States with aborted colonization projects

miguelrj

Iori said:
IOTL Tuscany sponsored an expedtion to found a colony in what's not French Guiana to further explore the region and export Brazilian wood back to Italy, the only reason it did'nt go through is that in the time between the expedition setting out and returning the Grand Duke had died and the new one had no interest in the project.
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Pieces of information like the above are fascinating. Please dump here other colonization projects that were aborted (or failed or were really short-lived) by states that otherwise never really had a colonial empire.

A few wiki articles to get this started:

 

twovultures

Donor
Do non-state actors count? I recall that there was an order of knights that tried to set up a colony in the Caribbean.
 
Julius Vogel

Julius Vogel

There was at least one attempt by Maori to settle the Auckland Islands from NZ after the Treaty of Waitangi, in 1842, then more attempts by British interests although not clear if that was via NZ or via the UK. Probably the latter, as NZ only gained the islands a bit later in the 1860s.
 

ChucK Y

The Marquis de Rays tried to establish a private empire in the South Pacific in 1880. He proclaimed himself Charles I, King of Nouvelle France. The governments of both France and Italy (where most of the colonists were recruited) condemned the scheme as a scam. The colonists were dumped in thick tropical rain forest on New Ireland, where over a hundred died before the rest fled. James Michener devoted a chapter to the story in "Rascals in Paradise", speculating that the colony could have been a success with a better choice of location.
 

Kellan Sullivan

What about France's 18th cent (post 7YW) geographical interest in Australia and Oceania? Maybe that could be turned into colonies (Australia included) as a way of making up for the loss of French Canada and India?

Likewise, if Napoleons conquests of Egypt and Syria had been more permanent, we might see France and Russia playing the Great Game if Marianne were to expand deeper into Asia.

A third option was the HRE. There was a vested Imperial interest in trade abroad in the 18th century – as evidenced by Holy Roman Emperor Karl VI’s founding of the Ostend Company in Antwerp. In 1788, the Imperial Chancery wanted to organize more natural history expeditions – this time to Malabar, the Coromandel Coast, the Persian Gulf, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Bengal, Ceylon, Cochin China, Tongking, Japan, and China. Explorer Nicolas Baudin also sent the second captain of his ship, La Jardiniere I on to the western coast of North America for a fur-trading expedition.
Likewise, when Maria Leopoldina was sent to Brazil to marry D. Pedro IV & I of Portugal and Brazil, she took many natural historians, botanists and the like in her train.
Maybe Imperial colonies could emerge if conquest came BEFORE scientific interest?
 

RPW@Cy

Some others -

The Welsh colony in Patagonia (still exists)

The Kingdom of Hawaii tried to annex Tonga at one point.

The French still own Kerguelen and maintain a scientific base there, but the attempt to actually establish a settlement colony there only lasted a few years in the early 20th century.
 

Cryptic

- Imperial Japan made a semi serious attempt to colonize parts of Siberia during the Russian civil war. At their height, they had 20,000 civilian colonists in Siberia protected by troops and para military units.

- CSA remnants from the USA attempted to establish a series of settlements in northeren Mexico. Though the settlements quickly failed and / or were wiped out, a more extensive, yet technically unofficial colonization attempt could have been launched had they been successful.

- French protestants operating with English support- or "support" tried to establish a colony in Florida. The attempt was a disaster due to a combination of bad luck (storms), poor coordination / planning and a tactically skilled Spanish commander who tuned out to be a religious zealot and went on a "no prisoners" (at least no protestant prisoners) rampage.
 
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oshron

oshron

Cryptic said:
CSA remnants from the USA attempted to establish a series of settlements in northeren Mexico. Though the settlements quickly failed and / or were wiped out, a more extensive, yet technically unofficial colonization attempt could have been launched had they been successful.
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and Brazil, too. well, sorta
 

eliphas8

French America could have been far larger than it was, the deep south and Gulf coast could have been good candidates for colonization had the French put more effort into their mainland colonies.
 

Razgriz 2K9

Banned
In a letter written in 1601, Ahmad al-Mansur, the Sultan of Morocco (and for those Civ fans, the representative for the Moroccan Civilization in the upcoming Civ 5 expansion), did say that he had ambitions to colonize the New World, if that counts.
 

Cryptic

- Israel established a series of civilian settlements in the Sinai. For a while, Israeli colonization seemed assured. Not only was the Sinai needed militarily, but the local Bedouins were for varying motivations, pro Israeli.
 
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