WI: The First Mexican Empire's 'Imperial Colonization Law', and associated plans, get fully implemen
Mar 7, 2023 13:12:44 GMT
American hist likes this
Post by SinghSong on Mar 7, 2023 13:12:44 GMT
In our timeline, when the First Mexican Empire gained independence from Spain, the new country was relatively sparsely populated, with a total population of 6.2M (albeit still significantly more populous than the contemporary USA). And almost 10% of the population- primarily young men- had been killed during the Mexican War of Independence, leaving the young nation with a severe labor shortage. Mexican liberals argued in favor of allowing foreigners to immigrate; citing the opportunity to emulate the United States' booming population and economic growth, particularly in the bordering former Louisiana Territory, which was largely attributed to immigration. However, opponents claimed that it'd be too difficult to attract settlers, and that these immigrants, particularly those from Western Europe and the USA, wouldn't assimilate into Mexican society.
Though the U.S. Congress had outlawed the African trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1808, domestic immigration in the American South was still dominated by domestic slavery; with the explosion in the population of the adjacent Louisiana territory (increasing from c.8k to 60k within a year of the purchase) having been dominated by the establishment of plantations and the importation of slave labor, with slaves comprising c.50% of the Louisiana Territory's population. And Emperor Agustin de Iturbide made colonization a priority for his administration; appointing a government commission, headed by Juan Francisco Azcárate y Ledesma, to come up with a plan to try and keep the population & economic growth of 'Upper Mexico', which had previously been comfortably greater than that of the Louisiana Territory under French rule, as close to being on a par with the growth of the Louisiana Territory as possible, in an effort to maintain this status quo and secure its otherwise indefensible northern borders.
This plan recommended following the precedent of the Spanish policy of allocating Empresarios (as well as implementing the revision of said Spanish policy in 1820, which would make it more flexible, and allow colonists of any religions to settle there, rather than requiring any settlers to be Catholic as had previously been the case), and inviting foreign settlers to help colonize Coahuila, Nuevo Santander, Baja California, Alta California, New Mexico, and Texas. The proposal also suggested that, while Europeans and American colonists should be recruited to settle the First Mexican Empire's easternmost frontier states and provinces, Mexican convicts should be sent to settle the inland frontier state of New Mexico (making it a penal colony modelled after Valdivia, with the convicts to be similarly assigned with constructing and manning a system of defensive fortifications to keep the USA at bay), and that California (Baja & Alta) should be settled predominantly with 'Chinos' instead. Brought to Mexico via the Manila Galleon route, these Chinos (a misleading term, since most were Filipinos rather than Chinese, even if the slave merchants whose ships exported them from the Philippines were mostly Chinese) were basically the Mexican equivalent of the 'negroes' who were brought to the USA via the transatlantic slave trade.
Unlike in the USA though, in Mexico, second generation 'chinos' were assimilated into the general population via mestizaje (racial mixing), and by passing as indigenous indios, who were in both instances subsequently legally protected from chattel slavery in Mexico. Recent studies have shown that about a third of people sampled from Mexico have Asian ancestry, with genetic markers tracing this predominantly back to the Philippines and Indonesia, with this being a legacy of the enduring colonial period. This is most true on the West Coast of Mexico, particular in the states of Guerrero (the largest city of which is Acapulco) and Colima, the general populations of which have been shown through genetic studies to trace between 25-50% of their ancestry and origin back to the Philippines. This can be traced back to the Manila-Acapulco Galleons, which had been running on an annual or bi-annual basis for the past 250yrs; and these had only been brought to an end less than a decade prior, in 1815, when the Spanish crown took over direct control of the Philippines.
Prior to this point, the Captaincy General of the Philippines had been governed from Mexico City as part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. And the appointed Mexican government commission's plan also proposed that the Philippines be re-annexed by the Mexican Empire to better facilitate this, confident that this could be accomplished by the Mexican Empire just as or even more easily than the annexation of the Captaincy General of Guatemala. The loss of its supply routes and trading posts via Mexico had presented severe logistical issues to the Spanish government in Madrid, isolated the Philippines and rendered them nigh-impossible to keep under firm Spanish control (with the Philippines having been prohibited from trading with nations other than Spain, but with its Governor-General being forced to resort to open up the Philippines' ports to nominally illegal foreign traders/smugglers, mainly the British and US of Americans, as both as a source of raw materials and as a market for manufactured goods, to compensate for the losses of the Mexican and Chinese trade at the time; with this opening of Philippine ports to world trade then being permanently formalized in 1834, once the Spanish Empire's efforts to reconquer Mexico, and thus regain control over the Manila-Acapulco Galleon route, had finally been abandoned as futile).
However, Iturbide's primary concern was stabilizing the new government, and the Imperial Colonization Law was not signed until February 18, 1823; with Iturbide overthrown only a month later, and the law being annulled shortly thereafter. The newly proclaimed Republic of Mexico did approve immigration on a wider basis once more a year later, but unlike the Imperial Colonization Law of 1823, its successor, the General Colonization Law of 1824, required immigrants to practice Catholicism and stressed that foreigners needed to learn Spanish. This statute also banned foreigners from gaining titles to land that was within 20 leagues (84km) of the border of another country or within 10 leagues (42km) of the coast; but in most other respects, there were markedly fewer specifics, with states being directed to design their own statutes to implement the federal law (or not to implement it, as the case may be). And accordingly, the northern state of Coahuila y Tejas was the fastest to pass its own state law implementing the federal plan on March 24, 1825; with this ultimately leading to the Republic of Texas' secession, and the newly independent Texas continuing its own version of the Empresario program until its accession to the United States of America.
So then, what do you think might have happened, in an alternate TL where the First Mexican Empire endured for at least a few more years, and the original Mexican Imperial Colonization Law was actually brought into effect in accordance with the original plans of Azcárate y Ledesma (with the Philippines also accordingly brought back under direct rule from Mexico at the same time, thus effectively becoming the 'Mexican East Indies' ITTL, rather than remaining the 'Spanish East Indies' as they did IOTL)? Would it strength, or weaken, Mexico's relative strength ITTL compared to IOTL? And even in a worst-case scenario for Mexico- if it did wind up weaken Mexico's control over the areas settled under TTL's greatly expanded Empresario programs instead, and result in all of these hitherto largely unpopulated northernmost territories breaking away much like the Republic of Texas did IOTL (and the Republic of Fredonia tried and failed to do before that)- what might be the subsequent fate of these multiple 'Empresario Republics' (and of Penal Colony New Mexico)? Particularly the proposed Empresarios in the Californias ITTL, predominantly populated by 'Chino' settlers as had originally been planned by Imperial Mexico. What do you think their fate might be?
Though the U.S. Congress had outlawed the African trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1808, domestic immigration in the American South was still dominated by domestic slavery; with the explosion in the population of the adjacent Louisiana territory (increasing from c.8k to 60k within a year of the purchase) having been dominated by the establishment of plantations and the importation of slave labor, with slaves comprising c.50% of the Louisiana Territory's population. And Emperor Agustin de Iturbide made colonization a priority for his administration; appointing a government commission, headed by Juan Francisco Azcárate y Ledesma, to come up with a plan to try and keep the population & economic growth of 'Upper Mexico', which had previously been comfortably greater than that of the Louisiana Territory under French rule, as close to being on a par with the growth of the Louisiana Territory as possible, in an effort to maintain this status quo and secure its otherwise indefensible northern borders.
This plan recommended following the precedent of the Spanish policy of allocating Empresarios (as well as implementing the revision of said Spanish policy in 1820, which would make it more flexible, and allow colonists of any religions to settle there, rather than requiring any settlers to be Catholic as had previously been the case), and inviting foreign settlers to help colonize Coahuila, Nuevo Santander, Baja California, Alta California, New Mexico, and Texas. The proposal also suggested that, while Europeans and American colonists should be recruited to settle the First Mexican Empire's easternmost frontier states and provinces, Mexican convicts should be sent to settle the inland frontier state of New Mexico (making it a penal colony modelled after Valdivia, with the convicts to be similarly assigned with constructing and manning a system of defensive fortifications to keep the USA at bay), and that California (Baja & Alta) should be settled predominantly with 'Chinos' instead. Brought to Mexico via the Manila Galleon route, these Chinos (a misleading term, since most were Filipinos rather than Chinese, even if the slave merchants whose ships exported them from the Philippines were mostly Chinese) were basically the Mexican equivalent of the 'negroes' who were brought to the USA via the transatlantic slave trade.
Unlike in the USA though, in Mexico, second generation 'chinos' were assimilated into the general population via mestizaje (racial mixing), and by passing as indigenous indios, who were in both instances subsequently legally protected from chattel slavery in Mexico. Recent studies have shown that about a third of people sampled from Mexico have Asian ancestry, with genetic markers tracing this predominantly back to the Philippines and Indonesia, with this being a legacy of the enduring colonial period. This is most true on the West Coast of Mexico, particular in the states of Guerrero (the largest city of which is Acapulco) and Colima, the general populations of which have been shown through genetic studies to trace between 25-50% of their ancestry and origin back to the Philippines. This can be traced back to the Manila-Acapulco Galleons, which had been running on an annual or bi-annual basis for the past 250yrs; and these had only been brought to an end less than a decade prior, in 1815, when the Spanish crown took over direct control of the Philippines.
Prior to this point, the Captaincy General of the Philippines had been governed from Mexico City as part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. And the appointed Mexican government commission's plan also proposed that the Philippines be re-annexed by the Mexican Empire to better facilitate this, confident that this could be accomplished by the Mexican Empire just as or even more easily than the annexation of the Captaincy General of Guatemala. The loss of its supply routes and trading posts via Mexico had presented severe logistical issues to the Spanish government in Madrid, isolated the Philippines and rendered them nigh-impossible to keep under firm Spanish control (with the Philippines having been prohibited from trading with nations other than Spain, but with its Governor-General being forced to resort to open up the Philippines' ports to nominally illegal foreign traders/smugglers, mainly the British and US of Americans, as both as a source of raw materials and as a market for manufactured goods, to compensate for the losses of the Mexican and Chinese trade at the time; with this opening of Philippine ports to world trade then being permanently formalized in 1834, once the Spanish Empire's efforts to reconquer Mexico, and thus regain control over the Manila-Acapulco Galleon route, had finally been abandoned as futile).
However, Iturbide's primary concern was stabilizing the new government, and the Imperial Colonization Law was not signed until February 18, 1823; with Iturbide overthrown only a month later, and the law being annulled shortly thereafter. The newly proclaimed Republic of Mexico did approve immigration on a wider basis once more a year later, but unlike the Imperial Colonization Law of 1823, its successor, the General Colonization Law of 1824, required immigrants to practice Catholicism and stressed that foreigners needed to learn Spanish. This statute also banned foreigners from gaining titles to land that was within 20 leagues (84km) of the border of another country or within 10 leagues (42km) of the coast; but in most other respects, there were markedly fewer specifics, with states being directed to design their own statutes to implement the federal law (or not to implement it, as the case may be). And accordingly, the northern state of Coahuila y Tejas was the fastest to pass its own state law implementing the federal plan on March 24, 1825; with this ultimately leading to the Republic of Texas' secession, and the newly independent Texas continuing its own version of the Empresario program until its accession to the United States of America.
So then, what do you think might have happened, in an alternate TL where the First Mexican Empire endured for at least a few more years, and the original Mexican Imperial Colonization Law was actually brought into effect in accordance with the original plans of Azcárate y Ledesma (with the Philippines also accordingly brought back under direct rule from Mexico at the same time, thus effectively becoming the 'Mexican East Indies' ITTL, rather than remaining the 'Spanish East Indies' as they did IOTL)? Would it strength, or weaken, Mexico's relative strength ITTL compared to IOTL? And even in a worst-case scenario for Mexico- if it did wind up weaken Mexico's control over the areas settled under TTL's greatly expanded Empresario programs instead, and result in all of these hitherto largely unpopulated northernmost territories breaking away much like the Republic of Texas did IOTL (and the Republic of Fredonia tried and failed to do before that)- what might be the subsequent fate of these multiple 'Empresario Republics' (and of Penal Colony New Mexico)? Particularly the proposed Empresarios in the Californias ITTL, predominantly populated by 'Chino' settlers as had originally been planned by Imperial Mexico. What do you think their fate might be?