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British America
🕑 Added 2023-12-11 23:28:13 +0000 UTCIf you turn on the daytime talkshows or accidentally get a look at the sort of magazines they sell at grocery stores, you’ll be assaulted by the most horrendous slop: what the Royals are up to. William this, grumpy prince whoever did that, Netflix deal with whats her face. America, get your act together, we fought and won a war about this….
But what if we didn’t? What if America lost the Revolutionary War and remained part of the British Empire?
Well this is What Why How, and that’s what the video’s about. If you like this sort of video, subscribe.
Okay, let’s rewind time back to September 1777, into the early phase of the Revolutionary War. A British army under the command of John Burgoyne is marching down the Hudson River. Ultimately, he plans to seize control of Albany and split New England from Virginia, possibly destroying the fresh revolution. Poised against him is an American army under Horatio Gates, which marches north and builds fortifications at a place called Bemis Heights.
As the British army stumbles and staggers south, the Americans have to decide what to do. On September 19, Benedict Arnold—not yet a traitor—suggests Horatio Gates march forward and confront the Redcoats. But Horatio Gates hates Benedict Arnold and doesn’t much like the idea; after several hours of arguing, though, Gates gives in; the two armies clash in a farm. After a day of vicious fighting, the Americans withdraw, but the Brits are so bloodied they lose the campaign. After a few more battles, Burgoyne surrenders and the bruised Brits are locked away until the end of the war.
This victory – the Battles of Saratoga – raised such a din that France caught wind of it and decided that us Americans could actually beat Britain—They joined the war soon afterward, and British defeat was thereafter basically inevitable.
But what if Saratoga went different? What if the Americans lost?
Well, there’s a few ways that could’ve happened. Horatio Gates, a stubborn guy, could have just ignored Benedict Arnold and kept behind his fortifications. The British would then have marched south with their full strength and seized a convenient elevated area to the Americans’ west where they could bombard them to dust with superior artillery. Or, if Benedict Arnold won the argument anyways, the British could’ve won if they got their act together and concentrated their army at its center, rather than marching south in three columns—in real life, one of its columns basically got lost on the way to the battle. I’m not pulling these out of my ass, historians have brought these mistakes up before. [Check out “The Glorious Cause” – maybe put quotes?]
https://archive.org/details/gloriouscauseame0000midd/page/384/mode/1up?view=theater&q=Saratoga
Ok, so let’s say the Brits win the Battle of Saratoga. They capture the Americans and ship them off to some horrible prison, then soon afterward capture Albany, New York.
Meanwhile, the redcoats win the Battle of Brandywine and occupy Philly like real life. The rebels enter the winter with dangerously low morale. In 1778, Britain is able to focus its full might on crushing the rebellion, since it’s not distracted by pesky France. Over the next several years, Britain wipes up the rebels. Some American leaders are tried in England, but others like Washington and Jefferson find refuge in France.
For the next fifteen years the American colonies face strict rule by Britain as punishment for the rebellion. In the face of a second looming revolution, Britain passes a reform bill which splits its colonies into several provinces, each headed by a lieutenant governor but given some legislative autonomy. These divisions will last a long time.
What won’t last a long time is Britain’s peace with France. War soon erupts over some Caribbean sugar islands. After years of expensive fighting, the war ends in a stalemate, but France is bankrupted. The fiscal crisis and an inconvenient famine erupts into revolution. While the French revolutionaries don’t have an independent United States to inspire them, they do have Jefferson and Washington and of course their own great thinkers—and great demagogues, like everyone’s favorite Corsican. Europe erupts into another generation of bloodshed. With a little extra American help, the Coalition might beat Napoleon sooner, but I wouldn’t be so sure it makes much of a difference.
Back in America, Louisiana has raised the tricolor of France. American loyalists invade and capture New Orleans, so Louisiana becomes a British colony. Soon afterward the Spanish Empire explodes into a million pieces. Without the inspiration of the United States, these Latin American governments might follow France instead and have their own National Conventions, directories, and consuls.
After the war, millions of Englishmen, Irishmen, Germans, and others flee the devastation to the pristine shores of the American Colonies. With this increasing population pressure, Britain relents and allows the settlement of the Midwest. When native tribes resist their deportation, they’re confronted with armed force by militias settlers and if they fight back too hard, redcoats. So, the British Empire is dragged forward inch by inch.
But that’s hardly the toughest obstacle Britain faces. Abolitionism is spiking in popularity in Britain. The largest supporter of slavery is the Southern Colony—slavery is a booming industry in the cotton-growing South. In 1835, the British Parliament passes the Slavery Abolition Act. Even though it offers compensation and a buffer period of ten years, the Chesapeake and Southern Colonies ragefully rebel, while Canada joins in too for fun—the others remain loyal. English and American redcoats, after some setbacks, crush this rebellions.
Afterward, Britain appoints the immensely rich Lord Durham as the Governor-General of British North America and asks him how to get the odious Americans in line. He recommends unifying all the different colonies and giving America a responsible government—kinda like democracy. Britain rejects his suggestions and drags its fancy leather boots for another ten years before growing pressure from republican leagues in America convinces it to pass the North America Act of 1847.
All the British American colonies are swept into one single government: the Dominion of America, with its capital in New York. While the Prime Minister and legislature of America have plenty of power, the Governor General, appointed by Britain, is the chief executive. This fragile union, which ties together the French-speaking Quebecois, New York merchants, and resentful Southern plantation-owners, not least to mention a bunch of Native Americans and recently freed slaves, doesn’t have much of a national identity.
While sometimes more trouble than it’s worth, the Dominion of America does add to Britain’s already gargantuan ability to project its power abroad; Anglo-American businesses gain immense power in Latin American countries, for example, especially Mexico. Also, Texas, though ostensibly a patriotic republican stronghold against British authoritarianism, is in actuality a British puppet. So, when conflict erupts between Mexico and Texas in 1858, the Dominion rushes to its aid, beats Mexico in a war, and annexes California.
Over the second half of the 1800s, Britain uses America as a stepping stone to new lands: it gobbles up Alaska, Hawaii, the Philippines, and of course lucrative treaty ports in China. There is also, of course, India and soon enough a massive chunk of Africa too. Families from these impoverished places are shipped off to British colonies, including America, to work as indentured laborers.
Back in the early 1800s, Britain fought a desperate war against Napoleonic France, which sought to conquer Europe. A century later, power in Europe is held by the Austrian Empire. When France seizes control of Morocco, Austria invades, and Britain comes to the aid of its old nemesis. Eight years of trench warfare follow, with Americans contributing immensely to the war effort. Britain and its allies win the war, breaking apart Austria.
The soldiers of the great war bring home a renewed sense of patriotism. African and Indian American soldiers demand equal rights to their white neighbors, beginning the civil rights movement. Politicians request greater independence from Britain too. Deeply indebted to the Dominion of America, Britain agrees: in 1922, it gains nearly complete independence as the Commonwealth of America. However, America and Britain are close allies.
When Austria attempts to restore its empire in the 1930s, the Americans come to the aid of Britain right off the bat. Because of this, the European war ends quickly, with Britain, America, France, and Russia crafting a new world order.
Over the next decades, America struggles not for independence, but with its independence. The wartime feelings of unity and patriotism fade quickly as attention is focused on the cultural differences between the provinces of the massive Commonwealth. The next generation identifies more so with the socialism promoted by the Russian Republic than the parliamentary monarchy of their parents. There’s also the question of civil rights, with the South nearly leaving the Commonwealth as the federal government enforces voting rights.
This malaise is only strengthened by a series of foreign wars Britain drags America into to keep together its empire, including in Egypt, Ghana, and Burma. In these places, communist Russia and China aid guerrilla fighters against the Anglo-Americans.
In the 1974 parliamentary elections, the reformists win power under the banner of MP Robert Kennedy, who triumphs over the old Conservative and Liberal parties. Prime Minister Kennedy expands civil rights and government programs, providing hope for the Commonwealth … but is shot dead by Quebecois separatist in 1979.
From there follows an unstable decade. Multiple elections result in no strong majority party, while separatist movements in Quebec, California, and the reactionary south gain power and prominence. Making a deal with the devil, the new Liberty Party unites with the separatist parties to gain a majority in the 1988 elections. In an attempt to pull together a new decentralized constitution, they accidentally open up a pandora’s box of independence movements: one after another, the provinces vote for independence and the Commonwealth of America fragments apart.
The British Empire does too, with most of Britain’s last footholds abroad securing their independence. Without a unified British Empire or America, the world has entered a new multipolar phase, with local powers having mostly unrestrained authority in their backyards. China, Russia, India, and the European Confederacy all seek to replace Britain as the new global superpower. The sun has set on the British Empire.
Entering the present day, North America isn’t doing particularly well. The Commonwealth remains in a shrunken form, but is increasingly matched by the Republican alliance of California, Cascadia, and Texas. The South and Mississippi, two major countries, are struggling to survive in the face of growing insurrection against the government. And then there’s all sorts of bizarre things happening in Zion, where every strange religious group has set up shop. But while America is divided, the next generation increasingly sees this as a mistake; many hope to reunify America in one form or another.
What do you think would happen? Would America reunify? Would war erupt between the American states or across the world?
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