United Kingdoms of Britain and North America

Gan

Banned
With a POD of 1492, arrive in the 21st century with a United Kingdoms consisting not only of Britain, but a large portion of North America as part of its' nation.

Bonus: This nation includes roughly OTL US up to the 13 colonies.

Extra Bonus: Includes OTL US as far as the Mississippi River.

Max Bonus: Includes OTL US to the Pacific(Alaska is not required).
 
I think it is relatively easy to keep the U.S. Colonies in the British Empire; simply have the British loose the Seven Years war and thus the French keep their North American holdings. I think with the risk of the French, the American colonies would stay tight with the motherland. The problem is keeping this alternate British America from developing in a similar way to the way Canada developed where it ultimately gains home rule and finally de facto independence.

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Bill
 
How about a Jamesian/Jacobean America? IIRC James II was intending to create a sort of dominion system where the fledgling states would be combined into larger entities... My memory is not what it was...

Beset Rearguards
Grey Wolf
 
As Bill says after a certain point America is going to have a larger population than the UK so any continued union between the two is going to lead to the former dominating the latter simply by weight of numbers, and any attempt to try and rig the system in their own favour by the UK is going to see the Americans break away in response. I think the best that you're going to get would be for the US, or more likely the different nations located where the modern US is, to develop something along the lines of Canada with it having self-government but still keeping the Monarch as Head of State and a Governor-General as representative of the Crown.

One option might be to retard the colonies self-governance and the ideas about government that grew out of them. The first colony in Virginia was originally set up via a joint stock company the Virginia Company of London which had been granted a royal charter in 1606 to create a settlement and was given the power to govern themselves which they passed on to the colony. Eighteen years later though the company went bust so the colony reverted back to the Crown and became a royal colony but the privilege of governing themselves wasn't revoked. There was a fair bit of discussion back in Britain over what to do about it since this was the first real British colony overseas, just because the company had allowed a local assembly didn't mean the Crown did. The debate went on some time with James I dying half way through it until eventually it ended up being left mostly as things were. The book I read described it as

The matter was debated at some length, but the course of events that followed is far from clear. Either from apathy, indecision, or deliberate purpose, or perhaps with the intention of meeting the strongly expressed wishes of the colony - for it is well known that the government of Charles I was favourably disposed toward the king's dominion of Virginia - the system of popular representation was allowed to continue, and the principle was firmly established - a principle of far-reaching importance in British colonisation - that a royal colony should be self-governing, and should have a governor and council appointed in England and a popular assembly chosen by the electors - freemen or freeholders - in America. Though self-government was in no sense democratic government, and though popular interest in law-making was never very keen during colonial times, nevertheless the very presence of a popular assembly in a royal British colony in America was a factor of tremendous consequence in the development of American political ideas.
So suppose Charles I decides to revoke the local assembly and have things run on a slightly more centralised basis via appointed governors? Now you certainly can't stop local government from developing altogether but it could be slowed down and potentially go in other directions. Over time the colonies develop more along the lines of Canada or Australia with the government back home making sure that the continent is split up between say Canada and five or six 'American' dominions of roughly equal size with the whole lot informally referred to as British North America.
 
As I think about it, there is one possibility that could possibly, just possibly lead to a somewhat closer result. In our timeline, something along those lines could have come to pass if the Portugese king had not returned to Portugal at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Now we can't use our Napoleonic wars to get that result because if the 13 colonies never rebelled the French Revolution either doesn't happen or happens very differently than it does in our timeline.

But lets assume that around the French come out ahead in the Seven Years war. Britain would probably end up in another war with them by the 1780s. This war ends up essentially a draw but bankrupts the French treasury ultimately leading to a French Revolution similar to ours. Now however, the wars of Revolution are not limited to Europe, but exported to America. Britain has to divert resources to protect her American subjects and the French Navy is somewhat more effective than it is in our timeline. The King relocates to America because it is seen as less vulnerable than Britain... Now, in this time line, Britain ultimately becomes the junior partner, but a union seems to be more likely to have been retained.

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Bill
 
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