The World at the Time of The King and I
1861 to 1867
EUROPE
- The United Kingdom consisted of both Great Britain (England,
Scotland, and Wales) and all Ireland.
- Sweden and Norway were ruled by the King of Sweden.
- Italy had just been united, but did not include Rome (which was ruled by the
Pope until 1870) or Venice (until 1867).
- Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium, and The Netherlands had the boundaries of today.
(However, in 1870, after the Franco-Prussian War, France ceded
Alsace-Lorraine to Germany.)
- Germany was still a patchwork. The German Confederation (Deutscher Bund)
existed until 1867 and contained 38 states. The largest were Austria and Prussia, which contained other territories outside the Confederation; The Netherlands and
Denmark had territories inside the Confederation. In 1867, as a result of
the Seven Weeks’ War, the Germanic Confederation was abolished, and Prussia
set up the North Germanic Confederation (Norddeutscher Bund). In
1871, after the Franco-Prussian war, this was transformed to the German
Empire (Deutsches Reich) with the King of Prussia as German Emperor (Deutscher
Kaiser).
- Switzerland had established a new constitution in 1848, influenced
by the United States constitution.
- The Russian Empire included Finland and Poland, as well as the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania).
- The Ottoman Empire included most of the Balkans. Montenegro, Serbia, Wallachia, and Moldavia were
autonomous areas in the Ottoman Empire.
- Greece was only half the size of today’s Greece.
NORTH AMERICA
- The United States consisted of what is now the “lower
48.” There were 34 states in 1861, but the Civil War was being fought
(1861 to 1865). New states were admitted: West Virginia (1863), Nevada
(1864), Nebraska (1867), and Colorado (1876). The western territories
underwent kaleidoscopic change during the Civil War. After the war, as new
states were admitted, but the only boundary change was that Dakota Territory
was divided (1889) into North Dakota and South Dakota.
- Alaska was part of the Russian Empire, until sold to the United
States in 1867.
- The area north of the United States was known as British North America,
and consisted of the provinces of Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova
Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada, as well as the colonies of British
Columbia, Vancouver Island, and the Queen Charlotte Islands, and Rupert’s
Land and the North-West Territories. Canada until 1867 consisted of
the southern part of the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. In 1866, British
Columbia absorbed Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands. Then in
1867 Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick confederated to form the
Dominion of Canada. In 1868 Rupert’s Land and the North-West Territories
were transferred to Canada. In 1870, the Province of Manitoba was formed
from part of what had been Rupert’s Land. In 1871, British Columbia joined,
with a promise that a railway would be built to connect it to the east. In
1905 the two provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta were admitted. Finally,
in 1949, Newfoundland agreed to join Canada.
- Mexico underwent a civil war of its own during this period. The
French intervened, supposedly to collect debts owned to them, but they set
up Maximilian of Austria as Emperor of Mexico. The elected government of
Mexico under Benito Juarez fled to Monterrey, and eventually to El Paso del
Norte, since renamed Ciudad Juarez. With the end of the Civil War in the
United States, the French decided to liquidate their intervention in Mexico,
and Maximilian was captured and shot.
SOUTH AMERICA
- Brazil was a bit smaller than it is today. Since then it has acquired
territory from most of its neighbors.
- Bolivia had a seacoast at this time. Since then it lost its coastal area
to Chile.
- Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego were not developed at this time. Since then
Argentina and Chile expanded southward to divide the southern cone of the
continent.
AFRICA
- The only independent states in Africa were Morocco, Liberia, Abyssinia (Ethiopia), and Zanzibar (which controlled
much of the nearby coast).
- France controlled Algeria, the coast of Senegal, and part of Madagascar.
- Great Britain controlled the Cape Colony and Natal, the Gold Coast.
- The Ottoman empire controlled much of North Africa (Tunisia and Libya).
- Egypt was nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, but acted independently. Egypt had been expanding southward into the Sudan.
- Most of the rest of Africa was tribal, and was unknown to the wider world.
ASIA
- Much of the Near East was part of the Ottoman Empire, including Syria,
Iraq, Palestine, and both coasts of the Arabian peninsula, with the cities
of Mecca and Medina.
- Iran was called Persia, and controlled Baluchistan, which the British were
later to add to India.
- India was under British control, in two parts: British India, which was
under direct British rule, and the Indian states, which were British
protectorates, some large and some small.
- Much of central Asia was called Turkestan, and was between the Russian and
British empires.
- Burma at this time was divided between a Burmese kingdom in the north,
with capital at Mandalay, and the coastal part, around Rangoon (now called
Yangon), which was part of British India.
- Siam (Thailand) controlled Laos and part of Vietnam at this time.
- The British controlled Singapore.
- China was ruled by the Qing (Ch'ing) or Manchu Dynasty.
- Japan was on the threshold of great internal change. In 1853 and 1854
Commodore Perry, USN, visited Edo (now Tokyo) and impressed the Japanese
with American sea power. In 1867-1868 the Shogunate was overthrown and the
Meiji Emperor (nominally) returned to power. By 1895 Japan had modernized.
OCEANIA
- Hawaii was an independent kingdom, although economically tied to the
United States.