I will admit, I do not know a whole lot about the Spanish American Wars of Independence but please bare with me: What if, shortly after or during a more or less OTL path to independence in Spanish America, the liberated states remain tied together in something not too centralized, such as in a single state, as this would be too fragile and thus doomed to be short-lived for such a vast and diverse area as Hispanic America, nor too loose, as in an ineffective confederacy that would probably end up more symbolic than functional (like OTL's UN) but rather united in some sort of supranational union, like the contemporary, OTL EU? How could this be made to work and what would the effects be?
WI: Hispanic America joined in Supranational Union after Wars of Independence?
- Thread starter Oba
- Start date
Kaptin Kurk
Banned
Perhaps a stronger Spain, which was able to crush the first two or three rebellions might produce this...
Anyway, at the very least, it probably involves Simon Bolivar being a dead martyr of a failed independence movement for at least a generation or two..., along with a few colloquialisms that, ideally, are somehow related to him (and his defeat) either through blood or action.
Anyway, at the very least, it probably involves Simon Bolivar being a dead martyr of a failed independence movement for at least a generation or two..., along with a few colloquialisms that, ideally, are somehow related to him (and his defeat) either through blood or action.
Geography, differences and rivalries stop that from being possible. Add the UK attempting to break it apart for trade and there you are.
The best you could get is 3 or 4 countries in South America and 2 in Central/North America
The best you could get is 3 or 4 countries in South America and 2 in Central/North America
One in Central or North America is possible - Mexico holding on to Central America (minus the British bits and Panama) is far from impossible.
I disagree: Hispanic America has a largely shared post-conquest history (oppression by Spain), a common language (Spanish) and much more in common culturally - at least with the dominant, fusion cultures of the numerous indigenous traditions and the culture of colonial Spain - than India, with its numerous religions (Hinduism, Islam and Sikhism, among others, compared with the overwhelming dominance of Roman Catholicism in Latin America) and languages (unlike the unifying Spanish of Hispanic America, even Hindustani is not really dominant even today, especially in the South of the Subcontinent); also, note the Inca Empire: Geographically extraordinarily diverse yet even more unified than what I am proposing today despite its obvious lack of mechanical devices beyond the drop spindle or the lever or vehicles more advanced than watercraft of reeds with simple sails.
Do you even know America?
Oppression? Yeah, early on and if you were a Native. The people who would make choices, the Criollos, and the Mestizos, didn't feel it as that. Oblivion, robbery, discrimination, sure. But not opression.
India's geography is different. And it was constituted in a time were communication was faster and easier.
Language is not a guarantee. It surely helps. But you can't have a country were going from Mexico to Argentina takes 6 months. Not when they don't share a common identity, and less when you will have every important region to secede.
Religion is not another guarantee. This is not Europa Universalis you know. Religion lost this role in the middle age. Language did so. What matters is identity. And geography. Here neither help.
If you have steamboats and railroads its doable. If not, then it whole tear apart. The Spanish themselves realized it. That's why they divided the two big viceroyalties. If efficient government was possible at that time they wouldn't have done it.
While I feel you make some good points, please recall that I was specifically not proposing a single state but a supranational union of states in Hispanic America.
As a side note, the Indian Subcontinent was unified long before the Muġal Empire, with the Maurya and later Gupta Empires in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, respectively.
If you want another example of geography alongside the Inka Empire and India, just look at the USA. In many ways the US had more disadvantages than Hispanic America: The great majority of what is now the US was, at the time of the Paris Peace Conference, either inhabited by a great number of amerindian nations speaking more diverse languages and than even India while maintaining little cultural similarity with nations and peoples outside their cultural area: Thus, while a Maidu person may have some cultural similarities with a contemporary Pomo person -a sedentary hunter-gatherer lifestyle, a shared Kuksu Religion (albeit with some minor differences, of course), for example, neither the Miwok nor the Pomo person would have much in common with, nor know much about, a contemporary Ktunaxa person of the Interior Plateau or Nuxálk person of the Northwest Coast, and likewise visa versa and so on.
Also, note that travel to California, until the Transcontinental Railroad, was a great difficulty, requiring a variety of sea and dangerous land routes. Yet California is not Russian, not Mexican nor is it Canadian but rather part of the United States of America. Finally, even Texas, which does have pretty easy access to the Eastern Seaboard, took quite a while and a lot off bloodshed and effort to become part of the United States of America. And the United States didn't just settle for Supranational Union, and dumped the idea of a loose confederation early on, and has endured a Civil War, the Great Depression and even maintains an impressive amount of ideological unity (AKA patriotism, belief in the "American Dream", &c.) more or less throughout its territory.
In conclusion, do not forget that it would have been a great deal harder to travel from Quito to Cochabamba in 1500 than it would have been to travel from Mexico City to Cusco in 1800.
No, more like a Hispanic American version of the EU; a federation and a supranational union are different.
Honestly, I do not get why it seems most everyone who has responded to this thread has been so pessimistic and hostile: I have seen a lot less likely AH scenarios in this forum than the one I am proposing: CSA wins the American Civil War (despite their lack of industry and the fact that a great mass of their population, and the international community, was inherently hostile to the situation), Byzantines industrialize (despite their OTL rather unremarkable level of development compared to contemporary Mid Imperial China, Classical Rome or Gupta India), China is colonized by the British Empire (despite its vast size, its advanced technology, its hostility to foreign meddling and its long history of centralized and sovereign government), &c.. What is it about a Hispanic America as a world power with a POD in the early 19th century that is so unpalatable to you, [most of] the posters?
I stand my point with geography. India is a whole different story. Its not divided by the Andes. Its not divided by Atacama. And most importantly. There aren't over 10.000 km from one point to the other. India is more or less the size of Argentina alone.
The USA is a whole different matter. You almost seem to not know the basics of its history. The country came to be out of 13 colonies. There where the American Identity arised. Not all the way to California. Tell, how long it took in 1776 to go from Portland to Savanah?
Once you have that identity the geography becomes less important. But anyway, you forgot that the USA had a very important river system to connect itself.
You here have three things to prove. How in that time you make this supranational thing workable. Or a central government. Or whatever you want to control the countries.
Then how do you get the different important cities to accept they are not the cherry of the cake anymore. Do you think Santiago de Chile will like that? Lima? Mexico? Buenos Aires, a city which kept the country under civil war for 50 years because they believed they were the ones who should run the show?
And most importantly, out of where you get the common identity. At this time there is none. People are Spaniards or attached to their regions, but nothing more. Independence war? Sure, news take like 3 months or more. Common origin? Not going to work. Language, religion? Same as before.
You need something that unites people across the Americas and say we are the same country.
Whenever the idea of a unified Spanish America comes up in this forum, I answer in the same line as Petete123123: geography. Both Brazil and the US had all the population concentrated on a single coast, and from there they expanded. The territory was conected by land. Instead, to travel from, let's say, Buenos Aires to Caracas by land, you'd need to go to up to 4000 meters in *Bolivia, cross the Andes, then travel through the coast a long the Pacific, then cross the Andes again in *Colombia (which are there more than a single mountain range) and then travel by land to Caracas.
If you want to go by sea, you'd have to travel close to the coast of a potentialy hostile Brazil (in a scenario were Spanish America is unified, Portuguese Brazil will be its natural rival). Given the centrifugal forces that existed around 1800, such a union wouldn't last. Buenos Aires and Caracas both were used to be ruled by a distant King who ruled from Madrid, but had never ruled each other, and neither would have accepted to be ruled by the other. Lima or Cuzco could be natural capitals for an unified Spanish South America (NOT for a unified Spanish Latin America and Caribbean, there the capital should be in Panama), but Perú was so loyalist that it was the last country to go indepenent, so it cannot serve as a base for an union.
This would be what I would usually say. However, the OP is not asking for an unified nation, but a sort of EU. I do think something as such could have been established at the Congess of Panama that took place in 1826. Maybe a very loose confederation could be established at first, and, over the years, this confederation could gradualy assume more powers, which countries would be delegeting to the confederate bodies, as it hapens in the EU. Argentina's government was then (1826) quite hostile to the Congress, but if a different President had been in power (a federalist like Dorrego instead of an Unitarian like Rivadavia, for instance), Argentina might have attended to the Congress. And I believe something similar might have made Chile attend. Who knows, maybe something could have achieves: small at first, but assuming more powers as time goes by...
If you want to go by sea, you'd have to travel close to the coast of a potentialy hostile Brazil (in a scenario were Spanish America is unified, Portuguese Brazil will be its natural rival). Given the centrifugal forces that existed around 1800, such a union wouldn't last. Buenos Aires and Caracas both were used to be ruled by a distant King who ruled from Madrid, but had never ruled each other, and neither would have accepted to be ruled by the other. Lima or Cuzco could be natural capitals for an unified Spanish South America (NOT for a unified Spanish Latin America and Caribbean, there the capital should be in Panama), but Perú was so loyalist that it was the last country to go indepenent, so it cannot serve as a base for an union.
This would be what I would usually say. However, the OP is not asking for an unified nation, but a sort of EU. I do think something as such could have been established at the Congess of Panama that took place in 1826. Maybe a very loose confederation could be established at first, and, over the years, this confederation could gradualy assume more powers, which countries would be delegeting to the confederate bodies, as it hapens in the EU. Argentina's government was then (1826) quite hostile to the Congress, but if a different President had been in power (a federalist like Dorrego instead of an Unitarian like Rivadavia, for instance), Argentina might have attended to the Congress. And I believe something similar might have made Chile attend. Who knows, maybe something could have achieves: small at first, but assuming more powers as time goes by...
Last edited: