Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

dogma wrote:

Joey wrote:
It would have been a war between two groups of Englishmen, therefore a civil war.

We would call it that now, but they wouldn't have. American colonists weren't Englishmen, they were Colonists. Which now strikes me as eerily reminiscent of "sodomite".

And yet Patriot arguments revolved around 'rights of Englishmen'?

I mean I am using the quote below with others to illustrate that the Continental Congress' moderates were not in favour of independence; a proposition that wasn't firmly on the cards 'till 1776 (when fighting had been going on for nearly a year):

Joseph Hewes, North Carolina Continental Congress delegate: 'we want no revolution, unless a change of Ministry and measures would be deemed such. We are loyal subjects of our present and most gracious Sovereign.'

Joseph Galloway proposed an Act of Union (a shame it didn't pass; one vote... though I doubt ol' King George would've liked it).

There's a bunch of other stuff talking about 'our perfect system' of government, etc. But I am A. too lazy to go retrieve it right now (gah) and B. not a good researcher.

But suffice to say, many considered themselves Englishmen.

Henners91 wrote:
But suffice to say, many considered themselves Englishmen.

Again:

Sure, they may have, but that wouldn't have mattered if they had lost. What the losing party considers itself to be is basically irrelevant to the victor.

To roughly analogize, I can call myself black all day long, but no black person in the world is going to agree or care.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Joey wrote:Obviously there were people who weren't from England but America was culturally English.

It doesn't matter. What matters is what the people living in England considered them to be.

Oh I'm not referring to Whigs. I genuinely believe it was not the intention of many future Patriots to pursue independency; they were forced down the route by both circumstance and a hardline British government/monarch.

dogma wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

Joey wrote:Obviously there were people who weren't from England but America was culturally English.

It doesn't matter. What matters is what the people living in England considered them to be.

It was my understanding that they were regarded as English. There was a great deal of cultural exchange between the colonies and the mainland, it's not like they were a million miles away.

Joey wrote:
It was my understanding that they were regarded as English. There was a great deal of cultural exchange between the colonies and the mainland, it's not like they were a million miles away.

It took ~2 months to get from England to the American colonies.

For reference it took a little over 3 days for the Apollo spacecraft to reach the moon.

And yet the mercantile economy meant that all trade interaction was done with the British, correspondence flowed to both sides of the Atlantic, the colonies spoke English and were (mostly) descended from Englishmen.

Whilst there was a Colonial identity and, naturally, the average colonist would probably consider themselves such, if you were to ask the nationality of your average WASP it'd be 'English'. Naturally Scots-Irish, Dutch 'n' Germans skew things a little, but the Dutch became Anglicised to great degrees and the other two named groups actually tended to associate with the loyalists (it seems that minorities who preserved their culture feared lordship from their WASP neighbours).

My point? The vast majority of colonists were immersed in both English and English-derived cultures, enjoyed English goods, read letters and news from England and sat under Union Jacks. Pretty darn English.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And if they'd believed themselves not English then surely arguments for representation and the like would've had no logical founding?

Joey wrote:

dogma wrote:

Joey wrote: If the rebellion had been crushed it would have been an English civil war.

It would have been an American Revoltion, not a civil war.

The distinction between nation and state was much more distinct even then.

It would have been a war between two groups of Englishmen, therefore a civil war.

Well gorsh it seems the did name it that.

dogma wrote:
Again:

Sure, they may have, but that wouldn't have mattered if they had lost. What the losing party considers itself to be is basically irrelevant to the victor.

To roughly analogize, I can call myself black all day long, but no black person in the world is going to agree or care.

Hey I agree and I care and I am black.

Well, I decided I was a bit after you said you were.. but still.

Gimme some skin bro!

1/3 Loyal, 1/3 Rebel, 1/3 Undecided is how the history books have it.

As for English identity... What is the official language of the USA? French? German? Navajo?

Henners91 wrote:
My point? The vast majority of colonists were immersed in both English and English-derived cultures, enjoyed English goods, read letters and news from England and sat under Union Jacks. Pretty darn English.

Again, they're not relevant to the argument. Anyone can call themselves anything, but if that thing is more powerful their beliefs are more important.

The Englishmen living in England did not call the colonists English, not without the attachment of "colonists", for the purposes of this argument that is what is important.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:1/3 Loyal, 1/3 Rebel, 1/3 Undecided is how the history books have it.

As for English identity... What is the official language of the USA? French? German? Navajo?

That's John Adams for ya.

dogma wrote:

Henners91 wrote:
My point? The vast majority of colonists were immersed in both English and English-derived cultures, enjoyed English goods, read letters and news from England and sat under Union Jacks. Pretty darn English.

Again, they're not relevant to the argument. Anyone can call themselves anything, but if that thing is more powerful their beliefs are more important.

The Englishmen living in England did not call the colonists English, not without the attachment of "colonists", for the purposes of this argument that is what is important.

I figured what was important was Parliament trying to throw down legislation that some colonists felt it didn't have the right to put in place.

The USA does not have an official language.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:1/3 Loyal, 1/3 Rebel, 1/3 Undecided is how the history books have it.

As for English identity... What is the official language of the USA? French? German? Navajo?

None actually.