There are too many indonesians in Indonesia to create a truly British (culture) dominion out of Indonesia, like there are too many Indians in India to create a British (cultural) Dominion of India. It will certainly be influenced by the British, but not enough to forfill the challenge.Dominion of the East Indies - Britain keeps the Dutch East Indies following the Napoleonic Wars...
AH Challenge: Another Anglophone Commonwealth Nation
- Thread starter Landshark
- Start date
How about a Dominion of New Guinea, consisting of Papua New Guinea, the Indonesian bit and the Solomon Islands?
But you could say the same about South Africa: Black Africans 79.5%, European White 9.2% (of which 60% are culturally Dutch), Mixed Race 8.9%, Indian or Asian 2.5%.
It really depends on if we are talking about de jure Dominion status (which Ireland, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka all had in OTL) or de facto Cultural Britishness in which case we need to look for places with a low population that can be swamped with Britons.
HueyLong
Banned
How about a Dominion of New Guinea, consisting of Papua New Guinea, the Indonesian bit and the Solomon Islands?
Not viable really. There's a reason no one went very far in New Guinea.
Plus the highlands are very densely populated.
Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
The possibilities as I see them:
Argentina - low pop density and late settlement - could have been taken over by British at some point and would have attracted huge immigrant numbers. Or at least Patagonia, but that's not as attractive to settlers or viable as a self-sufficient Dominion.
Oregon - Would comprise what is today British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon; Britain had a claim to the area, minor PODs would give it to them, and a large Pacific territory like this could develop independent of Canada.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Oregoncountry2.png
Ireland - pretty much self-expanatory
That pretty much accounts for all the areas available suitable for large European populations.
Argentina - low pop density and late settlement - could have been taken over by British at some point and would have attracted huge immigrant numbers. Or at least Patagonia, but that's not as attractive to settlers or viable as a self-sufficient Dominion.
Oregon - Would comprise what is today British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon; Britain had a claim to the area, minor PODs would give it to them, and a large Pacific territory like this could develop independent of Canada.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Oregoncountry2.png
Ireland - pretty much self-expanatory
That pretty much accounts for all the areas available suitable for large European populations.
Greater Malaysia
Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and Riau as a single english speaking Malay state?
All the commonwealth ship building work would go out there. The nation's oil wealth would promote industrialisation and growth of singapore as a financial centre. Colonisation, an intensive education program (for skilled industrial and office workers) and migrant workers would make english the first language. the China (+ Hong Kong) US, India, SA and Austalia would be major trading partners (add Japan later). A better negotiation of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 would gain Riau and it's islands while the dutch need not make payment of £100,000.
Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and Riau as a single english speaking Malay state?
All the commonwealth ship building work would go out there. The nation's oil wealth would promote industrialisation and growth of singapore as a financial centre. Colonisation, an intensive education program (for skilled industrial and office workers) and migrant workers would make english the first language. the China (+ Hong Kong) US, India, SA and Austalia would be major trading partners (add Japan later). A better negotiation of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 would gain Riau and it's islands while the dutch need not make payment of £100,000.
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Abdul Hadi Pasha
Banned
Definitely NOT Uganda. Very densely populated with fairly sophisticated polities, and not friendly environmentally for EUropeans.
Kenya is possible, but only the highlands, so access will always be an issue. You'll have a very hard time attracting immigrants from Europe to here.
A British Indonesia would still be more likely. Maybe not all of Indonesia become part of it, instead it will be only Malaysia and Western Indonesia (Jawa, Sumatra, and Kalimantan, maybe also Eastern Indonesia but excluding Papua).
Natural resources:
- Rubber
- Palm oil
- Tin
- Timber
- Oil
- Gas
- Coconuts/Copra
- Tea
- Tobacco
- Coffee
- Opium
- Fish
- Poultry
- Fruit
- Spirulina
- Cane Sugar
- Islam
- Christianity
- Buddism
- Hinduism
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I would guess that by that measure my Greater Malaysia fails the challenge too.
Shame. I'm proud of the map. An oil rich industrial state on the equator could have a sucessful space programme too.
CanadianGoose
Banned
If South Africa can be a Dominion, why can't Burma or (part of) India? Also, discover Big Oil in Gulf sometimes in 19th century and you'll have Trucial Oman populated with multitudes of whites and Anglophone Indians, gradually becoming Dominion by sometimes mid-1950s.
Texas. Let the British actively support its independence militarily in 1834 in exchange for an agreement to accept convicts, Irishmen and other undesirables from the Home Islands; Britain can conclude a seperate agreement with the USA not to take over Texas so long as the USA also makes no attempts to do so. Eventually, the Americans will become less neurotic and Commonwealth membership can be extended to the Texans.
Palestine does look like the other good choice; Malaysia is interesting, but it seems we would have to screw up one of the other Dominions in order to move it up the list of Desirable Places to Emigrate To.
Palestine does look like the other good choice; Malaysia is interesting, but it seems we would have to screw up one of the other Dominions in order to move it up the list of Desirable Places to Emigrate To.
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Hmm. The Falklands. No thanks, not even with the oil.
I've been looking at the possibility of anglicising Greater Malaysia.
If missionary schools only taught reading and writing in english you might get a strong english speaking culture from universal schooling.
UNIFON would make english easier to learn as a written language.
I've been looking at the possibility of anglicising Greater Malaysia.
If missionary schools only taught reading and writing in english you might get a strong english speaking culture from universal schooling.
UNIFON would make english easier to learn as a written language.
How about Iceland? Britain could have taken it off the Danes easily enough in the Napoleonic Wars at any point after the attack on Copenhagen, and simply held onto it at the end of the wars (maybe using the argument that as Iceland was technically a part of Norway and the Danes had lost Norway to Sweden, they therefore also lost their claim to Iceland...).
The population of Iceland was also only about 50,000 at the time and was already white and protestant, so it wouldn't take that much immigration and assimilation to make it largely an English-speaking country. I would have thought it would be easily doable, if the British decide they want to do it.
The population of Iceland was also only about 50,000 at the time and was already white and protestant, so it wouldn't take that much immigration and assimilation to make it largely an English-speaking country. I would have thought it would be easily doable, if the British decide they want to do it.
Alaska? Taken from the Russians during the Crimean War, for some reason it's kept out of Canada when that unites in the 1860's (American pressure? Ongoing arguments with the Russians necessitating direct British rule?) and when immigration takes off following the discovery of gold and later oil any talk on merging with Canada withers away as the Alaskans vow to keep "their" gold and oil wealth to themselves rather than have it syphoned off to Ottawa.