Canada purchase?

[ArKhan]

Maybe part of it, but not the whole thing. Much more plausible before confederation, or in a TL where confederation never happened and each province remains separate.

[Grimbald]

I wonder why James Polk did not offer GB ten or twenty million dollars as part of the Oregon settlement to get more of Oregon.


I also believe that a financially aggressive posture towatd BC in the late 1860's could have netted much of western Canada pre confereration.

Likewise an aggressive financial offer could have gotten Newfoundland in 1949.

[pieman97405]

Originally Posted by thekingsguard

In real life, the British offered to give us British Columbia and bits of Western Canada, in exchange for forgiving some things they did to support the confederacy. We asked for money instead, because at the time, even the US didn't care about British Columbia. Highsight's a bitch huh?

But yeah, have the US accept that, and we've got British Columbia and a good chunk of Alberta. Canada, which didn't exist until two years later, may not even come into existence, not as we know it. We may see two or three different nations come out of British North America instead, and maybe the Hudson Bay Company sells Ruperts land to the US.

Can I get a source on that first bit please?

[Marc Pasquin]

Originally Posted by Bureaucromancer

As much of a cliche as it is, an awful lot of the Canadian identity is, and even more so was, tied up in being NOT American as much or more so than in being loyal to the empire.

In addition to which, the french canadian/irish catholics worries about the preservation of their identity and religion were felt even within a united province of canada that was roughly 50/50, I can't see how suddenly finding itself within a country that was never overly tolerant of their values much more reassuring.

[Bureaucromancer]

Originally Posted by thekingsguard

In real life, the British offered to give us British Columbia and bits of Western Canada, in exchange for forgiving some things they did to support the confederacy. We asked for money instead, because at the time, even the US didn't care about British Columbia. Highsight's a bitch huh?

I've heard this one before, but all the evidence I've seen is more that the idea was very briefly talked about and dismissed without ever being presented to the Americans. I wouldn't go so far as to say that the American's didn't care about BC at the time, given that the Oregon claim included for all intents & purposes all of BC. My impression is that it is much more a case of Britain not seeing the value, between settling for the 49th parallel, even contemplating letting the mainland go and not even actually organizing a mainland colony until 1858.

As for Canada forming without BC, I can't imagine that it wouldn't have. BC didn't join Confederation until 1871 after all, and it was not a sure thing that that would happen. Remember that a lot of the justification for Confederation was defence against the Americans, IMO that sort of feeling is only going to be strengthened by being cut off from the Pacific and more or less abandoned by Britain. If anything I'd think you'd end up with a Canada that is much more independent minded from Britain than OTL, though what happens in the west is going to be interesting. I have to think it would make the Arctic (or at least Hudson Bay) coast a lot more important come the 20th century.

[Tyr]

Originally Posted by RiseOfAmerica

No I wasn't thinking about that, as far as I know Canada wasn't really providing the Empire a lot of money, and after the 1840's the british knew if there was another war they wouldn't be able to defend Canada (like why the russians sold Alaska, they feared they would lose it to the British without getting any sort of compensation) so what if they instead just decided to sell it.

Its not a question of making money. North America's initial settlement was about making money but by the 19th century things had changed and it was a land where people lived. Canada was a pretty developed and modern place with a huge degree of responsible self government. No way is Britain going to sell British subjects to a foreign power. Especially when they would be vehemently opposed to such a sale- a hefty part of the Canadian population were after all descendent of those who left the US because of the revolution.
Its just not tenable at all to sell Canada to the US. At the most you'll see a few small areas being sold for extortionate prices.
The far more likely thing to happen is the reverse. That Britain buys American states. (not likely but more likely)

I just dislike this cliched AH idea that America is somehow special in the world and can just buy any territory it likes. Things don't work that way. Those territories that America did buy historically had special circumstances around them.

[RiseOfAmerica]

Originally Posted by Grimbald

I wonder why James Polk did not offer GB ten or twenty million dollars as part of the Oregon settlement to get more of Oregon.


I also believe that a financially aggressive posture towatd BC in the late 1860's could have netted much of western Canada pre confereration.

Likewise an aggressive financial offer could have gotten Newfoundland in 1949.

Me too, would any of those scenarios be plausible?

[Bureaucromancer]

There's also the whole responsible government issue. We had it by 1850, and while foreign affairs were still under British control there are real questions about how independent these colonies were in law, and every possibility that no sale would be legal without the colonial parliament's approval.

[Falastur]

The Hudson's Bay Company held the Rupert's Land territory under charter from the British crown. Even if the US did manage to subvert its board structure in order to engineer a board offer for the US to purchase the company, the British crown would simply find the HBC to be in contravension of the very document which gave it legitimacy, and would liquidate the company with no compensation to the shareholders. Kind of the same way that they were able to disband the EIC when the crown got jumpy about their ability to govern India effectively in 1857-58.