Would it have been possible for Britain to keep a Hong Kong to Rhode Island sized territory in the continental U.S. as territory? It would be like Hong Kong but British Territory not American Territory on lease.
Hong Kong of America
- Thread starter Yankee Leviathan
- Start date
Maybe they can keep NYC after the ARW. We didn't retake it until the very end of the war, and in a rather lucky circumstance. NYC was quite the loyalist haven for much of the war as well. I think that or Charleston are good contestants. Either one though is going to require significant concessions from the Brits to keep. Another possibility is New Orleans during the war of 1812, although that kind of negates the Louisian Purchase.
Where could be the location of such territory? And why would Britain need it since they got Canada right above the US?
All three areas I listed are key ports in the USA, loss of any of those puts American Commercial development back decades (NYC particularly), that is reason enough IMO.
Britain took Hong Kong because it was one of the best, if not the best, port in southern China, and it gave them access to a lot of the southeast Asian trade routes and products. There was also the opium angle to consider. There really isn't the same kind of impetus for a port south of Canada. Bermuda and the Bahamas already provided observation points and harbors to keep an eye on the United States in the south. New Orleans would be a plum because it would block US expansion up the Mississippi River valley, but Britain would have to take it first, and it couldn't. Certainly the US wouldn't have given it up voluntarily, given its strategic importance.
They held NYC and Charleston during the ARW and New Orleans just requires a different Battle of New Orleans. Perhaps no forward assault. You are fundamentally correct in that they don't need a port, but they didn't really need to control Hong Kong to control the opium trade, it just made life WAY easier
NothingNow
Banned
They keep Florida instead of it reverting to the Spanish in the Treaty of Paris.
Tampa Bay is an amazing port, and actually the best in the Gulf. While Key West is the "Gibraltar of the West" for good reason; two ways in or out of the Gulf of Mexico, and Key West sits right on top of the really usable one. Plus it'd be a great haven for southern loyalists and other such groups.
Post AR is one thing but usually you do get a 'British Hong Kong' with no Louisianna purchase or 1812 going differently in the shape of New Orleans and the surrounding area.
Prestige doesn't fly.
It wouldn't be a ase of Britain needing to keeping it if it happened, it'd be the area wanting to be kept and being able to keep itself out of US hands.
Prestige doesn't fly.
It wouldn't be a ase of Britain needing to keeping it if it happened, it'd be the area wanting to be kept and being able to keep itself out of US hands.
Thande
Donor
On reflection, a brief sketch:
ARW goes slightly better for Britain (no specifics) and we keep the Province of New York as well as the Iroquois under British protection. (Not sure what should happen to Canada here). At the peace treaty, every colony except New York has its independence recognised. In the aftermath, what with the two halves of the rebels being separated, the north forms the Federal Republic of New England (capital Boston) and the south forms the Confederated Colonies of North America (capital Philadelphia). The south is more federalist than OTL (though still less than New England) due to the threat of a British New York lending support to the idea of a unified standing army etc.
Over the next generation there is a population exchange, with American Patriots fleeing New York to the FRNE and CCNA, while United Empire Loyalists mostly go to New York rather than to Canada as in OTL. This means New York is broadly pro-British, especially in urban centres, although some pro-independence feeling remains.
Then during the equivalent of the French Revolutionary Wars, perhaps using a similar casus belli to OTL's (to do with British unilateral control of the seas), the FRNE and CCNA attack New York (again, not sure what would happen to Canada here). They succeed in conquering the interior but besiege New York City without success for many months with the city being resupplied by sea. The Royal Navy burns many FRNE and CCNA coastal cities but with Britain engaged with its European opponents, the troops cannot be spared to try and liberate the rest of the Province.
At the peace treaty Britain concedes American control of the New York interior but New York City and its immediate environs remain British. The population there is almost totally Loyalist (many Loyalists from the interior fleeing and cramming into there) and there is no appetite there for joining the Patriots after suffering under their siege for so long - a mentality like Malta and Gibraltar in OTL develops. The FRNE and CCNA divide continental New York between them and might merge but at this stage they've probably been apart for too long and just remain in an amicable friendship rather than a full alliance. (Slavery probably remains dominant in the CCNA for the foreseeable future because of this).
FRNE and CCNA politicians will direct Argentine-style rhetoric at NYC being British for years and years but will quietly recognise that there is little point risking another bloody war to get a city whose population is almost entirely composed of fiercely anti-Patriot Loyalists. Eventually there's an Anglo-American rapproachment like OTL's, but NYC might actually prosper more before then if it's the only port through which Anglo-American trade can officially take place (if the colonies as a whole were protectionist towards British trade).
Thoughts?
Kinda works but...I'm not so sure Britain would just give up New York like that. Maybe if its in exchange for the Confederates taking the gun off the Native Federation's head or somesuch?- Britain chose something it would rather keep in the war and gave away something it isn't bothered about keeping.
Maybe have the NE and the CSA hating each other and Britain figures it'd be nice if they had a border with which to weaken each other.
Keenir
Banned
I actually tried writing that....it was a meme to make a new tv show, so I used it.
http://rodlox.livejournal.com/327757.html
Seattle? Say the British government refuse Polk over the Oregon Territory deal. After the Mexican-American War, Palmerston takes a hard line and demands everything north of the Columbia River. With the Pacific coast already in American hands, Polk decides on a compromise and the British gets much of what is to become Washington state.
I was thinking of something along those lines. The Oregon territory dispute turns into a war, and somehow the United States pulls out a victory. However, the British still hold Vancouver island, and since the USA has no Pacific fleet, Britain keeps the island. It may not be as good as a port as the others, but it is plausible.
Thande
Donor
I was thinking maybe Canada stays British as per OTL but the New Englanders successfully manage to conquer it in the same war in which New York is taken (not implausible considering the smaller population with the Loyalists going to New York instead) and Britain conceded American control of continental New York in order to get Canada back at the peace treaty. (Mind you I don't know why we would care about Canada more than New York...)
The treaty ending the war has already been signed by the time of the battle of New Orleans, so even if the British won the city, they couldn't have kept it.
As for the ARW, once the French entered the war I don't see any way the British could have kept either NYC or Charleston. They would have been isolated and surrounded by a hostile population, dependent on supply from Britain. Nor do I see the Americans allowing Britain to keep all of New York State, as Thande proposes. To deliberately allow Britain to divide the new nation in two, especially when so much of upstate New York favored the rebels, doesn't make sense.