well.

As the secessionists’ revolt burned in Massachusetts, embers of rebellion spread through the whole of the American nation. One ember ignited in the heart of a free black preacher, Abram. Born Robert Meriday, he was a slave who was freed upon the death of his former master and became a farmer possessing a small plot of land in Northwestern Virginia. Sometime in October 1774, he reportedly saw a vision from God, where he was told to “Save his people.” Taking the name Abram, he began to travel the American south trying to free the souls of the slaves. Few records of him exist in this time period, however it is known that sometime in 1780 Abram was in Massachusetts where he met Clark Hopswood. The two would write letters between each other, the contents of which remain unknown. Abram would serve as the model for “Free Nigger Bob,” a recurring character in Hopswood’s anti-slavery writings. Although it is unknown exactly when sometime in 1781 Abram came to South Carolina. Eventually, through a mixture of Hopswood’s letters and news of the events in Massachusetts, Abram began to prepare to liberate the worldly bodies, rather than the souls of America’s slaves.

Although exact records are lacking, it is believed that by the end of 1786 Abram was able to recruit nearly five thousand slaves into the plot of rebellion. The beginning of the rebellion proper occurred entirely by mistake. On March 12th a slave, whose name history has regrettably forgotten, beat to death a white overseer following a beating. Following this, approximately eighty slaves stormed the plantation manor and whipped their former master, the plantation’s white workers, and the master’s family to death. Two days later Governor Thomas Pinckney heard the news of the event, he called out the local militia to deal with them declaring: “We shall make short work of them.”

Over the next two weeks, slaves began rising up throughout South Carolina particularly in the area around Charleston. On the 29th of March, Governor Pinckney’s militia was defeated in the Battle of North Charleston. This defeat spurred on the slave revolt and by the end of March, twenty thousand slaves or roughly one-fifth of the slave population of South Carolina were rebelling against the slavery. On April 2nd, Pinckney fled Charleston in light of an approaching black army, which arrived in the city the next day. The Battle of Charleston was barely worthy of the title, far more resembling a massacre rather than a battle. Only six thousand of the nearly seventeen thousand civilians of Charleston were alive the following morning.

As news of the slave revolt spread, nervousness began to set in throughout the Southern leadership. Slave revolts were a perpetual threat and the current revolt was of a larger scale than any other. In other slave states crackdowns began to occur with 24 slaves being hanged in Delaware alone. The largest change however, was in the attitude of the southern states towards the idea of establishing an emergency government. Although they had rejected in the Confederation Congress the establishment of an emergency army, the southern states began to approve of the idea despite the fact that Governor Pinckney himself had stated that the action was “a step from tyranny.” However, the threat of the slave revolt spreading to other states swayed their opinions. On April 18th, Virginia became the last state to ratify the Clark-Pinckney-Griffin Act and the emergency army (officially the United States Army of Internal Defense) came into existence. The office of the emergency executive was granted the title Dictator, drawing inspiration from the early Roman Republic.

The question of who should become Dictator saw little debate. George Washington was the first choice for receiving the office with the news of the passing of the act reaching him on April 23rd, departing for New York the following morning. Washington was noted by many to be very reluctant to take the office, with many believing he would turn it down entirely. Despite his reluctance, Washington took the office on May 1st, 1787 and immediately set out to end the growing number of crises stood in his way. The militias in the north were losing ground to the Massachusetts Republic, slaves across the southern states were in revolt, Natives were attacking settlers in the west, and the central government was barely able to summon the quorum needed to function. Despite all of this, Washington vowed to save the union.


“My Country has called upon me, in its darkest hour, to once more fight for the Liberties and Freedoms which we had, so few years before, fought and died for. Heaven has ordained upon us the sacred duty to defend the Fires of Liberty, and the Republican form of Government. It is for the security of the Nation, the favour of the American people, and the progenity of all Free people of this Earth that the Union must hold.”
-George Washington.

Nice to see a new update.

[stevep]

Apr 5, 2018 17:54:07 GMT James G said:

Glad to see you back and for the story to continue!

  Fully agree, although I would say to Schnozzberry that if your at university make sure it doesn't interfer with your studies.  [Presuming of course your a student.  You could be a lecturer, a office worker, cleaner or whatever of course. ]  No hurry with the story.  Make sure you do it when you have the time and also that your happy with it.  Much better a story that takes some time and its a very good one than where the author is hurrying to get things completed. 

  Sounds like Washington will have a lot on his hands but I suspect the slave revolt will take priority.  As a slave owner and southern himself that will seem like the largest threat since the norther revolt seems to be in decline and the Indians have had their power greatly reduced by the defeat of Pontiac's revolt and the killing of many during the rebellion.  If he's successful in putting down the assorted regional threats while the 'government' continues to struggle to basically function then a dictator/monarch is going to look more attractive to a lot of Americans, even if Washington refuses the post himself.  This could prompt someone making a successful bid during a later crisis.

  Of course he's got to win those battles 1st.  There's no longer French aid in terms of [most especially] gold but also guns and other resources so with a weak and divided government getting the funds to pay for an army could be difficult.  You might even see the semi-aristocratic nature of parts of the south being increased further with some local plantation owners/wealthy merchants organising their own local militias to defend against or crush slave uprisings which might further undermine a democratic/republican identity in the new state.

[Schnozzberry]

Apr 6, 2018 14:50:04 GMT stevep said:

Apr 5, 2018 17:54:07 GMT James G said:

Glad to see you back and for the story to continue!

  Fully agree, although I would say to Schnozzberry that if your at university make sure it doesn't interfer with your studies.  [Presuming of course your a student.  You could be a lecturer, a office worker, cleaner or whatever of course. ]  No hurry with the story.  Make sure you do it when you have the time and also that your happy with it.  Much better a story that takes some time and its a very good one than where the author is hurrying to get things completed. 

  Sounds like Washington will have a lot on his hands but I suspect the slave revolt will take priority.  As a slave owner and southern himself that will seem like the largest threat since the norther revolt seems to be in decline and the Indians have had their power greatly reduced by the defeat of Pontiac's revolt and the killing of many during the rebellion.  If he's successful in putting down the assorted regional threats while the 'government' continues to struggle to basically function then a dictator/monarch is going to look more attractive to a lot of Americans, even if Washington refuses the post himself.  This could prompt someone making a successful bid during a later crisis.

  Of course he's got to win those battles 1st.  There's no longer French aid in terms of [most especially] gold but also guns and other resources so with a weak and divided government getting the funds to pay for an army could be difficult.  You might even see the semi-aristocratic nature of parts of the south being increased further with some local plantation owners/wealthy merchants organising their own local militias to defend against or crush slave uprisings which might further undermine a democratic/republican identity in the new state.

Well, if it wasn't obvious, university did catch me a bit. More precisely, I was pulled away by my on campus job because in my department I'm the only person with Janitorial training.  Anywho, as I'm pretty well on top of my classes if I'm not called back to work in a similar manner again I can resume with the crossposting yet again.

“There’s something that’s gone wrong.”
—John Sevier

The territory of North Carolina west of the Appalachian Mountains were poorly maintained by the North Carolinian government. Central authority was poorly ran, and settlers had a poor protection from native Americans. As such, the settlers had established an interim government, the State of Franklin. In 1786, the government and population of Franklin rejected an offer by North Carolina to rejoin the state. By 1787 troops from North Carolina were sent to Franklin under the command of Evan Shelby in order to both restore North Carolina’s governance over the area, and to defend the settlers against Cherokee raids on settlers.

Shelby’s troops never pacified Franklin. In early April, Shelby was recalled to help prevent the South Carolinian slave revolt from spreading into North Carolina. For the state of Franklin this was a blessing. Without the troops, the North Carolinian government was unable to restore their control over Franklin and the separatist government continued functioning.  Shelby’s withdrawal proved to be a blessing for the Franklinite government in one other way. A number of militias were drawn from the region, along with Shelby’s troops. This allowed the Governor of Franklin, John Sevier, to seize the assets of the North Carolinian counties which had been de facto defunct following establishment of Franklin. On June 2nd, 1787, Sevier led a small militia of two hundred to Jonesborough, the capital of the North Carolinian government of the region, and without a fight the North Carolinian government surrendered to Sevier.

While Sevier managed to secure Franklin, a new crisis began to brew in the Northwest. News of the Regulator crisis had reached the government of Great Britain by December 23rd. In response, the British government authorized British officials in Canada to supply rebellions in the United States of America, with 25,000 pounds being set aside to supply rebellious natives in the American Northwest. The news of this authorization would reach British Canada on March 3rd, 1787, with the natives in the Northwest not receiving word until April 15th.

Before the news had reached the Native tribes however, the tribes had taken matters into their own hands. Having formed a large confederation of tribes in 1785, the natives in the Northwest declared all lands North and West of the Ohio river as their territory. As news of the American’s weakness began to trickle west, the tribes began to take more direct action. On March 12th, 1787, Fort Harmar was attacked by a band of five hundred native tribesmen. This attack would serve as the beginning of the Great Indian War.

Over the next four weeks, until news of the British aid reached the natives, the war consisted primarily of native raids on American forts and supply trains to the forts. When news of the British plan to aid the tribes, the war expanded dramatically. Native attacks began to occur against American settlements south of the Ohio river. While local militias were able to fend off the majority of the attacks, the Virginian government was unable to provide sufficient supplies to the settlers in the west, due to the increasing crackdown against the spread of the slave rebellion. In a foreshadowing of events to come, on May 22nd, one hundred militiamen and the entire population of Maysville, roughly one hundred civilians, were killed during a native raid across the Ohio river.

The British aid to the natives did not just serve to disrupt the Americans. The British wanted a buffer state between their westward expansion, and American expansion. As such, Jonathan Vallwick was sent as an envoy to the native confederation, along with two hundred British soldiers. Departing from Fort Detroit on the 23rd of April, Vallwick had four goals:

Establish British relations with the native confederacy

Support the confederacy against American retaliation.

Push the natives to abandon their native governments, and adopt European style governments.

Have the natives accept British protection.

[James G]

Perfidious Albion!
Making sure that the US' growth is stumped really is in Britain's interests for many reasons.