Hispano-Draka: A Racist, Imperialist Mega-Mexico

In the "Draka-Related Musings" thread, Thande came up with what he believed would be a more realistic Draka than Stirling's.

He described how Spanish America was governed for centuries according to the principle of racial purity (he used the term "limpieza del sangre" but a more accurate description of the Spanish racial system is "casta").

So how might we get something resembling the Draka in Spanish America?

In OTL, I think the Spanish racial system was much more flexible than the evil racist nastiness of the "Black Legend." I remember some racial theories at the time describing how an Indian could theoretically become a Spanaird in three generations through the right combination of intermarriage.

However, I was reading about the encomienda system and how it involved essentially taking the natives somewhere else and deliberately destroying their land so they could never return to it. That could be adapted to slave-trading, particularly if new encomiendas are set up to rebuild destroyed lands for use by other enslaved Indians or Africans.

There's also the matter of our Hispano-Draka being expansionist to the same degree the Draka of Stirling's world are. The only ideas I've got involve Catholicism and the Treaty of Tordesillas (the Spanish rule all of North America except for Brazil by divine right) and ostensibly protecting the Indians from the allegedly genocidal Anglos coming in from the east.

So here are the thoughts I've got. It's getting late, so I'll be brief:

1. Instead of Citizens, we have hidalgos. They don't pay taxes, but do owe military service.

2. The encomienda system turns into full-blown slave trading.

3. Imperialism, initially based on Catholicism, but turned into a more secularized equivalent of the Manifest Destiny. The Draka in the books justified expansion beyond Africa by pointing out how the entire world now hated and feared them--perhaps the Hispano-Draka become convinced the entire world is out to destroy their social order and they need to strike first?

A POD would also be nice. The Spanish monarchy re-establishing itself in Mexico after fleeing Spain for some reason (Napoleon is a bit too late, IMO) might be a good idea, as it would bolster and whiten the ruling class in Spanish America (which included a lot of Indian nobles).
 
In the "Draka-Related Musings" thread, Thande came up with what he believed would be a more realistic Draka than Stirling's.

He described how Spanish America was governed for centuries according to the principle of racial purity (he used the term "limpieza del sangre" but a more accurate description of the Spanish racial system is "casta").

So how might we get something resembling the Draka in Spanish America?

In OTL, I think the Spanish racial system was much more flexible than the evil racist nastiness of the "Black Legend." I remember some racial theories at the time describing how an Indian could theoretically become a Spanaird in three generations through the right combination of intermarriage.

Yes. People usually descrive the Spanish system as a "cast system". The term may be correct, because I've seen it written in Spanish as "sistema de castas". But it is completely different from the Indian cast system. In that system, IIRC, unions between members of different cast are strongly discouraged: their kids are "downgraded" to the lowest possible status, and become untouchable.

In the Spanish system, on the contrary, these unions are (advertidely or inadvertidly) encouraged, as the kid of a Spanish man and an Indian woman has a better social status than his mother (mestizo). If this kid marries a Spaniard and has a son, his son would be a "castizo". If he in turn marries a Spanish girl and has a son, his kid would be considered a pure-blood Spaniard.

Also, one must bare in mind that formal marriages between different casts, though socially discouraged (by members of the higher casts) where never formally forbidden. There were numerous mixed marriages. The famous writer "Inca" Garcilazo was the son of an Incan Princess and a Spanish conqueror.

That could be adapted to slave-trading, particularly if new encomiendas are set up to rebuild destroyed lands for use by other enslaved Indians or Africans.

Spain was the only nation who forbidd its citizens to get involved in slave-trafficking. They did, however, buy black slaves from the Portuguese. And the way they treated indian was in practice a form of forced labour.
 
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The spanish casta society wasn't evenc comparable to the Drakas, but you know already seem to be aware of that, so I won't pout (regarcing the turning spanish in three generations -instead of enslavement an genicide, the long-term purpose over the centuries of the Dracos could be tio make the indians spanish...)

But PODs (since getting the Spanish, or any other european Crown to move permanmently to the Americas is rather absurd, we need to have a specatuclar POD or force it)

Isabel was an usurper. The rigthful queen was her niece Juana, who lost the civil war after her fatehr died. She died in Portugal in 1530 -Mexico was conquered in 1519. Isabella herself dies in 1504, and her husband in 1516. That leaves us a window of about 12 years for a second civil war, than could force Joanna the mad to flee west (you would need a reasonf of why she didnt' flee to the Netherlands where her husband had ruled) Note then New Spain would not own Spain itself, so ou laready have a resason for the dirs generations of expansionism (recover the homeland)

Another POD is the war of Spanish sucession than ended the Hapsburg rule (1701-1714). Honestly, I think than unels you use a radical POD the two centuries between Spanish was too powerful for any other exile POD.
 
Given the War of Spanish Succession involved dividing up Spanish holdings in various ways (IIRC), perhaps they allow (potential) union of crowns between Spain and France on the grounds that the other claimant gets Spanish America?

A united Franco-Spain doesn't seem so bad if it doesn't sit at the end of a river of gold and silver anymore.

Hispanifying North America and ultimately the world as an expansionist ideology? I do recall the "La Raza" ideology started out as a contrast with racial-purity ideologies like Nazism--the idea was that blending would produce the superior race--but that doesn't mesh well with "casta." If the creole elite started getting master race ideas, that might work though.
 
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