What if America had lost the Revolutionary War?

Originally posted by arpgme
If this had happened, I wonder what would be different about World War 2, how would Americans sound when speaking English? What biggest changes will be done to history? What do you think?

That would make us Canadians. Right?

reply to post by thoughtsfull


Unfortunately the foundations of The United States are not built upon rock but instead upon greed.

Originally posted by apacheman
reply to post by davidgrouchy

 

I think you're forgetting the Cherokee, Iriquois, Shawnee, and a few hundred other nations and tribes.

Had the US lost, the American Holocaust would not have occurred in the same manner, or in the same time frame, nor in the same numbers. Quite possibly there wouldn't have been one and a coalition or confederacy of Native American nations would eventually drive the Europeans out of most of the continent.

Like the Canadian First Nations did? Or the Maori in New Zealand and the aussie aboriginies did there??

the British colonies had already managed to destroy the coastal tribes in teh 150+ years of settlement - I can't see any reason why you'd expect the interior tribes to be any more successful.

Originally posted by kinnerarity

Originally posted by arpgme
If this had happened, I wonder what would be different about World War 2, how would Americans sound when speaking English? What biggest changes will be done to history? What do you think?

That would make us Canadians. Right?

British North Americans

Of course a lot of Loyalists emigrated to what is now Canada - perhaps as many as 60,000 - or about 2% of the total population according to wiki - en.wikipedia.org...(American_Revolution) - so paradoxically it might well be Canada that would "notice" the greatest difference had it gone the other way!

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


The Cherokee were well along the "civilized" path with developing industries, school system, constitutional government, etc. when Andrew Jackson forced them from their fields, farms and towns. That wouldn't have happened had they lost. The Iroquois wouldn't have been destroyed by the peace treaty that followed the win. Neither would the Shawnee.

The epidemics spread by settlers would have been far fewer allowing for immunities to build. With strong buffer states, the interior tribes could have developed much quicker and become too strong to easily defeat from a distance, especially if the British didn't practice genocide as the Americans did.

we did ! we're all british subjects, the elite just don't want you to know

j/k

interesting question. the americans may have attacked the british much in the way the british attacked again in 1812, so it may have been the same ultimate result, with some historical differences along the way

Originally posted by apacheman
reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul

 

The Cherokee were well along the "civilized" path with developing industries, school system, constitutional government, etc. when Andrew Jackson forced them from their fields, farms and towns. That wouldn't have happened had they lost. The Iroquois wouldn't have been destroyed by the peace treaty that followed the win. Neither would the Shawnee.

Based on what?

Maori in het Waikato had a simlar commercial infrastructure - they ahd over 200 ships trading with Australia, supplied most of hte fresh vegetable market in Auckland......but hte settlers wanted their land.

The epidemics spread by settlers would have been far fewer

Why?

allowing for immunities to build.

that never seems to have worked anywhere else - why do you think it would ahve been any different in the Amercas? Was it any different for the Canadian First Nations?

idemics in the 1800's American Indians had been exposed to white people for a hundred years or more....Byt hte time of the major epu

With strong buffer states, the interior tribes could have developed much quicker and become too strong to easily defeat from a distance, especially if the British didn't practice genocide as the Americans did.

But the British did practice such "genocide" - all the European nations did - the English would have been just as hungry for land and as dismissive of the natives as the historical americans - we have ample evidence from their colonial activities in Africa, Australia, India/afghanistan, New Zealand and Canada to show us that.

Thinking otherwise might be na interesting exercise (adn we are in fantasy land already of course!!), but it requires even more changes to history than the initial proposition.

we'd be driving on the wrong side of the road with crazy traffic lights and signs.


metric system, :

reply to post by fooks


Actually, it is you guys driving on the wrong side. Now, someone correct me if I am wrong (and I often am) but other thann jousting, which the combatants engaged left side to left side, the way to engage an ememy on horse back was from right to right, which meant that on a path or roadway, you would ride on the left. No I think that it was the French army under Bonie, that suggested swutching sides in order to confound the enemy.
Please, can someone throw more light on that?

As for the metric system, I would rather go back to imperial measurements. I loved inches and pounds. I also adored 240 pennies to the pound, the threepenny bit and tanners, as for the ten bob note mmmmmmmmm.

reply to post by syrinx high priest


If Britain had not been involved in a War with Napoleon in 1812, therefore having to put large resources of men and weapons into that fight in Europe, India and South America, it would make you wonder what would have been the outcome of the war in North America during that period.
The Duke Of Wellington ( A military Field Marshall and tactical genius) was kept in the European theater of War. What would have happened if he had been deployed to North America? All conjecture i know.

Originally posted by fooks
we'd be driving on the wrong side of the road with crazy traffic lights and signs.

metric system,

:

edit on 4-8-2011 by fooks because: (no reason given)

Hmmm.. what metric system????

More like a Metperial system.. which is where you smash both systems together

I drive in miles and miles per hour but fill my car up with fuel in liters..
My car engine size is in liters my tyres are in inches
I buy milk or beer in pints but buy coke in liters..
I weigh myself in stones and pounds but buy most of my food in grams or kilograms
I buy 6 inch skirting etc in meter lengths

it is system designed to confuse and confound the best mathematician and I like it as it is much more flexible..

The worst would be the imposition of roundabouts everywhere in America *shudders*


warning contains humour and foul language

Colonialism would still be practiced.

Americans would have real bad dental hygiene.

reply to post by thoughtsfull


we have them, lol, we call them a rotary!

can't be a wall flower trying to get in on one, lots of fun!

Originally posted by woodwardjnr

Oh, and pork and beans for breakfast...what is up with that?

reply to post by the owlbear

 

From the nation that has pork, hash browns, pancakes and maple syrup for breakfast. A heart attack on a plate

True that. And I didn't mean any ill will. After all, there's a lot of folk in the world lucky to eat just once a day! We're lucky to have too much to choose from.

Originally posted by fooks
reply to post by thoughtsfull

 

we have them, lol, we call them a rotary!

can't be a wall flower trying to get in on one, lots of fun!

Yer, but I don't think you build whole cities around the blooming things like Milton Keynes *shudders* I think they have 300 full roundabouts and 700 mini roundabouts *screams in horror* tho it really felt a lot the times I visited friends, which was what I meant by everywhere..

*faints at thoughts of rotaries and roundabouts taking over the world*

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


The Maori had nothing comparable to the Cherokee.

British win and none of this happens:

1775 – During the Revolutionary war, the Cherokees took the side of the British and attacked white settlements in their territory. After the war, many British soldiers decided to stay in the Cherokee Nation with their families. The new American government refused to honor the earlier ‘King’s Grants’ and sent the American Army to force the Cherokees to sign new treaties, which required them to give up more land. By 1800, the Cherokee Nation had shrunk to less than ¼ of it’s original size. Most Cherokees had retreated to lands in northern Georgia and eastern Tennessee. Many had adopted white ways. The US government and the State of Georgia adopted anti-Indian policies, and used soldiers to enforce the new laws.

1812 – General Andrew Jackson wanted to drive out the Indians, but they were too strong for his army. He settled on a policy of divide and conquer. He started the French and Indian War of 1812 with the help of the Cherokees, they thought that by helping Andy Jackson drive out the Creek Indians, they would be given special treatment and left alone by the whites. Chief Tecumseh, of the Shawnee, tried to unify the remaining Indian Nations in a last ditch stand to resist the white invasion. In 1813, Chief Tecumseh died in battle and his dreams of a unified Indian Nation died with him.

1815 – The US government forced or tricked many Cherokees into signing treaties to trade their lands for land in Arkansas and Oklahoma. About half of the Cherokees left for the New Territories and became known as the Old Settlers.

1828 – Andrew Jackson was elected president, and Gold was discovered in Georgia. The US government was split as to protect the Cherokees land claims, or to let Georgia drive them out. Gold fever swept the south. Miners and get rich quick scam artists invaded Cherokee Territory murdering, raping, and burning. Chief James Vann, a district judge for the Cherokees, captured, tried and hung the criminals. Georgia threatened war over the outrage of Cherokees hanging white men. The Cherokees sent lawyers and statesmen to court to argue their case. The federal government had given them treaties for the land and they should be protected from the citizens and army of Georgia. Georgia governor, George Gilmore stated, “Treaties were a means by which ignorant, intractable, and savage people were induced to yield what Civilized Peoples had a right to possess.”

1830 – The US Supreme Court decided in favor of protecting the Cherokees land rights. President Andrew Jackson defied the Supreme Court and sent the army to Georgia to drive out the Cherokees. Jackson proclaimed, “Justice John Marshall has rendered his decision, now let him enforce it.” President Jackson signed the ‘Indian Removal Act’, which required the forced removal of all Indians east of the Mississippi River to the new ‘vacant’ land obtained in the “Louisiana Purchase, to be guaranteed to the Indian tribes for as long as they shall occupy it”. Between 1830 and 1839, hundreds of Cherokee families fled the district, to Tennessee, Alabama, and North Carolina. Even while these cases were being argued in court, the state of Georgia organized a land lottery to divide up the Cherokee Nation into farms and gold claims.

1831 – The Choctaws were driven from their homes in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. The federal government had agreed to pay to feed and clothe the Indians on their journey, but the money never came. 1836 – The Creeks were driven out at the point of a gun, put in chains and forced-marched by the US Army. Some 3,500 men women and children died of hunger and exposure along the way.

1837 – The Chickasaw loaded their belongings on wagons and headed west. The Seminoles chose to fight. After a long bloody war, the survivors were herded like cattle into any boat that would float and taken across the Gulf of Mexico and up the Mississippi.

www.cherokeebyblood.com...

There would be far fewer settlers, if any, and with reduced transits, fewer epidemics.

Also, the poisoning of the Great Plains with arsenic probably also doesn't happen.

Much may be said--and no doubt will be said--about the ecological damage done to south Texas by Texas Fever eradication. Those of us who know our history realized that, for well over a century, New England apple growers regularly dusted their trees with white arsenic to keep worms out of the fruit. Every buffalo hide pulled on the plains during the great buffalo slaughter of the 1870s--upwards of 50,000,000 of them by some estimates--was dusted with five pounds of powdered white arsenic to keep bugs off, much of which ended up on the ground. Every cotton and tobacco field in the south was dusted several times during the growing season with Paris Green, an arsenic-based insecticide, to keep the boll weevil and tobacco horn-worm away. Every 500 gallons of Texas Fever dip for the approximately 75 years a billion head of cattle per year were dipped contained eight pounds of powdered white arsenic, not to mention all the arsenic-containing insecticides that were sprayed on the pastures. The fact that the research methods used to control Texas Fever led to the control of malaria, yellow fever, bubonic plague, and many other diseases would tend to excuse any errors made in ecological ignorance.

www.texashillcountry.com...

What would happen would be more trade and less killing, with technology spreading fairly quickly due to economic competition from the French, Spanish and British.

The British didn't practice genocide with the gusto of the americans: it interfered with business, which they liked better. The huge continent would have developed more like India on the fringes of contact, with something different evolving in the deep interior.

reply to post by apacheman


I think perhaps you could also factor in an affection/admiration that existed in Britain towards North American people that may also have provided a limiting factor to the type of action perpetrated against the people by the Gov.

For example the people in my neck of the woods have been protesting the poor treatment of the tribes at the hands of the American Gov since the mid 1800s.. by the same token similar affection/admiration and protests where directed at our own govs treatment of the Zulu nation..

Asian Indians where also held in high regard, with my home town becoming what was known as a hospital town for Asian Indian troops in WW1.. when you consider the level of medical expertise and type of wounds at the time.. of the 15,000 wounded Indians that passed through my home town during WW1 only 76 died of wounds/complications, which in my opinion demonstrates how well they where treated by the locals.

In fact a Royal Summer Palace was given over the those troops (treating some 4,000 Indians) the idea was that if they felt at home it would aid recovery.

Photos of The Royal Pavillion as a Military Hospital

Tho I really really would not say that British rule was nice or perfect for anyone including the British, but I do think the poor of the time (preWW2) saw themselves as equals to the poor in other nations of the Empire and we where equally used as commodities by the rich bar-stewards in charge...

So I guess if you where to extrapolate how the Empire behaved, North American Indian troops under the British would have made up the bulk of any North American Army and thinking through your comments I now think the situation we are all in would be radically different...

Thank you for giving me a new perspective

Originally posted by fooks
we'd be driving on the wrong side of the road with crazy traffic lights and signs.

metric system,

:

edit on 4-8-2011 by fooks because: (no reason given)

"metric system"???

The US would have OUR IMPERIAL SYSTEM

and the NAU would have probably been formed already so you'd have the meric as well

you have no system or a language lol

....we have several languages lol none of you are even American
lol how can you be if you're White, Black, Asian or Hispanic???

you look nothing like the Americans

reply to post by arpgme


the woman would be wearing those silly british hats.

we'd be driving on the wrong side of the road.

slavery would have ended without the civil war.