Had the colonists not rebelled isn’t it likely that the US would still have achieved independence eventually, as Canada did? Slavery would in all likelihood have been abolished sooner and it’s possible that the Civil War could have been averted. (The South would have been unlikely to take on the North AND Britain.)
The US could well be more than double its present size, as the whole of North America might have united as an independent nation.
So was the American Revolution really worth it?
Your OP is full of assumptions that need substantiation before we can even begin to address it.
The US Revolution was a huge turning point, esp the new form of government and the Constitution. It has been argued that our revolution led to the French Revolution and also the now fairly common prevelance of Representational Democracy.
Ask me in another century or two.
Perhaps. Though perhaps Canada gained it’s independence because things like the American Revolution caused a sea change in attitudes in the UK wrt their colonies. It’s hard to say if Britain would have ever have granted independence on such a scale just on it’s own.
The British outlawed slavery because they didn’t really have any need for it anymore. However, had they retained control of the colonies they WOULD have needed it (initially), same as the Southerners did. I’m unsure if the Brits would have abolished the slave trade if they really needed it…though I concede that they might have.
Of course, if they did they might have run into the same kind of rebellion WE did with the Southern states. That the South would eventually lose doesn’t mean they wouldn’t try and fight anyway.
I’m unsure this is true. Would Britain have taken Florida and the Louisiana territories? Would they have expanded into the western states? Would the other European powers have ALLOWED them to do so? Would they have expanded into territories controlled by the native American’s? I doubt it. I think that had the US stayed a British colony it would have remained a small, seaboard colony under the Brits, not the continent spanning nation it is today. I also think that the other Europeans would have had a lot more to say about the Brits had they tried to expand…and there would have been a lot more wars on our soil I am thinking.
Depends on how you define worth.
-XT
Remind me: who is the head of state in Canada?
That would be the Queen of Canada
How do I put this… the English were very good at stopping slavery in England. They had a somewhat different view of matters elsewhere in their Empire. Arguably even Ireland.
If the US Revolution hadn’t happened, the ideals that guided the creation of the United States would still have existed. They would have found expression in one way or another.
You’re forgetting that Britain had several other colonies, just as dependent on slavery as the southern states of America, and industries at home that relied on their output. Plus, of course, the slave trade itself was highly lucrative. Britain outlawed slavery because growing moral repugnance for it finally outweighed economic self-interest.
I may be wrong, but I don’t think that the any of their other MAJOR colonies were as dependent on slave labor. In the big ones like India they used indigenous labor that wasn’t technically slave. They were easily able to ignore their smaller colonies (like the southern Atlantic islands plantations colonies).
You are right that they outlawed slavery because there was a general hue and cry from their public…but this was after slavery wasn’t as vital to their interests. Before that there was a lot of resistance to outright outlawing of slavery in the broader empire and I think that had the US remained a colony that this resistance would have stretched out that timing a few more years or even another decade or so. Eventually slavery would have ended of course…but then again, eventually it would have ended here too, even without the Civil War.
-XT
One thing that fueled sentiment for the Revolution was that the British were preventing colonists from expanding (further) into Indian areas due to agreements with said Indians stemming from their assistance in the French & Indian Wars.
It’s hard to say if the prevention would have lasted, but I’d think that it would last long enough for other European powers to get a firmer foothold in the interior and west of the continent.
It would be an interesting thread to discuss the continental makeup in such an event. I think I’ll [thread=502894]start one[/thread].
Exactly. I seriously doubt the Brits would have allowed the expansion to the south and west that we saw in actual history had we stayed a British colony. Not to mention that Florida (and California and Texas) would have stayed Spanish territory for as long as they could hold it and probably gone to some other European power afterward. Lousiana would have stayed French territory most likely (and that was a huge swath of territory), and Alaska would have most likely stayed Russian. And all of them would have fought and squabbled over it all.
Imagine what the Napoleonic Wars would have been like here. We were mostly untouched here in the real universe but I seriously doubt that would have been the case in a non-Revolutionary war America.
Yeah, I think so too. Especially the French, but also many of the other European powers. The Russians for instance might have had a larger foothold on the north west than they did in our reality.
-XT
Note that even slavery per se was not legally abolished in India until 1860. Cite: Addr.com
Perhaps, but:
a) It’s not guaranteed.
b) It could have taken another hundred years until it happened. If you look at the leaps of social tolerance (suffrage, emancipation, enfranchisement), holding these back for a century is a pretty significant event.
I’d say it was worth it. The creation of the American Constitution was such a beacon at the time. In today’s climate we tend to take it for granted that the natural progression of governance ends in some form of democracy but that wasn’t true in 1792.
One can definitely argue that there were some negatives such as prolonged slavery and the treatment of the American Indians but I think them based on a lot of conjecture.
Addendum: Instead, communism could have been the thing that was discovered and took over.
That would have been just lovely…
Not really.
There never was much slavery in England itself (if any). Some quotes from early cases on the issue:
http://www.anti-slaverysociety.addr.com/huk-slavery.htm
Only exception was domestic slaves accompanying their “owners” to the UK. This was a very small amount of people and was only legal for about 10 years from 1824 until slavery was abolished in 1833.
When Britain abolished slavery, it went all out to stop it happening in the rest of the world. It set up a huge fleet, the Anti-Slavery Squadron, which for a time was the biggest naval fleet in the world. They patrolled the west coast of Africa stopping ships they thought may contain slaves.
When they found a slave ship they returned the occupants to Africa. It was impossible back then to know where the slaves came from exactly so they set up a town where they could live and called it Freetown (capital of Sierra Leone today). If the former slaves wished to strike out back home they were given financial assistance before they left.
They freed about half a million people.
Also the various Boer Wars were partly (mainly?) about slavery ie the British chasing the Boers down and stopping them from keeping slaves.
The American Revolution didn’t happen because a handful of philosophers had an irrepressible moment; it happened because England overspent to gain victory in the French and Indian War, decided that colonists should pay for that war and for their own ongoing defense, and overtaxed the colonists for a generation to come. The colonists, who came to America explicitly to make money and were now stymied from doing so, were out of polite options by the 1770s.
It’s partially happenstance that we became a republic instead of a new kingdom. But separation from England one way or another was inevitable.
The colonists weren’t exactly falling all over dying of famine. Their pocket book may have been hurting, but I think you’d be hard pressed to find any other group of people who held a revolution at a similar level of hardship without some major political thinking making them feel it was worth the go.
Not quite, but close:
*The West Africa Squadron, established in 1808 after the passing of the Slave Trade Act in 1807, was a unit of the Royal Navy that was involved in the suppression of the slave trade in West Africa.[1] The unit was reportedly set up at great expense and patrolled the coast, at its height a sixth of the Royal Navy fleet and Marines were committed to it. …
The West Africa Squadron was assisted by forces from the United States Navy, starting in 1820 with the USS Cyane. Initially this consisted of a few ships, but was eventually formalised by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 into the Africa Squadron[citation needed].
The West Africa Squadron was credited with capturing 1,600 slave ships between 1808 and 1860 and freeing 150,000 Africans who were aboard these ships.[1] The United States Navy captured a further 24 ships*
Note the the USA helped with the slavery trade, even while salvery was legal in the USA. Thus, the British supression of the slave Trade does not prove that GB was 100% anti-slavery in all cases.