• Neato@ttrpg.network
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    9 months ago

    Loyalists were definitely a thing then. Also called Tories, Royalists, or King’s Men.

    Prominent Loyalists repeatedly assured the British government that many thousands of them would spring to arms and fight for the Crown. The British government acted in expectation of that, especially during the Southern campaigns of 1780 and 1781. Britain was able to effectively protect the people only in areas where they had military control, and in return, the number of military Loyalists was significantly lower than what had been expected.

    Lol. That sounds familiar.

  • yesman@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    The American war for independence was hardly a revolution, more like an under new management. For the average citizen, material conditions didn’t change at all. Most institutions were carried over with slight rebranding. The democracy was limited and the constitution had a pound of protection for the ownership class for every ounce of franchise doled out to merchant class men.

    Liberty and democracy are for 3rd grade textbooks. The truth is that the ownership class was sick of taking royal orders and tired of paying franchise fees. The crown foolishly defeated the other colonial and native powers on the continent, sapping royal strength while removing British utility to the Americans.

    Next up are the Industrial Revolution, Manifest Destiny, and America as the ‘land of the free,’ which came as a surprise to the slaves

    Philomena Cunk

    • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      What the ‘rebels’ wanted was to be able to build infrastructure and trade among the different colonies. If someone wanted to travel from New York to Charleston, it was faster for them to catch a ship to Bermuda and then wait for another ship heading to Charleston. No direct roads between the two cities, because the last thing the Crown wanted was competition from American factories.

      Bridges, roads, and canals were the things they wanted; which makes the party of ‘small government’ look even more hypocritical.

    • TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id
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      9 months ago

      The short version is that it was about the transfer of power from hereditary nobility to a different elite consisting of wealthy merchants and “gentlemen” farmers. This transfer was already happening anyway throughout the British Empire, the Americans just wanted to speed it up and codify it.

  • Kbin_space_program@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    They were.

    That’s why Ontario became a thing. People who just wanted to live as is were forced to flee for their lives as rednecks conned into rebelling by the rich elites threatened their lives.

    • survivalmachine@beehaw.org
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      9 months ago

      As rubbish as America is today, you’re out of your goddamn mind if you don’t think the British have been the bad guys throughout most of their imperialist past, including during the American revolution.

          • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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            9 months ago

            So you know a driving force for the colonies wasn’t taxes but it was not being allowed to expand over the Appalachians and the troops living in their homes

            Which makes it odd that you would bring up colonialism

            Also we can look at Britain destroying their economy to offset the costs of others to not use slave labour, although this happened later anyone would know the Americans were the bad guys at the time