The names of American regiments the British Army raised if the 13 Colonies never successfully separated from Great Britain?

[Nick P]

I wonder about the inclusion of the Native American tribes into the British North American Army. If you can't beat them, get them to join us - as happened with the Ghurka in Nepal.
We could see units like the 37th Apache Scouts, 52nd Cheyenne Cavalry... or just a simple Indian Plains Regiment.

On another line of thought - there is bound to be a Pennsylvania Welsh, a Boston Irish or a New York Scottish regiment!

 

[Workable Goblin]

Has to go to Chancery. The colonies are established by Letters Patent so any dispute between the colonies is actually only resolvable by reference to the Chancery in the first instance (to the mid 19th century) because it relates to actions of the Crown in establishing the colony in the first place noone else can make a binding decision.

All this nattering about the details of the British legal system completely misses the point. It doesn't matter whether it's the Crown, the Parliament, the courts, Chancery, or the Devil Himself who is trying to run the affairs of a dozen and a half or so growing, economically active, and frequently interacting colonies a few weeks away by ship. It really does not matter one whit, not the slightest bit, who or what is trying to centralize everything in London. Just the attempt to do without any intermediate levels of administration between the colonies and the central government is going to lead to an increasing burden on the responsible organs to resolve American problems and address American affairs instead of spending time on British affairs and British interests, including those of the Empire as a whole.

This is simply not a state of affairs that can be sustained. London is going to want the colonies to come together and federalize into common administrations that can handle inter-colonial affairs without always needing to have London involved. This will include courts, of course, but there are many issues which are not problems for the courts or chancery which will almost inevitably become points of dispute between the different colonies. As I pointed out earlier, in the case of the Australian and Canadian confederations, significant issues included tariff levels (which require inter-colonial coordination because of the large amount of trade between the different colonies), common investment in and standardization of infrastructure such as long-distance railroads (in Australia this was connected to the gauge problem, in Canada to the construction of an all-Canadian transcontinental railroad), immigration policy (which, much like tariffs, needs to be coordinated due to the large amount of travel between different colonies), and similar legislative areas of interest. All of these are important. None of them are, in general, for courts of any type.

The fact that these will nominally be created by Parliament (or, to use the polite fiction you mention, the Crown) is...completely irrelevant. So was the Confederation of Canada. So was the Federation of Australia. But in practice these countries almost immediately became independent actors that only referenced a limited amount of policy to London, and instead reserved most for Ottawa or Canberra. That was, after all, the point.

 

[marathag]

. No man can be slave except by reason of positive law. Which fundamentally changes what happens with slavery in North America.

Nothing stopping Whitney's Cotton Gin happening in *BNA or whatever all the Loyalist Colonies are named.
That turned the 18thC failing institute of chattel Slavery profitable again in the 19th.

Great Britain was able to buy out the Slaveowners, as the Sugar Islands were no longer the moneymakers that had been in the 17thC.

On this ATL, there will be those inthe House of Lords with a lot of 'investments' in the Loyal Carolinas and Virginia. And will do their best to block the Treasury from funding emancipation

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

Nothing stopping Whitney's Cotton Gin happening in *BNA or whatever all the Loyalist Colonies are named.
That turned the 18thC failing institute of chattel Slavery profitable again in the 19th.

Great Britain was able to buy out the Slaveowners, as the Sugar Islands were no longer the moneymakers that had been in the 17thC.

On this ATL, there will be those inthe House of Lords with a lot of 'investments' in the Loyal Carolinas and Virginia. And will do their best to block the Treasury from funding emancipation

The monarch of the day would just ennoble enough abolitionists to outvote them if they blocked the Government's efforts to do what the voters want, and the voters did want slavery abolished.

 

[marathag]

The monarch of the day would just ennoble enough abolitionists to outvote them if they blocked the Government's efforts to do what the voters want, and the voters did want slavery abolished.

still a question of paying out. Will they go for a tax increase to do it?

Twenty million Pounds were paid in compensation to the UK Slave owners in 1833, doable since their GDP was 483 Million Pounds,
but this was still around 40% of the Treasury's annual budget. They had to get a loan for most of it, from the Rothschilds.

Average buyout was 52 Pounds Sterling per slave

There were 2 million *USA slaves in 1830

The amount to do the same including the slaves in the *USA was far greater.

Thats 194 Million Pounds in 1830, 216M for all the Empire, and this doesn't take into effect that the Slaves in the USA had far higher value than the ones in Guiana

There just wasn't the money to do a peaceful buyout. Not even the Rothschild Family had that much to loan

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

Well, Canada's regiments date back to the 1860s when the independent companies that made up the Canadian militia prior to then were consolidated along county lines. Some took on fancy names others just became "the [County] Regiment"/"Le Regiment du [County]". Additionally, Canadian artillery regiments are only numbered as they took the names of the CEF regiments (yes, the regiments of the Canadian militia were not used in WWI, the CEF was basically a completely separate army with its own, numbered, regiments) after WWI rather than keeping their pre-WWI regimental names.

Now the Dominion(s) of BNA aren't going to follow the Canadian trends exactly, but I just want to point out that remaining a British colony doesn't mean every regiment will have a really cool name.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

still a question of paying out. Will they go for a tax increase to do it?

Twenty million Pounds were paid in compensation to the UK Slave owners in 1833, doable since their GDP was 483 Million Pounds,
but this was still around 40% of the Treasury's annual budget. They had to get a loan for most of it, from the Rothschilds.

Average buyout was 52 Pounds Sterling per slave

There were 2 million *USA slaves in 1830

The amount to do the same including the slaves in the *USA was far greater.

Thats 194 Million Pounds in 1830, 216M for all the Empire, and this doesn't take into effect that the Slaves in the USA had far higher value than the ones in Guiana

There just wasn't the money to do a peaceful buyout. Not even the Rothschild Family had that much to loan

How many of those slaves would still be kept if the Government announced that in a year it would impose a £100 a head slave tax on the owners?

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

I wonder about the inclusion of the Native American tribes into the British North American Army. If you can't beat them, get them to join us - as happened with the Ghurka in Nepal.

But by the 1800s the First Nations peoples really weren't that hard to beat...

No, if anything is to result in native regiments, it will be a surviving Indian Reserve consolidating and reorganizing its forces.

 

[marathag]

How many of those slaves would still be kept if the Government announced that in a year it would impose a £100 a head slave tax on the owners?

Taxing to outright modify behavior hadn't really been done yet.
Don't forget HMG is also getting tax from those industries.
In the 1820's, the Sugar Islands had lost the moneymaking status, so regular tax revenues had also dropped, and the owners couldn't affor as many Rotten Boroughs as they had in the past.
With *BNA/*USA it will be even harder, even with reform efforts

 

[Insane Ranter]

I wonder about the inclusion of the Native American tribes into the British North American Army. If you can't beat them, get them to join us - as happened with the Ghurka in Nepal.
We could see units like the 37th Apache Scouts, 52nd Cheyenne Cavalry... or just a simple Indian Plains Regiment.

On another line of thought - there is bound to be a Pennsylvania Welsh, a Boston Irish or a New York Scottish regiment!

You will have to have Britain gaining the Lousiana Purchase and then Spanish/Mexican lands that are part of the US for the Plains Native Americas wouldn't you? Lots of butterflies in this.

I do agree the names sound cool!!

 

[Gannt the chartist]

All this nattering about the details of the British legal system completely misses the point. It doesn't matter whether it's the Crown, the Parliament, the courts, Chancery, or the Devil Himself who is trying to run the affairs of a dozen and a half or so growing, economically active, and frequently interacting colonies a few weeks away by ship. It really does not matter one whit, not the slightest bit, who or what is trying to centralize everything in London. Just the attempt to do without any intermediate levels of administration between the colonies and the central government is going to lead to an increasing burden on the responsible organs to resolve American problems and address American affairs instead of spending time on British affairs and British interests, including those of the Empire as a whole.

But it does, its the whole of the deal and the POD. The American colonies were growing active and interacting and self governing, as was Australia, India and NZ. Even the US constitution as originally enacted reserves all but the Powers of the Crown to the States. The Mansfield judgement I quoted points the way. You cant discriminate and the King ( parliament) cannot impose taxes without consent where there is responsible self government, Presumably there is in North America however the thing comes about. Noone wants to remove it, the Brits do want to have the final say as they did in Canada up to 1931. The Basic trade issue between the colonies is the same as the issue between the UK and Ireland or the Colonies. Thats the Navigation Acts which require trade to be carried on in UK vessels and allow UK tarrifs on their goods but not vice versa. But the Navigation Acts are almost dead and the Corn Laws do not exist, not are they likely to.

That's all resolvable - as it was between Canada and the US in the Elgin May treaty by having no tariffs at all. Maybe the Colonies will federate but its a process not a given. In the Federation of Austrialia its a process that lasts 20 odd years and has at various times NZ and NSW both not participating and these are much smaller less well astablished identities than any of the American Colonies are.

othing stopping Whitney's Cotton Gin happening in *BNA or whatever all the Loyalist Colonies are named.
That turned the 18thC failing institute of chattel Slavery profitable again in the 19th.

By which time it may not matter. The problem being that while slavery is profitable in the 19th century its not in the 18th in continental America. In the Caribbean colonies there was local Responsible Government with laws enacting slavery and to give a modern context Owning a medium sized Sugar Island is the equivalent of owning the Kuwaiti Oilfields, its big money. Tobacco and without the cotton gin cotton are not.

Mansfield in 1772 decodes that slavery is so Odious it cannot exist except by means of positive law. Now the American revolution takes the whole matter out of UK Jurisdiction but prior to that there had been several cases where slaves had petitioned for freedom but the petition although agreed had been rejected by Royal Governors. Which is confusing but having Parliament supreme means you have to go to the English Courts for a decision and it ends up with the Court of Kings Bench. ( Basically without clear parliamentary supremacy the pro US section ( which was also the abolitionist) would not take things further because to do so would void their claim that their courts were co equal with the English Courts, The Pro Slavery section was happy to leave it with the Governor, but fearful that Parliament would assert its supremacy and say that the Governor was merely the Kings agent and the King cant Act except with the Advice and Consent of Parliament which he has not sought so his purported denial of Assent is simply the opinion of one man with no power to do so.

So if a Colony has a law establishing slavery that's OK with Mansfield. But if it does not custom and practice of Slavery does not make it legal. But its also ok if the the colony wants to abolish slavery.

Which goes back to is Slavery Repugnant to the Laws of England. Which makes it a political question as to could you ever make slavery legal in England? or could Englishmen. ever be made slave?

Let me introduce you to the London Mob, singing Rule Britannia.

As the Century progresses things only get worse for the pro slavery faction. Not to say there wont be indentured labour and suchlike but the Slave trade Act in 1807 makes slave trading by Britons illegal everywhere ( so the Virginia planter may own slaves but cant buy or sell them and the 1811 act makes slave trading a felony. ). While the Gin makes cotton processing more viable its not until later that it becomes a major economic issue by which time the RN is storming slave castles with glee and abandon.

Also the major cotton producing areas are not British at the time They are French. So if they are acquired by Force of British Arms which is a certainty if the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars happen same situation arises. Slaves that exist there might remain slaves, unless they have already enlisted in the RN or British Army however the Provinces are incorporated its going to be on terms set by Parliament not the US congress or themselves.

 

[marathag]

Mansfield in 1772 decodes that slavery is so Odious it cannot exist except by means of positive law

There was a window for emancipation, where the income from sugar and tobacco were low, and before the cotton gin revitalized slavery.
Around time of the ARW, average price was under 35 Pounds Sterling in Virginia so far less than the payout of 1833, and only a half million in chains.
The longer the 'modern' Cotton industry develops, the more expensive it takes to end it- in the US case, a very expensive war.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

You will have to have Britain gaining the Lousiana Purchase and then Spanish/Mexican lands that are part of the US for the Plains Native Americas wouldn't you? Lots of butterflies in this.

I do agree the names sound cool!!

They'll take the Louisiana lands from the French during the Napoleonic Wars and when Mexico defaults on debts owed to London probably take much of the OTL US South West. Texas will probably end up being taken to stop Indian raids on British territory.