The size of BNA without the ARW

[tallthinkev]

How big could British North America get without the ARW? Now how the ARW doesn't happen is not important here, it's just doesn't happen. There was a semi bar on settlers beyond the Appalachian's to the west, Up north is Canada and to the east and south the sea. When the next Anglo-French war comes along, with or without Napoleon, can the British take what is known OTL as the Louisiana Purchase? I'm thinking yes.

Over to you good people, and type about this of a bit.

 

[tallthinkev]

No one?

 

[WunWun]

I'd like to sketch a timeline for a bit. The most essential part about this prompt is how the ARW is avoided and why they british would want to expand.

My first PoD would be in the early 1700s, with an earlier arrival of dutch husbandry and the agricultural revolution in britain. This leads in turn to a greater demographic pressure and exacerbate things like the vagrancy problem. Parliament deals with it in the same manner that they've dealt with religious extremists: deport them. They form the Royal Settlement Commission. Instead of shuffling vagrants and homeless around britain from parish to parish, they're collected and sent to america to act as new settlers. The same goes for the rural exodus that happens because of the agricultural revolution and the enclosure movement. Because of the RSC, the british government has a stake in ensure adequate free land in America. This would lead to american colonial unrest, because they're getting the poors and the criminal dropped on their doorstep, but the UK would take care of that in the second PoD.

The Seven Years War happens as OTL, and a new royal proclamation is issued. It is a different proclamation than OTL tho. The proclamation line is still issued, but it is decreed that all land beyond it shall be reserved for the RSC to settle, with RSC branch offices opening in the american colonies to channel the expansionist desires of the colonials.
Secondly; the colonies are reorganized into two categories: settlement colonies and exploitation colonies. Settlement colonies are meant for mass settlement by colonials and the expansion of the british state (america, perhaps australia), with the settlement colonies offered the option to regularize into full counties of the crown if developed enough; while the exploitation colonies are meant to feed the british economy (carribbean, India etc).

Towards the late 18th century, there are a few natural evolutions. The first is that to protect RSC interests in the american interior, the Royal Rangers are raised, a corps of frontiersmen and explorers in professional, full time Army service. The relation with the natives deteriorates, since with the conquest of canada and the creation of the rangers there are no more real threats to british interests in north america. A series of new colonies are founded on the other side of the appalachia mountain range, and some of the more prosperous and powerful of the thirteen colonies regularize into dominions to better express their power within the british body politic.

Another conflict with france is inevitable - no matter if it is revolutionary france or royal france - and the rangers take new orleans and the forts along the mississipi. Suspecting the indians and the french to be in league, another conflict erupts. It ends in a trail-of-tears-esque situation where many indian tribes are forced to seek new homes past the mississipi river, leaving the entire eastern seaboard and both sides of the appalachians as a british settlement zone.

Meanwhile, canadian fur trappers keep pressing westwards and with the knowledge of the existence of the columbia region they soon reach the west coast. The RSC decides to send some preliminary settlers to found an outpost at the mouth of the columbia river. Just in case. Meanwhile, the left bank of the Mississipi is settled.

In the early 19th C there is a conflict with Spain, and Britain takes the carribean isles as exploitation colonies and Spanish NA up to the Rio Grande-Gadsden purchase boundary as settlement colonies. Slowly but surely the interior fills with settlers, with things like the california gold rush leading the exodus westwards. At this point we're quite butterflied away but if a crimean war happens then the brits will surely take alaska, or they could purchase it to finish their north american dominion if they stay on good terms with st petersburg.

Voila, a BNA the size of otl CONUS and Canada. Possibly the caribbean sugar islands attached, but I think they'll rather stay directly under the british crown.

 

[Grey Wolf]

Given the sequence or wars in the18th century, Britain is not going to stop going after French North America

Now, if the French lose the ARW they are doomed.

But if this means, Britain AVOIDS the ARW and France therefore does not get involved, then French finances actually have a chance of recovery

There would be bound to be some other casus belli in the last years of the 19th century anyway, so such a war would be the one to determine how this all plays out

 

[Lusitania]

the butterflies of no independence of British 13 colonies has huge ramifications both in the Americas, Europe and elsewhere.

one person take on the this was the Two Georges.

 

[marktaha]

For Want of a Nail.by Robert Sobel

 

[M.R.L]

I think it's plausible for BNA to about as large as the USA could plausibly have been, which IMO is Canada plus Sam Houston's OTL proposal during the Mexican-American War, plus maybe the canal-able land in Panama or Nicaragua if people have began making noises about that. I think All-Mexico will seem like, and be, a bridge too far.

Though I think Cuba would be governed separately unless all British Caribbean holdings have been folded into BNA.

 

[Hugh Third of Five]

Assuming a POD after the French and Indian War, I'd say the answer depends on whether or not Britain fights a really big war against Spain.

 

[JohnBull]

British traditionally tried to build a border to prevent settlers to encroach native lands and avoid to drag them into costless wars. It's a constant on British imperialism: settlers seen as a nuissance and troublemakers by London.

Said that, with no ARW, British North Americans would be more influent in London and objections to go west would be dropped and British North America could expand even faster than US did. Regarding Mexico, we could draw a parallel with the South Africa and Boer Wars: we have plenty of possible casus belli to work with.

Regarding size, being unimaginative here, I'd say BNA = OTL US & Canada.

P.S. It's not this thread concern, but I'd say Imperial Federation would be much more like in this scenario than it's in OTL. Representation would be demanded and probably London would admit them in Westminster instead to put up local parliaments.

 

[Wendell]

The British end up with everything north and east of the Missouri River.

 

[Titanium49]

My thought is that a BNA as described would most likely never reach the West Coast. The French would never have sold Louisiana to the British; an independent expansive USA invented Manifest Destiny, & American & British rivalry meant that Canada had to get to the West Coast too. But there are many possible butterflies; perhaps a UK/US/Canada behemoth could have allowed Russia to take the straits in return for Alaska?

 

[unprincipled peter]

Some of you are having the French and Indian Wars going same as OTL, and treating Louisiana as French. If the POD is after the F&I war, or results of ATL F&I war are the same as OTL, Louisiana is Spanish.
IMO, taking the OP at face value of ARW doesn't happen, and things are similar otherwise. There are PODs which could stifle the revolution, or kill it fairly quickly, but as OP said, doesn't matter, that's not the point of the thread.

As noted, if France avoids the ARW, the French Revolution may not happen. It is important to decide whether it does, or doesn't go off as scheduled. No FR/Nap wars means Spain is not torn asunder, and its empire remains intact. This means no Mexico as we know it. Louisiana remains part of New Spain, and continues a growth which sees it heavily Spanish flavored. I believe they allowed other nationalities to settle there, as well, so the colony won't be as Spanish as the rest of the empire. New Orleans was growing rapidly, and will continue so in ATL. Soon Louisiana will be too large to swallow. Spain will be careful to play nice on the Mississippi. Spain was growing careful about getting involved in wars, so there's no guarantee they get involved in the next major European War.

North America borders are pretty much set. The Nootka Crisis established northern boundaries, more or less. Britain might be able to push the boundary south a bit. The eastern border is set at the Mississippi. East and West Florida are British. The only way Britain gains more is through war.

The only way I see the lower 15 colonies (OTL 13 plus the Floridas) content in the fold is to grant limited autonomy. This new dominion may want a hungry land grab, but Britain won't want war simply for expansion, and will block this - until there's a major war with Spain. It will probably be 1820s or so before there's a real land pinch, much later if Canada is opened up, so there's no real need for a land grab. By then, Spanish Louisiana will be far more developed, even with minimal effort, than OTL 1800 Louisiana.

You can write your narrative any way you want in a no FR/Nap War scenario. I don't think we can predict the next major English/Spanish War. Sans one, Borders are set more or less at OTL 1763 boundaries.

With a FR/Nap Wars as OTL, Spain probably loses Louisiana to the British. Spanish California/Arizona/New Mexico/Nevada/Colorado/Oregon/Washington/Texas remains Spanish.

British NA won't be as expansionist at OTL USA.

 

[raharris1973]

Why is everybody talking like Louisiana is France’s to dispose of? Or all your proposed PoDs pre 7 years war and treaty of Fountainbleau 1763? Because after that Louisiana is Spanish not French darnit!

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

WunWun makes a good attempt, but unfortunately this is one of those things where the event (AWI) itself had huge butterflies, affecting the domestic situation in Britain and France, as well as North America. Plus the POD that avoids it has huge butterflies, meaning avoiding the conquest of French Canada at the latest and most minimal. It really can't be done without veering off into fantasy world, as both alternate history novels on the topic do.

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

If Britain runs North America more like the French, Spanish, and Portuguese run their colonies, that is their best chance of keeping them under control into the nineteenth century. This means much less self-government, less immigration and they are pickier about who settles there, and probably this at least butterflies the conquest of Canada away, since the colonies are less populated, poorer, and more dependent on London.

Its hard to get this without a different British government, possibly even a different dynasty, and you are probably putting the elder Pitt out of the picture. But lets say these butterflies are minimal.

And we will say the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars happen on schedule without the AWI because hand waving.

British North America in the early nineteenth century is a lot like a colder, Protestant, English speaking, more literate Brazil. Its developed, but not as much as OTL. The colonial elites still press for more self-government and more equality with Britain.

I can see this happening with the British still getting Florida, at they will finally pick up Canada during the Napoleonic wars. Napoleon would not in this situation press the Spanish to transfer Louisiana to him, and then sell it to Britain, since the point of the OTL sale was to raise money to prosecute a war against Britain. No Louisiana purchase affects the Napoleonic campaigns. He probably realizes a French colony next to British territory is not viable.

British still move into the Pacific Northwest, and have a decent chance of picking up at least northern California from Mexico. These places are governed separately from the colonies on the Atlantic seabord.

Abolition of slavery within the British empire affects, and is affected by, relations with the southern colonies.

Probably you get one more more self-governing confederations developing in North America east of the Mississippi, one what was to be the Canadian model. Because of the POD, population will be lower than OTL. The northern Mexican states may be filibustered and detached from Mexico as OTL, but are not likely to voluntarily join the British empire, even a very loose one.

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

The OTL situation was the Britain allowed their North American colonies to reach a high level of development, without making much attempt to govern or even tax them ("benign neglect"), while still providing some defense against the French and Indians.

When Westminster tried to get the colonies to pay for their defense against the Indians, having removed the French, the colonies figured out within a couple of decades that they could do this themselves. They had developed to the point where the British kept them in the empire through bluff and inertia. So I am convinced that a POD earlier than 1760 is needed to keep the relationship longer. British ministries and Parliament could just let the situation drift, but would have run into financial difficulties if they tried that, especially as they probably still would have found themselves in another war with France eventually. Really the attempt at reconquest stating in 1776 was done in a half-a---- way due to the financial issues. More serious attempts at negotiation (IOTL several fairly weak attempts were made) would have resulted in separation except in name only.

So I think if are looking at ongoing British North America you are looking at less development than happened IOTL.