

Sonora is a state in northwestern Mexico. It is bordered by the states of Baja California and the Sea of Cortez to the west, Chihuahua to the east, Sinaloa to the south, and the U.S. states of Arizona and New Mexico to the north. The capital is Hermosillo; other important cities include Ciudad Obregón and Nogales.
Sonora was created as a state in 1823, merged with other states in 1824, and reestablished definitively in 1831. In 1835, the state government put a bounty on Apache people which, over time, evolved into a payment by the government of 100 pesos for each scalp of a male 14 or more years old. Sonora lost some of its territory to the U.S. in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) and the Gadsden Purchase (1853); this land is now in Arizona and New Mexico.
In the 1850s, Sonora was eyed by certain pro-slavery factions for annexation to the USA. After 1861, this pipe dream was reassigned to the Confederate States, until the end of the American Civil War in 1865.
Sonora in Southern Victory[]
Sonora was a province in the Empire of Mexico. Most of the problems they faced were with the local Apaches, whom many white residents distrusted and hated. In 1881, the Empire was bankrupt and in order to pay its creditors, sold the provinces of Sonora and Chihuahua to the Confederate States for three million dollars. This triggered the Second Mexican War, but the province saw no action, as the CS Army chose to take the fight to the United States, rather than sit and wait for them. Upon the successful conclusion of the war with the U.S., tensions between the Mexicans and Apaches exploded into violence, which the CS Army had to suppress.[1]
After a period as Confederate territory, Sonora was admitted as a state with capital in Hermosillo. Sonora's support was decisive in the passing of the amendment abolishing slavery to the constitution of the Confederate States, which made some white Confederates from outside think that Sonora had become a state too soon to understand its new country.[2]
Sonora represented the very fringe of the Confederacy, as it connected the CSA from the Atlantic to the Pacific with the transcontinental railway, that terminated at the major port city of Guaymas. Sonora's economy was mainly fueled by copper mines and trade with the Pacific Ocean. The Radical Liberal Party dominated politics in Sonora and Chihuahua, while in the rest of the CSA it was weaker than the Whig Party.
In the 20th century, the Great War entered the state when the US Army invaded in 1914, crossing from Nogales, New Mexico into New Montgomery, Sonora and advancing on Guaymas. Unlike the blood and mud of trench warfare back east, fighting out in Sonoroa was scattered and mobile. Still, in spite of the valiant defense put up by the defenders, the US Army pushed them back, annexing a chunk of northern Sonora into New Mexico in 1917. These areas contained valuable copper mines, though in the aftermath of the war, many copper kings were still thriving in spite of the damaged economy.
In the interwar years, the Freedom Party became popular in Sonora by appealing to common farmers and respecting their Hispanic culture, The Party presented itself as a friend of the common man and an ally against the Whig and Radical Liberal aristocracy that had ruled as an oligarchy since the 1880s. Young Sonoran men signed up eagerly for the CS Army, while older men joined special organizations such as the Confederate Veterans' Brigades. Mexicans illegally crossed into Sonora from Sinaloa to take advantage of a Confederate economy which was marginally better than the Imperial one.
During the Second Great War, in 1943, the US attacked and occupied the Mexican province of Baja California, and closed off the Pacific to the CS Navy. The next year, the war ended and the entirety of Sonora, along with all other Confederate states, was occupied by the USA.
Sonora in The Two Georges[]
Sinacoa was a province of Nueva España. It bordered Mexico to the south, Nueva Vizcaya to the east, and the North American Union provinces of Phoenix to the north and Upper California to the northwest. It was separated by the Gulf of California from another American province, Lower California.[3]
Literary comment[]
Sinacoa contains OTL Sinaloa as well as Sonora.
References[]
- ↑ How Few Remain
- ↑ American Front, pg. 18.
- ↑ Map, The Two Georges, frontispiece. The precise border between the Upper and Lower Californias is ambiguous.
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