Spanish court in exile in the New World
- Thread starter Strategos' Risk
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For those that actually take their time to learn about João VI he is well regarded, sadly there are many myths about him and many people believe those. Worse, many people that should know better, like teachers, still believe in those myths, or if they don't believe still spread them as truth. For example there is a myth that he was a gluton that ate everyday three chickens in the breakfast and saved what he wasn't able to eat in his pocket for later, the last part doesn't even make any sense, but many people still unironically believe it.
Yeah, US around new world era is not beating Spanish empire...they will likely be in a tenuous peace
@VVD0D95 and I were just discussing an interesting point: if the Spanish court is in the New World around this time, does New Spain send delegates to the Cadiz Cortez like OTL?
unprincipled peter
Donor
Butterflies mean one can't simply apply OTL to TTL.
The Cortes claimed to be the true acting sovereign as a regency for a captive Bourbon Crown, and looking to run the Empire in that role. Here, the Bourbon Crown is intact, but ruling from a colonial base.
Any Cortes called will either have to act under the auspices of the Bourbons, or reject their authority, in effect overthrowing them. I don't think they can do both at once. For any semblance of traditional legitimacy, they have to bow to the Bourbons. However, the Crown may be seen as abandoning Spain. I'm not sure if there was much republican sentiment at the time, but throwing off any monarchy is the alternative to accepting the Bourbons from afar. In the case of continued monarchy, the Bourbons will send a representative to RUN the Cortes. If the Cortes rejects their authority, the Bourbons will reject the Cortes.
Of interest here is the action of Britain. Britain may have to back the Cortes if the Cortes is key to winning the Peninsular War. They may force the hand of the Bourbons. Britain, being Master of the oceans, can interfere with the ability of the Crown to run a colonial empire, if the Crown doesn't compromise with the Cortes. Britain can also force the hand of the Cortes, because this situation is ripe for Britain to break the colonial sphere from Spain, either attached to New Spain, or severed in independence.
It will be hard for the Cortes to gain the sympathy of Great Britain, they are going to lack legiticamy, they will look too much revolutionary, and Britain will probably content themselves with opening the Latin American markets to their trade, like they did with Brazil. It is also easier to influence a single desperate person (the king) than tens to hundreds of deputies, most of which will be representing merchant classes that are more interested in maintaining the colonial pact.
Speaking of Carlota, would this still exist because I'm still amazed that there was a movement to randomly give an infanta/queen consort most of South America south of Brazil.
en.wikipedia.org
I guess if the entire Spanish court makes it to the New World then there would be no demand for this position, huh.
Carlotism - Wikipedia
I guess if the entire Spanish court makes it to the New World then there would be no demand for this position, huh.
unprincipled peter
Donor
She would lose any semblance of legitimacy.Speaking of Carlota, would this still exist because I'm still amazed that there was a movement to randomly give an infanta/queen consort most of South America south of Brazil.
Carlotism - Wikipedia
I guess if the entire Spanish court makes it to the New World then there would be no demand for this position, huh.
There wasn't really a movement for this. She made a lot of claims, but had very limited support. She was an absolutist, while most of Argentina leaned constitutionalist figurehead monarchy, if they leaned monarchist at all.
unprincipled peter
Donor
has absolute monarchy gone away in this TTL? We don't know that a Cortes has been called, or instituted a liberal constitution.
Without the destruction of the Crown/gov't, or uncertainty of whether there is a gov't, there is very limited independence movement.
Another problem for Carlota was her husband, because he wanted an "annexation" of Argentina by Brazil instead of a temporary "royal union" (if Carlota proclaimed that the throne of Argentina would be inherited by a 2nd son or daughter it would be better received).
Carlota's claim to the possible throne was (rightly) perceived as a possible Brazilian annexation of Argentina. The Emperors of Brazil were not subtle with their wishes.
I also remember that the British interfered (in favor) in the agreement between Argentina and Carlota, but British diplomacy played against the Spanish Infanta.
unprincipled peter
Donor
My understanding is that Joao discouraged the attempt. He wanted, and got, Uruguay. He also desired, but did not push for, Entre Rios/Corrientes/Missiones. Later on, when there were thoughts of putting Carlotta's cousin (? without looking it up again, I believe it was the orphaned son of Gabriel, brother of Carlos IV, who was living with the Braganzas) on a theoretical throne of Argentina, Joao counseled him against pursuing it.
However, there were fears on both sides that union with Brazil was the goal.
Not really? Sure that was what some Cortes definitely said and that was how the early revolutionaries definitely wanted to be perceived but in reality the wars were born out of the want for change in the empire, socially but far more importantly than socially.
And the whole "Staunch Loyalty" is very very questionable, they took control under the pretext of not wanting a Bonaparte, but they never really gave a fuck about the monarchy or even gave much to help the war in Spain, and in a lot of places the intent was to take control of the colony through the Cortes and then leverage that power so they could get the reforms they wanted, and even then in places like Argentina there was most definitely an independentist streak, also the bigger issue why the revolutionaries were never going to be given the reforms they wanted was because that was against what the Spanish Empire was, The Spanish Empire was at its core an institution made to give money and resources to the aggrandization of the Spanish monarchy and its ability to project power through Europe, the reforms the revolutionaries wanted couldn't be achieved because there never was a monarch that was willing to give that up so the empire was made one that gave the benefits to more people (ie: elites) and the other problem is that the social reforms where incompatible with the beliefs of Spanish Society, if the Criollos could get administrative capabilities then that opened the gates to other people like Mestizos, Pardos and more to not only get more power but be educated, which was contrary to how the Empire was set up, which it was set up to educated just the right amount of people for there to be a bureaucracy capable enough to extract wealth.
The big problem that a lot of conversations about the Spanish Empire have is that people usually believe that it's problems were just economical and that Criollos couldn't get power, and that misses that the problem is entirely how the whole thing is set up and how it was made only for short term profit.
So yeah the Bourbons are kinda fucked by 1808 unless Ferdinand hits his head and just becomes and incredible monarch or Carlos/Francisco de Paula manage to be incredible administrators/politicians who manage to give up power in favour of elites and reform the entire society without it just eventually ending in rebellion just later on.
Wasn't upper Peru and parts of Mexico/New Granada basically "monarchist central" though. Mean, Mexico wanted a personal union with Spain first AFAIK, then they wanted a Spanish infante and finally they were willing to take some descendant of a Spanish king (the duke of Teschen; Maximilian of Austria; the prince of Salerno) as a monarch. Ecuador and Peru tried to enthrone Queen Isabel II's half-brother in the 1840s. Dominica asked to be taken back into the empire. None of this sounds like a "questionable" monarchical sentiment. Rather, it sounds like there was certainly a large enough minority who held those sentiments
That's very debatable, the often claimed to be highly monarchist upper Perú had at many points rebellions and was prone to a lot of political instability which translated directly to it not being able to send troops to put down the rebellions up north and barely being able to send help to the royalists in Peru, so it was monarchist in that it didn't rebel completely but there definetly was enough monarchist sentiment as to defeat these rebellions, it also should be noted many isn't rebel due to the memory of the fate of Tupac Ahmaru II being relatively recent.
Some parts of the New Granada and Venezuela didn't rebel, although that didn't mean those people were completely loyal, rather many parts still wanted to adhere to the plan of "keep the power to bargain for reform" which eventually did evolve to a loyalty to the empire, but only after years upon years of war and at the end those same people were scarce, there were some parts that were royalist, like Santa Marta and the Pasto region, but both of these places had been noted even before the wars of independence as incredibly royalist and this was seen as a rather strange thing.
The Mexican government at some point did want that, but this lacks the context as to why they wanted to have a monarch, this proposals came at a time of incredible amounts of instability and division, and also with the belief that a monarchy would validate the country in the eyes of Europe, actual legitimate monarchist sentiment was not at all something that was incredibly prevalent and it was usually a step towards a greater goal, a figure head to rally the nation behind or someone that could heal the divisions of the country, a monarchy was never the end goal because the country was loyalist.
The same goes for Ecuador and Peru, both were in incredibly tenuous positions,Peru had
just gotten out of the incredibly bloody dissolution of the confederation with Bolivia and in Ecuador Flores believed that could be the way he could retain power indefinitely, with a king/queen which would be his puppet and would boost his popularity.
So while there was a good chunk of royalist population there wasn't enough concentrated or even in general for them to be enough so Spain could retain its empire, unless it was in small bits and pieces or a place like Pasto there really want a big royalist sentiment.