AHC: Brazil smallest country in South America

What's the best POD to make it such that a recognizable Brazil is actually the smallest country on the South American continent?
 
If every independence movement here had achieved its goals, I believe Brazil would occupy just the state of Rio de Janeiro. I believe this can happen in the 1800s if some foreign power decides that Brazil must be balkanized.
 
Well, I don't know about best POD, or good POD, or even POD, but Brazil would be the smallest country in South America if it were the only one.
 

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Gran Colombia survives, Peru-Bolvia survives, Argentina manages to eat Uruguay at some point and Brazil balkanizes into 5 or so states such as Grao-Para.
 
Or you could go back to 1494 and have the Treaty of Tordesillas actually be enforced by the Spanish, so that the Portuguese don't expand past 46 degrees longitude.

Portugal's ranking as a power in European politics is lost really quickly, Brazil gets its independence and remains constrained to the border with Spanish possessions at 46 longitude.

Boom.
 
Pedro I dies while touring the battlefields of Pernambucan rebels or during the Cisalpine War. Santa Catalina and the Rio grandest Republic along with the Northeastern part of Brazil secede and Sao Paolo drifts away from Rio De Janiero. Meanwhile Argentina successfully incorporates Uruguay, Paraguay, and the Rio grandest Republic under the Federal Pact - Brazil's decline unites Argentina as they fear a resurgent Brazil threatens all of them. Bolivia moves into Rodonia, French Guiana expands into Amapa, Venezuela takes Roraima, and Amazon as is split between Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela. While Mato Grass and Parang are controlled from Sao Paolo and the Brotherhood of Brazilian Republics is controlled from Pernambuco, the remnants of the monarchy rule an Empire of Brazil from Rio De Janiero that includes OTL states of Rio De Janiero and Espiritu Santo.. Following the absorption of Chile between 1860 and 1950 along with the Federation Del Sur including satellites Peru (which conquers Ecuador in 1925) and Bolivia, Buenos Aires is the undisputed master of the continent and the Monaco-like Brazil enjoys the highest average standard of living in the Western Hemisphere by 2010.
 
Brazil in all her might as the largest and most populated nation in the continent couldn't hold a small culturally distinct region (Uruguay), how is Argentina, which is much smaller and has a way smaller population could do the same with Rio Grande do Sul?
 
smallest state in south america? S-A also include tiny island states.
if only from mainland -

dutch brazil keeps existing and later takes name brazil, while the remainingportugese territories take another name
 
Only if we got balkanized, and the best chance was in the first years of independence and the turbulent years of the Regency for Pedro II.

It's actually pretty remarkable that Pedro I managed to hold the country together, and laid the groundwork for our survival as a unified nation. Even with all his failures (both personal and moral), he have a positive legacy in the end.

Latest date possible would be in late 1830's. Even if Farroupilha, the Cabanagem and the Balaiada still continue after Pedro II ascension (he took power at the age of 14, after a popular movement), the country was becoming more stable and united.

If Brazil was to be the smallest country, it would probably include Rio de Janeiro + Espirito Santo, and even so, it would require Uruguay to be bigger, or not existing at all, and i'm not speaking of the Guianas..

Maybe you can do it with the "Inconfidência Mineira" (A pro-republican conspiracy in the gold-mining regions of Minas Gerais) being more successful, with Joaquim Silverio dos Reis failing to deliver the conspirators to colonial administration. With such a POD, maybe the revolts in Bahia could be more sucessful, and similar movements could arise in Ceara and Pernambuco in the Northeast, and in Grão-Pará. Not sure if regional spirit was already high in late XVIII century in the Brazilian South.

Brazil was not very stable and it wasn't that populous in the times that Uruguay was our province, even if we got a advantage in numbers to Argentina already. Brazil only truly developed only after the Paraguayan War.

The spanish couldn't truly enforce Tordesilhas in Brazilian territory, by the times they tried for real, it would have been fait accompli.
 
Let's take a different route to this. The petty republics of South America start to go on the way of integration and establishing a continental federation, in the modern era, at some point. Due to linguistic and cultural differences, Brazil eventually opts out, but the rest unite. The POD can be before 1900, although the integration is more likely to happen in the 2000s of course.
 
Clearly, the only way to make Brazil the smallest country in South America is to make Brazil the only country in South America.
 
smallest state in south america? S-A also include tiny island states.
if only from mainland -

dutch brazil keeps existing and later takes name brazil, while the remainingportugese territories take another name

None of the tiny islands are independent IOTL (unless you count Trinidad and Tobago as part of South America but that's iffy), and there's no reason that they would have to be independent ITTL.

But yeah, the options are:


  • Every other country in South America unites, forming a country larger than Brazil
  • Brazil balkanizes and a really small area ends up being called brazil.
 
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