Peasant colonization scheme of Las Casas succeeding

When he arrived in Spain his former protector, regent and Cardinal Ximenez Cisneros was ill, and had tired of Las Casas tenacity - Las Casas resolved to meet instead with the young King Charles V. Ximenez died on November 8 and the young King arrived in Valladolid on November 25 of 1517. Las Casas managed to secure the support of the King's Flemish courtiers including the powerful Chancellor Jean de la Sauvage. Las Casas influence turned the favor of the court against Secretary Conchillos and Bishop Fonseca, whereas Sauvage spoke highly of Las Casas to the King, who appointed Las Casas and Sauvage to write a new plan for reforming the governmental system of the Indies.[33]
Las Casas suggested a plan where the encomienda was abolished, Indians were congregated into self-governing townships to become tribute-paying vassals of the King. He still suggested that the loss of Indian labor for the colonists could be replaced by allowing importation of African slaves. Another important part of the plan was to introduce a new kind of sustainable colonisation, and Las Casas advocated supporting the migration of Spanish peasants to the Indies where they would introduce small scale farming and agriculture, a kind of colonisation that didn't rely on resource depletion and Indian labor. Las Casas worked to recruit a large number of peasants who would want to travel to the Islands where they would be given lands to farm and cash advances and the tools and resources they needed to establish themselves there. The recruitment drive was difficult and during it the power relation shifted at court when Chancellor Sauvage unexpectedly died. In the end a much smaller number of peasant families were sent with insufficient provisions and no support secured for their arrival: those who survived the journey were ill received and had to work hard to even survive in the hostile colonies. Las Casas was devastated by the tragic result of his peasant migration scheme, which he felt had been thwarted by his enemies. He decided instead to undertake a personal venture which would not rely on the support of others, and fought instead to win a land grant on the American

mainland which was in its earliest stage of colonisation.[34]




Basically las Casas wanted to stop the use of Indians as slave and instead encourage the migration of Spanish peasants to the colonies and work in small plots of land? Sorry but I have been waiting to ask this.
 
Depending on their style of colonization and if they decide to live in closed communities, expect to see something on the scale of demographics in Argentina or in Brazil with larger Hispanic-European populations. Notably a number of these populations, such as in Mexico, left when the Mulatto and Indian based revolutions of the 1800s kind of kicked them out.
 
Depending on their style of colonization and if they decide to live in closed communities, expect to see something on the scale of demographics in Argentina or in Brazil with larger Hispanic-European populations. Notably a number of these populations, such as in Mexico, left when the Mulatto and Indian based revolutions of the 1800s kind of kicked them out.

You would probably see a lot more Africans coming in. The Indians would left alone for the most part (except paying tribute), I would say that would be slightly better from them. We might see more Mulattos than Mestizos.
 
Sounds good, and his intentions where the best, but the question is, where would these peasants settle??? In Mesoamerica and in the Andes, the bests lands were already cultivated by Amerindians. So, wouldn't this lead to a competition for the land between Spanish and Indians (something that didn't happened IOTL, cause the Indians stayed in their lands -as de facto serfs, of course-, until the XIX century)?

They might rather settle in "empty" lands, such as the Pampas or Northern Mexico. But this won't be very good for the local nomad hunter-gatherers. This schems sounds similar to the North American one, which didn't end very good for the Indians either, even if they didn't employ them as serfs.
 
Admiral Brown, that's a good question and I'm glad you asked it. Las Casas tried to get this plan accepted as the norm for all future Spanish colonies but the minister who he was friendly with passed away, ruining his dreams. He tried implementing his plan with a small colony in Venezuela but that ended up failing.

I think given that if this is implemented and everything goes more or less OTL, Mexico and Peru become the targets for Spanish immigration. The area was becoming depopulated due to the epidemics wiping out the Indians so available land is not an issue. Another part of the plan was replacing the Indians with Africans so you might see more Mulattos than Mestizos than in OTL.
 
This would more then likely still lead to the massacres and destruction of Indian groups, I could see a situation evolving much like the pattern of settlement and destruction within the United States.
 
This would more then likely still lead to the massacres and destruction of Indian groups, I could see a situation evolving much like the pattern of settlement and destruction within the United States.

Yeah, you'll be right. Still I wanted to bring this up because I find it to be interesting to see how the demographics of Latin America would end up being like (strangely enough it would fuck over the natives more so than OTL).
 
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