WI: No foreign aid in the American Revolution

I don't mind nitpicking :) But remember that there's ongoing immigration, mainly of adult males here. I believe there was something like a 3:2 male to female ratio in New England at least.
Interesting on the male to female ratio.

Well, nitpicking for nitpicking's own sake seemed like a waste of time when I have an actual question - where would anyone who is leaving (voluntarily) go?

Our best guide is that about 70,000 loyalists left, through a mixture of choice and harassment, but they were given land and other things in a safe area just over the border in New Brunswick. The Patriot population is slightly larger, but doesn't have anywhere safe to go really. The frontier is the most obvious place, but women will be resistent to that and I can't imagine the British wanting them able to found new states to attack them from inland.

At best, I can imagine 20,000-30,000 doing a Boer trek of sorts. Kentucky seems the most likely option, as the British can project power from the coasts and the Great Lakes.

Kentucky is frontier, I presume this is being considered.

Would it be possible for them to head even further west? That has all sorts of issues, obviously, and Louisiana is supposedly French territory - but that might actually be a plus in some senses.
 
Would it be possible for them to head even further west? That has all sorts of issues, obviously, and Louisiana is supposedly French territory - but that might actually be a plus in some senses.

Spanish at that time (unless things went different in the timeline). The authorities however might accept a large number of english colonists to counterblance the french ones who were agitating. On the other hand, republicans might make them nervous.
 
Spanish at that time (unless things went different in the timeline). The authorities however might accept a large number of english colonists to counterblance the french ones who were agitating. On the other hand, republicans might make them nervous.

My bad, Spanish, yes.

And yeah, could be interesting. And how much would those authorities be listened to? All sorts of interesting times ahead if people try it.
 
The issue is that a weakly governed frontier area would develop similar to how it did in OTL: it would attract all sorts of outlaws, profiteers, mercenaries and other dodgy types. That will mean the Spanish quickly will begin to see them as a problem group.

I can't see such a society lasting long between the British and the Spanish authorities.
 
I think it was Thande who said many British sympathized with the Colonials and wouldn't join the fight until the French and Spanish intervened.

How much aid did the Patriots receive pre-Saratoga? There's buying guns from the French and then there's getting guns for free.
 
My bad, Spanish, yes.

And yeah, could be interesting. And how much would those authorities be listened to? All sorts of interesting times ahead if people try it.

The closest model we have is the immigration of Americans into Texas, I guess. If that holds up, or is an approximation at least, then I'd say: The authorities would be listened to until the settlers felt strong enough to ignore them. However, those settlers wouldn't have the same sense of identity driving them. No American nation to look to, kicked out of English territory, definitely not French (until 1804). However, they would have a tradition of defying unwelcome authority.

How strong a force did the Spanish keep in Louisiana in those days? Did it amount to more than garrison troops?
 
Perhaps a few thousand of the leadership, but there are hundreds of thousands of patriots. It's going to barely make a dent. However, I imagine patriot loyalties will get divided once slavery emerges as an issue.

I was thinking about the leaders of the Patriots, severals entire thousands families, one or two in each village or small area, the most vocals, educated and respected leaders and partisans of the Revolution, enough to frighten everyone else...

Of course, around one thousand of the real leaders will have been hanged or sent to Australia for example...

The numbers of 30 - 70K are a good idea, around the same numbers as the Loyalists that left after the ARW OTL. Not enough to cripple /destabilize the economy or the societies of the colonies, and in the limits of what the British government is able to finance, because moving so much population will be costly.

If the british are able to deport around 50/60K of 2.5 to 3M americans, it represent the 2% of the population more active in the Revolution...

For the "Great Trek", I assume that the big Louisiana territory can become the home of these new americans republics, I don't know if the Spanish were able to control what was going in upper Mississippi/Missouri area...
 
Of course, around one thousand of the real leaders will have been hanged or sent to Australia for example...

Too early for australia, first fleet was in 1788 and it was only about 750 people which were accompanied by about 200 military personnel of various types. Even assuming the convicts of OTL stays in britain and the resources spent on them goes to the rebels, you would have added expenses since they would have to pick them up in North America first (instead of departing from the UK) and would need more soldiers to guard them (they tried to overthrow the government once afterall).
 
Too early for australia, first fleet was in 1788 and it was only about 750 people which were accompanied by about 200 military personnel of various types. Even assuming the convicts of OTL stays in britain and the resources spent on them goes to the rebels, you would have added expenses since they would have to pick them up in North America first (instead of departing from the UK) and would need more soldiers to guard them (they tried to overthrow the government once afterall).

If the American Revolution fell , I'm sure the British will maintain the Prison Ships in most americans ports during severals years and in 1788, the few survivors could be send to Australia.

Given that the King Georges III had declared americans rebels traitors in 1775, they were denied of the status of prisoner of war. If the Patriots are less successful in the fightings, they will take fewer British POW's and the British will have no fear of reprisals against their own men, so their treatment of the Americans POW's will be even worst that in OTL.

I learn about the infamous New York prisons ships during this summer on the french TV by watching some program about american history...

You can multiply at least by 2 or 3 the numbers of their victims...
 
The numbers of 30 - 70K are a good idea, around the same numbers as the Loyalists that left after the ARW OTL. Not enough to cripple /destabilize the economy or the societies of the colonies, and in the limits of what the British government is able to finance, because moving so much population will be costly.

Above 30,000 is way too much. As mentioned above, there are critical differences between the two groups. The first is that the loyalists have a safe society to move to, with protection of the crown. The second is that the loyalists were financed to move, which the British aren't going to do for the rebels. The third is that the loyalists know the British won't ever come back, while the patriots will likely expect another revolt in the future.

If these rebels leave, it's going to be mainly voluntary: because they have dreams of setting up a free utopia. But we need to face this is a minority because, in honesty, life under the British wasn't that bad. It's only going to be the real ideologues that go. The British are unlikely to pay for huge removals - the most they might do is confiscate land. There would likely be harassment from the local population, but the response to most people of this would probably to just tough it out, or move somewhere else in the colonies where their disloyalty isn't known.
 
If these rebels leave, it's going to be mainly voluntary: because they have dreams of setting up a free utopia. But we need to face this is a minority because, in honesty, life under the British wasn't that bad. It's only going to be the real ideologues that go. The British are unlikely to pay for huge removals - the most they might do is confiscate land. There would likely be harassment from the local population, but the response to most people of this would probably to just tough it out, or move somewhere else in the colonies where their disloyalty isn't known.

I was thinking about the Patriots, the British decided to deport, by force, as they do with the Acadians, as said in my first post.

If no foreign aid in the American Revolution = failure of the American Revolution then :

- the leaders of the Patriots are judged and executed, as Benjamin Franklin quoted it "Yes, we must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

- the British continue to treat the lower level prisoners as traitors and the prisons ships and others shitholes of this kind are used for more people and are responsible for more deaths,

- to prevent any new rebellion, the British can decide to deport by force severals thousands of Patriots and their families to some backward colonies were the Patriots will have difficulties to simply survive, so they will not care about rebellions. This deportation will also decapite the Patriots movement from his leaders, his more famous partisan, and it will bring fear in the rest of the population.
In this case, I took the fact that the British were able to help 70K Loyalists to settle elsewhere in the British Empire as a good example of how many the British can, with their logistics, moved in short term... So, if they moved by force 30 to 70K people, it is the maximum with the logistics, money and armed forces available to the British...

Then the Patriots who survived and want to escape the british persecutions will try to find a new place to live further in the West as the Boers do in South Africa... So the Patriots fearing for their lives will prefer to risk it on the west of the Frontier.

Of course, we can imagine a TL where after the failure of the Revoution, the British decided to hang some Patriots leaders and decided to pardon all the others...
 
The prison hulks weren't deliberately horrible punishments for traitors, they were an attempt at storing prisoners of war - I doubt they'd be used post-war.

What's the point?
 
I was thinking about the Patriots, the British decided to deport, by force, as they do with the Acadians, as said in my first post.

The Acadian expulsion was about 10,000. It's notable the British didn't do the same thing against the Canadians when that was conquered - the population was just too big. There's also a big difference between ethnic differences (which last), and political sympathies of Englishmen (who can be won over). We can compare similar situations to what happened in England after the Glorious Revolution. There certainly wasn't huge expulsions of Englishmen there.

the leaders of the Patriots are judged and executed, as Benjamin Franklin quoted it "Yes, we must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Highly likely.

the British continue to treat the lower level prisoners as traitors and the prisons ships and others shitholes of this kind are used for more people and are responsible for more deaths,

Unlikely for the reasons Elfwine says.

to prevent any new rebellion, the British can decide to deport by force severals thousands of Patriots and their families to some backward colonies were the Patriots will have difficulties to simply survive, so they will not care about rebellions. This deportation will also decapite the Patriots movement from his leaders, his more famous partisan, and it will bring fear in the rest of the population.

It's possible the worst agitators this will happen to, but certainly not in the numbers you say. The more I think about it, the more I think the maximum number is low. 20,000 is an absolute maximum, but on reflection, about 5-10,000 is probably most likely.

In this case, I took the fact that the British were able to help 70K Loyalists to settle elsewhere in the British Empire as a good example of how many the British can, with their logistics, moved in short term... So, if they moved by force 30 to 70K people, it is the maximum with the logistics, money and armed forces available to the British...

But the British didn't move the Loyalists - they simply provided for their accomodation once they reached Canada. The logistics of actually moving people is much more expensive. And spending a lot of money on long distant transport for traitors is expensive.

Then the Patriots who survived and want to escape the british persecutions will try to find a new place to live further in the West as the Boers do in South Africa... So the Patriots fearing for their lives will prefer to risk it on the west of the Frontier.

There's another big difference between the Patriots and the Boers though. The Boers were farming types, who moved to preserve their way of life. Most of the Patriots were urban people, living in cities like Boston. Changing to a rural, farming life on the frontier is not something easy to adapt to for cityfolk. Only the ideologically hardcore would try this - and I imagine most would stay and agitate for another rebellion, which may or may not happen.

Of course, we can imagine a TL where after the failure of the Revoution, the British decided to hang some Patriots leaders and decided to pardon all the others...

Somewhere in between is the most likely. Hang the leaders, imprison the worst agitators, possibly fine some others and pardon the rest.
 
The prison hulks weren't deliberately horrible punishments for traitors, they were an attempt at storing prisoners of war - I doubt they'd be used post-war.

What's the point?

US population during ARW was around 3M, and 10K patriots died in the prison hulks.

With a US population of 300M as today, it will represent a loss of 1M people...

For me, it was rather a horrible punishment in terms of losses of lives...

The prison hulks were also used in peacetime by the British when prisons lack of available places... For Wikipedia, the system lasted around 80 years after being accepted by the British Parliament in 1776 for 2 days.
 
US population during ARW was around 3M, and 10K patriots died in the prison hulks.

With a US population of 300M as today, it will represent a loss of 1M people...

For me, it was rather a horrible punishment in terms of losses of lives...

No more so than any other POW camp is a horrible punishment. Those things were hideous in the 18th century.

And two of the links on the wiki article are...

Untrustworthy would be a mild way to put it. The third doesn't seem to give us much - for instance: http://www.ageofnelson.org/MichaelPhillips/info.php?ref=5503#top.

Useful for what it does, but nothing much here.

The prison hulks were also used in peacetime by the British when prisons lack of available places... For Wikipedia, the system lasted around 80 years after being accepted by the British Parliament in 1776 for 2 days.

See above comments on why I'm leery about that wiki article, given what it points to as if its credible.

And I'm not sure why the British would want to keep thousands of prisoners post war.
 
No more so than any other POW camp is a horrible punishment. Those things were hideous in the 18th century.

This why generally the fighting sides gave parole to their POW's or kept them on semi-liberty status by "lending" to private people who in exchange for their work give them food and lodging...
 
This why generally the fighting sides gave parole to their POW's or kept them on semi-liberty status by "lending" to private people who in exchange for their work give them food and lodging...

Never heard of that custom (underlined).
 
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