What If British Win 1807 Invasion Of Buenos Aires?

[Matt84]

The English take the French colonies in Canada during some war that was called by different names in either side of the Atlantic. It is described by Voltaire as two countries shedding blood and emptying their treasures for some worthless frozen tundra in an unknown desert.

The French Kingdom financed the American revolution ant took those colonies away from the English
The French King is assassinated in a revolution financed in mysterious ways that got way out of hand.
The English finance a revolution that would destroy the Spanish monopoly on most of the Americas.
The Dictator of the French provides a perfect opportunity (chaos) for Wold re-alignment.
The English destroy the Spanish Empire in the Americas and an assortment of countries emerge in freedom to trade with recently industrialized England.
Brazil becomes the seat of the Portuguese empire, and conspicuously remains the only Monarchy in South America (apart from Guyana and the Falkland Islands)
because of the longest standing military alliance in history between the English and the Portuguese against the Spanish.
This "special relationship" predates any religious schism and was a way to balance the newly relevant Atlantic countries. Two smaller, miserably poor coastal countries against a new country that was unifying and enlarging in an unprecedented scale: Spain and would continue reconquering and conquering and claiming half the Globe with pious ambitions to all of it.

To this day it is only the Portuguese Colony in the Americas that continued seamlessly (and transitioned peacefully) into a single Federal Republic.

Spanish America is balkanized beyond reason
English America is divided into varying degrees of formal and de facto allegiance to London: Cayman Islands-Canada-Barbados-Jamaica-the US, etc

 

[yd_mtl]

To this day only it is only the Portuguese Colony in the Americas that continued seamlessly (and transitioned peacefully) into a single Federal Republic.

Spanish America is balkanized beyond reason
English America is divided into different degrees of formal and practical allegiance to London: Cayman Islands-Canada-Barbados-Jamaica-the US

The United States and Canada are each federal countries too. Both of those countries could easily have failed to become those exact countries in the first place, and states like Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, Georgia, Missouri, and California, and provinces like New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia, could all have easily become countries of their own (or at least small groups of states or provinces becoming their own countries). It took particular sets of circumstances for the United States and Canada to each be the sub-continental countries they are today.

 

[johnw100]

New York, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, Sydney,etc are good examples of cities built with British rule or investment. Buenos Aires couldve been in that list if it wasnt for a certain Peron to come along. Disliking the fact that Buenos Aires was being run like a British colony they decided to take back control. And the rest is history as they say.

 

[Matt84]

New York, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, Sydney,etc are good examples of cities built with British rule or investment. Buenos Aires couldve been in that list if it wasnt for a certain Peron to come along. Disliking the fact that Buenos Aires was being run like a British colony they decided to take back control. And the rest is history as they say.

Cape Town

btw, before the Australians would discover electricity in 1979 Buenos Aires used to be the uncontested most modern city in the Southern Hemisphere.

Arentina 1910s

Australia 1990s:

 

[Matt84]

The United States and Canada are each federal countries too. Both of those countries could easily have failed to become those exact countries in the first place, and states like Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, Georgia, Missouri, and California, and provinces like New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia, could all have easily become countries of their own (or at least small groups of states or provinces becoming their own countries). It took particular sets of circumstances for the United States and Canada to each be the sub-continental countries they are today.

what's your point? Newfoundland was part of the UK until the referendum, Texas, California and Utah (Deseret) were their own countries before incorporation and statehood.
I said it was Brasil the only country that outgrew its origin colony without losing any part of it.
I'm not praising that either, I was trying to be descriptive and concise about the "Scramble of the Western Hemisphere"

 

[wineguy999]

what's your point? Newfoundland was part of the UK until the referendum, Texas, California and Utah (Deseret) were their own countries before incorporation and statehood.
I said it was Brasil the only country that outgrew its origin colony without losing any part of it.
I'm not praising that either, I was trying to be descriptive and concise about the "Scramble of the Western Hemisphere"

Sorry, but as a Texan, I have to step in here. Texas was a country...not Utah, not California. The only other state in the US that can claim the distinction of sovereign status is Hawaii, which was never actually ratified as a nation. Just saying...

 

[camberiu]

To this day it is only the Portuguese Colony in the Americas that continued seamlessly (and transitioned peacefully) into a single Federal Republic.

The transition from a Constitutional Monarchy to a pseudo republic was not nearly as seamless as you assume, and it is considered by many Brazilians (myself included) as the single most tragic political event in Brazilian history.

 

[Matt84]

The transition from a Constitutional Monarchy to a pseudo republic was not nearly as seamless as you assume, and it is considered by many Brazilians (myself included) as the single most tragic political event in Brazilian history.

Please ellaborate!

 

[camberiu]

The Monarchy was overthrown because of its militant abolitionism and the fact that it was incredibly progressive and forward thinking, when compared to the average landowner oligarch of the time.

Emperor D. Pedro II was incredibly popular with the masses. He had thwarted the Paraguayan invasion of Brazil, had been gradually pushing for the emancipation of the slaves in Brazil, had a highly empowered daughter (Princess Isabel) in the imperial parliament and wanted to turn Brazil into a modern, highly educated nation. There was freedom of the press, no inflation and the national budget was balanced. D.Pedro II also abolished the death penalty in Brazil, which he considered barbaric, making Brazil the first country in the Americas and one of the first in the world to do so.

His overthrow was a military coup. The army had been strengthened due to the war with Paraguay, the old generals that were loyal to him (Caxias and Osorio) had died, and the oligarchs wanted him out due to the emancipation of the slaves in 1888 and the fact that the crown would pay no compensation for it.
There were several popular revolts against his overthrown, the most famous and largest being Canudos, which was brutally suppressed.

The Old Republic, which is how we call the period after the Empire, was rife with corruption, censorship, manipulation of elections and the destruction of public finances. That was the period in which Brazil stagnated and Argentina took the leadership of the continent.

 

[Matt84]

priceless!!! Thank you Camberiu. Everyone but particularly Westerners (All of the Americas and AustraliaNZ, and the coasts of Europe) should know more about the history of Brasil, but I find the ignorance of Brasilian history in Argentina is particularly alarming. I believe Uruguayans are more concerned about it, but cannot prove it.
I only had a rough idea, your extremely clear recount gives me an image that makes complete sense. I'll try and read a bit more about it and try to see what the other side thinks.
Brasil's history should deserve its own thread, it's very relevant to life in Buenos Aires.