Demographics of modern Mexico without losing North to US

Let’s say Mexico does much better because the US does much worse.

The US fails to resolve North West borders with Britain resulting in a war nobody really wants, which ends in a five year defeat for the US from 1845-1850. This costs America Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. Britain also forces the US to give Mexico its Nuevo territory claims out of spite. Mexico looks like this, keeping the green and blue.

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The US is war weary and indebted, and avoids fighting for the next two decades.

In 1868, an anti-slavery President is elected and triggers a Civil War, which to Mexico’s benefit is a five year war of attrition that results in Southern Independence.

The South is too tired to fight and paranoid of Northern attacks and consequently isn’t a huge threat for a while. Around the mid 1890s the Confederacy makes a move for Cuba that results in a loss to Spain. The Confederacy feels it’s government is now discredited and the country becomes a pariah due to slavery. They go through massive social upheaval that leaves them weak until the 1920s.

This buys Mexico enough time to settle the North enough to make it unattractive to the US and Confederacy. So Mexico keeps the above borders to the present.



So, what would Mexico look like today, demographically? Even with massive emigration and loss of half their country, it has over 120 million people today. Can Mexico approach 200 million here with the extra living space?

How many European settlers will move there, and with presumably some restrictions on American immigration, who will be allowed to move there? Will there be restrictions on Protestants or Canadians?

OTL Mexico is more European Ancestry in the North.

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Will this trend continue further North given the low native population, with the area mostly being a combination of Mestizo’s from Southern Mexico’s core and Europeans?

Will the Natives get it as bad as they often did in OTL Mexico?

Will establishing Spanish be an issue in the North?
 
If Mexico doesn't lose the North to the US (or Yankee squatters) then it's going to lose the North to the locals. The Californios and Nuevomexicanos were secession-minded OTL and the Californios straight up kicked out one Mexico City appointed Governor and seized control at one point.
 
If Mexico doesn't lose the North to the US (or Yankee squatters) then it's going to lose the North to the locals. The Californios and Nuevomexicanos were secession-minded OTL and the Californios straight up kicked out one Mexico City appointed Governor and seized control at one point.

It's debatable whether the Californios, the Nuevomexicanos and the Tejanos would have remained loyal if Santa Anna never seized power. What do you think?
 
Most likely the north would develop on the pattern of neo-Europes elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere, with immigrants from Europe (and European offshoots) coming to predominate over Indigenous populations. The south of Brazil might not be a terrible model.

The big issue is that there would be huge differences between the north and south of Mexico, the latter being very different in culture and background and quite possibly richer, too. Keeping such a diverse country together would be a work of statecraft, indeed.
 
Let’s say Mexico does much better because the US does much worse.

So, what would Mexico look like today, demographically? Even with massive emigration and loss of half their country, it has over 120 million people today. Can Mexico approach 200 million here with the extra living space?

I don't think Mexicans emigrate because they lack living space. Mexico's OTL population density is quite low overall. They just find better economic opportunities in the US. That probably is still going to be the case TTL, although perhaps some of them immigrate to *Canada instead?
 
For Mexico to win the war against the US in such manner, it HAS to be better than OTL by a significant margin, especially on leaders and political stability (and no Santa Anna either).

So this Mexico would attract a great deal of Catholic inmigrants, and then construct the necessary railroads and Navy to integrate the Northern territories with the South. It would be a multicultural but wouldn't really lack national cohesion or unity. Californian indepententists would be crushed at first by the victorious Mexican army, and then drowned by Catholic inmigrants during the Gold Rush and by Asians later.
 
Maybe they let a lot of good Irish Catholic families settle it and loose it later to them. Britain then might grab California, it's full of 'our' colonist.
 
Maybe they let a lot of good Irish Catholic families settle it and loose it later to them. Britain then might grab California, it's full of 'our' colonist.

Those Irish Catholics who probably fled because of the British? I think not. They'd still opt for alignment with the US even if it's in no state to incorporate them. An Irish Gaelic speaking state would be truly something! I also think Germans will have a go at claiming Texas.
 
Those Irish Catholics who probably fled because of the British? I think not. They'd still opt for alignment with the US even if it's in no state to incorporate them. An Irish Gaelic speaking state would be truly something! I also think Germans will have a go at claiming Texas.
Or Italians, considering that they're Catholic and speak a fellow Romance language. The climatic and geographic similarities between Italy and California would be quite attractive to Italian émigrés.
 
I don't think Mexicans emigrate because they lack living space. Mexico's OTL population density is quite low overall. They just find better economic opportunities in the US. That probably is still going to be the case TTL, although perhaps some of them immigrate to *Canada instead?

There's a difference between low population density and low population density in the inhabitable areas.

Mexico is one of the most mountainous countries on earth. If you flattened the place, you'd have more surface area than all of Asia.
 

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Itd look a lot like Southern Brazil with most immigrants coming in from Europe rather than the Mexican heartland (at least until debt peonage is reduced and rails are built). Additionally, expect more Asians coming in as Id doubt there would be laws to curb migration from Asia (at the cost of more laws to promote assimilation; historically Mexico at one point forced Chinese migrants to marry locals for example). As well, in this scenario expect a few hundred thousand freedmen and their descendents flocking west for freedom, land, and not living in the hellscape of the Confederacy. Potentially also Americans who'd be attracted by stability, land, and wages.

You actually would probably see a substantial amount of Protestant migration into Mexico Id wager. Plenty of the Liberals in Mexico tended to lean anti clerical, and at some would love to have bring in a population with less loyalty to the church. With that, should the right liberal administration come along a wave of Germans and Englishmen could be possible.

I have no doubt these populations would be assimilated. Mexico is absurdly good at assimilating immigrant groups.

To answer your other questions, the potential population could be as high as perhaps 200, 300, even 400 million if the demographic transition stays in stage 2-3 long enough alongside open borders.
 
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/adppab/simulated_satellite_image_of_california_circa/

Found this on Reddit earlier today. If the Italians had settled California I'd like to think it would stay like in the greener image. Mediterranean cultures tend to do a better job of working in balance with their environment.

An Italian State with Hispanic and Irish Catholic minorities sounds cool to me! I do think though that they won't get the whole of Alta California, just the California Basin. Even if US state authority doesn't expend west, settlers will. By the 1840's you've got Mormons turning up in Utah who might want to forge a large State of Deseret for themselves. Britain might help itself to the PNW uniting Cascadia (under New Albion quite possibly) and like I said Texas could still be a thing but remain independent with an Anglo-German admixture predominant.

I've been toying with the idea that if the Trail of Tears occurs, the Five Tribes in Oklahoma while the chaos of the Civil War is under way, might of their own accord decide to migrate away from US control to the region around Oregon founding a native hybrid state. Maybe it will incorporate into New Albion in time or form it's own nation, perhaps merging with Cascadia later. Also Russia ultimately either holds Alaska or sells/gifts it to Britain (by 1918) who will merge it with her other possessions, New Albion most likely. It would provide a Russian minority to whichever nation it is a part. Hawaii is a protectorate of the British, later independent.

Canada, the USA and Texas/CSA extend to the Great Divide and no further. New Albion/Oregon (English, Native, Russian, Oriental culture), California (Italian, Spanish, Irish), Deseret (English Mormon) occupy to the west.
 
There's a difference between low population density and low population density in the inhabitable areas.

Mexico is one of the most mountainous countries on earth. If you flattened the place, you'd have more surface area than all of Asia.

I don't see any reason to believe that Mexico's population growth is limited by its land. Mexico's population has grown by almost 10-fold since 1900.
 
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