AHC: Portugal controls majority of Americas

mlp

In our OTL history, we see that from the first years of European discovery of the American continent the Spanish begin dominating the process of colonisation, resulting in a massive empire that stretched from Florida to California to Patagonia. On the contrary, Portugal controlled a relatively small portion of Latin America that later became Brazil.

So the challenge is to flip the situation, where the Portuguese control a majority of the continent while the Spanish control a relatively smaller area. How will it be possible? Is it viable, given the size of Spain and Portugal proper? Or was Spanish domination of the Americas unstoppable?
(Note that I basically have no clear understanding of the whole Hapsburgs thing, Spanish Succession War, etc.)

Here's a map for reference:
mcd_mwh2005_0618377115_p116_f02.jpg
 
ByzantineCaesar

ByzantineCaesar

Flip the Treaty of Tordesillas, or have Portugal inherit Spain instead of Spain inherit Portugal and keep the colonies with Portugal once the personal union inevitably breaks off.
 

riggerrob

WI Portugal extended its control from the mouth of the Amazon River, confining south around Cape Horn and up the west coast of South America?
 

Diego

Portugal have a much smaller population than Castile, that is the biggest problem. We need to depopulate Spain or make Castile weaker.

In the XII century Castile and Leon united under Ferdinand III, keep those two kingdoms separated, or even better, give Leon to Portugal.
 

ZhugeLiang

Diego said:
Portugal have a much smaller population than Castile, that is the biggest problem. We need to depopulate Spain or make Castile weaker.

In the XII century Castile and Leon united under Ferdinand III, keep those two kingdoms separated, or even better, give Leon to Portugal.
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Or even better than better, give Castile to Portugal :p
 

Diego

ZhugeLiang said:
Or even better than better, give Castile to Portugal :p
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:D

I think that it would be a Game Over to Portugal, like it was to Leon or Scotland centuries later.

But Leon is much better, just to start Leon have Galicia, and Galicia and Portugal share the same language and culture at the time. I think that Leon will be much less resistant than Castile to become portuguese.
 
kasumigenx

kasumigenx

Diego said:
:D

I think that it would be a Game Over to Portugal, like it was to Leon or Scotland centuries later.

But Leon is much better, just to start Leon have Galicia, and Galicia and Portugal share the same language and culture at the time. I think that Leon will be much less resistant than Castile to become portuguese.
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Or rather have Portugal inherit Leon and Castile inherited by Portuleon later on once Portugal has assimilated the Leonese.
 

miguelrj

inb4: https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=335722
But it's about a super-"Spain" including Portugal and led by it.

To get Portugal alone to outcompete Castile/Spain, as has been said, one needs to change the demographics. My favorite scenario to beef up Portugal (and that would incidentally weaken Castile too) was a partition of the Castilian crown in the aftermath of the War of Castilian Succession.

At the very least the realms of Galicia, Asturias, Leon, Canaries and part of Seville would do the trick in beefing up Portugal and letting it still be "Portugal".
 
Avrorrange

Avrorrange

Simply not possible I am afraid.Controlling the north requires a lot of settlers which Portugal simply could not send.Sooner or latter,the English and the French are going to show up.
 

Mikestone8

Diego said:
Portugal have a much smaller population than Castile, that is the biggest problem. We need to depopulate Spain or make Castile weaker.
Click to expand...



How many Spanish people actually went to the Americas in the 16/17C? If it was only a tiny fraction of Castile's population, then possibly Portugal could have equalled it. After all, they were able to settle Brazil, which was a mighty big area.
 

Viriato

I commonly see the assumption that Portugal did not have the manpower to colonise North America, when in reality before 1760, Portugal actually sent more migrants overseas than either Britain or Spain and far more than France.
By 1600 Portugal had already colonised the Azores and Madeira and both had a combined population of 150,000.

Portugal sent the bulk of its overseas colonists to Equatorial regions where the mortality rate was incredibly high. More settlers arrived in Luanda in a single year than the entire period of Dutch rule in the Cape. The other colonial powers did this as well, with more British and French settling in the West Indies than in North America, and many more settling in the disease prone south than in New England due to the attraction of cash crops. The far north of North America, north of the Chesapeake had an incredibly high rate of natural population increase. The net migration of French to New France was a mere 5,000 Frenchmen, but by 1840 their descendants numbered 400,000.

Far more British emigrated to the West Indies than mainland North America, between 1600 and 1780 two-thirds of all British emigration was to the West Indies. New England received a mere 30,000, a mere 4% of all of the British emigration overseas, but by 1780 the population of New England numbered 700,000. The Southern Colonies received seven times as many immigrants and the white population there only numbered 800,000 by 1780. In the West Indies the mortality rate was even higher with fewer than 100,000 whites living in the region.


Emigration from Europe Overseas
Portugal 330,000 (17% of 1580 population)
Spain 139,000 (1.85% of 1580 population)

Emigration from Europe to Colonies
1580-1640
Portugal 360,000 (18% of 1600 population)
Spain 188,000 (2.4% of 1600 population)
Britain & Ireland 126,000 (2.6% of 1600 population)
France 4,000 (0.02% of 1600 population)
Netherlands 2,000 (0.1% of 1600 population)

1640-1700
Britain & Ireland 248,000 (4.1% of 1700 population)
Spain 158,000 (3.1% of 1700 population)
Portugal 150,000 (7.1% of 1700 population)
France 23,000 (0.1% of 1700 population)
Netherlands 13,000 (0.68% of 1700 population)

1700-1760
Portugal 600,000 (26% of 1760 population)
Britain & Ireland 372,000 (5.6% of 1760 population)
Spain 193,000 (2.1% of 1760 population)
Germany 97,000 (0.5% of 1760 population)
France 27,000 (0.1% of 1760 population)
Netherlands 5,000 (0.19% of 1760 population)

1760-1820
Britain & Ireland 615,000 (3% of 1820 population)
Portugal 105,000 (3.5% of 1820 population)
Spain 70,000 (0.6% of 1820 population)
Germany 51,000 (0.19% of 1820 population)
France 20,000 (0.07% of 1820 population)
Netherlands 5,000 (0.2% of 1820 population)
 

Diego

Viriato said:
I commonly see the assumption that Portugal did not have the manpower to colonise North America, when in reality before 1760, Portugal actually sent more migrants overseas than either Britain or Spain and far more than France.
By 1600 Portugal had already colonised the Azores and Madeira and both had a combined population of 150,000.

Portugal sent the bulk of its overseas colonists to Equatorial regions where the mortality rate was incredibly high. More settlers arrived in Luanda in a single year than the entire period of Dutch rule in the Cape. The other colonial powers did this as well, with more British and French settling in the West Indies than in North America, and many more settling in the disease prone south than in New England due to the attraction of cash crops. The far north of North America, north of the Chesapeake had an incredibly high rate of natural population increase. The net migration of French to New France was a mere 5,000 Frenchmen, but by 1840 their descendants numbered 400,000.

Far more British emigrated to the West Indies than mainland North America, between 1600 and 1780 two-thirds of all British emigration was to the West Indies. New England received a mere 30,000, a mere 4% of all of the British emigration overseas, but by 1780 the population of New England numbered 700,000. The Southern Colonies received seven times as many immigrants and the white population there only numbered 800,000 by 1780. In the West Indies the mortality rate was even higher with fewer than 100,000 whites living in the region.


Emigration from Europe Overseas
Portugal 330,000 (17% of 1580 population)
Spain 139,000 (1.85% of 1580 population)

Emigration from Europe to Colonies
1580-1640
Portugal 360,000 (18% of 1600 population)
Spain 188,000 (2.4% of 1600 population)
Britain & Ireland 126,000 (2.6% of 1600 population)
France 4,000 (0.02% of 1600 population)
Netherlands 2,000 (0.1% of 1600 population)

1640-1700
Britain & Ireland 248,000 (4.1% of 1700 population)
Spain 158,000 (3.1% of 1700 population)
Portugal 150,000 (7.1% of 1700 population)
France 23,000 (0.1% of 1700 population)
Netherlands 13,000 (0.68% of 1700 population)

1700-1760
Portugal 600,000 (26% of 1760 population)
Britain & Ireland 372,000 (5.6% of 1760 population)
Spain 193,000 (2.1% of 1760 population)
Germany 97,000 (0.5% of 1760 population)
France 27,000 (0.1% of 1760 population)
Netherlands 5,000 (0.19% of 1760 population)

1760-1820
Britain & Ireland 615,000 (3% of 1820 population)
Portugal 105,000 (3.5% of 1820 population)
Spain 70,000 (0.6% of 1820 population)
Germany 51,000 (0.19% of 1820 population)
France 20,000 (0.07% of 1820 population)
Netherlands 5,000 (0.2% of 1820 population)
Click to expand...

In fact I already knew that, but the population that I mentioned earlier was not so much intended to increase the size of the emigration, it was about creating a lasting powerbase (bigger army, bigger navy, bigger production) for a colonial empire that would reach from America to Japan.
 

Alon

Well, if size is such a big thing, then how come Britain became the dominant power and not France or Germany? After all, around the time of the Revolution, France had 25 million people and Britain had maybe 9 million.

Now, Britain of course had a maritime empire already in the 18th century... but Portugal had one in the 16th century. Bombay was a Portuguese factory before it was a British one. The personal union with Spain led to a mass stripping of Portugal's factories, leaving it only with Brazil and a few other strongholds.

In fact... if Spain were richer, Portugal might well have ended up even richer. What doomed Lisbon as an entrepot was that its hinterland consisted of Portugal and Spain, which were underpopulated and poor; in contrast, Ghent, Antwerp, and Amsterdam had the denser and richer Rhineland, Low Countries, and England, which made them more successful even if their location was worse than Lisbon's.
 
LSCatilina

LSCatilina

The main problem there, rather than settlements or politics, was that Portugese exploration was first driven on trade roads and their monopolisation, not on imperial conquest.

All the effort was on African trade roads to gold, salt and slaves, and the control of specific outposts on these. Eventually it evolved to a control of African AND Indian trade trough a thalassocratic, mercantile empire.

You'd need a PoD in the XVth century at latest, in order to make Portugal a more imperial-focused power : as in, rather to circumvent North Africa to accede Sudanese trade, more ready to conquer it.

As in what happened in Morroco in the late XVth/early XVIth century but earlier, and deeper.
Of course, that would be the more costly, less efficient situation : it's why Portugal went the thalassocratic path.

But...In a TL where Portugal manages to gain enough parts of Castile in the XVth century, if Castile is srewed enough for reasons...
Maybe you could have a more continental minded Portugese colonial policy.

But majority of Americas? Even Spain didn't managed that, except counting very nominal and unenforced claims.
 

ZhugeLiang

Diego said:
In fact I already knew that, but the population that I mentioned earlier was not so much intended to increase the size of the emigration, it was about creating a lasting powerbase (bigger army, bigger navy, bigger production) for a colonial empire that would reach from America to Japan.
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To Japan?

If you're including all the little islands between them, I'd say this is ASB pre-1900.
 

Diego

ZhugeLiang said:
To Japan?

If you're including all the little islands between them, I'd say this is ASB pre-1900.
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About Japan I think more about a monopoly on trade like in OTL, with direct control over some islands and archipelagos in the pacific and indic, maybe Formosa too.
 

Alon

LSCatilina said:
The main problem there, rather than settlements or politics, was that Portugese exploration was first driven on trade roads and their monopolisation, not on imperial conquest.
Click to expand...

So? Early imperialism was profit-focused everywhere. Britain and France made large profits on their Caribbean colonies, and the British nabobs became fabulously wealthy during the conquest of Bengal. Spain, for all its imperial overspending, got lots of silver from Potosi. Too bad for it that you can't eat precious metals, so all the wealth of Potosi just led to inflation and made the Spanish economy less competitive, but initially, it too made a profit.

But...In a TL where Portugal manages to gain enough parts of Castile in the XVth century, if Castile is srewed enough for reasons...
Maybe you could have a more continental minded Portugese colonial policy.
Click to expand...

But that would make Portugal less interested in maritime imperialism, rather than more interested. It's similar to how the big continental powers in Europe - the HRE and Russia, and later Prussia - didn't do any maritime imperialism. They subjugated areas adjacent to them over land.
 
LSCatilina

LSCatilina

Alon said:
So? Early imperialism was profit-focused everywhere.
Click to expand...
Profit-focused doesn't mean trade-focused : hence the difference between Castille and Portugal on that matter, the former more easily resorting to imperial colonisation.

But that would make Portugal less interested in maritime imperialism, rather than more interested.
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I disagree : Castille land conquests in Europe didn't made them more European-focused, not until this presence bogged them down.

See, conquistador campaigns were directly tied to the Reconquista, as they were convinced that the conquest over heathens was a necessity and furthermore a legitim way to obtain wealth and lands (this latter point is over overlook on this board, but what conquistadores wanted before all things were rich lands : just see how Cortez passes sometimes two or three parapgrahs on mine, but entiere pages on farmland).

It's similar to how the big continental powers in Europe - the HRE and Russia, and later Prussia - didn't do any maritime imperialism.
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That's irrelevant.
First HRE had to deal with big internal issues, which generally prevents huge colonization attempts (see how French colonisation was aborted in the XVIth century by the Wars of Religion), as for Prussia it didn't became a power until much much later.
 
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