I'm a little vague on my history, but since North America was the UK's first modern overseas colony at the time when the UK was challenging France and Spain for power, and the expansion and friction between those North American colonies played a major role in the changing the European balance of power, I'm thinking more would have been at stake had Spain and France had the run of North America, while the UK simply messed around in the backwaters of Australia.
Would English-speaking Canada have ever really gotten off the ground if the French had really built up Louisiana and maintained a stong presence?
Would Australia have been a successful second option? It doesn't boast the natural resources like the ones that the UK exploited in North America and the Caribbean to get rich and powerful, and without that strong base catapulting them into the realm of Big Dogs, would they have been able to go on to India and the Middle East and China, etc.? I know some Australian colonies were convict while others were free, but would Britons have flocked there in the 1600's and 1700's in their millions without as much farmland and trade opportunities as North America afforded them? Or would that lack of opportunity have driven them to other shores sooner or instead of, changing the entire history of the British Empire and the rise of English?
Or would they have never become Big Dogs at all, and merely contented themselves with some little corner of Africa that really added little to their international prestige? Would French and Spanish be preeminent today?
As far as the US goes, without its ties to the British, would it have followed the same course of history that it did? The UK was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, and a major trading partner, as well as a source of many important immigrants. Would a similar association with the Dutch have borne the same fruit? or would a nascent US have been swallowed up by more powerful colonies like New Spain and New France, never to be seen again? The major difference between the French and Spanish experiments in North America versus the British ones were that the French and Spanish simply never focused on sending people to live there -- they were content to send a few people to govern and control and preach, but less interested in emigrating en masse. The British, on the other hand, came in droves early on -- and possession is 9/10's of the law, as they say.
Would English-speaking Canada have ever really gotten off the ground if the French had really built up Louisiana and maintained a stong presence?
Would Australia have been a successful second option? It doesn't boast the natural resources like the ones that the UK exploited in North America and the Caribbean to get rich and powerful, and without that strong base catapulting them into the realm of Big Dogs, would they have been able to go on to India and the Middle East and China, etc.? I know some Australian colonies were convict while others were free, but would Britons have flocked there in the 1600's and 1700's in their millions without as much farmland and trade opportunities as North America afforded them? Or would that lack of opportunity have driven them to other shores sooner or instead of, changing the entire history of the British Empire and the rise of English?
Or would they have never become Big Dogs at all, and merely contented themselves with some little corner of Africa that really added little to their international prestige? Would French and Spanish be preeminent today?
As far as the US goes, without its ties to the British, would it have followed the same course of history that it did? The UK was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, and a major trading partner, as well as a source of many important immigrants. Would a similar association with the Dutch have borne the same fruit? or would a nascent US have been swallowed up by more powerful colonies like New Spain and New France, never to be seen again? The major difference between the French and Spanish experiments in North America versus the British ones were that the French and Spanish simply never focused on sending people to live there -- they were content to send a few people to govern and control and preach, but less interested in emigrating en masse. The British, on the other hand, came in droves early on -- and possession is 9/10's of the law, as they say.