Which would be the easiest provinces of Central America to hold onto?
ACH: Largest Possible Mexico
- Thread starter Zoidberg12
- Start date
Which would be the easiest provinces of Central America to hold onto?
With more funding (from selling the north) it could probably hold Honduras and El Salvador too. Any further would need a lot of luck or an ASB flying by.
Wolfpaw
Banned
Umm...Spanish Florida. But your overall point stands; these places are rugged, largely Indian, and very much open to conquest by American settlers.
Mexico has had enough trouble controlling Mexico IOTL, so it doing any better is already pushing things. El Norte and California are forever under threat of being settled by land-hungry Americans as was the case OTL; the Yucatan's habitual eruptions into rebellion and race/caste war also bode really ill for long-term Mexican attempts at dominating the Central American States, even Guatemala. Belize is a no-go because that means taking on Britain, ditto British Honduras.
British Honduras and Belize are the same place, just a different name at a different time period. Now if you meant the Moskito Coast... Mexico wouldn't have an easy time getting to it to even try to muck around there.
Wolfpaw
Banned
That's going to be hard since America is still getting waves of immigrants who have bought land site-unseen and will be heading West, to say nothing of the restive, roving Appalachian populace whose history is one of settlement-conquest from Virginia to Texas, done totally without regard to borders. Mexico simply does not have the population to fill up the lands that the American settlers are hungry for. For example, the population of Mexico between 1803 and 1860 never exceeds 8.4 million people; America's population goes from 5.3 million to 31.4 million in the same time frame. In fact, Mexico doesn't break 10 million until 1881, and it's population in 1900 was 13.5 million to the U.S.'s 76.2 million.
Mexico was in the best situation it could be in territory-wise post-independence. It lost all of it due to raw attrition from factors that won't abate without severe butterflies first flapping in the Anglo-American world, especially since Americans had been trying to filibuster the place since the dawn of the 19th century, with Aaron Burr being the first to (attempt to) lead one.
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In the same vein of thought would we have a Mexico anything like ours?
Well, too much like ours and it couldn't get too big, could it?
Bruce
PS-heck, we had a "biggest Germany" thread which had discussion of PODs going back to the medieval migrations...
Well, too much like ours and it couldn't get too big, could it?
Bruce
True. Maybe if the Spanish attached Cuba or more thoroughly annexed portions of Central America onto the Viceroyalty of New Spain the population could either grow larger or simply more loyal, and when alt-New Spain becomes alt-Mexico (when/if), it could fare better on its own.
(on an unrelated note, hello QuantumBranching, this is ATS from deviantART
)True. Maybe if the Spanish attached Cuba or more thoroughly annexed portions of Central America onto the Viceroyalty of New Spain the population could either grow larger or simply more loyal, and when alt-New Spain becomes alt-Mexico (when/if), it could fare better on its own.
(on an unrelated note, hello QuantumBranching, this is ATS from deviantART
Greetings and salutations!
Bruce
Greetings and salutations!
Bruce
On second thought, adding more territories to New Spain could probably result in too much decentralization, so you could have a balkanized Mexico upon independence...
PoeFacedKilla
Banned
thats what i'm saying.
During the 18th Century the Spanish lead expeditions into Northern America which uncover (discover) large amounts of gold in central Alta California.
At this time people from Peru, Mexico, Spain, hell anywhere in Europe or the new world begin to move their and the ones that find gold found companies. These companies grow and by the OTL american revolution Mexico rebels (taking the southern most portions of central america with it) and forms a Republic.
Mexico (now has about twice the population; with half living in the northern territories (that's what i'm calling them)) is in a much better position, with soldiers from northern california to panama. This proto-superpower quickly becomes a British Protectorate (like OTL America and even Mexico) and the British Empire (even if Mexico doesn't trade with the other Latin countries) will make it filthy fucking rich.
Then it industrializes, and its oil and steel (i'm actually not sure how much steel mexico has so i'm guessing) partially imported helps it become a manufacturing powerhouse. During the 1800s, about 25 years after independence, it begins to build a small but powerful modern professional army.
But unlike the US, Mexico quickly becomes interventionist. As the South American states gain independence Mexico begins securing its economic future within them, and even builds a decent navy and merchant fleet so they weren't dependent on British shipping.
With gold in Northern and Central Mexico, Plantations in the south and North and mines and oils fields in the center. Mexico enters the industrial era on a strong note. When a conflict with the US arises over Louisiana, the Mexican States defeat the US in conventional war and claim 1/2 of the Louisiana Territory and begin settling it.
Mexico probably reaches Oregon by 1820 at the latest, and quickly colonizes it building large ports on the west coast of America, so now all it takes is someone pushing mexico (who by 1850 has at least 60-70 million) to start building a large fleet and conscripting a large army for them to become a superpower; idk you fill in the blanks and continue from their.
If it's the 1700s and you here about gold across the Atlantic (and then across a continent) would YOU immigrate there?
I don't think that early it would get so much immigration. The gold was first found in northern California in stream and it was one small isolated incident which sparked interest; at the time you could travel way more easily in the mid 1800s then you could from Europe to California.
As for Mexico being a British protectorate, I think it'd be more like the British dominating and investing in its economy and using it as leverage to show the other newly independent Hispanic states what it's like to trade with Britain; investments and money flowing.
PoeFacedKilla
Banned
no but peoples who were already in new spain and peru and the caribean would gladly go their looking for gold, mexico really isn't that wide of a country so even back then a trip from eastern mexico to california would only take a month or two, just like the people who left new england for california. It would take just as long.
What if Mexico gained the... 'indesirable' peoples the anglo lands don't want? what if by example, the Chinese exclusion acts is harsher, or an anti-catholic paranoia rise, and so irishes or poles by example... What if slaves flee in masses to mexico? It changes anything?
Well, depends. Shorter distance on a map; on the ground, say from Mexico City or Veracruz to San Francisco, you have to factor in the time of year, strength of the native hostile tribes in the north, the Sierra Madre and Oriental mountain ranges running parallel down through northern Mexico, the fact that most of the north is an arid desert, and if you do pass the mountains the first thing you enter is the Chihuahua desert, and THEN you have to pass through more desert and the Sierra Nevada mountains to get to northern California with the gold.
Explorers would make the trip, not normal people, for what one could call a pipe dream.