The Tobacco Republic Historical Timeline
What if the 13 colonies never united?
After failing to unite in 1776, the splintered republics of North America are pawns in a Cold War between the 21st-century’s superpowers – the USSR and Francia, the empire born of Napoleon’s victory at Waterloo. Blending espionage, romance, and vivid historical flashback chapters, Tobacco Republic is a “provocative and unforgettable” alternative history. (Historical Novel Society)
1776 - On July 4th, Thomas Jefferson proposes a daring resolution: unite the thirteen British colonies into a single independent nation. But his dream unravels. The vote fails amid fierce debate over a common currency, interstate trade, and whether enslaved people should count toward representation. Instead, Congress adopts the Lee Resolution, declaring each colony an independent nation—free from British rule but not bound to each other. The idea of a “United States” dies in the cradle.
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1779 - After three years of war, King George III signs the Treaty of Paris, granting independence to thirteen fractured colonies now called the Britannic nations. Victory comes at a steep price. Crushed by war debt, the fledgling countries hike taxes and slap tariffs on one another’s goods. Inflation spirals. Angry farmers and shopkeepers fill the streets. Unpaid veterans erupt in open revolt. In capitols from Boston to Charleston, the great experiment in representative government teeters on the edge. Independence has come—but unity, peace, and prosperity are nowhere in sight.
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1783 - During their war of independence from England, the four northernmost Britannic nations create a pact allowing their neighbors to deploy troops within their borders. At the war's end, Massachusetts—by far the strongest nation—refuses to withdraw. On the pretext of containing the peacetime unrest, President Samuel Adams of Massachusetts orders his troops to seize control of his neighbors’ capitals in a bloodless coup. Within the year, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire have been annexed into an expanded Massachusetts with Samuel Adams as its president-for-life.
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1785 - From the earliest English settlements, tobacco becomes the Britannic region's most valuable cash crop. To meet the high demand for tobacco exports, colonial growers chain their fortunes to indentured labor and later to enslaved workers. An experiment growing cotton in the region fails. Removing its stubborn seeds from the cotton bolls proves too costly. The tobacco fields are owned by the heirs of lords granted lands by the British crown over a century before. But their wealth rests on unstable markets and aging systems, attracting the interest of well-financed opportunists from Francia.
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1795 - Unable to fund their idealistic policies and facing economic unrest in Pennsylvania, Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin plan an audacious move: seize the lucrative tobacco plantations of Delaware and Maryland. Their army will be raised by soldiers paid with free land in the newly acquired territory. The invasion is given a veneer of idealism: Paine and Franklin vow to replace the enslaved people working the tobacco fields with free citizens. Pennsylvania’s annexation ignites a firestorm of regional hatred that will smolder for centuries — and opens the door to economic exploitation by Francia.
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1800 - Pennsylvania's population grows from two-and-a-half to three million after conquering New Jersey following a brief, decisive war. The acquisition also increases Pennsylvania's wealth, adding expanded control of canals and railroads, additional ironworks and textile mills, along with new ports for maritime trade. Despite these gains, Pennsylvania continues to struggle economically, its debt increasing through corruption and wasteful management.
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1801 - Following his decisive victory over England and its allies at Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte annexes Austria, Germany and Poland. He names this new empire “Francia.” Then, in a treaty with George III, Napoleon forces England to give up its territories in North America. Though the Britannic nations—now independent—escape his rule, Napoleon tightens his grip on the region through economic dominance, exploiting their poverty and instability. His ambitions stretch far beyond the Atlantic. Napoleon's ultimate objective is access to the elusive Northwest Passage—a direct trade route to the Orient.
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1802 - In his first year as president of Virginia, Jefferson’s dream to reunite the former colonies through a third Continental Congress is rejected by Virginia’s House of Delegates. Economic collapse follows as Napoleon’s rise in France slashes demand for Virginia tobacco. Planters turn against Jefferson. After Pennsylvania occupies New Jersey, unrest erupts. Washington moves troops loyal to him toward Jefferson’s presidential residence. Too proud to keep personal guards, Jefferson flees into exile with his family. Washington assumes power as Virginia’s new president.
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1825 - After Napoleon creates New Francia and claims all lands west of the Alleghenies, the frontier closes. With nowhere left to go, Indigenous nations and settlers face a brutal choice—war or assimilation. Many native tribes are conquered, converted, and absorbed into European ways. Over generations, intermarriage with settlers and freed Africans forges a new people—English-speaking, European in custom, but strikingly diverse.
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1861 - Despite conquering three neighboring nations, Pennsylvania’s economy falters once again. The soil of the tobacco fields annexed in Maryland and Delaware is nearly depleted. The industries seized from New Jersey are riven by graft. Unwilling to attack New York—its larger neighbor to the north—Pennsylvania invades Virginia, a nation with half its population, a quarter of whom are enslaved. After three years of bloody fighting on its own soil, the Army of Virginia stands on the brink of defeat..
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1864 - After a series of Pennsylvania victories in Virginia, General Robert E. Lee makes a desperate decision. He frees any able-bodied enslaved men willing to fight in the outnumbered Army of Virginia. The move turns the tide of battle. Deploying the black troops as cannon fodder suffering high casualties, Lee pushes the enemy back into Pennsylvania. Once on free-labor soil, these troops desert en masse. Though the war ends in stalemate, the desertions spark a wave of northward migration from the southern Britannic nations.
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1867 - When news of the mass desertion of Black soldiers from the Army of Virginia reaches the enslaved people in the southern Britannic nations, an exodus begins. Fired by a thirst for freedom, many chattel workers abandon the plantations. They head north in numbers so large local authorities cannot detain them, flooding cities in Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts. Fearful of revolts, leaders of the Britannic nations agree to abolish slavery. The emancipation is hollow. Whites in the southern nations still own most of the land. Many of the newly liberated find themselves working the same fields as freemen.
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1872 - In A Lesser Land, a landmark study of the Britannic region, author Pauline Savari of Francia writes: “Even the poorest people in Francia live better than most of the unfortunate souls in this region. The cause is not hard to find. Francia’s heavy hand is everywhere. Coal mines, railroads, banks, shipping, and agriculture are all controlled by Franks. There is only one path for the locals to acquire wealth: join the government and gain access to graft and bribes.” An early review of A Lesser Land calls it “the study of a backwater region peopled by savages, negroes and the crude flotsam of Europe.”
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1880-1910 - Millions of European immigrants arrive in New Francia, drawn by its vast, sparsely populated western territories. The English-speaking nations of the Britannic region fail to attract a comparable wave. Weak economies, chronic political instability, and the absence of unsettled land offer few opportunities for newcomers. As a result, people of European descent become a minority in the small Britannic nations, whose populations are now largely descended from indigenous peoples and former slaves.
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1932 - An investment crisis in Francia sends world financial markets into a panic. Exports plummet among the underdeveloped Britannic nations with tobacco hit hardest. Economic misery and political unrest give rise to authoritarian strongmen—on the left and right. Meanwhile, Francia and the USSR extend their control over railroads, local manufacturing and agriculture. Life remains bleak among North America’s English-speaking nations.
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1933 - Enthralled by newsreels and posters of a workers paradise, the leaders of PA look to the USSR as a model out of misery. After more than 150 years of two-party rule marked by corruption and poverty, Pennsylvania adopts a one-party government. The newly formed Workers Party abolishes the nation's bicameral constitution and gives complete control of all functions of the government to the Premier of the People’s Party. Little changes for the nation’s downtrodden common folk under the new regime.
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What Comes Next
Visit the Tobacco Republic Timeline installments in the 21st century:
2007 - Energy Shock at the Virginia-Pennsylvania Border
2030 – German Separatists Plot Independence from Francia
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IMAGE SOURCE CREDITS: Library of Congress – Public Domain | Creative Commons – Public Domain | Pexels.com | DVIDS Archive - Public Domain