A Canada which includes New York and New England?

It is not often in TLs that a British North America is large like this, Now guaranteed, this would not be a 'Canada' as we know it, but is there a chance at all that the British could have maintained control of the New England/New York colonies/states during the American Revolution.
 
New York City was loyalist. If the British manage to secure the Hudson Valley up to Canada, then they will cut New England off from the rest of the colonies. I suppose it's possible if they do that they can cut off supply lines until New England folds. However, as New England was the centre of the rebellion, I can't imagine it lasting that long if Pennsylvania and further south manage to maintain independence.
 
Always an interesting idea. I was actually planning on doing a Prime Ministers list based on something similar.

If Canada did get New York and New England you can bet that our politics would be radically different.
 
There probably wouldn't be a Canadian Confederation if NY and NE had remained British. And I highly doubt those colonies would join Canada if it does form. You'd end up with radically different political entities in North America. I could see an independent New York and a New England-Maritimes union. I don't think we'd see a greater Canada stretching from the Pacific to New York though.
 
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As Socrates points out, it's not at all implausible that Britain could hold on to New York and New England. My only point of concern is that, had they managed this, chances are they would have won the war altogether, re-absorbing all the colonies. Think about it: following a crushing defeat like that (the whole north occupied/blockaded/lost to the indepence movement), can the southern colonies keep fighting? Yes, for a while. But can they win? Not likely. Britain would be inclined to fight on, knowing that time is on the side of His Majesty...

But suppose a scenario where Britain holds the north, and lets the south go; this would mean lots of patriots in occupied New England. Just as loyalists fled (or were expelled from) the USA, patriots will probably leave New England--or the British will have to repeat something like the expulsion of the Acadians, except with the American patriots. They'll mostly end up in the *USA. That's going to affect demographics (both of the *USA and of this ATL British America), so keep that in mind.

Assuming this is done, I must say I don't think these territorial additions will prevent some sort of ATL Canada from being established. Perhaps it will be more confederal/decentralist, but there are major benefits to such a union, and trade-oriented New York and New England would realize this very soon.
 
As others have pointed out, New England in particular was the center of the Rebellion. While there was significant Southern support for Independence (see e.g. Washington and Jefferson), it was much less strong than in the North. Thus, a Britain that retains New England is almost certainly one that retains the whole US. It's easier to come up with a scenario in which New England becomes independent and the South remains British.

New York is more complicated; NYC itself was in British hands for almost the entire war, and seizing the rest of the colony to cut the American colonies in half was the objective of e.g. the Saratoga Campaign. The problem is that New York is sufficiently important to the fledgling US that they will desperately want it in the peace negotiations, so they have to be much weaker at that point. And an America that has been cut in two is also one that will be much less likely to have won or to stay in one piece afterwards.
 
So why not have a POD that makes the South the center of the rebellion instead of New England? If it's not completely ASB, of course.
 
Interesting, it would also mean lot of change for Canada, probably if only the south secede, the frontier of the province of Quebec (englobing the great lake) would remain and this province will stay massively french. It was the expeld royalist who populated futur ontario.
 
Interesting, it would also mean lot of change for Canada, probably if only the south secede, the frontier of the province of Quebec (englobing the great lake) would remain and this province will stay massively french. It was the expeld royalist who populated futur ontario.

Quebecois population growth would not be enough to populate those lands. You'd still get settlement from outside and those provincial borders would not last.
 
Quebecois population growth would not be enough to populate those lands. You'd still get settlement from outside and those provincial borders would not last.

You are right,maybe Quebecois would have to share them with native as I dont think the original ''Indian territory'' would last either. It would surely be mangled by the south, now revolted USA, and probably by people from the overcrowded new England.
 
To me, the only way a *Canada with New York and the New England states/colonies/provinces/etc., excluding the failed attempt that was the Dominion of New England, can be achieved is not whether or not Britain retains those territories (although it would help), but if there is a shared notion of a threat from the south. Essentially, the only way one could get a Canada including those two is if this section of the Northeast feels sufficiently threatened enough by the South that they would rather put up with Britain instead of breaking off. Now, to pull that off would be somewhat difficult, but it can be doable. The timing, however, would be crucial.
 
As Socrates points out, it's not at all implausible that Britain could hold on to New York and New England. My only point of concern is that, had they managed this, chances are they would have won the war altogether, re-absorbing all the colonies. Think about it: following a crushing defeat like that (the whole north occupied/blockaded/lost to the indepence movement), can the southern colonies keep fighting? Yes, for a while. But can they win? Not likely. Britain would be inclined to fight on, knowing that time is on the side of His Majesty...

But suppose a scenario where Britain holds the north, and lets the south go; this would mean lots of patriots in occupied New England. Just as loyalists fled (or were expelled from) the USA, patriots will probably leave New England--or the British will have to repeat something like the expulsion of the Acadians, except with the American patriots. They'll mostly end up in the *USA. That's going to affect demographics (both of the *USA and of this ATL British America), so keep that in mind.

Assuming this is done, I must say I don't think these territorial additions will prevent some sort of ATL Canada from being established. Perhaps it will be more confederal/decentralist, but there are major benefits to such a union, and trade-oriented New York and New England would realize this very soon.

Deporting the Patriots is feasible. The numbers I've seen quoted are that less than a third of the American population was loyalist, with the remainder being loyalists or neutral. Patriots were actually a minority for most of the war.
I prefer to imagine that the British retake most if not all of the American colonies, but find it difficult to assert their authority further inland. Patriots would thus move across the Appalachian mountains, and probably be weakened by wars with natives.

To make the British win the war, though, I think the French need to be kept from interfering with the conflict, and probably Patriot war crimes would need to be popularized to inspire loyalist militias to fight.
 
Wha???????

He flubbed the wording, but it's generally agreed that a third at most of colonists were hard-core partriots, a third at most hard-core loyalists, with the remainder in the middle, either not caring one way or the other or waiting to see how the winds would end up blowing. Don't forget, up to 250 000 loyalists left the new USA in the years following the Treaty of Paris, which was nearly 10% of the population, so even after 8 years of war there was still a significant loyalist element.
 
He flubbed the wording, but it's generally agreed that a third at most of colonists were hard-core partriots, a third at most hard-core loyalists, with the remainder in the middle, either not caring one way or the other or waiting to see how the winds would end up blowing. Don't forget, up to 250 000 loyalists left the new USA in the years following the Treaty of Paris, which was nearly 10% of the population, so even after 8 years of war there was still a significant loyalist element.

Well, to be fair, as far as I know, the "1/3" number people always cite in regards to the American Revolution stems from an old misquote of John Adams, so I'm not sure how reliable it is or where the other sources for that figure are. It would be very hard to determine the actual numbers of colonists who supported/opposed the Revolution, given that most people at the time would have been more concerned with their own lives than politics. That's without even considering other factors, such as the existence of colonists who supported the war, but not independence. Who did indeed exist, but probably shifted to one side or the other by the end of it.


Anyway, to move back to the WI scenario, I agree with some other posters in saying that if New England is reclaimed by the crown, all of the colonies will be. New England was the most solidly rebellious part of the 13 colonies, and the British already hold New York City, so if New England goes down, the rest of the colonies are going to with them, in my opinion, unless there is a sudden and dramatic turn-around elsewhere.

I would say flatly that a post-Revolution US not containing New England and New York is implausible. The POD needs to be in the early colonial period, long before the ARW for it to happen, or for an entirely different, South-centered revolution to break out, as Ultima Ratio suggested.
 
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