What if the Spanish colonized North America like Britain did?

Why would they do that? Mexico and Peru had what they wanted, the area of the future 13 colonies had nothing that interested them.
 

Deleted member 97083

Why would they do that? Mexico and Peru had what they wanted, the area of the future 13 colonies had nothing that interested them.
Maybe they could form a penal colony to send Flemish/Dutch/Walloon heretics and other "criminals" from across the empire
 
Maybe they could form a penal colony to send Flemish/Dutch/Walloon heretics and other "criminals" from across the empire

They already had a solution for them, sending them to serve in the Med fleet and to serve in the artillery. But I guess they could send those lesser criminals there, outright rebels and the like wouldn't be sent there.
 
What if the Spanish colonized North America like Britain did, in the area of the 13 colonies. Would there be a British Mexico?

If Spain started in the OTL 13 Colony area, it would have a much larger North American empire than that of Britain - Spain was richer, had more advanced technology and had a more favorable geographic situation in the 1500s and 1600s. So whatever happens, Spain will hold more than just the 13 colonies.

Also, if Spain colonized OTL New England, it would make them a stronger power in the 1700s and 1800s. One of the critical weaknesses of Spain is that they were living hand-to-mouth for their ship timber. The country didn't have the large forests that the Ottomans did in the Balkans and the British did in North America, hence each ship lost hurt Spain much more than it hurt their British and Ottoman competitors. The result was that the Spanish were building ships out of improperly seasoned timber far too often. If the Spanish own New England instead of the British, their navy is stronger, meaning they can compete more evenly with the Ottomans in the Med and the British are just borked when they run out of oak forests on the British isles.

Lastly: the Spanish were trying to colonize Georgia in OTL, and in fact disputed much of the Colony with the new United States. If the Castillians had allowed people from the other Spanish kingdoms (particularly Catalans and Basques) to settle and have businesses in the American Colonies, they may well have been able to colonize most of the OTL 13 Colonies before the English.

fasquardon
 
I don't know how plausible it is for Spain to own all that land plus their OTL holdings in the New World. But one way to get Spain to at least the area of Georgia/Carolinas (hell, Virginia too) is for them to continue the presence they had there in the 16th century, and the best way to do that is to have Spain find the gold in Georgia and to a lesser extent the Carolinas.
 
If Spain started in the OTL 13 Colony area, it would have a much larger North American empire than that of Britain - Spain was richer, had more advanced technology and had a more favorable geographic situation in the 1500s and 1600s. So whatever happens, Spain will hold more than just the 13 colonies.

Also, if Spain colonized OTL New England, it would make them a stronger power in the 1700s and 1800s. One of the critical weaknesses of Spain is that they were living hand-to-mouth for their ship timber. The country didn't have the large forests that the Ottomans did in the Balkans and the British did in North America, hence each ship lost hurt Spain much more than it hurt their British and Ottoman competitors. The result was that the Spanish were building ships out of improperly seasoned timber far too often. If the Spanish own New England instead of the British, their navy is stronger, meaning they can compete more evenly with the Ottomans in the Med and the British are just borked when they run out of oak forests on the British isles.

Lastly: the Spanish were trying to colonize Georgia in OTL, and in fact disputed much of the Colony with the new United States. If the Castillians had allowed people from the other Spanish kingdoms (particularly Catalans and Basques) to settle and have businesses in the American Colonies, they may well have been able to colonize most of the OTL 13 Colonies before the English.

fasquardon

So it sorta means that Spain and Britain kind of switch roles? Where would britain colonize? France?
 
So it sorta means that Spain and Britain kind of switch roles? Where would britain colonize? France?

No, 'cuz Britain wouldn't have the geographic and technological edge - no way Britain ends up conquering swathes of South and Middle America. My bet is that Britain's role looks more like that of Portugal. For example, I suspect that Britain would still be active in the area of Canada no matter what - Newfoundland's fisheries are a rich prize and easily reached from Britain and Hudson Bay is also easily reached from Britain, and the Muscovoy Company means Britain will have an established fur trading infrastructure no matter what. And likely Britain would follow a similar course in the Caribbean (where the real moneymakers were) and thus Africa (to feed slaves into the sugar islands) and the profits from sugar would enable Britain to follow a similar path in Asia.

More focus of the Spanish on North America is most likely to pull Spanish attention from Patagonia, which might allow the British to get established in the Falkland Islands and Patagonia earlier.

Also, Britain has accessible coal and iron ore, which gives the British a good position to industrialize no matter what's happening in America.

fasquardon
 

Tyche

Donor
This board's language would be Spanish, or the variant of Spanish spoken in North America
 
Maybe they could form a penal colony to send Flemish/Dutch/Walloon heretics and other "criminals" from across the empire
Note that the Spanish were very opposed to allowing "foreigners" (which included Aragonese and anyone with a hint of non-Christian ancestry) into their colonies. This was ideological; the various Church groups viewed the Native Americans as essentially uncontaminated by the heretics and infidels of the Old World, and wanted to convert them to "pure" Catholicism. Hence also restrictions on the types of books allowed into the New World (nothing ideologically controversial, with at least some efforts to ban even popular chivalric literature as potentially distracting from the glory of God, though enforcement was very spotty).

In practice some foreigners made it in anyway, but there's no way they would intentionally encourage the importation of heretics/criminals to contaminate this new Eden.
 
Note that the Spanish were very opposed to allowing "foreigners" (which included Aragonese and anyone with a hint of non-Christian ancestry) into their colonies. This was ideological; the various Church groups viewed the Native Americans as essentially uncontaminated by the heretics and infidels of the Old World, and wanted to convert them to "pure" Catholicism. Hence also restrictions on the types of books allowed into the New World (nothing ideologically controversial, with at least some efforts to ban even popular chivalric literature as potentially distracting from the glory of God, though enforcement was very spotty).

In practice some foreigners made it in anyway, but there's no way they would intentionally encourage the importation of heretics/criminals to contaminate this new Eden.

How about petty criminals who are also pretty strongly Catholic ? Mostly peasants who follow the church pretty devoutly but are forced to steal so that they don't starve? A woman who goes to church every Sunday but sells herself on the street because her husband died and she has 3 kids to feed?
 
How about petty criminals who are also pretty strongly Catholic ? Mostly peasants who follow the church pretty devoutly but are forced to steal so that they don't starve? A woman who goes to church every Sunday but sells herself on the street because her husband died and she has 3 kids to feed?
Still a sinner and one who will set a bad example for the natives, bringing the true faith into discredit, etc.

Now, the Spanish couldn't actually completely stop "bad" people from going to the New World, but there was a strong enough lobby to prevent a colony from being established specifically to bring them there.

You're much better off with an ambitious would-be conquistador getting permission to conquer the area and then being too stubborn to give up.
 
If the Castillians had allowed people from the other Spanish kingdoms (particularly Catalans and Basques) to settle and have businesses in the American Colonies, they may well have been able to colonize most of the OTL 13 Colonies before the English.

fasquardon

Are you saying they didn't allow non-Castilians from Spain to settle anywhere?
 
Are you saying they didn't allow non-Castilians from Spain to settle anywhere?

That's right. The Spanish Empire wasn't Spanish - it was Castillian and all the other Spanish kingdoms were to keep out.

I think that changed in the very last years of the Spanish Empire, but most Basques and Catalans came over to the new world after the Spanish Colonies had become independent.

fasquardon
 
That's right. The Spanish Empire wasn't Spanish - it was Castillian and all the other Spanish kingdoms were to keep out.

I think that changed in the very last years of the Spanish Empire, but most Basques and Catalans came over to the new world after the Spanish Colonies had become independent.

fasquardon
Yep. Remember that technically there wasn't a single country called "Spain" until the War of Spanish Succession; it was officially just a personal union of Castile, Aragon and various other kingdoms with their own separate laws (indeed, the two kingdoms briefly separated after Isabella's death, with Ferdinand continuing to reign in Aragon, and their daughter Juana in Castile; Ferdinand even tried to remarry and have another son in order to keep Aragon from coming under the rule of his daughter and son-in-law, whom he hated). A good comparison would be England and Scotland between 1603 and 1707, where they were technically separate kingdoms with the same monarch until the Acts of Union merged them into a unified Great Britain.

In this case, Columbus had technically sailed under the Crown of Castile, and thus claimed the New World for Castile. Aragonese were thus treated as foreigners, just like people from the rest of the Spanish Empire (including the Neapolitans, Milanese, and especially the Dutch).
 
That's right. The Spanish Empire wasn't Spanish - it was Castillian and all the other Spanish kingdoms were to keep out.

I think that changed in the very last years of the Spanish Empire, but most Basques and Catalans came over to the new world after the Spanish Colonies had become independent.

fasquardon

That's... as a Colombian, surprising, since a very large portion of surnames in Antioquia and a large portion of Colombia are ones that come from Basque or Catalan origin. I know there were restrictions towards Catalan trading with the colonies, but I don't know about colonisation. This Wikipedia page lists a few Aragonese viceroys, priests (including Saint Junípero Serra) and Conquistadores.

EDIT: Hell, this article even states the trade thing is not even a Crowns issue - it's just that the only departing point to the Americas was Sevile. The dropoff in Barcelonese trade, according to ABC, started before the Catholic Kings.
 
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That's... as a Colombian, surprising, since a very large portion of surnames in Antioquia and a large portion of Colombia are ones that come from Basque or Catalan origin. I know there were restrictions towards Catalan trading with the colonies, but I don't know about colonisation. This Wikipedia page lists a few Aragonese viceroys, priests (including Saint Junípero Serra) and Conquistadores.

Maybe it was just difficult for non-Castillians to emigrate to the colonies. I am fairly sure that most of the Basque and Catalan emigrants came after independence. I am wondering if I am inflating the ban on non-Catholics emigrating from Europe with a wider ban in my head...

EDIT: Hell, this article even states the trade thing is not even a Crowns issue - it's just that the only departing point to the Americas was Sevile. The dropoff in Barcelonese trade, according to ABC, started before the Catholic Kings.

Very interesting! And I'm not surprised at the timing of the decline of Barcelonese trade.

fasquardon
 
There were most certainly non-Castilians who settled in the colonies, the official licences granted to individuals below show the origin of individuals whom were given official authorisation to settle in the New World.

1493-1600
Andalusia 36.9%
Old Castile 19.8%%
Extremadura 16.5%
New Castile 15.6%
Navarre 4.4%
Foreigners 2.8%
Spanish Levant (Murcia) 1.3%
Galicia 1.2%
Aragon 0.6%
Asturias 0.6%
Canary Islands 0.3%

1493-1519
Andalusia 39.6%
Old Castile 25.4%
Extremadura 14%
New Castile 8.8%
Navarre 4.9%
Foreigners 2.6%
Galicia 2%

1520-1539
Andalusia 32.0%
Old Castile 25.2%
Extremadura 16.6%
New Castile 12%

1540-1559
Andalusia 36.1%
Old Castile 21.6%
Extremadura 15.7%
New Castile 14.4%

1560-1579
Andalusia 37.2%
New Castile 19%
Extremadura 18.7%
Old Castile 16.3%

1580-1600
Andalusia 42%
New Castile 19.2%
Old Castile 14.2%
Extremadura 14.2%

During the 17th century the numbers are as follows:
Andalusia 28.2%
Navarre 18.4%
Castile (Old & New) 13.2%
Galicia 6.4%
Extremadura 2.7%
Asturias 2.5%

Destination of Spanish Immigrants 1493-1600
New Spain (including Florida) 36.2%
Peru (including Charcas, Quito, Chile) 28.5%
New Granada (including Panama, Venezuela) 15.6%
Antilles 10.6%
Rio de la Plata (including Tucuman and Paraguay) 5.1%
Central America 4.0%


Between 1700 and 1807 immigration to Spanish America, by licenses conceded.
Andalusia 23.55%
Foreigners 19.51%
Navarre 15.43%
Castile-Leon 7.25%
Galicia 6.14%
Cantabria 5.19%
Catalonia 4.91%
Asturias 3.79%
La Rioja 3.64%
Madrid 2.81%
Castile-La Mancha 2.38%
Aragon 2.11%
Valencia 1.38%
Balearic Islands 0.68%
Extremadura 0.65%
Murcia 0.60%
 
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