The United Colonies Triumphant is an American alternate history romance novel co-written by science fiction author Harry Turtledove and Oscar-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss. It was originally published in 1995 by Hodder & Stoughton in the United Kingdom, and in 1996 by Tor Books in the North American Union, and was nominated for the 1995 Sidewise Award for Alternate History.
The novel depicts an alternate history in which the British colonies in North America had gained independence in the 18th Century. In the 20th century, the former colonies came to the rescue of the British Empire, which was engaged in a major European war against, improbably, a united Europe under communist control.
Plot []
A politically united America, declared independence from the British Empire at the end of the 19th century and established itself as the United Colonies of America. This American Revolution inspired others across the world, including a more successful French Revolution in which the assault on the Bastille was not prevented, Louis XVI was executed, and a coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte, who became the hero of the Revolution through his popular military campaigns, went on to establish a new secular French empire, setting the stage for a wider array of global conflicts that lasted for 15 years. The British will later try to regain control of her colonies by invading from thier new North American colony of Canada. They engage with the United Colonies in "The War of Northern Aggression", in which the British lost.
UCA expanded its borders west by purchasing the Louisana Territory and removing the native Indians population. Slavery was never abolished America. Abolishionist leaders such as Harriet Tubman and Abraham Lincoln succeeded in a raid on a fort and touched off a slave rebellion in 1859. As a result, instead of the Great Southern Muntiny, the United Colonies faces a full-scale slave revolt throughout the South —- helped by a handful of white sympathizers; by various European revolutionaries such as Giuseppe Garibaldi who take ship across the Atlantic; and an invasion by the Mexico, seeking to regain the territory it lost (Mexico also gain its indepedence from a weaker Spanish Empire).
After the rebellion ended, the victory of the UCA winning the slave revolt was the cause of immense celebration, with many plantations welcoming back the troops to a now "blessed and triumphant" lifestyle. Following the success of the new slave act, 20,000 former U.C.A citizens— (e.g., Wendell Phillips, Mark Twain, Susan B. Anthony, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and William Lloyd Garrison, among others)—lead an exodus from the U.C.A. to Canada. Canada, was able to remain free from the U.C.A. and soon became the home to refugee abolitionists, runaway slaves, and former citizens of the United Colonies and—thanks to the efforts of both Garrison and Frederick Douglass of convincing the Canadian Parliament and Canadian Prime Minister John A. Macdonald to not repatriate escaped slaves—together formed an organization known as the "National Association of the Advancement of Colored People" (N.A.A.C.P.). The strong hatred of the N.A.A.C.P., Canada, and the "Red Canadian Injustice" for the U.C.A. dates back to the end of the War of Northern Aggression and the beginning of Reconstruction for the massive loss of their slaves, who sought Canada as both freedom and asylum from the U.C.A.
Later, Canada becomes a socialist state, touching off a whole string of revolutions and civil wars in Europe. A fictional Paris Commune is established instead of being crushed by the French Empire, Ireland breaks away from British rule in the 1880s, and a Russian revolution is just one of many similar revolutions in different countries.
Along with the Red Canadian Injustice, Reconstruction efforts for the U.C.A. prove to be a challenge with pioneers, gold-prospectors, the Plain Indians—which a war against them lasted almost 30 years—and the railroad expanding from the South into the Great Plains. In the 1890s, a decision is taken to enslave the West Coast Chinese migrant workers, too. In 1895, the government of the U.C.A., which does not separate the Church from the State out of fear for more foreign slaves and their religious beliefs in contrast to the U.C.A., outlaws all non-Christian religions. After much debate, the Roman Catholic Church is classified as a Christian religion. Originally, Judaism, too, is outlawed, but the government decides to allow some Jews to remain on a reservation (similar to a South American Homeland) on Long Island.
By the beginning of the 20th century, the United Colonies of America finished reconstruction and begins an expansionist campaign to claim the Western hemisphere as part of their "Golden Circle", with only Alaska and Canada remaining free from being client states of the UCA. They began with Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and the rest of the Caribbean islands during the fictional Spanish–American War, then move on to completely annex Mexico and Central America. Following the annexation of Mexico the Colonials adopted the "Jim Crow" system to divide the Colonials—who now rule the country—and the Mexicans. Confederates saw that the conquest of South America would be the nation's "prized piece", but would prove difficult due to the intensity of the will of the South Americans to stay independent from the invading Colonials. For the entire thing, Colonials believed that this was an ordained and divine "Manifest Destiny" quest for world domination, albeit it wasn’t entirely specified.
In 1929, with Mexico, Central and South America, Haiti, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and the Caribbean all part of their "growing empire" from their expansionist campaign, the C.S.A. was hit by 1929 economic crash, forcing them to retreat into isolationism. Mainland Europe and their overseas colonies--now under Socialist control--impose international trade sanctions and embargoes on the U.C.A., forcing the nation into isolation with the only the British Empire maintaining diplomatic relations with the U.C.A. The success of the embargo on the U.C.A. lead some to question the need for slavery.
During a world war between the British Empire and the "Union of Sovereign Socialist Republics"(similar to the Imperial German Union), the United Colonies intervene too helped saved the United Kingdom and then went onto liberate Europe from communist control. The U.C.A. becomes hostile with Japan, seeing its expansionism as a threat to the entire Pacific Coast Region. On the morning of December 7, 1942, the U.C.A. strikes two Japanese naval bases and bombs the city of Kyoto as the opening blow in a war against the "Yellow Peril". Colonials leaders assume that the U.C.A. will easily win the war, judging the Japanese as small and weak in physical stature, as well as not being white, but—just like their campaign in South America—the Japanese proved to be an intense challenge to defeat.The war is won by using a third atomic bomb, being dropped on Tokyo.
In the 1960 election, when only 29 percent of voters approve of slavery, Roman Catholic Republican John F. Kennedy is elected U.C.A. president over Democrat Richard Nixon. Also throughout the 1960s, women demanded the right to have a voice and Canada became the pop cultural capital of the world with the contributions of African Americans and other exiles (Elvis Presley, after being jailed for some time, flees there), whereas the U.C.A.'s culture never evolves beyond its propaganda. Canada also continuously defeats the U.C.A. in the Olympic Games, which brought the Colonial congress to include slaves in sports, forming their very first C.S.F.L. championship games. This illustrated the time to break the color barrier and support Kennedy's movement to emancipate. But before this movement was set into motion, President Kennedy was assassinated. Kennedy's assassination completely dismantled the hopes of emancipation and for women to get the vote. Slaves throughout the country rebelled in fury and retaliation, including the Watts Riots, as a direct result of Kennedy's assassination. In the 1970s, the Social Revolution was crushed and many feared that the "Golden Age" of the United Colonies of America was over.
In the mid-1980s, President Ronald Regan, sought to further reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of Freedom Market and New Recontruction. The goal was to elimanate the slavery while reversing economic stagnation. Following an attempted assassination, President Reagan issued a revolutionary proclamation entitled the "Emancipation Proclamation" (which announces that all slaves are permanently free).
Literary Notes[]
Message from the author:
This alternate history book within this unverse is a combanation of OTL alternative history novels including C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America, The Mirage, Fire on the Mountain, and elements from the orginal The Two Georges.