An alternate US west

[NomadicSky]

I'm not really sure how this would come about. I was just sitting with paintbrush when I came up with this map. I've only labeled

Texas has been divided into three states.* North Texas, South Texas, and part of the state was merged into Oklahoma following the creation of the state.

Sequoia is a self governing territory, internally Sequoia is a federation of five tribes.

New Mexico and Arizona alternate split.

Nevada doesn't exist, rather the area that would have been Nevada has been divided between California, New Mexico, and Utah.

Dakota wasn't split.

 

[Vivisfugue]

A different 4 Corners, I see. This looks like it might be the result of a no Civil War TL - the East-West rather than North-South split between AZ and NM was IIRC because Jefferson Davis had drawn up a North South map before the war and then tried to annex the southern half ("Arizona") to the CSA. The split between the Dakotas and the creation of Nevada as a state date from around that time as well (to create more Republican leaning states in the Senate). Your split of Texas might do the same for the pro-slavery Southern Democrats (what the Texans might think of it is something else). Just thinking out loud, but in a US that had this map, the greatest danger might be Northern secession! And I see that Cuba is colored in as well. While it might have been an ASB politics-wise, this looks to me like a "Breckenridge wins in 1860" TL, or a world where pro-slavery forces managed to win "Bleeding Kansas," thereby ensuring a slave constitution and senate representation, allowing the South to continue to dominate the Senate through the 1860s.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

I think NM and AZ should switch places, so the former actually borders Mexico. But maybe that's just me...

 

[jycee]

A northern secession? Is that even likely... wouldn't it just be a late Civil War, with the south possibly winning? Or maybe an actual Civil War where abolitionists forces try to initiate a slave revolt, succeed, and then try to take Washington. Either way it be really cool.

Though I don't understand why California get to be so large (Utah and Dakota makes more sense) but maybe a North and South California? Would work better for a slavery survives longer TL?

I think NM and AZ should switch places, so the former actually borders Mexico. But maybe that's just me...

Actually that is how it was in OTL, and would have stayed so had Davis not tried to take the horizontal Arizona for the Confederacy. I know it makes little sense when seen in a US map. But when everything was part of Mexico, New Mexico was the part north of the Gilla river and Arizona (aka Mesilla) was the northernmost part of Sonora which was later bought during the Gadsen Purchase.

 

[Hawkeye]

I wouldn't divide Arizona and New Mexico the way the Confederates did. It leaves Arizona with all the good parts while New Mexico only has its little strip on the Colorado River. As for Utah, I can't see congress giving that much territory to the Mormons but I guess California could annex the proposed Nataqua territory. The Texan states look alright except I would place ST western border at the Rio Grande. I think Cuba is big enough to be partitioned into two states but I guess it doesn't really matter in the end. OTL is a good enough explanation for Alaska and Hawaii. And I also suggest dividing Dakota into a north and south so it keeps the same height as the other states in its column but nobody will argue with you on that. I don't know how Sequoyah becomes independent.

Wait what exactly is this thread for?

 

[Vivisfugue]

A northern secession? Is that even likely...

The South seceded in large part because the accession of non-slave Western states and the concurrent rise of the Republican Party threatened their dominance of the US Senate, thereby foreclosing their desired policies in the West, and threatening them with having an end to slavery railroaded (from their POV) through an unfriendly Congress where they were the powerless minority. With three Texases (6 Senators), a slave Kansas (2 Senators) One Dakota and no Nevada (meaning 4 fewer Republicans in the Senate, and only one Republican Representative), a presumably southern-dominated Cuba (Senate+2, and a lot of Democratic Representatives), and a more southern-friendly division of the Territories, the North might feel threatened in the same way (a lot of early Republican strength came not from their constituency being pro-emancipation per se, but from "free labor" i.e. workingmen, small farmers and businessmen who didn't want slaves undercutting the price of their labor.) With the West opened to slavery, what would they have to lose by seceding? The North had most of the industry, railroads, and population necessary to make a viable, self-sufficient state. If, despite all these factors, the South had managed to continue their undemocratic stranglehold on Washington into the 1860s and 70s, I think a lot of Northerners might start asking themselves what the Union had done for them lately.