USA buys Rupert's Land.

Or, how about a corporate takeover of the company by its American colonial investors in the 1770's and then siding w/the rebellion.
 
Or, how about a corporate takeover of the company by its American colonial investors in the 1770's and then siding w/the rebellion.

How exactly did corporate takeovers work in the 18th century. . . I find it a little hard to believe it would function this way.
 
How exactly did corporate takeovers work in the 18th century. . . I find it a little hard to believe it would function this way.
There were stocks of ownership back then, you know. By the stocks for an iron-strong majority, and what do you know? Instant ownership.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
How exactly did corporate takeovers work in the 18th century. . . I find it a little hard to believe it would function this way.

It didn't really function that way until Jim Slater invented the hostile takeover in the 1960's. OTL this invention devastated the industries of first the UK, then the USA, liquidising factory capital and eventually moving it into inflation (while making the raiders very rich, except for Slater who ended up bankrupt due to HMG getting him for corruption).

However, that a digression. The point being, you can't simply buy the stock and claim ownership.
 
Aye. But one thing no one has cleared up was whether there were ever in informal talks about buying the land at all. Saying "we aren't in the mood to sell, but starting price moving up is 2 mill" is much different from "no, and go away you silly buggers."
 
This is kind of pedantic given the apparent infeasibility of the POD, but purchasing company land might have dramatically affected methods of settlement in the US. It might set a pattern different from that set in the Northwest Ordinance and the LA Purchase, whereby land was held in trust by the Federal government, adminsitered by territorial governments with some kind of legislature eventually, and destined to become a full state. Jefferson was originally not in favor of such an arrangement for Lousiniana itself; he thought they need a dictorial care-taker regime until white settlers could displace the Creoles. One of less enlightened moments, unfortunately.

If the purchase of company land went through by the purchase of the Hudson Bay comany itself, might the US begin using colonial settlement companies to settle andadminsiter western lands?
 

Krall

Banned
Another thing, who would Russia sell Alaska to? Would the US be able to work up the money to buy both? Would the UK want it? How about Mexico?
 
This is kind of pedantic given the apparent infeasibility of the POD, but purchasing company land might have dramatically affected methods of settlement in the US. It might set a pattern different from that set in the Northwest Ordinance and the LA Purchase, whereby land was held in trust by the Federal government, adminsitered by territorial governments with some kind of legislature eventually, and destined to become a full state. Jefferson was originally not in favor of such an arrangement for Lousiniana itself; he thought they need a dictorial care-taker regime until white settlers could displace the Creoles. One of less enlightened moments, unfortunately.

If the purchase of company land went through by the purchase of the Hudson Bay comany itself, might the US begin using colonial settlement companies to settle andadminsiter western lands?
Doubt it. Precedence is a very strong part of American political culture, and so it would likely be handled in the same way that all the other previous purchases had been done. And since this is after the Civil War, the need to compromise with slave states is over for awhile. The closest you'll get is for the government to take a few prominent settlements, and lay groundwork for them to be big settlement points. (Such as a railroad center, which would immediately make any place important.) Lower prices and such would also be possible.

Another thing, who would Russia sell Alaska to? Would the US be able to work up the money to buy both? Would the UK want it? How about Mexico?
Russia sold to the US to avoid it going to Canada, Mexico is bankrupt. While it's possible that it will (a) be bought by the US later or (b) seized by the UK in case of war, I like option (c) the cliched Czar-in-exile in Royalist Russian Alaska.
 
In Great Britain a large land transaction like that would have to be run buy the goverment first and Great Briatin would say no.
 
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