If you're an American, chances are you know enough about the Revolutionary War to know that — no duh — Britain lost ... But what would've become of "the land of the free and the home of the brave" if it hadn't?
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00:00If you're an American, chances are you know enough about the Revolutionary War to know that,
00:04no duh, Britain lost. But what would have become of the Land of the Free and the Home of the
00:09Brave if it hadn't? If the British had routed the rebels, chances are that practically everyone
00:14would have faced a backlash. Some British troops had already gained notoriety for committing what
00:19now would be deemed war crimes. Then there's the Third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,
00:23which forbids military troops from taking over private homes without the owner's consent,
00:27a reaction to the days of less conscientious British troops.
00:31Then, in 1780 Virginia, a Continental force that surrendered to British troops that were
00:35under the command of Colonel Bannister Tarleton was slaughtered, resulting in an estimated 113
00:40deaths and another 150 wounded. In response, fired-up colonists would cry,
00:45Tarleton's quarter, when attacking British soldiers, meaning that they would hold nothing
00:49back just as the British commander had done. To be fair, colonists also committed sometimes
00:53difficult-to-imagine crimes, including putting suspected loyalists through the painful ordeal
00:58of tarring and feathering. Given how violent on-the-ground actions got during the American
01:02Revolution, it's reasonable to suspect that some British troops might have committed a few more
01:06acts of vengeance against the failed rebels before they were reined in. This likely wouldn't have
01:10been restricted to members of the military, either, as sometimes violent conflicts between
01:14non-combatant loyalists and revolutionaries pepper accounts of war. George III alluded
01:19to punishment in his 1775 Proclamation of Rebellion, which acknowledged that the colonies
01:24were out of line and that its organizers were due to some vaguely defined, but nevertheless
01:28ominous, retribution. Previous insurrectionists who faced off against the crown lost their lives,
01:34like the Jacobite rebels who were beheaded on London's Tower Hill in 1746, or Jacobite
01:39leader Simon Fraser the next year. George Washington and his compatriots would surely
01:43have expected similar treatment.
01:45"...tried carefully, sir."
01:46It's not as if Washington himself was terribly merciful. He allowed the persecution of
01:51loyalists and ordered the execution by a firing squad of attempted deserter Ebenezer Leffingwell
01:56in his General Orders of September 22, 1776. Leffingwell was pardoned at the last minute,
02:01as noted in Washington's General Orders the next day, though the same orders state that,
02:06"...the next offenders shall suffer death without mercy."
02:09Perhaps most infamously, Washington ordered the October 1780 execution by a hanging of
02:13British Major John Andre, who had been caught in a spy plot to take the Continental position
02:18at West Point, New York. Though Washington never really gained a bloodthirsty reputation,
02:22it was clear that he believed war sometimes demanded the lives of those who caught on
02:26the wrong side. Yet, with a British victory, there would have been some room for hope.
02:30As historian Andrew Roberts told the BBC's History Extra, George III and his ministers
02:35may have gained legitimacy by showing mercy. With a more or less peaceful resolution to the war that
02:40might have left Washington with his head on his shoulders, and the American colonists with
02:44representation in Parliament, colonists could have been less liable to restart the revolution.
02:49By the time of the American Revolution, some Germans had moved to the colonies,
02:52including those in large settlements in Pennsylvania. During the war,
02:55more Germans arrived as Hessian mercenaries contracted by the British crown.
02:59Though hiring outside fighters was a common practice, it raised the ire of Thomas Jefferson,
03:03who wrote in the Declaration of Independence that George III, quote,
03:07"...is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of
03:11death, desolation, and tyranny." This was at least partially hyperbole,
03:15meant to paint Britain and its allies as vengeful wrongdoers. Real Hessian mercenaries engaged in
03:20bloody warfare, but they were also sometimes forced into service or were more interested
03:24in adventure and exploration. After the war, up to 6,000 stayed in North America,
03:29with some settling in pre-existing German communities. Some may have been attracted
03:33by American promises of land if they defected. A proclamation issued on April 29, 1778 claimed
03:39that Hessians who defected could expect to get 50 acres, while captains who brought 40 men with
03:43them could snag 800 acres and a starter set to farm animals. But what if the British had won
03:49the war? Perhaps Hessians would have been even more willing to settle in the colonies, where
03:53they were part of a victorious force and rich, arable lands beckoned to them. After all, it
03:57appears that few mercenaries took the Continental Army up on its defection-based offer.
04:02There was a reason Britain was so interested in its North American colonies. They produced
04:06valuable economic resources for the growing empire, such as tobacco and cotton. That cotton
04:11industry would later come in handy for the new nation and its shaky finances, as cotton kept
04:15the country's economic engines moving to the tune of more than 36 million pounds of the stuff by
04:19the early 19th century. It also made the end of slavery all the more unpalatable for those who
04:24profited from it. Compared to other colonies, and even the UK itself, colonial Americans were
04:29doing pretty well for themselves. They brought in about 14 pounds in annual income, compared to
04:34about 10 to 12 pounds in Britain. Yet that income was highly stratified, with many enslaved people
04:39paid nothing, while free white people could rake in 16 pounds. Moreover, despite what agitators
04:44may have said, colonial tax rates were remarkably low at 1 to 1.5 percent, compared to 5 to 7 percent
04:51back in Britain. However, that meant many colonists were left to complain about poorly funded services
04:55and lackluster infrastructure. If the relatively rich American colonies had been brought back into
05:00the fold, they would likely have remained a key part of the British economic engine.
05:04And if slavery's not wrong, nothing is.
05:07During the American Revolution, enslaved people were more likely to fight for the British than
05:11for the colonists. It's hard to blame them, as the British actively recruited Black people and
05:15promised them freedom, while Washington forbade Black soldiers from joining the Continental Army
05:20in 1775. Washington later changed his mind, but the damage was done, and few were willing to sign
05:26up. It didn't help that captured Black soldiers and civilians might be resold into slavery,
05:30a group that included people Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were set to abone.
05:34The American Revolution was spearheaded by wealthy, land-owning men who had an interest
05:38in keeping slavery going. But if the crown had prevailed, the slave-dense American South would
05:43have been less of an economic player in the larger churn of the British Empire.
05:46Britain would have had less to lose by abolishing slavery, meaning that Black
05:50Americans might have been freed long before the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation,
05:54or the first Juneteenth of 1865. However, some historians argue that the fervor of
05:59British abolitionism was motivated in part by the nasty slave-holding reputation of the U.S.
06:04Without the foil of American slavery, it's hard to tell if the anti-slavery
06:08work of British activists would have had the same fire.
06:10In our historical timeline, many Black people who joined the British and weren't recaptured
06:15fled for other countries, setting out for nearby Canada, which began the slow process
06:19of abolition in 1793, Jamaica, and Britain.
06:23What exactly does France have to do with the American Revolution? The truth is that the
06:27colonists' victory hinged on the participation of French fighters, as well as the nation's
06:30contribution of weapons, naval backup, and money. The French had long scuffled with the British,
06:36including the Seven Years' War, which left France smarting at their defeat.
06:39The news of victory at Saratoga is exactly what France's King Louis XVI wants to hear.
06:44He pledges his army, and more importantly, his navy.
06:48With no American Revolution, the French Revolution of 1787 to 1799 might not have
06:53happened. It's not that the earlier revolution was the sole inspiration for the conflict that
06:57roiled France, but there are some key commonalities. Both revolutions zeroed in on
07:02a king as a key figurehead of a highly unequal system, with taxes being a particular sticking
07:06point for revolutionaries. French rebels even directly took inspiration from the Declaration
07:11of Independence in writing 1789's Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.
07:16Many historians also argue that France's spending in the American Revolution directly contributed
07:20to debt and financial instability that so riled its population in the lead-up to the French
07:24Revolution. Yet, if the American Revolution had been a dud — at least as far as Washington and
07:30company were concerned — the French Revolution may have fizzled. If Britain had acted relatively
07:34quickly, then France may not have dumped a significant amount of money into the conflict.
07:38Perhaps its politicians may have also thought twice about undermining the growing British Empire,
07:43which had just proved victorious and ready to strike back against its enemies.
07:47The further out historians and other commentators get from the events of the 1770s and 1780s,
07:52the more speculative the effects of a British victory get. With so many connections and
07:56unpredictable actors, history can take some surprising turns. But if things remained more
08:01or less stable in the British Empire for another couple of centuries, one of the largest and most
08:05devastating conflicts in human history might not have happened.
08:08I don't think there was any feeling of fear. It was just that, you know, we were doing a job,
08:12and if it came, it came.
08:15Working under this kind of big assumption that Britain would have remained a large,
08:18powerful, and more or less united empire, historian Andrew Roberts told History Extra
08:23that such an entity might have staved off World War I. The idea is simple.
08:28Faced with a seriously mighty British Empire, German Emperor and Prussian King Willem II,
08:33more commonly known as Kaiser Willem, may have minded his own business and left off all the
08:37warmongering. In our timeline, Willem was a somewhat bellicose world leader who was often
08:42blamed for kicking off World War I. Even if this notoriously complex conflict isn't strictly the
08:47fault of one loudmouth man, it stands that other warmongers might have thought twice before kicking
08:51dirt onto Britain's America-funded shoes. Assuming Britain won the American Revolution
08:57and managed to maintain its form of government, we would find that our modern political landscape
09:01would be pretty humdrum, in a good way. In our modern world, constitutional monarchies
09:06tend to be some of the most stable governments on the planet. In part, that's because the electoral
09:11systems associated with these governments make parliaments more answerable to their constituents
09:15and less able to tinker in crafting coalitions without voter approval. This is a system that
09:20also appears to be less likely to fall under a charismatic demagogue's spell,
09:24though the danger of that remains in many governments. Representative democracy,
09:28meanwhile, can be plagued by obstructionism of the sort that leaves politicians in seemingly
09:32endless quagmires and voters complaining about how nothing ever seems to get done.
09:36While monarchs don't have much direct power anymore, a king or queen can have a meaningful,
09:41symbolic role and voice. Plus, they aren't trying to get re-elected every few years.
09:45It's not a given, but a monarch might have just kept things from growing too unstable
09:49in the generations after the fizzled American Revolution.
09:52Despite the relief that the British may have felt after successfully quelling a rebellion,
09:56they might have only kicked the can down the road. Look at all the other leave-takings that chipped
10:00away at the British Empire over the next few generations. Sure, places like Canada slowly
10:05and more or less peacefully stepped away and still nominally allowed the British monarch to be the
10:10head of state. Others, like India, had to break away from the yoke of long-term British rule with
10:14a dedicated independence movement led by activists such as Gandhi and other not-so-peaceful figures.
10:20Still, the fact remains that the British Empire's stranglehold is no more, and that
10:23with a centuries-long view of history in mind, an American Revolution of one sort or another may
10:28still have happened. Some note that the power imbalances between a relatively small island
10:32and growing colonies with large tracts of land made for an unsteady ruling relationship.
10:36Certainly, the British approach to levying taxes won the empire few admirers in the colonies.
10:41And given how far away the colonies were from the center of power, not to mention during a
10:45time when communication across the Atlantic included an agonizingly slow boat ride,
10:50one could argue that the colonies were already pretty independent to begin with.
10:53Perhaps the biggest surprise of a British win in the 1780s or earlier
10:57would be how little it changed in the long run.