DBWI: Spanish Mexique

[AltoRegnant]

Otl, a french ship seeking to trade with early spanish colonies in the caribbean (and maybe claim an island for the captain, Henry Caron, sources vary) blew off course, and landed in the rich lands of mesoamerica. Seeing all the gold laden cities as the Aztecs gave them refuge for a short time while they recovered gave them delightfully awful ideas. They'd return to France ASAP with a few stolen knick-knacks. This was enough to convince Henry II to send a small expedition to build a small colony. However disease and guns made the campaign wildly successful, and the Mexica valley was proclaimed as the Viceroyalty of Mexique, after the natives. From Mexique, france was able to expand into california and from their sail to the Islesvalois*, named for Henry II's dynasty. Similarly, Mexique was used to protect the Florida colony in it's infancy as it expanded into the southeastern american coast.

But if we look at the geography, in any other world, Spain/Castile would likely be the one to discover and conquer mexique due to the caribbean being their playground at the time. Mexique allowed France to be a major player in the Americas, but Spain already was otl, could this launch the Spanish Empire to true greatness?

ooc: Islesvalois are the philippines, and Florida, despite being more successful than otl, doesn't quite reach virginia, with its border being somewhere in North Carolina of OTL.

 

[CastilloVerde]

Conquering Mexique would help the Spanish Empire as it would allow the Spanish access to those gold mines in Zacatecques and access to the trade routes of the orient via the Pacific. It was highly unlikely anyway that the French were the ones who conquered and held Mexique considering that the Spanish were nearby in the Caribbean.

However, I don't know how exactly all that territory would be all that useful in the grand scheme to the Spanish Empire anyway, as Spain already controlled the aforementioned Caribbean along with Netherlands and much of Italy, and later even most of North Africa. After all, the Spanish Netherlands allowed Spain to not only dominate the North Sea trade, but also it was the Spanish Netherlanders who played a major role in holding key trade ports in India and the Spice Islands. Spain eventually became the leading colonial power in the Indian Ocean after the decline of Portugal. Holding Mexique may down the line negatively impact the trajectory of Spain by forcing to spend many resources in the New World, but who knows?

 

[AltoRegnant]

However, I don't know how exactly all that territory would be all that useful in the grand scheme to the Spanish Empire anyway, as Spain already controlled the aforementioned Caribbean along with Netherlands and much of Italy, and later even most of North Africa. After all, the Spanish Netherlands allowed Spain to not only dominate the North Sea trade, but also it was the Spanish Netherlanders who played a major role in holding key trade ports in India and the Spice Islands. Spain eventually became the leading colonial power in the Indian Ocean after the decline of Portugal. Holding Mexique may down the line negatively impact the trajectory of Spain by forcing to spend many resources in the New World, but who knows?

True, but I think a lot of it depends on administration and attitude towards the natives. Legally, France accepted and encouraged Catholics (and later calvinists in The Florida colonies) regardless of race, provided they weren't slaves. This was in large part because Frenchmen rarely actually went to the colonies, so to get much use out of them they had to be more tolerant than other colonizers. Of course in practice the whites and the biracial descendants of natives and whites had an unofficial stranglehold on the politics and economy of the colonies, but effort was there.

Whereas Spain usually just divied up land to give to the conquistadors to run as they saw fit. So... you know. Bad. Generally not good.

 

[Dolan]

True, but I think a lot of it depends on administration and attitude towards the natives. Legally, France accepted and encouraged Catholics (and later calvinists in The Florida colonies) regardless of race, provided they weren't slaves. This was in large part because Frenchmen rarely actually went to the colonies, so to get much use out of them they had to be more tolerant than other colonizers. Of course in practice the whites and the biracial descendants of natives and whites had an unofficial stranglehold on the politics and economy of the colonies, but effort was there.

King Charles IX eventually turned Mexique Viceroyalty into Grand Duchy of Mexique and grant the Grand Duchy to his bastard son Charles, that would be legitimized as the first Duke of Mexique, that started the trend of the counties and baronies there being gifted to bastard sons of Nobles (while their legitimate heir presumably inherited European holdings).

There are reasons why North American Nobility as a whole was called "The Bastards"