Thoughts on the Fourth of July: What if.

Yesterday was July the fourth, Independence Day. As I was walking away from watching fireworks over Middle Bay, I pondered the “what ifs,” which I do a lot.
What if there had been no Revolution. After all, the taxes the British government was levying on the American colonists were to defray the cost of their defense, a fair request, in my mind, since the taxpayer in England was doing it for them.
Many colonists felt that way, and while they may not have liked having more taxes laid on them, no one does, they believed that King George represented the legal government. It is a fact, not taught in high school history, that, in fact there was a rather large number of people who remained, at least quietly, loyal to the Crown, and many of the troops wearing red coats, were not brought over from England at all, but were native born Americans.
So what would it have been like if the radicals (as they were seen at the time) had not prevailed? What would the current United States look like today?
I don’t really know, but I can guess, and since this is my space, I’m going to. First off, we would eventually have become a dominion of the British Empire and finally independent as has Canada, Australia, and South Africa. At some point, probably fairly early in our history, a central government would have been created, as was done in Canada. So, we would be pretty much where we are now.
But what would have been different? Settlers would have arrived from other countries, as they were doing at the time, and they would have pushed west towards the Mississippi. But without exuberance of having become a new nation and idea of Manifest Destiny, what would have been their relationships to the nations and confederations of Native Americans they encountered? Perhaps there would not have been the belief in a God given right to drive them out. Many Native Americans did indeed move north into Canada where they found better treatment at the hands of the Canadian authorities.
Would Lewis and Clark have explored the Louisiana Purchase? Probably, but it would not have been the Louisiana Purchase but rather Louisiana Land Grab, taken from Napoleon when he was defeated.
Would the Southwest be part of the US or a larger Mexico? My feeling is, the latter may well have been the case. Without the revolutionary zeal to conquer all of North America, settlers certainly would have moved into Mexican territory, as they were invited by the Mexican government to do, but may well have become Mexican citizens, and would not have been supported by royal government. The Republic of Texas might have come to pass, but may well have remained an independent country. Can you imagine needing a visa to watch the Dallas Cowboys play, and Lyndon Johnson could not have been president of the United States.
As the British Empire abolished slavery in its territories, the Civil War would not have been fought and much of our racial history would have been radically altered.
The US would have entered World War I in 1914 and World War II in 1939. The infusion of US material and manpower at those early stages could have shortened those wars considerably. My father may well have served in the 104th Royal Timberwolf Division.
My grandmother would have been born a native instead of Canadian, as her ancestors evacuated to Nova Scotia with the British troops following the siege of Boston.
But, although I can imagine the Patriots playing the Redskins in a rugby match, I cannot for the life of me picture the beloved Red Sox as a cricket team.