Challenge: British Colombia

hmmmmm... the only two things I can think of are:

Scottish Darien surviving and somehow expanding... it would however be blocked by the New Kingdom of Granada that already existed so it would, at most, cover OTL Antioquia, Choco and Panama... and maybe Costa Rica... then, somehow, make Scotland still become one with England and there you go...

a Seven-Years' War esque where Britain curbstomps Spain so badly that it can decide what to do with her Colonies... the would surely take the Rio de la Plata viceroyalty, and maybe New Granada... of course, in the early-mid 1700s that's not that easy...

wait, another idea

the US is unable to establish the Monroe Doctrine or just doesn't go for it... the new Latin American Nations soon become another scenario of the fight between the European Powers, and, eventually, a Protectorate of Colombia/New Granada (depending on if Colombia breaks up as IOTL and if as IOTL New Granada adopts later the name), with some luck ending in a similar status to Canada by 1900...
 
What about if the British had purchased Panama from Colombia and built the Panama Canal themselves, instead of the USA doing so? Could TTL's Panama become known as 'British Colombia'?

before the monroe doctrine was issued the British had proposed a joint Anglo American doctrine barring european takeover of any land in south america. The British are not going to do what they set out explicitly not to do.
 
the US is unable to establish the Monroe Doctrine or just doesn't go for it... the new Latin American Nations soon become another scenario of the fight between the European Powers, and, eventually, a Protectorate of Colombia/New Granada (depending on if Colombia breaks up as IOTL and if as IOTL New Granada adopts later the name), with some luck ending in a similar status to Canada by 1900...

The Americans were unable to enforce the Monroe doctrine and depended on the royal navy to support it. The monroe doctrine was largely symbolic for the first few decades after its declaration.
 
Maybe Britain takes informal control over Colombia, the way it did with Egypt? It would be for the same reason too (a canal).
 
Maybe Britain takes informal control over Colombia, the way it did with Egypt? It would be for the same reason too (a canal).

the British occupied egypt because of fear of losing control of the canal and its spillover effect into India. Britain has no such concerns in Latin America. I do however think something may be possible during the Napoleonic wars. Britan did invade Argentina afterall however my knowledge of South America during that time period is a bit iffy.
 
The Americans were unable to enforce the Monroe doctrine and depended on the royal navy to support it. The monroe doctrine was largely symbolic for the first few decades after its declaration.

I had forgot about that... perhaps the US is somehow weak enough to not even go for a symbolic thing, then again, for the UK to actually establish a full protectorate, you might need someone else with enough power projection to threaten British interests in the area...
 

Deleted member 67076

You could always prevent the Spanish conquest of the Incas, confining them mostly to North America and have the British move into Colombia that way.

What about if the British had purchased Panama from Colombia and built the Panama Canal themselves, instead of the USA doing so? Could TTL's Panama become known as 'British Colombia'?
Colombia will not sell Panama. They were well aware of the potential value of a canal.

the British occupied egypt because of fear of losing control of the canal and its spillover effect into India. Britain has no such concerns in Latin America. I do however think something may be possible during the Napoleonic wars. Britain did invade Argentina afterall however my knowledge of South America during that time period is a bit iffy.
The UK didn't have any reason to do so at the time. Bolivar was friendly to British interests and opened up swaths of territory to British trade, effectively having the same effect as a colony would.
 
The American Revolutionary War and Anglo-American relations in its aftermath convinced the British that Adam Smith was right and took them out of the mentality that land had to be ruled to be profited from. As mentioned, the British maintained an informal sphere of influence in Latin America throughout the 19th century which could be described as quasi-imperial. Why would they want to replace it with a more expensive and no more profitable system of direct rule, given that their empire at the time existed for profit rather than for nationalist chest-thumping pride as in the late 19th century and early 20th? Any 19th-century PoD is too late.

As for the Darien Scheme, that might work magnificently at getting a Scottish Colombia (which I suppose could be described as British in the same way as it could be described as European, i.e. a descriptive term for the Scots rather than a description of political rule), but not a British one in the sense of being ruled by Great Britain. It was the failure of the Darien Scheme when so much of Scottish capital had been invested in it (Scotland being a very small and sparsely populated country with very little capital) which bankrupted Scotland and caused the Acts of Union in the first place; if the Darien Scheme succeeds, Scotland stays independent.

So I'm going to say that the only proper PoD for this is to alter the original colonisation of the Americas and the early wars around it… which means a PoD somewhere around the 16th and 17th centuries (the Dutch tried to seize Portuguese Brazil as late as the mid-to-late 17th century IOTL), not the 19th century.
 
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