User blog:Whipsnade/No USA?



The Quebec Act of 1774, formally known as the British North America (Quebec) Act 1774, was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain (citation 14 Geo. III c. 83) setting procedures of governance in the Province of Quebec. The Quebec Act, which was an attempt to organised the area taken from France, seemed to the colonists to be an unjustified attack on colonial freedom. Counter to OTL The province's territory was not expanded beyond the north shore Great Lakes (Ontario)  to take over part of the then Indian Reserve  and much  Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and parts of Minnesota. These lands form the separate colony of Charlotina, but the rest of the bill is as in OTL.

The British did yield when Edmund Burke introduced a motion to repeal all the Acts of Parliament the Americans objected to and the offical waive of any rights of Britain to tax for revenue. It passes, but only just. Parliament still voted to restrict all colonial trade to Britain and prevented them from using the Newfoundland fisheries, and to increase the size of the army and navy by 6,000 for a projected 5 years just to make sure that the Americans got the point. In February 1775, the British Prime Minister, Lord North, proposed not to impose taxes if the colonies themselves made "Some fixed contributions". This would safeguard the taxing rights of the colonies from future infringement while enabling them to contribute to maintenance of the empire. This proposal was reluctantly accepted by the Congress, but nevertheless was considered by Congress as an "insidious maneuver". The American people still felt upset with the British and the British people thought the Americans were mob of dopy troublemakers. Peace held atleast for a while and the OTL Vandallia territory becomes a new ATL colony. Maine is annexed to Canada after a while.

Thousands of OTL Iroquois and other Native Americans were expelled from New York and other states and resettled in Canada, along with Colonial Loyalists. A group of African-American Loyalists settled in Nova Scotia but emigrated again for Sierra Leone after facing discrimination there. Many Loyalists brought their slaves with them to Canada (mostly to areas that later became Ontario and New Brunswick) where slavery was legal. An imperial law in 1790 assured prospective immigrants to Canada that their slaves would remain their property. The OTL departure of so many royal officials, rich merchants and landed gentry destroyed the hierarchical networks that had dominated most of the colonies.

If the ATL USA did not rebel or stayed less anti-UK, they ATL never left the USA for Canada and elsewhere.