Could Spain have created a "Commonwealth" similar to Britain with their colonies?

Given any POD in the 18th or 19th century, can Spain retain partial control of its colonies by proposing a commonwealth-like union with Spain as the nominal head, rather than trying to stamp the various rebellions out completely? Could a Spanish Commonwealth survive into the 20th century if it were formed? Or is the Empire doomed to disintegrate through a combination of internal rebellion and the actions of other nations?
 
Search for the Count of Aranda's Plan if you haven't.

I suggested once Charles III's wife living longer and convincing him to go with it, after giving birth to a couple more sons, as a POD.
 
It is very hard. Who do the Spanish devolve administration to? The British had a mature system of mass representative government at home, which they could repeat in the dominions. The Spanish had a more autocratic system. If they farmed that out to the colonies, you either put the Peninsulares in power, which does not placate anyone, or a small criollo elite, who will be seen as selling out their people to win favour with the Spanish court. You could have the liberals come in and set up a more British like democratic system in the colonies, but Spain was so conservative they are bound to lose power for at least a small time period, and then colonies would likely go their own way.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
The Commonwealth was only made possible by British systems of land tenure and a stronger system of representative democracy. Spain doesn't have that, so I'd have to say no.
 
Does the commonwealth need to be democratic?

You need pretty strong loyalist parties across Hispanic America around the time of OTL independences.
 
Imperial Planning 101:

Send a scion of the royal family and a sizeable clique of noble houses to infiltrate and subdivide a new segment of empire along the model of European provinces.
 
Its possible, but any such "commonwealth" would have to be seen as being in the interest of both Spanish and American elites.
Simon Bolivar was rich white man educated in Europe. With that in mind, I think that if Criollos, and some of more affluent mestizos were made equal with Peninsulars, and granted some system of representation (with suffrage limited by wealth and race), it would placate local elites. Poorer mestizos would remain in the middle, and rest at the bottom.
So, Criollos would be running the show, but will keep Peninsular viceroy with limited power. They must pay some tariffs to Madrid, but at least they can count on Spanish reinforcements to crush any potential mestizo/amerindian uprisings, and for Spanish armada to help fight pirates.
 
british commonwealths are basically "you run the show, while allowing us to pretend to be your ruler". Does anyone honestly believe Canada or Australia aren't independent countries?

Britain had the good fortune of finding that losing colonies (the US) was actually better business than keeping them, because British colonies were trade partners rather than extraction industries. the mercantile system was bad for Britain, because of costs of occupation, while they were the world's leaders in lower cost goods. Spain, on the other hand, had a colony system based on extraction, because the mother country wasn't all that industrialized, which is what it would take for there to be a good trade economy. Thus, Spain was less likely to prosper by stepping back and letting the colonies be free.

It also helped that Britain was basically a republic, nominally allowing a king or queen to claim sovereignty, while Spain was a monarchy constantly trying to retain absolutism. Both had really shitty royals, but Spain, outside Carlos III, was especially shitty. Britain had the advantage of a parliament to actually run the show, and at the right moments, they allowed colonies to go free with the pretense of still being colonies.

Britain saved face, and expenses by allowing the colonies to attain virtual independence, but still held fantastic trade relations, because Britain was the world's industrial leader. Spain allowing colonies to go virtually independent simply meant turning them over to British sphere of influence.

IF, and it's a really big IF, because Spanish royals were notoriously incompetent simpletons (and circa 1800 no royal would want to go to the americas), they had set up royal blood in the americas, it's possible they could have set up a commonwealth system nominally allied to the mother country, but realistically, those royal commonwealths would quickly realize better trade arrangements lie with Britain, or France. Still, it would have been better than OTL for both sides.
 
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