Many Ameriwank scenarios begin with the nascent United States coming out of the American Revolution having won much more land from Great Britain. However, I was wondering which British territories in the Western Hemisphere could have most plausibly been taken by the Americans in the peace settlement, and which territories would have almost certainly been beyond their grasp even in the best-case scenario. For the sake of discussion, imagine a point of divergence no earlier than, say, the outbreak of hostilies at Concord and Lexington.
Largest possible United States at the time of Independence
- Thread starter Mr_Fanboy
- Start date
The US taking Canada during the war, and keeping part of it in the settlement is plausible. The thing is, an awful lot of loyalists in the colonies relocated to Canada during and after the war. Taking too much of Canada presents the possibility of absorbing too much of a hostile population. They'd be best suited to absorbing only very thinly populated parts of Canada and perhaps Quebec because of the heavy French population there.
On the matter of Quebec, would the US even want to keep it, instead of establishing an allied French-speaking state.
Osman Aga
Banned
I highly doubt that. The French population was overall low compared to the Anglo-Saxon colonists in North America. Odds are Quebec would lose some of the French identity like Louisiana did.
RamscoopRaider
Donor
Quebec is possible, it just needs a lot of luck, and some shifts in personnel, or just a real incompetent instead of Carleton as governor. With Quebec, Upper Canada basically falls into the pocket. Nova Scotia is much less likely, but possible with enough early luck to hold onto the landward part (future New Brunswick), though PEI is too far, and it is quite probable the whole territory does not come through. Bermuda spent a good chunk of the war being essentially undefended, so even what little the Continental Navy could scrape up could probably take it, with the right timing they could keep it, though it could be easily retaken. Florida with proper organization is something that could be done, but is probably much more of a reach than Quebec, the American invasion did take Montreal and beseige Quebec, but the attack on Florida never reached St. Augustine, but it could happen with a lot of luck and West Florida has to be taken fast before the Spanish get there. Finally the Bahamas aren't heavily inhabited and are not as suited to plantation agriculture so Britain cares less about losing them, and weren't that well defended for most of the war but again are easy for Britain to retake so timing has to be about perfect
Jamaica and the Leeward islands are real money makers and the RN will send a fleet to recapture them if lost no matter what, they have decent garrisons for the most part so are hard to take, and if France takes them it will keep them. Newfoundland is also something that will require a Naval campaign and is valuable for the fisheries, and France wants it. Rupert's Land is just too far away
Jamaica and the Leeward islands are real money makers and the RN will send a fleet to recapture them if lost no matter what, they have decent garrisons for the most part so are hard to take, and if France takes them it will keep them. Newfoundland is also something that will require a Naval campaign and is valuable for the fisheries, and France wants it. Rupert's Land is just too far away
It's estimated that 36,000 went to the Maritimes, which was very sympathetic to America at the time so the newcomers were not well received. Somewhere around 10,000 went to Canada. Very manageable populations, and undoubtedly much less would go if these territories were American from the beginning. At any rate, I wouldn't call the Loyalists a "hostile population", in that I would never see them carrying out assassinations, sabotage, or rebellion in the name of HM's government. Only a small minority of Loyalists ever left the US, the remainder that stayed may have kept their loyalties to the king but within a generation or two loyalism was effectively gone.
Quebec really isn't worth taking back if it's lost. It's not strategically valuable compared to New York, Boston, or Philadelphia. I could easily see the British forgetting about Canada if they lost it and focusing their attention further south. I could see them retaining the Maritimes though.
That's true if you assume a successful 1775 expedition PoD, but what that shows is mostly that you really need an earlier PoD to ensure Canada ends up in the United States; something that makes the population think that throwing their lot in with the rebels is better than sticking with Britain. I favor the idea of "a real incompetent" replacing Carleton, who manages to rile up the Canadiens and make them open to alliances with the more southerly rebels.
Faeelin
Banned
Who is that person though? Recall that the Quebec Act was designed in part to pacify the Canadiens given the threat from the Americans...
Why are you asking me? I'm not writing a timeline on the subject, so I haven't done deep research. But it's not like it's hard to find incompetent people.
RamscoopRaider
Donor
If a lot goes right for the Americans and wrong for the British, the Colonists could probably bite off the landward chunk that is now New Brunswick. If almost everything goes right/wrong and with some prewar PODs they may be able to get the modern part of Nova Scotia, the Americans aren't taking Halifax but if enough of the hinterland is ungovernable it becomes uneconomic to hold it, see British occupied New York City which had to be fed from Ireland because they could not locally acquire enough food, the Britsh will hold it until the peace treaty but they weren't exactly interested in coastal enclaves. Of course better than even chance they split off CBI, which was fairly loyalist and PEI is definitely off the table for colonial acquisitions. It's a low probability event, a TL would need a lot of explaining to avoid SOD breaking for taking the seaward portion
FWIW, I considered including British settlements in today's Belize and Falklands in the poll, simply for the sake of completion, but I figured that if any British colonies in the Western Hemisphere would have been absolutely guaranteed annexation by another European power in a worst-case scenario for London, it would have been those.