-With the US torn asunder by two decades of civil wall (courtesy of meddling Great Powers and some nefarious plots. We'll visit that region in a future map), the Monroe Doctrine could not be enforced, giving the European crowns interested in reclaiming their rebellious colonies wide berth.
-In addition to Santo Domingo (which was an actual historical case of re-colonization by the Spanish during the US Civil War), Peru fell back under the Spanish Empire. Two ensuing wars with the surrounding nations also expanded the reclaimed territories to pieces of northern Bolivia and southern Ecuador.
-Napoleon III succesfully manages to instal a Hapsburg puppet in charge of the Second Mexican Empire. In this alt-history, however, France is able to get involved far more directly and manages to keep the empire from breaking down.
-Britain starts pushing for further and further say in the handling of Chilean policy, going as far as to appoint a Counselor Minister. This causes a civil war which, ultimately, only moves the whole thing into shadowy territories.
-France gives support to Orelie Antoine and his mad quest to become King of Araucania and Patagonia (instead of being sent to an asylum like in our timeline), as means to counterweight the growing British influence in Chile. Both Argentina and Chile are in dismay, as this cripples their colonial plans for the south.
-A string of independentist experiments take hold of southernmost Chile, resulting in the short-lived Republic of Chiloe, then the even shorter-lived Kingdom of Chiloe. Ultimately everything collapses and the entire region falls under the sway of pirates, mercenaries, and crazed hermits. Eventually organizes into a pseudo-confederacy known and the Austral Brethren.
-Behind curtains, the Great Lautarian Lodge (to which most of the original founding fathers of South American nations belonged) has been reformed, this time to fight off encroaching European powers. As the years go by, the Great Lodge starts to break up between the Rational League, which favours political manouvres to manipulate governments, and the dozens of trigger-happy cells that are popping up everywhere. Buenos Ayres, where their HQs are located, becomes a hive of conspiracy and intrigue.
-Brazil's Emperor Pedro II is being forced to take action against the all-powerful Esclavocratas slave-drivers, emboldened by the massive wealth provided by the rare metal deposits discovered in the Mato Grosso.
-The increasingly direct puppetry of the French in Mexico scandalizes the British; power plays between both Great Powers is reducing Central America to political mulch. The Governor of Jamaica ensures the independence of the Kingdom of Mosquitia, which prompts the French to install a protectorale over Nicaragua.
-A panicking Honduras manages to convince El Salvador and Guatemala to restore the experiment of the Federation of Central American States, resulting in the Concordat of Santa Barbara. Yet Franco-Mexican meddling allows the ever-rebelious province of Los Altos to regain independence as a puppet state (a puppet's puppet, no less!).
-Meanwhile, Costa Rica starts feeling increasingly threatened, and is now giving serious thought to the mutually-exclusive proposals of either joining Colombia or joining the Panama province in declaring independence from said Colombia and federating with each other.
-Back in the deserts of southern Peru, tensions are at an all-time high, as both incredibly valuable nitrates and more recently discovered orosal (a golden-glowing substance containing considerable amounts of energy) have become the centre of an undeclared war between the Spanish and both the Chilean and British. The involvement of the British East India Company, the Dutch VOC, and the Prussian Brandenburg Company, with their brutally sophisticated moving refineries -equiped with sizeable gun arrays to deal with the chaotic situation-. The conflict is starting to spill into neighbouring territories, creating a no-mans land where everyone's chewing bullets while digging for riches.
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South America and the Caribbean in 1883 (Alt History)
