AHC: Have any northern European country take Central America from Spain

JJohnson

Banned
The challenge is: have any northern European country take and hold any part or all of Central America at any point from 1500-1800 from Spain, such that their colony is a majority that-language, that-ethnicity country today, either independent or part of the mother country. Any country in the North or Baltic Seas will do. The change in colonial ownership shouldn't affect the development of Canada or the US though. Pretty much Panama up to Yucatan/Tabasco/Chiapas are up for grabs.

Bonus: any Northern European country takes Hispaniola before or from Spain.
 
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What is a Northern European country? Just Sweden, Denmark or Norway or possibly a united scandinavia? Or would Scotland, England, the Netherlands or Germany count?

Anyway, it s borderline impossible for Swden, Denmark, Scotland, one of the German countries and probably even the Netherlands to take all or most of Central America and even for England it is extremely hard. Part of it, like the Mosquito Coast (or Honduras) is possible though.
 

JJohnson

Banned
Pretty much anything from northern Europe - the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom (i.e. England, Scotland). I think only the Netherlands or England/Scotland could field any real effort early on. Denmark had only a small colony that the US bought last century and Sweden lost its colonies.

And what would such a country look like? Could we get a Canada or an Australia on the Yucatan?
 
Pretty much anything from northern Europe - the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom (i.e. England, Scotland). I think only the Netherlands or England/Scotland could field any real effort early on. Denmark had only a small colony that the US bought last century and Sweden lost its colonies.

And what would such a country look like? Could we get a Canada or an Australia on the Yucatan?
Define early on. I don't think the netherlands would do anything colonywise before the early 1600's since they were fighting their war of independence against Spain. After though is a better possibility. The moment the Netherlands got more or less stabalised and they were just fighting to expend the Netherlands instead of a war of survival. I do think you need a bit larger Netherlands to take a large part of Central America though and be able to assimilate it. Especialy considering that Central America was the core of Spain's American empire.
 
The challenge is: have any northern European country take and hold any part or all of Central America at any point from 1500-1800 from Spain, such that their colony is a majority that-language, that-ethnicity country today, either independent or part of the mother country. Any country in the North or Baltic Seas will do. The change in colonial ownership shouldn't affect the development of Canada or the US though. Pretty much Panama up to Yucatan/Tabasco/Chiapas are up for grabs.

Bonus: any Northern European country takes Hispaniola before or from Spain.

But considering you want to take Central America from Spain, meaning Spain took it/or is the Superpower. It would be impossible for Northern European nations from 1500-1650. Spain is the superpower of the day to even let anyone take part of New Spain permanently.

Im guessing OTL 1650-1800. British would have now the capability and resources to take Hispaniola as well Central America. The question would be if how to retain and change the Hispanic culture already embedded or even expel them/or change them with the conqueror's culture.

The other countries just have too few resources/smaller navy than Spain to even challenge during Spain's decline in Central America within New Spain heartland itself. Germany did not even exist as a single unified nation within the timeframe.
 
Seriously though, Britain did take part of Central America. They took the Mosquito Coast as well as Belize
 

norse

Banned
The challenge is: have any northern European country take and hold any part or all of Central America at any point from 1500-1800 from Spain, such that their colony is a majority that-language, that-ethnicity country today, either independent or part of the mother country. Any country in the North or Baltic Seas will do. The change in colonial ownership shouldn't affect the development of Canada or the US though. Pretty much Panama up to Yucatan/Tabasco/Chiapas are up for grabs.

Bonus: any Northern European country takes Hispaniola before or from Spain.

what about maya survival?

in otl they were not destroyed until like 1728 or something
 
And what would such a country look like? Could we get a Canada or an Australia on the Yucatan?
The Yucatan is much more populated by the indigenous than Australia or Canada, and that caused it to be pretty drastically different than other parts of the Americas even IOTL; even if it changes hands, the Yucatan isn't likely to satisfy the ethnic or linguistic requirements (it's majority Mayan and Yucatec-speaking IRL).


what about maya survival?

in otl they were not destroyed until like 1728 or something

The latest nominally independent date I'm getting is 1766, but then there are the Caste Wars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_War_of_Yucatán

And, as mentioned above, they Mayan people are still the dominant ethnic group in the region, and Yucatec is more widely spoken than Spanish on the peninsula.
 
You could have Spain lose Central America but doubt that there would be much incentive to send settlers. Belize isn't exactly your atypical settler colony, being dominated by a mix of Creoles and Maya and it is one of the areas of Latin America where you have a significant portion of the population is indigenous or part indigenous. Hard to displace them.
 
Not sure about Central America, but a conquest of Hispaniola would have been possible. From the late 1500s onward, Spain largely neglected Hispaniola in favor of mainland colonies, which made the French occupation of the western part of the island relatively easy. Another nation could have beaten the French to the punch and perhaps gone further (France probably could have conquered the eastern portion if it really wanted to, but after 1700 it was unlikely to go to war against Spain because it now had a Bourbon on the throne).
 
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