Players of Empire Total War often ask how they can play as the United States in the Grand Campaign. People often object to this, saying that Grand Campaign starts in 1700 and that, historically, the American Revolution began in 1775. Hence my question: could the American Revolution have begun earlier - and, if it did, what would have caused that and who would have won?
Here's my tentative view: to answer this question, we need to think about what caused the American Revolution. I probably know less about this than many people on TWC. My impression is that what triggered the Revolution was a combination of tension over westward expansion of the colonies and conflict over unjust laws and taxes. First, the British defeated the French in the French and Indian War. Before that war, I get the impression that the French, the British and some Native American peoples (including some of the peoples represented by the Iroquois Confederacy in ETW) kept each other in check. One source says that "The Iroquois generally remained independent of both powers by trading with both and playing them off against each other." The defeat of the French colonies in the French and Indian War meant that the Iroquois could not continue their previous strategy. The American colonists wanted to expand their territory westward; now, neither the French nor the Native Americans could stop them. This British government was afraid that this would lead to more conflict with America's native peoples, tried to delay this expansion - this was one source of tension between the Americans and the British government (source).
Another consequences of the French and Indian War (known in Europe as the Seven Years' War) was that the British government was heavily in debt. The British tried to solve this by imposing laws regulating American trade and new taxes. These, too, were a source of significant tension between the American colonists and the British government (source). Of course, in a fully-functioning democracy, if the government imposes unfair burdens on people living in a particular region, then at the next election, the people can elect new representatives who can negotiate a better deal (if their elected representatives had not done this already). But, famously, the British refused to allow the American colonists to elect representatives to Parliament, leading to the rallying cry 'no taxation without representation!'
For me, these causes of the American Revolution appear to have something in common. Both the tension over expansion of the colonies and the conflict over unjust laws and taxes go back to one event, the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War. This seems to suggest that, if this war had happened earlier, then its consequences - including the American Revolution - would have happened earlier, as well. Perhaps, if British immigration to the Thirteen Colonies had been higher - or if the earliest attempts at starting colonies had been better equipped and more successful - then this would have escalated the conflict between the French and British in North America earlier, leading to an earlier war and an earlier revolution?