Alternative Confederate ventures in the Caribbean?

[Elektronaut]

The Confederate States of America: History’s high thread-count Venezuela?

I think there’s also something to be said for the lack of Northern capital in stymying postwar expansion of the cotton industry presuming there’s at least some sort of stigma against being seen to help the Rebs get up on their own two feet - yes, funds will still flow south if the returns make sense, but the taps wouldn’t be wide open.

That and a lot of other factors. Most obviously the permanent enmity between the South and the Union would make southern cotton a dicey prospect for import, with precisely the kind of sharp cut-off which was produced by the Union blockade OTL (Blockade runners notwithstanding) being a real and permanent prospect. Developing permanent alternate sources would make more economical sense, and that's before the political stigma of a slaver government is factored in.

Fogel was utterly off his rocker btw if he seriously thought that a Confederacy which was going full-on imperialist in the Carribean and Central America and funding reactionary political causes in Europe would just see its cotton bought in full quite happily by said Europe. 'You are an expansionist slaver imperialism and you are trying to bring your politics over here. Why yes, of course we will happily underwrite your financial interference in our politics!'

Oh and yes, there was a significant level of state inteference in the economy and domestic affairs generally by Richmond OTL, up to and including the likes of nationalising certain sectors of the economy. But this was only seen as a wartime desperation measure and went absolutely against Southern ideology and in most cases the law and the Confederate constitution. Similalrly there was a lot of state terrorism against its citizenry, both black and white, rebel and unionist, and that had a similar legal status. So post-war you would either see a continuance of that and the creation of a totalitarian dictatorship whose raison d'etre would be the survival of the country, (not an unknown outcome in banana republics) or a significant reaction against that by whites and a return to the extremely limited, effectively hamstrung central government (apart from its mandating of slavery of course) that Southern ideology aspired to. Either would of course have had massive problems attached to them.

 

[OwenM]

The actual historical record is so obviously that the Confederacy was a political and economic basket-case lead by a ruling class of clowns that the notion that it would have been able to both first conquer and then hold down the entire Carribean and Latin America is really not very convincing.

In absolute fairness I think some of the origin of this with some people (although likely not Fogel specifically) is that besides their own grand plans, in the 1860s it was useful to Union propaganda in Europe (and for that matter at home) to claim they would be able to achieve their aims of this if the Union failed to defeat them - but that in itself also reinforces your point about how this is not going to be just uncontroversially accepted by the other powers.

 

[SinghSong]

With regards to the original question, would the Guyanas count as "in the Caribbean"?

 

[Delta Force]

It doesn't seem likely that the Confederates would gain much from the Caribbean. They were already tapped out before the American Revolution and many prominent leaders of what would become the Southern United States had ties to the Caribbean but moved to the United States for its great opportunities. That was all the way back in the mid-1700s. By the 1820s focus was turning towards Texas.