Were American colonists who were living and working in Britain during the US War Of Independence mostly left alone or were they either expelled or rounded up until the war was over?
They were British subjects. Why would they be rounded up unless they were found to be engaged in seditious activities? A majority of Americans in the colonies did not support the rebellion. (They were either loyalists or neutral.)
AFAIK the northern states did nothing to individuals born in the states that formed the confederacy who happened to be in the North, unless they were found to be working in the interest of the Confederacy.
Fair enough. I just thought that once the war broke out they would be required to declare their loyalties, and if they were loyal to the colonists fighting the British they might have been considered potential spies.
We think of Americans and Britons as being two different nationalities. But that’s a perspective formed by the history that came after the Revolution. Before the split, people saw themselves as either Britons who lived in Britain or Britons who lived in America. When the future Americans started the Revolution, they cited their rights as Britons as cause.
Well, why would Japanese-Americans be rounded up during WWII unless they were found to be engaged in seditious activities?
I mean, you seem to dismiss the question but we all know humans tend to be emotional about these things.
That was clearly due to racism, since by and large German-Americans and Italian-Americans were not. (Germans and Italians who were interned were mostly foreign nationals, while a majority of the Japanese-American internees were US citizens.) The example doesn’t really apply. As has been pointed out, Americans were British nationals.
AFAIK, Britain didn’t intern Irish in Great Britain during the Irish rebellions either, though of course those suspected of sympathy with the rebels might have been under surveillance.
Who do you think American colonists were? They were subjects of the empire, and always had been. Until the U.S. were able to make independence stick, there was no “other” category. In addition, the concept of a “fifth column” against which internment is supposed to guard, is a 20th century one. Similar notions might have existed in the late 19th, but I doubt they predate that by much. National identity just didn’t work that way yet.
Aside from the other correct answers, the colonists also weren’t ‘American-British’. They were just British. The concept of American as a nationality didn’t yet exist.
The Americans who invaded Britain during the Revolutionary War were in fact arrested. (fun fact number 1776)
If they were * living and working* in Britain at that time, they weren’t colonists.
I’m would assume racism was a factor, but it’s quite possible that a sneak attack on NY, Washington, or the Norfolk by the Germans or Italians would have had the same result.
Extremely unlikely purely for logistical reasons.
From Wiki:
Likewise, in 1940 there were millions of US citizens of Italian ancestry, and around 700,000 Italian immigrants.
This compares to only 127,000 Japanese Americans in the continental US, of which 112,000 living on the West Coast were interned. Internment was not feasible in Hawaii despite a greater security risk by being closer to Japan, where the 150,000 Japanese Americans made up about third of the population but only 1,200-1,800 were interned.
So it was a combination of racism, and it being much easier to round up (and recognize) Japanese-Americans.
In Australia, Italians were rounded up. People like rounding people up.
A more interesting comparison is with Communism. American communists weren’t ethnically or racially different from other Americans. America wasn’t exactly at war with Russia, and American communists weren’t exactly rounded up. But I can see the comparison, and I don’t think it would be entirely out of character to round up “Americans” if Britain was a war with “America”.
But also keep in mind that Britain had no great tradition or economy of rounding people up into camps or prisons. Concentration camps weren’t in use until the Boer war, and criminals were exiled into indentured labour.
Italian nationals, or Australian citizens? And weren’t Germans rounded up?
Actually, I dunno. Canada rounded up Italians who had become British subjects after 1929, and I assumed Aus had done the same.
In Aus, it was very state based. Queensland had large Italian communities, and most of the internment. Victoria, where I live, had less of both.
I’m sure there was internment of German nationals and sympathisers, but my guess is that there would have been very little German migration to Aus after WWI. and all pre-WWI German migrants would have been very well integrated after WWI.
Wow.
Of course what I don’t know about the American Revolution could fill the ocean, I always thought the majority public mood by that time had become more of a “we’re getting to feel damn straight like non-you-Brits…”
I mean, “our” guys didn’t have to put military muscle on its own populace to convince them, as it were, to support the war effort (which happens, sometimes viciously).
I took a walking tour of the sites in Boston, and the guide pointed out that Paul Revere would not have be shouting “The British are coming!” but most likely “The Redcoats are coming!” as the residents there considered themselves British.
When I took American History in the 1960s, I was taught about one-third of the population was pro-independence, one third Loyalist (Tory), and one third neutral. This article suggests 40-45% of the white population was pro-independence, 15-20% Loyalist, and the rest neutral “or kept a low profile.” The proportions probably differed regionally, with areas such as New England being a hotbed of revolution.
This is a remarkably inaccurate analogy.
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Japanese-Americans looked different from the stereotypical white American. Racism is racism.
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The concept of citizenship was not as legally formalized in 1776 as it would later become.
The United Kingdom did not have a unified law on nationality until the 20th century. People living in the Thirteen Colonies (or the ones that would eventually become Canada) were considered, and considered themselves, British, albeit a different flavor of British.
In those days few, if any, countries had formal citizenship laws. In the Western world, such countries as have continually existed since then didn’t come up with nationality laws until the 19th century. Passports weren’t the common, universally recognizable documents they are today; examples date back millennia, but the modern system originates in the 19th century and did not get to its current state until the 20th. There were few immigration controls; generally speaking, prior to the 19th century, if you went somewhere and behaved yourself, you were a “citizen” in good standing in most respects.
From what I’ve read here in the south a lot of people in 1776 did not want to split from Britain. Probably around 50%. They were mostly farmers with very few larger cities such as Charleston .