I’m reading a few books on the American Revolution right now. As a Brit, it’s interesting to see the perspectives of the colonies and the Imperial government. On the one hand, I sympathise with the colonies’ demand to set their own laws and have a say on their taxes, but on the other I sympathise with London, which was concerned with maintaining (at least short-term) peace with the Indians and wary that autonomy would lead to independence, or potential neutral states in future wars with its imperial rivals. On the other other hand, I recognise that the colonies would see such a concern as irrelevant.
I’m currently reading The Creation of America by Francis Jennings which, while a little shrill in places (you can feel his outrage at colonial abuses of Indians and black slaves), which overall is doing a good job of showing the selfish interests of the colonies, London, and the squabbles and competition among the colonies.
Can you see a way of neutralising the road to independence peacefully? What point would you see as the moment at which reconciliation between London and the colonies was no longer possible?
Finally, if the colonies and London had come to an arrangement, how do you see the 19th and 20th centuries panning out? I wonder if a commonwealth-style arrangement would have been made, with a number of small countries in the place of the US and Canada (no confederation up there), and the English-speaking world reaching to the Rockies but no further. How this would have affected events such as the Napoleonic Wars or the World Wars I couldn’t say.
And what of the Indians and slavery? Would London have respected Indian territory, or trampled over it as much as the US did?
Certainly people thought so at the time. One of the lesser-known bits of American History is that there was a Conference held on Staten Island on September 11 (!) 1776, after the battles of Lexington and Concord, after the Battle of Bunker Hill, after the British had been driven from Boston by the placing of cannon laboriously dragged from Fort Ticonderoga to Dorchester Heights, and even after the Declaration of Independence was issued. The conference was convened between John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Rutledge on the American side, and Admiral Richard Howe on the British – all heavy hitters. The point of the conference was to avoid further conflict.
But the British had just driven Washington from Long Island, and Howe had no authority to recognize American independence ( a * sine qua non* for the American delegation), so they were pessimistic going into it, and the conference only lasted three hours. Still, it’s amazing that it took place at all. I’m still amazed that this isn’t better known. The only reason that I know about it is thsat I once stumbled across the Conference House at the southern tiop of Staten Island, and read the historical markers there: Conference House - Wikipedia
Still, it’d be hard to believe that they could have agreed to it, on either side. Americans wanted freedom from British trading taxes (most of the big Boston patriots were smugglers) and restrictions on trade. More damning, the American colonists were trying to push westwards into the continent, while Britain wanted to avoid conflict with France and Spain there, and wanted to keep the Indians placated as buffer states between them and the other European claims. None of that was going to last, or get peaceably resolved. And forget about colonial representation in British government.
I’m sure somebody will rip me (or at least my history teacher) a new one, but the way the whole conflict was prevented to me at a political level back in High School was essentially:
The American colonies were being taxed unusually low compared to the rest of the British Empire.
Even those things (like trade taxes) that did exist were often very laxly enforced. Smuggling was not uncommon, and the enforcers were very easily bought off.
The British Empire simply could not sustain its empire (military, diplomacy, etc) on the level of income it had, and had to bring taxes from the American colonies if not up to par with the rest of the empire, at the very least closer to the same level.
The tax differential between the Americas and the rest of the empire was so large that even a moderate step in a more equal direction would have been viewed as huge.
So the way to prevent the Revolution was either the British needed to increase taxes more gradually, and risk collapsing due to an unsustainable economy, or the colonists had to recognize that the taxes they were getting were in no way unusual for the rest of the empire – and that they had it unusually easy, not that they were suddenly being oppressed. The first one was unlikely to happen because of the pressing economic concern. The latter, I think is a plausible method of avoidance, and would essentially be a matter of distributing the right propaganda. Albeit it would be a method that is in no way guaranteed or easy to pull off.
If you still want independence to happen, but with no violence (and it seems like you do), it seems to me that the best method of doing this would be to set up a recognition of independence – but with a mandatory trade agreement in ultimate benefit of the British Empire. Alternatively some sort of “vassalship” where the colonies were independent but paid a sort of yearly tribute – this likely wouldn’t lead to the US ever existing (or even a confederacy), but rather a bunch of tiny countries. However, I’m not convinced that the British would ever accept such a proposal, after all, why would you let a bunch of your territory secede when you have the most powerful army in the world? I also don’t think the colonies would accept a one-sided trade agreement or “mandatory tribute” any better than they’d accept higher taxes.
I don’t think the Revolution was inevitable, but I don’t see any clear way to get independence without one (at least not if you want it to happen in the late 1700s).
At the very least, I think a separation from Britain was unavoidable. The colonists wanted to push West and the British didn’t want them to in order to appease the French and Spanish. The colonists wanted some representation in Parliament and the King wouldn’t give it to them. Maybe if the King had been less stubborn, a war might have been avoided and we could have ended up in a loose confederation like Canada or whatever they have.
I won’t hate on you, Jragon, but your history isn’t so much rusty as “completely inadequate”.
[QUOTE=Jragon]
The American colonies were being taxed unusually low compared to the rest of the British Empire.
[/quote]
True, but taxes were a side issue. They were a practical demonstration of the underlying problems. And there were immense problems in what was taxes and how.
Yes and no. They were unevenly enforced, which rankled, and the enforcement was also frequently corrupt, with disfavored people or places being more harshly hurt. However, that’s not really related to smuggling. British laws were draining cash out of the colonies at a ferocious rate; smuggling was often neccessary because cash was very hard to come by. The British may have understoof this, but whether they did or not, “smuggling” may have a been a bigger proportion of trade than legitimate shipments, simply because the taxes couldn’t really be paid.
Somewhat similar to Greece, where the taxes are often so onerous and and ill-managed that some must cheat and chisel to get by, while the tax enforcement becomes erratic and corrupt because it can’t actually function as intended.
Taxes which America had a hard time paying due to the specie drain, and which in any case may not have been legal. To Americans, Parliament had no authority to regulate them, the taxes they demanded were illigit and deeply insulting, if not outright criminal. You’ll note that American law had from a very early time rules which prevented many of the taxes demanded by the British Crown, but taxed themselvfes at a highger rate than the British.
Likewise, the British Empire either was something the colomists were an integral part of, or they were not part of it. They felt quite strongly in favor of the former - which is why they spilled blood and treasure in the French-and-Indian War. They expected to settle the lands gained, but more than that felt they’d paid their share in what was essentially a European conflict. Parliament, having blown its bankroll and , decided that the colonists would now have to pay even more (much, much more) but would not gain the benefits.
The colonists didn’t think that was a terribly good bargain, and made a counterproposal: since the British thought so little of the richest and most dynamic dominion in the world, the colonists would take it off their hands and would even throw in all the bullets the British could catch.
In short, Americans offered the British a couple ways to look at it. If the British Parliament was not the authority, then the colonists would look to their own Congresses as they always had. If Parliament was their direct authority, then the colonists deserved representation just as Englishmen would.
That’s bull both ways. The amount of taxes wasn’t the real issue. Corrupt, self-serving administration was, and taxation was a part of that, but only part. more to the point, the taxes were unusual because the colonists were getting all the “advantages” of being English without any of the pesky rights that Englishmen got. It’s been accurately said that the English love democracy and have for a long time. This is true: they love it so much that they went around the world stealing every scrap of it they could find.
Their argument was that the existing system had “virtual representation” of every corner of the Empire. While not exactly popular in the colonies, This might have worked had their treatment of men like Ben Frankling not been shoddy. Parliament and the powers-that-were simply didn’t take them seriously and ignored their concenrs - and some of their concerns were pretty darn big.
The irony is that had Parliament done so, we might actually have a vast Anglo-Saxon country today. Certainly men like Adam Smith (a far-sighted man if ever there was one) considered that idea and suggested it would be the interest of all involved. He thought that Parliament might even move to America down the line, as the majority of MP’s would actually live there. And when the Revolutionary War started, he pretty clearly saw that victory was going to be more costly than the leaders were willing to pay, and suggested a couple methods for ending the war early on terms the British would find very favorable.
If Parliament could tax the colonies at will, and the colonies had no say in the matter and no choice but to pay, the inevitable, irresistible result would have been that the colonies would have ended up being Britain’s milk cow. In England, the Cider Tax sparked riots- and more to the point, the taxed could make their representatives in Parliament feel the hurt. Taxing the colonies was the politically easy way out because MP’s didn’t have to care how unpopular a tax there was; at least not until the open revolt.
One thing that is poorly understood (in America at least) is “virtual representation”. Under this theory all representatives represent all citizens. This was the governing theory of the time. It was part and parcel of the unwritten British Constitution that was so admired by colonial elites and was perfectly uncontroversial until it was convenient to believe otherwise. By introducing a theoretical link between voting and representation the colonists were providing a novel justification for their refusal to obey Parliament. “No Taxation Without Representation,” sounds like common sense to Americans today but when we started saying it a common response from a Londoner, even one sympathetic with the plight of the colonists, might be, “Um… you are represented in Parliament you dolts!”
Comparing virtual representation to what is euphemistically called “actual representation”, that is- what Americans use today, you can see how the latter is conducive to direct popular control. What we often don’t grasp is the effect of indirect influence in the older system. When colonists refused the hated stamps and organized boycotts of British goods until the Stamp Act was repealed, Parliament gave in pretty quick. Colonists had no MPs but the merchants who supplied them certainly did and they were losing money. So when the No Representation propaganda intensified in the 1770s Londoners were even more mystified. The Stamp Act crisis had just demonstrated the effectiveness of virtual representation after all so the colonists had no call to claim Parliament was unresponsive.
The core of the conflict between Britain and the 13 colonies was not about taxation or any other principle. It was a struggle for power. London wanted the colonies run from London for London. The colonists felt otherwise. The American Revolution could have been avoided only by resolving this basic disagreement. Could it have been done? Certainly. If Parliament had never let “salutary neglect” set in in the first place and kept the reigns of colonial power in the hands of temporary residents from the homeland then opposition would have been much weaker. If Great Britain had been less arrogant and more informed about colonial affairs they might have exploited the patriotism generated by the final French and Indian War (along with some judicious economic compromises) to keep the 13 colonies in her orbit
