An american colonial empire

If the us lets say after the civil war or the civil war never happens and the us decides to colonize Africa Asia Oceania and parts of central and South America how would they treat theese territories in the later years of the 19th century
 
The OTL United States was rather occupied colonizing the American West at the time, and when that was done, they got into the colonization game to an extent anyway, with Hawaii and Spanish possessions. But lets say things break just right, and a few different, more "imperialist" people get into positions of power in the USA. America getting a chunk of northern Borneo and other nearby areas is not completely implausible. The USA, with various possible PODs, could also end up in possession of eastern Siberia. I suppose America could get involved in the scramble for Africa as well.

The question is whether the USA tries to integrate these areas into the United States, as states. As America (and the world), under these circumstances will be significantly different than OTL, I am not sure. My guess is that those areas with comparatively small and/or fragmented native populations, after decades of sustained American immigration and administration, would eventually be integrated as States, while those with dense populations and/or a strong sense of identity would eventually gain independence.
 
If the us lets say after the civil war or the civil war never happens and the us decides to colonize Africa Asia Oceania and parts of central and South America how would they treat theese territories in the later years of the 19th century

The Americans did establish a colonial empire in Oceania IOTL, good ol' Hawai'i as well as American Samoa. Basically in that region you can just think of more of the same, really.

Everything the Americans could get in Central America would probably get a treatment similar to Puerto Rico IOTL: continued territorial status but with some level of "native" involvement.

Africa is a wild card but generally I'd say that the US wouldn't be directly involved in Africa, if OTL trends (even before the Civil War) are anything to go by. Establishing friendly governments in interesting regions and strengthening Liberia seem like America's ideal mode of operations there.
 
The easiest thing to do is have the US keep Liberia and North Borneo.

After the Civil War, Liberia would expand and the US would look west on the North American continent. Hawaii would be just as important as OTL, plus a little extra as it would serve as a connection to the US’ Indonesian holdings.
 
It depends on the pre-conquest condition of the colony. Colonies with long experience of European rule would have been more difficult to rule... 'virginal' colonies would be much easier.

In the politically-developed, ex-Spanish Philippines, the US had to promise liberation and self-governance. The same happened when the Japanese came to South East Asia - they needed to treat the already-colonised natives as allies, not as inferior sub-humans as they had treated the Chinese and Koreans.

In the more primitive, relatively untouched Pacific islands, America had greater freedom to act as a colonial empire.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
The US didn't really have any elite interest in

The US didn't really have any elite interest in expansion outside of the Western Hemisphere (and, indeed, outside of North America) for much of the Nineteenth Century, however.

Building the nation itself, and then the confrontation over slavery, really defined the most significant interests of the US for more than a century; the territories purchased or annexed from Lousiana in 1803 to the Gadsden Purchase in the 1850s were not very densely populated and so were open to "American" settlement; the same held true for Alaska, which, along with Hawaii and Panama are, essentially, the corners of a defensive triangle seen as sheilding the Pacific Coast. Hawaii, of course, although fairly densely populated, was dominated by Protestant whites, and even the native Hawaiian population had been largely evangelized by Protestants by the time US elites seriously began considering annexation. The eccentricities of Nineteenth Century racism are tangled, but they are there...:(

Obviously, the basic questions of absorbing large and generally non-protestant populations were enough to dissuade any major annexations of heavily populated territories in Mexico or the Caribbean in the Nineteenth Century, as well, especially since economic domination was presumably always going to be cheaper than legal annexation; the liklihood of any interest in populated territories in the eastern hemisphere was just about nil.

Liberia, after all, was set up as a freedmen's colony; essentially, as a place to send a population elites in the US did not want to remain. Annexation doesn't tie in with institutional racism, basically...

For good or for ill, Guam and Samoa amounted to coaling stations; Puerto Rico an afterthought to Cuba and potential defensive bastion at the east end of the Greater Antilles; and the Philippines is the one real exception that proves the rule, notably because (however sincere or not) the stated goal in the PI was eventual independence. The fact that the PI was never a territory (in the sense of a legal status on the path to statehood) makes that pretty clear...

The one place I could see the US staking a claim outside of the Western Hemisphere in the "imperial" era they really did not, paradoxically, is Antarctica, although that would be a Twentieth Century development.

Best,
 
The easiest thing to do is have the US keep Liberia and North Borneo.

After the Civil War, Liberia would expand and the US would look west on the North American continent. Hawaii would be just as important as OTL, plus a little extra as it would serve as a connection to the US’ Indonesian holdings.

North Borneo? There was the Sumatra Expeditions yes but that wasn't in Borneo nor did we annex anything, the Dutch did.
 

Driftless

Donor
(snip)
The one place I could see the US staking a claim outside of the Western Hemisphere in the "imperial" era they really did not, paradoxically, is Antarctica, although that would be a Twentieth Century development.

Best,

Why the interest in Antarctica and when might that have been triggered?
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Of the major "arctic/antarctic" powers, the only one to

Why the interest in Antarctica and when might that have been triggered?


Of the major "arctic/antarctic" powers, the only one to never formally stake a claim is the US; if you look at a map of Antarctica and the current conflicting and overlapping claims, you will see a large slice of "unclaimed" territory that is, essentially, the US "slice" if the powers ever divvy up the continent.

Basically, the US held off making a claim to get the Antarctic Treaty adopted, but if the early years of the Twentieth were more competitive, and someone really needs the US to have a lasting and significant territorial claim outside of the Western Hemisphere, Antarctica is about the only arena for it to happen in something resembling history --- without some major changes, otherwise.

The PI always had too many people and was never going to be annexed.

Best,
 
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