So much went wrong in Latin America that it is why the region is having issues today. So I thought of things that could help:
- More immigration (also to add to it no barrier that allows only Catholics)
- Ditch the OTL Spanish colonial governmental system for a relatively much better one (English?)
- More investment in infrastructure to unite the colonies
- Less mercantilism and greater economic growth
These are my few cents, but what else could have been done to improve the Latin American colonies so that by independence they are better off than OTL? (No ASBs like no mineral wealth and so forth)
I'm going to talk mostly about Argentina, as I don't know enough of other countries, such as Mexico and Colombia. I think you're kind of putting the cart before the horse, specially when talking about political systems.
What you need to get a politically active middle class created through a strong and diversified economy isn't so much a political system encouraging it but economic conditions for such a a middle class to flourish in the first place. And I'm borrowing a bit from "Guns, germs and steel" and be a bit geographical deterministic here, but I don't think the conditions in current Argentina existed back in the 18th century.
First, regarding the political system: viceroys were appointed by the King, but the local town halls (the Cabildos) were elected by the local upper class merchants and those were the ones who led the independentist/liberal cause. It's wasn't a democratic system by modern standards, but you aren't going to have a "peasants get to freely vote" in the 18th/early 19th century anywhere. By the 1820s, even as the country collapsed in civil war, elections were becoming a established fixture in many, if not most, Argentine provinces. They were fraudulent, violent, the franchise was restricted and, by today standards, a mockery. But this is the 1820s we're talking about. There wasn't anything close to modern democracy anywhere in the world. By the mid 1820s, with the country without a national authority and a possible (and eventual) war against Brazil on the horizon, lawmakers in the Parliament of the province of Buenos Aires were arguing about whether employees should or should not be allowed to vote, with Manuel Dorrego - who would later be elected governor and later killed - strongly advocating enfranchising employees. This was the actual political system of civil war Argentina.
The problem is the concentration of wealth, which wasn't as much of a problem before the independence, but became an ongoing process as the country consolidated after the civil wars ended. By the mid 19th century Argentina had the basis of a rural middle class, which was fought and destroyed by the upper class who replaced it with European immigrants, mostly employees instead of small land owners. So what you need are the economic conditions to strengthen the gauchos and political/military PODs to prevent their downfall. While a political or military POD can give you a more peaceful Argentina (say, a Brazilian victory at Ituzaingó prevents the returning officers from the Argentine army to coup Dorrego in Buenos Aires and Bustos in Cordoba, thus allowing Dorrego to unify the country under a federal constitution by the late 1820s) which in turns means a lot less gauchos die in the wars, I'm not sure you can have an economic POD that changes the outlook of the Argentine economy before the Second Industrial Revolution because the technology simply isn't there yet.
Refrigeration doesn't exist yet, so the only meat you can export is salted meat, which is awful and only used for feeding slaves, thus providing a low margin activity. You don't have railroads to connect the vast expanses of fertile land. You don't have easily accessible mineral wealth. The only thing I can think of is wool, and I'm not sure how profitable it would be for Spain to exploit wool so far away. As for a local textile industry, there are no coal deposits within the Viceroyalty of the River Plate. The more important ones are in the Patagonia which means even after Argentina conquered it, the distance between the main Argentine coal and iron deposits is the same distance there is between Paris and Moscow, which will always result in expensive steel. Still, wool exploitation might be worth looking into.
You spoke about infrastructure. You can't make any meaningful infrastructure project joining, say, Lima and Buenos Aires during the 18th century. There is no technology for such a thing, other than the existing dirt (if that) road joining Potosi and Buenos Aires, which existed solely to transport silver.
And once the second industrial revolution kicks in (after independence) you have the markings of a resource exploiting economy, which tends to consolidate a small and powerful upper class and a lower class, instead of a more diversified and industrialized economy which favors a middle class.
Still, I think a combination of things could have sensibly improved the economical and political outlook of the country, though not all before independence. First, a more open minded Borbons could have accepted Belgrano' suggestions before independence: education (including for women), the start of an agrarian export economic model, nautical schools and the start of a merchant fleet. This will still be hampered by the lack of refrigeration and railroads, but it's a start. Second, cut short the civil wars. I think keeping Uruguay as part of Argentina (so it counter balances Buenos Aires and offers more than a single port to serve the entire country) and/or Dorrego being able to unify the country by the late 1820s would allow for a more prosperous country with a growing rural middle class which wouldn't be as easily displaced.
This results in earlier economic growth (it's believed GDP per capita didn't grow, at all, between 1820 and 1860 and the civil wars killed some 50,000 people out of a population of less than a million people), earlier immigration, a merchant fleet and maybe the basis of a shipping industry (if uncompetitive with the European industries), an earlier reduction of illiteracy and a far earlier consolidation of democratic institutions due the pressure of politically motivated and maybe better educated middle class. This should result in an earlier diversification of the Argentine economy, which would still have severe competitiveness issues with the main industrial centers of the world due scales and logistics.
I don't know much about Colombian history, but I think they have a better shot if similar policies can be instituted because of their far better mineral wealth, while Mexico can benefit from its largest population density, and its geographical position regarding the USA and, eventually, the Panama Canal or its ATL equivalent. The latter also applies to Colombia.
Note that nothing of this has anything to do with swarming the land with British protestants. People tend to forget Jamaica and South Africa were also British colonies and they are and were way below many Latin American nations in most key human development and democratic issues.
What is he doing? Making the Spanish king bow down to him?
