Best Way to Maximize Spanish Settlement in the New World

As the tin says, what is the best way to maximize Spanish settlement in the New World? In OTL, while they did have an expansive Empire, I don't think they did too much to treat their colonies as settler colonies unlike the English and Portuguese. Is there a way to remedy this?
 
One idea would be to have the Spanish cling stubbornly to the idea that there's an El Dorado in North America hidden somewhere on the continent and have a particularly determined king spend lavish funds on expeditions as well as military forts to keep opposing Europeans out. This could lead to the earlier decimation of North American tribes in more temperate regions as well as resulting in a series of towns in the style of the original Spanish conquests, likely along the Mississippi River being established by the Spanish, resulting in a sizable Spanish settlements in the American South and California by 1750.

As always, go with the Better, Stronger Spain playbook:

1) No European entanglements /Hapsburgs
2) Dynastic unification with Portugal, let Portugal wear the pants, colony-wise
3) Wreck England politically so as to stop their colonial aspirations
4) Burn every French colony to the ground, they'll eventually give up for a decade. And when they think to try again burn them down again
5) Keep the Dutch fat and happy by never ceasing trade with them
6) Settle temperate regions first
 
Spain was overextended both in Europe and the New World. But maybe a combination of better economic policies and an explicit focus on the New World instead of Europe would make the New World much more viable. Specifically the entire Mexican Cession area if they could just find the gold and silver. Since the local Indians are too few in number, they'd need to mainly bring in people from home.

But that would require a whole shift in mindset for Spain, I think. They'd need to send many, many more soldiers over, too, so they can crush the Comanche, Apache, Navajo, and others who made New Mexico and Tejas fail as colonies. Of course, that would require both military force, luck, and good Indian policy of balancing off the competing Indian tribes. Same with interior Argentina, the other area Spanish colonisation had difficulty penetrating until the 19th century.

You'd almost need for the entire purpose of Spain's foreign policy in Europe to be defending and expanding their New World empire against both other European powers as well as New World natives. And that might be a difficult sell.
 
Send over more minor Spanish nobility .... perhaps their fourth sons with grants of fertile land. Allow Spanish nobles to enslave the locals and turn the colonies into agricultural exporters.
 

trurle

Banned
Later importation of Yellow Fever and Malaria to Americas will help a lot. Even better is the establishment of the endemic Yellow Fever and Malaria in at least some Spanish cities well before Columbus travel in 1492. This mean less failed colonies and more freedom in colonies placement due Spanish acquired immunity to the diseases.
 
Is it true that immigration was also limited to people from Castille? Maybe opening up the colonies to people from the Crown of Aragon would help as well
 
Is it true that immigration was also limited to people from Castille? Maybe opening up the colonies to people from the Crown of Aragon would help as well
Mostly Andalusians, Extremadurans, Galicians and Basques, so yeah, mostly from the Crown of Castile
 
Is it true that immigration was also limited to people from Castille?

No, but after Philip II gave the monopoly to Seville you could only go to the Americas if you showed up in Seville and filled the paperwork. This took time and was obviously easier for people living around Seville than others.

Preventing the Habsburg inheritance altogether or the Dutch wars will free a lot of people. That bankrupted Castile of men as much or more than gold (other countries of the Spanish monarchy practically did not contribute until Olivares' reforms in the 1630s/40s).
 
One idea would be to have the Spanish cling stubbornly to the idea that there's an El Dorado in North America hidden somewhere on the continent and have a particularly determined king spend lavish funds on expeditions as well as military forts to keep opposing Europeans out. This could lead to the earlier decimation of North American tribes in more temperate regions as well as resulting in a series of towns in the style of the original Spanish conquests, likely along the Mississippi River being established by the Spanish, resulting in a sizable Spanish settlements in the American South and California by 1750.

As always, go with the Better, Stronger Spain playbook:

1) No European entanglements /Hapsburgs
2) Dynastic unification with Portugal, let Portugal wear the pants, colony-wise
3) Wreck England politically so as to stop their colonial aspirations
4) Burn every French colony to the ground, they'll eventually give up for a decade. And when they think to try again burn them down again
5) Keep the Dutch fat and happy by never ceasing trade with them
6) Settle temperate regions first

A Dynastic Union with Portugal and no Charles V in Spain would butterfly the colonization of the OTL Philippines, we would have Johaninhas in Eastern and Middle Indonesia.
 
they had a huge area to settle, and for the most part, they took over and controlled the regions quite nicely. they didn't lose control til the Napoleon wars destroyed the mother country. in the colonial era, they lost half of Brazil to encroachment, but geographically, that was more a Portuguese brazil region.

Where they went wrong was treating the entire empire as an extraction/exploitation economy, abusing the 2nd generation immigrants to favor Iberian born, and not investing in the colonies.

the entire empire was a settler colony. means to get there, and something to do once you got there, that's the crux of the problem. But even still, Spain had zero problem getting rid of excess population.
 
It wasn't settlement only, but Spaniards did settle there. However, the nature of these colonies tended towards pure resource extraction in the sugar and mineral regions -- creating stratified classes.

Portugal did much the same -- they did not have dedicated settler colonies either, instead sending out degredados to Africa. Where they differed was less due to their style and more due to the unique conditions of Brasil that allowed for bandeirantes and a sophisticated, very large sugar complex. To echo points above, they got a lot of settlers once Minas Gerais struck gold. Overall, Portugal sent out ridiculous amounts of people relative to its size, esp. expelled "marranos", but they didn't found settler colonies in the manner that we'd associate with the English. Even Nieuw Nederland had the patroons, and New France had the seigneurs -- showing that even in non-tropical climates, that feudal relationship could and would be replicated.

Furthermore, these colonies were largely in tropical climates. Whites would come and die faster than they could replace themselves overall, which, combined with social norms and large native populations, largely lent itself to the creation of mestizo peoples rather than the perpetuation of old Spaniards in a New World.

Finally, unlike pre-Union Portugal, Spain had a number of Euro-Mediterranean entanglements, from North Africa to Italy to the Netherlands. Royal attention and funds were drawn elsewhere constantly.
 
Top