Best POD after 1754 for No Independent US?

in the late 60's, and for the foreseeable future, the only border that needs protection is in northern NY. there is NO appreciable French population in the Ohio valley and south. the forts the french built in western Pennsylvania were to keep the British out. the french aren't mounting an invasion from anywhere but from Montreal and that's a tough go to really get anywhere.

the notion of a french invasion fear makes no sense at all. the bulk of the colonies had no threat at all. Now, the colonies might desire Britain's help in expanding - they're not getting into the ohio valley without invading French territory (or what France believed to be their territory, contested by Britain). that's a completely different story. the colonies hadn't even expanded to the borders set by france. France set the Ohio valley forts to pretty much the limits they sought to claim. they weren't expanding further. realistically, the colonies don't need protection. they were under no threat.

IIRC, it wasn't fear of 'a French invasion' that worried the colonists, it was the fact that native tribes allied with the French and armed by them were raiding the western settlements... it was thought that only the conquest of New France would stop that...
 
What did Charles Townshend have to do with the Stamp Act? He was out of office during Grenville's ministry.

Here's a minor change. What if, instead of leaving the tax on tea when the Townshend Duties were mostly repealed in 1770, they'd left the tax on paint or lead or paper or some such? Does that butterfly away the Boston Tea Party and other protests to the Tea Act?
 
Taking the comprehensive view:

1) In order to bolster the Southern states, you'd need British court cases to rule the other way on slavery, and therefore retard the development of British abolitionism.

2) I'm unsure you can butterfly a F&I war. While the specific war of OTL can be butterflied, the imperial conflict between British and French alliances, in North America, Europe and Asia, will still exist.

3) In this inevitable conflict, I am very doubtful as to France winning. Even if they win on the continent, the British have many more colonial soldiers and a much better navy to throw into the conflicts in Asia and the Americas, and I suspect that, at the least, the Ohio Valley would still be taken.

4) Unlike the Spanish viceroyalties and the Capitancy-Generals of Brasil, the British colonies, specifically New England, had had self-government for decades if not a century by 1776. While colonial governors had authority over them, you still had the significant development of a distinct American bourgeoisie with distinct and separate political institutions.

5) With British success abroad, there comes the need for taxes. Already the merchants were displeased with mercantilism, and the end of salutary neglect brought about a taxation regime that pissed off the colonists. Furthermore, mirroring the intra-US conflict between the gentry and settlers decades later, the British were much more respectful of natives and Frenchmen in the Ohio Valley than the American colonists were. People want to settle beyond the Appalachians, and to keep America British you'd need to allow settlement beyond the mountains.

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Ultimately, America was populous enough, independent-minded enough and taxed enough to lead to revolt. Any possibility to weaken Britain would have attracted French and Spanish attentions, even if France had Quebec. Furthermore, unlike sparsely-populated Canada and just-started-settlement-as-a-penal-colony Australia, America had the largest European colonial population anywhere at that time, further driving the need for economic independence and giving the Americans more manpower for a separatist struggle.

In my view, you'd probably need a British victory in the ARW followed by political concessions to keep America British, and even then I think it'd be a close-run thing. The Parliament and Britain needed America's economy bound to Britain, while America wanted more leeway in economic affairs.

I think that Britain could keep part of the Americas, as it did OTL. I think Britain could keep the Americas for a longer period of time. I am not sure, given that we saw Canadian rebellions in the 1830s and given America's long-standing trends of political independence, from VA House of Burgesses to Massachusetts, that Britain could have retained the 13 colonies, in full, forever. I think it could be done, but the various economic, military and geopolitical factors of the period give America a lot of reasons -- and opportunities -- to try for independence.
 
3) In this inevitable conflict, I am very doubtful as to France winning. Even if they win on the continent, the British have many more colonial soldiers and a much better navy to throw into the conflicts in Asia and the Americas, and I suspect that, at the least, the Ohio Valley would still be taken.

Sure, but a British defeat on the continent likely means the conquests in the Americas get traded for French concessions on the continent. Britain cares *much* more about keeping the Austrian Netherlands out of the hands of France (or a French puppet like the Duke of Parma) than it does about North America.
 
The rebels at first weren't looking so much for independence, but to bring back the status quo... lax colonial tax collecting, blindness when it came to stopping smuggling, and no new taxes imposed.

That's it. American history from Tea Party to...well, Tea Party... (well, human history, really) has been not wanting to pay for anything but wanting to get paid for everything. So, any tax revenue from American colonial trade is going to have to be leveled as indirectly as possible and as close to the London end of things as possible. How to do that was the nut no one figured out how to crack.
 
Sure, but a British defeat on the continent likely means the conquests in the Americas get traded for French concessions on the continent. Britain cares *much* more about keeping the Austrian Netherlands out of the hands of France (or a French puppet like the Duke of Parma) than it does about North America.

And if the British seize a great deal of the French Caribbean, as they did historically, then they will probably be able to keep the Ohio and restore order on the continent in exchange for France keeping their key sugar islands.
 
While I agree with the sentiments of this, I do feel that I, perhaps, did not explain my scenario enough to give people a good understanding of what I'm looking for.

The American colonies are not going to stay Crown Colonies, they just aren't. Canada couldn't, even at a fraction of the population of Britain, while by 1776 the American population was approaching parity with England. They just aren't going to be kept under British direct control, period.

Rather, what I was looking for was a POD that would allow the colonial offices to be reformed so that the North American colonies remain part of the greater British Empire, but not directly controlled. Something akin to a dominion. In my opinion, this is not just possible but even quite plausible, given conditions at the time. One example is that, contrary to popular belief, in 1776 the vast majority of colonies had little to no real contact with the other colonies; on the contrary, most of them competed with each other to sell their goods direct to Britain or to other European markets. Dividing and conquering by placing the colonies as separate (for lack of a better term) "dominions" under a heavily-decentralized government is one way that Britain could retain at least some control over the colonies, and thus over the vast amounts of wealth and power that doing so brings.

So, basically, what I'm looking for is a good post-1754 POD that allows for such a scenario where Britain has some part in the North American colonies, even if it's just being a kind of distant friend rather than direct overlord.
 
While I agree with the sentiments of this, I do feel that I, perhaps, did not explain my scenario enough to give people a good understanding of what I'm looking for.

The American colonies are not going to stay Crown Colonies, they just aren't. Canada couldn't, even at a fraction of the population of Britain, while by 1776 the American population was approaching parity with England. They just aren't going to be kept under British direct control, period.

Rather, what I was looking for was a POD that would allow the colonial offices to be reformed so that the North American colonies remain part of the greater British Empire, but not directly controlled. Something akin to a dominion. In my opinion, this is not just possible but even quite plausible, given conditions at the time. One example is that, contrary to popular belief, in 1776 the vast majority of colonies had little to no real contact with the other colonies; on the contrary, most of them competed with each other to sell their goods direct to Britain or to other European markets. Dividing and conquering by placing the colonies as separate (for lack of a better term) "dominions" under a heavily-decentralized government is one way that Britain could retain at least some control over the colonies, and thus over the vast amounts of wealth and power that doing so brings.

So, basically, what I'm looking for is a good post-1754 POD that allows for such a scenario where Britain has some part in the North American colonies, even if it's just being a kind of distant friend rather than direct overlord.

Are you looking for them to have power over all the colonies, or only some?

Because if the answer is the latter, then a less abolitionist Britain could easily keep the slave colonies. Even after independence, the cotton market was tied to Europe, so its not like they had too much ability on their own to go independent.

And in OTL, independentism was all in the Northeast anyway, the Virginian Dynasty aside.

As for dominionism, I think the problem was that British politicians, particularly Tories, were only willing to consider the idea once the concrete example of America had happened. Before that, I don't think anyone in Britain seriously considered the idea, as opposed to the Americas where semi-loyalists advanced dominion-esque ideas.
 
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