American Resolution: Taxation with Representation

What if the British and the American colonies had come to a mutual agreement with regards to taxing the colonies or anything that would've made an open revolt/independence from Britain unnecessary?

Would the country we now know as America exist? Would it still be a part of the United Kingdom? Or would it be part of Canada?

And with a major superpower in the world, how would the world today look? Or would Britain be the world's superpower?

Plus, the American Revolution gave France a chance to vent some hostility toward their rivals to the north...without that opportunity, how would relations with those two countries be nowdays?
 
The Americans had already developed an independent identity (or identities), so they would be a country (or countries) in that sense. Even if they share a monarch and legislature with Great Britain.

Adam Smith was of the opinion that representation for the colonies could be based on the amount of tax revenue they provided to London. It was either that, or let the go willingly, to avoid the cost of a likely futile war.

Its hard to say exactly what would happen further out, but you could see the other settler colonies of Britain retaining closer ties to the motherland, rather than the loose Commonwealth of our present day. Perhaps, eventually, each analogue to the Dominions would have their own legislature, with an overarching Parliament over both them and Britain's own Parliament.
 
What if the British and the American colonies had come to a mutual agreement with regards to taxing the colonies or anything that would've made an open revolt/independence from Britain unnecessary?

Would the country we now know as America exist? Would it still be a part of the United Kingdom? Or would it be part of Canada?

It is unlikely that a single nation of "America" would exist. The larger states would likely become more powerful equivalents to New Zealand, while the smaller states might form regional federations like New England (or even be merged into a unitary state by the UK). These states would probably follow the Canada/Australia/New Zealand model of increasing independence from the UK in a gradual fashion. Remember Canada only became a single country in our timeline because of the threat of annexation from the USA. Single colonies would have no need to unite into a larger polity unless they were tiny.

And with a major superpower in the world, how would the world today look? Or would Britain be the world's superpower?

It's hard to judge what the world geopolitics would be like as France, Russia, China etc could go in a hundred different directions. But it's likely that the UK and the alt-dominions of this timeline would have some sort of loose confederacy that would dominate most world politics. However, I expect the decision making to be more along the lines of the EU or the UN than the USA.

Plus, the American Revolution gave France a chance to vent some hostility toward their rivals to the north...without that opportunity, how would relations with those two countries be nowdays?

Even before the ARW, France and Britain had been at war with each other three times in the 1700s alone. The American Revolution was just another war between them. Relations would all depend on how France develops, which could go a lot of ways. The French Revolution happened just a decade after these events, and that could end up with so many different histories, so who knows.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Even before the ARW, France and Britain had been at war with each other three times in the 1700s alone. The American Revolution was just another war between them. Relations would all depend on how France develops, which could go a lot of ways. The French Revolution happened just a decade after these events, and that could end up with so many different histories, so who knows.

Yes, the American Revolution took place in the midst of the "Second Hundred Years War" between Britain and France, so there is nothing to suggest that a POD of the American Revolution not taking place would do anything to reduce hostility between the two.

However, a significant contributing factor to the outbreak of the French Revolution, at least in terms of the time and circumstances under which is broke out, was the vast amount of money the French government had spent supporting the American cause. So if that money is not spent, there would be major butterflies for the French Revolution.
 
I kind of hate to say it because I love my country, but things would probably go a lot better for Native Americans. Prior to the Revolution, I think the Appalachians constituted some kind of official boundary which was largely respected in practice.

If we really want to take a flight of fancy the whole thing with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and variolation using scabs, and Edward Jenner and cowpox, we get that largely right and by the 1820s(?), smallpox is no longer really a live issue. Now, we may not be able to do much about influenza and measles, but we can envision a world where smallpox is largely solved by the early 1800s.

And further flight of fancy, by the early 21st century, the U.S. has about just as many people but in a smaller territory, primarily the eastern seaboard, the continent has other interesting countries, and there you go.
 
I don't know, man. I can see the Proclamation of 1763 being a major sticking point between the colonists and the crown after the taxation issue. All that bountiful, "empty" land just sitting out there. So wide, so green... *cue Homer Simpson drool*
 
I don't know, man. I can see the Proclamation of 1763 being a major sticking point between the colonists and the crown after the taxation issue. All that bountiful, "empty" land just sitting out there. So wide, so green... *cue Homer Simpson drool*

The main purpose of the Proclamation line was to limit Westward settlement until the coasts had been filled out to stop other European powers getting footholds. It also wasn't a hard and fast line: it was readjusted after complaints from colonists, and beyond that you could still purchase land from native Americans. Complaints about it had disappeared by the late 1760s.
 
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