The POD is that, during the American War of Independence, the Patriots lose the Battle of Saratoga in 1777. France decides not to intervene in the conflict, and by 1779 the British win. I say this because without French troops, funding, and equipment, the Patriots would have lost. Britain proceeds to pursue the leaders of the American Revolution in order to execute them for treason. I imagine that in this scenario, people like Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, etc would have tried to flee the colonies. Assuming that they are caught and executed, what would the reaction have been both in the colonies and overseas? The aforementioned people were very respected members of American society, and I think the image of hanging, drawing, and quartering them would not have sat well either in the colonies or with many people in Britain.
What Would Have Been the Reaction if Britain Had Executed the American Revolutionaries?
- Thread starter Amadeus
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Hanging, drawing, and quartering might be commuted to simple hanging. Britain at least had the death penalty for a lot of crimes in this period (I'm not sure about the American colonies), so executing the ringleaders of a rebellion probably wouldn't cause much outcry.
I guess one important question is exactly how many people are getting hanged here. Not like the Continental Congress members were the only people rebelling.
Do we have any other similar rebellions we can look at to get comparisons?
Looking at the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the captured people killed seems to be more in the 'a couple of dozen' camp, instead of the 'hundreds' amount. One interesting note-
'The Sheares brothers had been hanged, drawn and quartered in Dublin in July. Once confident that the rebellion had been contained, Cornwallis, and his Chief Secretary, Lord Castlereagh, resisted pressure from the Irish Parliament to proceed against the other directory leaders held as state prisoners.'
'Michael Dwyer negotiated his surrender in December 1803 on terms that permitted him, and all his party, to be transported to New South Wales, Australia, as unsentenced exiles'
Grey Wolf
Donor
If you look at the defeat of the Jacobites in 1746 then you see a few things
- prisoners are tried and found guilty before execution
- any foreign elements, if from a nation officially at war, are treated well as PoWs
- the rank and file who are not captured are not put on trial, but live under harsh suspicion
A defeated army (here, after Culloden) melts back to where it came from, with die-hards remaining in arms, hoping for foreign intervention or a new final gathering of an army. The ones who go home, are followed up by the British army. If weapons are found, the houses are burnt and the animals taken. If the British find evidence of collusion among petty landowners etc, then they also enact this policy.
In the Highlands this had a harsher effect than it would in the Americas, for Highlanders often relied on living animals for food (not just milk, eggs, but also blood), so depriving them of their animals was in effect starving them. There was also the clan loyalties, and how a leading clansman could keep dozens or even a hundred or so men in arms, even after a major defeat.
The fact that Bonnie Prince Charlie was not killed, but kept escaping capture whilst travelling around Scotland, before eventually the French (official allies) rescued him, served to make the British response the more concerted, because with him potentially able to rally the remnants of an army, and receive new weapons and monies from the French, the rebellion was not, for certain, dead after Culloden.
Well no one is really going to cry over a failed revolution. But for the USA this would be a disaster with the death of the most pro-democratic group and they created one of the most important documents in history, the American Constitution. Without this, the future revolution (sooner or later they will be independent) will not have this core to generate a well-functioning nation. This leads to several possibilities for the USA to behave like a Latin American republic, or to be a confederation of states. Not having a USA, but actually having several countries in North America, Etc.
It will be accepted in the colonies and in England. Revolutionaries die when they lose, that's how it works. Maybe someone will be sad but it won't generate a big enough commotion.
Grey Wolf
Donor
America could just be like Canada, a federal parliamentary state, with a figurehead absentee monarch who is represented by a Governor General. Nobody would say that Canada is not democratic
The 1798 Rising did see mass executions of hundreds of captured rebel PoWs or even those suspected of rebel sympathies across the island. Three to five hundred croppies were disarmed and massacred at Gibbet Rath in Kildare in May, 1798. After the surrender of Humbert’s Franco-Irish army at Ballinamuck in September, hundreds were summarily executed at Bully’s Acre. Following a number of battles, rebels and their commanders would be killed and in some cases (like at Carlow) they would be thrown in mass graves called Croppy Holes. Mass sweeps of the countryside by British regulars and loyalist militias also resulted in the killings of hundreds of suspected rebels. Most notably at Killala in the west and across County Wexford following the Battle of Vinegar Hill.
In terms of leaders, a minority were exiled or transported for colonial servitude, but the majority of the Rising’s leadership were executed by military tribunals. Wolfe Tone was to be hanged before his timely suicide, and his brother Matthew was hanged. John Henry Colclough and Henry Joy were hanged, and so was Bagenal Harvey after which his head was put on a spike outside the Wexford town courthouse. John Murphy had the same done to him, plus flogging and tarring. Henry Munro, Cornelius Grogan, Father Mogue Kearns, John Kelly of Killanne, Anthony Perry, Fathers John and Michael Murphy, etc were also all tried and executed for their involvement. Mostly the same treatment was meted out in the 1803 Rising, famously resulting in Robert Emmet’s hanging, drawing, and quartering.
So I’d say hundreds of rebels were executed, and certainly the majority of the rebellion’s leadership were executed upon capture rather than merely a dozen carefully selected examples.
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This is why glancing at a wiki page for two minutes is not research. Thanks for the actual fact check!
How much of this harshness would you say was based on racism, and would it apply in America?
This is a key point, though I'd say racism less so (Castlereagh was an Irishman that always remained in favour of Catholic emancipation IIRC).
The 1798 rising happened in a time of extreme fear about the Revolution, and when Britain was in a state of near total war against France. 1798 both threatened to spread the revolution, and actively tried to land a foreign army in the British isles. This is a circumstance so different to 1777 I really think the comparison is unhelpful.
Andrew Roberts in his recent George III biography says no one from the Continental Congress was getting hanged if the British won. And looking at the Howe brothers who'd been authorised to conduct a large part of the negotiations, I think I have to agree.
I don't want to be a spoil sport and kill the scenario though. Assuming George changes his mind in the wake of decisive victory and hangs the founding fathers, it'll no doubt provoke resentment in the colonies. I'm not convinced though that it makes them permanent martyrs or undermines British rule. The revolution has misfired dramatically, and I cant imagine it being seen as anything but a misguided war against the mother country, a line that will be actively promoted by Loyalists.
As to Britain, Patriot sympathisers like Burke and Fox will wail, but apart from that I can't see it altering public opinion, which was very supportive of the war. North will continue on for however long his eyesight remains.
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Funny thing about the American Revolution is the best outcome for France was a British victory. If Britain crushes the rebellion, it has to manage a continent with a substantially hostile population. Instead of a revenue producing asset, America is an expense in both money and manpower.
I think you summed up the general British reaction well. I would add that I think racism did play a role in the atrocities though. Not so much from men on high like Castlereagh who never officially sanctioned a lot of the dirtier tactics the regulars and yeoman militias used. More so by soldiers on the ground, whether they be conscripts from jolly old England or local Protestant landlords and artisans mustered up to defend the Ascendancy. It’s hard to argue that the brutality meted out on the rebels didn’t have a distinct disdain or hatred to it that was built through centuries of colonial policing in Ireland. Particularly atrocities done by the local yeomanry.
The atmosphere of public emergency created by the war with France engendered the appetite for harsh treatment, but I’d also say for the average soldier there was much more willingness to fight a dirty war against Catholic peasants than there was or would be against colonists in the Americas. That attitude played a role in the scale of violence we saw I think, even if it’s far from the whole story.
Unless Britain really bungles the post-rebellion settlement, I don't think the American colonies will be more hostile than the southern USA after the War Between the States.
Though a British victory might still be in France's best interests, since without the example of the Americans, there might not be a French Revolution, or if there is, it might be less extreme.
The survivors trek west into Tejas and take it over, forming the State of Jefferson
Given that they'll have to go through Indian territory and Louisiana, that's quite the long way to go.
They can just walk
Wilderness Walk
The Wilderness Walk was a mass migration of thousands of anti-British colonists from the Thirteen Colonies following their defeat in the North American Rebellion of 1775 - 1778. While a small number of anti-British colonists emigrated to France and Scandinavia, the majority chose to travel...
Regulators of North Carolina fled to Tennessee to set up a de facto independent country after their failed rebellion.
Black Boys in Pennsylvania got away with treason as well in the early 1770s.
Black Boys in Pennsylvania got away with treason as well in the early 1770s.