Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl
On Jackson-5, Andrew Jackson was killed a week before the Battle of New Orleans due to friendly fire, leading the British victory over the American forces, which were easily routed, and the subsequent occupation of New Orleans. When the British occupation force left, they gave the captured American arms and ships to the slaves that they had freed during their occupation of New Orleans. The freed slaves imprisoned any former owners who refused to acknowledge their freedom after the British left, destroyed the recovering American forces that attempted to retake New Orleans, and announced themselves to be the Louisiana Republic.
The Louisiana Republic immediately received recognition and support from the British Crown, who sent ships and soldiers to guarantee the independence of the Louisiana Republic. The USA responded by attacking Canada again, but the Canadians were ready for a second invasion, and they defeated and captured the American forces. In the half century since then, the Louisiana Republic has played the kingmaker between the USA and the Republic of Mexico, and they helped defeat the USA during the American-Mexican War of 1848.
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Any such Louisiana Republic would have to be highly militarized. Its very presence destabilizes every U.S. state in which plantations with slaves play a significant economic role.
Escaped slaves no longer have to make the long trip north to Canada. Instead, they can simply make it to the Mississippi and "float to freedom."
Of course, it wouldn't be that simple. The southern states would implement river patrols and could make fugitive hunters into larger, state-supported para-military organizations that constantly raided into the territory of the Republic.
Since the southern states were already more oriented toward violence than the north (a slave is a knife at the throat the master, and that means the slavers must devote a significant proportion of their energy and resources to keep boots on throats), and the proximity of such a clearly hostile polity that threatened the livelihoods of the most wealthy of the movers and shakers would only make matters worse.
The constant threat of violence from its immediate neighbors would require the Louisiana Republic to maintain a fairly large professional army just to secure its own borders. Recognition from Britain means the army of Louisiana gets organized in the same way as the British army, and I could see some of the officers, there, agreeing to take commissions in the Army of the Republic of Louisiana.