These notes are part of an essay on an alternate history in which the American War of Independence never happened. In particular, this section discusses the causes of the American War of Independence, that might be manipulated to produce a point of divergence. Further alternate history material can be found on my web page.
| The Seven Years' War | |
|---|---|
|
This is about as far back as I'd like to place the POD. During the Seven
Years' War Britain supported Prussia in a war against most of Europe. From
our point of view the most important enemy was France.
Rather than send its main effort to fight alongside the Prussians, however, Britain had what we might call (by analogy with the second world war) an "America first" policy. That is, it put a considerable amount of effort into improving its position in colonies distant from Europe. This was a method that had served Britain reasonably well in earlier wars. If she failed to defend her possessions in Germany then she could hope to swap French colonies for them. And if she did defend successfully then she might well walk away with a profit. The war did go well (at least in the sense that any war goes "well"). Britain walked away with new land in India, the West Indies and Canada. Canada, the only significant foreign border that Britain's North American colonies had, was part of the territory Britain kept. A key effect here is that the colonists no longer perceived that they needed the British to protect them from the French. So thinking of doing without them became more and more attractive. | One possible POD would be to delete the Seven Years' War. No war means no (less) debt means no (less) dissent. But the effects of this will echo around Europe, and hence the world, in hideously unpredictable ways. What we really want is a POD whose main effect is in the New World, with effects filtering back to Europe only through the butterfly effect (which we neglect) and as America becomes a player in world affairs (which will take time). Much the same complaint can be made about any other POD directly affecting the Seven Years' War: making it shorter, for instance. |
| Taxes | |
|
The Seven Years' War cost Britain a fortune. Britain wasn't willing to pay
it all and wanted to tax the colonies to raise some of the revenue needed
to pay off the debt. After all, the war had considerably improved the
colonists' security, so it was only fair they paid for some of it. The
colonists' position was a bit more complex than not wanting to pay. For
instance, income tax was practically a dirty word in that era, whereas
customs duties were considered perfectly legitimate.
The British parliament passed a series of acts to extract money from America. I won't repeat the details here, but some famous ones were the taxes on tea and sugar and the stamp tax (effectively on sales of land and on newspapers). There was also a "declaratory act" which stated the principle that the British parliament had the right to pass whatever laws they liked in respect of America and without paying attention to any local American assemblies. Half of them were unpopular for reasons of principle even in the parliament, and half of them were repealed quite quickly when it was realised how unpopular they were in America. (Though "quite quickly" is a relative term in an era of trans-Atlantic communication by sailing ship.) | Can we hope Britain won't ask America to pay its share? No. But maybe that they'll do it a little less, or in a more sensitive way. We don't need to eliminate American opposition, just reduce it to below the level of actual rebellion (by anything other than lunatic fringe elements). |
| The Tyranny of Distance | |
| The Atlantic was too wide to make it possible for Britain to govern America really efficiently, this gave the government two bad choices. The first option was to try anyway, and tolerate the dissent that bad decisions and a lack of responsiveness induced. The second was to allow the local assemblies to shoulder most of the burden, the colonial governors becoming rubber stamps. But one of the laws of power is "use it or lose it": local assemblies accustomed to running their own affairs would not take well to any future assertion of authority by Westminster or the crown. | It's a very hard problem. This problem will hang around forever to some extent, although a trans-Atlantic telegraph will help a lot and eventually it may turn into Britain's problem instead of America's. I've stolen the title of this section from Australian historian Geoffrey Blamey. |
| No Taxation Without Representation | |
|
The American dissenting position was, more or less, that any taxes ought
to be enacted by the colonies' own legislatures. Taxation was, they
asserted, a "free gift" of the people, via their elected representatives.
Not being represented in Britain, they felt they didn't have to pay taxes.
Britain's answer was that the members in Westminster represented everyone everywhere in the British empire: "virtual" representation. American dissenters said this was ridiculous: which it was. But it was ridiculous in a fashion entirely consistent with Britain's electoral system generally, where only the wealthy got to vote and small towns in Cornwall got representation while large but new cities had none. | The key question: will Britain give the American colonies members of parliament? And if they do, will that satisfy them? We also have to ask whether the idea is even workable. Can you really represent someone who is several months away by ship? I'd argue yes, at least to some extent. The American members of parliament know roughly what the effect of a bill on American industries will be. Of course, individual complaints will take a long time to process, but it's better than nothing. The key issue is whether American colonists will see it that way. |
| Pontiac's Rebellion | |
| The French had a policy of pacifying their Indian frontier with a combination of military action, diplomacy and bribery. The British governors replacing the French in Quebec had a much poorer understanding of Indian affairs and didn't do anything like as good a job. The result was a rebellion by Indians led by Pontiac, during 1763-5. This contributed to colonial discontent. | Probably not a huge factor, but something to keep in mind. |
| Union of Canada and Quebec | |
| The British chose to run Quebec as just another part of Canada, rather than retaining the French administrative structure (which they might well have done). | I'm not sure what effect this might have had, except with respect to Indian trouble, see above. |
| Settling the North | |
| In the 1770s the maritime provinces of Canada were thinly settled, and there were very few English settlers in Quebec. That all changed after the United States were formed, since loyalists from what's now the USA were resettled in these areas. | These areas will stay thinly settled until (one estimate) the 1820s or 1830s, and the settlers will come from the modern US. There may be an earlier northern frontier, as well as a western one. |
| A Window of Opportunity | |
| During 1772 the situation had cooled down a great deal. Parliament had repealed most of its more noxious legislation, and the colonial attitudes had calmed. | This is the best chance for a compromise. If the British gradually bring in reform from this point, they have a real chance of hanging on the North America. |
| Pitt's Illness | |
| Pitt became prime minister in 1766. He was one of the great figures of his era, and great hope was held that he could resolve the problems which faced Britain. Unfortunately, Pitt was quite ill and a long way from his best, and he got very little done. | A dose of penicillin for Mr. Pitt? I don't know enough about his personality to guess what he would have done in America. |
| Financial Crisis in India | |
| The period 1770-3 was when parliament should have been doing something about America. It didn't, partly because it was distracted by something that from the late eighteenth century point of view was more important: India. The British East India Company ran a chunk of India on behalf of the British empire. It had its own army, it exercised sovereign powers, and it was bankrupt. The company's financial crisis occupied a great deal of parliament's time and mental energy. | Take away the financial crisis and the parliament may get more done with respect to America. Worth thinking about, anyway. |
| The Intolerable Acts | |
| This was legislation in 1774, designed to punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party. Anyone accustomed to living under English common law is going to see this as ... well, intolerable. The Boston Tea Party had been vandalism of only moderate scale, and to punish the entire town for it shows, in my opinion, that parliament had lost the plot. | I don't know why they did it, so it's hard to say how it would be stopped. |
| Gage's Expedition to Concord | |
| In 1776 General Gage had an army of 3500 men in Boston. At the time a militia (who were, indirectly, under the command of the Massachusetts assembly) were gathering ammunition and military stores around Concord. Gage sent an expedition with the aim of seizing the stores. It ran into militia and came off second best. This was, understandably, a huge shock to the British and a huge morale boost to the colonists. And casualties on both sides made compromise impossible. | We could have this not happen, or we could have the stores seized without serious opposition, or we could have a walkover British victory. But it's all a bit late for my needs, since I want a peaceful and consensual solution, not a fizzled rebellion followed by British oppression. |
| Continue with discussion of the effects of the American War of Independence | Back to the "No American War of Independence" page |
I welcome feedback at David.Bofinger@dsto.defenceSpamProofing.gov.au. Thanks to Daniel MacGregor for comments, suggestions and corrections.