AHC/WI: Bigger Population In Spanish America

Your challenge is to get more colonists to settle in the Spanish Americas. This would probably include, but not limited too:
  1. More liberal immigration policies that open the land to everyone and not just Catholic Castilians
  2. No huge landowner system that exploits people (halifunda or what is that?)
  3. *British* Agricultural Revolution in Spain?


But nonetheless, try. And bonus points if you could list the effects and the possible stretches of Spanish power in the continents.

And bonus bonus points if you can explain what this does to the Spanish colonial economy.
 

jahenders

Banned
I think you've eluded to the answer. The biggest change that would affect this would be to change how the land was distributed. If Spain had said, anyone who moves to one of these new world colonies and can make a functioning farm can have XXX acres for free after 5 years, they'd have LOTS more people moving there. They could even allow foreigners, who swear fealty to the Spanish crown, apply to participate.

Your challenge is to get more colonists to settle in the Spanish Americas. This would probably include, but not limited too:

More liberal immigration policies that open the land to everyone and not just Catholic Castilians
No huge landowner system that exploits people (halifunda or what is that?)
*British* Agricultural Revolution in Spain?

But nonetheless, try. And bonus points if you could list the effects and the possible stretches of Spanish power in the continents.

And bonus bonus points if you can explain what this does to the Spanish colonial economy.
 
Well, IRL Spain was scared of Russia's power in the Pacific, so maybe actually have them try to counter it by settling California and Oregon. It would, due to the fertility of that land, make the population grow rapidly in just a few generations.

I mean, this is sort of a late PoD for any major effects in Spain's empire as a whole.
 
Your best hope for this to happen is for the Hapsburgs to managed to further centralize their rule over the Crown of Aragon during the 16th or 17th century. To simplify mattes greatly, Charles I (and V) made Castile the center of his Spanish Monarchy. All the New World possessions were part of the Crown of Castile, while Aragon, which included Sicily and Naples, were legally separate. As the seat of Habsburg power, Castile bore the brunt of the costs of the Spanish empire. It was more heavily taxed, and supplied the majority of the soldiers and sailors who fought for Philip II in the Old World and the New. However, with the increasingly crushing burdens came the almost exclusive rights to trade and settle in the New World, within the limits established by the Court.

While there were many Basques and Catalans who served in the New World, and Italians were well represented in the the monastic orders, the majority of New World settlers emigrated from the Crown of Castile. At the same time, the Crown of Aragon had in Europe at least the same population as Castile if you include Naples and Sicily. Just by granting the Crown of Aragon the same emigration privileges as Castile could probably double the number of emigrants to the New World. With the large expanse of land available, and the higher number of children than New World settlers tended to successfully raise, that would have a large effect on the population of Spanish America by the end of the 18th century.

My recommended POD is for Don Francisco Gómez de Sandoval, 1st Duke of Lerma, to have a much more successful "reign" as first minister starting in 1598. Perhaps he could be prompted by opposition of the Cortes of Aragon to abolish that body, and their Kingdom as a separate legal entity, and merge it with the crown of Castile, and then prevail in the civil conflict or war that would inevitability follow. Even a despotic and feudal-minded leader would tend to impose the same policies on all of his domains, so if this coup succeeded, I would expect greatly increased immigration to Spanish America to be a byproduct.

Any thoughts on the plausibility of the above scenario?
 
Your best hope for this to happen is for the Hapsburgs to managed to further centralize their rule over the Crown of Aragon during the 16th or 17th century. To simplify mattes greatly, Charles I (and V) made Castile the center of his Spanish Monarchy. All the New World possessions were part of the Crown of Castile, while Aragon, which included Sicily and Naples, were legally separate. As the seat of Habsburg power, Castile bore the brunt of the costs of the Spanish empire. It was more heavily taxed, and supplied the majority of the soldiers and sailors who fought for Philip II in the Old World and the New. However, with the increasingly crushing burdens came the almost exclusive rights to trade and settle in the New World, within the limits established by the Court.

While there were many Basques and Catalans who served in the New World, and Italians were well represented in the the monastic orders, the majority of New World settlers emigrated from the Crown of Castile. At the same time, the Crown of Aragon had in Europe at least the same population as Castile if you include Naples and Sicily. Just by granting the Crown of Aragon the same emigration privileges as Castile could probably double the number of emigrants to the New World. With the large expanse of land available, and the higher number of children than New World settlers tended to successfully raise, that would have a large effect on the population of Spanish America by the end of the 18th century.

My recommended POD is for Don Francisco Gómez de Sandoval, 1st Duke of Lerma, to have a much more successful "reign" as first minister starting in 1598. Perhaps he could be prompted by opposition of the Cortes of Aragon to abolish that body, and their Kingdom as a separate legal entity, and merge it with the crown of Castile, and then prevail in the civil conflict or war that would inevitability follow. Even a despotic and feudal-minded leader would tend to impose the same policies on all of his domains, so if this coup succeeded, I would expect greatly increased immigration to Spanish America to be a byproduct.

Any thoughts on the plausibility of the above scenario?

Why would merging Aragon and Castile make a difference? Can't Spain simply tear down the immigration barriers?
 
Also, how would the possibilities of mestizos be affected? I mean, they mainly existed because men mostly came to the New World. If droves of Europeans came, how likely will the chances of a large mestizo population be?
 
Why would merging Aragon and Castile make a difference? Can't Spain simply tear down the immigration barriers?

Because thinking of Spain as a centralized kingdom in the early modern period isn't an accurate picture of how it functioned. Spain was a union of crowns, and basically Castile had the dibs on the Americas. There was also the mentality of the period. They weren't interested in sending farmers over. They were interested in reaching Asia, loot, and estates to pay the conquistadors who would do the conquering. They were simple resource extracting enterprises. Why send over famies when you have indigenous and African slaves that can be made to do it cheaper?

Even when Britain first set out to establish colonies, they were ment as outposts to reach Asia. The problem was the greater portion of North America was ALOT wider than Mexico, so in desperation to turn a profit they set up plantations and dumped social undesirables there. The eventual settler colonies was an unexpected side benefit.
 
If enough people come could the Spanish settle as far north as South Carolina?

It is possible, but I would expect the Viceroy of New Spain (Mexico) to prioritize the Gulf coast before moving up the Southeast Atlantic Coast. And while settlement decisions were more centralized in Spanish America than they were for British North America, I cannot imagine many people clamoring to move into a wet, humid climate without gold, silver or even many Indians to exploit. With more settlers, I would expect New Spain to more heavily settle Texas, which as well suited to the Spanish settlement model, but with very hostile locals. More Spanish setters would be better able to defend themselves, and subdue the locals, something that was not really accomplished until the US Army arrived in the 19th century IOTL.

While the Atlantic Coast is closer to Spain than it was to Great Britain, keep in mind that the vast majority of Spanish commerce and naval activity took place in the "Spanish Main." Settlers were most likely to disembark at Havana, and from there travel to Cartagena, Puerto Bello or Vera Cruz. Outside of war, there was relatively little direct shipping between peninsular Spain and Florida. Then again the intra-American trade in Spain's Empire was quite limited; I remember reading in a high school course book that the state of Massachusetts had more local merchant marine tonnage than the Viceroyalty of New Grenada in 1800.
 
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How would native Americans be affected? This is what stumps me. If settlers start pouring in (and no, it won't be as troublesome as you think when 90% of the natives got struck down with disease) how can the native population not go near to extinction as in the U.S.? Can native Americans still retain an adequate minority kind of like OTL demographics? Will the Latin American culture be changed by all of this? Can the settlers and natives intermingle with each other instead of the natives being expelled?
 
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