I agree, Sloreck. I suspect abolition would have happened before 1840. Many people don't realize that American slavery deteriorated for a long time before experiencing a second wind in the mid-19th century. It was rejuvenated by a combination of factors: technological advancements, territorial expansion, and the protection of a belligerent, expansionist U.S. government dominated by southerners for half a century. If the revolution were to have failed, none of this would have happened. The cotton belt would not even have been settled. If the British could abolish slavery where it was most lucrative (in the Caribbean sugar plantations), they could certainly have abolished it where it was moribund and regarded with moral ambivalence even by its hereditary practitioners.
I'm afraid we can't be so sure of this: do remember that abolitionism only took off and gained mainstream support *after* the American Revolution had succeeded.
The main reason for the timing of the slavery ban was the expansion of the vote in the Great Reform Act. The financial elite were marginally pro-slavery while the middle class was strongly hostile.
As soon as the middle class gets the vote, slavery gets banned. It's very hard to see the vote being held back much beyond the 1830s, as it was late in our timeline: nation was on the brink of revolution.
Britain was on the brink of revolution in the 1830s? Where did you read that?
Had it not been for the French Revolution, which made the British elite more conservative, reform and thus abolition would happen even earlier.
And that's assuming that the French Revolution even changes all that much in a meaningfully notable compared to OTL, let alone is butterflied altogether; that's far from certain, especially in the case of the latter.
The only exception I see to this is if the ARW is avoided, which might delay the debate on slavery a bit longer, (but not more than a decade due to timing of Somersett decision and religious revivals); or if negotiated compromise gives domestic policy to colonies, and they are exempted from decision.
TBH, though, the Somersett decision had no immediate effects outside of Britain proper, and was only mentioned in passing even in the southern Colonies. Furthermore, how would we be so sure that religious revivals lead to virtually the same outcomes as IOTL, in this case? Do remember, many of those religious people who did become sympathetic to the abolitionist cause in the *U.S. IOTL, were very much influenced by the success of the Revolution-
Even then I see the pressure getting too high by the 1950s, and the southern colonies would have to be really, really stupid to take on both the North and the British Empire combined.
I'm assuming you meant the 1850s, right?
No, which is why I'm highly doubtful that Britain would still have the power to abolish it. How would they even enforce it? We're assuming that the alt-US (I don't know what else to call it) has powers similar to Canada after Confederation.
Britain can end the slave trade, no problem, but how is Britain going to wipe out slavery in the American South, against the will of whatever alt-Colonial confederation government there is?
Good point.
Maybe by 1860 again the rest of the continent would be onboard with forcing slavery out, but not in 1830. I'd expect abolition in North America to be about a decade behind schedule anyway as it is. When does the first colony abolish slavery? It's not 1777.
All too true. IIRC, Massachusetts was the first former colony to abandon slavery, and that was only after Revolutionary ideals took hold.
If the North is that involved, and they'd have to be in order to win, it would just be the Southern Revolt.
I'll maintain that Britain could not win a war against a revolting South without significant northern help. By 1830 the alt-US would have a population as large or close to as large as England's, and about half of that is the South. Britain is not going to be able to reconquer that much populated territory without the northern colonies supplying most of the manpower.
Also true, and that's assuming that slavery doesn't manage to spread west of the Mississippi, or north of the Ohio, as it did, and tried to, respectively, in our own reality.
That's the main problem; I don't think the 1830s North was anti-slavery enough to fight the South in order to enforce a British abolition order. Not only do I think the North would take offense at the involvement in American internal laws to begin with, but as anyone in a Civil War thread will tell you, OTL the North would never have launched a war to end slavery in the South in 1861. Never. It took the South flipping out about a likely gradual abolition of slavery in some indeterminate time in the future, seceding, and firing on a federal military station for that to happen.
That's true, and this was IOTL, in which the Revolution succeeded. How would it necessarily be significantly earlier ITTL, without rather large divergences from OTL?
But we're dealing here with a society in which the abolitionists of Britain and America have been working together for generations without a border to separate them,
Maybe somewhat true, but again, we need to take into account the high probability of a rather stunted development of abolitionism compared to OTL.
in which Britain hasn't enlisted slaves to fight against the liberty of their masters,
The Patriots did the same thing, by the way.
in which nobody has said that racial equality is "a philosophical idea, an English idea, but it is eminently un-American" (Representative Charles J. Biddle [Democrat, Pennsylvania], 1862).
Firstly, this was only one guy, and many conservative Democrats were still fairly sympathetic to the South. Furthermore, I find that your belief that nobody in a British North America would make similar statements like Mr. Biddle's is honestly misplaced, at best.....perhaps rather naive at worst.
Historically, the North got uncomfortably close to slavery in large part because the British fought against it-
Not exactly, especially when you take into account that slavery had already been abandoned in most areas by the time that the War of 1812 broke out IOTL, and that the war had no notable negative effects in that regard.
remember the New York regiments volunteering for war to protect American slave ships from Royal Navy boarding parties in 1858-
Out of a willingness to defend American life and property, and not nearly so much out of a sympathy for slavery, though, that's the thing.
and then abandoned it with remarkable haste when the situation changed.
No, the North had been moving away from slavery for a while; several decades, in fact, as far as the Northeast is concerned.
By the 1830s, the North would likely be in the forefront of popular agitation for compensated emancipation.
Unfortunately, for reasons I've already listed, this is rather unlikely to have occurred at such an early date, unless there is a major departure from the most likely scenario.
Furthermore, you're overlooking the fact that the North doesn't have to fight as wholeheartedly to put down the rebellion in TTL. All they do is make a smaller contribution of forces and avoid selling the South arms, and British military, economic and naval strength makes up the difference.
This assumes that Southern industrial development remains minimal as IOTL; unfortunately, this isn't guaranteed, even if it *is* true that Southern slaveowners who did engage in industrial development, whether directly or not, often did have trouble hanging on for longer periods of time(including the fact that slaves sometimes engaged in intentionally sloppy work, or even sabotage).
While this is true, I also think it's very overly optimistic, and remember we're talking about a timeline where the very first colony to abolish slavery will likely do it in the 1790s, assuming that the American colonies are no more anti-slavery than Upper Canada was.
And it would probably be in a place like Rhode Island, Connecticut or Massachusetts.
I thought this was a failed ARW timeline? Although now that I think about it, I actually think a "No American Revolution" would be much more realistic for this being able to work, since there wouldn't be a history of resistance and bad relations between Britain and the North in this TL.
I'll have to agree with that.
Anyway, that is going to make things worse in one way, the slave population would be slightly higher, and Britain and the US wouldn't be having a frantic one-upmanship contest to see who could be more free. It was also the very idea that slaves would fight to be free that drove abolition in the British Empire, one less example of that wouldn't help.
Also true. Of course, there does remain the possibility of a slave revolt in the Carribean, especially Haiti/Sto. Domingo, which, if successful(as Haiti's was IOTL), might well provide a boon for the abolitionists.
They probably would, but that doesn't mean that they'd be willing to go to war to enforce it. And if the North and South are in any sort of Canada-esque union, abolitionism is not going to be able to get a majority. Maybe by the 1850s, with the addition of colonies in OTL Canada, but not the 1830s, when those colonies will have barely abolished slavery themselves.
Sad, but true. And that's assuming that Mexico doesn't still lose Texas as they did IOTL.
This is true, but we're also talking slower troop mobilization, slower production of arms, slower and more rural everything, especially with the very long supply lines from Britain.
Also true, especially, since, you know, there's an entire ocean separating Britain and the Colonies.
The South is at its peak condition to fight the North in 1830-1840; while I think they and Britain would win, it would be a few bloody years, and I doubt that politically the will would be there, realistically. I think that maybe the will would be there to strong-arm the South into agreeing to a gradual abolition ending decades later, but I think if slavery is straight-up abolished in 1838 there's going to be a revolt on the southern mainland; slavery is just too profitable, and unlike in the Caribbean, they can revolt. British legal authority for abolition on the mainland is likely to be questioned as well, if there was no ARW, then British authority over the colonies will have been unenforced for half a century. I think there has to be a strong anti-slavery push from the North for it to work.
Also agreed. I mean, it's not impossible that there could be a strong anti-slavery push roughly around OTL's timeframe, but you'd have to go back a ways, which is why it'd be rather easier to contemplate with a different Revolutionary period, or none at all.