britain lost the majority of its slave economy to the US, and when they did abolition they continued to utilize the US slave-produced materials. emancipation had lower costs to the british after US independence and emerging benefits (solidifying trade control in west africa and the carribbean).

i think it's pretty idealistic to imagine the same timetable if abolition had implicated a greater share of britain's economy in 1833. also they paid restitution to the slavers, Britain might not have even had the heap of cash to buy out 2 million more.

[–] CyborgMarx@hexbear.net 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

With executive power held firmly by Westminster, the Southern Veto wouldn't have held as much sway as it did during early US history; in fact, the American South would've likely remained a rebellious province and forced London into a hostile and combative relationship with it, likely damaging the economic prospects of the South in that timeline

Then we have to take into account the rapid industrialization of England itself, which would've mirrored the dynamic the American North had with the South, even if the South still developed into the cotton export powerhouse it was, that economic logic would still run against the imperial logic of forestalling slave revolts and advancing the industrial labor agenda

The inevitable French revolution and the inevitable slave revolts it would've triggered would still led to an explosion of abolitionist thinking in London, for the simple imperial reasons that slave revolts are expensive and the entire British Empire can't put all its eggs in a perpetually disloyal province, no matter how lucrative the commodity it exports

To say nothing of the legal precedents of Somerset and Dunmore that the Amercian abolitionists could've wielded like a bludgeon in the colonies

[–] Euergetes@hexbear.net 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Althistory quibbles

spoiler

there's a pretty big divergence between a TL where the independence war kicks off and dunmore does the decree, and one where the yankees are pacified in some other way. the latter (which i think is the neater counterfactual) also offsets the Revolution in France without the war debt. it was extremely difficult for the british to win the war as it was so the divergence for a counterfactual needs to predate hostilities a bit. no Quebec act, giving the entire ohio valley to Virginia, shit like that

But you make a mistake in identifying the Revolution as the catalyst to the heap of abolitionism in Britain, their abolitionist societies predated it and were very moderate. so they tried really hard to distance themselves from the Revolution, article I read recently talked about the 'radicals setting back' the abolitionist agenda for years. being seen to be associated with the Jacobins in the 1790s was extremely bad, and the Jacobins really highlighted it when they abolished slavery in 1794.

The big question which i allude to in the spoiler, is whether the integration of the 13 colonies to avoid independence gives the slavers authority and stakes in government or not. by bourgeois graft or formal sanction i think it's much more likely the planters would have grains in parliament and block the abolitionists better than the group from the Bahamas and Jamaica.

[–] CyborgMarx@hexbear.net 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

it was extremely difficult for the british to win the war

Nah, even a minor change in strategy after the capture of New York would've destroyed the Continental Army and led to a likely British victory, and after 1778 even a slight uptick in naval deployment would've forced the French out (that ridiculously narrow ass margin in the Chesapeake), the British were just being cheap

But you make a mistake in identifying the Revolution as the catalyst to the heap of abolitionism in Britain

That's not what I was saying; my point is slave revolts in the Caribbean served as a catalyst and supercharged abolitionism in Britain by giving abolition an imperial logic and elite social sanction (even if the elites were politically divided and Jacobins weren't popular in themselves); the fear of slave revolts served to sour British elites on slavery as an imperial enterprise

The French Revolution absolutely triggered slave revolts in the Caribbean, but the slave revolts themselves didn't create some grand upsurge of moralistic feeling; no, even better, it led to elite terror at the idea that slavery would generate more Jacobinistic radicalism, which in its own cynical way had a profound effect on the prospects of abolitionism everywhere

[–] Euergetes@hexbear.net 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Absolutely not. the Battle of Long Island, though it could have been concluded with that heap of a douchebag Washington on a tree, was in our TL an overwhelming British victory. you don't automatically win the war by pressing that more. They still needed to take Philly.

The congress was still active and frankly, sans Washington, they would have had a better command staff.

[–] CyborgMarx@hexbear.net 2 points 3 weeks ago

Focusing on taking useless cities and not pursuing the reeling Continental Army to its destruction is precisely why the British lost, they treated the war as a peer-to-peer conflict and naively believed taking the capitals would end the war

If the Continental Army had disintegrated, the blow to morale and legitimacy would've been absolute, and the colonial loyalists would've won the day politically, especially in the south

[–] Lurker123@hexbear.net 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You’re right that the last sentence of the first paragraph makes that claim (or rather a claim about it being abolished sooner rather than not at all). But I think that’s a bit of a non-sequitur. What’s relevant for the first two sentences (and the poster’s overall point) is the motivation of the revolutionaries, I.e. whether they perceived (irrespective of whether this perception was accurate or justified) slavery would be soon abolished such that a revolt was necessary to maintain slavery. The fact that Britain abolished slavery (in certain parts of its empire) so 60 years later is not super relevant to the underlying claim.

[–] CyborgMarx@hexbear.net 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It is relevant precisely because of the perception the settlers had of the British; regardless of when the British actually went thru with abolition, (in both timelines it's decades before the United States) what mattered was the hysterical "panic" that gripped the settlers when Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation was made

Just the mere whiff of abolition for some of the enslaved with a mountain of conditions and catches still sent the settlers into a murderous rage; if the British had won the war, that rage would not have dissipated, and that hostile relationship with London would've continued to act as a push factor for British elites and their tolerance of slavery, in that timeline, defeated disloyal and rebellious slave-owning settlers would've joined the real-world pressure of the British attempting to forestall slave revolts in their valuable Caribbean colonies. Which was the primary real-world reason Westminster pushed full abolition 60 years later

[–] Lurker123@hexbear.net 1 points 3 weeks ago

I feel like you’re arguing against somebody else here. I made no statements about counterfactual timelines or lord dunmore’s proclamation.

The “it” in question here is the British Empire’s abolishment of slavery (in certain territories) 60 years after the revolution. The fact that the British, in fact, abolished slavery at this point is irrelevant to the revolutionaries’ belief that they needed to rebel to preserve slavery, since they cannot see the future. If you want to argue that the revolutionaries were rebelling to preserve slavery and want to point to Lord Dunmore’s proclamation and general abolitionist sentiment among the British at the time, sure you can have that discussion, but it seems like it was meant for somebody else, since that’s not at all what I was talking about.