That's great! But Aluma, what is your personal take on how this could be achieved? (I love reading your posts so that's why I'm asking)
No problem!
My POD would be Pedro the First taking his son with him to Portugal in 1831(one year after your OP limit) with Brazil trying and failing to get a monarch to come rule Brazil(since Pedro the Second still has the best claim)
Or just, you know,
Pedrinho getting really sick and thus unable to rule
With that what you expect is balkanization, which you forbade in the OP, which is what would happen...
initially!
For you see, there's a chance, small but possible that with such a POD the ragmuffin(you know, the
Farrapos) would get their shit together
What would happen is such a case?
First some context
Well you see, there are two more players in this
Argentina and Pernambuco
In our timeline the ragmuffin South rejected further help from Argentina because they thought, rightfully so, that Argentina planned to annex them
Some time after IOTL the Empire under a adult Pedro II would have its revenge against Argentina by invading Buenos Aires and deposing Juan Rosas
Meanwhile Pernambuco, as usual, much like the
Farrapos went on another rebellion against the Empire in 1832 called
Abrilada
So with this POD there's no possibility of a Petrine Restoration, no
"Golpe da Maioridade" if you will, and without such hope the support of such rebellions among the people and the provinces would be larger
This means the Ragmuffin likely take the capital of
Rio Grande do Sul and
Santa Catarina like they atempt in OTL while the Imperial Government is distracted with rebellions in the North
Meanwhile Argentina, seeing a weakened Brazil but not wanting to weaken their "allies" in the South who are doing so well against the Empire makes their own entrance, likely pushing Paraguay(who has it's own expansionist ambitions) for a shared invasion of
Mato Grosso much like the one that happened in our timeline during the Paraguayan War
, likely using the same rhetoric of the Ragmuffin to avoid looking bad internationally
"You see we arent here to conquer, we're just estabilishing friendly enlightened republics!"
Such puppet-republics, much like the
República Juliana made by the
Farrapos would be abolitionist and de jure democracies adopting enlightened ideals though de facto argentinian-paraguayan colonies allowing the free pass of their spanish-guarani overlords through their territories
The Ragmuffin meanwhile, with the government now distracted fighting external invasions as well would be able to expand further, looking at
São Paulo(who at this point in time had also the territory of
Paraná) with hungry eyes, looking to estabilish a new abolitionist puppet-republic much like
Juliana, while the
paulistas themselves would be itching for independence but only so that they could leave their weak imperial overlords to estabilish a slavery-republic under their plantation class ala the Confederates, causing a conflict between them and the Ragmuffin but only on wheter they should free their slaves or not while both sides agree on that breaking away from the Empire and mutually defending themselves against the foreign threat is the priority, leading to the ragmuffin winning out against them as well
This, alongside perhaps
Minas Gerais also proclaiming it's independence again, would lead to the collapse of the now-exhausted imperial authority, who lacks both a monarch and a army to assert it's federal power
This would leave 4 types of "Brazils" remaining
-The Ragmuffin Abolitionist Republics
-The São Paulo-Minas Gerais republican-slavery block
-The pseudo-colonies of Argentina & Paraguay
-The remaining independent republics in the North
Yeah sounds like balkanization, but would it stay that way?
Well, no, not really
Like I said the Ragmuffin would(eventually) win out against SP, SP and MG back then were a lot weaker(despite SP being bigger) than the
São Paulo that launched the
Paulista Rebellion during the Republican Era
And nor SP nor MG would want to become a target of the occupiers of the now
"República of Mato Grosso", thus they would in time reluctantly become part of the new Brazilian Confederacy led by the Piratini Republic(
República Riograndense if you will)
The republics on the North, on the other hand, would be too far away from the southern reach to be forced into this block
However they would also be facing external threats, namely from France, Britain and the Netherlands in the
Guianas
Meaning they would also most likely join d
e jure the southern confederacy with
a lot of autonomy as the ragmuffin have no way of enforcing their authority over them, but they also want both economical and military aid should they face invasion from the european neighbours because, you know, we are the peak of the Imperialist Era by this point
This leaves the pseudo-colony in MG
It's very, very unlikely that the argentinians and paraguayans would be able to work together in the long run, with a war between the two being the probable outcome, let alone hold authority over a population of hostile portuguese-speaking brazilians who hate them more than they could have ever hated Portugal
This means once a war between the two breaks out these puppet republics would rise in rebellion while they're distracted and atempt to join the confederacy led by RS, such atempt definitely succeeding(although with many territorial concessions) since neither side would want to fight the now consolidated Piratini Empire-I mean, Republic, who would now
de jure rule all of the Continental Brazil once again while
de facto having puppetized the entire brazilian southeast and having the North as it's allies
Who would win in a war between the Argentina and Paraguay matters little for this scenario, but I'll adress it
Normally it would be Argentina as it is the most powerful nation between the two, however if Paraguay followed the OTL path(and lets assume they did) then they crush Argentina
Simply put, it took fullpower Imperial Brazil + Argentina + Uruguay to beat Lopez's Paraguay, even if the war took place before the OTL one Argentina was still easily clapped by Brazil in the war against Juan Rosas
Paraguay likely does the same here
As for Uruguay itself in all this, who knows?
If Argentina took the opportunity to invade them again, following their ambitions for a recreated Viceroyalty of
La Plata, we most likely would see a independent Republic of Uruguay aligned with the Ragmuffin and perhaps Paraguay against Argentina
Maybe they even join
de jure the confederacy(getting back some of the lost territory you know?) for extra protection under the condition their language and autonomy is respected while
de facto having a pro-paraguayan party in charge, who knows
We end this scenario with an abolitionist, republican Brazil, led by Piratini as both the name of the Republic and it's capital
A highly decentralized nation consisting of a uneasy alliance against foreign intervention more than anything else, but that still embraces the enlightened ideals that led to the revolution
Kinda like a "Confederates wins and control the United States" scenario but with the exact opposite ideology
And as the reborn
riograndense Brazil takes its first steps into the sun, one can only wonder what would have happened had Pedro II stayed in Brazil as a healthy boy and had the
Farrapos lost, what
dark future could that be?
But this is only one scenario, and not a particularly probable one as balkanization without Pedro was pretty much inevitable
Still, I believe it was possible, and I hope you enjoyed it
