What if the British were to conquer the Aztec empire instead of the Spanish? What would would be the butterfly effects?
British instead of Spanish conquer aztecs
- Thread starter joeyanonymous
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raharris1973
Gone Fishin'
The Plantation and Dominion of Mayhicko. It's population is stratified racially, with Indians generally at the bottom, mixed race Halflings in the middle and purebred Englishmen at the top. But there's some exceptions. Among the upper-class families are some very old founding families with some Halfling blood with some Aztec or other native royalty or aristocracy, and among some of the middle classes are some purebred Englishmen of dissenting Protestant sects who migrated from the beginning as family groups, not as single young men. For the most part, this last category didn't establish themselves the Central Valley of Mayhicko, having come later. Rather they established themselves in the north in the Grand River Valley of New Mayhicko and on the foggy west coast.
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Paladín Wulfen
Kicked
The English would have it difficult at first given the autochthonous diseases and the scarce amount of labor. The prosperity of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico came mainly because Hernan Cortes and other Conquistadors treated the Mexica as a respectable people: The Mexica took them to their capital which facilitated the conquest itself. On the other hand, the English in 1520, did not have the experience in tropical climate or even the military training, since many Conquistadors were veterans of the Tercios who sailed to America to make their fortune.
I strongly doubt that the English of 1520, trying to intermarry with the Aztecs, compare the treatment they made with the Natives of the north. Apart from the fact that the English themselves would try to make an ethnic working class that is a mix between Indians and Africans because the Spaniards themselves imported Africans as they were more resistant to physical labor.
Obviously any English conquest of Mexico would happened after they colonized some of the Caribbean first.
The British did not treat natives worse than the Spanish did, the difference between North American and Mesoamerican demographics were large and there was proportionally a larger amount of European settlers in British colonies and less of a gender imbalance.
Short answer: Possible Generalplan Ost-lite in Mexico, but flying English flags instead of swastikas.
Long answer: Antebellum South, but bigger.
It is almost certain that the English would very quickly piss off potential allies in the form of local people fed up with the Aztecs. We could even see that the different inhabitants of Mexico really forget their differences to end the "white devils", especially since they would be blamed for the arrival of the plagues.
This can end in two ways: either the English are kicked back into the sea after a series of bloody battles, or they prevail based on unhealthy brutality and the fact that the pests are doing all the work of killing the natives for them. .
Of course, there would not be the slightest attempt at mestizaje, since that would be considered a "degradation of the superior Anglo-Saxon Protestant race"; instead, we would probably get the mass importation of Africans (to replace indigenous people dying of disease and at the hands of the British).
This Mexico would probably be the focus of attraction for all the Protestant sects that in Europe were considered too crazy, since they wanted to bring the "Good News" of evangelism to the Mexicans. So we would have a rigid racial structure in which a very small and very select elite of whites descended from the early settlers rule tyrannically over a mass of "not so white" (probably Scottish and Irish) and a mixture of remnants of the indigenous peoples and African slaves.
All of them treated like crap, of course, since "it's God's will, my Bible says so. And if you don't agree, you can discuss it with those nice guys with blazing guns behind me."
Long answer: Antebellum South, but bigger.
It is almost certain that the English would very quickly piss off potential allies in the form of local people fed up with the Aztecs. We could even see that the different inhabitants of Mexico really forget their differences to end the "white devils", especially since they would be blamed for the arrival of the plagues.
This can end in two ways: either the English are kicked back into the sea after a series of bloody battles, or they prevail based on unhealthy brutality and the fact that the pests are doing all the work of killing the natives for them. .
Of course, there would not be the slightest attempt at mestizaje, since that would be considered a "degradation of the superior Anglo-Saxon Protestant race"; instead, we would probably get the mass importation of Africans (to replace indigenous people dying of disease and at the hands of the British).
This Mexico would probably be the focus of attraction for all the Protestant sects that in Europe were considered too crazy, since they wanted to bring the "Good News" of evangelism to the Mexicans. So we would have a rigid racial structure in which a very small and very select elite of whites descended from the early settlers rule tyrannically over a mass of "not so white" (probably Scottish and Irish) and a mixture of remnants of the indigenous peoples and African slaves.
All of them treated like crap, of course, since "it's God's will, my Bible says so. And if you don't agree, you can discuss it with those nice guys with blazing guns behind me."
All of the above points are based on similar historical events.
The English infuriating the natives: It is not only their specialty, it is that even the Spanish made that mistake in the conquest of Mexico. There is no reason that the English are more delicate.
Cortes was very lucky that this fury did not erupt before he managed to reach Tenochtitlan. But when it happened, the Spanish had no choice but to flee as fast as they could. The survivors of the Noche Triste were the ones who ran the fastest (and dropped the gold so they could run faster). It is very likely that the English will end up in the same or very similar situation.
The mistreatment of the natives: Based on the performance of the English when it was their turn to colonize, their assumption was that the natives were "too stupid to be civilized", so they should be expelled to "make room" for good colonists english Likewise, if the natives are considered too dumb to be integrated, they are assumed to be unworthy to mix with the English colonists.
Importation of African slaves: Do I need to explain this? Virtually every European power that colonized America did this. Even the unlikely ones like Courland, Denmark and the Order of Malta. Yes, the English would do it, just as OTL did them, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the French, etc.
The English infuriating the natives: It is not only their specialty, it is that even the Spanish made that mistake in the conquest of Mexico. There is no reason that the English are more delicate.
Cortes was very lucky that this fury did not erupt before he managed to reach Tenochtitlan. But when it happened, the Spanish had no choice but to flee as fast as they could. The survivors of the Noche Triste were the ones who ran the fastest (and dropped the gold so they could run faster). It is very likely that the English will end up in the same or very similar situation.
The mistreatment of the natives: Based on the performance of the English when it was their turn to colonize, their assumption was that the natives were "too stupid to be civilized", so they should be expelled to "make room" for good colonists english Likewise, if the natives are considered too dumb to be integrated, they are assumed to be unworthy to mix with the English colonists.
Importation of African slaves: Do I need to explain this? Virtually every European power that colonized America did this. Even the unlikely ones like Courland, Denmark and the Order of Malta. Yes, the English would do it, just as OTL did them, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the French, etc.
Paladín Wulfen
Kicked
Allow me to disagree for several reasons.
1. There were a greater number of European settlers in the colonies mainly because to populate the colonies themselves, criminals were sent, as happened in Australia, which was a penal colony from the beginning. Between the late 1610s and the American Revolution, the British shipped an estimated 50,000 to 120,000 convicts to their American colonies.
2. The Spanish Conquerors were mostly single men who took the opportunity to marry natives, but the English always went with their families, so there was not so much mestizo.
3. And here comes the icing on the cake: "The British did not treat natives worse than the Spanish did" FORGIVE BUT NO. The English showed little control with the natives, breaking territorial treaties, giving away blankets full of lice that transmitted smallpox (Siege of Fort Pitt 1763) and executing captured enemy Native American warriors (orders of Jeffery Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst). The English even encouraged slavery among the Indians to the point of selling blacks to the Indians themselves.
The Spaniards applied tactics used during the Reconquest of Spain that at no time included the use of biological warfare or the breaking of treaties, even before each confrontation the Palacios Rubios Requirement was read, a Spanish text, written by the jurist Juan López de Palacios Rubios in 1512 in the context of the Laws of Burgos that demand their submission to the Spanish kings and their envoys (the conquerors). This demand to the natives was argued in the text by appealing to divine right, which according to Catholic beliefs, had become official with the delivery of the American lands to the Spanish monarchy by the papacy. Consequently, the indigenous people received the order to recognize their authority and remain as their free, Christian subjects. Any refusal or any delay in accepting these demands would lead to immediate war (Just War).
This text allowed the Indians to take all the time necessary to think, but its climax dictated that if they did not accept the possession of the Indian women by the Spanish, they would be threatened with war and slavery.
And as you note, I would like to make it clear that I have a copy of the Letters of Hernan Cortes to the Crown during the Conquest.
They're based on similar historical events, but (a) generally ignoring the actual context that led to these events, and (b) all applied in an unrealistically concentrated way, as if the English picked up the evil and idiot balls.
That really depends on English strategy leading up to that point. Cortes went straight to the Aztec capital and basically launched a coup d'état; if the English commander were to pursue a slower but securer strategy of conquering Aztec provinces one by one, they wouldn't find themselves in the situation Cortes' forces found themselves in, i.e., with their main army isolated and besieged hundreds of miles inland.
That's because North America was sparsely-populated and didn't have many readily-exploitable natural resources, making settler colonialism the most profitable way to run things. Where these conditions didn't hold -- e.g., in India or most of Africa -- the English showed little inclination to expel the natives.
Criminals were a minority of settlers and likely not the most successful ones.
Yes, that ties in to the amount of people that migrated.
Using the blanket anecdote as proof of existence of general biological warfare is non-sense and you are essentially spreading a myth, in the accounts there is not even a mention of the plan being successfully carried out, it was only a theoretical plan.
The Spanish engaged in forced labor and committed countless massacres as well, early on they also engaged in native slavery and continued to use African slavery until the mid 19th century. There is literally no reason to say that the English were worse if you are not extremely biased, which you clearly are.
Of course, all the people under encomiendas and repartimientos were totally free, it's not nominally slavery at least, right?
Your usage of nominal treaties betrays your double standards, you use the existence of treaties between English settlers and natives as a way to argue that the English betrayed those treaties while you conveniently and intentionally ignore all the treaties that the Spanish skirted around or at least you seem only care about the surface level and not whether the spirit of the treaties were respected, so people being worked to death in mines is just "taxation by labor" or something like that and the people are still free and also able to rebel.
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Paladín Wulfen
Kicked
In fact, he was invited to the capital and from there, he managed to get Montezuma to declare himself a vassal of King Carlos I, what happened is that the people did not like it and rose in rebellion. Hernan then sought out those who had been abused by the Aztecs and their allies and turned them against him after training them.
America was highly populated but the problem is that the plagues and the lack of an immune system caused disaster. That is why colonialism and slavery came out better. And about the slavery. Most nations did, even African slaves were more valued because of their physical strength and high tolerance for disease.
This sort of racism didn't become mainstream in Europe for another 150 years or so. As of the 1520s, the closest to modern racist ideas was arguably the Spanish (!) limpieza de sangre. Whilst the English would undoubtedly consider the natives to be barbaric savages, this would be due to their cultural and religious differences, not due to any notions of racial superiority.
Also, Henry VIII didn't start severing England's connection with the Papacy until 1529, and Protestantism didn't become the majority religion of England until well into Elizabeth I's reign. So if we're assuming that this English conquest happens in anything like the same timeframe as the OTL Spanish conquest, Protestantism wouldn't form an important, or any, part of the conqueror's self-conception.
Also also, the term "Anglo-Saxon" would have been only in use by historians during this period. Its use wasn't revived until after the American Revolution, when people needed a new term for all those of English descent regardless of which country they were citizens of.
On the Alternate History Travel Guides of yesteryear online AH (site by @Jonathan Edelstein), there's actually a neat little story by Raymond Speer about such a world where Anglo-Aztec relations somehow managed to be peaceful and not even colonial:
Like most AHTG worlds, it's meant to be more evocative and exciting than plausible, but it's a colorful little vision. And not really all that peaceful, come to think of it.
Like most AHTG worlds, it's meant to be more evocative and exciting than plausible, but it's a colorful little vision. And not really all that peaceful, come to think of it.
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raharris1973
Gone Fishin'
I don't know that we can guarantee that a century earlier than the foundation of New England (1620). Even in OTL, England's early Virginia colony and Caribbean colony skewed male. English fishermen had reconnoitered the Atlantic coast of North America for decades before any colonization attempts began. The initial discoveries and exploitations of the early 1500s are likely to be men only.
I agree with this. Although importing people from Africa might take a few years longer to get started because the English don't have as direct access at first as the Portuguese and Castillians. These would be the other Halflings.
Spain isn't tropical either.
I don’t disagree that Britain ruling Mexico would resemble in many ways antebellum south, but them as inherently genocidal seems like a stretch, and an inversion of the black legend myth.
English colonists and their American descendent were involved with ethnic cleansing and genocide for sure, but they were up against non urbanised often nomadic tribes who’s population was very small in comparison with mesoamericans who were sedentary and lived in organised states. White supremacy was not a firmly established idea at this time and England was not even Protestant in 1520 so I wouldn’t think this would play a role. Most likely the English will set up some form of serfdom or encomienda which allows nobles to extract labour from the natives, but it’s unlikely that a country interested in extracting gold and silver would chose to annihilate the population that is already mining it and spend money and resources to replace them when they could just co opt the local power structures that were extracting those minerals beforehand.
Mestizaje would most likely occur regardless because to conquer this region youd send armies and not many female colonists, you can deny that English people did such things but just look at India, there were mostly soldiers and traders there during the first few hundred years and as a result there are over a million Indians today who are part british.
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I agree with the rest, but many of the Native American ethnic groups of the eastern seaboard were, in fact, settled agriculturalists, like the Powhatan, the Muscogee, the Cherokee, and the Haudenosaunee. Settled agriculturalists who were, in fact, killed off and driven out of their traditional lands into reservations. Repeatedly.
That’s my bad I should have specified that they were not a more densely urbanised sedentary population that could resist pandemics the way mesoamericans and andeans could, its wrong to call eastern seaboard as entirely nomadic, I’ve edited it
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A lot of english colonial tactics were inspired by the spanish reconquista
England didn’t colonise Scotland it was a union due to Scotland’s failure at creating their own colonies, Ireland and Wales were direct colonisation