I grew up in the US and know our side intimately as it has been drummed into my head from an early age. To sum up, a band of noble pilgrims seeking religious freedom made their way from England to the US to establish a new home. Eventually the colonies prospered with some help from the native indians, and seeing the riches of the colonies, King George decided to tax us without representation. That lead to a righteous rebellion in which the small rebel army threw off the oppression of the invading British and lived happily ever after.
My question concerns how this history is taught to British schoolchildren. I’ll assume that higher education has a more nuanced historical account, but do kids learn that their king was bad, taxed people to death, and ultimately got their arses kicked by a the Americans and the French?
While not quite answering your question, I’m pretty sure I never studied it.
The (English) civil war, Elizabethan explorers, plus some other stuff I’ve forgotten, but not American independance.
Again, not answering the question, but I suppose that, since the English have so much more history to cover, the (relatively short) American Revolution and War of 1812 barely merit a mention.
I’m guessing the answer to this will be “No,” considering that it’s not even accurate as American history, except as taught at the grade school level. (Something akin to “The Civil War was fought so that Lincoln could free the slaves.”)
I’m interested in the answer, though, because I’d like to know if British kids are taught anything about the American Revolutionary War, regardless of accuracy. I can tell you that American kids are taught next to nothing about English history.
Along with the other answers, mine is ‘barely’ I guess. We looked in detail at the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution and the Tudors, although not in that order. I don’t remember the American Revolution or that period being mentioned more than in passing at my school. I think UncleRojelio may have it right - there’s just too much else for us to cover. We didn’t cover the loss of the American colonies in any more detail than we covered the loss of other bits of the Empire.
In the nicest possible way, it was a big deal for you, but we had a lot of that sort of thing happening over the years
From a British perspective, the slave trade provides for a lot more collective guilt than those later skirmishes further north. This, and Britain’s role, feature prominently in the history curriculum. Parts of the History GCSE specifications (exams taken at age 16, and with subjects such as history being optional) are the development of the American west, and the Great Depression.
On similar lines to the OP’s question, I’ve had very interesting discussions with Irish relatives, comparing English and Irish curriculums in their treatment of Oliver Cromwell…
Edit: did I type ‘later’???
From what I remember from school in the 80s we kinda looked at Roman Britain to Tudor-ish / Stuart-ish times then things got weird and we veered off into other stuff like the French Revolution and Napoleon - the “American War of Independence” got a look in there with reference to constitutions …
At a certain age (13 ? 14 ? ) you have o select which subjects to study for the exams sat at 16 (used to be ‘O’ levels now GCSE) and I recall where I was the history option was going to cover things likes “The history of Medicine”, “The Cultural Revolution in China” and “20th Century Irish History”.
Well these miserable ungrateful motley bunch of ne’er do goods decided to toss this tea into Boston Harbour, this pissed off Major Hugh Chumley-Ffortescue-Smythe no end as he had some friends coming around later for tea and crumpets.
Anyway, this other bloke, Paul Revere, stole a horse and set off galloping down the road hollering and bawling his nuts off “The British are coming” “Lock up the pig ugly buggers of daughters of yours”
Mel Gibson heard all this hullabaloo and being an Aussie decided to have a bit of it, like Aussies do…
So what happened in the end was this guy, Washington, got in a boat and stood in the prow looking all pompous and rather silly and they rowed across to the other side.
Meanwhile another bloke, Cornwallis, was having the shit kicked out of him so decided “fuck it” and he called it a day.
As the years went by the British realised they’d done a very smart thing by “pretending” to lose 'cos after some time the dastardly colonist traitors decided to have another scrap between themselves. If the British hadn’t got fed up with all the bickering then they’d have had to sort the whole bloody mess out, as it was the colonists did it for them.
The French had a bit of a say in scrap No 1, but that’s the frogs for you, anything to have a go at dear old Blighty.
I’m afraid to say that generally, the answer is: it doesn’t get taught. When you’re younger there’s a focus on the Roman occupation of Britain, on William the Conqueror’s invasion in 1066, on the Magna Carta, the Crusades and on some of the various British kings and monarchs through the ages. When you get to high school level you study a lot of British 19th and 20th history, particularly the two World Wars. I even remember studying the industrial revolution.
But I certainly never studied any American history, and I don’t think it tends to appear on our syllabuses. Not important enough you see - we had so many colonies on the go, you weren’t anything special… ‘Oh, they’re rebelling in America? Which one’s America again?’
I just took a college course in British history and our professor mentioned that the Revolution wasn’t really covered in British schools. Mainly because, while to America it was the birth of a nation, to Britain it just wasn’t that important when seen against the entirety of the Empire (much of which was to come). And Britain spent much of its history at war with someone so our’s wasn’t so special.
I agree with the others here, I don’t recall it being studied (might’ve been mentioned in passing, but the French revolution in the same era was given MUCH greater emphasis).
From what I remember (and I was really into history at school), we covered:
1066 and all that
Magna Carta
Wars of the Roses
Social history in the medieval era (black death and strip farming stick in the mind)
Tudors (LOADS on this)
The reformation in Europe
Industrial Revolution
Napolean/French Revolution/Spanish Peninsual War/Waterloo
19th century social history and loads of boring law changes (Corn Laws ferinstance)
World Wars
Then for my A levels (two years from 16-18 years) it was all Tudors and the reformation and renaissance in Europe.
From a Canadian perspective, there wasn’t much on it in my education, either. Heck, there wasn’t a lot on the War of 1812, either, even though a lot of Canadians love to crow about their victory over the 'States. At least in my experience, the history we were tought was about discovery, exploration, and then a lot of social history regarding relations with the First Nations and within Canada itself. My senior History class, taught entirely on Canada, focused on the 20th century, and the birth of Canada as not only a legal nation, but as an identity and a world player during and after the World Wars.
