What If? 1800 Florida and central&mezzogiorno Italy swap

[Buba]

There is a thread like that on AH.com.
I did some calculations and changed the premise a bit.
Italy - sans the islands and cut-off at the Appenines (Genoa-Ravenna line, roughly) - replaces Florida almost exactly. This means that Piemont, Lombardy, South Tirol, Parma, Modena and Veneto stay in Europe, hence the Ffench and Austrians still can fight one another.
How do you see events developing?

 

[Skallagrim]

Ameritaly gets a lot wetter. Euroflorida gets a lot drier.

The Holy See moving to the New World may have some interesting religious consequences. I could see significant numbers of Catholics moving to America to protect the Papacy from the Protestant-majority USA. This probably cancels the Louisiana Purchase, or at least throws a wrech into the idea. There may be implications for the anti-clerical sise of the Mexican revolutionary movement, as well.

I could see an emergent Catholic counterpart to the USA forming, with Catholics migrating there. It would include Florida, the Southern coast of OTL Mississippi and Alabama, at least the South of the vast Louisiana Country, and a lot of the Spanish Americas. Kind of a counterpart to Miranda's vision of a unified Latin America-- but rooted in a Catholic identity, rather than his more secular vision.

 

[Buba]

With Floritalia next door, Haiti becomes even more unteneable as this part of Italy anti-French. Hence Napoleon is just as/even more eager to sell.
Anybody have population numbers? How does Floritalia compare with the USA in demographics?

In Europe my thoughts are that in the longer run France is weaker, as it does not subdue and exploit the Peninsula. A certain percentage of Europe's resources simply disapeared. Getting anything useful out of Eurolida will take decades - out of scope of French Revolutionary&Napoleonic Wars - in 1815 still wilderness.
After "Vienna" I imagine that Eurolida would be settled by the Insulares and Germans, plus Slavics from Habsurg lands?

 

[Buba]

From AH.com - central&south Italy has twice the population of the USA

There could be a flight of Italian peasants - is serfdom gone? - into the SW USA, i.e. 'Bama, Mississippi, Tennessee ...
What sort of backlash by the Protestant Establishment a mass of all those Roman Catholics may cause?
Can Catholics vote? Can they be denied the vote?

 

[raharris1973]

Why buy slaves when Italian field hands are so much cheaper to hire at harvest time? Yes it is inconvenient to have them around, socioculuturally-religiously, but maybe you send people back seasonally. Then again, planters will want some chefs year round.

 

[raharris1973]

Why buy slaves when Italian field hands are so much cheaper to hire at harvest time? Yes it is inconvenient to have them around, socioculuturally-religiously, but maybe you send people back seasonally. Then again, planters will want some chefs year round.

Heck, even *Cuban* landowners even need to consider whether it is worth purchasing slaves when the lowest strata of Italian agricultural laboring classes can be hired cheaply without shipping costs, and you can even tie people to fixed service terms who are not *slaves* using debts, or prison sentences if criminal justice authorities in the Kingdom of Naples cooperate.

 

[raharris1973]

Of course Toscana and the Neapolitan Kingdom have standing armies, and the Popes have the Swiss Guard. They may wonder why they don't simply *own* northern and western Florida, the Mississippi territory, pretty much all the counties of Georgia, and frankly any other parts of the Deep South they want. If committed, they have the manpower.

 

[ATP]

Of course Toscana and the Neapolitan Kingdom have standing armies, and the Popes have the Swiss Guard. They may wonder why they don't simply *own* northern and western Florida, the Mississippi territory, pretty much all the counties of Georgia, and frankly any other parts of the Deep South they want. If committed, they have the manpower.

True,and Pope,except Swiss Guard,had normal army,too
So,they could defeat USA few regiments if there come to war.

Even more important - when Spain was taken by France,King abdicated,and in Mexico rebelions started.Here,Pope could simply made another King in Mexico,and there would be no rebelions.

Considering how many italians was there,current South USA would be italian state - or rather states.With Pope as kind of mediator.

 

[raharris1973]

What size and quality Army did the Papal states have as of 1800?

 

[raharris1973]

Would Italian league states in North America just expand into land not actively populated and used by Anglo-Americans and their slaves? Or would they use their superior numbers and standing armies to conquer the productive plantation areas of the southern American states, up to a line including a) the Savannah and Tennessee river - so Georgia and west Tennessee, b) the Columbia river - so half of South Carolina too, c) the cape fear river - so half of North Carolina and all South Carolina, d) the James river - so Georgia, the Carolinas, and far southern Virginia - still where less than 1/3 or 1/4 of US people lived, or e) maximum - up to the Potomac and Ohio rivers, the whole American southeast?

In any of these scenarios, what is the Italian policy on free and slave black people? Do the keep both slavery and the racial one drop rule? Or do they just flood the area with Italian proletarians, demographically, and for labor, and overtime, through mixing the chocolate powder just darkens the milk a bit.

Do American slavers retreat north with slave hands, or are they forced to try emancipation to try to raise more troops to defend the southern frontier?

I imagine native Amerindians are screwed from two directions and disease pools now, but have new alliance options in the short term.

 

[ATP]

What size and quality Army did the Papal states have as of 1800?

Probably very small,he was just imprisoned by french.
French! we forget them - they could still occupy part of Italy,which would change things.

@Buba , could you made it 1795,when french do not entered Italy yet?

 

[Buba]

What size and quality Army did the Papal states have as of 1800?

Close to zero.

French! we forget them - they could still occupy part of Italy,which would change things.

@Buba , could you made it 1795,when french do not entered Italy yet?

I cut off the peninsula on the Genoa-Ravenna line, thus eliminating most French presence. Whatever Tuscany and Naples (British?) has should be enough to overhwhelm the French and rebels.
THis also allows the Austrians and French to keep on fighting, thus keeping them busy. If Lombardy is gone that front is gone as well, as neither side can support any sizeable force in the wilderness.

Not fully my premise, I ripped it off from AH-com, as stated in OP. I only changed the geography a bit to simplify grafting to America and keep the Golfstrom flowing.

 

[raharris1973]

What do you think about the possible limits of Italy in America expansion, that I mentioned in post #10? And US territorial defensive capabilities?

 

[ATP]

Close to zero.

I cut off the peninsula on the Genoa-Ravenna line, thus eliminating most French presence. Whatever Tuscany and Naples (British?) has should be enough to overhwhelm the French and rebels.
THis also allows the Austrians and French to keep on fighting, thus keeping them busy. If Lombardy is gone that front is gone as well, as neither side can support any sizeable force in the wilderness.

Not fully my premise, I ripped it off from AH-com, as stated in OP. I only changed the geography a bit to simplify grafting to America and keep the Golfstrom flowing.

But,Napoleon come to Italy and conqered papal state in 1796,which mean,that there would be still french troops there.
That i why i suggest changing it to 1795,when they were still independent.
@raharris1973 ,USA army from 1800 could do notching except defending Washington,if some italian Prince decide to take it.

 

[Agent23]

A much more powerful Italian mob.

 

[ATP]

A much more powerful Italian mob.

In Italian Kingdoms and other states,which would colonize South and Central OTL USA.
There is no reasons for them to go North here.