Could nearly an entire continent ever be split up and colonized even temporarily? Would it ever break free?
Maybe if Terra Australis hadn't been discovered by the Javanese, Ternateans, Makassans, Madagasques, and Polynesians in ancient times?I don't know, colonizing an entire continent requires a lot of power projection, and I'm not sure any country would really be able to do it. Unless you broke it down into tiny tiny colonies, like every island in the Carib Sea small. And then how would the interior be controlled by a power across an ocean?
I don't think that they would break off. I doubt that if it was colonized with settlers the people would ever feel removed enough from their motherland to warrant breaking away, even with the massive time it took to cross the oceans.