I was thinking of the former confederates who fled to Brazil but what if there was an equivalent settler colony like those established by Britain but settled and governed by the US. The US in the late 19th century did engage in colonialism but neither The Philippines, Puerto Rico or the various Caribbean and pacific islands could be classified as true settler colonies.
A successful settler colony founded by Americans?
- Thread starter Malone
- Start date
The United States is not short on good land in this time period, so the motivation here isn't going to be the settlers, it'll be controlling a valuable bit of land. That value might be financial (Hawaii), it might be a militarily useful location (also Hawaii), it might be natural resources (some of the guano islands, though they weren't settled), but it's not going to be because the settlers needed somewhere to go.
Formosa:
www.jstor.org
Gideon Nye and the Formosa Annexation Scheme on JSTOR
Harold D. Langley, Gideon Nye and the Formosa Annexation Scheme, Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Nov., 1965), pp. 397-420
www.jstor.org
The United States is a settler colony, but as far as colonial ventures go, there were a few which never got off the ground like "Ellena" in Borneo and some like William Walker's Nicaragua which could be considered de facto American colonies even if authority was exercised by, say, United Fruit rather than Congress. Places like Cuba and Panama could've also been annexed by the United States under different political circumstances. However, I don't think any of these possessions would be held much longer than the Philippines were IOTL, if even for that long.
Has anyone talked about what if the U.S. had left Mindanao but kept Luzon or some other part of the Philippines?
Most overseas American possessions were commercial or military endeavors for the most part. But I could see maybe an attempt at settlement in some of the Pacific Islands beyond Hawaii being successful, perhaps from a religious group like the Mormons, who in OTL heavily proselytized Polynesian Islands. Think of Saipan or Guam being much more densely populated.
Alternatively, if the Annexation of Santo Domingo goes through, it could see a large American influx.
Alternatively, if the Annexation of Santo Domingo goes through, it could see a large American influx.
Agreed, the US settler colony was everything West of the Mississippi, as well as Florida. In the 17th & 18th century there was massive population growth in Europe. Poor people in Europe, and the US Eastern seaboard could emigrate West of the Mississippi, to Canada or Australia, receive land grants and raise families of 12 or 14 children.
Crazy Boris
Banned
Depends how you define successful
Liberia was fairly prosperous economically and politically stable from the late 19th century up until the civil wars, but it came at the cost of major corruption in more than one presidential administration (Shoutout to Charles DB King winning the 1927 election with 16 times more votes than there were registered voters in the country, and that’s to say nothing of his whole slave ring scandal) and massive inequalities between Americo-Liberians and natives (albeit eased up a little by William Tubman) that ended up boiling over with Sam Doe’s coup against Tolbert and everything just sort of falling apart as the 20th century came to a close and taking a long time to even really begin recovering (though so far so good, big thanks to Sirleaf)