What if the Puritan and similar colonies in New England didn't happen?
There is a huge range of PODs for this, and each one could play out differently. Here are some I can think of quickly:
1. The Church of England remains hard core Protestant enough that there is no need for hardcore Protestants to emigrate. This would mean by definition that all English colonies would be Puritan.
2. The religious disputes in England play out as in IOTL, but the dissenters are perfectly happy to emigrate to the Netherlands and the Caribbean for whatever reason and don't try to start anything in NEw England, or do and fail early. This is probably the simplest POD.
3. The English government follows the same policies as the Catholic powers and strictly controls who can emigrate to the Americas, and is able to block the Puritan colonies. That leaves open what happens during the Protectorate, but lets say that Cromwell prefers to encourage colonization in the Caribbean, and post-restoration governments continue to keep dissenters away from the mainland.
I suspect any of these are plausible, so what are the effects of the USA or does the USA even happen?
There is a huge range of PODs for this, and each one could play out differently. Here are some I can think of quickly:
1. The Church of England remains hard core Protestant enough that there is no need for hardcore Protestants to emigrate. This would mean by definition that all English colonies would be Puritan.
2. The religious disputes in England play out as in IOTL, but the dissenters are perfectly happy to emigrate to the Netherlands and the Caribbean for whatever reason and don't try to start anything in NEw England, or do and fail early. This is probably the simplest POD.
3. The English government follows the same policies as the Catholic powers and strictly controls who can emigrate to the Americas, and is able to block the Puritan colonies. That leaves open what happens during the Protectorate, but lets say that Cromwell prefers to encourage colonization in the Caribbean, and post-restoration governments continue to keep dissenters away from the mainland.
I suspect any of these are plausible, so what are the effects of the USA or does the USA even happen?