Special Chapter
For Our Freedom and Yours
As the 19th century began, the continent of Vespucia was turning a new page in it's history. While it wasn't affected much by the wars and revolutions in Europe, the event that had the greatest impact on it's development at this time was the Vespucian Independence War. The VFS was the first independent European Vespucian state, and it's example inspired many other revolutions in it's vicinity. In addition, large settler colonies in other continents were more and more of a resource sink rather than benefit, and as the Industrial Revolution arrived, they were turning more and more obsolete, so even the colonizers themselves were starting to consider abandoning the New World.
New France was the first colony (outside of New Netherland) to fall. Acquired by the French in the 17th century, this vast territory was located in the northern parts of South Vespucia, along the Caribbean and even with a coast in the Pacific, and it became as a place for the republic to send prisoners and excess population. Thanks to it's strategic position and resources (especially sugar), New France grew wealthy in comparison to other colonies, but much like in New Netherland, the population grew to be very liberal and in favor of Republicanism. The foundation of the Vespucia Free State became an inspiration to the local population, especially the pro-independence groups. In addition, New France had an issue that was not present in New Netherland - slavery. Working in sugar plantations and mines, these African-Vespucian workers, most of them shipped from Africa itself, built much of New France's wealth, but the more enlightened inhabitants of the colony were calling for emancipating them.
The French government was smart, however, and it did not wait until tensions reached a breaking point, and in 1789, the Directorate instead organized the
New France Assembly, composed of democratically elected representatives from the entire colony, which shall determine the territory's fate. In the end, the French government and the colonists agreed to a compromise, granting the colony relative autonomy and home rule, while still remaining nominally as a French territory. This led to the creation of the
Dominion of New France, a democratic, somewhat independent state in South Vespucia. Much like the VFS, it was organized under Republican and Enlightenment principles, albeit with the added complication of having a French-appointed
Colonial Director as the head of state, rather than a President elected via popular vote, and thus the local government was mostly vested by the
Estates-General of New France, which appoints the head of government, the
Prime Secretary. It was a "parliamentary" system of government, more similar to that of France rather than that of VFS (which should be obvious, seeing as New France is a French dominion), which made it quite unique among it's peers in the New World. New France continued on as one of the wealthiest nations in South Vespucia, exploiting it's strategic position for trade and economic growth, and it was one of the few nations in the continent which was not born out of bloodshed, which already gave it a solid edge anyway.
A much more different story arose in Spain's colonial empire, and to get a grasp of what caused it, we must view over mainland Spain's situation first. Spain remained neutral during the German Revolutionary Wars, but even if it did not participate, the conflict showed Spain's weakness in foreign affairs. After France invaded North Italy and established the North Italian Confederation, Spain only managed to respond with complaints, despite it being an obvious breach in their sphere of influence, fearing that the French could defeat them just as easily. Spanish observers examined the battles and technology of the Revolutionary Wars, and they concluded that Spain was "at best 20 years behind the Germans and Frenchmen in military innovation". Even though Spain used to be a Great Power, even a rival to France in the 17th century, it's small, agricultural population and weak military made it bite the dust.
Alfonso IX, the King of Spain after his ascension in 1795, did not approve of this. He saw the success that reforms could bring to his nation from the example in Visegrad, and hoping to return Spain to it's former glory, he made plans for a package of reforms in his nation, including reforming the army, establishing a constitutional monarchy and state-organized industrialization - however, this is where he witnessed a number of problems. For one, Spain just wasn't ready for such radicalism - unlike Visegrad, which was already a very Republican-leaning nation and a semi-limited monarchy for centuries, Spain was still more or less an absolute monarchy, even if there technically was a parliament, the
Cortes Generales, it served as more of a rubberstamp for the monarch rather than a separate entity. Where as in Visegrad the reforms at least partially came from below, Alfonso IX's changes were purely top-down - and as a result, they were very unpopular. People feared that this will lead to a Germania-style revolution. In addition, Spain was not a very wealthy nation as it is, and the attempts to reform the army and industrialize drained the treasury completely.
And around this time, the Second Dutch-Spanish War began. Even if his kingdom was not in stellar shape, Alfonso IX enthusiastically rallied his nation for war, hoping that a victory in the New World will grant him enough prestige to pass through what he wanted. However, the Vespucians were a far harder nut to crack than he originally thought - despite a successful Spanish advance into the VFS heartland, their troops were stopped not far from New Amsterdam and pushed back. The Spanish forces were not very well organized, many were still unfamiliar with the reforms Alfonso IX made to the military structure, and most of them were unfamiliar with the terrain. The war still took three whole years and required a lot of blood to be shed from both sides, but in the end, the VFS was successful, obtaining a victory in the conflict, while the King's prestige plummeted. In addition, the colony of Luisiana, which was directly south of the Free State, had become restless, many of it's inhabitants were agitating for a similar deal as with New France, or even outright independence.
In his last years, Alfonso IX was considering a plan to federate the Kingdom and allow Luisiana and New Spain autonomy, but his ideas never came to be, as in 1809, he was overthrown by a cabal of reactionary Protectionist officers, led by
Juan-Santos Federer, who disestablished all of his progressive, but hated reforms and invited the former monarch's cousin, now King
Sancho II, to the throne. Federer's reactionary regime saw no need to compromise with the inhabitants of the colonies or even consider the idea of home rule at the time being. In order to solve the problems with the empty treasury, the government raised taxes and import tariffs, which ended up backfiring in the end, as the state of the economy plummeted and it's trade partners, like France, responded with counter-tariffs, ruining the nation's exports. With the awful state of the economy, a lost war, botched reforms and no colonial compromise, the Spanish colonial empire began to collapse. Revolts broke out in Luisiana and New Spain, slaves were rebelling across the Caribbean, and the VFS, seeing an opportunity to dismantle an European empire, provided aid and volunteers to the rebels, under the motto of "For Our Liberty and Yours" - after all, many Vespucians empathized with the struggles of the Spanish colonists.
After years of brutal warfare, the situation finally stabilized, and while Spain retained control over the Caribbean islands thanks to their naval superiority, they lost all presence in the mainland, and two nations arose in it's wake - the
Republic of Luisiana and the
United States of Centrovespucia. While the former had a backbone in the VFS, the latter was an unstable state, composed of not just Spaniards, but also many Mayans and other local cultures, which were even more disgruntled with the situation than before, plus, the Empire of Mejico to the north was hostile from the beginning. Time would tell if the Spanish colonist nations in the New World would hold on much like New Netherland did.
The state of
Manuela, Portugal's prime colony in the New World, was even worse. Even though the Portuguese claimed control over most, if not all of South Vespucia, it was clear from the start that they wouldn't be able to chew it up - Portugal was a tiny trading state with a small population, it had no capability to reign over such a large territory. However, Portuguese Manuela nevertheless held on and expanded, serving it's overlords as more of a giant plantation and a crown of their colonial empire, rather than anything more worthwhile. It was poor, sparsely inhabited, and most of it's workforce were slaves from Africa, who in some areas composed over 80% of the population. The disintegration of Manuela began around the same time as the collapse of the Spanish colonial empire, and it was triggered by a vast slave revolt in the northern parts of the colony. In order to help defeat the rebellion, the Portuguese enacted conscription in the colony, which only served as a breaking point for the long list of tensions between the central government and the local creoles. Frustrated with the ineffectiveness of the government, it's disregard for the interests of the colonists and it's hawkish attitude towards the colony's resources, seeing it more as a giant plantation rather than an integral part of the empire, the local Manuelan population rose up in revolt, led by a charismatic and capable general,
Augusto Cesar Sequeira. Sequeira's ability to mobilize the masses was outright legendary - he united almost all layers of the Manuelan society, from the Afro-Manuelan slaves to the wealthy landowners, and rallied the people into a victory against the Portuguese government, establishing the
Unified Republic of Manuela in 1811, with him as the first Democrat of the Republic.
Augusto Cesar Sequeira, hero of the Manuelan War of Independence
However, it was only his prestige and charisma that held the vast nation together, and as soon as he suddenly died in 1814, the Unified Republic began to disintegrate. It was just too vast of a nation, with many regional differences and many environments, to ever be fully united - and the Portuguese policy of never creating a single central city of the colony and instead focusing on decentralized regional rule didn't help either. Sequeira's successor was far from the charisma and power that the hero held, and the Unified Republic was soon embroiled in a brutal civil war between secessionists, Republicans and Protectionists. In the end, four states ended up forming from Manuela's corpse - in the north, the local creoles were defeated and kicked out by a large slave rebellion, which established a small Afro-Manuelan republic, the
Sao Martinho Democracy; the heartland of the nation was divided into two claimant states, the more liberal and Republican
Free State of Manuela (Manuela-Pernambuco) and the conservative, Protectionist
Manuelan Empire (Manuela-Rio Grande), with a nephew of the Portuguese king as a figurehead Emperor, in the South. The southernmost part of the former Unified Republic, along the Parana River, turned into the neutral and reactionary
State of the Parana. The claims of the former united Manuela were divided between it's successors, and an uneasy peace settled in the land.
Swedish and British colonies were left untouched by the waves of revolutions across the New World - New Sweden was very close to the mainland and was too sparsely populated to even think of putting up a fight for independence, even if the VFS was right to the south, while the British colonies were recent, and they had yet to develop a separate, "Vespucian British" identity. The Native Vespucian empires of Mejico and the Inca didn't feel much of a difference, either, outside of the fact that they were no longer surrounded by European empires, but rather by much weaker local states...
The continent of Vespucia in 1825
---
The next chapter will be about India.
