British Rio de la Plata - colony or protectorate?

yofie

Banned
If the British had had their way in the invasions of Buenos Aires in the early 1800s, would the Rio de la Plata have become a British colony like Canada or Australia, or a British protectorate along the lines of the Ionian Islands or something of that nature? I know that the answer to this depended on the foreign policy of the British prime minister at the time, the Duke of Portland.
 
Well it wouldn't become a settler colony, considering there was already a sizable Spanish population present. So I guess it'd be something along the line of a protectorate, but most likely with high autonomy and a strong urge for independence in the decades to come. Besides, I don't think the British ever really meant to directly control the Rio de Plata, just to establish economic dominance over it, as they did in the 1830s by pushing for the independence of Uruguay.
 
In that, should the River Plate become a British colony, it would've attracted enough British immigrants to at least serve as a counter to the Hispanophone population.

Why? The main industry is meatpacking, which doesn't require so much labor to create a job vacuum. The Argentinean/Uruguayan population there was already relatively high and there wasn't a huge amount of un-used land on the Rio de Plata itself.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Why? The main industry is meatpacking, which doesn't require so much labor to create a job vacuum. The Argentinean/Uruguayan population there was already relatively high and there wasn't a huge amount of un-used land on the Rio de Plata itself.

IOTL, Argentina has received a very large amount of Italian and Spanish immigration after the PoD.
 
IOTL, Argentina has received a very large amount of Italian and Spanish immigration after the PoD.

It did, but there was never a point in the 19th century when there was a large influx of British immigrants into any country. The pull to any country was never big enough, and beyond typical industrial problems, neither was the push. In Italy and Eastern Europe there was more than enough push and pull.
 
Why? The main industry is meatpacking, which doesn't require so much labor to create a job vacuum. The Argentinean/Uruguayan population there was already relatively high and there wasn't a huge amount of un-used land on the Rio de Plata itself.



True, meatpacking doesn't requires a lot of workers. But agriculture does, and, inevitably, at some point the British would try tu use these lands for growing wheat, as Argentina did in the late 1870s. And that's when immigrants woulkd be needed, and in great numbers (specially since the local gauchos weren't particularly willing to work in the fields growing and harvesting crops).

Also, the lands were occupied, but much of the pampas, Chaco and Patagonia were only occupied by Nomad Indians, who wouldn't have been considered "owners" of the land in those days.

This said, I understand your point: these lands weren't as empty as, let's say, OTL settler colonies as Australia or Canada. Thruthly, those weren't empty either, but were sparsely populated by huntergatherers whose culture was very different from European one. Argentina had much more people (between 500,000 and 700,000 according to the source), who spoke and European language, and who practised a religion practised in Europe.

In no realistic scenario you can avoid these people from having a distinctive impact in the culture of the country, even if hundreds of immigrants do come.
 
True, meatpacking doesn't requires a lot of workers. But agriculture does, and, inevitably, at some point the British would try tu use these lands for growing wheat, as Argentina did in the late 1870s. And that's when immigrants woulkd be needed, and in great numbers (specially since the local gauchos weren't particularly willing to work in the fields growing and harvesting crops).

Also, the lands were occupied, but much of the pampas, Chaco and Patagonia were only occupied by Nomad Indians, who wouldn't have been considered "owners" of the land in those days.

This said, I understand your point: these lands weren't as empty as, let's say, OTL settler colonies as Australia or Canada. Thruthly, those weren't empty either, but were sparsely populated by huntergatherers whose culture was very different from European one. Argentina had much more people (between 500,000 and 700,000 according to the source), who spoke and European language, and who practised a religion practised in Europe.

In no realistic scenario you can avoid these people from having a distinctive impact in the culture of the country, even if hundreds of immigrants do come.

Yes, a population boom began in the 1860s and 70s, mostly fueled by European immigrants, but I doubt that the British would hold onto what would no doubt be a very rebellious colony for that long, especially when there's no clear incentive to do so until the late 19th century.
 
Yes, a population boom began in the 1860s and 70s, mostly fueled by European immigrants, but I doubt that the British would hold onto what would no doubt be a very rebellious colony for that long, especially when there's no clear incentive to do so until the late 19th century.

I agree. Especially since they'd have a lot of trouble in conquering it in the first place
 
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I agree. Spacially since they'd have a lot of trouble in conquering it in the first place

That's the problem with these "Make Argentina Anglo and Great!" scenarios, the Brits had no reason to incorporate the area, never intended too, and profited enough by simply having a monopoly on many industries once the Rio de la Plata became a lucrative economic zone.
 

yofie

Banned
This said, I understand your point: these lands weren't as empty as, let's say, OTL settler colonies as Australia or Canada. Thruthly, those weren't empty either, but were sparsely populated by huntergatherers whose culture was very different from European one. Argentina had much more people (between 500,000 and 700,000 according to the source), who spoke and European language, and who practised a religion practised in Europe.

Within present-day Quebec province, don't forget that by the time of the British conquest in 1759, there were already close to 90,000 people (almost all of whom were French-speaking Catholics); the Cape Colony in South Africa had about 75,000 people at the time of the British conquest there in the 1790s/1800s. The Pampa area had roughly the same number of people in the early 1800s; true, northwestern Argentina had more people then. It's Australia that was truly empty then save for the indigenous people.
 
Within present-day Quebec province, don't forget that by the time of the British conquest in 1759, there were already close to 90,000 people (almost all of whom were French-speaking Catholics); the Cape Colony in South Africa had about 75,000 people at the time of the British conquest there in the 1790s/1800s. The Pampa area had roughly the same number of people in the early 1800s; true, northwestern Argentina had more people then. It's Australia that was truly empty then save for the indigenous people.

But Canada had the advantage of closeby settler colonies, and a mass exodus of the Francophones shortly after the British conquest. Similar story in the Cape Colony.
 

Eurofed

Banned
But Canada had the advantage of closeby settler colonies, and a mass exodus of the Francophones shortly after the British conquest. Similar story in the Cape Colony.

The Francophone exodus was hardly relevant. Canada had 55,000 people before the British conquest in 1754, 70,000 in 1765 after it, and 113,000 in 1784, with only 10,000 being accountable for immigration of British Loyalists.
 
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