What if the American Revolution never happened?

[justfollowingtheelections]

I've always been curious about this.  How do you think things would've developed in North America and the rest of the world if the United States of America didn't exist?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

After the decisive defeat of the French in the Seven Years' War so that the French were no longer a threat, the divergent interests of America and Britain virtually ensured that there would be an American rebellion.  It need not have been successful but it was certain to occur.

[The Mikado]

The Dominion of North America, a Commonwealth nation, controls everything from the Rio Grande to the Arctic Circle (yes, including Alaska, the Russians couldn't hold onto it forever).

How's that?

[justfollowingtheelections]

After the decisive defeat of the French in the Seven Years' War so that the French were no longer a threat, the divergent interests of America and Britain virtually ensured that there would be an American rebellion.  It need not have been successful but it was certain to occur.

Not necessarily.  If the British didn't pass the Stamp act or the Intolerable acts and gave the colonists representation in the British parliament, the war might have been avoided.

[bgwah]

Would the British have taken over half of Mexico? I doubt it.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

After the decisive defeat of the French in the Seven Years' War so that the French were no longer a threat, the divergent interests of America and Britain virtually ensured that there would be an American rebellion.  It need not have been successful but it was certain to occur.

Not necessarily.  If the British didn't pass the Stamp act or the Intolerable acts and gave the colonists representation in the British parliament, the war might have been avoided.

If Parliament doesn't assert itself via legislation such as the Stamp Act and the Intolerable Acts, it would effectively be conceding independence, which was hardly what Britain had fought for in the Seven Years' War.  The minuscule representation that the colonies would have gained in Parliament would be effectively as meaningful as that of the SNP and the PC today.

While different measures by the British might have ameliorated the differences so the eventual rebellion would be similar in scope and success to the Rebellions of 1837 that took place in the Canadas, there would most definitely be a rebellion in the American colonies.

[2952-0-0]

Perhaps this new American Colony ends up ruling much of North America east of the Rockies, with Spanish colonies taking the west.

Eventually the relationship between Britain and America resembles that between Portugal and Brazil: the "colony" begins to dominate over the "mother country", and in some form "America" gains its independence with more competition on its continent.

[Frodo]

You should try reading a similar thread I started a while back. 

[12th Doctor]

If cooler heads had prevailed in Britain, then a permanent separation could have been avoided even after the start of the war.  The Americans had alot of friends in the British Parliament, and powerful ones, at that, including no less than Pitt the Elder.  However, those voices who saw the American Rebellion as nothing less than a direct challenge to British authority by lowly, ungrateful, hicks who didn't like paying taxes were backed by the king, and after Pitt's death pretty well ruled the day.

[Storebought]

If cooler heads had prevailed in Britain, then a permanent separation could have been avoided even after the start of the war.  The Americans had alot of friends in the British Parliament, and powerful ones, at that, including no less than Pitt the Elder.  However, those voices who saw the American Rebellion as nothing less than a direct challenge to British authority by lowly, ungrateful, hicks who didn't like paying taxes were backed by the king, and after Pitt's death pretty well ruled the day.

That goes a bit too far.

King and parliament treated American colonists more as overindulged Whigs. Even if George III held a personal animosity towards the colonists, Parliament treated them leniently. Even the Revolution after it was begun was negotiable.

The real question would be how the Revolution would have turned out if Parliament saw the colonists in the same light as they saw the Irish during the Jacobite rebellions.

[JSojourner]

I would be eligible to be Archbishop of Canterbury.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I would be eligible to be Archbishop of Canterbury.

You're eligible now.  The current holder of the post wasn't a member of the Church of England when elevated to the Throne of St. Augustine, but of the Church in Wales.  While it is unlikely that anyone would be elevated to the throne who isn't a royal subject so long as the Church of England is an established church, the precedent has clearly been set that any member of the Anglican Communion is eligible to become Archbishop of Canterbury