The question of Slavery in a world without the ARW

I've been wondering if the thirteen colonies had never secede how it would affect the question of slavery in the british empire could it help faster abolition or could it slow it down or have minor effect?

What are your thoughts on the matter? I'm not sure I'm knowledgeable enough to give a proper opinion.
 

Dirk_Pitt

Banned
The British Empire would mostly likely abolish Slavery mostly as per OTL and the southern portion of the Thirteen colonies(or it's expanded version) would revolt. Britain crushes it.
 
The British Empire would mostly likely abolish Slavery mostly as per OTL and the southern portion of the Thirteen colonies(or it's expanded version) would revolt. Britain crushes it.

But the southern colonies would be able to assist the pro-slavery lobby, with money if not with votes.

The OTL abolition fight would get more difficult.
 
But the southern colonies would be able to assist the pro-slavery lobby, with money if not with votes.

The OTL abolition fight would get more difficult.

I think its possible that the UK has more reason/pressure to keep slavery around with the U.S states, but I think their of Southern colonies in the propose scenario is a bit difficult to weight.

One issue that comes to mind that affect how the debate would go is that western developement is now much different and probably in different hands than they were OTL and keeping a balance between South and North probably something that can't quite emerge
 
I think its possible that the UK has more reason/pressure to keep slavery around with the U.S states, but I think their of Southern colonies in the propose scenario is a bit difficult to weight.

One issue that comes to mind that affect how the debate would go is that western developement is now much different and probably in different hands than they were OTL and keeping a balance between South and North probably something that can't quite emerge

Fair point. If the Proclamation of 1763 stands, there's no "Black Belt" and thus no "King Cotton."
 
In the 13 Colonies they actually tried.

Of course, it might not last and then we could get "King Cotton" anyway.

People never seem to note that:

1) The Proclamation line was amended several times before the Revolution;

2) It was passed to put a check on the colonists. Unless it goes, they'll just rise up again, except there will be more of them and they'll be pissed off.
 
My position on this is the same as two years ago; to quote from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture:kissingheart:

Like its American counterpart, the British [abolitionist] movement had emerged in the years immediately following the American Revolution. The timing was again significant. The Revolution galvanized political debate in Britain, at the same time giving slavery (disfranchisement) an immediate significance by linking it to the political condition of thousand of native-born Britons. But the Revolution also had a more far-reaching effect.

Defeat in the American war brought with it a searching and sometimes painful reevaluation of Britain’s standing as a once victorious Protestant nation. One result of the loss of the American colonies was a move to tighten the reins of empire elsewhere, notably in Canada, Ireland, and the British Caribbean. Another, however, was a rise in enthusiasm for political and religious reform, for virtually anything, in fact, that might prevent a similar humiliation in the future.

The loss of the American colonies forced Britons to think about themselves and about their failings. Naturally enough, slavery and the slave trade also came under the microscope, leading some Britons to contemplate alternative visions of empire, including, significantly, an empire without slavery. If the debate was rarely framed in these precise terms, we should not underestimate the impact of the American Revolution and imperial crisis on British political thought.

Seen in this light, the abolition of the slave trade was inextricably linked with the character, virtue, and destiny of the British nation, at least until the rising tide of revolutionary violence in France shifted the terms of debate yet again. The American Revolution also had a vital impact on British abolitionism because it effectively divided British America, at the same time halving the number of slaves in the British Empire. Abolitionists were well aware of the importance of these events. "As long as America was ours," wrote abolitionist Thomas Clarkson in 1788, "there was no chance that a minister would have attended to the groans of the sons and daughters of Africa, however he might feel for their distress."

War — or, more precisely, defeat — created a climate in which abolitionism could take root...

*website quoted currently not up
 
I've been wondering if the thirteen colonies had never secede how it would affect the question of slavery in the british empire could it help faster abolition or could it slow it down or have minor effect?

What are your thoughts on the matter? I'm not sure I'm knowledgeable enough to give a proper opinion.

Well, one does have to realize that slavery wasn't exactly unpopular amongst Britons in general until after the Revolution, and it was the Quakers who helped start the abolition movement.

Now, granted, the Brits probably could abolish slavery in the West Indies at some point, no problem, but the situation in the Colonies in N. America is gonna be a bit complicated: On one hand, most of the Northern colonies were against slavery, mainly for ideological reasons; on the other, the Southern colonies were largely pro-slavery, in part because it was profitable there.

I think there's two general possibilities of where this could go: As far as I can recall, "The Course of Human Events" had slavery done away with in the 1840s.....or, alternatively, you could go down the DoD route and have slavery come to not only totally dominate the *South, but perhaps have inroads in other areas, too, and potentially lasting until sometime in the 20th century.
 
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There were already settlers pouring into Transylvania/Kentucky, you would probably see the lands south of the Ohio river opened for settlement officially with the seperation of Vandalia at some point as well. I could see the Ohio lands also shortly opened to settlement with most of the rest of the Old Northwest staying as a Native preserve for a while.

Without expansion of the Cotton fields it will be difficult for the slaveholders to expand their powerbase. I think until that happens then gradual manumission will occur with complete abolition in the colonies by the later 1880s or so depending on technological progress and how far west Cotton goes. Also if the UK/British North America is expanded to include Louisiana (possibly wrested as a prize from the Napoleonic Wars), Florida (wrested from Spain during Napoleonic occupation), and other areas. Texas may still separate but without the example of the United States it might be crushed to make an example out of it or ironically become the first truly free nation (after Haiti?) in North America.
 

Cook

Banned
But the southern colonies would be able to assist the pro-slavery lobby, with money if not with votes.
The Caribbean Sugar plantations generated profits far exceeding anything a Virginia cotton planter could have ever have dreamed of making, they owned votes in Westminster and they still weren’t able to stave off abolition.
 
There were already settlers pouring into Transylvania/Kentucky, you would probably see the lands south of the Ohio river opened for settlement officially with the seperation of Vandalia at some point as well. I could see the Ohio lands also shortly opened to settlement with most of the rest of the Old Northwest staying as a Native preserve for a while.

Yea, Vandalia was what I was thinking of.
 
The Caribbean Sugar plantations generated profits far exceeding anything a Virginia cotton planter could have ever have dreamed of making, they owned votes in Westminster and they still weren’t able to stave off abolition.

The sugar barons got less influential over time. However, unlike the southern continental colonies would, OTL the Caribbean colonies had no power whatsoever to revolt from the motherland during the Abolition.

One thing that I think of lot of people are missing here is that the Imperial-13 Colonies relationship will have had to have changed drastically by the 1830s, or else things would have long since boiled to a head like they did OTL.

I wasn't aware of that. Could you elaborate?

Kentucky and most of West Virginia had already been ceded (forceably or by pressure from advancing settlers) from the Iroquois and Shawnee in 1768 and 1774. The Proclamation of 1763 prohibited purchase of Indian lands west of the Appalachians by private interests.
 
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