As not to hijack [thread=502806]this thread[/thread]…
Let’s say, in the midst of skirmishes and battles in New England, John Dickinson gains the upper hand in the Continental Congress. During the Siege of Boston, peace is brokered between the British and their thirteen restless colonies. In exchange for greater self-rule, the colonists agree to halt expansion into areas controlled by Britain’s Indian allies from the French & Indian Wars (Seven Years’ War).
This official ban on expansion lasts for 60 years, until population pressure leads to additional unrest. At this time, the French monarchy is still in power after suppressing an unorganized internal rebellion a few decade earlier. Some renegade, poorly-funded settlements originating from the 13 Colonies have defied the ban, but were on their own for continued survival.
What would North America look like politically in 1836, 1900, and today under such a situation?
North America would look pretty much like Central and South America.
British colonies, perhaps quasi-independent now, perhaps simply represented in Parliament like most of the rebels had originally wanted, along the East Coast. France nominally in control of the middle, but with a lot of Spanish and British settlers and perhaps essentially independent. Spanish colonies in the West. Alaska is a Russian colony, Hawaii British.
I’d say the continent would be a patchwork of small statelets of various nationalities. Today my guess is that many of them would be independent of their European masters and form small nations much like central and south America is today (and probably just as fucked up over all). The Indian’s (of the Native American variety) probably would have fared better, at least initially, under the Brits than they did in our reality, but I doubt they would have kept much of the juiciest land and probably have been relegated to independence in places like Arizona and New Mexico (if that) by European encroachment.
Most likely the larger blocks would be Spanish descended nations or statelets in Florida, Texas, California and perhaps in parts of the South West. French influenced nations or states in the Louisiana Territories and perhaps in the Central Northern regions. Some small independent Native American regions (perhaps). Alaska a Russian possession with the territory perhaps expanded into what is today Canada. And a hodgepodge of former British territories on the eastern sea board and through parts of Canada.
This is pretty much how I figured it would be, although I think Canada would still be British along with what is now Washington State, Oregon, and Northern California.
In fact, I’ve often believed that if the US had been beaten in the Revolutionary War, then the “Modern” US would probably be a lot like (or even part of) Canada. I recall reading somewhere that the Official British Plan, had they won, was to hang or imprison the senior ringleaders, let everyone else go, and perhaps pay a little more attention to the taxation situation. IIRC representation was also on the cards, too. (FWIW, though, I’ve read that, given the amount of protection the Royal Navy was providing to the Colonies, along with keeping the trade routes to Europe open, etc, the Taxes the Colonists were complaining about weren’t actually that onerous)
I’ve also believed that if the British had said “Fine, we’re going to go and Colonise the rest of the New World, with Blackjack, and Hookers! And don’t forget the Colonising the rest of the New World!” when the US won the Revolutionary War, then the US as we know it would probably be the North American equivalent of somewhere like New Zealand, IMHO.
Russia had outposts and interest in this area, too. It might have decided the British were suddenly more weak from suing their own colonies for peace, and made a more aggressive investment in the Pacific coast.
In any case, I think the Florida peninsula would remain a Spanish possession, eventually becoming independent. The Mississippi river valley would be dominated by the French.
I wonder if the Haudenosaunee, perhaps allying with additional tribes, would be able to carve out an independent nation on the southern shores of the Great Lakes.
I was always under the impression that the Russian interests in North America had never yielded anything of value and were basically a giant hole into which the Tsar kept throwing money until finally deciding it just wasn’t worth it anymore…
I think they got some return from their trapping and hunting venues. I don’t think it was a total hole…no more so that several of the Tzar’s other various projects at the time. I seem to recall that there was a plan to colonize the region with some of the wilder Siberian tribes…or maybe it was nomads from the steppes. I don’t recall exactly. But I doubt they would have just tossed up their hands and gone home if no one bought the territory from them…Europeans (and especially Russians) simply didn’t work that way. It was land. It was theirs. They were going to do something with it.
They were trying to sell it to make some money from it, from what I can tell. The entire Russian population of Alaska was never more than 1,000, from what I recall, and by the time the Tsar had decided it was more trouble than it was worth, the Russian settlers had over-hunted the wildlife, pissed off the Natives, and more importantly, the area was very difficult to defend and was located right to British territory (Canada). Britain and Russia, as you may recall, were not friends during the 19th Century, especially not in the 1850s and 1860s with the whole Crimean War thing still being fresh in everyone’s minds.
Basically the Tsar realised that he already owned vast amounts of land that looked like the inside of a refrigerator, and that since the British could basically wander in and take Alaska whenever they felt like it, he (the Tsar) would be well advised to flick it off to a Third Party for some much needed cash. Thus, the United States of America got Alaska, the Russians got $7.2 million and some nice buffer territory between themselves and the British Empire, and the people of Alaska got the option of American citizenship and didn’t have to put up with the Tsar anymore.
As it happened, Alaska turned out to be a resource cornucopia later on, but in 1867 everyone thought the Russians had gotten a sweet deal and the Americans had spent a lot of money for somewhere to go skiing.
The Cold War would probably have played out very differently if the Russians had decided to hang onto Alaska, IMHO.
I’m not so sure about these arguments that North America would still be split the way it was in the 18th century. American colonists would still spill out into native American lands, whether or not they were allowed to-- there was still a lot of fertile farmland. It would still be seen as vital to somehow get ahold of New Orleans. And there would still be opportunities for picking up more land as European countries fought one another.
Plus, I note, at the time of the Revolution Florida was already British.
So, when the next Anglo-French war came about in the late 18th/early 19th century, as it inevitably would, there’d be a pent-up demand for land and only a very weak French presence in North America. I’d bet the American colonists would organize their own expeditions to capture New Orleans and/or Cuba. Once New Orleans was taken there’d be no reason for the French to hold on to the rest of Louisiana once the war was over. And when push came to shove, I can’t imagine the British being willing to really crack down on white British subjects to aid the Native Americans. So while the spread of the British colonies westward might have been slowed relative to our timeline, I don’t see it stopping.
The changes I do see would be a much less united front-- colonies like Virginia and Pennsylvania might try and gain this new land, it’d be up to the British government to try and regularize things by establishing new colonial governments. There’d be less feeling of “Americanness” (obviously, but that might manifest as more difficulty getting things like long-distance railroads built). There’d be no mass migration of Loyalists, so Canada’s history would be very different (also pretty obvious). There’d be no Monroe Doctrine, so as new countries rose to the fore like Italy and Prussia, they might try and carve out colonies in the New World at Spain’s expense.
At some point, the American colonies would have to gain a lot more autonomy.
There would have been a another war in Europe. At which time, the British might have told the colonists to go for Louisiana. And they might have gone for Mexico as well, if they were at war against Spain, the went for Argentina historically. So you could have a much larger N American Union.
Harry Turtledove’s and Richard Dreyfuss’ AH novel The Two Georges is based on a slightly different scenario than the OP: The Revolution is not defeated but avoided, as George Washington and other American leaders travel to Britain to meet with George III and his ministers to work out compromises. At the end of the 20th Century there is a “North American Union” encompassing what are now the U.S. and Canada (except for Alaska, which remains Russian), and which is something of a Greater Canada – predominantly British in culture (apparently it was never opened to vast waves of non-British immigrants), largely agrarian and only semi-industrialized, with a national police force similar to the Mounties (red uniforms and everything). There are also quasi-autonomous Indian nations with large territories. And, of course, there are steam-driven automobiles and LTA airships. Can’t have alternate history without airships!
The French Revolution never happened, as the French crown never bankrupted itself bankrolling the American Revolution. The crowns of Spain and France have merged and the Franco-Spanish Empire is the British Empire’s chief rival in the world.
Without the unified market of North America, the world would be much poorer. Without the Revolution as inspiration, it is difficult to see what model future revolutions would have taken. Monarchies to the present day? That is hard to swallow.
Reduced American expansion into the Pacific rim, reduced pressure for independence in most of Latin America. Internal wars in North America.
