Where Hearts Were Entertaining June: An English Brazil

Where Hearts Were Entertaining June​
At Last, An English Colony​

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POD: The English Armada doesn’t get stuck at Corunna and succeeds in beating Spain in 1589.

The roots of the United Kingdom of Brazil, one the supreme superpowers on the planet, can be traced back to its humble origin in 1589. After the successful repulse of the Spanish Armada by the Royal Navy, Queen Elizabeth sent a sizable armada under Francis Drake to force Spanish King Philip II into peace. The fleet sailed with 6 royal galleons, 60 English armed merchantmen, 60 Dutch flyboats, and about 20 pinnaces. In addition to a sizeable number of troops, there were 4,000 sailors and 1,500 officers and gentlemen adventurers. Drake led the fleet in his flagship Revenge from England down to the Bay of Biscay, where the English Armada razed cities on the coast and caused general mayhem for Spain.

The Armada’s first major setback occurred at the town of Corunna, Galicia. Drake had made to bypass the town of Santander for the Galician city and make only a quick stop, but the winds changed course and continued to blow only westerly. They kept up for three days, while the officers and soldiers grew antsy that it might continue on for some time while their supplies and advantages weakened. However, on the fourth day the winds changed course, and the English Armada successfully made their way south to Lisbon. In the Portuguese city, English soldiers made quick work of the Spanish garrison and began to raise a rebellion of Portuguese citizens. The rebellion’s popularity grew like wildfire, and soon most of the Portuguese countryside was raising up against the Spanish crown. Faced with this new complication and losing against the English on every front, Philip II at last agreed to talk peace terms in late 1589.

Queen Elizabeth sent envoys to Paris, as did Philip II, and the talks began. The terms wanted by each were harsh, but a deal was eventually made after tense negotiating. Seeing as it was a losing fight at that point in time, England agreed to drop their claims with Portugal for now, though not their actual alliance, and would drop their support of the rebellions. In exchange for this and for stopping the war, the troublesome Brazilian colony, formerly of Portugal, would be given to England. It would also be open to rebellious Portuguese, to keep them out of Spain’s territory. The terms were agreed upon by all, and in 1590 the Anglo-Spanish War concluded. However, not all was completely well. England hadn’t gotten all the terms it asked for, and the Portuguese African colonies were kept in vague terms, in a legal gray area between England and Spain. Whatever the matter, however, England suddenly found itself with a new colony.

While the acquisition of a large and fairly profitable colony, Queen Elizabeth—and by extension, England—felt on top of the world and like England was quickly earning its place in this brave new world. However, acquiring Brazil came with its own set of headaches. For one, English authority suddenly had to supplant decades of Portuguese authority. To do this, Queen Elizabeth appointed Sir Walter Raleigh as Governor of Brazil, tasked with enacting English Common Law on the colony and taking control of the 100,000 or so Portuguese colonists, including slaves. The sugar cane plantations had started to ruin under Spanish rule, and he was tasked with bringing them back up to peak efficiency. The newly-knighted Sir Francis Drake was put in charge of the new British West Indies Company, a company tasked with managing all English assets in the Americas.

Sir Walter Raleigh landed in Brazil in 1591, setting foot in the capital of the colony, Port Elizabeth—formerly Salvador de Bahia, the capital of Portuguese Brazil. The city, like the large town of Queenstown (formerly Recife) had been named in honor of Queen Elizabeth, who was widely celebrated through England for her victory over the Spanish Armada and the success of the English Armada.

The largest problem for the English with Brazil, at least initially, were the 100,000 colonists already occupying the colony who suddenly found themselves subjects of the English Crown. These numbers were further bolstered by 5,000 political dissidents from Portugal, shipped over by the Spanish. To alleviate this problem, Sir Walter Raleigh negotiated with Queen Elizabeth to begin sending as many English colonists as would come to the colony, offering them land and wealth in the New World. One of the strategies Raleigh used was to get only the more loyal colonists instead of religious dissenters or other rebellious types. The idea was to establish a class of loyal Englishmen who would fill out some of the upper class jobs in the New World like bankers, clerks, and merchants.

In 1594, the first colonists arrived in Port Elizabeth, consisting of a small fleet of ships carrying 1,000 men, women, and children and their supplies. Another one of Raleigh’s goals was to establish familial groups in Brazil rather than young men. He worried that too many brash young men in one place would tip the delicate balance of the colony out of order. Instead, poor yet skilled families were encouraged to emigrate from England to Brazil. Over the course of the next 6 years, close to 8,000 Englishmen would move to the new colony, mostly to the towns of Queenstown, Port Elizabeth, and Raleigh—formerly Rio de Janeiro—named after the governor despite his personal objections.

As the 16th century turned to the 17th, England had gone from a regional power to a nation spanning oceans and teeming with people ready to take advantage of all England had been given, driven by a charismatic queen. For England, it looked to be the start of a grand new century.
 
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I decided to finally turn my other Map Thread idea into its own timeline. Unlike my other, Heart of Dixie, Where Hearts Were Entertaining June will have shorter updates, but more frequent. Look for new updates Monday, Wednesday, and Friday!
 
Interesting concept and good start. With the English now focused on the tropics, who knows what will happen in North America?
 
Looking Good, I'll stay with this.

One concern though. Towards the end you said "only loyal colonists, not Protestants or other rebellious types." Unless I'm forgetting something here, wouldn't England be Protestant already, under Queen Elizabeth?
 
Looking Good, I'll stay with this.

One concern though. Towards the end you said "only loyal colonists, not Protestants or other rebellious types." Unless I'm forgetting something here, wouldn't England be Protestant already, under Queen Elizabeth?
Ah, thanks for the catch. This was cobbled together from an older draft that started in the early 1500s, so I guess a mistake got by. Fixing now. :eek:
 
Well, this is something you don't see every day! I also will be keeping an eye on this TL as things progress. Keep up the good work!
 
An English Brazil? *rapidly clicks subscribe*

EDIT: If you don't mind me asking, which map thread did you post your idea? and in what page?
 
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I think it was Map Thread IX, on page 203. It was in two posts, a scenario one and a map one.

Map Thread XI, I looked it up ;)

Anyways, regarding the TL... I find the concept fascinating, however I dislike the route you will probably take with North America (judging by your original map). So are a Portuguese Eastern Seaboard and an English *Louisiana still planned? Or do you want to change up some things there?
 
Yeah, what Iserlorn said, but thanks anyway! :)

Hey, whatever happened to the Duchy of Courland in this timeline? If I can remember, they did have a colony in the Caribbean for a while.
Well Courland didn't colonize anywhere until the 1650s, so that would be getting a little bit ahead of myself. :p
 
Indeed, we still need to see how the next odd century or so shakes out before getting that far. When can we expect an update today, Sarge? I'm just asking, after all this TL has my subscription already :p
 
Sweet! I'll be sure to check it out when I wake up later on.

In a discussion I had with Sevarics, he brought up the notion of nobility being established in the New World. Will we be seeing anything like that, perchance?
 
Sweet! I'll be sure to check it out when I wake up later on.

In a discussion I had with Sevarics, he brought up the notion of nobility being established in the New World. Will we be seeing anything like that, perchance?
Oh, almost certainly. The New World is going to be fun to explore. ;)
 
Where Hearts Were Entertaining June
So, What Do We Do Now?​

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Life in English Brazil quickly settled down from the excitement of the takeover to the dull monotony of scratching a living from the South American soil. Even the Portuguese colonists were not nearly as excitable as Governor Raleigh had feared, as they were more than happy to be left to themselves by the English and not bothered. Their loyalty toward Portugal was never great before the Spanish took over, and wasn’t any greater under the English. The new English settlers secretly regarded them as a sort of underclass, but as long as they outnumbered the english nearly 10 to 1, there was little the new settlers could do.

One of the first major projects Governor Raleigh undertook was reorganizing how the colony functioned. English Common Law was instated over the former Portuguese laws. Raleigh managed to get a number of lawyers and judges already in the colony trained in the new laws, so courts could be established throughout the nation.

Due to the massive size of the colony, Raleigh split the colony into two halves in 1610: the province of Virginia—named for Queen Elizabeth’s status as the “Virgin Queen”—in the north, with its capital around Queenstown, and the province of Andreas—named for St. Andrew—in the south, with its capital around Raleigh. The colony’s main capital in Port Elizabeth would occupy its own territory and govern the two provinces separately.

The two Brazilian provinces differed wildly. Much of the colony’s agricultural wealth was concentrated in Virginia, with its massive sugarcane plantations, supplanted by cotton and tobacco plantations as well. Many of the plantations, due to England’s distaste for indigenous slaves, were worked by African slaves. The slave trade greatly expanded Queenstown and Port Elizabeth, though it was Queenstown who profited from it most.

The plantations, for the most part, retained their rich Portuguese owners, but Englishmen soon began setting up their own and profiting from them, beginning some of the richest families in Brazil, such as the Moores and Singers. Due to England lifting the trade restrictions from Brazil, the sugarcane money brought in many foreign goods, from fine silverware and furniture to wine, olive oil, and textiles.

Andreas in the south, while not exactly poor, was much different from Virginia. A large number of English settlers came to Andreas due to its temperate climate and good soil to become subsistence farmers, eking out livings in small villages that spread northward from Raleigh. While poor, they were supplanted by the relative wealth of Raleigh and other, similarly sized towns such as St. Paul—Sao Paulo—to the south. Due to the high number of Englishmen settling in these cities, much of English commerce came into these “trusted” ports.

Much of Brazil’s shipbuilding also began to be concentrated in the south, due to better conditions and more reliable banks in the cities. Port Elizabeth remained the center of commerce and shipbuilding, but Andreas quickly began to catch up throughout the first decades of the 17th century. The wars raging in Europe at the time also allowed demand for ships and other goods made in the south such as textiles allowed for the economy of Andreas to continue to grow.

Life in Brazil for the average person was not incredibly different from farming in England. The average Brazilian had their parcel of land and grew what they could on it, doing their best to get by. They usually relied on buying goods made in the colony, as anything from Europe was a luxury. Clothes were handmade and simple, even in the cities. Except for the most wealthy, the average clerk was only moderately cleaner than his farmer cousin. Many farmers also had a hard time adjusting to the colonial climate and change in hemispheres, flipping their seasons upside-down. It was years before new colonists had adjusted well enough to be called “native”, much to the chagrin of the Portuguese and actual natives.

In all, between 1600 and 1640 close to 50,000 English, Irish, and Germans would settle in Brazil, with more every year. They were attracted by the incentives given by the English government and the great opportunity so much untapped land gave them. They were also incentivized by the lack of restrictions when compared to Spain’s colonies.

Another large boost in colonization came during and in the aftermath of Twenty Years War over in Europe, which attracted Brazil’s young men to fight, but also sent back many disillusioned former soldiers and families without a home to return to. Most of Brazil’s German population came as a result of the war, as well as French and Dutch settlers.

While life remained simple, throughout the 17th century Brazil continued to grow in prestige and power as a colony, and would soon be tested as the rest of world set its sights on the Americas and England herself began to tear itself apart at the seams.
 
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This is getting better and better. When is the next update coming?

Oh, by the way. I think you meant Thirty Years War instead Twenty Years War.
 
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