AHC:Brtiain sells its American Colonies to Spain

So what would it take for Britain (or perhaps when it was still just the English Empire) to sell its mainland North American colonies to the Spanish Empire? Also what would be the latest for Spain to be able to actually hold them. By the time the French and Indian War/Seven Years War came about I'm sure such a handover would have caused an alt-USA to form, if not even earlier in the 18th century.

Debate away!:D
 
So what would it take for Britain (or perhaps when it was still just the English Empire) to sell its mainland North American colonies to the Spanish Empire? Also what would be the latest for Spain to be able to actually hold them. By the time the French and Indian War/Seven Years War came about I'm sure such a handover would have caused an alt-USA to form, if not even earlier in the 18th century.

Debate away!:D
Perhaps, at the earliest, a defeat or severe financial debts in wars with France would do the trick. The latest time for Spain to actually hold them would be around the mid 18th century.
 
The problem is that (putting it very mildly) Spain and England/Great Britain were… not best friends. For England/Great Britain to sell colonies is one thing; for it to sell colonies to Spain is very, very difficult.

Unless you're counting the kind of 'sale' where one side occupies a territory in a war and then gives some money in a peace treaty to let the other side save face, I don't think this can be done with any reasonable PoD. The obvious option is to change the long history of Anglo-Spanish hatred (for which you need to make England Catholic), but if England is Catholic because of Spanish force then its colonies are likelier to be taken than bought and if England just never turns Protestant in the first place then history will be so different that I have no idea whether England will ever have major North American colonies in the first place.
 

Thande

Donor
What PA said. All I can think of offhand is the "Corsica in 1769" type scenario where the colonies break with England early on - perhaps the Royalists win the Civil War and the colonies, or most of them, continue to defy the King, or vice-versa - and after a few defeated attempts to regain control of the colonies, a war-weary London decides to just sell them to the highest bidder, with the understanding that said bidder will have to actually go and take possession by force (as with Genoa selling Corsica to France, as I said above).

Even if this did happen, I would imagine that some of the more loyal colonies would be retained and only others abandoned--if it was a Royalist England probably Maryland and Virginia would be retained, if it was a Republican England the New England colonies, etc.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
What do the Spanish use for the purchase price?

And what's in it for them?

Depending on the time frame, this is the equivalent of Quebec after 1761 on steroids...or Texas in 1836.

Neither says much for the stability of the "expanded" Spanish Empire...

Best,
 

Deleted member 67076

First, you need to find a way to get Britain and Spain to be cordial to each other, at least for a while. Then, you need a way to make Britain need money, and fast, for it to decide to sell its colonies for a quick buck. Third, you need to avoid the Spanish Empire spending itself into the ground.

All doable, but it'll probably need a POD in the 1600s or a more successful Boubon Restoration that confirms Spain's status as a superpower again, with unlimited funds.
 
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