I've recieved the following response to my previous post from somebody who appears to know a lot more about this than me. It does, to some extent, trample a great deal of my case into the proverbial mud. However, the thing that fascinated me about the Breen piece was the way that his interpretation has such relevance to the state of contemporary British politics, and I think the broader conclusions that I make about this remain valid. In this case, Breen's (apparently somewhat inaccurate) interpretation of the causes of the revolution can still be used allegorically to illustrate a crucial point about the nature of Scottish nationalism. I'm not clutching at straws, I swear.
“American Independence was partly brought about by a rapidly narrowing perception of ‘Britishness’" - what a load of rubbish. There were several important reasons for American independence, but this was definitely not one of them. Here are some of the really important reasons:
(A) Some of the American colonies (not all of them) had played an active part in the war which they called the French and Indian War, and other folk called the Seven Years War. The New England colonies expected to be rewarded by being given Canada. If you look at a map, you will see that the land to the west of New England is Canada. They wanted westward expansion, which meant expansion into Canada. But the French-speaking, Catholic, Canadiens were frightened of the ultra-protestant New Englanders. The Catholic Church did a deal with the British under which they would keep Canada loyal to the Crown in return for Britain resisting the demands of the New Englanders. Massachusetts etc were furious. But when the American revolt began, Canada, despite being French-speaking and only recently acquired by conquest from France, stayed loyal. Canada didn’t become mainly English-speaking until near the end of the War of Independence - when huge numbers of loyalist Americans fled there as refugees.
(B) The Proclamation Line. The colonies to the south of New England were also blocked from Western expansion, not because of Canada, but because Britain had made an agreement with the native tribes that all of the land to the west of the peaks of the Appalachian mountain chain should remain “Indian Territory”.
(C) Lord Mansfield’s court judgement of 1773. A slave belonging to an owner who was visiting London escaped, was recaptured, and his owner attempted to put him on a ship back to America against his will. Lord Mansfield decreed that this could not be done, the slave was a free man as the Law of England did not recognise the state of slavery. Southern slave-owners such as Patrick Henry, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson were afraid that Lord Mansfield’s principle would, sooner or later, be extended from the “mother country” to the colonies. (As did in fact happen some years later when slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire.) The South supported independence in order to defend slavery. John Adams, the representative of Massachusetts, who became Vice President and then the second President of the USA, agreed that slavery would continue in the USA, in return for the support of George Washington etc.
“The American academic T.H. Breen gives a compelling argument that one of the primary motives of the rebel colonists was a powerful yearning to express, or discover, their own national identity.” - what a load of codswallop. They didn’t HAVE a “national” identity. Each colony saw itself as being separate from the other colonies. If folk from a colony travelled, it was more likely to be to London, or Edinburgh, than to one of the other colonies. In the early days, there were no universities in America, so an American who wanted further education had to cross the Atlantic. However, the only universities in England were Oxford and Cambridge - and both of those were closed to most Americans. These English universities required that all students had to be members of the Church of England. Many Americans were Baptist, or Congregationalist, or Presbyterian, and so disqualified. So, Americans went to Edinburgh, or Aberdeen, or Glasgow, or St Andrews, instead: they had no such prohibition on students who were not C of E.
“This identity was not, however, that of the now-ubiquitous idea of the ‘American’, but instead it was a desire to be recognised as ‘British’ “ - Breen is correct that they didn't see themselves as "American", but wrong in saying they saw themselves as "British". In so far as many Americans had an identity other than that of their own colony, it wasn’t “British” - it was ENGLISH. In New England, folk from Scotland were definitely seen as “foreign”, on the grounds of not being English.
“Breen suggests that before and during the revolution, the concept of ‘Britishness’ was transformed from an inclusive, imperial definition that spanned colonies across the globe (although, perhaps, focusing largely on the white populations of those colonies) into an exclusive, metropolitan and distinctly English vision of Britishness.” - again, what a load of rubbish. The English, both in England and in New England, always DID have a narrow conception which equated “British” and “English”. There was nothing new about this, they’d always thought like that.
“The jingoistic glory of the Seven Years’ War had given Americans a great deal of pride in their Britishness, as they fought beside their imperial compatriots against the French” - and the most important result of that war, so far as North America was concerned, was that the French, and French-speaking, colony of Canada came under British rule. The problem was, the aggressively Anglo- and Protestant New Englanders didn’t get their way about taking over Canada.
“Those other institutions have always been relatively London-centric, and the BBC has certainly improved recently, but when they are combined with the elitist, exclusive and quintessentially, archaically English world of Westminster politics, they make a potent cocktail of which the Scottish people have had more than enough. “ - all this is true. The bit that is NOT true is suggesting this has something to do with the reason why the USA became independent. It doesn’t.
“American Independence was partly brought about by a rapidly narrowing perception of ‘Britishness’" - what a load of rubbish. There were several important reasons for American independence, but this was definitely not one of them. Here are some of the really important reasons:
(A) Some of the American colonies (not all of them) had played an active part in the war which they called the French and Indian War, and other folk called the Seven Years War. The New England colonies expected to be rewarded by being given Canada. If you look at a map, you will see that the land to the west of New England is Canada. They wanted westward expansion, which meant expansion into Canada. But the French-speaking, Catholic, Canadiens were frightened of the ultra-protestant New Englanders. The Catholic Church did a deal with the British under which they would keep Canada loyal to the Crown in return for Britain resisting the demands of the New Englanders. Massachusetts etc were furious. But when the American revolt began, Canada, despite being French-speaking and only recently acquired by conquest from France, stayed loyal. Canada didn’t become mainly English-speaking until near the end of the War of Independence - when huge numbers of loyalist Americans fled there as refugees.
(B) The Proclamation Line. The colonies to the south of New England were also blocked from Western expansion, not because of Canada, but because Britain had made an agreement with the native tribes that all of the land to the west of the peaks of the Appalachian mountain chain should remain “Indian Territory”.
(C) Lord Mansfield’s court judgement of 1773. A slave belonging to an owner who was visiting London escaped, was recaptured, and his owner attempted to put him on a ship back to America against his will. Lord Mansfield decreed that this could not be done, the slave was a free man as the Law of England did not recognise the state of slavery. Southern slave-owners such as Patrick Henry, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson were afraid that Lord Mansfield’s principle would, sooner or later, be extended from the “mother country” to the colonies. (As did in fact happen some years later when slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire.) The South supported independence in order to defend slavery. John Adams, the representative of Massachusetts, who became Vice President and then the second President of the USA, agreed that slavery would continue in the USA, in return for the support of George Washington etc.
“The American academic T.H. Breen gives a compelling argument that one of the primary motives of the rebel colonists was a powerful yearning to express, or discover, their own national identity.” - what a load of codswallop. They didn’t HAVE a “national” identity. Each colony saw itself as being separate from the other colonies. If folk from a colony travelled, it was more likely to be to London, or Edinburgh, than to one of the other colonies. In the early days, there were no universities in America, so an American who wanted further education had to cross the Atlantic. However, the only universities in England were Oxford and Cambridge - and both of those were closed to most Americans. These English universities required that all students had to be members of the Church of England. Many Americans were Baptist, or Congregationalist, or Presbyterian, and so disqualified. So, Americans went to Edinburgh, or Aberdeen, or Glasgow, or St Andrews, instead: they had no such prohibition on students who were not C of E.
“This identity was not, however, that of the now-ubiquitous idea of the ‘American’, but instead it was a desire to be recognised as ‘British’ “ - Breen is correct that they didn't see themselves as "American", but wrong in saying they saw themselves as "British". In so far as many Americans had an identity other than that of their own colony, it wasn’t “British” - it was ENGLISH. In New England, folk from Scotland were definitely seen as “foreign”, on the grounds of not being English.
“Breen suggests that before and during the revolution, the concept of ‘Britishness’ was transformed from an inclusive, imperial definition that spanned colonies across the globe (although, perhaps, focusing largely on the white populations of those colonies) into an exclusive, metropolitan and distinctly English vision of Britishness.” - again, what a load of rubbish. The English, both in England and in New England, always DID have a narrow conception which equated “British” and “English”. There was nothing new about this, they’d always thought like that.
“The jingoistic glory of the Seven Years’ War had given Americans a great deal of pride in their Britishness, as they fought beside their imperial compatriots against the French” - and the most important result of that war, so far as North America was concerned, was that the French, and French-speaking, colony of Canada came under British rule. The problem was, the aggressively Anglo- and Protestant New Englanders didn’t get their way about taking over Canada.
“Those other institutions have always been relatively London-centric, and the BBC has certainly improved recently, but when they are combined with the elitist, exclusive and quintessentially, archaically English world of Westminster politics, they make a potent cocktail of which the Scottish people have had more than enough. “ - all this is true. The bit that is NOT true is suggesting this has something to do with the reason why the USA became independent. It doesn’t.
Rory, you posted this a while ago, but I was linked from another site. I'll comment nonetheless, because I take serious issue with much of your "reviewer"'s arguments. The biggest problem with them is they are depressing New England-centric. You'll find that there were also rebellions in New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Carolinas - in fact, all the colonies outside of New England. To imagine that the New England/Canada border was the be all and end all fails to explain why most of the leaders of the Revolution - Jefferson, Hamilton, Franklin and Washington - were from outside New England.
ReplyDeleteHe/She is referring to the circumstances surrounding the Quebec Act, a piece of Parliamentary legislation passed in 1774 which guaranteed that Canada could remain Catholic, and granting the lands west of the existing Protestant colonies of the future United States to Quebec. This did enrage and inflame a lot of the tensions that exploded into the American Revolution, but to state that it was the underlying cause is largely wrong.
Like the Boston Tea Party, the Boston Massacre, the Stamp Act or all the other singular events which have been held up as a seminal, they fail to answer the question of why a people so steeped in the lore of their Empire sought to separate from it in such a dramatic and violent fashion. That stems from a much deeper break with the metropole, London, as you yourself convincingly argued in a prior post. I, and many other historians, believe that break lies in the way Americans began to view the centre as corrupt, as being out of touch with proto-American visions of a low-tax, small government, determinedly Protestant English Empire, because of Parliament's desire to centralise its authority.
I subscribe to your analysis, and urge you not to let such comments affect your overall analysis. I think you're mainly correct, but see my comment on your previous post for qualification on that.