Trying my hand once again at a colonization project (the Dark Ages and the more conventional alt-Lusocolonial TL are buried in glacial ice).
Unlike my other abortive attempts, I'm not going to try and establish a chronology or dither on supplementary materials. It will have an unestablished POD, and I will only reveal outside details when absolutely necessary. It will also jump around between time periods, in part because many of these updates are intensely local.
The title refers to the European "creation" of the world -- their unification of the peoples of Earth, their goods and their markets, under one proto-capitalist aegis. The Columbian Exchange and the discovery of Asia laid the foundation stones for the economic order of today, and the wealth sent back to Europe helped form the Western political norms that, for now, continue to mold and shape much of the world as well.
The twist here is that I want to reverse, deconstruct and otherwise examine the ways each nation attempted colonization during the Age of Discovery, and also subvert the way locals interacted with Europe and each other during the time period. In fact, I plan on ending the project right before the Industrial Revolution ITTL, both to give me structure and to bookend this examination of the Age of Discovery.
Colonization plays and played a great deal in how European nations are perceived, even today. The Netherlands and France don't seem to be defined very much by their 18th century (colonial) exploits, at least in the Anglosphere -- a sphere which exists in part because of England's proclivity towards cold or temperate settler colonies.
The big two, in terms of long-term perceptions being defined by this time period, are Spain and Portugal. I want to examine the leyenda negra, and avoid or otherwise muck with it. Even as Britain pulls a permanent Karma Houdini for the British Empire, Spain continues to be tarred with the destruction of Mesoamerica.
That everyone forgets the godawful horror of the Caribbean (sugar plantations: an abattoir in paradise) is left unsaid.
Portugal, on the other hand, mainly defines itself as Lusotropical, in part because the work of Brasilian writer Gilberto Freyre. Freyre's magnum opus, Casa-Grande e Senzala (Masters and Slaves) wove a narrative of Portuguese miscegenation, first with Brasilian natives and then with African slaves via the prism of the large, essentially polygamous families of the sugar plantations. This miscegenation narrative was originally and still is a work of Brasilian national identity -- but it was also used by Antonio de Oliveira Salazar as a way to shore up Portuguese domination of Africa.
I would also be remiss to forget their general national pride in exploration -- from the Lusiads on down, Portugal's international identity, atrophied as it is in the Anglophone imagination, has been very much based in their oceanic exploits.
This TL will have vignettes, straight alt-history dumps, and alternate academic writing. There will also be OOC/meta posts -- about the OTL inspiration for whatever events are taking place, or the way that I am tweaking OTL, or the ways in which OTL and TTL are the same, or the reasons (I) think certain countries acted certain ways abroad.
Thank you for your patience, and enjoy!
Unlike my other abortive attempts, I'm not going to try and establish a chronology or dither on supplementary materials. It will have an unestablished POD, and I will only reveal outside details when absolutely necessary. It will also jump around between time periods, in part because many of these updates are intensely local.
The title refers to the European "creation" of the world -- their unification of the peoples of Earth, their goods and their markets, under one proto-capitalist aegis. The Columbian Exchange and the discovery of Asia laid the foundation stones for the economic order of today, and the wealth sent back to Europe helped form the Western political norms that, for now, continue to mold and shape much of the world as well.
The twist here is that I want to reverse, deconstruct and otherwise examine the ways each nation attempted colonization during the Age of Discovery, and also subvert the way locals interacted with Europe and each other during the time period. In fact, I plan on ending the project right before the Industrial Revolution ITTL, both to give me structure and to bookend this examination of the Age of Discovery.
Colonization plays and played a great deal in how European nations are perceived, even today. The Netherlands and France don't seem to be defined very much by their 18th century (colonial) exploits, at least in the Anglosphere -- a sphere which exists in part because of England's proclivity towards cold or temperate settler colonies.
The big two, in terms of long-term perceptions being defined by this time period, are Spain and Portugal. I want to examine the leyenda negra, and avoid or otherwise muck with it. Even as Britain pulls a permanent Karma Houdini for the British Empire, Spain continues to be tarred with the destruction of Mesoamerica.
That everyone forgets the godawful horror of the Caribbean (sugar plantations: an abattoir in paradise) is left unsaid.
Portugal, on the other hand, mainly defines itself as Lusotropical, in part because the work of Brasilian writer Gilberto Freyre. Freyre's magnum opus, Casa-Grande e Senzala (Masters and Slaves) wove a narrative of Portuguese miscegenation, first with Brasilian natives and then with African slaves via the prism of the large, essentially polygamous families of the sugar plantations. This miscegenation narrative was originally and still is a work of Brasilian national identity -- but it was also used by Antonio de Oliveira Salazar as a way to shore up Portuguese domination of Africa.
I would also be remiss to forget their general national pride in exploration -- from the Lusiads on down, Portugal's international identity, atrophied as it is in the Anglophone imagination, has been very much based in their oceanic exploits.
This TL will have vignettes, straight alt-history dumps, and alternate academic writing. There will also be OOC/meta posts -- about the OTL inspiration for whatever events are taking place, or the way that I am tweaking OTL, or the ways in which OTL and TTL are the same, or the reasons (I) think certain countries acted certain ways abroad.
Thank you for your patience, and enjoy!
Last edited: