WI: Carribean Islands a single country

So, what do you reckon about the edited update, going into further detail? If Petion and Bolivar had founded Gran Columbia as a decentralized federal state, with Haiti as a founding member state, how would you rate the chances of Gran Columbia coming to rule over the entire Caribbean?
Every US president given the chance will beat up this decentralized federal state culminating in Teddy Roosevelt personally putting their president in a headlock. But seriously- with Haiti better chance of taking Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. Still the problem of ever getting the Dutch, French, British, and Danish colonies which the US will not allow you to do. You butterfly away the Spanish-American War only to substitute the US-Columbian War and the US wins ending this nation's dominance of the Caribbean by 1900. This war though may occur prior to the ACW and not in line with the SAW being pushed for by the South and their Golden Circle philosophy. If this happens then the ACW may be butterflied as even with an Abe Lincoln there's "room" for the South to add "slave" states out of Cuba (which annexing it will be more likely than independence in this scenario where you are fighting a hemispheric power as opposed to a colonial).
 
These are variations on the theme I proposed, only I threw in
a USA that loses most slave states to British reconquest, so the remaining Union is more overwhelmingly Northern, and the general pressure to emancipate and abolish slavery in the USA, which did historically exist in the Revolutionary generation, is stronger and Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and however much of North Carolina remains can be persuaded to get on board. Perhaps the dangerously weak position of the Union with Britain having a border north of the OTL South Carolina border is compensated by greater success in the Canadian inclusion ventures--OTL significant sentiment for the Revolution and secession from British control did exist in the Maritimes, persuading the Quebecois population to join the Union or be granted an autonomous allied Republic status does not strike me as ASB though it is a hurdle--British occupation policy of Quebec OTL did pay off in at least a neutral form of loyalty by inertia, and the Francophone population did have reason to be nervous of their place in an Anglo-American dominated system, even with autonomy. The Rebels probably cannot secure Halifax and this probably remains in British hands along with at least enough Nova Scotian hinterland to support the city, nor is it highly likely that the revolutionary sentiment will spread as far as Newfoundland, just on geographic and "who rules the seas" considerations. I am not asserting the Maritime settlers were overwhelmingly Revolutionary, but it did not require solid majorities to win OTL, just a sufficient balance of power between rebels versus active Loyalists.

In fact, a more energetic and successful northern campaign might lay the groundwork for failure in the deeper south. The British might find critically less organized Rebel activity in the South because of forces diverted north, and thus have the opportunity to get control there. North Carolina includes some tricky terrain, so its swamp dominated coast might be barrier behind which Washington's forces rally to hold Virginia and the north of North Carolina--and I believe the center of settlement of that colony/state is indeed inland and northward, so NC might lose control of a relatively low population southern hinterland.

Anyway an abolitionist USA as of 1780 might be an ally of a spreading Antillean independence movement.
I threw in the USA as early ally in order to somewhat address the demographic and logistic deficiencies of the Antillean peoples versus would-be colonialist reconquerors. It would be difficult for US allies to aid the Antilleans around British bases from Charleston on south to Key West, but perhaps not impossible when Britain is tied down elsewhere, and a treaty settlement with both US and Antillean envoys negotiating with Britain in Europe might give at least some of the major big 4 islands of the Greater Antilles the same grudging legal recognition the American former colonies got. Strategically the USA gets control of its whole northern coast except for Halifax, and maybe even that in a treaty (I won't disagree with anyone arguing they could never take it by force) and even with Halifax and Newfoundland as bases for angry British harassment, containing the RN threat from the north would be less of a problem than OTL. With the Maritimes as member States, perhaps consolidated into one or with their current identities, Britain's only path for threatening on land in the north other than a drive out of Halifax would be via Rupert's land, very difficult and forbidding terrain to mount an attack out of and through. Britain would in addition to South Carolinan bases (and southward) have possession of Bermuda, Barbados and the Bahamas so a War of 1812 type situation would be serious for the USA, but the continental causes of that conflict (as opposed to impressment of US sea men) would be eliminated with Britain's whole interest in Canada gone. Replaced, to be sure, by parallel issues on the border running through OTL NC inward to whatever the southwest border of British versus American versus third party claims would be, and those could be pretty hot. Especially if the USA takes a radical position as anti-slavery a generation before the British did OTL, and Britain is left with a white population committed to slavery as their subject wards in the southeast. An ATL "1812" might be worse for the Yankees. But this might also motivate them to take risks supporting the Antilles union. In peacetime however grudging, if both rebel states are recognized, nothing stops them from freely trading with each other, and the north-shifted Union has no domestic production of semitropical crops whatsoever, even tobacco might be marginal; forget cotton. Or sugar cane, or many other traditional Southern products. Trading with Cuba and any other Antillean free islands would have a basic economic logic underscoring the desire for strategic joining of forces, and might well persuade Yankees reluctant to risk disaster going to naval war on Antillean behalf to do it anyway, and take their chances against British Southern America if need be, hoping for gains there or at least to hold the line on land and sea. Making a navy capable of utterly trouncing the RN is unrealistic, even with both powers producing their own, but a pair of navies that can give the RN a painful fight in our sector of the world might be another matter.

One tricky aspect of all this is to keep the power base of the polity uniting the Caribbean islands wholly based only on those islands, without a mainland component. On one hand I think a union of the Antilles with Columbia is a great idea, but it does violate the OP stipulation of a power that is all the Caribbean islands, and only the Caribbean islands! It is far more realistic that the islands can eventually all be taken and held by one power that actually has a substantial continental base as well. If one state commands the loyalty of and can effectively defend all of the 4 big northern Antillean islands, in addition to the rationality of a union or at least compact with Colombia, we also would have the prospect of them overwhelming the defenses of the various Gulf ports on the southern North American mainland--New Orleans, Biloxi, Mobile, Pensacola, and also the rest of Florida. In a knock-down fight waged by a Colombian-Antillean union and the USA, with Britain and other European powers suitably distracted and tied down by simultaneous crises in Europe, Asia and Africa, British Continental America might collapse to be partitioned between the USA reclaiming the Carolinas and part of Georgia, and westward northern Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas and points northwest of there, and the Colombian/Islander forces seizing Florida and the north coast of the Gulf of Mexico generally including the southern part of Louisiana territory we give that name to the state of. I think a friendly gentleman's agreement between the northern and southern American powers would insist on the USA at the very least reaching down one shore of the Mississippi or the other to reach a Gulf coast port, almost certainly New Orleans itself, but the price of that might be broad concessions of the southeast corner of the continent to the Colombian union generally far to the north of the Gulf coast they can conquer outright. Perhaps piedmont Native American nations, some union of the Cherokee and Choctaw and other southern tribes, can segue from feudal dependence on British patronage to an alliance and respected mutual borders with the USA and Colombian federation. The delay in US power projection down the Mississippi might prevent US designs on Texas, and the upshot is the far west of the Gulf of Mexico having a large Mexican coast, an American toehold for economic outlet of the upper Mississippian river system the USA does have a lock on jumping off from Ohio and the Great Lakes, and east and south of that--Grand Colombia sprawling across the whole combined width of the Caribbean and Gulf to have a thick tier of OTL Dixie land, from the southern part of OTL state of Mississippi to say Savannah, Georgia, with some Native confederacy sandwiched in there across northern Miss, North Alabama, and northwest Georgia. USA either borders Colombia somewhere near the OTL Georgia/SC border or perhaps the Native state is granted a toehold to the sea, to the Atlantic serving as a buffer between USA and Grand Colombia, and maybe another salient, say down to Mobile, separating Colombian East Louisiana from the rest of Colombian North America. Over the 19th and perhaps into the 20th century Grand Colombia secures the remaining islands in a series of wars or purchases, retains control of Venezuela and Panama, conceivably absorbs or conquers Central America generally. If the grand alliance with the USA continues despite the conflict of interest the USA may perceive in the southeast of North America, perhaps Mexico is a traditional enemy of both, what with GC ambitions in CA, and the Yankee drive to the Pacific. Probably Mexico seeks some European ally or set of them to counterweigh these two bully powers.

The point here is--if initially Colombian North America is a set of conquests from Britain and thus not dominant over the islands, over time Islanders and southern Colombians proper, as well as immigrants permitted to settle, will make much of the Gulf Coast region and it will rise, along with South American mainland Colombian territory, and the possible absorbing of Central America and maybe even parts of Mexico, to overshadow the Islands demographically, even all of them taken together. That much of the northern tier might be descended from Islander settlers, and that the cultural and political influence of the Islands is strong throughout the Union, even no doubt in the old Spanish Main itself and in Central America, counts toward aggrandizing the Islands a bit, morally speaking, but it is not the OP, not a state based solely on Island resources.

Without either Grand Colombia or an eventual conquest of a good chunk of North America, I don't think the Islanders will be able to hold off European revanchism, even with strong USA help. And if they are strong enough after all, they will eventually compromise their pure islander nature by seizing Florida at least, if not all the way to New Orleans. Or they might leave British Florida alone and only take New Orleans and maybe the Texas coast instead. A strong enough Islander state might also manage pretty straightforwardly to claim and control some Central American state or other, to get access to the Pacific perhaps.

If they are strong enough to survive, they will not stick to the rule of incorporating islands only; at some point or other they will opportunistically conquer, purchase, or federate with some continental power or other.

PS--all these "spoilers" are in no way saying anything that should be hidden from anyone; I am just trying a new thing of curtailing the acreage my posts tend to take by stuffing long discourse under short summary titles for the convenience of those who don't want to read them.
 
Nothing west of the British Virgin Islands can be included in the WIF if it is to endure. A Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico union at any point after 1800 is more likely to work than the OTL West Indies federation.
 
Nothing west of the British Virgin Islands can be included in the WIF if it is to endure. A Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico union at any point after 1800 is more likely to work than the OTL West Indies federation.
Why could not a Greater Antilles union later acquire all the Lesser Antilles, if we could first stipulate that a Greater Antilles Union could exist in the first place?
 
So maybe this idea for a semi-workable situation of an otherwise difficult idea. We have a stronger Spain in the 19th century which is especially focused on maintaining what remains of its empire. The Dominican Republic is restored to Spain by Pedro Santana as in OTL, and Spain manages to reach an agreement with it as it later does with Cuba and Puerto Rico to keep the remnants of the Spanish Empire intact in the Caribbean. Into the 20th century, the only independent country in the Caribbean is thus Haiti, which has a somewhat better late 19th century and thus is set up to not be an utter wreck as in OTL. The United States never annexes any Caribbean land.

Decolonisation starts in the 1950s and powerful independence movements emerge throughout the Caribbean. What worked for Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Santo Domingo in the 19th century is no longer acceptable. In the French Caribbean, independence movements are much stronger than OTL, and there's nothing like how Guadeloupe, Martinique, etc. are legally part of France. Likewise in the Dutch Caribbean, and in the Danish Virgin Islands. The independence movements frequently reach out to each other and have many links with each other, and a shared sense of "Caribbean-ness" (compare a "European" identity) emerges due to the historic experience of the peoples of the islands, no matter their race or language. Of course, regional distinctions still exist, especially with the white people of Cuba and the rest of Spanish Caribbean. Within a few years, the Caribbean gains independence in three countries--the West Indies Federation, a French equivalent, the Netherlands Antilles, and a Spanish Caribbean federation consisting of Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Puerto Rico. The Danish Virgin Islands join the West Indies Federation with the permission of Denmark.

These three federations end up working closely together, and eventually federate into a system comparable to the European Union. Haiti joins as well, looking to gain economically. Several years of unusually strong hurricane activity which devastates the Caribbean helps to convince the nations to work more closely together for disaster relief. Although supported by the former colonial nations and the United States, the Caribbean wishes to gain more self-reliance and thus an even more mutual identity is built.

Although many complaints exist in the Caribbean Federation in the 21st century, including but not limited to the dominance of the Greater Antilles in determining many aspects of policy, Haitian immigrants using freedom of movement, and the smaller islands being unduly subsidised by the larger ones, it is hard to imagine the Caribbean Federation not existing with its influence in promoting sustainable tourism and development, protecting the heritage of the islands, strengthening disaster preparedness and relief, and integrating the region to allow it to more efficiently act on the world stage in its own right. It is being proposed more and more that an even tighter union be built between the nations. Supporters of the European Union often use the Caribbean Federation as an example of how to work regional integration. Scenes from the 2010 Haitian earthquake, which killed 30,000 people, captivated the world with their horror, but the soldiers of the Caribbean Federation, a multinational and multiethnic force speaking many languages, assigned to the emergency leading the way in pulling people from the rubble and helping coordinating the rebuilding likewise captivated the world and became iconic images of the tragedy. A later review of the disaster showed that over 200,000 might have been killed without the economic help Haiti gained since joining the Federation, and the timely effort in preventing epidemics was likewise noted.

Certainly an optimistic scenario, but you might be able to lay the groundwork during the colonial era for this to happen. And admittedly, yes, it's the Spanish Caribbean propping up the rest of the Caribbean, although a stronger Haiti and a stronger Jamaica might help, and throw in T&T's oil wealth (and why not the ABC islands too?) for a decent counterbalance to the Spanish islands. Hopefully this will benefit the smaller islands as well.
 
Haiti is the French half of Hispaniola, the Spanish half being Santo Domingo. As I was discussing the 18th century, the French half can either be ignored (and still exist) or can be swapped/exchanged/conquered
Your post didn't talk about any of that. If you don't want people to critique your ideas you may want to fill us in on the exceptions. You said all 4 islands. Haiti is part of one of those 4 islands. Therefore your post was factually wrong. You never even said you were discussing the 18th century. And the idea of this is to include all the Caribbean, not ignore French halves of an island.
 

Deleted member 67076

Haiti is the French half of Hispaniola, the Spanish half being Santo Domingo. As I was discussing the 18th century, the French half can either be ignored (and still exist) or can be swapped/exchanged/conquered
Your post didn't talk about any of that. If you don't want people to critique your ideas you may want to fill us in on the exceptions. You said all 4 islands. Haiti is part of one of those 4 islands. Therefore your post was factually wrong. You never even said you were discussing the 18th century. And the idea of this is to include all the Caribbean, not ignore French halves of an island.
Or French Saint Domingue could be prevented, as can the Spanish loss of Jamaica with a POD before 1603.
 
Is it possible for the majority of Islands in the Carribean Sea to become a single nation? If so, how could we make it happen and what would it look like? It'd most likely have a very weak federal government. Perhaps Spain could retain the entire Carribean until it's colonies eventually revolt? How powerful could such a country be?
Have them all be colonies of Britain, France, Spain or the US.
Then they're all one country.
 
Why could not a Greater Antilles union later acquire all the Lesser Antilles, if we could first stipulate that a Greater Antilles Union could exist in the first place?
'More likely' is still not very likely. Also, at that point, there's a real cultural distinction between the Greater and Less Antilles, and, frankly, a union like you're proposing would be wracked with all of the same problems as the WIF had historically, but on a larger scale.
 

fashbasher

Banned
I think an EU-like or maybe a Swiss situation is the best you'll get (far too diverse for a unitary state barring some global catastrophe; I've explored this subject at length in my maps and timelines). Possibly a Venetian-style "thalassocracy" built around trade links and including enough of the mainland to dilute Cuban and Hispaniolan domination, with a Caribbean-focused Gran Colombia possibly being the formative entity.
 
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