Recent content by Taunay

I think it's still very possible for Portugal to still discover gold in Minas Gerais, they were searching for it since the 1520s at least. So we'll have two colonies competing for migrants. I also don't think it's impossible for Portugal to focus on both of these colonies. If the hundred...

I disagree in parts. 1) I still see Brazil as a good stopping point for Portuguese sailors, so at least some regions of Brazil will be kept 2) Manpower isn't always everything. Focus and investment is more important in colonial enterprises. And also, Portuguese colonial societies in Southern...

Having Henry I of Castile avoid his unlikely death would keep Leon independent from Castile for a longer time.

@Kellan Sullivan @Kurd Gossemer @Aluma

Yes!

There's an excellent book by Alice Canabrava that talks about Portuguese commerce in Buenos Aires and how important it was to the maintenance and survival of the city. There was a Buenos Aires governor (I forgot who, but if anyone's interested I can try to find the source) that claimed something...

Neither Portugal nor Spain ever respected Tordesillas, otherwise half of Brazil would be in Spanish-speaking countries. IF it leads to centralization, they could go either the same as OTL or better. IF the lack of silver doesn't really affect internal politics TOO much, then you have a Habsburg...

The Portuguese had also explored the region in the 1530s, so with a weaker Spanish presence in South America, I see no reason as to why Argentina is somehow destined to become Spanish-speaking.

It would make no sense for Spain to colonize Argentina, it only exists due to the conquest of the Inca Empire. Prior to that, there was zero interest in the Rio de la Plata. Now to the questions: I disagree with assertions that the silver was somehow bad. Yes it led Spain into wars, but some of...

It depends on whether the elites of Brazil (which tbf were fairly integrated into Portuguese politics and society) would feel that some equality between them and their Portuguese peers would exist. If it doesn't, Brazil would likely balkanize into multiple republics in the 1830s/40s. If it does...

A more authoritarian Vargas regime earlier also means that many achievements of the 1934 Constitution (such as the female right to vote and secret elections) would never exist - or would exist later. What matters more for me is how this regime will develop. Let's say that the regime lasts as...

The fact that Europe imported major innovations from Asia and was obsessed with finding a route to India should also tell something

I think a major problem is that people always tend to assume that Europe is somehow destined to become the center of the Industrial Revolution, even though they were a backwater for millenia. Song China could very well have industrialized, as could Bengal. If England managed to overcome its...

Let's say that either Pedro I wins the Cisplatine War (keeping the monarchy in Uruguay) OR he stops being unfaithful to his wife (which helps keep him in power for a little longer). Well, with Cisplatine still on Brazilian control, with Colonia and Montevidéu looking just over Buenos Aires, it...

Had no idea of that, interesting Perhaps the Marquis of Paraná, Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão. He was a Moderate but by 1832, he had gradually turned to the right