Slavery in a British Victory of American Revolutionary war?

It would be, but what's really being fought is an entrenchment of anti-British American nationalism. If a large contingent of nationalists set on dismembering the empire have formed, last-decade changes to the government system won't matter.

I'm not sure how stable that national identity would be. For a start, only about 40% of the population were patriots. Second, these hardliners have brought about huge amount of harm to the country. Third, identities like New Yorker and Virginian were competing with an "American" one. Fourth, the failure would develop into different colonies blaming each other, dividing up the American identity. Fifth, the individual colonies have political institutions to back them up, which "America" will not. Sixth, there is VAST immigration causing population turnover, which will quickly swamp the numbers with a cultural memory of the rebellion.

But it will definitely be harder with a failed revolution than an averted one.
 
The probability is only high if you assume abolitionism is the result of the War of Independence.

Yes, the two have very little to do with each other, abolition was a general Enlightenment trend. I think there was a little bit of friction between the US and Britain that spurred rivalry to appear better than the other, but this was only present in the US in the north.

Under any circumstances where Americans are prevented from imposing restrictive tariffs, on a level playing field with Britain industrial development in the South does not have a bright future.

It doesn't have a bright future anyway; the South will provide cotton to either the Northeast, Britain, or both, it wouldn't in any scenario develop much industry of its own.

I agree with you that in a scenario with no American Revolution, where the 1760 status quo just sort of drifts on forever, the northern colonies have no reason to band together with the southern ones, and their differing economic systems and positions on slavery will eventually drive them apart. Without a US in the first place, the North will not care. I do still think an imperial abolition date in the 1830s is overly optimistic though.
 
And that's discounting the effect that earlier reform might have had: after all, the example of America's working classes contributing to government would have carried more weight in British debates if a) They were still on the inside of the tent in a recognisably British political system and b) They hadn't blotted their already-blotted copybook by teaming up with a continental dictator in the 1810s to launch a war of conquest.

It's worth pointing out here that the British working classes weren't even being represented when abolition came. The Great Reform Act only allowed about 4% of the electorate vote (but in a non-distorted manner), and that electorate overwhelmingly voted to eliminate slavery. If the working classes were included, it would be even stronger.
 
I'm not sure how stable that national identity would be. For a start, only about 40% of the population were patriots.

I will ask for a cite for this.

Second, these hardliners have brought about huge amount of harm to the country.

I think you are really handwaving here. Germany is occupied and forced to pay reparations after WW1. Do people blame German hardliners?

I think you could get a real ugly scenario where the next revolution ties into fears about abolitionism, actually.

Also, to judge by the many immigrants who became Patriots, I wouldn't presume the turnover helps Britain...
 
I'm not sure how stable that national identity would be. For a start, only about 40% of the population were patriots.

I'll second that source request; I don't think there's any concrete numbers or percentages about the number of loyalists during the war.

Second, these hardliners have brought about huge amount of harm to the country. Third, identities like New Yorker and Virginian were competing with an "American" one. Fourth, the failure would develop into different colonies blaming each other, dividing up the American identity. Fifth, the individual colonies have political institutions to back them up, which "America" will not. Sixth, there is VAST immigration causing population turnover, which will quickly swamp the numbers with a cultural memory of the rebellion.

Well, if you want a timely example, look at the South. Did Southern identity and nationalism decrease after the Civil War? No, more the opposite. And the colonies are across the ocean, making development of an American identity as opposed to a British one even more likely. And the trend in general was for the New World colonies to develop their own national identities and to rebel.
 
I'll second that source request; I don't think there's any concrete numbers or percentages about the number of loyalists during the war.

Robert M. Calhoon, "Loyalism and neutrality" in Jack P. Greene; J. R. Pole (2008). A Companion to the American Revolution. John Wiley & Sons. p. 235.

In general there was a 40-40-20 split between patriots, neutrals and loyalists.

Well, if you want a timely example, look at the South. Did Southern identity and nationalism decrease after the Civil War? No, more the opposite. And the colonies are across the ocean, making development of an American identity as opposed to a British one even more likely. And the trend in general was for the New World colonies to develop their own national identities and to rebel.

The southern situation was accentuated by ongoing and visible racial tensions. Another poster mentioned Germany post-WW1, but equally there's Germany post-WW2. I'm not saying these colonies will have a British identity over an American one, but they could develop a Virginian/Pennsylvanian/New Yorker/etc identity that is loyal to the crown and proud of Anglo roots. Similar to the Canadian identity in our timeline.
 
Robert M. Calhoon, "Loyalism and neutrality" in Jack P. Greene; J. R. Pole (2008). A Companion to the American Revolution. John Wiley & Sons. p. 235.

In general there was a 40-40-20 split between patriots, neutrals and loyalists.

Ok, I suppose there's nothing wrong with making an estimate like that.

The southern situation was accentuated by ongoing and visible racial tensions. Another poster mentioned Germany post-WW1, but equally there's Germany post-WW2. I'm not saying these colonies will have a British identity over an American one, but they could develop a Virginian/Pennsylvanian/New Yorker/etc identity that is loyal to the crown and proud of Anglo roots. Similar to the Canadian identity in our timeline.

I would argue the Southern identity was cemented as a contrast to the Northern identity due to the war. In this case the conflict was driven by ongoing and visible racial tensions, but the same effect could be driven by any dispute.

And yet national identity in Canada didn't end up being an Ontario/British Columbia/Newfoundland identity, it became an overall Canadian identity. I agree that in this timeline there would be stronger regional and colony identities, but the more opposition there is to the British, the stronger of an American identity there will be. And it should start out pretty strong, they just lost a major rebellion. Now, if real cracks emerge later between North and South we might see a decline in any type of unity, but I think the separate American identity will still be developing.
 

TinyTartar

Banned
Robert M. Calhoon, "Loyalism and neutrality" in Jack P. Greene; J. R. Pole (2008). A Companion to the American Revolution. John Wiley & Sons. p. 235.

In general there was a 40-40-20 split between patriots, neutrals and loyalists.



The southern situation was accentuated by ongoing and visible racial tensions. Another poster mentioned Germany post-WW1, but equally there's Germany post-WW2. I'm not saying these colonies will have a British identity over an American one, but they could develop a Virginian/Pennsylvanian/New Yorker/etc identity that is loyal to the crown and proud of Anglo roots. Similar to the Canadian identity in our timeline.

The thing about those neutrals is that as the war went on, they became more in favor of independence when it became clear that the sky wasn't falling due to a lack of ties to the king, and by the end of the war, Toryism was hated and disgraced across most of the country.

That 40% figure is a solid one for 1775-76, but I know that David Hackett Fischer has the number at more like 75% (and up to 90% in the countryside because of widespread loyalist migration to NYC and Charleston for safety) by the time of Yorktown.

Keep in mind that many of these neutrals were levied into state militias to fight the British regardless of their feelings on the conflict and were radicalized in the process. The Pennsylvania State Militia for example had a similar social and geographical basis for the entire war, and was still giving salutes to the King in June of 1776, but two years alter, were leading anti-Tory riots in Philadelphia, and by the end of the war, burning effigies of King George on Pope's Day (instead of Guy Fawkes).

The place where this is most notable is the frontier. At the war's start, the frontier in some areas leaned Patriot due to hatred of the Proclamation Line, but loyalty to the king was also fierce due to the fact that British troops were still the best defense against the Indians. By the end of the war, because of the British funding of Indian raids and complicity in acts like the Wyoming Massacre, the frontier as a whole was about as radically Patriot as New England was.
 

Okay, thank you, Socrates. I honestly didn't know things got *that* bad?

Woah woah woah, what's this about "FL, AL, MS, LA, TX, and possibly AR & TN" rebelling? However the Revolution goes for the British (in one of the three scenarios Fabius outlined), those "states" won't exist, because there won't be a Louisiana purchase (lets not even get into how a fizzled/failed American Revolution would affect French politics), let alone the Colonies/Commonwealth/Dominion/Whatever getting control of what would later be Tejas/Texas. The rest of the "western" territories could end up very, very different from OTL's states.

Seriously, an averted/failed American Revolution would produce enormous butterflies, we can't act like the map would be the same as OTL but colored red instead of blue.

I dunno about this; there would very likely be at least a few significant butterflies even in the shortest terms where territory is concerned, but.....there's still the fact that a war instead of a purchase is quite likely, especially if Spain manages to retain Louisiana as IOTL. And, secondly, there was already some discontent in what was to become both *Kentucky and *Tennessee about being lorded over by distant administrators in Richmond and Raleigh by the time the Revolution ended IOTL, and as the population grew, this only grew with time. It is exceedingly likely that both regions will break off by about 1850, if not rather earlier.....even if Britain never grabs Louisiana.

Well, that's the thing. Banning slavery is still an intervention in the internal affairs of a colony. If Britain has officially or unofficially stopped making internal laws for British North America, then banning slavery would be a massive departure from policy. If there is no such policy, then the North isn't going to be upset about slavery being banned, in fact I'm sure many would welcome it, but if Britain still has the power to legislate for the colonies at will, I think it's unlikely that they're still going to have control of the colonies at all. Assuming that a workable imperial parliament solution is not found. If, on the other side of the coin, there is such a policy of imperial non-interference in internal affairs, then a sudden reversal of policy would rankle the North, which will have already abolished slavery in its own territory, and in the 1830s would likely be as much or more concerned about a sudden apparent increase in British power over them than stamping out slavery in the South. Meanwhile the South, if it does revolt, would use the apparent breaking of British policy as a springboard for revolt.

What I'm saying is that I just don't think it could be so simple as Britain passing a law and slavery being abolished. British North America would have a population nearly as large as Britain's at that point; if they're still in that much of a subordinate position to the British parliament, they would have revolted again by then. The British Empire in this time period would have to deal with transitioning to being a somewhat bi-centered empire, otherwise it would fracture and fracture hard. Which in my opinion is by far the most likely outcome in the first place. There would be some serious bad, bad feelings after a failed ARW, and I would expect that British politics would shift more conservative than OTL, which wouldn't help things at all. I think it would take a miracle and incredibly gifted politicians to avert a second rebellion, this question completely aside. Now, maybe, maybe if the Imperial Parliament thing worked out abolition could somehow happen right on time, in 1838, but everything would have to go pretty much perfectly. If it didn't happen by then in 1838 I think Britain and eventually the North could still bring enough pressure to bear to get rid of slavery, but not so quickly. Assuming that British and Northern alt-US relations became good once again.

Good points, all.

Yes, this is why I spelt out the different context scenarios. I think we agree with what would happen in each scenario, we just disagree with the likelihood of each context. In a defeated ARW situation, I think a scenario 1 is very possible if you have perpetual Tory repression. On the other hand, I can also see a scenario where a Tory government that wins the war eventually collapses within a few years (as in, less than 5), and a Whig government comes in to be more conciliatory. If it's actually an averted ARW situation, then I can't see the Tories getting in for long at all, and a positive situation developing. 50 years really is a very long time to sort something out: think of the constitutional changes between 1789 and 1839 in France for instance.

That may be true.

The probability is only high if you assume abolitionism is the result of the War of Independence.

I didn't say or imply that British abolitionism was started by the Patriot victory in the War of Independence, but it sure was greatly helped by it!

That seems an extremely unlikely conclusion, unless you play down the effect of the Somerset case by overlooking the underlying anti-slavery attitudes demonstrated by the judge's comments that slavery is "incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive law…[and] so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law"

What is there to downplay, Rob? This decision was only applicable in Britain proper.....as the ruling judge intended.

in favour of looking purely at the legalistic scope of the case, or ignore the fact that Johnson's famous comment "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?" dates from 1775.

This doesn't disprove my point, however.

On the other side of the Atlantic, you see Benjamin Rush writing in 1773 that "Anthony Benezet stood alone a few years ago, in opposing negro slavery in Philadelphia; and now three-fourths of the province, as well as of the city, cry out against it. A spirit of humanity and religion begins to awaken, in several of the colonies in favour of the poor negroes."

Again, this doesn't disprove my point.

As such, I'm unconvinced that the development of abolitionism would be stunted by continued union: it seems like the classic post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

Only what I wrote is, in fact, backed up by history itself.

Nowhere on the same scale, of course; almost exclusively in response to British actions ("we must use the Negroes or run the risk of loosing the war... success will depend on which side can arm the Negroes faster", George Washington, 20 December 1775),

To *some* extent, yes. But if anything at all, it was the Loyalists who largely freed slaves only in response to the Revolution.

and while the British sought to evacuate Loyalist slaves where possible

Mostly after it was clear that they were losing, mind you.

many black men who fought for freedom on the Patriot side- like Samuel Charlton- were forced back into slavery when the war was over.

Some, like Mr. Charlton? Yes, undoubtedly. Many, though? Haven't quite seen the evidence for *that*.

The point is that continued union between Britain and America removes a large part of the necessity for Americans to define themselves in opposition to Britain, making ideas such as the fundamental equality of humanity regardless of skin colour more palatable than they were historically.

Only that was never a primary reason why pro-slavery sentiment took off in the South after 1830. It was all about the economics(which benefitted the elite, despite being a detriment to nearly everyone else), and about keeping black folks "in their place".

Not strictly relevant to the argument, but I should point out that there is copious contemporary witness testimony to the fact that racial discrimination is far more prevalent in mid-century America than mid-century Britain.

It was *somewhat* more prevalent overall, yes, especially taking the South into account.

Again, missing the point. Plenty of people in the North, from the New York Herald to Lincoln himself, saw shoring up slavery as the price of keeping the Union together.

There is some truth to this, yes.

That phenomenon stems from the perception of outside threats: that the Union is under continual attack from the forces of monarchy and reaction, and that any price is worth paying to keep the great experiment alive.

There's just one problem: Britain was barely considered to be a real immediate threat to the Union, until *after* the South started breaking away.

Remove that factor, you remove a major incentive for many in the North to tacitly or overtly support slavery.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid that's just not true. Anti-British sentiment played very little of a role in the slavery debate either way.

This shows you're almost at the point, but are too busy trying to defend the North from hints of complicity with slavery to appreciate it.

I'm not denying that complicity did still happen; after all, look at the Edward Prigg incident in PA in 1842. As well as the various actions of the Copperheads during the Civil War, or some of the more hardline Doughfaces the decade prior.

The New York regiments volunteered to protect their countrymen- "American lives and property".

And, as I pointed out, not really in defense of slavery in that case.

If they don't see the South as their countrymen, but as a separate colony that just happens to be in union with Britain, the circumstances change entirely. No sense of national identity= no support for slavery.

Again, this is not really true. A lack of separate identity would not at all necessarily be liable to help abolitionism in the Northern Colonies any more than, say, the Somerset Case affected slavery in North America. In fact, it might actually prove to be a stumbling block, if Northerners going after slavery ends up being seen as an attack on fellow Britons....and that is a possibility we can't ignore.

Here you're confusing abolition within individual states with abolition on a country-wide basis.

I did no such thing, however.

The North was prepared to tolerate slavery as long as it contributed to domestic unity.

Even though it did not, and by 1860, a majority of Northerners recognized this, hence, why Lincoln was elected.

Within a few years of secession, opinion shifts dramatically against accepting the existence of slavery.

This shift was not as dramatic as you seem to believe, however(outside of perhaps the border states); anti-slavery sentiment as a coherent national phenomenon began to grow quickly during the 1840s, in no small part thanks to the moves towards annexing Texas and Oregon, and, a little later, the victory over Mexico in the Mexican-American War, followed by the antics of the Fire-Eaters in the 1850s. By the time Lincoln came about, slavery was only barely tolerable even in some areas of the border states(Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri).

What we're positing here is a scenario in which the North has no interest in retaining slavery as a tool of domestic unity.

The problem is, this, in all likelihood, is a scenario in which British abolitionism has been stunted to at least some degree, with the loss of the Patriots in the Revolutionary War. (And, as I mentioned earlier, the problem that an attack on slavery *could* potentially be seen as an attack on fellow subjects of the Crown)

Here's my previously-posted rationale as to why the 1830s remains a likely point for moves towards emancipation:

There are a few problems with this assumption-mainly, you still haven't taken into account the fact that British abolitionism was actually greatly helped by the loss of the Thirteen Colonies. But, also, this seems to assume that Britain would still have direct control over the Colonies, and that they would have no representation, by 1830.

Under any circumstances where Americans are prevented from imposing restrictive tariffs, on a level playing field with Britain industrial development in the South does not have a bright future.

Which *may* happen. But again, it could go either way.

Yes, the two have very little to do with each other, abolition was a general Enlightenment trend. I think there was a little bit of friction between the US and Britain that spurred rivalry to appear better than the other, but this was only present in the US in the north.

Also quite true.

I agree with you that in a scenario with no American Revolution, where the 1760 status quo just sort of drifts on forever, the northern colonies have no reason to band together with the southern ones, and their differing economic systems and positions on slavery will eventually drive them apart. Without a US in the first place, the North will not care.

You may be right on that, but it will also likely go the other way for a while as well.

I do still think an imperial abolition date in the 1830s is overly optimistic though.

Probably so, sadly, at least without far-ranging PODs that work around the "failed Revolution" problem.

It's worth pointing out here that the British working classes weren't even being represented when abolition came. The Great Reform Act only allowed about 4% of the electorate vote (but in a non-distorted manner), and that electorate overwhelmingly voted to eliminate slavery. If the working classes were included, it would be even stronger.

Perhaps so, but would that necessarily be true with a failed Revolution? I'm not so sure.

I'll second that source request; I don't think there's any concrete numbers or percentages about the number of loyalists during the war.

Well, if you want a timely example, look at the South. Did Southern identity and nationalism decrease after the Civil War? No, more the opposite. And the colonies are across the ocean, making development of an American identity as opposed to a British one even more likely. And the trend in general was for the New World colonies to develop their own national identities and to rebel.

Also true.
 
My point was not that the political identities of the states would be the same, it most obviously would be different. My point was that I would expect that ITTL that the geographic areas that these states occupied would be much less likely to move as a bloc to "secession" as OTL. Obviously any areas in Louisiana that did not get sold/taken over by the British would not be involved, and IMHO the "upper south" would be much less likely to find common cause to rebel against Britain to save slavery, especially if compensation was forthcoming.

The political, economic, and military realities of a truncated "CSA" successfully rebelling against the UK, and the rest of the "USA" are such that one would have to be more than insane to try it.
 
And yet national identity in Canada didn't end up being an Ontario/British Columbia/Newfoundland identity, it became an overall Canadian identity. I agree that in this timeline there would be stronger regional and colony identities, but the more opposition there is to the British, the stronger of an American identity there will be. And it should start out pretty strong, they just lost a major rebellion. Now, if real cracks emerge later between North and South we might see a decline in any type of unity, but I think the separate American identity will still be developing.

There wasn't a united Canadian identity until after federation though. You really needed the political institutions to establish and maintain it. How Canadian did Newfoundland feel in the early 20th Century?

I think there would be an American identity that develops, but it will be a pretty soft background one, and it will cede further into the background as there's a debate about slavery before the passage of the abolition act. Someone from Jersey City will have a combined New Jersey/British/American/Yankee identity, with the first by far the strongest.
 
Robert M. Calhoon, "Loyalism and neutrality" in Jack P. Greene; J. R. Pole (2008). A Companion to the American Revolution. John Wiley & Sons. p. 235.

In general there was a 40-40-20 split between patriots, neutrals and loyalists.

Neutral is a shockingly horrible term for a group that would include a spectrum that stretched from people who were loyal to the king but unwilling to fight to the opposite, and everything possible in between.

Pretending like 60% of the North American colonial population was waiting, ready, and happy to be content little colonial (with the full, modern weight of that word) subjects to a distant government in which they had no say whatsoever is so utterly unrooted in any historical fact that it's almost shocking that you would think to believe that.

Almost mostly because of your use of the word 'hardliners' for the other 40%. Neatly betrays your priors.
 
Neutral is a shockingly horrible term for a group that would include a spectrum that stretched from people who were loyal to the king but unwilling to fight to the opposite, and everything possible in between.

Pretending like 60% of the North American colonial population was waiting, ready, and happy to be content little colonial (with the full, modern weight of that word) subjects to a distant government in which they had no say whatsoever is so utterly unrooted in any historical fact that it's almost shocking that you would think to believe that.

Almost mostly because of your use of the word 'hardliners' for the other 40%. Neatly betrays your priors.

Take it easy, now. As you say "neutrals" could run the gamut from being completely apolitical to being mildly sympathetic to the patriot cause to being mildly loyalist. It's really just a broad estimate anyway. His comment about "hardliners" was referring to my comment about hypothetical anti-British nationalists in this timeline, not to the 40% figure from his book.
 
There wasn't a united Canadian identity until after federation though. You really needed the political institutions to establish and maintain it. How Canadian did Newfoundland feel in the early 20th Century?

Fair enough, though I notice Canadians tend to date the beginning of "Canadian-ness" to the War of 1812.

I think there would be an American identity that develops, but it will be a pretty soft background one, and it will cede further into the background as there's a debate about slavery before the passage of the abolition act. Someone from Jersey City will have a combined New Jersey/British/American/Yankee identity, with the first by far the strongest.

There was already a soft background American identity before the war; not only would the war greatly exacerbate it, but it would naturally grow stronger as time went on. It just wouldn't be a mutually exclusive identity, like how "American" and "English" were not mutually exclusive before the revolution.
 
Only what I wrote is, in fact, backed up by history itself.

Who was this History Itself fellow and what sort of convincing arguments did he make and in what book?

Because if you're talking about actual history history, I'm pretty unconvinced it agrees with you, and fairly convinced that you need more solid links between the two events to even make an argument.
 
Neutral is a shockingly horrible term for a group that would include a spectrum that stretched from people who were loyal to the king but unwilling to fight to the opposite, and everything possible in between.

Pretending like 60% of the North American colonial population was waiting, ready, and happy to be content little colonial (with the full, modern weight of that word) subjects to a distant government in which they had no say whatsoever is so utterly unrooted in any historical fact that it's almost shocking that you would think to believe that.

Almost mostly because of your use of the word 'hardliners' for the other 40%. Neatly betrays your priors.

What complete nonsense. Neutral is widely used in the historical literature, and it simply reflects the fact that most people, for most of history, just want to keep their heads down in political disputes and keep their family safe. The revolutionaries simply were the hardliners, whether you like it or not. In the stamp act congress, the softliners were the dominant faction, but the hardliners won the debate as people like John Adams were persuaded the British were not willing to appreciate American concerns.

Oh, and it says absolutely nothing about my "priors". I have argued on this board several times how the American revolutionaries were completely justified in revolting and how most of the fault lay on the British side. The only person betraying priors here is you, with your sanctimonious line about loyalists and neutrals being "content little colonial subjects" with all the mockery you can muster.
 
There was already a soft background American identity before the war; not only would the war greatly exacerbate it, but it would naturally grow stronger as time went on. It just wouldn't be a mutually exclusive identity, like how "American" and "English" were not mutually exclusive before the revolution.

Yes, I agree with the first bit, but I'm sceptical about how much it will grow as time goes on. I could see the population from 1830 Boston identifying more with 1830 Liverpool than the plantations of the deep south. Certainly if slavery is not addressed, sectionalism will become as strong as in our timeline.

I'd love to hear you expand your thoughts that in a "imperial parliament plus devolution" scenario, slavery would be seen as definitely a domestic issue, as I think it's a major area of disagreement that I'm open to persuasion on.
 
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Who was this History Itself fellow and what sort of convincing arguments did he make and in what book?

Because if you're talking about actual history history, I'm pretty unconvinced it agrees with you, and fairly convinced that you need more solid links between the two events to even make an argument.

No one work in particular, but I've done research from various sources over the years; whatever evidence does exist out there tells us that British abolitionism experienced at least a significant, if not *major* boost, after London lost the Colonies. BTW, I don't deny that there were some other factors involved, as well, but that definitely provided a major push, and that can't be ignored.
 
I'd love to hear you expand your thoughts that in a "imperial parliament plus devolution" scenario, slavery would be seen as definitely a domestic issue, as I think it's a major area of disagreement that I'm open to persuasion on.

Oh no, sorry, I got a little confused as to what scenario you were talking about in some of the earlier discussion. I don't disagree with that at all, my only disagreement is with the likelihood of that "imperial parliament" scenario working.

How would an imperial parliament work? Just adding colonial MP's to the existing parliament? Adding a new parliament on top of the old one that decided imperial matters only?

I know that this sort of scheme was suggested later in the mid 19th century, but never seems to have been seriously considered.
 
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