Decades of Darkness

This is one of many Alternate History timelines I plan to one day do a Chaos Fiction revisit of.

### **Decades of Darkness**

Decades of Darkness is an alternate history where U.S. President Thomas Jefferson dies during a crucial stage of the debate over the Embargo Act, a commercial measure which was causing considerable anger in New England and New York. Clinton and Johnny Tremain, Jefferson's successors, continue the Act, precipitating a secession movement in New England, which is dragged into a wider war with Britain (the War of 1811). At the war's end, the USA is forced to concede the independence of seven states (Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and New Guersey) as well as conceding parts of the northwest to Michigan Territory (a joint British/New Englander possession) and an Indian Confederation under Tecumseh as a buffer state. The severed states form the Republic of New England, or the â€˜Northern Confederacyâ€™ as some of its inhabitants prefer to call it.

After the war, the USA is dominated by slaveholding states and (at first) a desire for vengeance. Another Anglo-American War was fought during the 1830s (the War of 1833) which led to the defeat of the Indian Confederation, but the United States was unable to defeat the combined British-Yankee forces. The war eventually ended with the United States acquiring some small pieces of the former Indian Confederation but abandoning its preference for northern conquest. Instead, the United States turned west and south, conquering Texas after its 1833 revolution, and its citizens poured into northern Mexico.

The First Mexican War (1850-1852) saw the USA defeat the Mexicans and acquire a huge part of northern Mexico â€“ all of what they acquired in OTL, plus Baja California, Tamaulipas, and the rest of Mexico north of the 25th parallel. The USA also established a â€˜protectorateâ€™ over the Yucatan. Since then, the USA has also annexed Cuba (1858) and Nicaragua (1859). After the annexation of Nicaragua, U.S. President Jefferson Davis proclaimed that it is the manifest destiny of the white race to unite all the peoples of the Americas until â€œall these lands are one nation under Godâ€. Since then, the USA has acquired Puerto Rico (1862), Honduras (1869), the Dutch Antilles and Surinam (1869), the French Caribbean (1875) and in two further Mexican Wars (1863-1854 and 1881 but with ongoing guerrilla conflicts) has taken control of all of Mexico. The United States now stretches from the 46th parallel to Nicaragua, and includes much of the Caribbean. Slavery is legal in virtually all of the USA, except for a few states in the northeast. Indentured restrictions have been placed on many, although not all, of the Spanish-speaking inhabitants within U.S. territory.

In Europe, the revolutions of 1849 saw the German Reich established, including Prussia, the Netherlands, Austria, and most of the German-speaking states. It has since acquired much of Switzerland, Schleswig-Holstein from Denmark, and Alsace from France. The Russian Empire expanded greater than in our history, acquiring much of OTL Romania, Bulgaria and parts of Turkey, but it has suffered a major setback with its defeat in the Second Napoleonic Wars. Italy has unified, but without the rich northern provinces of Lombardy and Venetia, which remain in firm Austrian rule. After decades of civil war, Spain was divided into a new northern Catalan-speaking Kingdom of Aragon. Aragon was briefly partitioned between France and Spain but has since been restored. The Ottoman Empire collapsed after a long war with Russia, and the British established a protectorate over the remnant core of Turkey and Mestopotamia. The British also have an expanded empire, with a larger Australia, Canada, and more settlement to the Cape.

Recently, the world has been engulfed by the Second Napoleonic Wars, with Napoleon IV, Emperor of France, driving a European struggle which spilled across the globe and saw American, New England and Brazilian troops in Europe. The war is now over, and the Third Congress of Vienna has met to redraw the borders of Europe and indeed, the world...