Institutions in The Southern Victory Series - Minorities

Minorities

The United States and the Confederate States were both states in which the political power rested with the white Protestant population, though this was less prominent in the North. Nationalist sentiments following the U.S. defeat in the Second Mexican War, fostered by groups such as the Soldier's Circles, regarded immigrants, particularly from southern Europe, with distrust. However, the numbers of Jewish and immigrant voters and the rise of the Socialist Party as their outlet for voting prevented discrimination from being formalized.

In the Confederacy, the hierarchy between whites and blacks was enforced by law and that between Anglos and Latinos by custom. Although Sonorans, Chihuahans and Cubans had the franchise, the Radical Liberal Party they favored did not win the Presidency. A Latino in the Anglo states was seen as a "greaser." The Freedom Party did not make any official distinction between Anglo and Latino, reserving their opprobrium for blacks.

Both the United States and the Confederate States had minorities who were disaffected and ready to revolt, with the assistance of the other power. The black population of the Confederacy and the Mormon population of the United States both rebelled during the Great War and continued to pose trouble in the period between the wars. The Mormons of Utah rebelled during the Second Great War (see Utah Troubles). Only the mass sweeps and deportations to concentration camps in the Confederacy prevented a second rebellion in the Second Great War, and in the spring of 1943 the Richmond ghetto rebelled the day before the capital was to be made "free" of blacks, which would logically be Turtledove's analogue for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of our WW2. This rebellion was sporadically supported by U.S. air power and required the efforts of War Department staff officers as well as front line forces to defeat.

The United States occupation of Canada also resulted in bombings against U.S. military forces and Canadians who were seen as "collaborators." Arthur MacGregor of Manitoba, and his daughter, Mary MacGregor Pomeroy received the most attention in the press; Arthur attempted to assassinate General George Armstrong Custer in 1925 and was killed by his own bomb.

In 1942, the Mormons developed terrorist tactics, which posed major problems in New York and Philadelphia as well as occupation forces in Utah itself: the car bomb and the suicide bomb—"people bombs", in the terminology of this timeline. Although the Confederate government suppressed news of this events, black suicide bombers became a problem for the Confederate government, which responded by deporting the entire black population in towns where attacks occurred.

Even before the War of Secession, white Southerners had a better history of dealing with non-black minorities, as they reserved all of their anger for blacks. Other minorities in the Confederacy were not suppressed because of their economic usefulness, as in the case of Mexicans, or because there were not enough of them to matter, as in the case of Jews. The sole exception to this seems to be the Mormons; in GW:AF, a loyal Mormon in the US suggested that what the Russians do to Jews, the CSA does to the Mormons.

The depression of the 1930s hit the Empire of Mexico hard and many workers began to cross into Sonora and Chihuahua to obtain work. As the black population of the Confederacy was "reduced", during the Second Great War, workers from Mexico replaced them in the low-status, low-paying, but steady jobs.

The United States had an aggressive history of dealing with Native Americans. Casting themselves as a friend of the Indian, the CSA narrowly gained the loyalty of the Five Civilized Tribes in exchange for Richmond maintaining their trust payments as Washington had done. This left the USA with a still populated Indian west which southern officers and politicians had advanced through wars and treaties. In our timeline, Indian Territory was opened to white settlement as punishment for the tribal support of the rebellion. In this timeline however, the state of Sequoyah (modern Oklahoma) was established for the Native Americans, with white and (naturally) black immigration being limited. But when Sequoyah fell to the US in the Great War, the US capitalized on the increasing importance of oil deposits throughout the state. Using figures from our timeline, Indian Territory possessed just under 100,000 residents during the Civil War and, with internal immigration restricted, would likely remain the least populous state in the CSA and thus easily overrun by floods of whites. By the time of the plebiscite of 1941 the Native Americans could not outvote the US immigrants, and Sequoyah stayed with the US. However, certain Native Americans continue to wage a guerrilla war against the US, even into the Second Great War.