“Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.”
John Webbe
“Let’s say we steal some shit.”
Sylvester Stallone (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2)
The continent of North America is home to several independent nations, including the United States of America, Louisiana, and Mexico. Of these independent nations, America is the oldest by far, portions of the republic being free of their mother nation as far back as 1647. But to truly understand why North America evolved the way it did, one must go back to the English Civil War. With Charles I and his Cavaliers triumphing over the Roundheads in 1645, the power of Parliament was severely curtailed and the leaders of the rebellion, such as Thomas Fairfax and Edward Montagu, were imprisoned in the Tower of London. Historians often link Royalist victory in the war to the Cavaliers success at the 1643 Battle of Newbury. In the aftermath, much of the rebel army, in an effort to flee punishment and in some cases, execution, left Britain for the New World, specifically New England.
The colonial leadership, which had supported the Parliamentarians, officially broke away from England after the end of the war. Not all of New England wished to leave however. The colonies of New Haven, Connecticut, and the Rhode Island and Providence Plantations had broken off from Massachusetts due to religious differences. England, just coming out of a civil war, lacked the ability to properly project their strength to enforce their rule, and the loyal colonies to the south were less than enthusiastic about sending the militia to bring them to heel. The result was a few half hearted naval conflicts between Virginian/English vessels against those of Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Plymouth Colony, now both under the control of a Puritan theocratic government, mobilized the militia and the recently arrived Roundhead veterans and brutally subdued the neighboring New England colonies, forcefully bringing them into the New England Confederacy by 1651.
Charles, loath to see one of the colonies independent, simply could not reconquer the region. Thus, while not de jure recognizing the New England Confederacy, the former colonies were de facto independent. Though tensions still ran high, after a few years, the NEC and England would resume some limited trading.