WI no religious dissenter colonies in America

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?
 
England/Britain will then have less of a manpower advantage over New France and there may be a stalemate in North America. Maybe New Netherland even survives.
 
No religious dissenter colonies probably means no Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, or Maryland. That leaves New Hampshire in New England, which may have too few colonists to succeed and could end up falling under the influence of the French to the north or the Dutch to the south. With lesser British colonization, there's a good chance that New York, New Jersey, and Delaware stay Dutch. British holdings on the North American continent could well be limited to Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia.
 
Probably, but would they not just go to a Catholic country (and/or its colonies)?

Well, Spain is full. I mean not literally, but they were running out of land for farmers and that is the basis of the economy. It's why the Spanish dumped lots of extra people in the New World. How about Germany? Well that's a geographical place not a country and most of them are fighting each other. France treats English Catholics like pawns in the rivalry with England. The New World seems better than most Catholic countries, especially France.

Now which Catholic colonies to go to? The Spanish ones are obvious, Cuba is nice and Barbados might be settled by Spain in TTL. If a business-minded man made a colony with a cash crop, they might gravitate there too if it's religiously free. Or a colony ship could be headed to the Carribean and end up somewhere north. If it is habitable and the crop yield is good, it will attract Catholics, going there on purpose this time.

What I'm saying is that if England isn't a nice place for Catholics, the substantial minority will pack up, a I bet 3/4 are headed to the new world. The question is where in the new world and who do they recognize as king.
 
IOTL, were there a lot of Catholic refugees from countries that turned Protestant? I don't know too much about that phenomenon.

3/4 going to the New World seems high. We have the OTL example of the Huguenots - some went to the English/Dutch colonies but most stayed in the European countries that gave them refuge.

Of those going to the Americas, places like Argentina could be attractive. Or perhaps they would settle North America, but not necessarily on behalf of England.
 
"The question is where in the new world and who do they recognize as king"

New England?

A timeline where the New England colonies are founded by Anglo-Catholics fleeing a hardcore Protestant England, while professing nominal loyalty to the English government, while the Puritans stayed home would be fascinating.
 
"The question is where in the new world and who do they recognize as king"

New England?

A timeline where the New England colonies are founded by Anglo-Catholics fleeing a hardcore Protestant England, while professing nominal loyalty to the English government, while the Puritans stayed home would be fascinating.

Why would they be loyal to the English government when they could have the support of Spain, Portugal or France, who supported the same Catholic faith?

IOTL the Puritans didn't really have a choice but to remain loyal to England.
 
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