The most immediate effect is that the Proclamation Line of 1763 is back in place. Colonist cannot colonize, invade, or take land from Natives past the east side of Appalachian Mountains. Some colonists will have to move back east.
Native peoples are much better off and they know it. A quarter of the US Army had fought Natives, not English. Forty Natives towns were burned down by the colonists, including Washington himself, nicknamed Town Destroyer by the Iroquois. These included neutral towns. The Cherokee, Chippewa, Kickapoo, Miami, Mingo, and Shawnee all allied with the English. They knew a new nation was a far greater danger to them than a vast empire, which often gets occupied with other matters.
The Ohio and North Mississippi Valleys, what are today Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan, all become a Native reserve under the English. That was what the English intended had they won. Some colonists may continue invading in the south, but at a slower pace and only with the Crown's permission. The English were cautious about spending money on wars, especially since the 13 colonies were not that profitable. What this means for Native people is there is nothing like the Trail of Tears.
Farther west, the Louisiana Territory will stay a French claim. The English will be fighting Napoleon later, but neither of them care to fight much over a territory that is not that profitable. In our time, Napoleon sold it to the US because he needed funds after losing Haiti to their slave revolution. But he would not have sold it to the English, his enemies.
Florida, a Spanish colony, would stay Spanish as a buffer against the English. Both likely become independent nations in the 20th Century, without large populations, made up of Natives, Blacks and Creoles, and French and Spanish ancestry peoples.
The southwest would stay part of Spain and later Mexico when it becomes independent. The Gold Rush would benefit Mexico, not the US. There would be no California Indian Genocide as there was under the US, killing between 120,000 and a quarter million California Indians. Mexico's way of treating Native people was assimilation, not genocide or reservations.
Alaska would stay a Russian colony, though perhaps they might sell it to the British and it becomes part of Canada. Hawaii might stay an independent kingdom. Or the British might take it as a colony or protectorate. If not, the Japanese Empire might conquer it with great brutality. Guam and Puerto Rico stay Spanish colonies instead of becoming American ones, and become independent in the 20th Century. Samoa might be a British colony, the Virgin Islands staying a Danish one.
What about slavery? The British ended that in their empire in the 1830s, 30 years before the US, and without a civil war. They bought off the slave owners, and made the slaves pay for their freedom at twice the market value by supposed "apprenticeship." This would happen in American colonies too, but slavery might be limited to the east coast from Maryland to Georgia.
An independent US (likely called something else) likely comes after WWII. It will not go past the Mississippi, and it may even be part of an even larger Canada. It will be democratic, but with a parliamentary system, and not a world power.
It will have none of the worst features of US democracy: no Electoral College, no capital where the people have no congressmen, no gerrymandering, and no colonies without voting in national election. It won't have long election campaigns either, or the wealthy buying elections. The British limit election campaigns to six weeks by law, and they banned private contributions to candidates way back in the 1890s.
If you like history, speculating about "what if" is probably as much fun as when you find a little known fact in history or bust a myth! Here, we will speculate about what might have happened if the American Revolution had been lost to the British.
The war for American independence was mostly about three main issues. The first was taxation, the second was self-governance, and the third was western expansion. Let's say that Cornwallis won the battle in 1781, and the American colonists decided to negotiate a peaceful surrender. The Treaty of Paris conference would have been held in 1783, and the revolution would have instead been an insurrection by a few disaffected colonists—and the conflict between the two countries would have ended.
Great Britain—still reeling from the financial impact from the war with France, which was compounded by putting down the insurrection in America—negotiates, as a part of the peace plan, reparations (not taxes) to be paid to the British government to settle debts and to fund future reconstruction costs. As citizens of the British Empire, American colonists agree to pay the same taxes and fees as other British citizens without complaint.
As part of the settlement, Great Britain replaces every governor elected by the American colonial citizens with men who are loyal to Great Britain. While the colonists may meet to settle local disputes by a vote in their townships, no legislation or issue may pass without the consent of the British appointed officials and approval of the British government.
Rather than a democratic representative republic, the governments of all of the colonies mirror the British Parliament—eliminating much of the talk about independence. The British military continues to circumvent laws, rationalizing that their disregard for civil rights is necessary post-war in order to keep the peace and maintain order for the citizens who didn't want to leave the protection of Great Britain.
On the plus side, trade resumes with Great Britain, and both economies are the benefactor of an economic boom from the pent-up demand for products and raw materials that were diverted in order to put down the insurrection. The good economy helps both countries to reconcile their differences. The American colonists now have similar economic interests as the ruling country and begin to see the other foreign powers on the American continent (in particular those in the west) as competitors.
American colonists decide to expand westward and, with the assistance of the more vigorous British military forces, begin to assume control of western territories slowly. The British forces now consist of almost all Americans, born years removed from the insurrection and have only their grandparents' knowledge of what happened in 1776.
Fast forward one hundred fifty years into the future, and America has grown in population to more than five times the size of Great Britain. No longer able to manage such a vast empire, the British do what they eventually have to do with all of their colonies—let them become independent nations.
However, once again, economics proves to be a driving factor. The American economy is more than ten times greater than that of their British compatriots. The British agree to sell the Americas to the local government and to allow them self-governance. The Americans agree to a long-term buyout which will pay the British government a percentage of the Gross National Product in perpetuity.
America becomes independent with a parliamentary form of government. There are no states, as each governor decides to remain separate from the federal system and operate as sovereign governing territories. The American Parliament works to create something like the European Union so that there is some continuity between the sovereign territories. Life goes on more than two hundred years in the United Territories of America.
Of course, that is just speculation. Or is it?
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