Aftermath of a Failed American Revolution

As it says on the tin. In the aftermath of such an event, how would Britain respond? And would the colonies eventually revolt again? If so, when? And who would the leaders likely be in this Second American Revolution? Thanks fellas.
 
I think slavery would become an issue pretty soon after the revolution, but any question like this really depends on the circumstances of failure. When, how, etc. What was the end result? Did Britain give the Americans representation? Did they clamp down and turn the colonies into an effective police state? There are many possibilities and each one leads to something different. In the former example, you might not get another revolt for decades, but in the latter the colonial authorities could be dealing with insurgency near constantly.
 
In the aftermath of such an event, how would Britain respond? And would the colonies eventually revolt again? If so, when? And who would the leaders likely be in this Second American Revolution? Thanks fellas.

The answers depend on the extent of the Revolution. If the Revolution failed to explode beyond Massachusetts, then the British would simply respond by placing all thirteen colonies under martial law. If it failed after Long Island, then that is a different story. By this time, the Declaration of Independence had been proclaimed, an act of high treason. The British would respond by tracking down everyone who attended the Continental Congress during the writing of the Declaration and send them to the gallows. The colonies would disown the Continental Congress, dismissing them as violent radicals who were interested in their own power and riches, not the welfare of the colonies.

But, I do believe there would be a second revolt, but not until the 1830s' when the British outlawed slavery in OTL. There would be a few colonists who would hang onto the dream of independence, but with a twist. They would see the British clamping down on slavery as once again, infringing on the autonomy of the colonies. So, to them, fighting to protect slavery would be the same as fighting for a independent America. They would see the British attempt to compensate them for their loss of their property as a insult.

As to who would lead this second revolution? I have no clue. Sorry, but this Second American Revolution would take place 50-60 years after the POD, with different politicians and generals than in our timeline.
 
Probably remembered somewhat like the OTL Canadian rebellions of the 1830's, though a lot of that depends upon having a foreign enemy that the British Americans can contrast themselves to, in the way that Canadian national identity emerged as not-Americans.
 
The French Republic successfully invades the British isles, forcing the British monarchy into exile in their American dominion, where isolation turns them into a continental superpower, and then they invade the rest of the world for global hegemony the 21st century. Only a band of plucky Japanese misfits with bright/unnatural hair/eye colors have the grit (and the mechas) to oppose them.

Also, excessive chess duel allegory between the rival princes fighting over the throne after the British Emperor is assassinated.
 
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A failed revolution could end up like the failed revolution in Ireland in 1798.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Rebellion_of_1798
Rebel leaders might get sent to distant prison colonies like Tasmania, St Helena or New south Wales.
Many of the rank and file rebels might be convict labour.
Next conflict in the Americas could be with the French or the Spanish
British might use America as a place to send convicts and other trouble makers, so convict labour might be used indirect competition with slaves.
I think the British might reward the Indian tribes that helped them.
During the potato famine in Ireland America could be seen as a useful place to send the starving Irish earlier than OTL. Lots of Irish catholic might be some thing the colonists are more afraid of the the British.
The colonies might remain separate form much longer. There might be some thing like federation by the 1870s like Australia.
Traditional British policy was divide and control. So they might being in more Germans or other groups and play the different groups again each other.
I wonder would the British be will to buy the slaves from the owners as they did in the British empire?
Benedict Arnold might become a lord.
The British might decide to reform government in the colonies. and replace the system in the colonies with a house of commons and a house of lords in each colony.
Voting would be limited to property owning males.
Slaves might get the right to earn their way out of slavery. This should reduce the number of slave revolts.
As the industrial revolution begins in England there will be no tariffs on imported goods from Britain so industry in the colonies might be slower to develop.
This might mean no corn laws in the UK.
The Corn Laws were tariffs and other trade restrictions on imported food and grain ("corn") enforced in Great Britain between 1815 and 1846. The word "corn" in the English spoken in nineteenth century Britain denotes all cereal grains, such as wheat and barley. They were designed to keep grain prices high to favour domestic producers, and represented British mercantilism.[1] The Corn Laws imposed steep import duties, making it too expensive to import grain from abroad, even when food supplies were short.

The Corn Laws enhanced the profits and political power associated with land ownership. The laws raised food prices and the costs of living for the British public, and hampered the growth of other British economic sectors, such as manufacturing, by reducing the disposable income of the British public.[2]

The laws became the focus of opposition from urban groups who had far less political power than rural Britain. The first two years of the Irish famine of 1845–1852 forced a resolution because of the urgent need for new food supplies. Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel, a Conservative, achieved repeal with the support of the Whigs in Parliament, overcoming the opposition of most of his own party.

Economic historians see the repeal of the Corn Laws as a decisive shift toward free trade in Britain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_Laws

The British will need a carrot and stick policy to reduce the chance of future rebellions and reconsider their tax policy.
Maybe take Edmund Burke's advice.
Dangerous writer like Thomas Paine will be banned.
They will also want to make sure that the colonies are seen to be punished and dangerous ideas of republicanism spread to Ireland and spark a rebellion there.
I could see the British using a network of paid spies and informers to keep an eye on any rebel groups like they did in Ireland with the RIC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Irish_Constabulary
The colonies might get an early police forces this way.
 
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One definite thing you'd see is separate administrations of the colonies. There won't be a single Continental Congress.
And while there will be a crackdown on rebels there will also be some minor concessions to remove support.
 
One definite thing you'd see is separate administrations of the colonies. There won't be a single Continental Congress.
And while there will be a crackdown on rebels there will also be some minor concessions to remove support.

Agreed. I don't see any scenario where the British would allow a contiguous American nation from sea to shining sea. They would split the continent up into multiple countries, maybe with some Native American influences in the culture of these nations.
 
I am not sure how it would be stronger or why?
In the lead-up to the Revolution many of the colonies were attempting to heavily regulate if not outright ban the Slave trade, which was denied by the Crown due to the influence of the merchants involved in the trade:
Before the American Revolution, both the colonies and Great Britain regulated the African slave trade to what became the United States. The British government gave special protection to the Royal African Company, which brought more Africans slaves to the American colonies than any other single entity. The slave trade was an important part of Britain's mercantile policy: it collected taxes on the slaves while colonial governments both taxed them and occasionally sought to limit their arrivals.

After the Stono Rebellion (1739), South Carolina suspended the trade for a few years because its leaders believed that large numbers of freshly imported Africans would undermine the safety of the colony. Then in 1751 South Carolina imposed a special tax on foreign slaves to slow the trade and, nine years later, once again banned it altogether because leaders of the colony still feared the growing number of African-born slaves. The royal authorities disallowed the law. But in 1764 the colony levied new taxes on African-born slaves because, as the legislature noted, their rising number "may prove of the most dangerous consequence."

Shortly before the Revolution, Virginia also tried to ban the trade, not for prudential reasons but to prevent the outflow of capital from the colony. Virginians attempted to use prohibitive taxes to discourage the trade, but the Crown overruled this law, because the slave trade was vital to the British economy and because the Royal African Company had powerful patrons in the government.

Post Revolution many State level laws were passed even before the 1807 ban which, due to the continued influence of the same merchants without the body blow of the Revolution, will lead to even greater influx of slaves from the 1770s onwards. Slavery likely becomes entrenched in New Jersey and New York, as well as spreads into what IOTL became the Midwest; it was already pretty heavy on the ground, in a sense, in Illinois and Indiana historically.
 
Post Revolution many State level laws were passed even before the 1807 ban which, due to the continued influence of the same merchants without the body blow of the Revolution, will lead to even greater influx of slaves from the 1770s onwards. Slavery likely becomes entrenched in New Jersey and New York, as well as spreads into what IOTL became the Midwest; it was already pretty heavy on the ground, in a sense, in Illinois and Indiana historically.

Without something like the Missouri Compromise to control which states were pro or anti-slavery, how much of Britain's North America colonies would be pro-slavery?
 
Without something like the Missouri Compromise to control which states were pro or anti-slavery, how much of Britain's North America colonies would be pro-slavery?

Probably most of them; New England shipping was heavily tied into the slave trade, for example. New York and New Jersey, as well as most of the Midwest, would likely become outright Slave-allowing colonies.
 
Probably most of them; New England shipping was heavily tied into the slave trade, for example. New York and New Jersey, as well as most of the Midwest, would likely become outright Slave-allowing colonies.

So every colony on the East Coast could turn pro-slavery. What about the inner west?
 

Kaze

Banned
French government collapses - they paid for a good part of the American Revolution. Enter French Revolution & Napoleon. With England distracted from a war in Europe, it would be a good time for the colonials to try for rebellion Mark 2 - "all hail President (King) Andrew Jackson".

(I might do a time-line on this version some day)
 
So every colony on the East Coast could turn pro-slavery. What about the inner west?

I'd imagine Pennsylvania would be a holdout; they did not allow slavery and had no real connections to the slave trade itself. As for the West, I'd imagine they'd all mostly go Slave; Illinois and Indiana in particular.
 
As to slavery, might that change after Britain bans the slave trade itself (possibly earlier ITTL?), and perhaps citing the cases of Somerset vs Stewart and Knight vs Wedderburn (or ATL equivalents) - basically, if it's ok for slavery to be (effectively) banned in Great Britain, why can't it also be banned in individual colonies?

Fiscal constraints prevent any sort of earlier emancipation and, likely, any form at all until much later on than IOTL even ignoring the changed overall economic picture here. To quote Noel Maurer:
In 1973, a business historian named Robert Sobel published a highly entertaining book entitled For Want of a Nail. It is an incredibly detailed faux history book from a world where the British defeated the American revolution, all the way down to a plethora of fake footnotes. It is a fun read, enough to inspire me and some friends to make a long foray into fanfic back in the early 2000s.

One of us, Johnny Pez, has received the rights from the Sobel estate to rewrite the book. Johnny intends to fill in a lot of gaps in the original as well as bring it up to 2016. He is off to a great start, which you can read here. The problem is that major parts of Sobel’s alternate history are simply broken.

Take, for example, the way his imaginary British North America. At first, in his world, things are different because the slave trade is not stopped: rather, it continues until the 1830s. Then, in 1835, he has a financial crisis hit London. Cotton prices drop and slave prices go down with them. As a result, with an unspecified amount of financial support from the British government, the Southern Confederation (coterminous with our slave states of the same period) bails out the planters with a payment of £35 per slave in 1840, twice their market value.

Well. There are a few problems with this scenario. First, take Sobel’s slave population compared with the real actual United States:
6a00e3933590d5883401b8d201561e970c-800wi


How does a world where the slave trade remains open — itself a most improbable development — wind up with fewer slaves than in real history? Sure, the victorious British manumitted a bunch, but not that many.

Then there is the price of those slaves. When Sobel’s financial crisis hits, the slave price he lists is roughly the same as the price of a young male slave in New Orleans in the real world. They then crash by an incredibly implausible amount by authorial fiat. He just waves his hands. The below chart shows the extent of the hand-waving; I have deliberately included data from the real 1840s to show what a punishing price decline actually looked like:
6a00e3933590d5883401bb091b0803970d-800wi


Sobel does not say how the manumission bonds are paid for. There are two possibilities. First, that the U.K. government bore all the cost. That seems weird, as he has the bill being passed by the Southern Confederation. But it could be. Only if it was, then you have a situation in which the U.K. just agreed to transfer roughly 11% of its GDP to the Southern planters with no political concessions in turn. I suppose that is possible, but it seems unlikely.

More likely is that the Southern Confederation agreed to finance the bonds itself and then managed to transfer the cost of paying those debts to the Northern Confederation after the British agreed to unite the two small dominions into one big one in 1842. In return, the Northern Confederation gets a big protective tariff around all of North America. I can imagine that ... although one imagines a slightly more interesting convention than the one Sobel describes. After all, the new united North America is going to be born with a manumission debt worth 17% of its GDP.

But that is fixable. What seems unfixable, at least at first glance, are the following:

  1. Keeping the slave trade open until 1840 is very implausible;
  2. If it remained open, there would be a lot more slaves in North America, with unknowable effects on the price and even larger fights over the spread of the institution into Indiana (our Northwest Territories);
  3. If it was closed, then the slave population should still have been much larger;
  4. It is hard to imagine why the slave price would have declined so much and be seen by the planters as a permanent decline. A temporary depression is not going to convince slaveowners (or any asset holder, for that matter) to sell at the bottom. You need to create some sort of contrived situation involving bankers and bankruptcies and even then Sobel has painted a situation in which all the Southern banks are going under, so who cares whether you can repay your debts?
How you can square all of those circles, I do not know! If you can find cases of reputable books from the 1960s with equally bullshit numbers, then you can say the numbers are wrong and give a story for why they are wrong. (Although ... man, the number of slaves is not a state secret, even if slave prices were hard to find. Ditto the statements about the slave trade being open seem pretty damn clear.) But that puts you in a situation where the new country has to finance a manumission cost that is more on the order of 48% of GDP and convince the planters to take the deal.

In short, Mr. Sobel pulled a magic price decline out the air to tell his optimistic story about the British Empire. Take that away and it gets much dicier.
 
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