AHC: Iberians remain greatest colonial powers

In any 19th-century TL we almost always hear about the inevitable decline of the Spanish Empire, and even before then we hear of France, England and the Netherlands surpassing or equalling Spain and Portugal as great colonial powers; Torsedillas is virtually always described as arrogant and unenforceable. So is it even possible, with a PoD at any time during or after Columbus reaches land in the west, that Spain and Portugal (or, alternatively, a united Iberia) remain the greatest colonial powers in the world far ahead of the nearest competitor (analogous to France and the UK in the latter half of the 19th century IOTL), at least up until roughly 1900? They don't have to retain all the territory they've ever held, nor does Torsedillas in particular have to work out.

I haven't the faintest idea myself, given that what very, very little knowledge I have of colonial America is centred on the British and (to a much lesser extent) French colonies in North America.
 
In any 19th-century TL we almost always hear about the inevitable decline of the Spanish Empire, and even before then we hear of France, England and the Netherlands surpassing or equalling Spain and Portugal as great colonial powers; Torsedillas is virtually always described as arrogant and unenforceable. So is it even possible, with a PoD at any time during or after Columbus reaches land in the west, that Spain and Portugal (or, alternatively, a united Iberia) remain the greatest colonial powers in the world far ahead of the nearest competitor (analogous to France and the UK in the latter half of the 19th century IOTL), at least up until roughly 1900? They don't have to retain all the territory they've ever held, nor does Torsedillas in particular have to work out.

I haven't the faintest idea myself, given that what very, very little knowledge I have of colonial America is centred on the British and (to a much lesser extent) French colonies in North America.
Well, keep in mind that the Spanish colonial empire, up until it fell in the early 19th century, was still arguably the biggest. The vast majority of Latin America, along with odds-and-ends like the Philippines, is a lot of territory. It's true that that didn't translate into military and political dominance in the same way that the earlier Spanish Empire had or the later British Empire would, but they still had huge colonial territories with large populations.

Part of the problem with keeping that empire is that the Spanish colonies (much like the 13 Colonies for the British) had been around so long that they had developed their own identity and had the population and wealth to win their own independence. That's going to be a problem regardless; it's not like the Brits were anymore successful in holding onto their empire, and the Spanish had basically had a century's head start on the process. Still, it could last longer if Napoleon and the resulting disasters could be avoided.
 

Tamandaré

Banned
No Iberian Union might be a good start, it really hampered Portuguese efforts in general, Portugal was never the same dynamic power since them.
 
One of the things necessary to halt the decline of Portugal and Spain's colonial Empires would be better governance and investment in education and technical progress, as well as a degree of representation by the colonies to reduce independentist tendencies.
 
Portugal and Brazil could easily have remained unified under various situations, so this would have given Portugal a major boost in empire terms. It never lost much of the rest of its empire as it was, and with Brazil boosting its perceived strength it could well have held onto its extended claims in the E Indies too.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
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