Thatch Doctrine of South America

Created and perfected by the infamous English war veteran and corsair, Luther Thatch, a character employed and financed by the rising British Empire, the **Thatch Doctrine** present in the New World sought to appropriate and take over possessions under formal direct administrations of the weakened Spanish, Portuguese and even French colonial empires threatened by the influence of the Eastern Union, mainly comprising the Polish Commonwealth. A surviving officer from the catastrophic destruction of the royal british armada off the African coast, Thatch’s doctrine and reasoning show in great extension the territorial ambitions expressed by the rising Empire after facing such bloodshed in Europe and its surrounding continents, a second great step towards global colonialism since the discovery of the West becoming present amongst the entire world and under a single united banner; The British Empire.

The Thatch Doctrine encompassed several other declarations, events and orders from higher monarchs, being commonly utilized as a time-stamp or simply a resumed unification process of the Southern Continent. It was present in the Americas well through the 18th. Century, incorporating the far-reaching possessions of the *West Indies*, *New Granada, Peru, Portuguese Brazil, La Plata* and the southern wastelands of *Patagonia*, into what became known later on as the **South American Royal British Dominion**.

## **The Shattered Continent**

Before events that had stormed through Europe in the early 18th. Century, much of the New World had been meeting its fair share of difficulties and misfortunes all throughout the region. The intensification of already massed sugar-cane plantations - Initially spearheaded by Dutch influence and limited control over the continent - and the widespread use of slave labour arriving from the fragilized African continent had transformed the territory encompassing Brazil into a production center for sugar and various other spices suitable for farming in the location, oftentimes encouraging a society of total extraction and metropolis-exclusive exports to Portugal and its hungry empire. Throughout the Spanish holdings, however, the situation had remained much the same since the end of the exploratory golden age of Iberia, with the slavery of local indigenous peoples still very high, and the strive for precious metals underground by the Andes still being a main priority for local colonial counties and the mighty crown of Spain, now stretching across the entire globe with little opposition from natives. Overall, the dawn of a new century brought all but fresh elements to the South regions of America, ones, that being, not for individual refuge of exiled settlers, but instead for massed extraction of resources and religious strengthening to catholics in the ruling European continent.

Though wars were few and scattered across the continent, it didn’t meant the colonizers and natives of the region had an easy time living off from the tropical land. The failed settling of Antarctica (Provincial colony of Portugal and consequential state of Brazil) had proven that the French were unready and uninterested in South America since its discovery, rather not extensively competing for the lands against other colonial empires much after the settling in the 16th. Century, and although the Dutch did manage to occupy the far eastern portion of the continent and the antilles for several years, it became clear that even with some little military effort, portuguese settlers could reconquer their lands and push the “invaders” back to the seas at last. The spanish saw years of native resistance also present in their colonial zones, and even with the their organisation method proving far superior than others in America, the division of lands into small administrative kingdoms saw increasing competition between the many Vice-kings managing the Empire present in their own lands and locations. It seemed, that with little more changes being implemented into the ruling administrative method commenced by the Iberians, a colonial disaster would be bound to occur sooner or later in the entirety of Southern America; An opportunity other nations could not turn a blind eye upon.

With an already turbulent past of ruthless expansion and oppressive slavery crashing amongst the establishments of the New World, however, the explosion found in Europe by the start of the 18th. Century would only destabilize the colonies even further. Whilst external powers came reverberating and toppling old regimes everywhere, a new crown sought to rebuild, expand and incorporate those enormous territories into their fold; a greater attempt to bring the entirety of the Americas to an anglosphere than anything ever tried before in history.

## **Into the Fold**

The actual time frame is unclear to when the British Empire became directly and officially involved with the many intricate affairs of the Southern Continent, but a movement towards closer ties with the colonies is known to have started as quickly as the beginning of the European wars of 1700-1720, taking advantages of a weakened and fragilized Spanish/Portuguese metropolitan state almost as soon as the opportunity arose from the horizon. The British domains also found themselves under a great strain however; Affected directly by the conflict against the Commonwealth and its small but professional colonial expeditionary force, they were pushed to the point where even the control over the Northern portion of America seemed to falter morale-wise for the colonists under the Queen’s rule. This, if nothing else, delayed a proper and official British action aimed towards the South to take their stance over the shattered region. Soon enough though, foreign external powers would be taking an advantage over the crippled situation as a whole, kickstarting a second wave of colonialism that would only end with the consolidation of the two main superpowers, only decades later in history.

The first nation to pick off territory for their own became Polish Commonwealth, seizing the Caribbean island of Curacao, in 1708, from a makeshift pirate league, as their first overseas possession and territorial holding outside of Europe. They would make some more few expansions into other islands around the region, but Imperial massing of troops later prevented further colonialism found by the easterners around the New World as a whole; Instead; they would be focusing in more approximate regions, better accomodating with political and logistical capabilities of their own nation entirely.

The United Provinces was also a protagonist for another major play in the political scenario of Brazil once more. Now with strength never before achieved by the Dutch will, the Second Invasion of the continent saw many funds found in French coffers directed for another attempt at coercing the settlers of the region that the new rule would be there to stay, and that they would find much more profit under the newer administration rather than the Portuguese one from before. The second incursion spearheaded by Dutch rule came to empower itself in 1723, securing most of North-eastern coastal regions of Brazil and the territory encompassing the Guianas. It maintained one of the largest monopolies of sugar at the time of its foundation. At first, the colonies prospered under intense administrative overlook by European aristocrats, but with resources dwindling ever so more as a result of French insatisfaction over the occupation enforced by the United Provinces, colonizers soon found themselves strained and overworked to supply the domestic and world demand of the good in the coming decades, a factor that sparkled great dissatisfaction among the republican region of the continent and its farming elite, as well as the undermanned and unprotected aristocracy present in newly comprised state of **New Holland**; unready for the newer regime’s emergency powers, slavery and disease rates skyrocketed, further clogging the local area of supplies and basic materials, another factor that would soon enough clash with the fresh government trying once more its luck on the American continent one day or another eventually.

The British, on the other hand, suffered from lesser luck in the initial decades of the 1700s. The War of Crimson Fields back home in Scotland and England had crippled the responsive initiative previously imposed by Britain in the Northern areas of America, and in the southernmost part of the New World, said initiative had almost completely evaporated if not for scarce trade interdiction of local raiders of commerce zones of the Atlantic. The war in Europe had caught the nation tied up in a bloodied land war by the area, and the combination of an unexpected separatist movement in the Thirteen Colonies had both cooperatively adjourned a proper british response in the South for at least two entire decades before a party could be spared for further expansion. After beating back Mughal home island invaders and reconquering Columbia from the hands of revolutionaries in the North American Punitive Expeditions of 1731-1737, as well as steering the empire away from complete colonial and economical crisis, it was ample time to regain the lost opportunity found in the shattered continent once in for all to british hands. The man who had already voiced his concerns over the past years for an intervention, Captain Luther Thatch, a raider corsair of Dutch sugar trade exports in the Atlantic, had by then devised the political strategy that would become the staple for english diplomacy around the area for the next coming decades; one involving foreign interventionism, even if that resulted in direct invasion of an entire landmass in the end. By the end of the years that followed such sudden Imperial build-up around itself and its own domains, armies of the Queen worldwide then scrambled their own moves across the continent previously found itself indifferent from british positioning, yet those who shared little to no relations with the Empire proved to demonstrate another large obstacle on the way of complete integration; Neutrality.

The reasoning behind fabricating claims were few and scattered, at best of cases. Such circumstances, however, urged for more aggressive policies to be pushed for acquiring territories on the continent one way or another, whatever or whoever they faced up against in the end. One such example was the war justification found by Victoria II to invade the Vice-kingdom of New Granada, under the allegiance that Columbian revolutionaries (Ones surviving from their arrestings in North America) had taken refuge in the region right after their exile resulted from the Punitive Expeditions from the North made by the crown, and needed to be found to prevent further destabilizing of the Northern Domain at all costs. The invasion in itself was little remarkable other than the fact it kickstarted a wave of other attempts to grasp Spanish colonial holdings as fellow protectorates of the Empire, but it also proved how unprepared the continent was to face an armed force like the one already veteran from other conflicts arriving at their shores, receiving little to no casualties at most of their stay in core enemy territory. By 1743, the British stance over South America was drastically changing, and the world would see the results of such investment later on in the future with careful eyes, if nothing else more.

(Article in development. More added regularly)