Post by spanishspy on Feb 28, 2016 0:06:40 GMT
Preface: This timeline was originally posted on alternatehistory.com on April 18th, 2014, and based off on an advertisement for the Dodge Challenger.
Excerpt from the Collinson-Kearny Dictionary of American History, published in Molsonville, Meskwaki, 1998
AUTOMOBILE – a four-wheeled vehicle powered by gasoline, significant in American history due to its initial usage in the American War of Independence and subsequent colonization of the western states.
The exact history of the Automobile is unclear; circumstances of its introduction to the Continental Army in 1777 and subsequent usage in the Battle of Brandywine are far from well detailed. It is known that automobiles were first given to General George Washington before the battle by a man by the name of Charles Hallam, who spoke with an accent that is utterly unplaceable by both contemporary and modern sources. There is no record of Hallam’s birthplace, nor even home state, although he later settled in Eureka, Pennsylvania.
The automobile was used to great effect in the Battle of Brandywine, where its vastly superior maneuverability and speed allowed it to easily overtake the British forces under William Howe and Charles Cornwallis. Effective use of automobiles (although not nearly as effective as they would be used later due to inexperience with the technology) was able to result in the capture of Howe, Cornwallis, and a variety of other British regulars and leaders during the campaign, preventing them from taking Philadelphia, enabling the Continental Congress to remain in its operating location, causing Philadelphia to eventually become the Capital of an independent United States.
The effects on the war were massive; the superior mobility of the Continental Army allowed to triumph decisively in both the north and the south, and were the key point of Washington’s invasion of Quebec, culminating in the sieges of Montreal and York. British doctrine was simply unprepared for something of that magnitude, something so utterly revolutionary to the conduct of war. Eventually, the British public became restless, and the British government under Prime Minister Lord North was forced to sue for peace, sending its commisioners to meet with the American statesmen John Adams and Thomas Jefferson in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to sue for peace. The Peace of Halifax guaranteed independence for the new nation, encompassing the entirety of the Thirteen Colonies, British holdings to the Mississippi River (Florida included), and the British holdings to the north of the Thirteen Colonies, now the states of Quebec, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Algonquin, Huron, and northern Chippewa.
American expansion westward, inevitable since the settlement of the eastern seaboard of the continent, was facilitated by automobile, enabling the settlement of the territories, later states, of Ohio, Wyandot, and many others of the southern and old western regions of the country. The United States Army was able to outmaneuver a myriad of Native American tribes in its Western regions using the automobile, with a particularly notable General and veteran of of the Revolution, Horatio Gates, the victor of Saratoga and a national hero, was instrumental in taking the land from these tribes and its incorporation into the United States, at the time numbering seventeen with the full incorporation of Quebec, Nova Scotia, Algonquin, and Vermont into the union.
However, automobiles then just as they are now are dependent on fuel, dubbed ‘gasoline’ by Charles Hallam, and it was a finite resouce. However, he had the technology to make more gasoline, and knew of locations where it could be extracted from the ground. One of these locations was Eureka, Pennsylvania, a town in the northwestern part of the state dedicated to extracting gasoline in its unfinalized form, later to be processed by techniques that were taught by Hallam and now used by several automotive companies. Eureka rapidly grew to become one of the top fifty cities in the United States during this time due to its place as the capital of the nascent American automotive history. Hallam would go on to become extraordinarily wealth due to investment at Eureka and later other parts of his country, and he would use this to great effect in backing his favored politicians, which would pass protective tariffs on foreign manufactured goods, tax breaks and subsidies for domestic businesses, and other business-friendly legislation, both in Congress and in state legislatures. Hallam’s own son, Sidney, would become President in his own right in 1845, based in no small part on his father’s wealth.
Economically, it was nothing short of a revolution in the country, a revolution that would later take place elsewhere in the world. The vast expanses of land between Quebec on one hand and Georgia on the other hand used to be a matter of weeks’ travel; after the debut of the automobile, it became a matter of days. American agriculture and mining was now fully synthesized with American industry and the entire country quickly grew to be the largest economy on the face of the Earth. The rise of large corporations over the former part of the 19th century was in no small part due to the automobile’s ability to transport goods, with certain vehicles dedicates explicitly to that task.
America still wanted to expand; its people demanded it, and so the government in Philadelphia was not above involving itself in foreign wars. While Europe was enraptured in the Six Years’ War, the United States formally aligned itself with the Holy Roman Empire, Russia, and Britain via launching an invasion of French Louisiana as well as naval engagements off the coast of Mexico, in addition to assaults on Spanish and French holdings in the Caribbean in 1801. It was during the Six Years’ War that the United States debuted ships, dubbed aquamobiles, equipped with technology derived from automotive technology.
Contemporary with the Six Years’ War was the establishment of massive offshore structures off the coasts of various states, including Louisiana and the territories of Alabama and Natchez on the Gulf Coast and the shore of Virginia on the Atlantic Coast, among other installations. These facilities, in conjunction with the the establishment of new onshore extraction facilities, were for the acquisition of more gasoline to power the inevitable expansion of the nation westward.
The end of the Six Years’ War left the United States the indisputable master of the North American continent, stretching from coast to coast. These vast territories, however, were subject to the desires of the agricultural caste in the southern states, which had only increased their profits with the introduction of the automobile. The automobile was used to make transporting goods much faster, and modifications of the original design were used to fertilize crops much quicker – what several slaves could do in a day could be done by an automobile, properly conducted, in a few hours, manned by at most five slaves. The automotivization of the Southern agricultural complex led to a drastically decreased demand for African labor; the large amounts of slaves given manumissions, or simply abandoned, skyrocketed, leading to the establishment of a rural African culture of subsistence farmers that has its legacies in this day and age.
Socially, the United States began its grand liberalization that resulted in the country’s reputation (which some would brand paradoxical) as one of the most socially progressive nations in the world. The increased mobility led to a wider knowledge of other cultures within the nation, including those of African and Native Americans, which gradually came to be accepted as equal citizens under the law, even though such progress needed often violent conflict lasting several years, such as the slave rebellions of the 1850s and 1860s and the near-constant wars with Native Americans that ended until the same time. Both groups enforced their will by capturing automobiles and gasoline sources, in addition to having substantial white allies in mainstream American society. Both groups were finally enfranchised in the Voting Rights Amendment of 1869, which also gave the vote to those of Mexican and other Latin American descent. Gender equality, likewise, was heavily improved with the debut of the automobile; there is nothing inherent that prevents a woman from driving as well as a man can. The rise of the automobile allowed women to make their presence felt in the national economy, and this value eventually resulted in their enfranchisement in 1886.
WHEELS OF THE PATRIOTS
BY SPANISHSPY
BY SPANISHSPY
Excerpt from the Collinson-Kearny Dictionary of American History, published in Molsonville, Meskwaki, 1998
AUTOMOBILE – a four-wheeled vehicle powered by gasoline, significant in American history due to its initial usage in the American War of Independence and subsequent colonization of the western states.
The exact history of the Automobile is unclear; circumstances of its introduction to the Continental Army in 1777 and subsequent usage in the Battle of Brandywine are far from well detailed. It is known that automobiles were first given to General George Washington before the battle by a man by the name of Charles Hallam, who spoke with an accent that is utterly unplaceable by both contemporary and modern sources. There is no record of Hallam’s birthplace, nor even home state, although he later settled in Eureka, Pennsylvania.
The automobile was used to great effect in the Battle of Brandywine, where its vastly superior maneuverability and speed allowed it to easily overtake the British forces under William Howe and Charles Cornwallis. Effective use of automobiles (although not nearly as effective as they would be used later due to inexperience with the technology) was able to result in the capture of Howe, Cornwallis, and a variety of other British regulars and leaders during the campaign, preventing them from taking Philadelphia, enabling the Continental Congress to remain in its operating location, causing Philadelphia to eventually become the Capital of an independent United States.
The effects on the war were massive; the superior mobility of the Continental Army allowed to triumph decisively in both the north and the south, and were the key point of Washington’s invasion of Quebec, culminating in the sieges of Montreal and York. British doctrine was simply unprepared for something of that magnitude, something so utterly revolutionary to the conduct of war. Eventually, the British public became restless, and the British government under Prime Minister Lord North was forced to sue for peace, sending its commisioners to meet with the American statesmen John Adams and Thomas Jefferson in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to sue for peace. The Peace of Halifax guaranteed independence for the new nation, encompassing the entirety of the Thirteen Colonies, British holdings to the Mississippi River (Florida included), and the British holdings to the north of the Thirteen Colonies, now the states of Quebec, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Algonquin, Huron, and northern Chippewa.
American expansion westward, inevitable since the settlement of the eastern seaboard of the continent, was facilitated by automobile, enabling the settlement of the territories, later states, of Ohio, Wyandot, and many others of the southern and old western regions of the country. The United States Army was able to outmaneuver a myriad of Native American tribes in its Western regions using the automobile, with a particularly notable General and veteran of of the Revolution, Horatio Gates, the victor of Saratoga and a national hero, was instrumental in taking the land from these tribes and its incorporation into the United States, at the time numbering seventeen with the full incorporation of Quebec, Nova Scotia, Algonquin, and Vermont into the union.
However, automobiles then just as they are now are dependent on fuel, dubbed ‘gasoline’ by Charles Hallam, and it was a finite resouce. However, he had the technology to make more gasoline, and knew of locations where it could be extracted from the ground. One of these locations was Eureka, Pennsylvania, a town in the northwestern part of the state dedicated to extracting gasoline in its unfinalized form, later to be processed by techniques that were taught by Hallam and now used by several automotive companies. Eureka rapidly grew to become one of the top fifty cities in the United States during this time due to its place as the capital of the nascent American automotive history. Hallam would go on to become extraordinarily wealth due to investment at Eureka and later other parts of his country, and he would use this to great effect in backing his favored politicians, which would pass protective tariffs on foreign manufactured goods, tax breaks and subsidies for domestic businesses, and other business-friendly legislation, both in Congress and in state legislatures. Hallam’s own son, Sidney, would become President in his own right in 1845, based in no small part on his father’s wealth.
Economically, it was nothing short of a revolution in the country, a revolution that would later take place elsewhere in the world. The vast expanses of land between Quebec on one hand and Georgia on the other hand used to be a matter of weeks’ travel; after the debut of the automobile, it became a matter of days. American agriculture and mining was now fully synthesized with American industry and the entire country quickly grew to be the largest economy on the face of the Earth. The rise of large corporations over the former part of the 19th century was in no small part due to the automobile’s ability to transport goods, with certain vehicles dedicates explicitly to that task.
America still wanted to expand; its people demanded it, and so the government in Philadelphia was not above involving itself in foreign wars. While Europe was enraptured in the Six Years’ War, the United States formally aligned itself with the Holy Roman Empire, Russia, and Britain via launching an invasion of French Louisiana as well as naval engagements off the coast of Mexico, in addition to assaults on Spanish and French holdings in the Caribbean in 1801. It was during the Six Years’ War that the United States debuted ships, dubbed aquamobiles, equipped with technology derived from automotive technology.
Contemporary with the Six Years’ War was the establishment of massive offshore structures off the coasts of various states, including Louisiana and the territories of Alabama and Natchez on the Gulf Coast and the shore of Virginia on the Atlantic Coast, among other installations. These facilities, in conjunction with the the establishment of new onshore extraction facilities, were for the acquisition of more gasoline to power the inevitable expansion of the nation westward.
The end of the Six Years’ War left the United States the indisputable master of the North American continent, stretching from coast to coast. These vast territories, however, were subject to the desires of the agricultural caste in the southern states, which had only increased their profits with the introduction of the automobile. The automobile was used to make transporting goods much faster, and modifications of the original design were used to fertilize crops much quicker – what several slaves could do in a day could be done by an automobile, properly conducted, in a few hours, manned by at most five slaves. The automotivization of the Southern agricultural complex led to a drastically decreased demand for African labor; the large amounts of slaves given manumissions, or simply abandoned, skyrocketed, leading to the establishment of a rural African culture of subsistence farmers that has its legacies in this day and age.
Socially, the United States began its grand liberalization that resulted in the country’s reputation (which some would brand paradoxical) as one of the most socially progressive nations in the world. The increased mobility led to a wider knowledge of other cultures within the nation, including those of African and Native Americans, which gradually came to be accepted as equal citizens under the law, even though such progress needed often violent conflict lasting several years, such as the slave rebellions of the 1850s and 1860s and the near-constant wars with Native Americans that ended until the same time. Both groups enforced their will by capturing automobiles and gasoline sources, in addition to having substantial white allies in mainstream American society. Both groups were finally enfranchised in the Voting Rights Amendment of 1869, which also gave the vote to those of Mexican and other Latin American descent. Gender equality, likewise, was heavily improved with the debut of the automobile; there is nothing inherent that prevents a woman from driving as well as a man can. The rise of the automobile allowed women to make their presence felt in the national economy, and this value eventually resulted in their enfranchisement in 1886.