Kevin's Watch

In what way would the world/America be different if the USA had not won independance from Great Britain in the eponymous war?

(Is this too big/difficult a question? Sorry if it is Mods. Feel free to bin it if you think so or it covers ground already worked.)

It is a pretty huge question, and hard to answer.

There would be no Canada, of course. It would be hard to predict exactly how things would lay out on the map, but with the 13 colonies still on their side Britain wouldn't have put as much into the areas further north, and the division between the US and Canada would not exist in the form it has today.

One arguable point is whether Britain winning the war would have meant a better deal for the native american tribes. Up until the end of the War of 1812, when the British finally conceded to America on the point, Britain had consistently supported the idea of a native american state, land set aside for those tribes without interference from settlers. It's possible that support could have continued into a well established homeland for these tribes as America developed as a colony. On the other hand, it's also possible that without the pressure of competition with America, Britain might have stopped supporting the tribes to such an extent and they would have ended up relocated or assimilated just as they were in history.

To be honest I don't think it's really possible to predict what the states would have looked like. We can't know what would have happened between Britain and Spain in the Americas had Britain retained control of the colonies, for example - we may have ended up with an east-west divide between Spanish and English territories rather than the continent-spanning contiguous states.

Given the Spaniard's history, I think there would have been a war between them and the Aborigines, and certainly a war between them and the Brits.

Certainly the map of North America would look vastly different.

It is an interesting question if too broad. If GB had North America to expand into would it have gone as hard at India and Africa? Would Australia have been so heavily colonized? The reason I say the question is too broad to make a good counterfactual is that the further you get from the event the more difficult it is to predict outcomes.

Cail wrote:Given the Spaniard's history, I think there would have been a war between them and the Aborigines...

Definitely.

--A

Thanks for the replys guys - it did occur to me as I was typing it that the question was way too broad to give much in the way of a detailed answer to. One thing that has come out of it for me is that for some reason I had never really considered the idea of a separate nation state for the native peoples . Whether the brits could/would have been any better at making that happen, I have my doubts - but it's an idea, and a good one (though I guess way too late now to implement even if the will existed). Another thing that I wonder is if America could have become the vibrant and vigorous place it is with GB at the helm. Does that result from a sort of national 'hybrid vigour' stemming from the ethnic/cultural mix that have gone into building the populace. Is it a result of the comparative 'youth' of the nation. I don't know - but you can sense it when you compare the 'feel' of London and New York.

I think schism was inevitable, given the original nature of the colonies as acquisitive enterprises and GB's later attempt to curtail their expansion. If it hadn't happened then, it would have happened later. Otherwise you'd have to posit a relatively sedate collection of territories on the Atlantic Coast extending into what is now Canada, with the inclusion of Florida and perhaps the Spanish and French possessions of the northern Gulf of Mexico coast. Perhaps a more important question is what would have happened to Europe if all those immigrants had stayed bottled up on the continent.