I would not say this; they consolidated their control of the Aztec and Inca empires, and conquered much of the land in between. That is not a simple feat, especially when it is done thousands of km from home.
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AHC: Bigger Hispanic America
- Thread starter Taunay
- Start date
If we were to re-run history 100 times, I would definitely think the OTL result would be one of the best for the Spanish empire, like 95th percentile. Some of the events like the conquest of the Aztecs were very fortuitous.
Thanks, this makes a lot of sense.
I think that the opposite of this thread would be the Spanish failing to conquer those two empires and also the Iguape War never happening (I WILL make a thread on this extremely unknown event but I'll just say that it delayed Brazilian expansion for 10 years and it never happening would mean a much bigger Brazil and a smaller Spanish America)
My opinion is that, with a POD of 1550, more of the continent can reliably become part of Hispanic America, but it is frankly improbable, even implausible, that such an expansion will encompass the entirety of the New World. Why? Simply: The territory is too vast.
To achieve such a feat, even in a scenario of minimal or no competition from other European countries (which already stretches plausibility), Spain is required at least to focus more of its attention on the colonies, and to develop technological advances that OTL only achieved in the nineteenth century.
Otherwise, the problems generated by the massive distances and the lack of resources to fully enforce Spain's claims and rule over the territory will serve as hard limits to their colonization efforts.
However, attention and resources are precisely something that Spain cannot afford with a POD of 1550, as it is far too late to avoid the overextension headaches and european quagmires of the Habsburg "Universal Monarchy".
Regarding Immigration and the Iberian Union, both are double edged swords:
Greater migration to the colonies provides greater human resources to populate and protect them, but this can be counterproductive if said population increase is in exchange for the depopulation of the Metropole. And although in theory, this could later be supplemented with Catholic immigrants from other European countries, the distances involved would generate difficulties to integrate them, with the consequent and previously mentioned by other users, increase in particularist and separatist tendencies, especially if it occurs a phenomenon similar to what happened in Texas or Louisiana, in which Protestant settlers pass themselves off as Catholics or settle in areas so remote that the authorities cannot do anything about it.
Meanwhile, the Iberian Union, as said by other users, allows to redefine both Hispanic America, and Spanish, in such a way that it encompasses Brazil too. However, the Iberian Union also means that the Spanish have even less attention to provide to the Americas, as they are not only distracted by Europe, but also by trying to maintain Portugal's colonial empire in Asia. Indeed, during the era of the Iberian Union, the Dutch took the opportunity to invade and conquer a considerable part of Brazil, taking advantage of the overextension of Spain, only being expelled by the Portuguese definitively after the dissolution of the Union.
So, you could get an scenario in which the Iberian Union is maintained, but the resulting Hispanic America is smaller that the sum of the Portuguese and Spanish Americas of OTL.
Finally, I concur that a plausible way for the expansion of Hispanic America may be realized by Spain somehow being able to enforce more of their North American claims, and keeping several of the Caribbean islands that OTL were lost to the French, English and Dutch, as well as perhaps expand a bit in the region that currently makes up the South of the United States. And of course, getting the British and Dutch out of Central and South America too. Beyond that, there is a lack of resources, attention, incentives, and maybe even time.
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I said that I would not ping any more people. But this thread has been really good so I will ping @Aluma @Slime_blob @SavoyTruffle @kasumigenx @Kurd Gossemer @twovultures
What's your take on this?
What's your take on this?
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Unfortunately Im already working on a TL with that theme so I cant just spoil myself here 
But I promise eventually I'll give it a go
In my stead I highly suggest the timeline Un Dios, Un Imperio, Un Rey as the spanish do get most of the Americas there and are in general quite successful, plus the author is spanish himself and does his research so the quality so far in my opinion is quite good
But I promise eventually I'll give it a go
In my stead I highly suggest the timeline Un Dios, Un Imperio, Un Rey as the spanish do get most of the Americas there and are in general quite successful, plus the author is spanish himself and does his research so the quality so far in my opinion is quite good
As has been exposed many times in this thread, Spain can't control all of the Americas. It is too vast of a territory to settle, defend and even explore. It is also worth noting that not all lands in the Americas are equally valuable, why settling in New York and having to start from scratch when you can go to Mexico and simply buy a house in an already existing city with a functional agriculture? New settlements are very difficult to pull off succesfully, Roanoke is a very good example of how easily a colony can fail, Buenos Aires even failed once before its refounding. Colonists would prefer to move to areas where infrastructure already exists while merchants would prefer to settle in areas with established markets and large populations that could buy their products. This is part of the reason why the Spanish didn't push much further from the Aztec and Incan heartlands in the Americas, as they provided a headstart compared to new settlements.
However, new settlements can still occur if there's an incentive to them, the best incentive being the possibility of economic profit due to a natural resource that is located in the area. And of those there are plenty in North America. For starters, there are abundant gold mines in the Southern Appalachians, and the De Soto expedition allegedly encountered natives that worked with that gold, so the rumors could spread and the Spanish could attempt to establish a colony in the coast, preferibly at the mouth of a large river to move upwards towards the gold mines. The Spanish actually tried to settle in the Carolinas under Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón in the 1520's, but the settlement failed due to the loss of the supplies during a storm and a slave uprising. French Huguenots also tried to settle in the US southeast, both in Florida and the Carolinas, with both settlements thwarted by the Spanish. It's not difficult to think that the Spanish could have set up a chain of posts in the area to keep further French settlements at bay, thus eventually securing control of the Carolinas. But the Spanish went further than that IOTL, as they tried to colonise Virginia (Axacán) in 1570 employing catholic missions, but the colony failed. If you keep Axacán around, and have the Spanish discover the gold in the Southern Appalachians, everything south of the Chesapeake would eventually become a Spanish colony. The Spanish could try to push further north, as allegedly the natives in the Allegheny mountains told Pedro Menéndez de Avilés that he could find the Northwestern Passage by travelling across the mountains into the Ohio River, which obviously wouldn't work, but would give the Spanish a headstart in the Upper Mississippi basin. And speaking of the Mississippi, when De Soto interacted with the tribes in the lower parts of the river, the Mississippian culture was still somewhat intact, with relatively large settlements and working maize agriculture (which depletes the soil incredibly fast, that's part of the reason of their eventual collapse). If accounts of large quantities of Indians reach Spain and a religious company (say the Jesuits) takes interest in converting them, the Spanish would gain control of the lower Mississippi, albeit by 1550 it would be difficult to keep such a colony, as native populations would plummet due to disease rapidly, but Spanish imports of new crops could allow a higher population at a later date. If you combine this lower Mississippian colony with Spanish attempts at crossing the Appalachians from Virginia, you could have Spain control most, if not the entirety, of the Mississippi basin, reducing potential rivals to the Saint Lawrence / Great Lakes, and the northeastern coast of the US.
If the Spanish settle as north as Virginia, they would also encounter larger populations of American beavers (their range extends all the way to Mexico, but in smaller populations). This gives the Spanish access to the lucrative fur trade, which would further reinforce Spanish control of the Mississippi. Finally, the last potential colony the Spanish could get off North America is Newfoundland. It lies west of the Tordesillas Line, is visited regularly by Basque fishermen, and has abundant reserves of cod, a type of fish that was key to the contemporary diet. There's no reason why the Spanish couldn't settle in the island, the Portuguese tried a couple times after all. However, competition with the English and the French will be fierce in the coming decades, and with Newfoundland being an isolate colony, it could be taken by other powers eventually. Even with secure control of Newfoundland, I don't see the Spanish going further towards the Gulf of Saint Lawrence though, apart from trying to find the Northwest Passage, there's not much incentive to go there, especially when compared to the rest of the empire.
Finally, the Spanish could reinforce their presence along the extremes of the continent, especially in the Pacific Northwest and Patagonia. At the time, the Mapuche wars were in a phase of strong intensity, with the Spanish control of Chile being disputed. If the Spanish do better in these wars, they could expel the Mapuches to the eastern side of the Andes, thus granting Spain complete control of the Araucania all the way to the Chiloé island. In the 1570's the Spanish tried to settle in southern Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, in order to secure control of the passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific and prevent future raids like that of Drake (we'll be back to him in a minute). The colony failed as the Spanish settlers did not expect the climate to be that cool and windy (it wasn't wise to bring Andalusians out of all people in Spain to the coldest part of South America), with the lack of resources causing the collapse of the settlement in the coming decades, to the point where English explorer Thomas Cavendish renamed the settlement "Port Famine". This doesn't mean the settlement is doomed, but it would have been hard to pull off, especially once a new route south of Tierra del Fuego begins to be used widely. Finally, we have the Pacific Northwest, the area was explored by the Spanish as early as the 16th century, and California was one of the places where Drake established temporary bases to attack the Spanish (New Albion). The Spanish could launch retaliatory expeditions towards California and create some settlements or garrisons, which could eventually extend all the way to Alaska. The Spanish tried to do this in the late 18th century, but by that point it was too late, and the British managed to push the Spanish out of British Columbia in the Nootka Conventions. If the Spanish settle in the area a century or so earlier and enter the fur trade in the PNW, it'd be very difficult to dislodge them. The Amazon basin could also be taken as an alternate route for silver and gold mined in the Andes to reach the ocean, albeit Portuguese bandeirantes would dispute it. Speaking of Portugal, a continued Iberian Union would grant Spain Brazil, and with it pretty much all of South America.
Alas, the Spanish don't have to do all the work themselves, once/if the American Empire breaks apart, the new states that emerge in the area can continue the colonisation progress, as shown by the Chilean and Argentinian conquest of Patagonia. If everything that I have mentioned was carried on, the Spanish would control close to 80% of the Americas, albeit most of it would be a nominal control, only holding it because nobody is willing to dispute Montana or the Patagonian wastes.
Thank you!
OkUnfortunately Im already working on a TL with that theme so I cant just spoil myself here
But I promise eventually I'll give it a go
In my stead I highly suggest the timeline Un Dios, Un Imperio, Un Rey as the spanish do get most of the Americas there and are in general quite successful, plus the author is spanish himself and does his research so the quality so far in my opinion is quite good
I think the biggest obstacle is that by 1610, the Amazon will become Portuguese, simply because the founding of Belém is extremely important to control the Amazon river and basin
Agreed, although as I've mentioned before, Brazil expanded the most during the Iberian Union
Actually I was wrong, Brazilian expansion only really accelerated in the end of the 17th to the mid 18th century, after Portugal was already independent
So here's a rought sketch of Spanish North America if they managed to get the lands I described in my previous post.
The only large amount of extra land the Spanish gain compared to IOTL is the Southeastern US, the rest resembles Spanish America's claimed borders at its peak before the Nootka Convention. The red line that marks the border is defined by, starting from the North, the Continental Divide extended an arbitrary point in the Arctic going south all the way to Triple Divide Peak. Then, the border follows the northern border of the Mississippi River watershed up to south of Lake Erie, where for convenience I drew a straight line to the mouth of the Delaware River, including all of the Chesapeake into Spanish America. However, you'll notice that the Mississippi watershed hugs the Great Lakes a bit too much. That border is unfeasible, a better alternative would be the Ohio River. Why? Simply, because it is much easier to access that area coming from the Saint Lawrence than from the Mississippi or Virginia. I didn't include Newfoundland, I think a long term possession of the island is unrealistic once Spain loses naval superiority in the sixteenth century, the English would likely take over the island as it would have a small population. No other power had claims in the Pacific ocean, so I can see the Spanish reaching Alaska and ultimately the Arctic, even if no one really lives there.
If the Spanish want to expand into Patagonia, I think they are more likely to organize the native tribes of eastern Patagonia against the Mapuche than to expel the Mapuche from their native Araucania.
Wow, that's a big Hispanic AmericaSo here's a rought sketch of Spanish North America if they managed to get the lands I described in my previous post.
How much settlement would those regions receive?
The TL in my signature is about "Quadra", a Spanish-speaking Vancouver Island, which evolved from Santa Cruz de Nutca, the "Northernmost California mission" to welcoming "Spanish Empire Loyalists" until eventually becoming a Hispanophone Canadian province.
What if some sort of naval blockade (French or English Navy) limits trade with Europe?
What if Spanish plantation owners invest in iron works, weaving mills, etc. along the major rivers of the Americas (Amazon, Mississippi, Colorado, etc.) until they can produce goods rivalling the quality of European-made goods by the time the blockade is lifted?
Could they turn a profit selling manufactured goods to Iberia?
What if Spanish plantation owners invest in iron works, weaving mills, etc. along the major rivers of the Americas (Amazon, Mississippi, Colorado, etc.) until they can produce goods rivalling the quality of European-made goods by the time the blockade is lifted?
Could they turn a profit selling manufactured goods to Iberia?
I'd think that even the English, who despised the Spanish, wouldn't want to lose access to the precious natural resources that their colonies had
It's more likely for Britain to outright take those colonies rather than blockade themselves out of gold and silver