What If America Had Lost the Revolutionary War? A Fourth of July thought experiment

The Atlantic ^ | July 4, 2014 | Uri Friedman, senior associate editor

[2ndDivisionVet]

The Fourth of July—a time we Americans set aside to celebrate our independence and mark the war we waged to achieve it, along with the battles that followed. There was the War of 1812, the War of 1833, the First Ohio-Virginia War, the Three States' War, the First Black Insurrection, the Great War, the Second Black Insurrection, the Atlantic War, the Florida Intervention.

Confused? These are actually conflicts invented for the novel The Disunited States of America by Harry Turtledove, a prolific (and sometimes-pseudonymous) author of alternate histories with a Ph.D. in Byzantine history. The book is set in the 2090s in an alternate United States that is far from united. In fact, the states, having failed to ratify a constitution following the American Revolution, are separate countries that oscillate between cooperating and warring with one another, as in Europe.

"They couldn't agree on how to set up the legislature," one character explains. "The big states wanted it based on population. The little ones wanted each state to have one vote no matter how many people it had. They were too stubborn to split the difference."

Turtledove told me that it was Richard Dreyfuss, the actor, who first gave him the idea of the American Revolution as a subject for alternate history. The two collaborated on a novel, The Two Georges, that is set in the 1990s and based on the premise that the Revolutionary War never happened. Instead, George Washington and King George III struck an agreement in which the United States and Canada (the "North American Union") remained part of the British Empire. The artist Thomas Gainsborough commemorated the deal in a painting, The Two Georges, that is emblazoned on money and made ubiquitous as a symbol of the felicitous "union between Great Britain and her American dominions."(continued)

[Maceman]

We did lose the Revolutionary War.

It’s just that we didn’t completely surrender until 2008.

[cripplecreek]

Should have know Harry Turtledove would be involved somewhere. The Road Not taken completely screwed my sci fi think meat.

The Road Not Taken

[Argus]

Why, by this point we might be misruled by a Third World dictator.

Uh wait...

[skeeter]

We’d be Canada.

[cripplecreek]

We’d be celebrating Canada day (The day we cried “Uncle”)

[AlexW]

“It’s just that we didn’t completely surrender until 2008.”
____________________________________________________________
Yes, that year pretty much started the ending of America as I knew it. The reelection of Obozo confirmed my fears.

[driftless2]

This is sort of a stupid article, but the subject has come up many times before. So the revolutionary army gets defeated by the British, and Washington, Jefferson, Adams, etal get hanged. Britain keeps its colony and exacts more onerous taxes or something. At some point there would be another revolution until the country was independent. The difference in the way Americans look at things and the Brits look at things would demand another revolt.

Would everything still be the same as far as the constitution and what not? Maybe not. But we'd still have an independent country.

[Chainmail]

Alternative history ping.

[MUDDOG]

We’d probably have less blacks. England was a lot more serious against the slave trade than the US was, even though both countries banned the transatlantic slave trade at about the same time (around 1807).

[Zhang Fei]

Not worth the kind of actioners Turtledove tends to write. The US would have remained, along with Canada, part of Mother England. English sovereigns defeated all kinds of armed revolts, and things trundled along.

[Reaganez]

We would have tried again and again until victorious.

We may not have had the collective genius of our actual Founding Fathers, we may have had a victorious General who did accept the American Crown and may have had sons.

[KarlInOhio]

I've wondered what it would be like if England had paid more attention to its North American colonies and integrated them into the motherland more. Imagine if in the early 1700s the English had started putting noble families in charge of areas so you would have Earls of Massachusetts and Virginia. Maybe Georgia would have only gotten a baron in charge. Then what if various of our Founding Fathers had been elected to Parliament. "No taxation even with representation" just doesn't have the bite the original did.

[MUDDOG]

And some viscounts.

[fieldmarshaldj]

One thing is clear. We’re long overdue for another one.

[Nowhere Man]

There is also a book about this subject by Robert Sobel in 1971 called “For Want of a Nail” where the American Revolution was lost and a lot of the Founding Fathers escaped to the Texas/Mexico area and started the “United States of Mexico” which is an analogy of the current United States with a heavier Latino component. I also liked the Richard Dreyfuss/Harry Turtledove work of the “Two Georges” too.

[yarddog]

Around 15 years ago, I was doing some research concerning Revolutionary War Veterans and their claims for pensions.

In their claims they would list all of the battles they participated in. Of course there were the ones everyone knows but a large number of the vets had listed “The Florida Campaign”. I mean maybe a third of them.

I have never heard of it yet it must have been a large operation.

[expat2]

The American Secession* was not directly about taxation, but about the Colonial desire for expansion westward. The Colonies expected England to pay for the defense of their territory against counter-attacks by the Indians and the French, and England had enough on its plate in Europe, and refused.

*It was not really a revolution -- see France, Russia, Cuba for real revolutions -- the turning of a society upside down [lower class on top, upper-class destroyed)

[KarlInOhio]

I heard some historian (I forget who) who said that it was more of a counterrevolution. Before the French & Indian War, England treated the North American colonies with a kind of benign neglect because the Caribbean colonies were vastly more profitable. With little or no interference from England democracy developed. Then with the F&I War, England started much more taxes and controls while the colonies wanted to go back to the old ways of running their own business.

[Tennessee Nana]

My Loyalist ancestors would have gotten their lands in PA and NY back...