British Alaska and Hawaii?

Hawaii: The Provisional Cession of the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands established by Lord George Paulet, which placed Hawaii under nominal British sovereignty, although it was quickly returned to the Hawaiians. Would it have been possible for the British to keep sovereignty?


Alaska: My thought was that the British could have used the Crimean War as an excuse to occupy Russian America. Historically the Hudson’s Bay Company have outposts in part of Russian America, and during the Crimean War the British did launch an attack on a Russian base on the other side of the Pacific. Russian America never had a large Russian population and was never particularly profitable. Could Britain have gotten the territory in this scenario as part of the peace settlement for the War?
 
I doubt the British would occupy Alaska during the Crimean War. Too far away from the main theatre of battle, and no strategic importance to speak off.

Once the British take Alaska (however you decide to do it) Hawaii is a logical next step to protect the shipping lanes. So the real problem is how to make Alaska British.

Russia didn't officially take possession of Alaska until 1799, so you could speed up the British colonization of Canada. Russia could remain an ally of France in the War of the Coalitions, and the UK could take it as reperations.
 
Re Crimean War: It's just as out of the way as Petropavlovsk. The strategic argument for taking it is fears over the Americans trying to acquire it from the Russians or a larger Russian presence in Western North America.
Re Hawaii: The brief historical cession was 1843, which is pre-Crimea
 
I doubt the British would occupy Alaska during the Crimean War. Too far away from the main theatre of battle, and no strategic importance to speak off.

they Brits meant not, but with the low Russian population... maybe some over eager Canadians feeling fired up go and take Alaska, that kind of thing seems to happen in America a lot.....
 
maybe some over eager Canadians feeling fired up go and take Alaska.

That's a phrase you don't hear very often.

What was the Canadian population of the Yukon at this time? Doubt it was very much until the gold rush in the 1890s.

But who ever really knows what the Canadians are up to?
 
Your prior plans rely on their being a lot more Canadians than historically. There weren't nearly as many Canadians as there were Americans, and in a much bigger expanse. They wouldn't have needed to push the frontier and get a hold of Alaska. Even with faster colonization and more population, the density of Canada is so low Alaska was completely unnecessary. Canadians aren't going to want it until it becomes valuable because of gold and oil. And Russians aren't going to want to give it up after it becomes valuable because of gold and oil.

Unless it's just an arbitrary punishment exacted on Russia for the Crimean War, it's borderline ASB, I think.

British Hawai'i is, of course, fairly easy. The Brits were the first Europeans to discover Hawai'i, so just end up with Britain focusing more on it as a mid-Pacific naval base and trading post.
 
That's a phrase you don't hear very often.

What was the Canadian population of the Yukon at this time? Doubt it was very much until the gold rush in the 1890s.

But who ever really knows what the Canadians are up to?

I was thinking more like 100 guys get a gun boat in Vancouver and sail up to New Archangel and the colony turns itself over with-out a fight, like Guam in 1898
 
At its hight there were less than 700 Russians in Alaska... few if any Americans but a few Brits though because of HBC fur trading. Also as it was pointed out this is pre-gold rush.

I was relying on the Anglo-French force that historically attacked Petropavlovsk.
 
Hawaii: The Provisional Cession of the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands established by Lord George Paulet, which placed Hawaii under nominal British sovereignty, although it was quickly returned to the Hawaiians. Would it have been possible for the British to keep sovereignty?

What you have to bear in mind here is that it was "quickly returned to the Hawaiians" because when London heard about it, they were furious. London (of this era) sided with the rights of local rulers who had treaties with them, rather than their merchants - they only sided with the merchants when the local rulers went against British interests. The rulers of Hawaii had actually been very supportive of British interests - they went so far as to adopt the British flag as their own for when European sailors came into port, until the US merchants objected and asked them to incorporate the stripes of the US flag into it too - and were by all accounts quite happy to be a British client. In this situation, London was outraged that they should suffer any indignity - even by British citizens.

To arrange for your specific POD to happen you would need to somehow completely change London's attitude. Far easier would be to have Hawaii not slip into the US camp - if the US overthrow failed, it's possible Hawaii could seek to become a British protectorate to prevent it happening again, or it could happen before that too. But your POD goes against the grain just a touch.
 
Yes, your best bet for British Hawaii is to have it as a sort of Princely State-style protectorate, while for British Alaska, perhaps Britain decides to knock down Russia a notch - perhaps increased Russian success in the early stages of the Great Game?
 

archaeogeek

Banned
That's a phrase you don't hear very often.

What was the Canadian population of the Yukon at this time? Doubt it was very much until the gold rush in the 1890s.

But who ever really knows what the Canadians are up to?

A dozen Hudson's Bay Company employees who sometimes went in the area to pick up fur, more or less. Vancouver was a farm, Victoria was a small fur trading outpost, and there was a coaling station nearby. Total population of the west, excluding natives and the metis, was probably less than a thousand.
 
A dozen Hudson's Bay Company employees who sometimes went in the area to pick up fur, more or less. Vancouver was a farm, Victoria was a small fur trading outpost, and there was a coaling station nearby. Total population of the west, excluding natives and the metis, was probably less than a thousand.

Yeah; It was really only the twin gold rushes that instigated that population moving west.
 
I think it would be easier to make Alaska British peacefully than having them occupy it in a war. In the late 1850s, when Russia was looking to sell, they sent out feelers to the US and the UK about it. They were hoping to get the two rivals to bid against one another. Unfortunately, the UK didn't show any interest, so the US got it relatively cheap. I think that Russia would prefer to sell it to the US rather than the UK, but if the UK is willing to give a higher price then they'll sell it to them. All we need is for the UK to be interested.
 
The Crimean Wars were explicitly NOT land grabs for the British, and doing so would jeopardize their legitimacy in the war. Not to mention they had little use for that land; Alaska was essential useless, save for a tiny amount of fur and some fishing that could have been done anywhere in Canada.
 
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