This post has been sitting in draft for years. July 4, 2025 seems like a good time to let it go.
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| Detail of Liberty, artist unknown, c.1820 |
Not so.
A group of colonies overthrew an imperial government, and fashioned a form of representative self-government. How is that not a revolution?
The colonists could have set up a new monarchy (as some wanted to do), or an inherited peerage, or any number of forms of government. They chose a representative democracy, and built into the system a series of checks and balances that would allow future generations to reform and improve upon the foundation they constructed.
Obviously their work was incomplete! And obviously the lofty words of the Declaration of Independence were not reflected in the reality of most people's lives. But not a revolution?
Consider this. Post-revolutionary France maintained brutal chattel slavery throughout the Caribbean. French women achieved suffrage in 1944 -- decades after the US and UK. So the famed French revolution was... not really a revolution?
When other countries achieved independence from empire -- when Haiti, Jamaica, Brazil, India, Vietnam, and so on -- overthrew their imperial rulers, unless there was universal suffrage and true equality, there was not a revolution?
That claim would be ludicrous. And it's no less ludicrous when applied to the former British colonies now known as the United States of America.
From a well-sourced article in Wikipedia:
In political science, a revolution (Latin: revolutio, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures.
Dictionary.com:
an overthrow or repudiation and the thorough replacement of an established government or political system by the people governed.
Merriam-Webster online:
a fundamental change in political organization
especially : the overthrow or renunciation of one government or ruler and the substitution of another by the governed
This "land transfer" reading of the American Revolution was on my mind after I revived my installment-plan reading of Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, and Greater Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898-1919, reading a chapter every week. (I've read the first book and plan to tackle the second.)
The historians behind this project were very progressive, maintaining a thoroughly critical view. The status and rights of Indigenous people, Black people, women, workers, recent immigrants, and so on, are always part of the picture. Their telling of history is not sanitized.
The segments on the organizing and the rebellions that led to the Revolution leave little doubt. No accurate interpretation of US history could possibly lead to the conclusion that the American Revolution was not actually a revolution.
This leads me to wonder why Canadian educators promoted this view.
Was it a justification for British North America's choice to remain a colony -- for being a late-bloomer when it came to patriating its own governance?
Was it intended as an antidote for Canadian feelings of inferiority that were prevalent in those days?
Was it intended as a come-down for the bragging bully to the south?
Did they redefine all revolutions using this narrow lens?
I once heard an elder of the War Resisters Support Campaign mansplain to one of the former soldiers: "We became a country without resorting to violence." Uh yeah, and patriated the Constitution in 1982, and are still part of a monarchy. In this, my American roots will always show: I don't think that's anything to be proud of.
I am amazed that that is what Canadian educators teach about the American Revolution. Is that still the case? Is it the curriculum across the country? Of course, in some sense it was a land grab, but wow, that's just a small part of the story, as you so persuasively argue.
ReplyDeletePeople did not fight and die just for land---they fought and died for the right to control their own lives through an independent nation and then designed a form of government that---at least up until now---attempted as best it could to represent the will of the people. It sure wasn't (and still isn't) perfect. It excluded non-whites and women from its voting base, it didn't eliminate slavery, it created the insane electoral college to mollify those in the less populated states, and so on. But given that it was 1776-1787, what it did was quite revolutionary.
I have no idea what the current curriculum is. The folks who told me this are your age (ish), so I would think the curriculum has changed many times since then.
ReplyDeleteOntario and Quebec schools would have more US history than the western provinces, as their local history was much more impacted by the colonies. In Ontario, for example, there's a lot of local history about the United Empire Loyalists, the folks who fled the colonies during the revolution and settled in Canada. Just to use one example.
Doing some quick googling, I found some Canadians talking about how much US history they were taught in their school years. There are actually several interesting perspectives: here.
People did not fight and die just for land
And thanks for this, Amy. I think that's the central point that is lost in this view.
The link in your post isn't active, but it was in the email notification I received (which didn't go to spam---Yay!). The comments were very interesting and wide ranging. And since we learned NOTHING about Canadian history in our public school curriculum, I certainly can't criticize the schools in Canada for not teaching American history in any depth. For example, I never knew there were loyalists who went to Canada during the Revolutionary War. And it seems the War of 1812 was a much bigger deal in Canada than I ever knew. Even as an American history major, I don't have any real sense of its significance here except that once again we beat the British. Or so we were told! It seems Canadians have a different perspective?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Laura, for the link.
Glad you found a way to get to that link! I'll repost it, in case anyone else is interested. (My "there are new posts on wmtc" email is still going to spam!)
ReplyDeleteEven as an American history major, I don't have any real sense of its significance here except that once again we beat the British. Or so we were told!
Oh my, Canadians might be shocked to hear that! At best it would confirm their view of Americans' view of history and the crappy education we all got!
Yes, the War of 1812 is very important in Canadian history. Pierre Berton, Canadian historian, writer, and beloved icon, devotes three entire volumes to the War of 1812. It's a big part of Canadian identity.
And if the Americans won, there'd be no Canada, it would be part of the US!
How is the American Revolution (rebellion) taught in Canada? and related questions.
I guess my vague recollection of the War of 1812 was a biased one. My understanding of it was that the British were trying to take back the "colonies" and the Americans again defeated them for one last time. But reading a bit online I see that the Americans were also trying to grab territory in Canada and lost that part of the war.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting and insightful post. I remember being taught in a history class I took in my undergrad at a Canadian university that a revolution requires a change in the social contract, the French Revolution being the paradigm. The American Revolution, in comparison, was treated as one group of Englishmen rupturing their ties with another. I remember being told that even some members of the British Parliament at the time (Charles Fox for example) advocated for the rights of the colonists to declare their independence, partly due to the legacy of the Glorious Revolution (which is another case of the term revolt being used with some controversy, at least by continental European terms). In any case, much to think about.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Dan. That's one way to define a revolution, seems like a valid definition (though not the only possible one). Through this lens, the American Revolution was also a revolution. The citizens were now allowed to VOTE. Obviously that was narrowly defined, but origin of birth was not a factor. Men of Dutch, German, French, and Scandanavian descent participated alongside men of English descent. The revolutionaries were not "one group of Englishmen". Many had no ties to England at all. And those who did were born in the colonies and did not consider themselves English.
ReplyDeletePerhaps some members of the British Parliament supported the colonists' goals, but that the empire opposed them utterly, as empires do.