How would this country be different if the American Revolution failed?

[Yavin4]

Last edited Fri Mar 16, 2018, 03:22 PM - Edit history (2)

Interesting thought experiment.

--On Edit--

I've read that the British Empire would have been even more powerful in the world.

--Second Edit---
Excuse the multiple edits. Having a bad grammar day.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. We'd be driving on the wrong side of the road, and PBS would be loaded with crappy British sitcoms.

Oh, wait.

[spanone]

33. BWahahahahahaa

[malchickiwick]

2. We'd all be speaking English!

The United States and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common language.
-- George Bernard Shaw

[MichMary]

3. Honor

would be spelled "honour."

[Pathwalker]

9. Grey, whilst, loo, bugger, etc.

n/t

[ms liberty]

16. You forgot my favorite...gobsmacked.

[Pathwalker]

25. And then there's "trump" which means fart.

[juxtaposed]

4. universal health care and a dry sense of humor

[Hoyt]

26. Just what I was thinking, and slavery would have ended sooner.

[Takket]

5. French fries are now chips

[Frances]

6. I think that the South would have rebelled against the British

when the British abolished slavery. I don't think the whole country would have rebelled over the issue of keeping slavery. Assuming the South lost the war against the British without the help of all the states, I think the British would have dealt more harshly with the slave states than the US did.

[marylandblue]

7. We'd be Canada

[zipplewrath]

8. We'd be called Canada

An awful lot would have to be different for the US to have remained part of the UK for very much longer. The revolt started well before Lexington and Concord and would have continued one way or another.

[DBoon]

10. Bernie Sanders would be leading the NDP

nt

[DFW]

11. Dunno, mate

But there'll always be some wanker running ya 'round the twist to speculate, wat?

[LisaM]

12. Well, technically, we weren't a country during that war.

It would have gone down as an uprising that was crushed.

[EffieBlack]

13. We wouldnt be a country?

[jes06c]

14. One forgotten cause of the war for independence

Was that Great Britain had made a treaty with Native Americans after the Seven Years War (aka the French and Indian War). Great Britain agreed to not settle beyond the Appalachians. The colonists did not like this at all. If Great Britain had won the war, who knows, things may have turned out much better for the Native Americans.

[Sneederbunk]

18. Like in Canada?

[Retrograde]

15. There might be other large nations in North America

either Spanish or French speaking, that would put a damper on westward expansion by English-speaking peoples. In our timeline the Spanish didn't do much with their North American lands, but I can imagine them propping them up if there's a stronger British empire on the other side of the continent.

One of my favorite historical what-ifs: during the American Revolution the British encouraged a federation of Native peoples to keep their colonists from crossing into the Ohio valley. After the revolution the British withdrew their support and the federation fell apart (I think there was a similar one in what was then the colony of West Florida, but don't know enough about it).

Assuming European history goes more or less how we know it, a bigger change would come about c. 1848: the failed revolutions in Europe were at least partially responsible for a surge in non-British immigration and creating a more ethnically diverse United States (yeah, immigrants coming over and taking all the jobs goes way back). If the US lost the revolution I imagine a confederation more like Australia c. 1960, smaller and mostly British.

[poboy2]

20. Thought out answer. -nt

[StevieM]

35. Or what if Napoleon had not agreed to the Louisiana Purchase? (eom)

[bluecollar2]

17. We'd be playing proper football

Putting milk in our tea

And eating a lot of curry.

[poboy2]

19. The French may still have owned 'louisiana purchase' territories for much longer.

Spain, the west.

[beachbum bob]

21. cars built with steering wheels placed on wrong side, we would all have bad teeth...

[First Speaker]

22. I think that there would have evolved an Anglo-American Parliament...

...one in London, one in Philadelphia. It would have ruled over an Atlantic CoDominion, one in which, over time, the American/Canadian side--they'd have been one nation--would have predominated. The American part of it would probably have stretched to Panama. I believe that slavery would have been peacefully extinguished. The cotton gin wasn't invented until 1793, and that made slavery the profitable business it was. In British America, the gradual, Whiggish emancipation would have been a stronger force than the Abolitionism in the Republic. I just think it would have been handled better. Domestically, there would have been a Whig Aristocracy, which would have evolved in time towards democratic norms--just like it did in England. On the other hand, things like the Ku Klux Klan, the whole litany of American craziness--that sort of thing simply wouldn't have been allowed. We'd have been more stratified, but more civilized. Internationally, a British victory in the Revolution might have so drained the authority of the French crown that the French Revolution might have happened sooner. But with an overwhelming Anglo-American regime, the Napoleonic Wars, if they happened, would have been won sooner than they were in our reality. What would have happened with a united Germany, Russia, Japan, et al, with the CoDominium as a hegemonic world force--God knows. That's extrapolating too far.

[DavidDvorkin]

23. Germany would not have risked WWI

WWII would not have happened. Possibly, the Russian Empire would still exist in some form.

In general, the world would be a more peaceful place, assuming democratic evolution had continued in the British world and Europe.

[Leith]

24. One of My Favorite Songs Would Never Have Been Written

The Battle of New Orleans

There's a channel on YouTube that deals with historical what-if. Here is what they guess would and would not have happened. The video is just under 6 minutes.

[Buns_of_Fire]

27. McHaggis. nt

[MaryMagdaline]

28. Britain would have brought about the civil war a lot faster by banning slavery

[left-of-center2012]

29. Heres an Atlantic article on it

What If America Had Lost the Revolutionary War?

[procon]

30. We'd have a a Prime Minister and a Parliament, making it somewhat

easier to remove them from office and dissolve non functioning governments.

[Baclava]

31. There would still be slavery in the south, Spain would control FL and the French Mississippi

The railroads would never be connected coast to coast and airplanes never invented.

[Initech]

32. If Fox News has been around during the revolutionary war, we would be under British rule.

They would find some way to paint the colonists as traitors and paint the king as the second coming of Jesus.

[wishstar]

34. Slavery would have ended much earlier, as Britain did in Canada

and probably treaties with Native Americans would have been honored longer and the extermination of native populations that was conducted right after the war by American Rev War veterans would not have been as aggressive.

[davekriss]

36. Wed have universal healthcare

[MrScorpio]

37. Everything would be in the metric system