Timeline 𝚫

(I have this 'Kingdom of Burgundy' timeline where Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold marries Nicholas, eventual Duke of Lorraine, and thanks to the Lorrainer influence there are no conflicts with the Old Swiss Confederacy and Charles the Bold does successfully get the Kingdom of Burgundy under the HRE that had been promised to him but reneged upon, and this map is in the modern day of that ATL, maybe.)

Today in #AlternateHistory, July 1st, 1867, the five British Colonies of Upper Canada, Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Cape Breton came together to form the new nation-state of Canada.

A semblance of normalcy returned to Deseret and the nation after more than a year of martial law, but old prejudices and new animosities continued to simmer.

As a result of the trial and execution for treason of six top Deseret State officials and the newspaper revelations of how the LDS Church was essentially the state government, the federal legislature met to amend the organic law for the Autonomous State of Deseret. Firstly, the appellation “autonomous” was removed from the state’s name, placing it on a more equal footing with other states. Second, the right to form a state militia was taken away and all Deseret Militia property was assigned to the Federal Army. Third, active members of the LDS Church government and all former state militia members were prohibited from holding any elected office in Deseret. Lastly, elections for state and national senators and deputies, state judges, and municipal councils were to be held for the month of April, 1887 with martial law being replaced by that newly elected local government on June 1st. Deseret was allowed to keep its special exemptions for English as the language of education and government.

What shocked many was not that the corruption or racism existed, but just how tightly the Deseret government was linked with the LDS Church government as Alta Californian newspapers started doing deeper investigations into the revelations of the trial. The state laws that required all candidates in elections to be “community members in good standing” were often  interpreted as requiring a LDS membership letter from the local LDS ward clerk. As a result, the Governor had always been the LDS Church president, there had never been a state senator who was not a member of the Melchizidek priesthood or stake president, and only 3 secular state deputies over the past 34 years. Local municipal councils were also similarly dominated by LDS Church members because of this. It was also extremely difficult to rise in the civilian state bureaucracy as many municipal clerks were also the local LDS Church ward clerks. Even further, LDS Church missionaries and Aaronite priesthood members were often interchangeable with State Capitol staff.

All six men were pronounced guilty of treason by a panel of three federal judges and sentenced to death by hanging which was carried out three days later on the Monterrey docks.

Stub-books, called «talonarios» by the Alta Californian prosecutor, found at the home of Judge Wells that were analysed and used as evidence for the trial for treason later that fall showed that beyond the 242 officially active Deseret Militia members there were another 188 secret members on the militia payroll, as well as somewhere between two hundred and three hundred banditos. Their pay was hidden as employees of the Deseret & Northern Railway jointly owned by the LDS Church in Deseret and U.S. Utah Territory, which was matched up to expenses in the state budget for Deseret Militia, government payments to the six men on trial, and their payments to the railroad supposedly for cartage services for companies they owned.

Governor Taylor, Judge Wells, and the four senators and politicians—who became known in the newspapers as the “Perfidious Priesthood” or «La clerecía cuentista» because of their positions in the LDS Church government—were put on trial later that fall, following searches of Deseret state offices, their homes, and the homes of all state judges, deputies, and senators.

Because the cavalry surrounding the fort was usually ten times the strength of those within, things mostly went smoothly. The four unofficial forts, however, had large numbers of banditos within and commanders unwilling to give up on the conspiracy, so federal forces were forced to storm them. Thirty-two militia fort and camp officers were arrested, five were killed in gun battles, and eighteen fled with the banditos. More than one hundred unofficial militia members and banditos were captured or killed and an estimated three times that many escaped during the battles. Many of those who escaped are presumed to have fled north to Utah and Idaho Territories in the U.S.A. where many Mormons lived.

Companies of federal army cavalry were sent out to visit each Deseret Militia fort and camp in turn, accompanied by a former militia member from Salt Lake City.   The militia member was sent into the base while the cavalry encircled it. The inactive member brought the news of what had happened in Salt Lake City, the government members that had been arrested, and the imposition of martial law across the state. They were also informed that the Deseret Militia was being disbanded, the fort commander and lieutenant were to be arrested along with any non-militia men in the fort. Militia members were told that they were to report to the Presidio Gran Lago Salado by September 1st to receive their militia salary and any who did not do so would have any land they owned confiscated. Fort records were also confiscated and the disbanded militia members left behind were told to pass the word about the penalties for failing to report in along to any smaller militia camps.

Records found at the Governor’s Mansion, the home of Judge Wells, and senator Woodruff’s office indicated that the number of forts, camps run by the Deseret Militia was nearly double what officially existed. There were four more forts than had previously been revealed, and a total of thirty-seven subsidiary camps.

After incarcerating Governor John Taylor, Judge Daniel H. Wells, State Senators Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, and Representatives Benjamin Johnson and Franklin Richards I in the train station, pending transfer to Monterey for trial, Brigadier General Rómulo Pico’s first task was to make sure no more Deseret Militia members were free in Salt Lake City, confining them to Presidio Gran Lago Salado which had been stripped of armaments. Tracking down the banditos would be more difficult as many of them had fled. Some were later captured when trying to attack the one thousand federal troops now in Salt Lake City, but their general lack of discipline and poor weaponry made them easy pickings. About two dozen were shot, half fatally, over the next three days.

https://www.deviantart.com/coryca/art/Republic-of-Scotland-Main-Language-at-Home-949759686

Have both the Avignon Papacy and Roman Papacy survive until modern times, with a reasonable split of European Catholicism (and their eventual colonies) balancing things out today. 

“On this day, by the unified decree of the federal Chamber of Senators and Chamber of Deputies, the Autonomous State of Deseret is now under Martial Law for conspiring to Acts of War against the citizens of the Republic of Alta California. The federal Senators and Deputies of the State, as well as state legislators, are now removed from their positions, and all state judges are dismissed from their offices and will have their duties taken up by federal judges.”

General Pico’s companies had a much easier time of things as the cavalry company Pico had sent ahead from Terminal station had looped around Salt Lake City to enter from an unexpected direction had managed to occupy the Governor’s Mansion and the State Capitol without any bloodshed and had taken Governor John Taylor and Judge Daniel H. Wells into custody, as well as State Senators Wilford Woodruff, Lorenzo Snow, and Representatives Benjamin Johnson and Franklin Richards I, all of whom had been meeting with the Governor of Deseret when the cavalry swept in. All that was left was policing of the general chaos.

General Pico immediately sent two companies off to the Presidio as he knew from Coronel Vallejo’s telegram that’s where he and the Presidio’s usual complement were being held. The rest were sent to the Governor’s Mansion and the state capitol. When the troops arrived at the Presidio, they found it guarded by about one hundred and fifty men, with only a third of them seemingly wearing Deseret Militia uniforms. The rebels started the fight with vigour, but nearly all of the banditos and many of the militia were spooked by fire from inside the palisade by soldiers platforms built over the past month. When the Presidio gates burst open and the troops of Vallejo and Yorba came running out, attacking the rebels from behind, the rebel company broke and fled, leaving almost thirty dead and wounded. The federal troops left Vallejo and Yorba to clean up at the Presidio and and marched swiftly off to rejoin General Pico.