4 ms·
> Murder of the British is a strange take on the events of Lexington and Concord. The outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775 can fairly be called an act o
by Mediterraneo10 6y ago
> Murder of the British is a strange take on the events of Lexington and Concord.
The outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775 can fairly be called an act of violence. The American colonies in the early days of the conflict were pretty evenly split between loyalists and revolutionaries. The latter ultimately won the day in large part by burning down loyalists’ houses or tarring and feathering them, sending some of the loyalists into exile in Canada or the Caribbean and encouraging others to stay low lest they be attacked, too.
These facts don’t get talked about much in the American school system, because like in most countries the public school system seeks to perpetuate a national mythology for the sake of civic unity. However, revolutions anywhere in the world tend to initially play out as a civil war of sorts among the country’s own people, and the American Revolution was no exception.
- exabrial 6y agoThey were presented in my education, though mine wasn't a public education.
- bobthepanda 6y agoThey were presented in mine, though New York being the center of Loyalist America probably had something to do with it.
- epicureanideal 6y agoInteresting! I wonder how it has influenced political parties etc. to the present?
- bobthepanda 6y agoI don't think it has influenced political parties per se, because New York has had so much immigration that descendants of the original colonial population is a negligible percentage. (That, and many Loyalists fled to other British colonies to escape persecution.) Where this shows up is maybe general political philosophy. New York has a strong tradition of concentrated government, with Alexander Hamilton behind proposals for a US Senate with lifetime appointment and a central bank. And the state executive is unusually strong and the most celebrated figures in state government, elected or otherwise, are known for wielding their powers in nearly dictatorial ways. (Andrew Cuomo is currently trying to emulate this, invoking the images of former members of government like Robert Moses and Nelson Rockefeller. And yes, that Rockefeller.)
- ineedasername 6y agoYes, important to keep in mind that revolutions always have their roots in civil war, and that's always brutal.
- flycaliguy 6y agoAs a Canadian: A tar and feather illustration is among the most memorable from my childhood.
- klmadfejno 6y agoNobody is doubting it was an act of violence. The oddity is that they're calling it an act of murder as opposed to an act of war. Murder sounds like a bunch of criminals, which is a really one sided take. The british soldiers were there to destroy colonial military supplies. It may be technically correct, but you don't hear about how the GIs murdered a bunch of Nazis on the beaches of Normandy or whatever other war suits your fancy. Save for the particularly one sided conflicts. I got history from american public education, and while half of it was garbage, and half of it was dull internal politics of isolationism, there was no ambiguity that the revolutionary war was a bloody conflict.
- beaner 6y agoI'm not a historian but isn't there some ambiguity here? If war hadn't already been declared by the relevant governments, you can't be killing in the name of war.
- refurb 6y agoYou don’t want to open up that can of worms. Thousands of war deaths would qualify as murders if you used a declaration as the deciding factor.
- yread 6y agoWell, back in the day wars did usually start with a declaration of war.
- throwaway287391 6y agoWhat's the danger in "opening that can of worms"? IMHO the world might be a better place if there were a lot less killing, whether it's in the context of a war or not. Some killings throughout history are certainly justifiable or excusable, but it seems far more dangerous to me to stick one's head in the sand and avoid reflecting on whether each killing really needed to happen, or if the victim could reasonably have been spared without significant risk of harm or jeopardizing the larger cause (presuming the cause itself is just). "Murder" doesn't seem like an unreasonable label in the latter case. (Whether and how the killer should be punished in such situations is a separate question that I'm not taking a position on here.)