A History Teacher Reacts | "What if the United States Didn't Exist?" by Alternate History Hub

[Music] hey youtube welcome back to another history teacher reacts video and mr. Terry's I continue my search for historical knowledge found here on the Internet alright today's video comes from our awesome patrons over at patreon and they voted on this video for this week's poll which is what if the United States didn't exist by alternate history hub so we've done a few of these alternate history videos and they've been interesting and these these guys multi-story hub are kind of the kind of the big big boys at it which has been great and I've enjoyed all the videos I think this could be interesting because the United States such an impactful nation across the world and has been sober since its inception and looking at what it might look like if it didn't exist just off the top my head I'm not really quite sure where they're gonna take it so I think this could be really interesting to see what they kind of have here so we'll see what's going on and where they start if they just kind of start with I don't know I mean there's so many places you could start if you just start with explorers never come to the Americas you never gets early permanent colonies like Jamestown with the with the with the British or something like that or the United States does get founded but it still as a colony and the American Revolution ever takes place a lot of a lot of different ways I can start and I'm sure they'll they'll get into that right away so interested to see what they got here and Adney feelings of mine if I can there alright if you like the original video go down below links down there make sure you click it so I give them a view like subscribe all that kind of stuff and feel like what we're doing here I love to have you as a sub - alright let's go ahead and get started this is one of the countless scenarios that could have happened had history gone down a different path okay in the grand scheme of human history the United States of America is an incredibly new country from its culture and the scale of its military and economic might the US has been influential since its inception in the span of just two centuries it went from a dis unified band of colonies into the strongest power that has ever been seen even by its creation the United States drastically changed the course of history so as a thought exercise what if it didn't exist what if in an alternate timeline the United States of America never existed opens up a lot of questions doesn't it for this alternate timeline let's go back to the 1770s okay so we're gonna go back to what right before I guess the Revolution 1775 1775 the revolution breaks out or at least some of the fighting starts because the the the the causes go back much much further than that I mean I like to usually go back to the 1750s to the Seven Years War between Britain and France and then that really establishes and solidifies British dominance but a lot of different what like I said at beginning a lot of different ways that you could take this so okay so let's start here at before the Revolution the American Revolution as tension grew between the colonies and the British and this alternate scenario war begins the American rebels fight against the British regulars there were many numerous occasions the US could have been defeated all it's simply pressure was not having the aid of one foreign ally an ally who would love to get back at the British yes that's right the French okay I like this alternate scenario where you still have the Americans fighting but France never gets involved was such a huge help for America because the United States have a lot of people don't know the United or the colonies American colonies when actually very few battles in the American Revolution most were were failures right and one of the strategies for sure that helps the United States was just outlasting the British and the fact that the longer this war went on the more it helped the American cause specifically back in Britain because you get tiresome of the war and lose support of the war from your your population and that definitely happened by the end of the war the British public even was was not behind it very much anymore I didn't think it was really worth the time and it's hard to win nearly impossible to win a war without public support plus you remember too that that America is a small little piece of the French Empire or the sorry the British Empire and what Britain is doing globally there so having France get involved which was useful especially because the French they have French military the French had a Navy things the Americans really did not have in real professional capacity that much especially early on but the age of thinking about about France getting involved is France really has no purpose in and and really point of them really being a part of the American Revolution other than to sort of stick it to their old enemy would they'd lost to in seven years war and things like that but also remember too that a lot of this is gonna affect France in a way it's going to going to cost the French a lot of money to get involved in this and also some not the the French people didn't really support either and not long after the American Revolution the French Revolution starts there are some indirect consequences here so okay I see the take care America is gonna fight but the French aren't gonna help so America is gonna be on their own which is going to pretty much doom them which is very likely the scenario the French involvement in the American Revolution saved the rebellion and without it the militias surely would have lost and this wasn't a small contribution the French involvement met funding to rebels supplies guns men and ships particularly to distract the British naval fleet and France wanted revenge so badly they put themselves in massive debt just to and remember the French who are we talking about do you think some poor peasant in the countryside of France gives a single crap about France putting their their citizens on the line sail them out credible cost and risk their lives to go fight the British for a land that France no longer has influence over no we're talking about the French monarchy we're talking about the French government here because they are an absolute monarchy and that's how things run their that what they say is what goes so that's really I think of what we're talking about the Americans this would come back to haunt them later I'll talk about that soon say in this alternate scenario France is rebels actually responsible and realized they can't win a war without tanking their finances and the US has left out to dry after years of holding out against Native American British and German regulars it's just too much so the rebellion crumbles the British seize control and most of the Continental Congress goes into exile or are arrested perhaps negotiations occur between the two to make amends but this is hard to predict you know something because Ivan asked us before what if the United States you know failed there what would what would the United States end up being and when people say like well if America had fun because if America never had fought then the the the safe answer you could say of what would America be like is Canada right Canada doesn't have a revolution but a slowly given more autonomy and things like that United States would probably be like Canada but had America failed tried and failed with a revolution what does it look like I think it looks more like India India they tried this thing in the Sepoy Rebellion and ends up being a national revolt that's a story for another time but tried something kind of similar in a way and what adds up happening was they end it in the mid-nineteen 19th century and then Britain rules basically even harder right now one thing to contrast with though is that India is far more important as a as a colony than that America was more resource heavy and stuff like that so maybe a smaller scale version of what happened to India and becoming a to under direct rule in this alternate timeline the revolution is crushed and the experiment that was the United States of America is in the history books a failed rebellion over with the British Parliament it can't be left unsaid that there is still bitterness among a sizeable portion of the colonial population there's still this culture within the colonies that resent the loss while the war ends and a majority of our second colonists simply move on with their lives there's still a mentality similar to the South will rise again the relationship between virtue is forever changed the 13 colonies were already kinda different from the rest of the British realms now going into the 1790s in the 19th century it would be painted as the rogue colony which still has an independent tendency there are immediate changes that result from the u.s. not existing when the u.s. won the revolution in the Treaty of Paris it was given all of the land east of the Mississippi River in this alternate scenario the 13 colonies simply remain the 13 colonies this changes multiple things including the path of the British imperial ambitions and the politics of North America as a whole let's talk relationships in this alternate timeline the American colonists don't have the best relationship with their neighbors Catholic French Quebec is to the north and would be despised by the deeply Puritan colonists and the numerous Native Americans to the west would be an issue as well except for a few tribes but I'll discuss that later in our timeline the the British did a pretty good job at recruiting a lot of Native American tribes basically for saying that hey if you if you fight with us then we'll protect your lands because the locals here the colonists are not going to do that they're gonna they're gonna keep pushing you off of your land so helping helping to recruit people like that same thing with they were occluding or recruiting African Americans saying hey if you you help with this will you know and slavery and stuff like that so we're pretty good at recruiting locals which is something the British needed one of the things by the way that the British were really banking on which never really fully came to fruition and wasn't as helpful as they thought is during the actual American Revolution the British expected a lot more support British support from the Americans more loyalists so they recall it was Patriots loyalists sorry Patriots for those who supported the American independence cause and then the those over loyal to Britain and they were they thought that would at least that probably be maybe like half or so of the population and maybe that was true in a way but they never actually really showed up and actually fought or helped the British was one of the things that they again were banking on but never never really helped when the US was born Quebec was pushed up to where it is today and the natives were under American control but with control of this land under the British Parliament American colonists are sort of stuck on the coast in the scenario Canada as we think of it simply doesn't exist what eventually became Canada I mean it doesn't exist because it would have blended much more with with America in fact back to my previous point about loyalists a lot of them instead of basically fighting for the British ended up moving up north to what today is Canada because sentiment they're a pro British sentiment was a lot stronger there than it was in more in the south so a lot of them yeah rather than help the British fight just bailed up to up to Canada that way so had a large population boost after the war from loyalists who fled the independent United States it said that these loyalists were the initial boost that brought Canada as a territory for Britain being happy to be under the Kings rule and all but without indepent these loyalists stay in the colonies so Canada doesn't have an influx of english-speaking Brits but you know what it does have fresh Canadians this land was once under the control listing point I didn't think of that it would be the territory although it's more unified in a way because yet but this is still they're talking after the Seven Years War so I mean it's still Berta our British dominance French French influence really kind of left after I started to leave in this part of the blue part you know here but interesting it would be more divided and the fact that that's interesting because you think of the United States Canada is very divided it would be even more now I guess because it would it would stick again with that with the French influence let people don't know too that the the the French established colonies before the English so it's it's older though the French Canada is older than English America or the French in something known as New France but France lost this land after the Seven Years War French colonists were allowed to stay and keep their culture as long as they stayed loyal to the British king thus Quebec was born in this alternate scenario Quebec never loses this land and stays incredibly large one that takes up all of the Great Lakes the Ohio River and goes up into the northern seas of the Atlantic so you can see there what we're talking about is parts of America today so you got like the eastern part of Minnesota you got Michigan Wisconsin I guess further below the Saint Lawrence River which is kind of the the border for today okay but they said they would have been driven up maybe I'm missing something why are they able to go further south because I thought they said the opposite had Quebec continued to be allowed to rule these lands the Midwest and the Great Lakes are french-speaking deeply Catholic territories but there is a third culture as well most of the land south of the Ohio River is entirely populated by Native American tribes if the treaty with the natives continued than the British protect native land rights in the deep south inside this territory was if they do right if they do if they make you with those promises I gotta say in the beginning if they came and fought then they would be protected that way so it's almost like America becomes what was America becomes far more divided actually what was known as the Five Civilized tribes by the Americans the creeks Choctaw Cherokee Chickasaw and Seminole they were called this because of their general acceptance of many colonial practices into their society and the colonists held by comparison pretty good views of the natives as well in comparison to other minorities it was often thought that if the native tribes simply adopted European culture they'd be on equal footing with the colonists as decades go that never happened even close oh by in this alternate timeline interaction with British Americans and the Quebec Canadians slowly altered these five tribal societies into adapting more European practices hmm okay so they're saying they would have DAP to them more though than what actually happened after the Revolution because what I mean what generally ends up happening you know later I get things like the Trail of Tears and stuff like that which they just remove those people out west put them in Indian territories there's call that are into Jackson and to places like Oklahoma so okay not much can be said other than the native tribes of the south remain prominent members who may eventually adopt colonial ways who knows it's commonly taught in school that the American Revolution had an immediate impact throughout the world and that's true it's not in the way we think remember when I said France was a key ally to the American Revolution from somewhere and the French monarchy didn't have it the monarchy put itself into a large amount of debt this debt created a financial crisis and without getting into too many details this was the crisis which led to the chain of events that eventually brought down the monarchy that we are overstating the American revolutions impact because France already went to dead from the Seven Years War - and the other things that that hurts France was the RAM the famine in the 1780s four four ingredients to make bread and stuff like that so as far as if they're gonna go ahead and say the French Revolution never happens I don't know I'm not necessarily convinced of that but it's in the realm of possibility led to the French Revolution and eventually Napoleon oh yes alternate timeline Britain crushes the American rebels since France doesn't get involved sure the French monarchy is still in debt but without this financial crisis because no war they can kick that can down the road by at least a few decades by doing so Napoleon's opportunity to seize power doesn't happen the Napoleonic Wars never occurred the Holy Roman Empire is not obliterated by the French invasion and a hundred yeah okay Holy Roman Empire was basically nothing by the time hold by the time the plan came around is basically just Austria so it was already a shell of its former self little German states aren't reorganized into thirty but that is true though of the Rhine that is true though but a lot of Germany wasn't even part of the Holy Roman Empire anymore it by this time but it could have an effect so if the French Revolution doesn't happen they're saying German unification doesn't necessarily happen so what do we not get Bismarck and stuff like that I think about that more there is never a rise of prop lot getting thrown out here guys definitely if you have comments as this is going you know with this stuff or ideas put them down in the comments the comments section or come over to our discord server and talk about this they're throwing a lot of dominoes into this so I'm interested to know how you do because are a lot of these it's like I need time to kind of process Russia and so the German Empire is never formed it can't be underestimated how much Napoleon not coming to power affected global history as Napoleon's forces invade because that is true if there's no french revolution but if they're saying there's no french revolution because there's no american revolution probably is no napoleon he came through the ashes of the French Revolution and the nationalism that was created counter to him all over Europe was was pretty great so okay made it Spain and Portugal bringing their colonies into chaos in this alternate timeline without the United States there is no immediate military catastrophe to weaken these empires they remain prominent and powerful through because the French American Revolution you got french revolution and then you had a string of revolutions kind of after that like those the Latin American ones because they all happen not long after the French Revolution some even coinciding with it so do those never happen and they're just Spanish the Spanish Empire stays no I think the the Latin American revolutions are still going to take place we're getting too far away from the source to start to make these that much time that much more direct throughout the 19th and 20th centuries the new world is still prime real estate for European colonization the British and Spanish are pretty much the only ones left with the Russians in Alaska which leaves New Spain and the question is doubtful of Spanish would have risked war over the territory if the British wanted it enough the British expands slowly across the North American continent however what changes is how they interact with the native tribes instead of the Americans manifest destiny was a uniquely American ideal that wouldn't exist in this alternate timeline instead it's what manifest destiny basically stated for America that America had a god-given right to colonize the continent right that doing it was doing basically God's will and bringing civilization and modernity so that was in a way justification for colonizing further west especially after Louisiana Purchase into the western half of the United States which was Mexico then but if they're going further back then it's still Spain and I mean you're going to all kinds of things there so that doesn't yeah that wouldn't happen that wouldn't have happened I mean I guess colonizers would have gone out there I wonder too if maybe if America okay so that maybe if the colonists had lost the revolution here's another one if would those hardcore Patriots have then moved West to be like hey we're out of here we're gonna we're gonna get out of the British Empire and move west of the Mississippi and start trying to develop their own colonies over there out of the reach of the British then you'd be getting above France and beginning involved with Spain or Mexico depending on the timeline so that's just something I came in on my mind - what do you think about that likely the British would interact with the native tribes and give them autonomy essentially splitting North America up into native dominated provinces in the West with white colonists this is the undoubtable effect of the United States losing the revolution and non-existing the transformation of British Imperial policy around the world think of it like soul-searching Oh with warships losing the United States have ended the first Empire and the British funded exploration ship not really the British Empire and or much longer than that I mean I would say the British Empire doesn't end until the fall are till India's independence in the 40s to go find new lands to settle this led to the discovery of Australia and New Zealand it also lent to the British to become more invested in conquering lands in Africa and all of India with North America I feel that's all part of the same thing though regardless of the US but maybe I'm wrong Britain simply invests in this massive territory of land as industrialization arrives the British banned slavery and the slave trade as a whole this would create extreme unrest in the United States but the British still be yep that that would have happened slavery would have ended in America far earlier because even with the American Revolution and not having that workforce in America Emeritus still in slavering decades before the Americans did lavery an issue is finished by the 1830s the British have access to the bountiful amounts of oil natural gas and coal left untapped in North America the change here is the balance and power and the world not only that but the balance of power in Europe Germany remains divided for the entire 19th century meaning World War one in World War two never occur yet some alternate war probably would happen as for North America the British Dominion of North America is a diverse land the 13 colonies still exist and are culturally different from the rest of the continent so like the British basically do the manifesting of Destiny okay to be difficult of Americans make up a predominant section of Western North America while white colonists dominate the western coast this is however simply one scenario we'll never truly know what will happen this is just one thought exercise the United States has always been a land where people from around the world have came to create a new life and since I'm here and I have a life that means that at some point in history my ancestors had to have gotten on that boat or flew as I like to imagine and just stayed in the United States until generations later I was born I've always kind of wondered where my ancestors came from so in sponsorship with ancestry segue actually found out now for reference my entire family has absolutely no idea where we came from it was never discussed and the furthest back I can trace my roots is Buffalo New York since my last name is Franklin I suspected maybe I had ties to Britain but it was never really sure also my skin was so pale I thought maybe there are some northern European DNA in there probably without either side knowing where we came from I decided to take a test for myself and just in time ancestry contacted me they have a service called ancestry DNA they mailed me a box I spit in a tube and then sent it into a lab using their DNA cross-referencing and gene comparisons ancestry DNA was actually able to pinpoint using my DNA where my ancestors had actually come from or at least the general area basically comparing my genes to the similar genes of ethnic groups from around the world and the results were very surprising according to the test I have 36 percent British ancestry most likely from England so the last name actually makes sense the next was pretty surprising 30 percent Scandinavian particularly Norway or Sweden huh being from the Midwest I thought maybe German but nope no German jeans just Scandinavian the next highest was 20% Irish and then a random 7% from Italy and Greece somewhere in the Mediterranean the 7% actually makes sense because for some reason my brother looks something like this maybe he got more of those genes and then there's a sort of genes from the rest of Europe and even 2% Jewish 1% Middle Eastern so there must have been an interesting story in there somewhere the oddest thing is that I thought when I'd find out I'd feel different somehow I don't know but to be honest maybe it's just from having my own suspicions for this entire time but I don't really feel different at all yeah I may have ancestors from this certain place but I'm a hundred percent American I lived in Ohio my entire life I like football Stars and Stripes and that sort of thing also I had a friend who started a certain country way too much once he found out he had heritage from that so I'm not gonna go down that path what learning about where your ancestors came from does tell a fascinating story and it can be quite an experience honestly I suggest you give it a try we're in an age now where you can find out your history just from spitting in a tube so why not try it out ancestor DNA is an international service available in 30 or so markets so really anybody can use it not just Americans discover details about your unique family history and go to ancestry.com slash alt history or click on the link in the description to get a 10 percent discount if you find anything out then tweet using the hashtag my ancestry this is Kody of alternate history hub cool I never done one of those so I've kind of always wanted to just to see I mean I know I'm a mutt of a bunch of different things you look at my like mother and father sides a very different branches of history that come out of that so I've heard funny stories too if people doing that and like totally finding out they're not at all what they expected and even ones where there's like you find out like you were adopted I've heard stories of that like yeah I do not share that because you have like your whole family does it or something like that and they do it and you compare and you're like whoa I'm completely different than like my parents or my brothers and sisters I've heard of that doing weird things but anyway back to the video though so yeah a lot of what-ifs that happened there I do think that there's different a lot of possibilities I need to absorb some of that more but yeah things like the region of Canada being even more French which I agree with although it's still being ruled by the British ok still being ruled by the British because that would that was already established after the Seven Years War the 1750s their Native Americans may if they hold if the if the the British holed up with the deals that they made with them during the order to preserve their lands then you might get more that especially in the Southeast United States would still be very Native American which today it is not because those people got pushed out west a couple decades after the Revolution and heard the creation of the United States so they got pushed out west so you'd have that and now I don't know I don't think though that the British are gonna take over the whole North American continent because they would have had to still deal with the French because if they're saying there wasn't gonna be a french revolution then there wasn't gonna be a Napoleon and the French may still be holding on to that whole middle third of the United States so what's today the United States so if the British wanted to expand further west because those Rev and those revolutions don't happen that they would still potentially be dealing with France and potentially Spain for the western half of North America plus they would still have their colonies in I still definitely believe they still have their colonies in India and Africa and stuff like that so I don't think it just becomes totally dominated that northern contem Erica just gets totally dominated by the British I think that's a little bit too far to take it but I could see it being attempted in a way and and possibly but III John I'm citing on the on the other side of that just a little bit there I did propose that idea - I wonder if hard like some of the hardcore Americans would then have tried to leave and go a little bit further west that would be hard though because now that I'm thinking about it because the where it where anti-british sentiment was strongest was in port cities places that were in constant are constantly dealing with the British which was at port cities they were City businessmen okay because the the more countryside folk those those British British support was stronger there than it was in the cities so getting out of what I'm trying to say is those those Patriots leaving those would have had to leave those city in two places the British didn't have as much of an impact which would be more in the heart of America which now that I think about it may not have happened because that would have been a completely different change of livelihood unless they want to go all the way to the west coast and develop you know port cities over there but I mean that would be very difficult to do though so I don't know maybe now does the French Revolution again never happen I'm not sure about that because France already had economic issues because that that's so much of that stance with their tax collecting process from the three estates and now the first two estates which only made up three percent of their population but receive but you know so much of the income they don't pay taxes they get special privileges and stuff because that the French Revolution was a societal thing to to end these these social class divisions so I do I think the the revolution still has a likelihood of happening and they didn't really get into that they seem to be pretty adamant maybe that it didn't but maybe still happens but you still may not get a Napoleon I think that's true whether there's with that with that or not you didn't have to happen because that would that's based on timing of when he lived and stuff like that now the French Revolution may have been sped up because of the American Revolution right and then putting it into the Napoleon timeline but if I come later or less intense then you don't get the Napoleon timeline so and that that could have a lot of effects and I didn't think of that as far as the effect it would happen on your have it on Europe as much the domino effect because the coalition's that are created to to end Napoleon's reign they're brought nationalism that created you get stuff like Germany in the end of the Holy Roman Empire and that kind of stuff so there's definitely a timeline there of influence that those those nations maybe don't exist but maybe it's just a delay something that's inevitable might be winning too much but you really can't have one of these alternate history videos least not an interesting one without having all of those steps so as always I'm very impressed of how these guys they really really spread out the effects I liked it they don't just stick to one branch of a tree that's great because alternate history does not change history in a linear fashion it changes it into a big branch and one thing I really like with them is they see all the connections I really enjoy that they do that so anyway just wanted to put out my ideas there and get that you agree with me do you agree with them do you think they arrived you think they're wrong you can get conversations going definitely you can add your thoughts down into the YouTube comments and talk to people or again better yet come join our community over at discord there's a link down in the description you couldn't talk about this stuff too with a lot of history minded people as well alright so on our way out here thanks again to our patreon pledgers they're the ones who voted on this for in this week's poll if you'd like to get involved in that there's a link to where you can get involved in patreon down below as well so thank you for that thanks to everyone that's been supporting the channel and through those kind of means but thank you especially to those to anyone really who's just being a part of our community here watching videos hopefully learning more about history and just trying to promote history education which is what I'm trying to do here alright with that we'll go ahead and call it here and we'll see you guys next time bye [Music] [Music]

Channel: Mr. Terry History

Views: 74,695

Keywords: react, history, alternate history

Id: C1LeUpHgaAc

Length: 34min 6sec (2046 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 12 2020