AHC/PC: US-Portuguese War

What's the best POD or collection of PODs for a war between the United States and Portugal from 1776 to the present? This could be any version of the US, and "Portugal" includes the Portuguese Colonial Empire, which may include Brazil depending on timing.
 
There's really nowhere our interests intersected -- Brasil was pretty far south, and we were never that involved in Africa (and Timor was tiny piddleshit territory). There's also the fact that Portugal was Anglo-aligned, which would have meant bigger problems.

As for a Black Legend, there wouldn't be one. The image of the evil Spanish was itself contingent on a) Spain having much flashier, much larger, much more brutal conquests and b) Spain's war against the Protestant Dutch and their role in the Lizzy-Mary fight. Thusly, the Black Legend was created around Spain's Catholicism and conquests. Portugal doesn't have the resume, and their Catholicism is less... severe than that of the Spanish, for whom it was basically an ideology on and off into the 1970s.
 
Easiest as part of a broader conflict (e.g. an Axis Portugal in WWII, or a UK-allied Portugal as part of a broader Anglo-American war).

That said, the only other way that seems doable would be if the Portuguese keep Brazil and the US intervenes in a later anti-Portuguese revolution (much like Cuba and the Spanish-American War).

It's difficult, because Portugal doesn't really have anything the US wants. Maybe Macao, but that's it; US interests were in Latin America and the Pacific. Even before the Spanish-American War, US commercial activities had been focused in those areas (there's a reason the US already had a powerful fleet near Manila Bay when the Spanish-American War broke out). In contrast, the Portuguese territories were mostly in Africa (which the US wanted no part of, for both commercial and racial reasons), as well as India (which the British would never allow the US to gain access to).
 

Don Quijote

Banned
I assume it would be fairly easy to get Portugal to join the War of 1812 on the British side, even if they didn't do much in it. Maybe a Portuguese unit could be sent to America to fight there?
 

Driftless

Donor
FWIW I believe there were a fair number of Portugese immigrants who came to the Northeast US in the mid-19th Century, primarily as fisherman/sailors. IF I remember correctly, there was also a long-standing connection for those immigrants back to the Azores & Madiera.
 
What about if a more radical US that abolishes slavery during the early-to-mid 19th century (choose whatever POD you want) decides to try to end the Portuguese-Brazil slave trade by force, attacking Portuguese slave ships and freeing their human cargo?
 
That'd be almost impossible -- both parts of the American elite were heavily invested in various legs of the slave business (including most of our early Presidents), and genuine revolutionary sentiment only reached a head in the 1860s. If America was truncated, and didn't have the South, then it wouldn't have anywhere near the ability to project itself anywhere outside the North Atlantic. If, somehow, it kept the South and abolished slavery, it'll still be recovering from the civil war that abolition definitely would have entailed at that time.

And beyond that, the British were already picking up the slack on that -- they had inordinate amount of power in Portugal's domestic economy and had the kind of navy and inclination to stop the Portuguese slave trade themselves.
 
The US did have long standing plans on the Azores, that is the one place the Portuguese control that would interest the US, but it is a long shot to get a situation that allows the US the reason to go for it.
 
WWII is really the best bet. And no way was Salazar gonna do anything without Franco doing it first. A Central Powers US in WWI is also an option, but that's rather difficult to set up.

The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance is another good option. Can you get Portugal to fight on Britain's side during the American Revolution?

As noted, the Azores is what the US would want out of Portugal, but compared to what post-1820s Spain had, that isn't much, and it would take a spectacular spree of bad luck for Portugal to have the US and Portugal at war.

FWIW I believe there were a fair number of Portugese immigrants who came to the Northeast US in the mid-19th Century, primarily as fisherman/sailors. IF I remember correctly, there was also a long-standing connection for those immigrants back to the Azores & Madiera.

There certainly is, and I imagine a Portuguese-American War might have negative affects on Fall River, Massachusetts, Ludlow, Massachusetts, and other places in New England with notable Portuguese populations.
 
As far as Portugal joining Britain in the American Revolution, maybe a POD involving the Spanish-Portuguese War in 1776-1777 could be an option.
 
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