Different colonies and colonizers

Rafael stahl

I always found the lack of colonizer nations in real history kinda boring. Only 5 nations colonized America, and only three dominated 99 percent of the continent.
What are the possibilities of a more diverse America? Probably the Danes and Swedes are good bets, BC they kinda had a colonial history. The Dutch could've focused more on America I guess.
Anyway, what are your thoughts?
 

Rafael stahl

Belisarius II said:
What other nations were strong enough to engage in that kind of struggle?
Click to expand...
I think if you keep the Kalmar Union, Denmark could get a pretty big colonial empire.
Also, removing the treaty of tordesillas is also important, BC Portugal wouldn't be able to keep the entirety of Brazil, and it would give the Spanish a disadvantage
 
Awkwardvulture

Awkwardvulture

Navarre and Scotland possibly? A lack of prospects for easy expansion in Europe could cause them to colonize, though their colonies would be of much more modest size than those of Spain and England.
 

CastIron

I've thought about this question as well, and there were other colonizers than the big five, the Swedes and Dutch as you have mentioned colonized mainland America, but the funny thing is that the Dutch actually conquered New Sweden and added it to the New Netherlands, which in turn were annexed by England.
I also recall that the Dutch tried to grab part of Brazil and that there was an attempt by an independent German banking family to colonize Venezuela, which I find the most interesting.
 
AltoRegnant

AltoRegnant

Well, I have Denmark colonizing the Hudson's Bay and Argentina in my TL. Britain takes up colombia and the mouth of the amazon to compensate for the lack of plantation colonies (the south is dominantly french)

Belisarius II said:
What other nations were strong enough to engage in that kind of struggle?
Click to expand...
That's the real trick. Personally I don't think you need to keep the Kalmar Union, just stunt sweden post independence. Have them lose to russia and Denmark-Norway a few times. Those wars had some luck for sweden. I also had them inherit Brandenburg-Prussia to secure them power over the southern baltic and open them up to focus in the atlantic
 

pompejus

Rafael stahl said:
I always found the lack of colonizer nations in real history kinda boring. Only 5 nations colonized America, and only three dominated 99 percent of the continent.
What are the possibilities of a more diverse America? Probably the Danes and Swedes are good bets, BC they kinda had a colonial history. The Dutch could've focused more on America I guess.
Anyway, what are your thoughts?
Click to expand...
The problem is you need specific conditions for a country to colonise the Americas. Basicly outside of the big 5 there realy were no other countries suitable. You need a good seaborder and be able to focus on the sea and be big enough. Basicly all countries besides England, France, Spain and Portugal do not meet those criteria. The Netherlands was able to compete because of its specific political and economic situation, which is hard to duplicate. I could see Denmark and Sweden do somewhat better than OTL, but not as well as the Netherlands did OTL (and the Netherlands ended with just 6 islands and Suriname). I guess small countries like courtland or Brandenburg (or ATL Scotland) could snatch a carribean island or two, but not much more.
 

Belisarius II

Awkwardvulture said:
Navarre and Scotland possibly? A lack of prospects for easy expansion in Europe could cause them to colonize, though their colonies would be of much more modest size than those of Spain and England.
Click to expand...

I'm confused, Scotland & England are under the same king from 1603 on, and Navarre is part of Spain.
 

Rafael stahl

Awkwardvulture said:
Navarre and Scotland possibly? A lack of prospects for easy expansion in Europe could cause them to colonize, though their colonies would be of much more modest size than those of Spain and England.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I guess that could work. The only problem is that Navarre has a very limited population. Maybe they wouldn't be able to keep them. Other problem is that after the Iberian marriage, Spain would probably invade them to prevent competition. That could happen to Scotland too, but if they ally the French and prevent marriage with the English they would be able to remain independent
 

Rafael stahl

Belisarius II said:
I'm confused, Scotland & England are under the same king from 1603 on, and Navarre is part of Spain.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but the Americas were discovered in 1498, before 1603. Navarre was an independent kingdom before being eaten by Spain.
OBS: we are talking America the continent, not the country
 

Gloss

pompejus said:
The problem is you need specific conditions for a country to colonise the Americas. Basicly outside of the big 5 there realy were no other countries suitable. You need a good seaborder and be able to focus on the sea and be big enough. Basicly all countries besides England, France, Spain and Portugal do not meet those criteria. The Netherlands was able to compete because of its specific political and economic situation, which is hard to duplicate. I could see Denmark and Sweden do somewhat better than OTL, but not as well as the Netherlands did OTL (and the Netherlands ended with just 6 islands and Suriname). I guess small countries like courtland or Brandenburg (or ATL Scotland) could snatch a carribean island or two, but not much more.
Click to expand...
Seems to be a completely arbitrary limitation, I don't see how the Dutch were constrained geographically whatsoever and I don't think the ad hoc argument you provide really reinforces the geographical argument, the Netherlands ended up faring just as well as the Portuguese did, they just needed a bit more settlers in the Mid Atlantic(plus not being sandwiched by earlier established English colonies) and maybe have a bigger and more secure homefront that would provide even more available settlers and more resources than OTL even.

Also I don't see how the Scandinavians would be in any worse position than France or England to colonize places like Atlantic Canada and again if the Dutch were able to do what the Portuguese did, why does the geographical argument hold water?
 

Rafael stahl

pompejus said:
The problem is you need specific conditions for a country to colonise the Americas. Basicly outside of the big 5 there realy were no other countries suitable. You need a good seaborder and be able to focus on the sea and be big enough. Basicly all countries besides England, France, Spain and Portugal do not meet those criteria. The Netherlands was able to compete because of its specific political and economic situation, which is hard to duplicate. I could see Denmark and Sweden do somewhat better than OTL, but not as well as the Netherlands did OTL (and the Netherlands ended with just 6 islands and Suriname). I guess small countries like courtland or Brandenburg (or ATL Scotland) could snatch a carribean island or two, but not much more.
Click to expand...
That's the point of the thread, create countries other than the big 5 to have a reason, population and military power to colonize
 

Gloss

Rafael stahl said:
I always found the lack of colonizer nations in real history kinda boring. Only 5 nations colonized America, and only three dominated 99 percent of the continent.
What are the possibilities of a more diverse America? Probably the Danes and Swedes are good bets, BC they kinda had a colonial history. The Dutch could've focused more on America I guess.
Anyway, what are your thoughts?
Click to expand...
How early can the PODs be?
 
Awkwardvulture

Awkwardvulture

Rafael stahl said:
Yeah, I guess that could work. The only problem is that Navarre has a very limited population. Maybe they wouldn't be able to keep them. Other problem is that after the Iberian marriage, Spain would probably invade them to prevent competition. That could happen to Scotland too, but if they ally the French and prevent marriage with the English they would be able to remain independent
Click to expand...

Navarre may be able to keep them if they go for areas that the Spanish themselves aren't particularly interested in colonizing, like maybe OTL New England or the Chesapeake region. As for Scotland I can see them colonizing OTL Newfoundland and other parts of Canada due to how convenient those locations are.
 

Rafael stahl

Gloss said:
How early can the PODs be?
Click to expand...
I think late middle ages, cuz before that is too hard to keep track. If you want a precise year, o think 1300 is a good idea. But this rule is very flexible, it just can't be too far away, like antiquity and early middle ages
 

Gloss

Seems hard to get more proper colonizing powers out of the 6 main already mentioned, those being Britain(+ Ireland), France, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands and Scandinavia.
You could try with Scotland, Navarre, Hanse or divide Scandinavia in 2 but IMO this would just jeopardize the chances/likelihood of success of the colonial endevours, a surviving Hansa capable of organizing such expedition would dominated the Baltic and probably make it harder for Scandinavia or even the Dutch to colonize, on the other hand a strong Netherlands and Scandinavia would basically restrain any ability of any other HRE power to colonize properly.
You cannot really divide France up, Scotland could work but it would be very hard to pull off and would be likely small anyway, Navarre even worse, Britanny the same.
I think you could try having some "token" colonies under the tutelage of a more secure power, like some sort of German Venezuela or maybe an Italian "token" colony under the Spaniards.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top