How the British Empire Won the American Revolution

A British Empire built with American Resources

Strangely, the British Empire was one of the biggest beneficiaries from the American Revolution. The American Patriots’ victory in 1783 made the British Empire stronger.

To explain, the American victory triggered a series of events that destroyed two of Britain’s biggest rivals. In particular, the American victory helped establish the global hegemony of both the British pound sterling and the Royal Navy. This occurred because Britain became the most powerful nation in Europe, thanks to upheavals triggered by the American Revolution.

Additionally, American independence gave the British access to North America’s resources without the expense of occupying and administering most of the continent. In fact, the Industrial Revolution relied on North American resources.

Finally, the American Revolution inspired reforms that made the empire stronger or at least easier to govern. Hence, the British turned one of their greatest defeats into a victory because they learned from it.

Revolutionary Upheaval

In 1770, Britain had two large rivals in Europe that cloud block its march to economic and military dominance. Those rivals were the Kingdom of France and the Dutch Republic.

The American Revolution inspired revolutions that swept both the French Monarchy and the Dutch Republic away. In particular, the revolution that destroyed Britain’s biggest economic rival, the Dutch Republic.

The Netherlands was Europe’s financial center from 1610 to the 1780s because its currency, the Guilder, was Europe’s reserve currency. A reserve currency is the fiat currencies bankers use for cross-border transactions. The Guilder was the Reserve Currency, because the Netherlands had the first modern central bank, the Bank of Amsterdam.

The basis of the Dutch economy was its international trade and large merchant fleet. In particular, the Dutch controlled most of the valuable spice trade between Europe and Indonesia and had an enormous piece of the lucrative tea trade with China.

When the Dutch backed the Americans during the Revolutionary War. The British retaliated by destroying the Dutch navy and seizing the Republic’s merchant fleet in the Fourth Anglo-Dutch war. With no navy and merchant fleet, the Dutch Republic’s economic power was gone.

Meanwhile, the American Revolution inspired Dutch patriots to revolt against the corrupt government led by the Stadholder (monarch) William of Orange. A mixture of income inequality, regional animosities, and dysfunctional government turned the revolt into a low-level civil war that lasted until 1787. In 1787, William of Orange asked the Prussians for help. The Prussian Army easily crushed the Patriots and ended the Dutch Republic’s run as a major power.

In France, a series of clumsy efforts to reform the nation’s financial and legal systems triggered the French Revolution. King Louis XVI began the reforms because France was broke. One reason France was broke was the vast sums spent helping the Americans win the Revolutionary War. In particular, the cost of transporting an enormous army across the Atlantic and supporting that army in the field for several years.

The French Revolution led to the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars that destroyed the French Navy and France’s status as a major naval power. By the time of Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, France was weak and incapable of launching a major war. Meanwhile, a fast industrializing Britain was wealthier than ever. By the late 19th century, France was becoming a client state of the British Empire.

The American Revolution inspired the Dutch Patriot movement and the French Republic. Dutch Patriots created militias in imitation of the American Minutemen. French revolutionaries created a republic inspired by the United States. One of the early French revolutionary leaders was the Marquis de Lafayette, one of the French military advisors to Washington’s Continental Army.

A British Empire built with American Resources

Ironically, the British built their empire with American resources. To explain, North America provided the raw materials that fueled the Industrial Revolution.

During the 19th century, textiles were Britain’s most important industry. Cotton was the principal raw material for textiles. The American South produced 75% of the world’s cotton and the British Empire was the largest consumer of that cotton.

American cotton freed the British from the expense of conquering American territory from indigenous peoples and Mexico. Using American cotton also allowed the British to rely on slave-grown cotton without owning slaves.

To explain, Britain’s most important industry textiles relied on American cotton, which slaves picked. Yet the British Empire abolished slavery in 1833. The British could afford to abolish slavery because American slavery survived until the passage of the 13th Amendment in 1865.

In addition to cotton, Britain relived heavily on American grain from the Midwest. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 turned the Midwest into the world’s granary. American independence allowed the British to benefit from the grain without conquering the Midwest or building the Erie Canal.  

Grain from the Midwest fed the British armies and the legions of workers in Britain’s factories. Britain could afford to become the world’s workshop because of cheap American grain.

British factories relied on many other American resources, including timber, iron, lead, and minerals. By the 1880s, even the beef on British tables was likely to have come from the United States.

An independent United States gave the British Empire access to enormous amounts of natural, agricultural, and industrial resources rivals could not tap. The Royal Navy’s control of the seas allowed the British to deny enemies access to those resources, as the Germans discovered in World War I.

It is not clear if a British North America could have been the source of natural resources for the Empire. Notably, the British Crown, unlike the United States, recognized the rights of Native American peoples and tried to protect them from conquest. The United States, on the other hand, stole the Native Americans’ lands and often developed them with British money.

Likewise, the British might not have gone to war with Mexico to seize the Southwest. As the United States did in the Mexican War.

A Smarter British Empire

American victory in the Revolution led to enormous changes in British colonial administration, particularly in India and Ireland.

For example, the British East India Company’s Governor General Lord Charles Cornwallis barred the children of British men and Indian women from serving as officials in India. Cornwallis also discouraged intermarriage between Indians and British officials and officers.

Historian William Dalrymple thinks Cornwallis was trying to stop the development of a class of Anglo-Indian leaders who would revolt against the Empire.* Notably, Cornwallis was the British general who surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown.

Cornwallis was afraid the Anglo-Indians would become leaders like the American Founding Fathers. Hence, British colonial policy was based on fear rather than racism.

Cornwallis’s strategy worked. There were no Anglo-Indian officers to lead the Sepoy Armies in 1857. The revolt failed because the Sepoys (Indian mercenaries) had no effective leadership. There was no Indian George Washington to drive out the British.

Later on, as Lord Lieutenant and Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Irish Army, Cornwallis helped pass the Act of Union which unified the British and Irish parliaments. Cornwallis feared an independent Irish legislature could form the basis of a rebel government. Just as the American Continental Congress led the American Revolution.

Thus, the American Revolution made the British more ruthless and aggressive imperialists. The ruthless British Imperial military machine that conquered large swaths of the globe in the 19th century was the illegitimate child of the American Revolution.

Hence, you can regard the American Revolution as a British victory. What looked like a terrible British defeat in 1783 led to the victory of the British Empire. Hence, history often rewards the losers.

* See The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire By William Dalrymple for full details.