WI 'Northwest Territory' stayed British

My though was that in the American Revolutionary War and the Treaty of Paris have a slightly different outcome. The terms of the treaty were very generous for the United States, more so then perhaps they could have been.

My proposal is that in the Treaty of Paris the United Kingdom does not give up what became the US's Northwest Territory. The United States would still receive some land in the treaty, but not nearly as much.

How does this shape the development of North America? both the US and Canada. what changes would this mean for global affairs in the long term? Would the US annex more of Mexico?

Given the US and BNA's different boundaries using modern US state borders I have come up what I think North America would look like once the borders are settled.

 
But then the Americans would probably have made a serious effort to take those lands in the War of 1812, or even at some point in between the two OTL conflicts' dates...
 
The US would still have the Louisiana purchase, which would give them access to Oregon country.

Also, this poses a huge problem with the US if 1812 breaks out now that Britain has direct access to the Mississippi River.
 

Willmatron

Banned
When I first saw this post I imagined Oregon, Washington and Idaho belonging to England and not as much as in the map. But I imagine if anything the British will invest more into making the Panama canal instead of the USA.
 
The US would have to be losing the American Revolution pretty badly to give up the Ohio territory. If the British did manage to keep it in the coming decades, I wonder if it would lead to all the Yankees who moved into the Northwest Territories OTL settling Missouri and Arkansas, dramatically changing their make-up.
 
The British gave up the Northwest Territory because they knew keeping it would engineer a constant casus belli between Britain and the USA. The 13 colonies were the British manpower in North America. They weren't going to settle the Northwest Territory; only the USA would.

Keeping it would mean having to enforce their "control" of the region once American settlers pushed inland, which was only a matter of time. They'd either then need to back down, losing face, or fight yet another war - with even less advantages than they had in 1776.

We'd likely see a new war between the US and UK sometime between the French Revolution and 1812, possibly under Jefferson.
 
The British gave up the Northwest Territory because they knew keeping it would engineer a constant casus belli between Britain and the USA.
Could that be seen as an advantage?

Make the treaty now, but keep open the possibility of reclaiming the rebellious colonies should a good future opportunity appear.
 
If you made the border from present day Toledo Ohio to Gary Indiana and then use 41 75N to the Pacific (pretty close to today's California-Oregon Border). The US may just go for it.
 
Could that be seen as an advantage?

Make the treaty now, but keep open the possibility of reclaiming the rebellious colonies should a good future opportunity appear.

Thing is, there never was any intention on the part of the British of "reclaiming the rebellious colonies". What there was was a few things: acceptance by military leaders that the colonies couldn't be held because of the vast requirements of controlling the interior, wide popular support among the non-voting classes back at home for the colonists' fight for their rights (note: not necessarily the same as "fight for their independence", and shouldn't be interpreted as a willingness to expand the revolution to the British Isles), and a bit of a cross between a petulant "have it your way and you'll be begging to come back in 10 years" and a depressive "well, we tried what we could for you, now we don't want anything more to do with you".

In short, once the colonies were gone, Parliament knew they were gone. There truly was zero interest in fighting to reconquer even a part of the colonies after the ARW had ended. Now, controlling the centre and west coast was a different story, but it also doesn't count as "reclaiming the rebellious colonies", since we are now talking about land that never was part of the 13 Colonies...
 
It's important to ask yourself and others if a change is actually plausible and can be done before starting a thread or map, and challenge yourself to see a change that can make it happen.

You'd have to come up with a solid reason for us to be happy with losing even Ohio to the west, or we'd be totally outsettling that turf like we did in Texas and Oregon.
 
It would work better it you set the border from the south easten end of lake Eire to the southern tip of Lake Michigan and from there across to the pacific.
 
I definitely think Ohio is a step too far but I personally think the OTL path of not really supporting the Indian Confederacy properly was less likely. It's completely obvious to have a convenient break on US expansion Westward and Tecmush could have provided it. Not least because it could be a solution for Britain's own Indian problem. Deporting all the Ontario and "Canadian" natives into the Confederacy and having it act as a heaven for Natives pissed off with the US and pretty soon you could have a sustainable and useful ally, that coincidentally would help Britain get a bigger share of the Great Plains.
 
that would keep the Americans out of the old northwest. do you think it would improve the later histories of the planes indians?.
It might also lead with an earlier war with Mexico.
 

Faeelin

Banned
This is very plausible, I think. Some of the peace proposals enviisioned in 1779 and 1780 saw the northwest staying in British hands along with the southern colonies.
 
I think that the cause of an earlier Mexican War would be the changed migration patterns of the settlers into the northern part of the Empire of Mexico.
 
This is very plausible, I think. Some of the peace proposals enviisioned in 1779 and 1780 saw the northwest staying in British hands along with the southern colonies.

This is intriguing.

Any sources? I believe you, but a source would be great so I can keep it for my own purposes. :)
 
Actually, this was Ben Franklin's initial proposal (please forgive the slightly anachronistic Maine border):

alternate US~BNA boundary.jpg
 
redline89kb.jpg


Thank you for all the responses so far, I hopefully will be able to join in the discussion as more then an observer later next week
 
That would be interesting. The rump of the US or what ever it was called, stuck between British Canada and the reanglicized Southeast.
 
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