- Location
- Das Böse ist immer und überall
- Pronouns
- he/him
oh god yes take me
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Lists of Heads of Government and Heads of State
- Thread starter Mumby
- Start date
- Location
- Municipal Commune of Bourne
- Pronouns
- He/Him
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
OHC
deep green blue collar rainbow
- Location
- Little Beirut
- Pronouns
- they/she
Look up the first guy on the list if you don't recognize his name, I think the Loyal Legion of Loggers and Lumbermen is the kind of thing you'd be interested in
- Location
- Municipal Commune of Bourne
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The General Post Office Network
On 19th May 1966, when Tony Benn and Billy Butlin officially open the Post Office Tower to the public, something very strange happens. An ASB transports 2019's global internet infrastructure to 1966, with adaptations to ensure that you don't have weird cables going through people's houses and stuff, and at least some information so people know they need to go and maintain those satellites. With reverse engineering, within 10 years an internet not so different from the late 90s/early 00s has got going...
1964-1973: Harold Wilson (Labour)
1964 (Majority) def. Alec Douglas-Home (Conservative), Jo Grimond (Liberal)
1966 (Majority) def. Ted Heath (Conservative), Jo Grimond (Liberal)
1971 (Majority) def. Ted Heath (Conservative), Jeremy Thorpe (Liberal)
The 'Event' is an initial boon to Labour, as after a period of confusion and difficulty integrating the new technology and further issues down the line - lacking the tools to make the tools to make the tools needed to maintain 21st century microtechnology - there is a global economic boom thanks to the vast processing power at their hands, and accelerated global communication. The arrival of the satellites makes the Space Race enter a new phase of urgency globally, as it is seen as necessary to obtain the satellites to analyse the technology aboard them. The United States ends up landing a man on the Moon in 1968 - proving enough to tip LBJ over the line into a second term. Advanced computer technology enables Britain to truly wield the White Heat of Technology - and the GPO Network (essentially a nationalised 4G network) is selling sorta kinda smartphones (albeit very clunky looking by our standards, you sort of wear them on a holster on your belt to contain the battery pack. Digitalisation of communications also leads to a slightly earlier decimalisation of currency, and Wilson has no need to call a call a snap election in 1970.
This proves the undoing of Wilson's government in the long run as the emergent 'wecosphere' (weco is TTL's term for blog, it rhymes with echo and comes from 'we corkboard', corkboard being an early term for forums) proves to be an excellent tool for otherwise isolated individuals to share thoughts and ideas. Particularly about unpleasant encounters they have endured. The emergence of a national scandal that goes to the very bedrock of Britain's booming broadcasting institutions, its most public figures accused of heinous acts by individuals who would have never met and shared their stories in the absence of the wecosphere. All political parties are implicated in the scandal, and while Wilson is personally untouched he is seen as having turned a blind eye and having served for nine years stands aside in 1973 for a more suitable individual to take charge.
1973-1976: Barbara Castle (Labour)
1975 (Minority, with Liberal confidence and supply) def. Willie Whitelaw (Conservative), Arthur Donaldson (Scottish National)
Britain's first woman Prime Minister would find quite the task on her hands as Wilson slipped onto the backbenches. The British Establishment was tearing itself apart, unable to cope with the forces unleashed by the technological revolution of 1966. Their way of going about things was not made for the world of ubiquitous miniature cameras and instantaneous mobile communication. Castle established a Commission with wideranging powers to investigate and bring to justice the grimmest perpetrators of sexual exploitation, and this was successful to a degree. But it soon led to a backlash, as the probity of the Commission was soon accused of having gone too far, of visiting extreme punishments and exposing those it was investigating to public scrutiny before a legal judgement could be made.
The wecosphere only became more sophisticated, as many competing social media sites came into being - and the formation of online bubbles of thought, competing camps reinforcing their internal ideologies whilst easily excluding outsiders became a phenomenon the still extremely 20th century parties were poorly built to cope with. The Tories and the Liberals in particular bloodied themselves on this battlefield as Ted Heath was monstered having left the leadership in 1971 and the Liberals struggled to breathe under the weight of the Thorpe and Smith scandals.
The global boom began to fail as the 70s wore on and no amount of flashy phones could save Britain from the oil crisis. The boom had led to an overheated and inflated economy and when Castle decided to call a snap election the result was a minority government with the handful of surviving Liberals who had been leapfrogged by the SNP. Even that couldn't last for long, as the alliance with the Liberals opened up a new phase of recriminations about the Commission this time from the other side as initial supporters of Castle questioned allowing he scandal-ridden Liberals into the halls of government. Within months the government had fallen and fresh elections called.
1976-1981: Enoch Powell (Conservative)
1976 (Minority, with SNP confidence and supply) def. Barbara Castle (Labour), Arthur Donaldson (Scottish National)
1978 (Majority) def. Barbara Castle (Labour)
1976 was the last shuddering gasp of the Liberals, burnt out after the last few years of recrimination and bitterness. Powell's fragile minority government would be replaced in 1978 by a majority as the SNP was punished by their constituents (or rather they shifted over to voting for the Tories) and then the fun really began. Powell had risen to power on a wave of populist online sentiment, a group of alienated young people who found the world changing around them too quickly for their liking. The consequences of the Event were having enormous ramifications on industry as computers and technology accelerating and transformed the workplace, the job security many had once enjoyed now no longer seemed possible for the young people who had only been children in 1966 and had grown up a world moulded by the wecosphere.
Powell put a shot in the arm to that changing system by smashing the Keynesian economic order to bits. Privatisation, in particular of the GPO Network, swept the nation along with taxation cuts and swingeing cuts to welfare. Unemployment skyrocketed but with it came a more flexible labour market, and greater opportunities for big business and financial speculation (now far more ambitious with the use of sophisticated computer banks). The stuttering economy of the Labour years gave way to a strange situation of boom in the City and bust in the industrial heartlands.
The Commission however continued its work under Powell, and despite many of his followers beliefs, he didn't blame the sex scandals that had emerged on sexual permissiveness or the homosexual agenda. While perhaps not the crusader that Castle had been, Powell was also less scrutinised as a man that Britain's first woman Prime Minister, and was unafraid of taking a critical eye to his own party and the institutions of government.
Where he did not disappoint his followers was on the issue of immigration and national sovereignty. Powell began a policy of compensated repatriation, and distanced himself from the Cold War (despite frequent comparisons between his premiership and that of President Wallace). The economic malaise that struck much of Britain was joined by a series of increasingly bloody race riots as Britain's non-white minority protested against the efforts to passively or actively remove them, while an emboldened far right looked to 'assist' the police in putting them in their place. This atmosphere was not helped by Powell's policy in Northern Ireland where he sought to circumvent the issues of civil rights and Stormont by abolishing the province's Parliament and treating it as an integral part of Britain itself. The result was the secession of part of the UUP and the launch of a new gruesome phase of IRA bombings, now utilising mobile phones and now commercially available drone technology. Powell was an opponent of the more extreme security measures suggested by those around him.
Powell would ultimately be removed from office not by ballot but by the bullet, killed by a remotely detonated bomb on the eve of Tory conference in 1981.
1981-1983: Airey Neave (Conservative majority)
The man who now occupies Number 10 was the architect of Powell's Ulster Integration policy, and has been entirely willing to follow the advice of the security services in fighting the IRA. The economy continues its strange double life of a boom for a narrow minority and malaise for the wider population, whole industries are being hollowed out by privatisation and automation, and the streets though quieter now that Powell's repatriation policy has been quietly retired are no less tense. Many of the young Powellites who crowed in 1976 and 1978 as the Tories 'owned the Labs' feel betrayed to some degree and go down a deeper, darker rabbit hole.
Labour too has found itself changed by Powell's premiership. Castle stood aside and the party found itself in a time of crisis - a generation had been embittered by Labour's decade in power but when faced by the consequences of Powellism began to return. The party had only shifted further to the left under Castle and under Powell's premiership and her alteration of the method of electing the Party's leader (making use of computerised ballot counting technology to more easily integrate the mass membership into the party's decision making) led to a centrist split off - the Reform Party of Roy Jenkins, including a few ex-Tory hangers on uncomfortable with Powell's leadership.
That membership, including many thousands of young people, elected a new leader. A man whose reputation is as the architect of the 1970s boom, Mr GPO Network himself, Tony Benn. And as we enter 1983 and Neave will be forced to face the public against Tony Benn, everything seems up in the air. The newspapers are clear, as are the polling companies. Benn's hard left agenda and pacifism repels many right-thinking Britons, while Neave is trusted as a safe pair of hands. But the wecosphere tells a different story, as Militant's short but well produced videos consistently deliver broadsides against the government into the pockets of millions...
On 19th May 1966, when Tony Benn and Billy Butlin officially open the Post Office Tower to the public, something very strange happens. An ASB transports 2019's global internet infrastructure to 1966, with adaptations to ensure that you don't have weird cables going through people's houses and stuff, and at least some information so people know they need to go and maintain those satellites. With reverse engineering, within 10 years an internet not so different from the late 90s/early 00s has got going...
1964-1973: Harold Wilson (Labour)
1964 (Majority) def. Alec Douglas-Home (Conservative), Jo Grimond (Liberal)
1966 (Majority) def. Ted Heath (Conservative), Jo Grimond (Liberal)
1971 (Majority) def. Ted Heath (Conservative), Jeremy Thorpe (Liberal)
The 'Event' is an initial boon to Labour, as after a period of confusion and difficulty integrating the new technology and further issues down the line - lacking the tools to make the tools to make the tools needed to maintain 21st century microtechnology - there is a global economic boom thanks to the vast processing power at their hands, and accelerated global communication. The arrival of the satellites makes the Space Race enter a new phase of urgency globally, as it is seen as necessary to obtain the satellites to analyse the technology aboard them. The United States ends up landing a man on the Moon in 1968 - proving enough to tip LBJ over the line into a second term. Advanced computer technology enables Britain to truly wield the White Heat of Technology - and the GPO Network (essentially a nationalised 4G network) is selling sorta kinda smartphones (albeit very clunky looking by our standards, you sort of wear them on a holster on your belt to contain the battery pack. Digitalisation of communications also leads to a slightly earlier decimalisation of currency, and Wilson has no need to call a call a snap election in 1970.
This proves the undoing of Wilson's government in the long run as the emergent 'wecosphere' (weco is TTL's term for blog, it rhymes with echo and comes from 'we corkboard', corkboard being an early term for forums) proves to be an excellent tool for otherwise isolated individuals to share thoughts and ideas. Particularly about unpleasant encounters they have endured. The emergence of a national scandal that goes to the very bedrock of Britain's booming broadcasting institutions, its most public figures accused of heinous acts by individuals who would have never met and shared their stories in the absence of the wecosphere. All political parties are implicated in the scandal, and while Wilson is personally untouched he is seen as having turned a blind eye and having served for nine years stands aside in 1973 for a more suitable individual to take charge.
1973-1976: Barbara Castle (Labour)
1975 (Minority, with Liberal confidence and supply) def. Willie Whitelaw (Conservative), Arthur Donaldson (Scottish National)
Britain's first woman Prime Minister would find quite the task on her hands as Wilson slipped onto the backbenches. The British Establishment was tearing itself apart, unable to cope with the forces unleashed by the technological revolution of 1966. Their way of going about things was not made for the world of ubiquitous miniature cameras and instantaneous mobile communication. Castle established a Commission with wideranging powers to investigate and bring to justice the grimmest perpetrators of sexual exploitation, and this was successful to a degree. But it soon led to a backlash, as the probity of the Commission was soon accused of having gone too far, of visiting extreme punishments and exposing those it was investigating to public scrutiny before a legal judgement could be made.
The wecosphere only became more sophisticated, as many competing social media sites came into being - and the formation of online bubbles of thought, competing camps reinforcing their internal ideologies whilst easily excluding outsiders became a phenomenon the still extremely 20th century parties were poorly built to cope with. The Tories and the Liberals in particular bloodied themselves on this battlefield as Ted Heath was monstered having left the leadership in 1971 and the Liberals struggled to breathe under the weight of the Thorpe and Smith scandals.
The global boom began to fail as the 70s wore on and no amount of flashy phones could save Britain from the oil crisis. The boom had led to an overheated and inflated economy and when Castle decided to call a snap election the result was a minority government with the handful of surviving Liberals who had been leapfrogged by the SNP. Even that couldn't last for long, as the alliance with the Liberals opened up a new phase of recriminations about the Commission this time from the other side as initial supporters of Castle questioned allowing he scandal-ridden Liberals into the halls of government. Within months the government had fallen and fresh elections called.
1976-1981: Enoch Powell (Conservative)
1976 (Minority, with SNP confidence and supply) def. Barbara Castle (Labour), Arthur Donaldson (Scottish National)
1978 (Majority) def. Barbara Castle (Labour)
1976 was the last shuddering gasp of the Liberals, burnt out after the last few years of recrimination and bitterness. Powell's fragile minority government would be replaced in 1978 by a majority as the SNP was punished by their constituents (or rather they shifted over to voting for the Tories) and then the fun really began. Powell had risen to power on a wave of populist online sentiment, a group of alienated young people who found the world changing around them too quickly for their liking. The consequences of the Event were having enormous ramifications on industry as computers and technology accelerating and transformed the workplace, the job security many had once enjoyed now no longer seemed possible for the young people who had only been children in 1966 and had grown up a world moulded by the wecosphere.
Powell put a shot in the arm to that changing system by smashing the Keynesian economic order to bits. Privatisation, in particular of the GPO Network, swept the nation along with taxation cuts and swingeing cuts to welfare. Unemployment skyrocketed but with it came a more flexible labour market, and greater opportunities for big business and financial speculation (now far more ambitious with the use of sophisticated computer banks). The stuttering economy of the Labour years gave way to a strange situation of boom in the City and bust in the industrial heartlands.
The Commission however continued its work under Powell, and despite many of his followers beliefs, he didn't blame the sex scandals that had emerged on sexual permissiveness or the homosexual agenda. While perhaps not the crusader that Castle had been, Powell was also less scrutinised as a man that Britain's first woman Prime Minister, and was unafraid of taking a critical eye to his own party and the institutions of government.
Where he did not disappoint his followers was on the issue of immigration and national sovereignty. Powell began a policy of compensated repatriation, and distanced himself from the Cold War (despite frequent comparisons between his premiership and that of President Wallace). The economic malaise that struck much of Britain was joined by a series of increasingly bloody race riots as Britain's non-white minority protested against the efforts to passively or actively remove them, while an emboldened far right looked to 'assist' the police in putting them in their place. This atmosphere was not helped by Powell's policy in Northern Ireland where he sought to circumvent the issues of civil rights and Stormont by abolishing the province's Parliament and treating it as an integral part of Britain itself. The result was the secession of part of the UUP and the launch of a new gruesome phase of IRA bombings, now utilising mobile phones and now commercially available drone technology. Powell was an opponent of the more extreme security measures suggested by those around him.
Powell would ultimately be removed from office not by ballot but by the bullet, killed by a remotely detonated bomb on the eve of Tory conference in 1981.
1981-1983: Airey Neave (Conservative majority)
The man who now occupies Number 10 was the architect of Powell's Ulster Integration policy, and has been entirely willing to follow the advice of the security services in fighting the IRA. The economy continues its strange double life of a boom for a narrow minority and malaise for the wider population, whole industries are being hollowed out by privatisation and automation, and the streets though quieter now that Powell's repatriation policy has been quietly retired are no less tense. Many of the young Powellites who crowed in 1976 and 1978 as the Tories 'owned the Labs' feel betrayed to some degree and go down a deeper, darker rabbit hole.
Labour too has found itself changed by Powell's premiership. Castle stood aside and the party found itself in a time of crisis - a generation had been embittered by Labour's decade in power but when faced by the consequences of Powellism began to return. The party had only shifted further to the left under Castle and under Powell's premiership and her alteration of the method of electing the Party's leader (making use of computerised ballot counting technology to more easily integrate the mass membership into the party's decision making) led to a centrist split off - the Reform Party of Roy Jenkins, including a few ex-Tory hangers on uncomfortable with Powell's leadership.
That membership, including many thousands of young people, elected a new leader. A man whose reputation is as the architect of the 1970s boom, Mr GPO Network himself, Tony Benn. And as we enter 1983 and Neave will be forced to face the public against Tony Benn, everything seems up in the air. The newspapers are clear, as are the polling companies. Benn's hard left agenda and pacifism repels many right-thinking Britons, while Neave is trusted as a safe pair of hands. But the wecosphere tells a different story, as Militant's short but well produced videos consistently deliver broadsides against the government into the pockets of millions...
- Location
- Teignmouth, Devon
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- Location
- Municipal Commune of Bourne
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'd be genuinely curious to know what your take would be - I didn't intend this as 'this is definitely 100% what would happen'.
I got the idea reading 'Another Heart and Other Pulses' written by Michael Foot in the aftermath of 1983 and there are so many bits which evoke 2017, but the difference being that in 1983 if the newspapers and the polling companies said something it was inescapable, and I had this vision in my head of Momentum doing videos in 1983 and I couldn't get rid of it - I have to credit @Comisario as well as I bounced some ideas off him.
- Location
- Teignmouth, Devon
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ooh, I might take that as a prompt...
- Location
- Das Böse ist immer und überall
- Pronouns
- he/him
I suppose this fits here, in a sense.
OHC
deep green blue collar rainbow
- Location
- Little Beirut
- Pronouns
- they/she
Thanks. Tempted to do a little thing about the Progressive Era Boring Fascism that preceded this but idk
- Pronouns
- he/him
The 1783 Peace of Paris restored, on paper, Spanish control over West and East Florida but in actuality Spain had too many other priorities to enforce much control over a land mostly populated by natives americans, criminals, escaped slaves and political exiles and the land became a lawless anarchy.
Into this environment came various filibusters hoping to take control of the land and annex it to the United States. West Florida was lost to an American backed rebellion in 1810 and annexed to the USA, the Spanish supporting population of the Tangipahoa and Tchefuncte River regions were crushed by the Louisianian Milita and forced to flee into East Florida. In 1812 the USA attempted the same trick in East Florida but were forced to withdraw in disgrace lest they start a war with Spain while fighting the British at the same time.
The election of DeWitt Clinton in 1812 on an anti war, isolationist ticket however halted serious American attempts to control the region and allowed other factions to take advantage.
Leaders of the Free Republic of Florida (Unrecognized State)
Gregor MacGregor (1817)
Born in Scotland, MacGregor had left the British army in 1810 after a fight with a superior officer and joined the Venezuelan Revolutionary Army in 1812. However, history was to repeat itself as despite winning some notable victories for the rebels he fell out with General Piar and sailed off to Haiti in 1815. There he recruited soldiers for an attempt to take the fight to Spain elsewhere, landing in Amelia Island and declaring the Republic of Florida in 1817. The new republic was to encounter problems from the start, MacGregor had hoped for more support from the USA then he was to get and what American Filibusters he did recruit clashed with both his Haitian Freemen and with the smugglers and criminals of Amelia he hoped to win over. MacGregor, soon unable to pay or supply his troops, feared mutiny and sailed away after only three months leaving his second command in charge.
Reuben Kemper (1817)
Kemper had a long history of anti Spanish filibustering, he had attempted to declare West Florida independent in 1804 and was arrested in 1810 while attempting to cross into West Florida a second time during the successful rebellion. In 1812 he then joined a joint American-Mexican expedition that managed to, briefly, free Spanish Texas from Royal control. During that expedition the rebels had managed to gather an army made up of free blacks, american filibusters, spanish speaking rebels and native americans and meld then into one. Kemper saw it as his job to repeat the same feat in Florida, and he managed to beat off the only Spanish Attack on the Island, but without more supplies he was unable to follow that up by attacking the Spanish positions and so the situation seemed hopeless.
Jean Lafitte (1817-18)
Salvation for Kemper came in the form of three French privateers and smugglers, Louis-Michel Aury, Jean Lafitte and Pierre Lafitte, who having been driven out of Louisiana by US law enforcement were looking for a new base for their smuggling operations. Aury was at the the time, he claimed, working for the Mexican rebels and the Lafitte brothers were hoping for the same relationship with an independent Florida. The sorry state of Kemper's troops was something of a disappointment to the pirates but an agreement was quickly reached that saw Kemper recognise Lafitte as the President of the New Republic while Kemper took control of the armed forces, which reinforced with Aury's and Lafitte's men he used to drive the Spanish back to St Augustine and laid siege to Castillo de San Marcos. The ultimate aims of the Rebellion however, that is whether Florida, when free, should join Mexico or the USA were never truly resolved and this tension led the pro Mexican Aury to his next step.
MacGregor and Kemper had both relied on their Haitian freeman as foot soldiers, this was a time in which thousands of Haitians had fled the violence of the Haitian revolution to go abroad and were happy to look for opportunity elsewhere. In his little army, Lafitte had such notable Black Haitian soldiers as Joseph Savery, a resident of New Orleans who had moved there after collaborating with the French Army during the 1802 campaign, Joseph Courtois, who had been at a French military school fighting for the Republic when Napoleon had stripped away the rights of Black citizen in France and was thus prevented from leaving due to the ban on free movement, and Joseph's brother Sévère, who had arrived in 1818 from the Front lines in Venezuela. Shortly after Sévère's arrival, Aury sent the three men with 200 men to cross Florida and make common cause with the escaped and freed slaves that littered North Florida and fought constant skirmishes with American Militas. While this had obvious military benefits, it also had the Political benefit of pushing Florida closer to the abolitionist Mexican rebels and further from the slave owning American south.
When news of the expedition got out, there was outrage among Kemper's filibusters and there was a short and intense battle between the various gangs on Amelia Island which resulted in the death of Lafitte, the execution of four Americans, including Ruggles Hubbard, and Aury taking control.
Louis Michel Aury (1818)
Aury's problem was that having sent away his Haitian Freeman, the only sizeable army left in the rebel Republic belonged to Kemper who had reason to resent Aury's execution of several of his men. His problems got even worse when in the aftermath of the Death of his brother, Pierre Lafitte left Florida to return to Lousiana and took with him many of the brother's pirates. When Kemper and his second in command Jared Irwin, having taken St Augustine, returned to Fernandinha with his army and refused to obey Aury's orders, Aury fled and allowed Kemper once again to take control.
Reuben Kemper (1818-20)
The unwillingness to do anything about Florida as Spanish control there disintegrated and anarchy reigned lose on their southern borders was increasingly hurting President Clinton among the voters and his inaction spurred up increasingly desire for private action among the American South. In January 1819, a second lot of American filibusters led by John McIntosh, who had been a major figure during the failed 1812 filibustering attempt, arrived to join Kemper in Amelia Island which allowed the rebels to spread their control further across the Mainland. With St. Augustine fallen, the white population of Florida was almost all under the Republic's control and as of yet there was no sign of Spanish reinforcement, which meant that the Rebel campaign involved mainly bringing isolated white traders and settlers peacefully under the Republic's control, though there were also the first hostile encounters with Seminole Indians.
In late 1819, however a small Spanish Army landed in Florida. It was all that had been able to be sent of the ten battalions originally raised to fight for Spain in the New World, after several of those battalions had revolted under Rafael del Riego rather than be sent abroad. The 500 soldiers that were raised would do little good in Mexico or South America but it was hoped might be able to reclaim Florida at least.
The Spanish defeated the rebels in several pitched battles, severely wounding Kemper, and quickly laid siege to Castillo de San Amrcos. The Spanish had difficulty being supplied from Cuba and so the siege was only laxly enforced but the rebels had lost morale and the situation quickly fell into stalemate. Until, in early 1820, when Savery and the Courtois brothers returned with the Haitian Freedmen and their new allies.
Savery's mission had always been a fools errand. The Rebels maps of Florida were poor, and their supplies low. Savery was able to secure the support of one of the Spanish residents of Amelia as a guide but the Spanish trade and smuggling was a primarily sea based operation and the location of the Maroons were deep inland and a closely guarded secret. Moreover the major Maroon villages that were well known due to being coastal, such as Angola and Apalachicola, were on the western side of Florida and getting to them meant either following the Spanish forts or crossing the swamps. Savery attempted to do the latter but disease and lack of supplies thinned his troops badly and it is entirely possible the entire expedition would have failed had it not been for the lucky intervention of a village of Black Seminoles, who took in the Soldiers.
The Haitians arrived at a decisive moment of Seminole history. The various villages and tribes known as the Seminoles, including the escaped slaves who had joined them, were essentially independent but paid a loose tribute to the more powerful tribes. The principle chiefs of those more powerful tribes, such as Bolek and Kinache, were at that time in a conference to discuss the war on their northern border as they and their Creek allies skirmished with the US Army. Francis the Prophet, an ardent advocate of war against the white man and of native indian unity, had come to Florida to request full Seminole assistance for the Creek. Savery, seeing which way the wind was blowing, painted the existence of the Spanish, who as far as he knew still controlled St Augustine, as a potential dagger in the Seminole's back. Yes, the Spanish had always enjoyed decent relations with the Seminole but if Indians would fight for Indians why wouldn't white men fight for white men? But if the Seminole were to send with him a few warriors he could end that threat forever and establish his own maroon village there, which would happily fit into the same vassal/tributary relationship to the Seminole leadership that the existing Black Seminole villages did.
Kinache was unconvinced but Savery's vision of racial solidarity, that white men would always be untrustworthy and black men would always be loyal vassals, fitted neatly into Francis' talk of Indian unity. More over Bolek and many of the other young men saw a chance for plunder and glory in battling a much weaker enemy to the South. The broken bleeding army of Haitians that had entered the swamp would leave much larger and much better supplied.
Joseph Savery (1820-23)
The extent to which Savery and the Courtois brothers were idealists who were always in it to create a Free Black Republic rather than exiles and opportunists primarily looking for any way to make money who were happy to go along with the original filibuster plans is disputed. Certainly they seemed loyal enough to MacGregor and Kemper at the beginning of it. But with Kemper bleeding to death inside a besieged castle and Savery in control of the largest Army in East Florida, that attitude had changed.
Savery attacked the Spanish from the rear, forcing them to surrender after three days fighting, and then, when admitted into the Castle by Jared Irwin, quickly seized control of the besieged filibusters. Kemper had apparently died the week before Savery's army could get there and McIntosh had made himself unpopular with the Spanish residents meaning there was no real leadership to oppose him. That does not mean however, that Savery's accession was not contested. In 'the Second Haitian Massacre' some 100 white men, primarily followers of McIntosh, were executed for attempted mutiny.
News of this atrocity quickly reached the outraged ears of the American South and in 1821, President Monroe bowed to the inevitable and send word to Spain that since they had lost control of their territory to 'Negros, Natives and Criminals' the United States had to choice but to invade and annex Florida in order to bring it back into civilization.
This was a death blow for Savery's new Republic. If he had hoped for new men and supplies to arrive from either Mexico or Boyer's Haiti, who had just unified Hispaniola under his rule, he would be disappointed. Faced with an American invasion, albeit one manfully resisted by his allies among the Creek and Seminole, support dried up and St Augustine became increasingly isolated and changed hands yet again when the Americans captured it in 1822.
Savery and his closest supporters fled into the wilderness to continue a guerrila fight but a little over a year later, they were betrayed, captured and executed. The territory was not entirely pacified until another two decades later, but he was the last man to claim the title of President of Florida.
Into this environment came various filibusters hoping to take control of the land and annex it to the United States. West Florida was lost to an American backed rebellion in 1810 and annexed to the USA, the Spanish supporting population of the Tangipahoa and Tchefuncte River regions were crushed by the Louisianian Milita and forced to flee into East Florida. In 1812 the USA attempted the same trick in East Florida but were forced to withdraw in disgrace lest they start a war with Spain while fighting the British at the same time.
The election of DeWitt Clinton in 1812 on an anti war, isolationist ticket however halted serious American attempts to control the region and allowed other factions to take advantage.
Leaders of the Free Republic of Florida (Unrecognized State)
Gregor MacGregor (1817)
Born in Scotland, MacGregor had left the British army in 1810 after a fight with a superior officer and joined the Venezuelan Revolutionary Army in 1812. However, history was to repeat itself as despite winning some notable victories for the rebels he fell out with General Piar and sailed off to Haiti in 1815. There he recruited soldiers for an attempt to take the fight to Spain elsewhere, landing in Amelia Island and declaring the Republic of Florida in 1817. The new republic was to encounter problems from the start, MacGregor had hoped for more support from the USA then he was to get and what American Filibusters he did recruit clashed with both his Haitian Freemen and with the smugglers and criminals of Amelia he hoped to win over. MacGregor, soon unable to pay or supply his troops, feared mutiny and sailed away after only three months leaving his second command in charge.
Reuben Kemper (1817)
Kemper had a long history of anti Spanish filibustering, he had attempted to declare West Florida independent in 1804 and was arrested in 1810 while attempting to cross into West Florida a second time during the successful rebellion. In 1812 he then joined a joint American-Mexican expedition that managed to, briefly, free Spanish Texas from Royal control. During that expedition the rebels had managed to gather an army made up of free blacks, american filibusters, spanish speaking rebels and native americans and meld then into one. Kemper saw it as his job to repeat the same feat in Florida, and he managed to beat off the only Spanish Attack on the Island, but without more supplies he was unable to follow that up by attacking the Spanish positions and so the situation seemed hopeless.
Jean Lafitte (1817-18)
Salvation for Kemper came in the form of three French privateers and smugglers, Louis-Michel Aury, Jean Lafitte and Pierre Lafitte, who having been driven out of Louisiana by US law enforcement were looking for a new base for their smuggling operations. Aury was at the the time, he claimed, working for the Mexican rebels and the Lafitte brothers were hoping for the same relationship with an independent Florida. The sorry state of Kemper's troops was something of a disappointment to the pirates but an agreement was quickly reached that saw Kemper recognise Lafitte as the President of the New Republic while Kemper took control of the armed forces, which reinforced with Aury's and Lafitte's men he used to drive the Spanish back to St Augustine and laid siege to Castillo de San Marcos. The ultimate aims of the Rebellion however, that is whether Florida, when free, should join Mexico or the USA were never truly resolved and this tension led the pro Mexican Aury to his next step.
MacGregor and Kemper had both relied on their Haitian freeman as foot soldiers, this was a time in which thousands of Haitians had fled the violence of the Haitian revolution to go abroad and were happy to look for opportunity elsewhere. In his little army, Lafitte had such notable Black Haitian soldiers as Joseph Savery, a resident of New Orleans who had moved there after collaborating with the French Army during the 1802 campaign, Joseph Courtois, who had been at a French military school fighting for the Republic when Napoleon had stripped away the rights of Black citizen in France and was thus prevented from leaving due to the ban on free movement, and Joseph's brother Sévère, who had arrived in 1818 from the Front lines in Venezuela. Shortly after Sévère's arrival, Aury sent the three men with 200 men to cross Florida and make common cause with the escaped and freed slaves that littered North Florida and fought constant skirmishes with American Militas. While this had obvious military benefits, it also had the Political benefit of pushing Florida closer to the abolitionist Mexican rebels and further from the slave owning American south.
When news of the expedition got out, there was outrage among Kemper's filibusters and there was a short and intense battle between the various gangs on Amelia Island which resulted in the death of Lafitte, the execution of four Americans, including Ruggles Hubbard, and Aury taking control.
Louis Michel Aury (1818)
Aury's problem was that having sent away his Haitian Freeman, the only sizeable army left in the rebel Republic belonged to Kemper who had reason to resent Aury's execution of several of his men. His problems got even worse when in the aftermath of the Death of his brother, Pierre Lafitte left Florida to return to Lousiana and took with him many of the brother's pirates. When Kemper and his second in command Jared Irwin, having taken St Augustine, returned to Fernandinha with his army and refused to obey Aury's orders, Aury fled and allowed Kemper once again to take control.
Reuben Kemper (1818-20)
The unwillingness to do anything about Florida as Spanish control there disintegrated and anarchy reigned lose on their southern borders was increasingly hurting President Clinton among the voters and his inaction spurred up increasingly desire for private action among the American South. In January 1819, a second lot of American filibusters led by John McIntosh, who had been a major figure during the failed 1812 filibustering attempt, arrived to join Kemper in Amelia Island which allowed the rebels to spread their control further across the Mainland. With St. Augustine fallen, the white population of Florida was almost all under the Republic's control and as of yet there was no sign of Spanish reinforcement, which meant that the Rebel campaign involved mainly bringing isolated white traders and settlers peacefully under the Republic's control, though there were also the first hostile encounters with Seminole Indians.
In late 1819, however a small Spanish Army landed in Florida. It was all that had been able to be sent of the ten battalions originally raised to fight for Spain in the New World, after several of those battalions had revolted under Rafael del Riego rather than be sent abroad. The 500 soldiers that were raised would do little good in Mexico or South America but it was hoped might be able to reclaim Florida at least.
The Spanish defeated the rebels in several pitched battles, severely wounding Kemper, and quickly laid siege to Castillo de San Amrcos. The Spanish had difficulty being supplied from Cuba and so the siege was only laxly enforced but the rebels had lost morale and the situation quickly fell into stalemate. Until, in early 1820, when Savery and the Courtois brothers returned with the Haitian Freedmen and their new allies.
Savery's mission had always been a fools errand. The Rebels maps of Florida were poor, and their supplies low. Savery was able to secure the support of one of the Spanish residents of Amelia as a guide but the Spanish trade and smuggling was a primarily sea based operation and the location of the Maroons were deep inland and a closely guarded secret. Moreover the major Maroon villages that were well known due to being coastal, such as Angola and Apalachicola, were on the western side of Florida and getting to them meant either following the Spanish forts or crossing the swamps. Savery attempted to do the latter but disease and lack of supplies thinned his troops badly and it is entirely possible the entire expedition would have failed had it not been for the lucky intervention of a village of Black Seminoles, who took in the Soldiers.
The Haitians arrived at a decisive moment of Seminole history. The various villages and tribes known as the Seminoles, including the escaped slaves who had joined them, were essentially independent but paid a loose tribute to the more powerful tribes. The principle chiefs of those more powerful tribes, such as Bolek and Kinache, were at that time in a conference to discuss the war on their northern border as they and their Creek allies skirmished with the US Army. Francis the Prophet, an ardent advocate of war against the white man and of native indian unity, had come to Florida to request full Seminole assistance for the Creek. Savery, seeing which way the wind was blowing, painted the existence of the Spanish, who as far as he knew still controlled St Augustine, as a potential dagger in the Seminole's back. Yes, the Spanish had always enjoyed decent relations with the Seminole but if Indians would fight for Indians why wouldn't white men fight for white men? But if the Seminole were to send with him a few warriors he could end that threat forever and establish his own maroon village there, which would happily fit into the same vassal/tributary relationship to the Seminole leadership that the existing Black Seminole villages did.
Kinache was unconvinced but Savery's vision of racial solidarity, that white men would always be untrustworthy and black men would always be loyal vassals, fitted neatly into Francis' talk of Indian unity. More over Bolek and many of the other young men saw a chance for plunder and glory in battling a much weaker enemy to the South. The broken bleeding army of Haitians that had entered the swamp would leave much larger and much better supplied.
Joseph Savery (1820-23)
The extent to which Savery and the Courtois brothers were idealists who were always in it to create a Free Black Republic rather than exiles and opportunists primarily looking for any way to make money who were happy to go along with the original filibuster plans is disputed. Certainly they seemed loyal enough to MacGregor and Kemper at the beginning of it. But with Kemper bleeding to death inside a besieged castle and Savery in control of the largest Army in East Florida, that attitude had changed.
Savery attacked the Spanish from the rear, forcing them to surrender after three days fighting, and then, when admitted into the Castle by Jared Irwin, quickly seized control of the besieged filibusters. Kemper had apparently died the week before Savery's army could get there and McIntosh had made himself unpopular with the Spanish residents meaning there was no real leadership to oppose him. That does not mean however, that Savery's accession was not contested. In 'the Second Haitian Massacre' some 100 white men, primarily followers of McIntosh, were executed for attempted mutiny.
News of this atrocity quickly reached the outraged ears of the American South and in 1821, President Monroe bowed to the inevitable and send word to Spain that since they had lost control of their territory to 'Negros, Natives and Criminals' the United States had to choice but to invade and annex Florida in order to bring it back into civilization.
This was a death blow for Savery's new Republic. If he had hoped for new men and supplies to arrive from either Mexico or Boyer's Haiti, who had just unified Hispaniola under his rule, he would be disappointed. Faced with an American invasion, albeit one manfully resisted by his allies among the Creek and Seminole, support dried up and St Augustine became increasingly isolated and changed hands yet again when the Americans captured it in 1822.
Savery and his closest supporters fled into the wilderness to continue a guerrila fight but a little over a year later, they were betrayed, captured and executed. The territory was not entirely pacified until another two decades later, but he was the last man to claim the title of President of Florida.
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Have we ever done one of these?
List of First Lesser Ones of the One'd King's Domain of the Great Land of the Tattooed Folk and Northern Land of Ériu
1945-1951: Merciful Meadowby (Workers' Faction)
1951-1955: Wine Town Church Hill (Maintain the Watch)
1955-1957: Praiseworthy Delight (Maintain the Watch)
1957-1963: General Baldy's Son (Maintain the Watch)
1963-1964: Defender Darkriverhome (Maintain the Watch)
1964-1970: General Desire's Son (Workers' Faction)
1970-1974: Wealthguard Shrubland (Maintain the Watch)
1974-1976: General Desire's Son (Workers' Faction)
1976-1979: Supplanter Strife (Workers' Faction)
1979-1990: Pearl Roofmaker (Maintain the Watch)
1990-1997: Godsgrace Great (Maintain the Watch)
1997-2007: Praiseworthy Field (Workers' Faction)
2007-2010: Fortress Brunet (Workers' Faction)
2010-2015: Beloved Crookednose (Maintain the Watch/Freemanly Peoplerulers coalition)
2015-2016: Beloved Crookednose (Maintain the Watch)
2016-????: Harvester Maia (Maintain the Watch)
List of First Lesser Ones of the One'd King's Domain of the Great Land of the Tattooed Folk and Northern Land of Ériu
1945-1951: Merciful Meadowby (Workers' Faction)
1951-1955: Wine Town Church Hill (Maintain the Watch)
1955-1957: Praiseworthy Delight (Maintain the Watch)
1957-1963: General Baldy's Son (Maintain the Watch)
1963-1964: Defender Darkriverhome (Maintain the Watch)
1964-1970: General Desire's Son (Workers' Faction)
1970-1974: Wealthguard Shrubland (Maintain the Watch)
1974-1976: General Desire's Son (Workers' Faction)
1976-1979: Supplanter Strife (Workers' Faction)
1979-1990: Pearl Roofmaker (Maintain the Watch)
1990-1997: Godsgrace Great (Maintain the Watch)
1997-2007: Praiseworthy Field (Workers' Faction)
2007-2010: Fortress Brunet (Workers' Faction)
2010-2015: Beloved Crookednose (Maintain the Watch/Freemanly Peoplerulers coalition)
2015-2016: Beloved Crookednose (Maintain the Watch)
2016-????: Harvester Maia (Maintain the Watch)
- Location
- Das Böse ist immer und überall
- Pronouns
- he/him
This is almost a bit too obvious in hindsight.
- Location
- Grittysborough
- Pronouns
- he/him
This is really good.
- Pronouns
- he/him
Thanks, man.
The bit of Haitian history, post revolution, where they became what Bolivar called the arsenal of liberty and every rogue and rebel in latin America took refuge there and recruited soldiers there is endlessly fascinating to me (Haitian soldiers were used in attempts to free both Texas and Florida and, in real life, Severe Courtois ended up briefly in control of the Colombian Isle of Providence after his service for the Venezuelans).
I'd originally wanted to make the foundation of the free black Republic of Florida my vignette for the Underdog challenge but they were too much of an under dog and so I couldn't see any way for them to actually win. So it became this instead and I came up with another vignette idea that, hopefully, will work better.
Makemakean
Mr Makemean
- Pronouns
- Logical, unlike those in German
This is just inspired.
- Location
- NYC (né Falkirk)
- Pronouns
- he/him
I so badly want to pledge my life to Count Darkriverhome and join the Maintenance Watch.
Elektronaut
Effectively Stood Down
- Location
- The Legendarium of Gentleman Julius
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Winetown Churchill is actually going to run in 2024
- Location
- Derbyshire
There's something sublime about Callaghan being 'Supplanter Strife'.
- Location
- Teignmouth, Devon
- Pronouns
- She/Her
2010-2015: David Cameron (Conservative) Coalition with Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat)
The Lib Dems do have some achievements - gay marriage in introduced in 2013, AV is used for mayoral and PCC elections, the Snooper's Charter is delayed until 2014, there is a vote on Lords Reform in 2014. However the Lib Dems are mostly remembered for tuition fees. In late 2014 Nick Clegg stands down as leader of the Lib Dems (though he stays on as DPM) and an election is held to elect a new leader for the next election.
2015-2017: David Cameron (Conservative)
David Cameron made it out of 2015 with an increased number of seats, if not the overall majority he had been hoping for. The Lib Dems, more aware that their hold on their seats is tenuous, are more able to accept predictions that they might be knocked down to single figures and this leads to a better targetting strategy. Though they do have additional problems from Tim Farron's views on homosexuality.
The minority Conservative government still pushes ahead with a referendum on the EU, which is scheduled for May 2017. Their dramatic defeat, coupled with a year of terrorist attacks (both nationalist and Islamist) contributes to a general feeling of malaise and terror. However it is clear, to the government, that they cannot pass Brexit legislation with a minority government. Besides, Labour is engaged in civil war. The Labour leadership challenge of 2016 failed and post referendum pro-remain MPs break away to form the Party of the Centre.
2017-: Theresa May (Conservative)
Theresa May's majority is far smaller than anyone expected, but the party attempts to whip up good press around the fact that she did at least make some progress. Objective observers blame this on the PotC splitting the Remain vote and more importantly, robbing the more restrained Lib Dems of the lime light on this issue. Labour are keen to point out that despite MPs defecting and MPs who stayed actively briefing against the party, they gained seats.
Article 50 is voted through by Parliament with support from the DUP and some Labour backbenchers in March. The date of the UK's exit from the EU is set for 6 March 2020. However the government has not been able to secure the right to handle Brexit legislation largely through statutory instrument. This has been a sticking point in discussions and it is rumoured that Theresa May might attempt a second snap election to solve the deadlock. This is particularly attractive as Labour has become entrenched in an anti-semitism row that will possibly spill over into a second leadership challenge, meanwhile UKIP, under Anne Marie Waters, has taken a turn toward the far right and (hopefully) electoral oblivion.
The Lib Dems, under Jo Swinson, have been attempting to form a deal with the remains of the PotC, which they hope will restore their popularity, however nobody aside from some Tories are looking forward to a possible 2019 General Election.
2010: David Cameron (Conservative) [319] Gordon Brown (Labour) [267] Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat) [35] Peter Robinson (DUP) [8] Alex Salmond (SNP) [6] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [5] Iuan Wynn Jones (Plaid Cymru) [3] Margaret Ritchie (SDLP) [3] Caroline Lucas (Green Party England & Wales) [1] David Ford (Alliance) [1] Sylvia Herman (Independent) [1] John Bercow (Speaker) [1]
The televised debates do not happen and Cleggmania does not emerge. Instead, all attention is on what is expected to be a very close election between Cameron and Brown. The Gaurdian makes noises towards hoping for a coalition, as do other left leaning parts of the chattering classes, and when it happens the idea that it would naturally lead to a coalition is present. The Lib Dems have significantly less bargaining power and get the cabinet posts of Deputy Prime Minister (Nick Clegg), Energy and Climate Change (Chris Huhne), Scotland (Danny Alexander), and Minister without Portfolio (Vince Cable).The Lib Dems do have some achievements - gay marriage in introduced in 2013, AV is used for mayoral and PCC elections, the Snooper's Charter is delayed until 2014, there is a vote on Lords Reform in 2014. However the Lib Dems are mostly remembered for tuition fees. In late 2014 Nick Clegg stands down as leader of the Lib Dems (though he stays on as DPM) and an election is held to elect a new leader for the next election.
2015-2017: David Cameron (Conservative)
2015: David Cameron (Conservative) [322] Ed Miliband (Labour) [235] Nicola Sturgeon (SNP) [56] Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat) [13] Peter Robinson (DUP) [8] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [4] Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru) [3] Alasdair McDonnell (SDLP) [3] Mike Nesbitt (UUP) [2] Nigel Farage (UKIP) [1] Natalie Bennett (Green Party England & Wales) [1] Sylvia Herman (Independent) [1] John Bercow (Speaker) [1]
David Cameron made it out of 2015 with an increased number of seats, if not the overall majority he had been hoping for. The Lib Dems, more aware that their hold on their seats is tenuous, are more able to accept predictions that they might be knocked down to single figures and this leads to a better targetting strategy. Though they do have additional problems from Tim Farron's views on homosexuality.
The minority Conservative government still pushes ahead with a referendum on the EU, which is scheduled for May 2017. Their dramatic defeat, coupled with a year of terrorist attacks (both nationalist and Islamist) contributes to a general feeling of malaise and terror. However it is clear, to the government, that they cannot pass Brexit legislation with a minority government. Besides, Labour is engaged in civil war. The Labour leadership challenge of 2016 failed and post referendum pro-remain MPs break away to form the Party of the Centre.
2017-: Theresa May (Conservative)
2017: Theresa May (Conservative) [327] Jeremy Corbyn (Labour) [253] Nicola Sturgeon (SNP) [35] Arlene Foster (DUP) [10] Norman Lamb (Liberal Democrat) [9] Gerry Adams (Sinn Fein) [7] Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru) [4] Chuka Umunna (Party of the Centre) [1] Caroline Lucas and Jon Bartley (Green Party England & Wales) [1] Bill Etheridge (UKIP) [1] Sylvia Herman (Independent) [1] John Bercow (Speaker) [1]
Theresa May's majority is far smaller than anyone expected, but the party attempts to whip up good press around the fact that she did at least make some progress. Objective observers blame this on the PotC splitting the Remain vote and more importantly, robbing the more restrained Lib Dems of the lime light on this issue. Labour are keen to point out that despite MPs defecting and MPs who stayed actively briefing against the party, they gained seats.
Article 50 is voted through by Parliament with support from the DUP and some Labour backbenchers in March. The date of the UK's exit from the EU is set for 6 March 2020. However the government has not been able to secure the right to handle Brexit legislation largely through statutory instrument. This has been a sticking point in discussions and it is rumoured that Theresa May might attempt a second snap election to solve the deadlock. This is particularly attractive as Labour has become entrenched in an anti-semitism row that will possibly spill over into a second leadership challenge, meanwhile UKIP, under Anne Marie Waters, has taken a turn toward the far right and (hopefully) electoral oblivion.
The Lib Dems, under Jo Swinson, have been attempting to form a deal with the remains of the PotC, which they hope will restore their popularity, however nobody aside from some Tories are looking forward to a possible 2019 General Election.