The Americas are lost to international politics

After seeing this EU4 mod (
) I had the following idea for a new timeline.

Perhaps we don't physically remove the Americas from the world in an ASB timeline. Instead how could we make it so that the major world powers are unable to extract any significant value from the Americas?

Currently my idea is for the colonies in the Americas to declare independence from their home nations, then for the resulting nations to collapse into smaller bickering nations. Due to a stalemate no nation can dominate either North or South America. Constant bickering and their small size means that each individual state would be insignificant in the international stage. Ships and later aircraft can still pass through the region but due to a strong isolationist streak nobody outside the Americas is adding any of the nations to their power block.
 
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How would people not be extracting value from the Americas? That doesn't seem possible. Any potential American nation has something which it can offer to a strong European power. Why else, then, did foreign powers like Britain expend so much effort in out of the way places like Uruguay and Argentina during the early 19th century? And that's before you factor in discoveries like Texas oil, Missouri lead, Chilean/Peruvian nitrates and copper, and Latin America's large volume of sugar and coffee production. There's just too much good stuff coming out of the Americas for European powers to ever not factor them into their equations.

Very, very few nations in the Americas could afford to go full Dr. Francia-era Paraguay, and those that did would probably be inviting an invasion from nearby powers stoked on by the Great Powers of Europe to open up their markets. And then consider also that states like Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia could easily be dominant in North America due to their economic strength and become regional powers which European states would have to deal with. They would hardly be insignificant on the world stage, since cities like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore would be gateways to the Americas. And in South America, even if you balkanise the hell out of the place, you still have important cities like Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Valparaiso, and Callao, where whichever power controls them will automatically be subject to European interest and stand a good chance at becoming a regional power (albeit not as automatic as in North America thanks to the stronger economies of the New England/Mid-Atlantic colonies).
 
As @metalinvader665 said, it seems difficult. However, your best bet would probably be to get a Qing China-style empire -- or two such empires, one in NA and one is SA -- dominating the most productive and valuable parts of the New World. If they try and keep European trade to a minimum, a la China or Japan, then the Europeans will be too weak to force concessions, and the amount of value they can get from trade will perforce be limited.
 
As @metalinvader665 said, it seems difficult. However, your best bet would probably be to get a Qing China-style empire -- or two such empires, one in NA and one is SA -- dominating the most productive and valuable parts of the New World. If they try and keep European trade to a minimum, a la China or Japan, then the Europeans will be too weak to force concessions, and the amount of value they can get from trade will perforce be limited.

Do you mean a literal Qing/Asian empire or instead something like "José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia becomes ruler of a Bolivar-united Latin America and rules it the same way he did Paraguay, and someone like him comes to power in North America and does exactly the same thing and BTW the British are gone from Canada".
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Best scenario for this result is indeed some really radical isolationist ideology/culture arising in the Americas, which literally seeks to isolate the Western hemisphere and prevent most or all contact with the outside world. It sounds pretty drastic, but it can conceivably be done. Of course, a largely isolationist USA is not beyond us at all, but that is not enough for this scenario.

What you may need is... a new religion. (What, we go from isolationism to religion? No, wait, hear me out.) Condider this: no-one expected a fellow from the minor province of Judea to ever inspire a religion that would, centuries later, sweep up the Roman Empire, then across Europe, and then be carried along with the Europeans to become the religion of what we call "the West". It sounds crazy. Now imagine such a figure from an American colony, arising at just the right time. Colonial America had its periods of unrest long before 1776 and the age of revolutions that swept across both North and South America. It also had its Great Revivals of religion from time to time. It attracted those unfit for European society, and those expelled by the authorities-- including religious radicals. A new mass religion popping up is not beyond the scope of all possibility.

One could conceive of a prophet arising, somewhere in the American colonies. One could conceive of his cult spreading from humble beginnings, growing during periods of unrest, gaining ever more converts and becoming tied to an emerging separate American identity. Once could imagine a much different war of colonial independence, with a strong ATL cultural-religious element. One could imagine this new religion (possibly just a radically different new Christian subdivision) being so intrinsically tied to independence, and so welcoming of all who seek independence, that even those in the catholic Spanish and Portuguese colonies become divided. Catholics are by definition loyal to Spain and Portugal, and those seeking independence are by definition... no longer catholic. They get absorbed into the new American faith, instead.

Well, that way, this different age of independence wars leads to a religious schism as well. After that, it becomes a fundamental tenet of the American religion and the relevant cultures that Europe is wicked: a fallen place, a Babylon. America closes itself off. The Americans want nothing to do with Europe: they resist attempts at trade, they don't accept immigrants. America becomes closed off from the world. Its religion and its culture(s) veer off into new directions, in complete isolation.

Take it from there.
 
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Do you mean a literal Qing/Asian empire or instead something like "José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia becomes ruler of a Bolivar-united Latin America and rules it the same way he did Paraguay, and someone like him comes to power in North America and does exactly the same thing and BTW the British are gone from Canada".

I was thinking more of an earlier/faster technological development in pre-Columbian America, so that by the time Columbus comes along there are one or more big empires with the desire and ability to restrict European interactions to a minimum. Obviously these wouldn't cover the whole of the New World, but they might cover the most economically interesting areas, leaving European trade and settlement confined to the more marginal areas of the continents.
 
Uh, the title implies America NEVER gets involved....it that the OP point? If so, it's ASB. Two continents not playing with the others? Ever? Not happening.

Was the point: The Americas never colonized by Europe, leading to a more 'native' populace rather than the Euro-centric one we've got now?
 
I was thinking more of an earlier/faster technological development in pre-Columbian America, so that by the time Columbus comes along there are one or more big empires with the desire and ability to restrict European interactions to a minimum. Obviously these wouldn't cover the whole of the New World, but they might cover the most economically interesting areas, leaving European trade and settlement confined to the more marginal areas of the continents.

Surviving Inca probably could've done that OTL, and to be fair, it's a pretty good idea for an Inca ruler to close his empire off to Europeans, even if he massively slows his empire's technological advancement down. Europeans might try and wedge into the Inca when they lose at least half of their population due to plagues, of course.

It's worth noting that the marginal areas of the Americas produced the United States. But I think you'd really need only one indigenous empire, and that empire closes itself to Europeans. Because if it has competitors, why wouldn't you trade with Europeans anything you could to get the technology and weapons to take down your rivals? It's basically European-Amerindian relations on a larger scale--the white man isn't an automatic enemy, since he gives you very nice trade goods that give you a leg up on your actual enemies.
 
I was thinking more of an earlier/faster technological development in pre-Columbian America, so that by the time Columbus comes along there are one or more big empires with the desire and ability to restrict European interactions to a minimum. Obviously these wouldn't cover the whole of the New World, but they might cover the most economically interesting areas, leaving European trade and settlement confined to the more marginal areas of the continents.

Allied to this If for some reason much earlier in history, perhaps an earlier (much)more extensive Viking presence in North America, European diseases are introduced significantly earlier and native nations have more time to recover before the main wave of attempted European settlement. This would enable strong native entities from the Iroquois to the Aztecs (assuming they survived the first wave of epidemics as strong states) to repel the settlement/conquest. These surviving native states would be deeply hostile to European Intervention and probably even trade.
 
Allied to this If for some reason much earlier in history, perhaps an earlier (much)more extensive Viking presence in North America, European diseases are introduced significantly earlier and native nations have more time to recover before the main wave of attempted European settlement. This would enable strong native entities from the Iroquois to the Aztecs (assuming they survived the first wave of epidemics as strong states) to repel the settlement/conquest. These surviving native states would be deeply hostile to European Intervention and probably even trade.
Why? For all they know, it was the other tribes which brought the disease. Which is true. You can hardly blame someon who had a cough before being torn apart by some hostile locals for the death by ten degrees down the line. Though for Vikings... Hmmm. Guess it depends if they raid coastal areas, seizing people as thralls, raping, spreading disease, etc. I imagine they would ally with a couple of tribes and trade with tohers. Hardly as if raiding and slaving was uncommon back then. We also have to think about domesticated animals, as that is where so many diseases start up. Though I admit I don't know if stuff like, say, cowpox pops up out of nowhere or if it needs some germs to get the ball rolling.
 
Why? For all they know, it was the other tribes which brought the disease. Which is true. You can hardly blame someon who had a cough before being torn apart by some hostile locals for the death by ten degrees down the line. Though for Vikings... Hmmm. Guess it depends if they raid coastal areas, seizing people as thralls, raping, spreading disease, etc. I imagine they would ally with a couple of tribes and trade with tohers. Hardly as if raiding and slaving was uncommon back then. We also have to think about domesticated animals, as that is where so many diseases start up. Though I admit I don't know if stuff like, say, cowpox pops up out of nowhere or if it needs some germs to get the ball rolling.
Well I was thinking the hostility would be caused by the INVASION not the diseases, and the earlier dissemination of infectious illness was more a way of allowing the Pre Columbian states to have recovered somewhat before fighting off Spain etc. Sorry if that was unclear.
 
@metalinvader665 , the colonization of the Americas and access to its resources significantly boosted the power of the European nations. This made it much easier for them to rise to a position of global dominance. What I meant by not extracting "significant value" was a situation where no external empire can easily use the Americas as a springboard for global domination as they did OTL. Perhaps the nations there (either Native American or colonists from elsewhere) would operate independently from external powers. I was envisioning a situation where there American Nations mainly buy only from each other. The nations would do their own processing and mainly finished products would be sold to nations outside the Americas.

Good point about it being hard for all the nations to be insignificant. Perhaps we can go with @Fabius Maximus said and have large isolationist power blocks cover the Americas. Large and powerful enough to resist interference from external powers but not inclined to contribute troops or resources to any external wars.

@Skallagrim , I like the idea of the religious revolution in the Americas. What might be the earliest we could get something like this? The earlier it happens the less powerful external empires might become off American resources.

@desmirelle , the Americas can be involved in external politics but it either is so small or lasts for such short periods that it doesn't boost the European empires to global dominance.

@sarahz , @Clandango and @metalinvader665 . Both the revolting European colonies and powerful American Indian nations sound like fascinating routes to take. Both might be worth a separate timeline :) If the nations decide to mainly trade among each other and sell mainly finished products outside how successful would these nations be?
 
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The problem with the religious revolution idea is that it´s likely to come rather later than sooner, only once the apocalyptic effects of EUropean colonisation have really sunk in and produced generations after generations of suffering. Like, in OTL, such movements happened towards the end of the 18th century. You could probably shift it a few decades earlier, but that`s still two-and-a-half centuries of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, English etc. value extraction from the Americas.

Since anything you could do to alter Native Americans is still going to be washed away in the tides of pandemics, you need to change 15th/16th century Europe in order to bring about a colonisation that extracts no significant value. More fractured polities in Europe, no centralising states arising, instead some mixture of failing feudal adventures and limited commercial contract with trading outposts etc.

The chances for that are not so bad. After all, this is how contact with North Asia and Africa, both of which were well-known to Europeans, went, well into the 19th century. Now of course Africa was populous and infectious, but much of North America`s coasts were not much more promising than Siberia`s polar coasts, and Brasil looked a lot like Central Africa.

And let us not forget that the riches extracted from the Americas fed back into the centralisation efforts of Spain and Portugal and others.

Here are a few ideas for how to change Europe in a way which would minimise value extraction from the Americas for a couple of centuries:
- abort the Portuguese age of exploration, the invention of the caravel etc. by killing off Henry the Navigator and his surroundings and involving Portugal in some destructive and protracted warfare (similar to the Wars in Lombardy / Italian Wars, or the 100YW)
- keep Iberia fractured into many kingdoms, with at least Muslim Granada still around (ties in with point 1), and have them engage in destructive warfare which detracts their attentions from oceanic trade and reduces their economic potential
- instead, keep Italy economically strong and dominant across the Mediterranean, it was politically highly fractured and its commercial focus was consistently on the East, which made a lot of sense of course and would continue to make sense to a contemporary who doesn`t know about America`s hidden riches
- have the 30YW end differently, without Charles the Victorious centralising France; maybe with an English victory resulting in a huge but weak and decentralised English-French kingdom
- involve the Hanseatic League, whose history is one of pulling legs of states who want to centralise (as long as they had the means to do that), in trans-Atlantic sea trade and early colonisation.
 

trurle

Banned
After seeing this EU4 mod (
) I had the following idea for a new timeline.

Perhaps we don't physically remove the Americas from the world in an ASB timeline. Instead how could we make it so that the major world powers are unable to extract any significant value from the Americas?

Currently my idea is for the colonies in the Americas to declare independence from their home nations, then for the resulting nations to collapse into smaller bickering nations. Due to a stalemate no nation can dominate either North or South America. Constant bickering and their small size means that each individual state would be insignificant in the international stage. Ships and later aircraft can still pass through the region but due to a strong isolationist streak nobody outside the Americas is adding any of the nations to their power block.
Nearly exactly same thing (independence movement and then rapid fission of states) has happened in OTL 19th century South America. It explains the huge disparity in development of South and North Americas in 20th century. The fragmentation could be much worse, especially for Argentina. Overall, fracturing of nations will delay development for may be one century.
 
Well I was thinking the hostility would be caused by the INVASION not the diseases, and the earlier dissemination of infectious illness was more a way of allowing the Pre Columbian states to have recovered somewhat before fighting off Spain etc. Sorry if that was unclear.

I hardly think Europeans would be seen as invaders immediately. Unless they start randomly attacking people asking for gold/chopping heathen's heads off to convert them to Christianity, so that's just Spain/maybe Portugal.

And then there's also the matter of neither the Iroquois or Aztec existing since this would be a POD predating the formation of either polity. Although it's possible the Iroquois Confederacy might form anyway, and a state comparable to the Aztecs rises as well.

@metalinvader665 , the colonization of the Americas and access to its resources significantly boosted the power of the European nations. This made it much easier for them to rise to a position of global dominance. What I meant by not extracting "significant value" was a situation where no external empire can easily use the Americas as a springboard for global domination as they did OTL. Perhaps the nations there (either Native American or colonists from elsewhere) would operate independently from external powers. I was envisioning a situation where there American Nations mainly buy only from each other. The nations would do their own processing and mainly finished products would be sold to nations outside the Americas.

Good point about it being hard for all the nations to be insignificant. Perhaps we can go with @Fabius Maximus said and have large isolationist power blocks cover the Americas. Large and powerful enough to resist interference from external powers but not inclined to contribute troops or resources to any external wars.

@Skallagrim , I like the idea of the religious revolution in the Americas. What might be the earliest we could get something like this? The earlier it happens the less powerful external empires might become off American resources.

@desmirelle , the Americas can be involved in external politics but it either is so small or lasts for such short periods that it doesn't boost the European empires to global dominance.

@sarahz , @Clandango and @metalinvader665 . Both the revolting European colonies and powerful American Indian nations sound like fascinating routes to take. Might both be worth a separate timeline :) If the nations decide to mainly trade among each other and sell mainly finished products outside how successful would these nations be?

If you colonise the Americas to the degree Spain did, you have a springboard to global dominance, or at least to the degree Spain did. That means the wealth from the Andes, Mexico, and elsewhere fuels your campaigns in Europe to achieve dominance over the continent. Even if Spain didn't have Andean silver (via a surviving Inca), they'd still be pretty wealthy and powerful. And unless the Inca were permanently isolationist and anti-European like Japan/Korea were at once point, then they'd be leaking silver into the world economy since they'd be needing to buy all sorts of things from Europeans and maybe Asians.

It's definitely something which you'd need some sort of ideology to have happen, call it "Columbianism" (in the case of post-colonial nations), that promotes the development of the New World and its supremacy, and avoids trade with Europe as much as possible. Combine it with a Bolivarian Pan-Americanism sort of ideology. And there's plenty of opportunities for trade within the Americas, of course. But with such a pan-American/"Columbianist" spirit, it's hard to imagine how much you could splinter the continent(s) since there will evolve a natural tendency to avoid secession when trying to resolve disputes within nations. Not so much to avoid a government in Caracas seceeding from the government in Bogota, but maybe enough to prevent a government in Cartagena de Indias from seceeding from Bogota.

But how do you get a seemingly counterproductive ideology like Columbianism to develop? Maybe you do need a surviving Inca Empire. Maybe Spain nibble away at the edges a bit, but it still consists of modern Peru and Bolivia and bits of Ecuador and Chile, and managed to weather the storm of European colonisation by closing itself off. Although there's plenty of voices within Tawantinsuyu to modernise (think 19th century China), the very isolation of the Inca, it's relative success versus every other Indian group (ground beneath European heels or compared to the Inca "primitives" unfit of recognition), and it's prominence as a reminder of pre-Columbian civilisation end up being an inspiration to the rest of the Americas. We have to remember that even though there were violent indigenous Andean rebellions like Tupac Amaru and Tupac Katari in the late 18th century, the ruling class of the region a few decades later came up with an idea to crown a descendent of a Sapa Inca as king. A surviving Inca Empire, even if it's backwards and resembles the Qing at their worst, is going to have a lot of admirers. Hence the ideology of Columbianism might develop, and I guess we can assume a Columbian wank.

Nearly exactly same thing (independence movement and then rapid fission of states) has happened in OTL 19th century South America. It explains the huge disparity in development of South and North Americas in 20th century. The fragmentation could be much worse, especially for Argentina. Overall, fracturing of nations will delay development for may be one century.

Not just Argentina. Brazil could've fragmented much worse, and so could Gran Colombia and Mexico. Central America (which still could've added at least the Republic of Los Altos to the nations of the region) is a good example.

But it could produce a few more "Uruguay" type states, although aside from Buenos Aires province, Rio de Janeiro, and a state consisting of Santiago de Chile and Valparaiso, I'm not sure how many more opportunities for states like that could arise. By Uruguay-type state, I mean one which has a somewhat natural/easier path to following the history of Uruguay and thus creates a state which compared to at least OTL Latin America ranks high in economic indicators, lack of corruption, social indicators, etc. Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano described Uruguay as the Switzerland of Latin America, for instance. Essentially, more "city state with a large hinterland", since Uruguay is basically the city-state of Montevideo.

Of the ones I named, Buenos Aires would obviously have its own civil war to deal with (like Uruguay). After the first Chilean Civil War not long after independence, Chile was probably the most stable country in Latin America until the 1891 Civil War, so a Santiago-Valparaiso compact state could continue that and possibly avoid any later civil wars. Rio de Janeiro (maybe consisting of Rio de Janeiro State in nowadays Brazil?) may or may not have the Brazilian monarchy for stability.
 
@Salvador79 those are good ideas. Thanks for those. Perhaps we could have a Middle Eastern power expand west across North Africa then support Muslim Granada? Perhaps the Mumluk Sultanate decides to try and expand westwards along Africa towards Spain? The Strait of Gibraltar would be a valuable asset and perhaps a ruler of Grenada has reached out for help against Christian Spain?

How small would Iberia's colonization efforts be if they were fractured and at war Middle Eastern power? Would it completely stop Iberian colonization in its tracks?

How can we get the Hanseatic League to get into trans-Atlantic sea trade and colonization?

@trurle , sounds like a good precedent for the timeline.

@metalinvader665 , Perhaps Spain does get an initial boost of power from the Americas, but are crippled by the wars of independence with their colonies? Could we have an alternate Protestant Reformation in progress when the Americas are discovered. Perhaps the nations of Europe are harshly suppressing the emergence of Protestantism and many see moving to the colonies as a way to get further away from their oppressors. This would give us colonies that are quite hostile to their home nations from very early on.

Good point regarding to silver leaking into the world economy. Could large Native American Empires on the continent try to spread out their purchases among several nations to prevent any one nation becoming too strong, perhaps out of suspicion of outsiders? They'd avoid buying if they could help it. If they needed to buy product x, they'd try and spread out purchases of x to all the countries that provide x. This would have an impact on the world stage but it would help to dilute its effects. Would that work?

With the Pan American/Columbianist spirit and it wanting to avoid succession. Perhaps we go the other way. Instead of a myriad of squabbling states, spawn large stable empires on the Americas bent on isolationism. We could go with a mix. There could be both Native American and European colonist states present on the Americas, both of which are isolationist. There could be a mix of large empires and small "Uruguay" type states.
 
@Salvador79 those are good ideas. Thanks for those. Perhaps we could have a Middle Eastern power expand west across North Africa then support Muslim Granada? Perhaps the Mumluk Sultanate decides to try and expand westwards along Africa towards Spain? The Strait of Gibraltar would be a valuable asset and perhaps a ruler of Grenada has reached out for help against Christian Spain?
Not the Mamluks, they were an unstable and dysfunctional regime most of the time. The Ottomans have been discussed several times in this context on this forum, with general opinion tending against their involvement so far West; I´m undecided on that matter. But maybe you don`t even need a Middle Eastern power here. The Genoese Republic enjoyed extremely good relations with the Emirate of Granada, and it was a major naval power. If there is a long Iberian civil war, it could engage there to secure port access, favourable trade relations etc., backing one side or another, and that could include both Granada or Christian kingdoms. As far as land forces are concerned, that makes little difference, but with regards to naval power, that`s a lot, and naval embargoes can break especially Aragon`s economic back, but it could also hurt Portugal if you want to play it that way. Other than that, Granada was not so weak. It took the unified kingdoms of Castile and Aragon to overcome its magnificent line of defenses. If there`s more fierce warfare on the peninsula, then a) nobody`s going to have the resources to throw against Granada and b) maybe Granada, too, becomes interested in state-of-the-art gunnery etc. in time.

How small would Iberia's colonization efforts be if they were fractured and at war Middle Eastern power? Would it completely stop Iberian colonization in its tracks?
The Canaries, Madeira, and maybe the Azores are kind of geographically destined to become Iberian. It all depends on how you change the various kingdoms` political strategies. Prevent Portuguese explorations in Africa and you might see more doomed attempts at a Moroccan reconquista by various players, which devours resources.

If, for example, the exploration of the Americas happens through the discovery of Newfoundland via the Northern route, and then proceeds downward (which might happen slower or faster), then Iberia might get locked out of the continent more or less, and England-France might try to claim it entirely (and then do very little with it). Iberian kingdoms might try to snatch away an island or two, but if there`s a clear Anglo-French naval superiority, then that is not a given, either.

How can we get the Hanseatic League to get into trans-Atlantic sea trade and colonization?
In my Timeline (see signature), the impulse is their getting excluded from much of the Baltic Sea trade and from the ports of the Kalmar kingdoms through a less successful Danish-Hanseatic war 1426-35. If the wealth and independence of the cities and syndicates is still there, but Scandinavia is more or less the only country to attain some degree of centralisation, then they`ll be looking for other business opportunities, which, in the case of less centralised states in Western Europe, may very well lie to the West. If they switch their primary cooperation from the Scandinavian kingdoms to England-France, then they might hear from Basque and English fishermen about the whaling opportunities in the Far West, and decide that that`s a profitable thing, too. Bascially establish a "Tyske Brygge i Bergen" in L´Anse aux Meadows... and then sister colonies from there?
 
@Salvador79, sounds like good ideas :)

On another subject, what if we go on the opposite direction? Instead of an isolationist Americas what is the earliest in which we could have expansionist power blocks in the Americas displace Europe as the center of global power?
 
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