What would America be like if we hadn't given it back?

Question

Due to domestic problems a while back, we had to hand America over to some colonists, but what shape would it be in if we hadn't?

My own feelings are it would be more like Australia is today and we probably wouldn't have had as many wars, what do you think it would look like?

Im a Brit and this answer below in quotes is the best so far. For so many reasons, it answers everything...LOL You can't buy good comedy like that...

"IT WOULD BE THE MOST RETARTED COUNTRY FULL OF BRITS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!... GO AMERICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Answer 1

Let's say you didn't need to regret the founding of America, because it had never been founded. How different might our lives look? We would not be listening to George Bush's fluent Texan. We would never have had the benefit of Donald Rumsfeld one-liners or clogged our arteries on a Big Mac.

But what music would we be listening to on our iPods? Would it be German marching songs or Russian ballads? Would we even have an iPod?

Yes, the beloved iPod was designed by a British citizen, Jonathan Ive, a son of Chingford, Essex. But would his design have changed the world of music if it hadn't been for Apple, an American company, based in Cupertino, California
So much for iPods... what about ideas? How different would the world be without the Bill of Rights? What about Thomas Jefferson?

The Declaration of Independence was the quintessential treatise of self-determination. If America had never been founded it would have remained unwritten. And who can imagine life without the Dumb Waiter, another Jefferson innovation?

The list goes on and on (and I apologise for any omissions): Thomas Edison, who had 1,093 patents for inventions in his name; Henry Ford; the Wright brothers; Bill Gates; the Boeing corporation; Desperate Housewives; The Sopranos and, of course, SpongeBob SquarePants.

The television was invented over decades by a German, a Brit and a Russian but their ideas all came together in the middle of Middle America.

The United States created an environment in which inventive minds had access to easy credit, a willing market and the freedom to dream and create without fear of prosecution or recrimination.

As the writer and poet John Ciardi put it: "The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself"!
we regret the founding of the US we regret a thoroughly European creation. If George III hadn't been as mad as a hatter, if the Redcoats had been more in touch with the feelings of His Majesty's subjects in the colonies, the English colony of Jamestown might never have given way to Yorktown, where 174 years later the English crown was finally defeated in the War of Independence.
To be against the founding of America is not to be original but to continue a long line of misguided bigots who always resented the birth of the US. In the late 18th Century, the eminent Dutch scientist Cornelius De Pauw wrote that everything from America was "either degenerate or monstrous". He was considered the foremost expert on the New World of his time and, like many critics of America, he never went there once.

Then there's the Oscar Wilde quip, plagiarised by former French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau: "America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilisation". Anti-Americanism is as old as America and it continues to miss the point.

America did not come from nowhere. It was an offspring of Europe, the step-child of a corrupt, moribund post-feudal system. America encapsulated the principles of the Enlightenment - Liberty, Equality, Fraternity - wrapped them in the pursuit of happiness, underpinned them with an inalienable right and turned an IDEA into a country.

It took the missteps of the French and the English revolutions and it made them work.

Yes, there were terrible mistakes - the gross hypocrisy of slavery, segregation and McCarthyism, to name a few. But America found and keeps finding the solutions to its mistakes. It is a giant, rolling social experiment in constant pursuit of self-correction. As Bill Clinton once said: "There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America."

In America the idea was ragged, rough and imperfect but it kept growing, it kept evolving and, if this isn't a vote of confidence, it kept attracting people, millions of them - Dutch pilgrims, Russian Jews, persecuted Egyptians, hungry Mexicans, uprooted Kurds, homeless Armenians, unloved and underpaid British film stars, now luxuriating in Hollywood. Ask them if they regret the founding of America!

The US is a nation built not on ethnicity, not on religion, not even on history but on an idea.

Not only does this make America different, I would argue it also makes it ideally suited for the 21st Century. We live in a globalised world in which national boundaries are less and less relevant and the citizenship of ideas is more and more defining.

Al-Qaeda also strives for a world without borders, a trans-national entity based on ideas, which a majority of Muslims find as unpalatable as we do. So, ask yourself and be honest: where would you rather live - the Caliphate or California?

We Europeans created America and to regret this is to engage in a colossal act of self-denial verging on self-mutilation. We have a stake in its survival and its success and we ought to nurture it, not bring it to its knees or delight in its misfortunes. We can criticise its leaders without regretting its existence.

The reality of America may be vexing, frustrating, infuriating and puzzling but its promise is no less real and, given the right voice, should be no less inspiring.

Guantanamo Bay, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and yes, so many aspects of the war in Iraq, were big mistakes. But these are aspects of current foreign policy, not part of the nation's DNA. They are lamented as much inside the US as outside. And that too speaks for America!

To quote the Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington: "America is not a lie; it is a disappointment." But what is worse than being disappointed? It is not even to know what you're missing.



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Answer 2

The answer to this question will sound like I'm reinventing the wheel because two alternative history sites have already covered this topic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_in_For_Want_of_Nail

http://althistorywikia.com/wiki?Commonwealth_of_America

Much of what happens in alternative American history actually stays the same:

---Anglo-Americans eventually settle in the land area identified as part of the Louisiana Purchase (1802).

---Anglo-settlers in Texas win their independence from Mexico, and Anglo-Americans eventually control the entire Continent.

Why? The Doctrine of "Manifest Destiny": Anglo-settlers believed they were fore-ordained to settle the entire North American continent, a process that had begun by the time of the American Revolutionary War since settlers were already spilling into Kentucky. This idea stems, in large part, from the theory that a country's geography influences its history and culture.

Case in point: When I took my two college-level survey courses in English history, the first lesson I learned was that geography is destiny. In other words, the British Isles developed the way they did because the English Channel separates England from the Continent, and the Gulf Stream ensures that the island has a Maritime climate. Similarly, the United States, in large part, developed as it did because two oceans separated the land mass from any invading armies, and the country is, for the most part, also located in a temperate climate zone.

However, given the development of other British territories, historians can also make educated guesses on what might have happened if the colonies had lost the revolutionary war:

---Since Canada becomes a sovereign nation later than the United States does (1867), it is reasonable to assume that the American colonies eventually would be given their own independence much later as well.

---Because the British Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, it is also logical to conclude that the slavery question in America would have been settled without a civil war.

---Since the Ulster-Irish* numbered among many of those who backed the Revolution (and in most cases were either first- or second-generation colonists), many of them might have been transported to Australia. Australia was primarily populated by English inhabitants (with a few exceptions), so an alternative Australia, not an alternative America, might have ended up as the more ethnically more diverse British settlement. [Of course, Australia has become more ethically-diverse since World War II.]

---
*British term for the American "Scotch-Irish": Presbyterian Scots who moved to Northern Ireland in the 17th century. Beginning around 1750, at least 1/3 of the population of Protestant Northern Ireland moved to the American colonies.

Answer 3

Looking at it from a purely historical view, and not a patriotic view, if the United States of America had lost the Revolutionary War, there is a good chance that a lot of wars would not have been fought against the British Empire. Many of their smaller territories would have seen the example that the Americans were the most powerful colony of Britain and would assume that because the Americans couldn't win, neither could they. This wouldn't have prevented the majority of other wars and might even have created new ones in the fight to gain territory in the Western Hemisphere. The only war that would have been directly averted would have been the War of 1812.

Answer 4

As far as I know we never gave it back to the Native Americans and they are still 2nd class citizens in their own country.
The world would have been different if Europe had stayed at home but they didn't and no-one can say what it would be like!
Perhaps it would still be the wild Beautiful Country it was, after all most of it's people didn't see any need to build large permanent settlements.
America was colonized by virtually every European Country! It was those who won the fight for Independence from British rule, and perhaps if George hadn't been 'The Mad King' it would be another Canada or Australia now, but due to it's size it would still be strongly influential in World Affairs!

Sorry but like it or not we are stuck with what 'History' gives us!
Sooner we become the United Countries of Earth the sooner all 'Racism' will end!!!

Answer 5

"Gave" it back. You make it sound like you had a choice in the matter. The United States was formed after a long war of independence. You didn't give it to them, they took it away from you. I can understand your bitterness, after all having one of your former colonies grow to completely eclipse your power is a humbling experience. But the last time I checked jolly old England was not exactly the model of civilized effiency and cooperation. All the troubles in Ireland in the 19th and 20th century, the centuries long effort of Scotland to regain independence. Every colony you possessed in foreign lands becoming an independent nation. An upstart South American nation seizing one of you last distant holdings, and very nearly keeping it despite your determined efforts to get it back.

But yes, things would have been different if you had not lost the US war of independence. I'm sure things in the area would be considerably worse. As for there being less wars, I really doubt it. Although it's quite possible that the Central Powers would have won World War One. And if not, it's a near certainty that the Axis would have won World War Two. Without the US as the industrial power house that it was, that war would not have been winnable. And under British rule, it never would have had the immigration or capital investment that it had as an independent nation.

Long live the Queen.

Answer 6

In all seriousness (and in no particular order):

1. We probably would not have made the Louisiana Purchase and remained on the eastern seaboard as a nation, with France swallowing the middle, and Spain taking the west coast.

2. We'd eat Heinz baked beans for breakfast (OK, not so serious).

3. The UK would be larger, maybe just enough that with the prospects of fighting other European countries, Germany might have changed its plans.

4. Ummmm......I think I'm about done right now. Fun question though!

Answer 7

Sorry, but America will eventually rebel constantly against England. Manifest Destiny was too much part of our culture. And has stayed with us even till now. Say we did lose in 1779, and were still Brits. We'll rebel again in 1812, which we somewhat did. Heck when the brits stopped us from passing the mtn ranges, we went to war anyways.

World War I, when the Brits and France fall to Germany, America wouldn't be there, so once again we'll see our chance to rebel.

World War II, another opportunity and this time America won't be able to save Great Britain from Hitler. Face it, the mother country WILL NOT have a colony have a better military than it. So America's military will be crappy, and you all be learning German.

Answer 8

If America was still part of the kingdom, we would still have problems. Great Britain is involved with wars for money and expanding the notions of goodness and freedom.

America would be just as messed up if GB was in control.

Answer 9

I think it would be more like Canada, in terms of customs and traditions.
In terms of wars that is difficult to say.
The manpower of the US (colony) would have entered WW I from day 1, so if may have ended that war earlier.
The same would apply to WW II.
Korea would be the same.
Vietnam may or may not have happened.
Other interventions are debatable, if it was still relevant to the US (colony) they may still have occurred.

Answer 10

i didnt know we ever took america.
we were half way there and there was a line drawn ordered by the king....sort of running north to south, but not down the middle....more the east side.....

and if we had taken it we would have made just as much a **** up as we did with the rest of the colonies.

Answer 11

Hmmmmmm, I think you need to read a bit more from different sources about both British and American History.
You haven't stated where you're from, even.