Whew...this thread moves so fast it's almost overwhelming to keep up.



Originally Posted by Aux-Ash
I agree with the notions that we shouldn't have any colonies in north america except for the big five (England, France, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands).
I would argue against Portugal having any colonies on the Vespuccian mainland. They'll be strongly focused on their trade with Africa, the Indian subcontinent and the Far East. At best, they might have a few islands around Labrador, and they would probably send fishing fleets to the Grand Banks, since the Portuguese and the British were sharing the Newfoundland fishery since the late 1490s at least.

Otherwise, I just don't see room for them, and establishing a colony in the face of so much competition wouldn't make much sense.

Originally Posted by Sir Augusta
For Newfoundland, the French can have it, just say they got there first.
The shade of John Cabot shakes his fist at you.

Originally Posted by Steckie
Spain: Florida and up the coast to Charleston ([which] needs a new name).
Originally Posted by Sir Augusta
As for Spain, just give them up into central Georgia at most.
I agree that Charleston would work better as a British holding. The Spanish tried colonizing the area around Parris Island twice, and both colonies ultimately failed, so they would likely step back from that region and hold the line a little south. I can see Charleston as marking the edge of an uneasy border, the last southern outpost of British control before the Spanish territory of La Florida begins.

Which leads me to....



The Spanish in the Chesapeake

In actual history, the Spanish had a significant interest in the Chesapeake from the mid-1500s at least, and I think there's a case to be made for their continued presence there.

Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, a commander of the escort for the Spanish Indies fleet, led the first Spanish exploration of the Chesapeake in 1561. A second mission under Captain Pedro de Coronas made a brief reconnaissance in 1566, and in 1570 a small Jesuit mission was founded near modern Yorktown, to be slaughtered by Indians in early 1571. Menéndez himself, now adelantado of La Florida, made a follow-up visit to the site of the mission in 1572 and exacted revenge for the Jesuits. By this time the Chesapeake was well known to the Spanish, and if not yet settled they certainly viewed it with proprietary concern.

In 1585 Pedro Menéndez Marqués, nephew of Menéndez de Avilés and now adelantado himself, learned that the English were planning to establish a settlement in the vicinity of the Chesapeake. Menéndez Marqués immediately sent a ship to locate the English colony, which had in fact been sited on Roanoke Island. Following heavy setbacks from a raid by Sir Francis Drake--who pillaged the town of Santa Elena for supplies for the Roanoke colony--Menéndez Marqués personally led a reconnaissance to the Chesapeake in 1587, believing this to be where the English had settled. A second mission was dispatched in 1588, making a thorough search of the interior estuaries as far north as the mouth of the Susquehanna.

By this time the Roanoke colony had failed, but the Spanish were deeply concerned that the English had been attempting settlement in the region, and Menéndez Marqués drew up plans to destroy any English settlements on the Chesapeake, and to establish a garrison of three hundred men to secure the entrance to the bay--permanently forestalling any future attempts at English colonization.

But in 1588, with the utter destruction of the Armada, Spanish confidence was badly damaged, maritime supplies and funding were scarce, and Menéndez Marqués was reassigned to protecting the silver fleet from Havana. The English victory over the Armada had the indirect effect of preventing that Spanish garrison from being established, leaving the way open for the Jamestown fleet nine years later.

What I'm Suggesting

If, as I gather, the Spanish Armada never sailed in the Crossroads timeline, then it's very likely that Menéndez Marqués would have carried through with his plans to establish a garrison at the mouth of the Chesapeake. It was too important strategically for him not to: a modest cost of men, but with a powerful and far-reaching impact. News of that garrison would have soon reached England, and the Susan Constant--a tubby merchant ship, no match for an armed Spanish packet--would never have dared make the voyage knowing the Spanish were waiting across the ocean. The garrison would have served its intended purpose; English efforts at colonization would have been discouraged, and the lower Chesapeake would have remained under Spanish control.

Moreover, if the Armada never sailed, the English would never have experienced the overwhelming surge of power and confidence following their improbable victory. Without the Armada, it's more likely that England would have remained trapped in a financial and emotional funk, unwilling to invest in the mad optimism of colonial ventures. The Susan Constant and her fleet wouldn't have sailed, Jamestown wouldn't have been founded, and the English presence in the Mid-Atlantic would have grown more slowly without its foothold in southern Virginia.

Charleston would still have been founded in 1670, as a British colony, and its growth on the northern border of La Florida would sever any land route the Spanish might have established up to the Chesapeake; but by that point the Spanish fortifications would have become too entrenched for easy removal. I can see them surviving as the result of an uneasy detente, in part because the English are unwilling to expend the resources that would be required to dislodge the Spanish.