AHC: Unify the Guianas

Zachariah

Banned
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to come up with a scenario in which the Guianas- OTL's Guyana, Surinam and French Guiana- are all united under a single government as one nation, under self-rule (i.e, fully independent) by the present day. You're free to choose any POD after Walter Raleigh's exploration of the region in 1596, and the first publication of his book in which the region was referred to as Guiana for the first time. And there are bonus points available for anyone who manages to bring the entirety of the Guianas region under the control of this one nation, including Spanish Guiana and Brazilian Guiana, and the entirety of the land within the Guiana Shield (as marked on the map below):

Guyanas.svg


So then, are you up to the challenge? And how would you go about meeting it?
 
PoD- USA disolves into constituent states due to a combination of Madison dieing during childhood (he was also a small sickly boy and man), Hamilton is sent to London instead of America, and Washington dies in 1784 when he goes to south western Pennsylvania to inspect lands he owned and squatters that he sues in OTL end up pelting him with rocks, he falls off his horse and dies after a coma. Bolivar is able to use the example of infighting and chaos among the Norte Americano "states" to convince Gran Colombia to stay together. Germany in the ATL has protectorate over Cuba, and purchased Denmark's Virgin Islands in 1912. In *WWI Colombia seized Danish West Indies and dominates Caribbean; when *WWII happens Colombia (includes Venezuela) joins the Axis side during WWII, and like the Japanese with Vichy France and Netherlands dominated by the Axis takes advantage of defenseless colonies, takes Aruba and Dutch Antilles, and Venezuela attacks British Guiana (OTL they had a big border dispute) and tries taking all three. Brazil, being a natural enemy of Grand Colombia with border disputes of its own, joins the allies and attacks. In the final peace a unified Guiana, with strong ties to Brazil of course, is formed as a buffer between Brazil and Colombia/Venezuela which maybe is even separated in two depending on how total the war is. I know it's really out there, but sounds fun and different.
 

Zachariah

Banned
How many butterflies are killed?
Doesn't necessarily have to be any butterflies killed- let them fly free. Just gave 1596 as the very earliest acceptable POD; if you think you can do it with a later POD to minimize the butterflies or reduce their impact on the wider world, feel free to give it a shot.
 
This is an easy one. All the three Guianas were and are underdeveloped and unprofitable and BG and S were going to get independence anyway. FG hasn't became independent because it's not economically feasible. Since it was and is a financial burden to France, they would've been more than happy to dump FG into an independent federation to get relieved. Most of Portuguese Guiana would be added if Republic of Independent Guiana (Counani) was annexed to FG in 1912 and as part of FG became part of the federation.
 
When would the federation have taken place and what would be its form of government?
Well, the answer to the first question is that the federation would have been created around 1960 as the West Indies Federation, I'd like to have it created in 1959.
The form of government is trickier. In planning of the Melanesian Federation OTL, Dutch were ready to cede Western New Guinea into a federation that would have been British dominion. So they would have done it for Suriname, too. But the French are less likely to do so, proud republicans as they were.
Maybe a scheme where the Federation was initially between only BG and S, later transformed from Dominion to republic (as both did OTL), and after that republican-minded FG was ready to join. That would have been in the 1980s.
 
Well, the Guianas used to be an Arawakan-speaking region before the European colonization,especially in the coastal region. Therefore, my idea of a unified Guiana under a common lingua franca (Arawak) within a multiracial and multicultural society could be achieved through the following:
  • Early (and vigorous) Christianization of mainland Arawak tribes by both Roman Catholic and Calvinist missionaries/
  • The (inevitable) miscegenation between Europeans, Arawaks (albeit decimated by disease) and Africans.
  • Alternate deportation of the Garifunas to the Guianas
 
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