AHC: Largest British Empire Without India

Eurofed

Banned
I don't think a single Dominion would be formed to be honest. It would be probably divided up into several dominions, in order to preserve an internal balance of power within the Empire, and also to reflect differences between groups within North America. You would thus likely get great California, Columbia, Gulf of Mexico, New England etc.

I don't think there would be all that drive to keep American colonies in such a state of extreme Balkanization, either on London's or on the colonists' part.

I can however see some rather good justification to keep free and slaveholding colonies in different Dominions to care for their quite different socio-economic make-up. OTOH, with a united BNA, we may expect more effective Anglicization of Canada.

In other words, something rather similar to Glen's DSA TL's Alt-USA (Canada + North + Upper South + Plains + Rockies + West Coast) and DSA (Deep South + Caribbean + Texas + Southwest + northern Mexico), only as two British Dominions. British South America (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, southern Brazil) would make a third big Dominion, and Australia + New Zealand a junior fourth, for a nice balance within the British Empire.
 
I don't think there would be all that drive to keep American colonies in such a state of extreme Balkanization, either on London's or on the colonists' part.

I can however see some rather good justification to keep free and slaveholding colonies in different Dominions to care for their quite different socio-economic make-up. OTOH, with a united BNA, we may expect more effective Anglicization of Canada.

In other words, something rather similar to Glen's DSA TL's Alt-USA (Canada + North + Upper South + Plains + Rockies + West Coast) and DSA (Deep South + Caribbean + Texas + Southwest + northern Mexico), only as two British Dominions. British South America (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, southern Brazil) would make a third big Dominion, and Australia + New Zealand a junior fourth, for a nice balance within the British Empire.

Even in our timeline, New Zealand did not join Australia, and Western Australia could have feasibly been separate too. Newfoundland was only a few polling points from going its own way despite only having a population of a few hundred thousand.

I know you have a strong bias towards more expansive countries, but we need to accept that, even in our timeline, the USA is an example of a country much larger than most. In fact, only about one in eight is above 50 million.

I would expect the large power centres wouldn't want to be diluted into a much larger power structure, and there are likely going to be difference beyond the one grudge issue that defined our timeline. I would thus imagine something like a Northeastern federation including the Great Lakes, a Virginia-led Southern Atlantic one, a Gulf of Mexico one, a Californian one and a Pacific Northwest one (both extending to the Rockies), and possibly a Great Plains one. It's also worth considering that the individual state borders are likely to be changed/divided/united from over time too.

On a separate issue, I would guess Britain would also take somewhere in central America to protect its Pacific-Atlantic trade, in a similar manner to Suez.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Even in our timeline, New Zealand did not join Australia, and Western Australia could have feasibly been separate too. Newfoundland was only a few polling points from going its own way despite only having a population of a few hundred thousand.

And New Zealand went very close to join Australia, and Southern Rhodesia to join South Africa. Plenty of butterflies also exist that create potential for less, not more, Balkanization than OTL.

I know you have a strong bias towards more expansive countries, but we need to accept that, even in our timeline, the USA is an example of a country much larger than most. In fact, only about one in eight is above 50 million.

Actually, the division of British North America into one free Dominion and one slaveholding Dominion does not make for a radically reduced amount of Balkanization in comparison to OTL, mostly it shifts it around.

I may also point out that OTL history of Anglosphere settler nations does not show any great tendency to break up into regional polities, typically they tend to expand till they fill all politically-available space in continental polities or almost so.

The main dividing line that showed up (apart from the monarchist-republican political feud that we have to assume is butterflied away as per scenario requirements) was the socio-economic split related to slavery, and the model I proposed fulfills it by splitting BNA in different "free" and "slaveholding" polities (there is of course plenty of potential for political, socio-economic, and colonization butterflies placing certain regional blocks of states in one Dominion or the other, such as the Upper South or the southern West Coast).

I am also extremely skeptical and suspicious of the assumption that OTL is a special case, the extreme feasible point in any kind of social development.

I would expect the large power centres wouldn't want to be diluted into a much larger power structure, and there are likely going to be difference beyond the one grudge issue that defined our timeline. I would thus imagine something like a Northeastern federation including the Great Lakes, a Virginia-led Southern Atlantic one, a Gulf of Mexico one, a Californian one and a Pacific Northwest one (both extending to the Rockies), and possibly a Great Plains one.

Frankly, this just seems Balkanization favoritism for the sheer heck of it. :rolleyes::eek: No significant mainstream drive for such extreme regional fragmentation of Anglo North America ever surfaced. There was the free/slaveholding divide, and the Anglophone/Francophone one. About the former, I made my point.

About the latter, well, depending on various butterflies, Anglicization of Lower Canada may be rather more efficient, or just as lackluster as, OTL in a united BNA. OTOH, we may expect that English-speaking settlers would end up being the vast majority of the population in Western Canadian states (Upper Canada would quite possibly become French-speaking if Lower Canada remains so, however). So we may or may not see a third North American Dominion made up of French-speaking Middle Canada.

It's also worth considering that the individual state borders are likely to be changed/divided/united from over time too.

No contention with that.
 
Last edited:
I am also extremely skeptical and suspicious of the assumption that OTL is a special case, the extreme feasible point in any kind of social development.

I didn't say it was the most extreme feasible point. Just that it was clearly abnormal if you look at other countries, including ex-colonies.

Frankly, this just seems Balkanization favoritism for the sheer heck of it. :rolleyes::eek:
I don't think it would seem like extreme Balkanization to anyone without your extreme centralisation favouritism. I lumped in the Great Lakes and New York with New England, and assumed much of the Mississippi basin would go in with the Deep South.

No significant mainstream drive for such extreme regional fragmentation of Anglo North America ever surfaced.
You don't need a mainstream drive for fragmentation. You just need to avoid a drive for centralisation. The areas I've talked about have more disconnect than North Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, Nyasaland and South Africa had. And the first three don't even have their own coastlines. Western alienation has been a key theme in Canadian politics and there is certainly a great disillusionment in being ruled from the East Coast in much of the Western US. I can't imagine them voluntarily signing up for it unless it already exists, particularly if they're under the looser British Empire umbrella anyway.

About the latter, well, depending on various butterflies, Anglicization of Lower Canada may be rather more efficient, or just as lackluster as, OTL in a united BNA. OTOH, we may expect that English-speaking settlers would end up being the vast majority of the population in Western Canadian states (Upper Canada would quite possibly become French-speaking if Lower Canada remains so, however). So we may or may not see a third North American Dominion made up of French-speaking Middle Canada.
No contention with that.
 

Eurofed

Banned
I didn't say it was the most extreme feasible point. Just that it was clearly abnormal if you look at other countries, including ex-colonies.

Apples and oranges. African and Asian economic colonies were much, much more ethnically and culturally diverse than Anglo settler colonies (and even so, look at India and Indonesia).

I don't think it would seem like extreme Balkanization to anyone without your extreme centralisation favouritism. I lumped in the Great Lakes and New York with New England, and assumed much of the Mississippi basin would go in with the Deep South.

The alternative would be a frankly ridiculous amount of gratuitous Balkanization. Mid-Atlantic/New England and Mississippi Basin/Atlantic Deep South obviously belong together by their similar socio-economic features and interests, if they are in the same cultural-political area.

You don't need a mainstream drive for fragmentation. You just need to avoid a drive for centralisation. The areas I've talked about have more disconnect than North Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, Nyasaland and South Africa had. And the first three don't even have their own coastlines.

As I said, Southern Rhodesia went very close to joining South Africa, plenty of butterflies may easily cuase the 1920s plebiscite to approve union. North Rhodesia and Nyasaland didn't have a significant white settler population, unlike the other two colonies, so we are talking rather different cases.

Western alienation has been a key theme in Canadian politics and there is certainly a great disillusionment in being ruled from the East Coast in much of the Western US. I can't imagine them voluntarily signing up for it unless it already exists, particularly if they're under the looser British Empire umbrella anyway.

Bah. The only two cases of separatism within the North American Anglosphere that ever achieved enough mainstream support to be taken seriously, much less act on their platform, have been Dixie and Quebec. Supposed separatist feelings that consistently fail to create major mainstream political movements need not be taken seriously for anything. :rolleyes:

Moreover, much like OTL, it is quite likely that the continental Dominion(s) have already existed for a good while when Western CanUS gets colonized, so it would happen as an extension of them and join them naturally in good time. If the British Empire needs to avoid the ARW, some form of timely autonomy becomes necessary. Quebec may or may not join the greater Dominion, or keep separate status for obvious reasons. History shows that slaver interests may or may not push the Dixie (and ITTL, Caribbean) settlers to break away. But the rest ? Nowhere so much motive to go apart. Freesoiler farmer settlers in the CanUS Midwest, freesoiler farmer settlers in the CanUS Plains and Rockies.
 
Last edited:
The maimum plausible British Empire without India and with an eighteenth century POD would include the Americas in their entirety, with Australia, New Zealand, and various island chains and coastal concessions (such as Hong Kong) to connect the dots. There may be bits of the Caribbean retained by other powers, and the fate of Greenlamd here is uncertain.
 
The maimum plausible British Empire without India and with an eighteenth century POD would include the Americas in their entirety, with Australia, New Zealand, and various island chains and coastal concessions (such as Hong Kong) to connect the dots. There may be bits of the Caribbean retained by other powers, and the fate of Greenlamd here is uncertain.

With an eighteenth century POD, you're not going to see British South America, except perhaps small bits in Argentina.
 
Anyway, the condition "without India" looks like if this British Empire will consists of ONLY settler colonies. Pretty good pre-requisite so it to turn into hyper-UK of 100ish "home nations" -- almost all N.America + Carribean, S.America's cone, S.Africa, Australia, N.Zealand+Oceania... With such devo the Empire might have the optimal ratio of centrlization-decentralization.
 

Eurofed

Banned
With an eighteenth century POD, you're not going to see British South America, except perhaps small bits in Argentina.

During the Napoleonic Wars, Britain made a couple attempts to conquer the Rio de la Plata Basin. With a little more luck/preparation/skill, they would have been successful. In such a case, surely Argentina + Uruguay + Paraguay, and in all likelihood Chile + the South Region of Brazil too, would have been absorbed in the British Empire. It wouldn't certainly be "small bits in Argentina", rather the entire Southern Cone.
 
Last edited:

Eurofed

Banned
Anyway, the condition "without India" looks like if this British Empire will consists of ONLY settler colonies. Pretty good pre-requisite so it to turn into hyper-UK of 100ish "home nations" -- almost all N.America + Carribean, S.America's cone, S.Africa, Australia, N.Zealand+Oceania... With such devo the Empire might have the optimal ratio of centrlization-decentralization.

With the British Empire made up this way, the chance of it eventually evolving in the Imperial Federation grows pretty good indeed.
 
I've grown to think that a very strong impediment to any form of imperial federation is the constitutional structure. The British constitutional system is pretty flexible and worked well transplanted to the Setter countries post 13 Colonies, however, it is a very different thing to make that work within a global federation, with varying levels of control or democracy.

Unclear rules, pooly understood lines of authority, deferential courts, a higher court structure that is very expensive to appeal to (imagine how much it would cost any litigant say from NZ, Fiji etc to take an appeal to the *Supreme or other final court in London in say 1900, or really, anytime before long distance air travel or modern video conferencing). Even a government would have trouble affording that. How do disputes get mediated before the courts get involved? Constitutional disputes like this are still very rare in the UK and NZ ITOL, although less so in the former due to the EU/EEC etc and our court systems do not operate like a mainland Euopean country (where constitional courts are normal), or even like the US. Can an ATL court overturn a law? How does this work?

I really think that any sort of federation needs a firm, understandable framework that the courts and entities can work with. This is very much not how Westminster works and to get to a point where there is a workable structure would take a lot of time, effort and dedication.

Look at the Australian federation, the discussions went on for 30 or so years, with various small steps before things finally got into place by about 1890 and even then, the federation proper took another ten years to be enacted or finalised.
 
The thing everyone seems to have forgotten is that India was not really conquered by the British, but rather a British COMPANY conquered India, and then had to be bailed out by the government.

Let some of the other trading companies have as much sucess as the East Idian Company and see where that leads.
 
Apples and oranges. African and Asian economic colonies were much, much more ethnically and culturally diverse than Anglo settler colonies (and even so, look at India and Indonesia).

Since when were African tribal groups ever considered by the colonial powers when they were dividing up the continent? The federation for South Africa was based around the division of Afrikaans republics and English colonies.

The alternative would be a frankly ridiculous amount of gratuitous Balkanization. Mid-Atlantic/New England and Mississippi Basin/Atlantic Deep South obviously belong together by their similar socio-economic features and interests, if they are in the same cultural-political area.

It's not Balkanisation as they're not united to start with. Just because it's different to our timeline doesn't mean its "frankly ridiculous" or "gratuitous", any more than having Austria separate from Germany or Norway free from Sweden. I'm pretty sure all of my states would be over 20 million. Tobacco states like Virginia are different from both the Deep South and New England, in culture and economics.

As I said, Southern Rhodesia went very close to joining South Africa, plenty of butterflies may easily cuase the 1920s plebiscite to approve union. North Rhodesia and Nyasaland didn't have a significant white settler population, unlike the other two colonies, so we are talking rather different cases.

Northern Rhodesia was about 97% black versus Southern Rhodesia being about 95%, hardly a huge difference. They were both run by the white elites. And the point remains that despite them "nearly" uniting they didn't, and they have far more in common than California does with Rhode Island. If Newfoundland stayed apart from the Canadian confederation for so many years, and then only joined by a couple of polling points, despite being so close to the capital in Ontario, what makes you think West coasters would want to sign up for being run by the Eastern seaboard?

Bah. The only two cases of separatism within the North American Anglosphere that ever achieved enough mainstream support to be taken seriously, much less act on their platform, have been Dixie and Quebec. Supposed separatist feelings that consistently fail to create major mainstream political movements need not be taken seriously for anything.

You are entirely ignoring the fact that these states aren't united to begin with. There is a huge bias to the status quo in state formation. If they're already separate you need to have a positive drive to push them together.

Moreover, much like OTL, it is quite likely that the continental Dominion(s) have already existed for a good while when Western CanUS gets colonized, so it would happen as an extension of them and join them naturally in good time. If the British Empire needs to avoid the ARW, some form of timely autonomy becomes necessary. Quebec may or may not join the greater Dominion, or keep separate status for obvious reasons. History shows that slaver interests may or may not push the Dixie (and ITTL, Caribbean) settlers to break away. But the rest ? Nowhere so much motive to go apart. Freesoiler farmer settlers in the CanUS Midwest, freesoiler farmer settlers in the CanUS Plains and Rockies.

Why does timely autonomy mean they form a single dominion? It's far more likely in the 18th Century that their individual colonial assemblies would be elevated. The Canadian Confederation didn't happen until the late 1860s. Even if you give America a twenty year headstart, most of the country has already been settled. (And I suspect, with a British America, settlements on the West Coast would be started by sea earlier in the 19th century.)
 
I think the easier and more natural way in the tradition of the British constiturtional frame would be a globally distributed unitary United Kingdom with devolved into various degree territories -- I mean in the case of almost 100% "settler colonies" Imperial constituents. Not federation.

whiteuk.jpg
 
Last edited:
The thing everyone seems to have forgotten is that India was not really conquered by the British, but rather a British COMPANY conquered India, and then had to be bailed out by the government.

Let some of the other trading companies have as much sucess as the East Idian Company and see where that leads.

Much of the British Empire was created by trading companies:

United States: The London Virginia Company, The Massachussetts Bay Company
Canada: The London and Bristol Company, The Hudson Bay Company,
Nigeria: The Royal Niger Company
Ghana: African Company of Merchants
Sierra Leone: The Sierra Leone Company
South Africa/Zimbabwe: The British South Africa Company
Kenya: The Imperial British East Africa Company
New Zealand: The New Zealand Company
Malaysia: The North Borneo Chartered Company
 
Since when were African tribal groups ever considered by the colonial powers when they were dividing up the continent? The federation for South Africa was based around the division of Afrikaans republics and English colonies.

...

Northern Rhodesia was about 97% black versus Southern Rhodesia being about 95%, hardly a huge difference. They were both run by the white elites.

Black vs White is not the only relevant social cleavage in that case, while the colonial powers didn't care about tribal groups, the natives did care very much about that sort of thing.

You are entirely ignoring the fact that these states aren't united to begin with. There is a huge bias to the status quo in state formation. If they're already separate you need to have a positive drive to push them together.

This is entirely correct and Eurofed isn't giving it enough weight and consideration.
 
Top