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Old 07-16-2011, 12:45 AM   #13 (permalink)
Daniel_
Evil Priest: The Devil Made Me Do It!
 
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Location: Southern England
Of course, if you look at the factions in the English speaking world in the period between the creation of the United Kingdom with the accession of James I & VI to the throne of England & Scotland, up to the reign of Victoria there is an argument that the two main groupings of the Royalists and the Parliamentarians in the civil war of England continued their struggle right through.

The English Civil War lead to the brief establishment of the Protectorate, and the Restoration caused the pressure for a number of those defeated Puritans to leave for the New World. As I understand it, the Puritan/Republican grouping had their power mainly in the North, the Royalist/Tory faction mainly in the South of what is now the USA.

The revolution pitted not just the New World against the Old, but found the Republicans (supported by the French, who strongly allied themselves to anyone fighting the English crown) against the Royalists (who were supported by the newly resurgent English state, united now the Jacobite threat was defeated - a threat also fostered by the French).

This time the Republicans won, but not so decisively that the Royalists in the South were comfortable with a fully unified nation. Hence the federal system, articles of Confederation and so on.

With Canada outside the new Union, the Royalists and Loyalists had a place to stay and the new Union was worried so invaded - they fought to a standstill, mainly because the English could not send forces to Canada for the war, due to the involvement on the continent against Napoleon. Once again the French helped the Americans out!

Another generation later, and the Royalists in the South re-named themselves the Confederates (interesting harking back to the original "Articles of Confederation" there) and fought against the Republicans.

So to look at the original question, if the English & Royalist faction had won the Revolutionary War I think that the factions would still have been there (after all, in Ireland they are STILL there, even thogh armed conflict is fading from popularity, thankfully) and unless a good settlement could have been made the civil war may still have happened in some way. Probably with a core of Republican Dissenters in the north trying to link up with the French in Louisiana and Quebec during the various Anglo/French wars of the time.

That said, if the issue was still not settled at the time of Victoria, I think it would have been quite possible that the American Dominions would have been happy to be part of the Empire, if given similar freedoms that Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India received.

With English backing, the American Dominion would probably have declared war on Mexico in parallel with the English war against Napoleon, and supported by our strong Naval presence in the Caribbean and Pacific would have had a good chance of the American Dominion extending all the way down to the English territories in Guyana.

Given the way the English worked in India as a template, the subjugation of the indigenous population would possibly not have been so harsh, and the access to Americans to join in the British colonialist expansion into Africa would have created interesting outlets for many of the people who ended up in the Western expansion of the USA.

If the colonies of Africa and the Dominion in America were both under the Imperial banner, the repatriation of slave descendants to Africa (which failed so badly in Liberia) would have been better resourced and better handled, and maybe the establishment of a well funded country in North Africa with good governance would have prevented the hideous mess of corruption that Africa has been since colonialism ended.

You can take any idea and spin it out in very interesting directions...
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