AHC : Make Argentina a more attractive migrant destination than USA in the 19th Century

How so what?

Canada iotl received a fair amount of German and Irish immigration and would likely have seen more with US restricting the catholics among those groups.
I was asking about the familiarity. Did you mean that they had more communities to join in Canada versus Argentina?
 
I was asking about the familiarity. Did you mean that they had more communities to join in Canada versus Argentina?

Partially yes and and travel wise Canada is closer to countries like Ireland and Germany than Argentina, still in the Northern hemisphere etc.

If the US really restricted its immigration in the 19th century Argentina probably would get more Europeans coming over but I think Canada would be the biggest beneficiary.
 

Lusitania

Donor
Partially yes and and travel wise Canada is closer to countries like Ireland and Germany than Argentina, still in the Northern hemisphere etc.

If the US really restricted its immigration in the 19th century Argentina probably would get more Europeans coming over but I think Canada would be the biggest beneficiary.
Two major factors limiting Canada ability to take in those extra settlers. British North America colonies united into Canada in 1867 and the prairies were only acceptable after trans Canada railway was built. So only Atlantic colonies and both uppper and lower Canada be accessible
 
Two major factors limiting Canada ability to take in those extra settlers. British North America colonies united into Canada in 1867 and the prairies were only acceptable after trans Canada railway was built. So only Atlantic colonies and both uppper and lower Canada be accessible

That's still quite a lot of land.

Canada's most densely populated region is southern Ontario which would have corresponded to upper canada. It's an area the size of England but with today about 1/4 of that population.

During the 19th century the British did want to fill those lands with immigrants but the US was always the larger attraction destination. Canada always had the land it just didn't always have the people coming over to fill it.
 

Lusitania

Donor
That's still quite a lot of land.

Canada's most densely populated region is southern Ontario which would have corresponded to upper canada. It's an area the size of England but with today about 1/4 of that population.

During the 19th century the British did want to fill those lands with immigrants but the US was always the larger attraction destination. Canada always had the land it just didn't always have the people coming over to fill it.
Yes it is large piece of land but agricultural not all of it good. You need industry to provide employment to a lot those immigrants
 
Argentina was kicked by Spanish and British policy, with both at different points in the Early history of Argentina dominating their economic institutions, effectively draining surplus value. Development was uneven and often under control of either foreign backers or the elites of Buenos Aires. The export booms which got it to 1st world standing by the 1920s were not enough. Internal growth is needed to keep Argentina from shuttering every time commodity prices drop.

part of the US advantage is the massive unbroken farmable tracts from Ohio to Colorado. Though many immigrants kept close to the East, the westward conquest and the cheap, US army secured land was a real big attraction. Ultimately the US just has a land advantage once they yoink Louisiana. Most of northern Argentina is pretty good land, but the entire country could fit in the Mississippi drainage basin.

That said, if Argentina can avoid the allure of easy money with Britain (say relations stay sour) they can start the process of selling tracts of land to grow bases of power away from Buenos Aires and the free trade regime they favored.

Let's say an Argentine independence happens with lots of hostility towards the British. The new Argentine government, though not hostile to Buenos Aires, decides against a capital so close to the sea and chooses to build a new capital inland near Rosario (Let's call it Ciudad Argentina). Pushing political and economic power away from Buenos Aires would do Argentina a lot of good, and the government actively encourages settlement of contested areas with settlers loyal to Ciudad Argentina. The government invests in building a rural middle class to counter both urban elites and build a tax base for levying armies and building infrastructure. Investment in agriculture and the building of a large middle class snowball, as more immigrants have more opportunities and further invest in a government pushing for immigration. A virtuous cycle kicks in and this Argentina has a lot more luck building itself into a US lite.

As for discouraging immigration to the US, there's loads we can do. Have the Continental Army move against the Continental Congress in early stages and mess up US institutions from the get go, meaning more instability and unrest, etc. Keep Articles of Confederation, have a more Federalist and exclusive Constitution, etc. Etc. Basically keep US institutions either unstable and unpredictable or exclusive and otherwise unwelcoming
 
Once the Homestead Act is passed this is over and done with. Did Argentina ever pass such an act or was most of the land controlled by basically small numbers of people. Free land* was a big incentive to farmers from numerous areas of Europe. Second and third sons no with prospects to inherit.
 
Surely size also matters? Because Argentina's about a third the land area of the lower 48.
Argentina has one of the best pieces of agricultural land on the planet that gets crossed by a network of navigable rivers. The population that the country can hold is so much larger than the one that they currently have that size is not really an issue. Argentina is mostly empty with 45 million people nowadays and outside of Buenos Aires the population density is very small. The second most populous region in the country is Cordoba which is flat arable land crossed by navigable rivers populated by 3 million people in an area that is almost 1.5 times bigger than North Korea (the second most populated region in Argentina is demographically speaking Iowa).
If you just bump the population density of fertile regions like Cordoba to the population density of the state of Missouri the population of Argentina would basically be around 80 million people which would still make the country underpopulated (this was the population of the US in the 1900´s). Space is not a real issue specially as a big chunk of the US is a big desert that got populated very recently due advancements like air conditioning
 
Top