WI Spain held New Spain w/ a late PoD?

If Spain held Mexico in 19th century, US would still occupy southwest by 1850

  • Yes

    Votes: 24 60.0%
  • No

    Votes: 16 40.0%

  • Total voters
    40

Deleted member 67076

OTOH, I don't look at New Spain in 1800-1821 and see how it avoids a great dela of unrest.
And I honestly don't see Spain holding on to New Spain following the trajectory after the treaty of Basel, but that's for someone else to figure out.
 

Deleted member 67076

Soverihn & Faeelin-

Let's codify this Spain and New Spain.

My thought in the OP was a New Spain held because Iturbide switches sides and Mexican conservatives never end up favoring independence. So Spain is still a weakened victim of the Napoleonic Wars. The success of Mexican independence depended not only on the weakening of Spain during its occupation, but also Spain's postwar jerking back and forth between liberalism and conservatism which by turns irritated liberals and conservatives in the colonies.

So, in the ATL, it is not the whole Spanish America, spared from the peninsular war, rather this Spain has beaten the rebellions in New Spain in the 1810s and 1820s, but has lost South America, were the rebellions in La Plata and Gran Colombia were more successful earlier in OTL. The success of those rebellions makes more loyalist Peru and upper Peru unviable, but does not make the more accessible New Spain unviable, at least not yet.

This Spain still finds itself having to yield Florida and make a Transcontinental Treaty by 1819.

With all these prerequisites established, will Spain make Empresario grants in 1820s Texas? If it does, will the Texans rebel in the 1830s. And if they do, would the US come to their rescue?

Look, I know the demographics and growing interest are going to make America desperately hungry for California and Texas no later than 1855-1860. And, America would doubtless have the potential to develop a respectable navy to beat the Spanish by then, and indeed up to decade earlier.

The question is if the US could reach the political consensus, despite growing intersectional concern over slavery, to build up the navy to win at Veracruz and Cuba along with the Army to take mainland territories from Spain.

Faeelin, if this goes as you suggest, Spain's victory over the rebels in New Spain bothers America a great deal and she builds a navy and allows territorial disputes over the southwest to come to war by the 1830s, how big a bite out of Spain will this USA take?

Just Texas and the historic Mexican cession?

Texas and the historic Mexican cession and Cuba and Puerto Rico?

Texas and the historic Mexican cession and Cuba and Puerto Rico and the Philippines and Guam?

All that and even more of the north Mexican desert?
What happens, domestically speaking, to Spain? Does it still fall to civil war and chaos for the next few decades?

Because this is critical. Spain avoiding instability much like this New Spain would translates to further demographic and economic growth over the next few decades. Probably some industrialization too. New Spain is likely to have some industry on it too, by virtue of not spending over half the budget on the military every year.

Mexico, the Caribbean colonies and Central America will massively benefit from this stability and will also allow them to keep pace with America at least to some degree. We'd also see more European immigrants coming to New Spain and her holdings.

Regarding Texas I think Spain would allow settlement, the Spanish did allow settlement to the region late in the game IIRC. This can and likely would be kept. But I think it'd be more settled by Italians, Spaniards and French as opposed to American settlers eager for land. They're catholic, closer to Spain, speak Romance languages, are poorer on average than Americans and thus very eager for land.

I don't see why they would be less loyal than historical migrants to New Spain; Spain wouldn't end slavery and its much easier to monitee migrants when they're homelands are very far away.

Honestly I think having a much more beefed up New Spain + Spain that doesn't fall to instability over the next few decades would tip the scales drastically against the Americans.
 
The US is not developing in a vacuum here. OTL America's political process was defined by basically having no peer competitors in the hemisphere, here people are suggesting New Spain will be comparably induetiralized... that is going to strongly affect domestic politics, not least considering the strong anti-Catholic bias. I could easily see a more developed US Navy and army and/or rapprochement or even alliance with Britain as a response.
 

raharris1973

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The only way I see Spain holding on to Mexico is to avoid the Peninsular War, which opens up a whole new can of worms.

And I honestly don't see Spain holding on to New Spain following the trajectory after the treaty of Basel, but that's for someone else to figure out.

I disagree, at least for the short and medium term. The Treaty of Basel is 1795, and the peninsula war is from 1807 onward, yet Spain contested for control and often defeated rebels as late as the early 1820s.

I will grant you that changing the peace of Basel and avoiding the peninsular war could grant you a much different, powerful Spanish Empire, a scenario that is more divergent (and therefore possibly more interesting) than what I proposed.

With a late PoD of Iturbide staying loyal to Spain in 1820-21, he can probably keep the Mexican insurgents on the ropes and possibly finish them off completely, forcing any later independence movement to start from scratch.

However, unless butterflies from as late as 1821 make metropolitan Spain post-1821 remarkably more orderly and successful, Spain is due for Carlist wars in 1833-1840 and 1846-1849. Those of course could shake the hold of Old Spain on New Spain. All else being equal.

Of course, all else won't be entirely equal, as the posts below suggest:

The US is not developing in a vacuum here. OTL America's political process was defined by basically having no peer competitors in the hemisphere, here people are suggesting New Spain will be comparably induetiralized... that is going to strongly affect domestic politics, not least considering the strong anti-Catholic bias. I could easily see a more developed US Navy and army and/or rapprochement or even alliance with Britain as a response.

The nightmare scenario for Spain is America allying with Mexican Revolutionaries but surely they'd never do that...

This last is most intriguing. What's the plausibility of the Monroe or Adams administration making an alliance with Guerrero's rebels and working together to defeat Iturbide and the broader Spanish effort, with Guerrero ceding territory to the Americans (I am thinking Upper California, Santa Fe of New Mexico and the New Philippines, aka, Texas) as the price of alliance. This could lead to an absence of a later Mexican-American war, and a southwest border for the US slightly north of OTL's being established in the 1820s or 1830s. [See map here for reference https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Viceroyalty_of_the_New_Spain_1819_(without_Philippines).png ]

An Adams-Guerrero Treaty to supplant the Adams-Onis Treaty, if you will.

Possibly bringing sectional conflict to a head earlier, or changing how it happens entirely, with more rapid US southwest expansion.
 

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the US did not need any part of new spain. It had more than enough sparsely populated lands in Oregon and the Louisiana purchase. There was NO population pressure anywhere near New Spain. The only thing of 'need' is a west coast port to fulfill hazy global ambitions. However, the US was a greedy SOB and wanted more. They saw a weakened nation to the south, and decided to take what they wanted.

Change that up so that New Spain/Spain is stronger (doesn't have to be anything resembling a powerhouse), and US is not going to be quite so quick to act on their greed.
There were quite a few Americans in California and the Mormons moved to Utah while it was part of Mexico.
 
When Spain had Louisiana they invited Americans such as Daniel Boone. There is no reason to think they wont do the same in Texas. Americans move west before the army and flag. Manifest Destiny is not about the national borders, it is about Americans constantly moving west due to population pressures back east. This requires a PoD very far back to keep Americans out.
 

raharris1973

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Anybody else think it's frickin' awesome that that Bourbon Spanish Empire called Texas "New Philippines"....:closedeyesmile:
 
As it was pointed out before, all depends on the stability of mainland Spain. After all, not all "Americans" supported the criollos élites who waged war against Spain for "American freedom". Moreover, if Riego's troops hadn't revolted in 1820 (beginning the Liberal Trieny) and sailed to Spanish America to reinforce the loyalist garrisons (made up of peninsulares and Natives) the outcome had been different.
If the remnants of the Spanish Empire are stable, it'd depend on population (California and Texas were sparsely populated), Spanish budget(if she's hugely indebted as OTL or not) and US offer.
American-Spanish War earlier? Too many premises: year of the war, US expansion so far, stability of Spain and her Colonies, fitness of their armies/navies... Anything could happen and, with the proper (short) explanation, anything is possible(and plausible).
 
There were quite a few Americans in California and the Mormons moved to Utah while it was part of Mexico

I presume this is in response to my comment about there being no population pressure. What I meant was that the US was not so overwhelmingly populous that they needed more living space. they hadn't even filled their own land space. they didn't take territory out of need. Indeed, there were americans living on Mexican soil, often at the invitation of the host country.
 
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