If only the Americans could have remembered that lesson for more than about 200 years. Now we have to depend on other nations to remember it for us.
Yes, it showed the political refugees who came to Canada, victims of ethnic cleansing by the revolutionaries, that the British Crown protected freedom and personal safety.
That’s how it was taught in our schools for at least a century.
Relations between the US and Britain were pretty tense for almost 100 years after the revolution. The US and Iran seem to be at about the time frame as the war of 1812.
I’m watching Burns series on the American Revolution. It’s not nearly as good as his other work IMHO. A bit of a slog. There are fewer documents and sources available from 1775 than on other topics that occurred much later (like world wars). So visually, it is a bit boring (just how much and how long can you zoom in on the same thing, or see the same picture of Patrick Henry?). Of course it remains an important story, but it seems one has already heard these perspectives.
Many of the original colonists thought of themselves as British. England could have listened to Franklin or the complaints against taxation. They thought the colonies were too different to unite. They sent far fewer troops than were needed or that were asked for. Making peace with Quebec Catholics and indigenous groups (for a time) did not impress American land speculators. And shooting at rebels in Lexington and Concord was foolish.
Given British underestimation of the threat and the relative profitability of the Caribbean, I do not think more naval strategies would have made much difference in the big picture. The US was too far away and just not given enough credit for its tactics, population, size and ability to work together.
It definitely was not an entry in the rah-rah flag waving school of American history. It took great pains to point out that North America at the time included Canadians who had no interest whatsoever in rebelling, Tories/ Loyalists who didn’t get on the revolutionary bandwagon, the African slaves whose status was a conundrum for both the Patriots and the British, and the indigenous nations who had to decide whether to back one side or the other. That the French more or less saved the colonials’ bacon. And although we know who won in the end, the steady stream of setbacks and defeats must have been heartbreaking to go through. A counter-factual where Washington was cut down early on by a stray musket ball would have been a very different history.
Could the British have held the ground?
I’m reminded of how useless the forts in that region were. We just celebrated the 250th anniversary of Evacuation Day here in Boston, with a re-creation of Henry Knox bringing the cannons to the highlands around Boston and threatening the British fleet. It was a bloodless coup. Even the British admired the Americans for pulling it off.
Where did Knox get the cannons from? Fort Ticonderoga, along that line the OP mentioned. It was broken down, and manned by a token force, but was useful as a supply depot. Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold captured it pretty easily.
After the Americans took the cannon, the British were able to recapture the fort by taking the higher ground at Mount DEfiance. That’s still amazing to me that they built the fort where they did, knowing that higher ground from which cannon shot could be dropped onto the fort was that close by. So the Americans abandoned it to the British again.
Later on, the British started building a stronghold on Mount Defiance, but the Americans captured the hill and began droppinf cannonshot into Fort Toconderoga.
Then there’s fort William Henry, which didn’t even hold for the first seige….
Ethnic cleansing?
“My Lords, if I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms—never—never—never”
-William Pitt, in the British House of Lords on November 18, 1777
The entire war was the Find Out stage and everyone knew it. The shoulda coulda woulda needed to happen long before.
Witnessing the behavior of every side in every war since and still, this seems to be an idea people have a hard time learning.
It is sooo tempting to believe the enemy will quickly realize the error of their ways and welcome you, their conqueror, as the latest incarnation of a new messiah of political. religious, or commercial wisdom. Or better yet all three.