WI Misiones Orientales not in Brazil?

yofie

Banned
The western part of Brazil's southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul, was a battleground between the Spaniards and the Portuguese after the expulsion of the Jesuit missions in the 1760s from there and nearby Paraguay and in between, and kept on changing hands between those two empires between then and the early 1800s. This region, known as the Misiones Orientales, ultimately ended up under Portuguese and then Brazilian control.

A number of important Brazilian presidents came from the Misiones Orientales - most notably Getulio Vargas and Joao Goulart (in fact, those two both were originally from Sao Borja, in the region). As an extra item, Vargas' father (or at least his family) came from Sao Paulo state, in Brazil no matter what.

My question is, if the Misiones Orientales had ended up under Spanish (then Argentine or Uruguayan) control, would there have been a figure similar to Vargas who'd be the governor of Rio Grande do Sul and then take over the Brazilian presidency in 1930, or would Brazilian history have undergone a radically different course? Same with Goulart in the 1960s? And I suppose that Vargas and/or Goulart would have maybe served as Argentine or Uruguayan presidents?
 
If Misiones Orientales is Spanish/Argentinian/Uruguyan, then the likelyhood of Vargas and Goulart being born, let alone going into politics, let alone there being exactly the same set of circumstances that led to them becoming president is very unlikely. Moreso for becoming president of Argentina as the area would be a major backwater away from Codobra, Buenos Aires or the ranching families of Patagonia.
 
The most interesting thought would not be a Brazil without Vargas but a Brazil without Rio Grande do Sul or with a rump Rio Grande (assuming that the eastern part of that state - Porto Alegre, the Lagoa dos Patos and Serras Gaúchas remained in Brazil).

In this ATL, Brazilian history would be changed in many forms:

1- No more Brazilian entanglements in Rio da Plata area. Far from Montevideo and Buenos Aires and without major disputed areas with Argentina / Uruguay, the Brazilian Empire would lose any strategic interest in that region, changing its views to Paraguay and Amazon. Maybe we would see a sooner Paraguyan war, whitout the alliance with Argentina, ending in the annexation by Brazil of Paraguay.

2- A rump Rio Grande do Sul would not have critical mass to become a province in the Brazilian Empire.....Porto Alegre region would be annexed to Santa Catarina In this case, the major Brazilian province / state in the South would be Parana, dismembered from Sao Paulo in 1853.
Being much more close to Paulista culture and political influence (and common interests like an economy also based in the coffee plantation) Parana politicians
would support and participate the Coffee and Milk political agreement between Sao Paulo and Minas....the populist upheveal of Revolucao de 1930 would still happened but much later, maybe in late 30s or early 40s.

3- The populist wave of Vargas would still happen in Brazil as it was a political phenomena of all Latin America from 1930 until 1970, but probably would come from the Northeasten Brazil (maybe Bahia or Pernambuco, states that also demanded a greater voice in Brazilian politics in 1930)....
 
1- No more Brazilian entanglements in Rio da Plata area. Far from Montevideo and Buenos Aires and without major disputed areas with Argentina / Uruguay, the Brazilian Empire would lose any strategic interest in that region, changing its views to Paraguay and Amazon. Maybe we would see a sooner Paraguyan war, whitout the alliance with Argentina, ending in the annexation by Brazil of Paraguay.

The entanglements would only be changed, but wouldn't cease to exist. After all, the borders were never very clear before the Uruguay River was defined as the limit between the Lusophone/Hispanophone areas. Just instead of wars being fought over Uruguay they would be fought over Misiones Orientales more. Also, as long as Brazil needs free passage through the Parana and Paraguay rivers in order to reach Mato Grosso the Plata basin will be the greatest concern of our diplomacy in South America.

The obvious POD for the Misiones Orientales not fall into the Brazilian sphere is to have the annexation of 1801 not happening. But would it avoid the invasions of 1811 and 1816? There would still be reasons for a Portuguese intervention during the troubles of the 1810's in the region, and the entire Uruguay might fall ITTL to Luso-Brazilian armies again.

2- A rump Rio Grande do Sul would not have critical mass to become a province in the Brazilian Empire.....Porto Alegre region would be annexed to Santa Catarina In this case, the major Brazilian province / state in the South would be Parana, dismembered from Sao Paulo in 1853.
Being much more close to Paulista culture and political influence (and common interests like an economy also based in the coffee plantation) Parana politicians
would support and participate the Coffee and Milk political agreement between Sao Paulo and Minas....the populist upheveal of Revolucao de 1930 would still happened but much later, maybe in late 30s or early 40s.

I think is extremely unlikely to have Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul joined. They were already administrated separately since the creation of the Captaincy of Rio Grande de São Pedro in the 1760's. And since the extinction of the Captaincy of Ilheus around that time, the trend was always to create more captaincies/provinces, not join them.
Regarding Parana, the culture there was much more linked to cattle raising than coffee, that only really started later in the 20th century. The North of Parana, where coffee started to be planted, was only started to be significantly colonized in the 1920's. So, I doubt they would have too much in common with São Paulo.

3- The populist wave of Vargas would still happen in Brazil as it was a political phenomena of all Latin America from 1930 until 1970, but probably would come from the Northeasten Brazil (maybe Bahia or Pernambuco, states that also demanded a greater voice in Brazilian politics in 1930)....

With a POD so ancient as 1801 we can't say surely what would happen in the 20th century. But I concede that the odds are that "caudillismo" could probably be a strong political force.
 
Tks for your insight Gonzaga but I still belive that, without Misiones Orientales, the Brazilian focus in the Plata would change significally if compared to OTL.

After the impossibility of estabilishing a successful Portuguese colonization in Uruguay with the fall of Colonia do Sacramento in 1777, the Portuguese focus was to secure the fluvial connection with Mato Grosso, as you said, with the annexation of the banks of Uruguay river (Misiones Orientales), and plans, never carried, to invade the future Argentine Province of Corrientes.

The Portuguese / Brazilian invasion of Cisplatina in 1810 was much more motivated by the power vaccum generated in that region after the 1810 revolution in Buenos Aires than a new real attempt to fully annex the region to Brazil....there were never plans to "Brazilianize" the region or changing the already Hispanic local culture to something closer to Luso-Brazilian culture.

In a scenario where Portugal and the future Brazil would be denied both from Uruguay and the Pampas Gauchos (Misiones Orientales), my guess is that the Hispano-Luso rivaltries in the OTL Rio Grande do Sul / Plata region would be much diminshed...some impacts by country:

Brazil: Without Misiones Orientales, the contact point between Lusophone and Hispanophone America in that part of Southern America would be something 600 km far from Montivideo and 350 km far from Porto Alegre....chances are that Brazil would much more concerned with a full blown invasion of the rump Rio Grande do Sul than seeing possibilities to reach Montevideo or Buenos Aires in a military excursion across the Pampas. Chances are that Brazil would much more interested in securing the possession of the rump Rio Grande with a secure border with Uruguay than trying military adventures across the Pampas.

Uruguay: a greater Uruguay (if Misiones Orientales remained with the future Uruguay) would be much more confortable with borders more than 600 km far from Montevideo (instead of the actual 300 -350 km distance with Brazil) and almost 50% more free space to colonize and develop, so the possibility and will to estabilish definite and secure borders with Brazil that would avoid chances of an invasion of Misiones.

Argentina: Argentina never had serious thoughts of invading Brazil....from 1810 to 1860 it would be impossible to the fragmented parts of Argentina even to plan for an invasion of Souther Brazil...from 1860 onwards, Argentina had giant streches of "free" lands to the South (Patagonia) that could annex much easily than trying a war with a much more populated neighbor - Brazil.

So, I belive that without the possibilities of a greater say in Plata region, Brazil (and its neighbors) would fast come to terms that secure and definite borders in Misiones Orientales would be the best scenario for all.

And what about open navigation to Mato Grosso? Well, first, the possession of Misiones Orientales never guaranteed navigation rights to Mato Grosso...the Parana / Paraguay Rivers remained in Spanish (and Argentine) hands and since 1820 the major obstacle to Brazilian interests was Paraguay, not Argentina or Uruguay.....so my guess is that, without the distractions of the constant skirmishes of the Uruguaian / Argentine border (and also without the drain generated by Revolucao Farroupilha, as that a rump and coastal Rio Grande do Sul would have no motives to revolt against the Brazilian Empire), the focus to definitely solve Brazilian fears of losing Mato Grosso would be directioned to a direct and sooner confrontation with Paraguay.
 
And what about open navigation to Mato Grosso? Well, first, the possession of Misiones Orientales never guaranteed navigation rights to Mato Grosso...the Parana / Paraguay Rivers remained in Spanish (and Argentine) hands and since 1820 the major obstacle to Brazilian interests was Paraguay, not Argentina or Uruguay.....so my guess is that, without the distractions of the constant skirmishes of the Uruguaian / Argentine border (and also without the drain generated by Revolucao Farroupilha, as that a rump and coastal Rio Grande do Sul would have no motives to revolt against the Brazilian Empire), the focus to definitely solve Brazilian fears of losing Mato Grosso would be directioned to a direct and sooner confrontation with Paraguay.

Well, I'm not sure about the confrontation with Paraguay. IOTL we weren't really interested in a war with them, even when they expelled the Brazilian troops from the fortress of Pão de Açúcar in 1850 we didn't move against Asuncion. IOTL the conflict only happened when: a) the Paraguayans declared war against us first; b) Argentina was allied to us, giving the Brazilian forces the possibility of attacking through the Mesopotomia.

Also, Uruguay ITTL would rather become an Argentine Province (without the Luso-Brazilian invasion there in 1816), and so it would be Argentina that probably would be seen as more threatening to Paraguay than Brazil. Even IOTL the conflicting border claims between Argentina and Paraguay were much greater than the Brazilian-Paraguayan ones. Argentina changed constantly their claims over the Chaco, sometimes asking not a border on the Bermejo River but wanted that all the right margin of the Paraguay river until the Brazilian border on Bahia Blanca should belong to them. So, given the greatest area of conflict with Argentina that Brazil would have (after all, defining where exactly the line of Santo Ildefonson crossed the land would be a nightmare anyway, and we could always claim that the best treaty to be followed should be Madrid) and with a more powerful Argentina surrounding Paraguay we probably would reach some kind of agreement with Asuncion.

You still have the confflict over the Misiones Occidentales, which was only solved IOTL by the war. ITTL we would have an interesting question here: what would happen with the litigious area of the Palmas Question that went to Brazil IOTL? Assuming that Misiones Occidentales are now in Argentine hands (as I said, I doubt that Uruguay would be independent ITTL without the invasion of 1816) they would have a much better chance of claiming the area, that was also disputed with Paraguay.
 

yofie

Banned
You still have the confflict over the Misiones Occidentales, which was only solved IOTL by the war. ITTL we would have an interesting question here: what would happen with the litigious area of the Palmas Question that went to Brazil IOTL? Assuming that Misiones Occidentales are now in Argentine hands (as I said, I doubt that Uruguay would be independent ITTL without the invasion of 1816) they would have a much better chance of claiming the area, that was also disputed with Paraguay.

I think that the Palmas/Missoes question would still be resolved in favour of Brazil because at least OTL it was the skilled diplomacy of the Duke of Rio Branco that tilted the decision of US President Grover Cleveland toward the Brazilians. In fact, the Duke of Rio Branco also had great success in advocating on the Brazilian side for other border disputes, such as with Bolivia over the Acre Territory.
 
Question to all: what would be the social, political and economical consequences for Brazil with a smaller Rio Grande do Sul (supposing that ITTL Misiones Orientales remained under Hispanic control since XVII century)?

No more Brazilian rodizios? lol
 
Question to all: what would be the social, political and economical consequences for Brazil with a smaller Rio Grande do Sul (supposing that ITTL Misiones Orientales remained under Hispanic control since XVII century)?

No more Brazilian rodizios? lol

Well, initially there wouldn't be much differences. The lands in the west took almost 50 years to be properly colonized (Uruguaiana was only properly founded in 1843). There would be less agropastoral activities, but the fields around Rio Pardo, Pelotas, Viamão, Vacaria, would still belong to Brazil, so the province would still be economically viable. But having a greater border with Argentina probably would cause Rio Grande do Sul to be even more militarised than IOTL. Also, maybe the government would be even more interested in bringing immigrants and settlers there (if you have a small province exposed to your enemy one way of improving you position there would be to make it have more population than the lands around). So, maybe we would see areas that were only colonized after the 1850's started to be populated much earlier.

But one thing is sure: if the Treaty of Santo Ildefonso had been kept (and it probably means that should be no War of the Oranges in 1801) then there would be some kind of conflict for the Misiones Orientales later. Santo Ildefonso was extremely messy regarding the Southern borders in comparison with Madrid. While the Treaty of Madrid followed more clear limits as rivers and the river basin divides, Santo Ildefonso created the figure of the "neutral fields", vast extensions of land that officially didn't belong to either Spain or Portugal (and therefore were used as refuge for outlaws). Also, the borders didn't follow clear lines of division, but rather crossed open fields. So, soon or later this mess would need to be solved, and given how easily the Luso-Brazilians conquered the Misiones Orientales in 1801 (basically because they were almost completely depopulated after the Guaranitic War) I would bet that Brazilian territories would be increased in this process.
 

yofie

Banned
Back to Getulio Vargas: If he's butterflied away, maybe Joao Pessoa (the governor of Paraiba state, a participant in the overthrow of the old order in Brazil in 1930) could take Vargas' place. After all, Pessoa was Vargas' vice-presidential candidate in OTL in 1930. The only possibly rub is that Pessoa was assassinated OTL by an opponent of his in Paraiba after the election but before the revolution.
 
Back to Getulio Vargas: If he's butterflied away, maybe Joao Pessoa (the governor of Paraiba state, a participant in the overthrow of the old order in Brazil in 1930) could take Vargas' place. After all, Pessoa was Vargas' vice-presidential candidate in OTL in 1930. The only possibly rub is that Pessoa was assassinated OTL by an opponent of his in Paraiba after the election but before the revolution.

With a POD as distant as 1801 the whole history of Brazil is changed. By 1930 no one relevant in Brazilian history would exist as the same as IOTL. That is a basic butterfly effect.
Just to give you an example, João Pessoa was politicaly relevant because he was a nephew of the former president Epitácio Pessoa, who was an orphan raised by his uncle Henrique Pereira de Lucena, who was a governor of Rio Grande do Sul during the Empire. It's impossible to keep the line that eventually lead to João Pessoa existing an entering the politics unaffected by events from Rio Grande do Sul (I can think at least 6 wars that wouldn't exist or be dramatically changed between 1801 and 1930).
 
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yofie

Banned
With a POD as distant as 1801 the whole history of Brazil is changed. By 1930 no one relevant in Brazilian history would exist as the same as IOTL. That is a basic butterfly effect.
Just to give you an example, João Pessoa was politicaly relevant because he was a nephew of the former president Epitácio Pessoa, who was an orphan raised by his uncle Henrique Pereira de Lucena, who was a governor of Rio Grande do Sul during the Empire. It's impossible to keep the line that eventually lead to João Pessoa existing an entering the politics unaffected by events from Rio Grande do Sul (I can think at least 6 wars that wouldn't exist or be dramatically changed between 1801 and 1930).

I just saw on Wikipedia that Henrique Pereira de Lucena was born in Pernambuco state, quite far away from Rio Grande do Sul, and that he was the governor of Pernambuco and two other northeastern states along with Rio Grande do Sul.
 
I just saw on Wikipedia that Henrique Pereira de Lucena was born in Pernambuco state, quite far away from Rio Grande do Sul, and that he was the governor of Pernambuco and two other northeastern states along with Rio Grande do Sul.

The fact that they were far away from Rio Grande do Sul doesn't mean that they wouldn't be affected by butterflies. With a POD in 1801 we can't say that there would be an Empire of Brazil, that a Republic would be declared in 1889 and that we would have an Old Republic that would be overthrown in 1930. It's like creating a POD where Florida isn't annexed to the USA and FDR still exists and is relevant to the American politics in the 1930's.
 
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yofie

Banned
The fact that they were far away from Rio Grande do Sul doesn't mean that they wouldn't be affected by butterflies. With a POD in 1801 we can't say that there would be an Empire of Brazil, that a Republic would be declared in 1889 and that we would have an Old Republic that would be overthrown in 1930. It's like creating a POD where Florida isn't annexed to the USA and FDR still exists and is relevant to the American politics in the 1930's.

The whole point of what I'm trying to say is that details get changed the most when history is different from OTL, but the general patterns of OTL are still at least reasonably relevant to the ATLs unless something in OTL comes directly from the thing that is changed relative to OTL. As an example here, if Misiones Orientales belongs to Argentina or Uruguay and not Brazil as a consequence of something taking place in 1801, then sure, people like Vargas are butterflied away because Vargas came from that region. But because places like Pernambuco and Sao Paulo are within Brazilian territory both OTL and ATL, people coming from there will still influence Brazilian history no matter what. There would still be a Rio de Janeiro to which the Portuguese monarchy flees in 1808-09 and hence there would still be a Brazilian Empire, which would be overthrown sometime late in the 19th century (maybe not necessarily 1889 as OTL). And if there's only a rump Rio Grande do Sul, then there's still a left-wing revolution around 1930 - this time, led more by people in the Northeast and Minas Gerais than Rio Grande do Sul. After all, the movement to overthrow the existing order led by Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais states (i.e. cafe com leite) was generated as much by nordestinos and mineiros as by gauchos OTL. In short, the general patterns would still apply.
 
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There would still be a Rio de Janeiro to which the Portuguese monarchy flees in 1808-09 and hence there would still be a Brazilian Empire, which would be overthrown sometime late in the 19th century (maybe not necessarily 1889 as OTL). And if there's only a rump Rio Grande do Sul, then there's still a left-wing revolution around 1930 - this time, led more by people in the Northeast and Minas Gerais than Rio Grande do Sul. After all, the movement to overthrow the existing order led by Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais states (i.e. cafe com leite) was generated as much by nordestinos and mineiros as by gauchos OTL. In short, the general patterns would still apply.

No, there is nothing ensuring that the Empire would ever be founded ITTL or that it would last as long as IOTL. If you want Misiones Orientales not belonging to Brazil you need to butterfly away the intervention in Uruguay in the 1810's and 1820's too, because otherwise there is simply no way that the Southerners wouldn't take it during the wars, the place was simply too unpopulated to be protected by the Hispano-Platineans. And by having it you open a can of worms during that period. Heck, we can't even say it Pedro would be in Brazil (as IOTL he only didn't go to Portugal instead of his father because his wife was pregnant at the beggining of 1821). There are several key facts in the Brazilian history that happened completely by chance that might not happen, resulting in completely different historical paths.

But I'll leave it here and I won't post in this thread anymore. We simply have too divergent views of how the butterfly effect acts and even if I spent more time trying to explain you wouldn't agree.
 

yofie

Banned
No, there is nothing ensuring that the Empire would ever be founded ITTL or that it would last as long as IOTL. If you want Misiones Orientales not belonging to Brazil you need to butterfly away the intervention in Uruguay in the 1810's and 1820's too, because otherwise there is simply no way that the Southerners wouldn't take it during the wars, the place was simply too unpopulated to be protected by the Hispano-Platineans. And by having it you open a can of worms during that period. Heck, we can't even say it Pedro would be in Brazil (as IOTL he only didn't go to Portugal instead of his father because his wife was pregnant at the beggining of 1821). There are several key facts in the Brazilian history that happened completely by chance that might not happen, resulting in completely different historical paths.

But I'll leave it here and I won't post in this thread anymore. We simply have too divergent views of how the butterfly effect acts and even if I spent more time trying to explain you wouldn't agree.

Keep in mind that I'm a more conservative alternate historian than many others in this thread (but I'm sure there are some who are as conservative as I am), meaning that I tend to incorporate as many OTL trends, events, and personalities as possibly in a given ATL as long as they're not butterflied away in that ATL. Of course, you can't directly trace all the effects, direct or indirect, of a specific POD down to the present day, but it's just easier to impose OTL personalities and events and adapt them to ATL circumstances.

A way to get around this conundrum would be that if you say that the existence of OTL individuals is problematic in an ATL, at the very least we could keep the same general OTL trends and events in that ATL, like a leftist personalist revolution around 1930 that would overthrow the cafe-com-leite political leadership in Brazil even if Vargas is butterflied away because of an early 1800s territorial change in Rio Grande do Sul relative to OTL. The dates and stuff like that don't have to be exactly the same as OTL, but after all, there's still a Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Minas Gerais, etc. still in existence in the ATL. It's just that maybe we wouldn't identify exactly which individuals would come into play in that ATL.
 
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