REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Rebels & Redcoats - Threadjack Clearup

POSTED BY: HOTPOINT
UPDATED: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 15:08
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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 12:09 AM

HOTPOINT


This is a thread set up here by myself to try and prevent a continuing thread derail from this thread on UK Browncoats http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=4&t=14886

I'm going to paste in the current state of play then address the last post

Quote:

Originally posted by Hotpoint:
Yet another UK Browncoat here (though I really think we should call ourselves Redcoats )

I'm down in Portsmouth, Hampshire



Quote:

Originally posted by BITTERBIERCE:
Ah, there's nothing quite like the sound of a hundred concealed US guns cocking all at once.



Quote:

Originally posted by Hotpoint:
Like the concealed American Militia that shot at the British Army riding into Washington DC under a flag of truce in 1814 to accept the capitals surrender (after the Redcoats shot the US Army to pieces in the field at Bladensburg)?

(Note: If you shoot a Major Generals horse out from under him when he's under the protection of a white flag he just might be riled up enough to burn the White House)

Sorry I just couldn't resist it



Quote:

Originally posted by BITTERBIERCE:
Yeah, it's odd how much we'd learned from the redcoats in the war of Independants (excuse me, Independence). It's just that we couldn't find innocent women and children around to butcher like at Lexington and Concord or random Algonquins, so we had to pick on your poor armed troops. Sorry, couldn't resist.

And anway, don't you have the wrong site? Being a redcoat- aren't you looking for the Alliance website? I hear you won a good victory in Serenity Valley.



Quote:

Originally posted by BITTERBIERCE:
Oh, I forgot, one last thing- you do know the burning was direct ordered retaliation for the burning of York, right? They don't sell the reason for the burning as some dastardly colonial deed in Brit history books, do they?



Quote:

Originally posted by Hotpoint:
You do know that many of the worst atrocities of the American War of Independence were carried out by the "Patriot" side right? If you don't believe me look up the Gnadenhutten massacre for example

Interesting spin on things. Of course I could counter argue that since slavery is apparently legal in the Alliance, and that the slave owning landed classes are very much on top in the Alliance, they have more in common with the American Rebels.

You know we Brits abolished slavery here in England in 1772 and that fear we'd do the same in the Colonies was a major reason for the Rebellion right?

In any case if you'd like to argue this matter further (and good naturedly I hope) how about you start a thread in Real World FFF.NET and we can take the topic there instead of continuing to hijack this thread?



Quote:

Originally posted by Hotpoint:
No actually it wasn't in direct retaliation for just the Burning of York (Modern day Toronto then Capital of Upper Canada) but for all the other Canadian Towns burned too.

The firing on the White Flag likely did colour Major General Robert Ross's view on exactly how many buildings he was going to burn though.

Once again we can take this to REAL WORLD FFF.NET if you want?



...................................
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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 12:10 AM

HOTPOINT


Quote:

Originally posted by BitterBierce:
Quote:


You do know that many of the worst atrocities of the American War of Independence were carried out by the "Patriot" side right? If you don't believe me look up the Gnadenhutten massacre for example



I don't know anything of the frickin' kind. I know I can tit for tat you all day long with this one, so let's avoid the "many of the worst" weasel words, shall we? Also, in a technical historical irony, keep in mind the people who did the "Patriot" atrocities were British. I wonder who they learned their ways from, dad.


Quote:


You know we Brits abolished slavery here in England in 1772 and that fear we'd do the same in the Colonies was a major reason for the Rebellion right?




Darn, we'll never know. If only there were some document that listed the colonial's grievances against the Crown, then we could...hey!*

You know, you mighta coulda got away with that one if the Americans' hilariously named Founding Fathers hadn't kept such fantastic and voluminous notes. Unfortunately for your argument they did and we know precisely what was on their mind.


Quote:


In any case if you'd like to argue this matter further (and good naturedly I hope) how about you start a thread in Real World FFF.NET and we can take the topic there instead of continuing to hijack this thread?



Hey, I was just picking up where you left off, cochise. You were the one who "couldn't resist". You want to keep this one up, respond to this there.

*- Please don't make me spell that out.



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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 12:32 AM

HOTPOINT


Quote:

Originally posted by BitterBierce:
I don't know anything of the frickin' kind. I know I can tit for tat you all day long with this one, so let's avoid the "many of the worst" weasel words, shall we? Also, in a technical historical irony, keep in mind the people who did the "Patriot" atrocities were British. I wonder who they learned their ways from, dad.



I wasn't using "many of the worst" as "weasel words" I was actually trying to be polite because I am not aware of any atrocities carried out by Redcoats, or even American Loyalists, that compares with Gnadenhutten where 93 unarmed men women and children (Christian Indians of the Munsee and Delawere tribes considered allied to the British) were clubbed to death, scalped (to obtain the bounty offered on them by the Pennsylvania Legislature) and then piled into the schoolhouse which was burned.

As to who they learned their ways from two points:

(i) Why do you think the Indian Tribes concerned overwhelmingly allied themselves to the British in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812?

(ii) Who invented scalping and started paying money for them?

Quote:

Originally posted by BitterBierce:
Darn, we'll never know. If only there were some document that listed the colonial's grievances against the Crown, then we could...hey!*



You mean the original draft Declaration of Independence? The one that wasn't the 1776 version that was produced after the fighting had already been going on two years?

You do know that the earlier version of the Declaration by Thomas Jefferson actually did feature the British freeing of the Slaves as a major grievance right? The King "inciting domestic insurrections" was the actual phrase used.

Quote:

Originally posted by BitterBierce:
You know, you mighta coulda got away with that one if the Americans' hilariously named Founding Fathers hadn't kept such fantastic and voluminous notes. Unfortunately for your argument they did and we know precisely what was on their mind.



Indeed we do there is masses of documentation on this period. Unfortunately much of it gets swept under the carpet because it's so damn inconvenient. Tell you what at the end of this post I'm going to provide a reading list of recent texts that you would be well to look up

Quote:

Originally posted by BitterBierce:
Hey, I was just picking up where you left off, cochise. You were the one who "couldn't resist". You want to keep this one up, respond to this there.



Sorry my friend but it was you that started the threadjack with your "Ah, there's nothing quite like the sound of a hundred concealed US guns cocking all at once" comment to my original on-topic post

Oh yes that recommended reading:

Slave Nation: How Slavery United The Colonies And Sparked The American Revolution - Alfred W. Blumrosen

Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution - Simon Schama

Rebels & Redcoats - Hugh Bicheno

The former two books were published in 2005 and the latter in 2003 so they're pretty much right up-to-date. Happy reading


...................................
Hurrah, hurrah, when things are at their worst
With cries of “Death or Glory” comes the mighty Twenty-First

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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 12:56 AM

HOTPOINT


Quote:

Originally posted by BitterBierce:
Then why did you say it was for a white flag disruption? I guess what I'm really asking is, which time are you telling the truth, this time or the last? You know, just to clear it up.



My orginal response was meant more as a jokey response to what I assumed was meant to be a jokey comment by yourself. That was the reason for the smilie I put in (maybe you missed it?)


Quote:

Originally posted by BitterBierce:

Actually it was on written orders of the Crown's representative given immediately after York.



Please source this because it goes against what I've read elsewhere that the burning of the White House and other buildings was more of a local command decision by Robert Ross and Vice Admiral Cochrane

Quote:

Originally posted by BitterBierce:

Since your take makes no sense (they either torched towns or they didn't, I don't know of any historical proportional representation in rampages), I will assume you just kinda have a "differential truth equation".



Accusing me of falsehood is both rude and unwarranted. Actually there was a "historical proportional representation" so to speak in the burning of cities in that it was selected Government Buildings of Washington DC, not the city as a whole, that were put to the torch.

It wasn't a "rampage", it was actually a well-ordered operation for the most part. They actually stopped to eat the dinner laid out in the White House for the supposed "victorious Americans" who had gone to fight at Bladensburg before setting the White House alight

If you didn't know that you need to research your subject more thoroughly methinks


...................................
Hurrah, hurrah, when things are at their worst
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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 1:03 AM

HOTPOINT


Just something else regarding Slavery and the origins of the American Revolution to be getting on with which I found on google easily enough.

Quote:


John Murray, fourth Earl of Dunmore, the last royal governor of Virginia, in April 1772 expressed his conviction to Lord Dartmouth, Bntish secretary of state for the colonies, that "in case of a War" the slaves, "attached by no tye to their Master or to the Country" would "join the first that would encourage them to revenge themselves by which means a Conquest of this Country would inevitably be effected in a very short time." Dunmore's fears were shared by many white Virginians, though none expected that three years later Dunmore himself would attempt "a Conquest of this Country" with the help of African-American slaves.

The early 1770s were a period of slave unrest in Virginia, prompting the city of Williamsburg to establish a night watch in July 1772 to apprehend "disorderly People, Slaves as well as others." Slave restiveness increased when news of the Somersett case reached the colonies in September 1772. James Somersett, a slave taken to England by his master Charles Steuart, had run away. Recaptured and in chains in the hull of a ship bound for Jamaica, he sued for his freedom. In June 1772, Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, held that slavery "is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law." As "the law of England" neither "allowed" nor "approved" of slavery, Mansfield ruled that "the black must be discharged."

Mansfield's decision outlawed slavery only in England; it did not apply to British colonies. But that was immaterial to American slaves. In January 1773, the General Court in Boston received the first of three petitions in which slaves pleaded their freedom with the argument that Mansfield's decision should indeed apply to the colonies, where they were "held in a state of Slavery within a free and christian Country."

By September 1773, the first of Virginia's 250,000 slaves were also trying to get "out of the Colony, particularly to Britain" - so noted John Austin Finnie's advertisement for runaways Bacchus and Amy - "where they imagine they will be free." The king was on their side - or so slaves thought - and against their masters, who feared a British-instigated slave revolt. Following the discovery in November 1774 of slaves conspiring to desert "when the English troops should arrive," James Madison wrote to William Bradford of his conviction that "If america & Britain come to an hostile rupture I am afraid an Insurrection among the slaves may & will be promoted" in an attempt to preserve Virginia for the crown of King George III.

When tensions between Dunmore and Virginia's ruling elite increased in early 1775, the ground was well prepared for his lordship to "arm all my own Negroes and receive all others that will come to me who I shall declare free," as he wrote to Dartmouth on March 1. Dunmore could argue that since the colonists were clamoring for English law, they could get a taste of it, Somersett and all. The slaves, on the other hand, considered the government in London and its local representatives to be sympathetic to their cause, and they were only waiting for the sign to take up arms to "reduce the refractory people of this Colony to obedience."

Armed conflict was looming, and Dunmore ordered Royal Marines to seize the gunpowder stored in the Williamsburg Magazine during the night of April 20-21. When Virginia threatened to erupt in open violence, Dunmore backed down. Forced to pay restitution for the powder, Dunmore lost his temper in front of the town leaders. Williamsburg resident Dr. William Pasteur heard the governor say that he would "declare freedom to the slaves and reduce the City of Williamsburg to ashes." He boasted he would have "all the slaves on the side of the government". By mid-May, rumors of Dunmore's plans had spread all the way to Boston, from where General Thomas Gage, Governor of Massachusetts, informed Dartmouth: "We hear that a Declaration his Lordship has made, of proclaiming all the Negroes free, who should join him, has Startled the Insurgents."

Gage was jumping the gun but not by much. On June 8, Dunmore fled Williamsburg for the safety of the man-of-war Fowey at Yorktown. The Virginia Convention quickly assured the governor of his own personal safety but expressed its extreme displeasure of this "most diabolical" scheme "meditated, and generally recommended, by a Person of great Influence, to offer Freedom to our slaves, and turn them against their Masters." But Dunmore felt that he had no alternative. His ranks reduced to some 300 soldiers, sailors, and loyalists, he let it be known that he welcomed supporters of any skin color. As word spread along the coast, about 100 black runaways reached Dunmore's fleet during the fall of 1775. In early November his troops routed a corps of Virginia militia at Kemp's Landing. That was the signal for the publication of Dunmore's long-anticipated proclamation to American slaves.

Dated November 7, it declared "all indented Servants, Negroes, or others (appertaining to Rebels,) free that are able and willing to bear Arms, they joining his MAJESTY'S Troops, as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing this Colony to a proper Sense of their Duty, to his MAJESTY'S Crown and Dignity" This was not a general emancipation of slaves and indentured servants. Dunmore invited only those slaves to his banner who were owned by rebels, and of those, only males could bear arms.

The response was overwhelming. By December 1, about 300 runaways were carrying muskets and wearing the garb of Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment, the words "Liberty to Slaves" emblazoned on their chests



http://www.americanrevolution.org/blk.html


...................................
Hurrah, hurrah, when things are at their worst
With cries of “Death or Glory” comes the mighty Twenty-First

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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 2:37 AM

STARSONG


Oh fiddlesticks, that was pure pragmatism, not ethics. Heck, your very own link says so --

Quote:


This was not a general emancipation of slaves and indentured servants. Dunmore invited only those slaves to his banner who were owned by rebels, and of those, only males could bear arms.



And if the Crown was so big on stopping slavery, why were they impressing not only their own folks but ours as well into the Navy a generation later? Or heck, shipping Scots over here as indentured a generation earlier?

Look, there is a Loyalist argument that makes sense, and is legitimate in the context of the times -- namely, that we were freeloaders who wanted the benefits of the Crown without ponying up for 'em. That's how a lot of the folks there, and more than a few here saw 'em.

But the slavery thing? Nuh-uh. Let's leave the PC restrospectives alone, shall we? As already noted, there are REAMS of paper written at the time on our side and yours. Slavery just ain't there as a grudge, man.

(Unlike our own revolution down here against our Yankee brothers a couple generations later, where I have to admit it did play an uncomfortably large -- though far from singular -- cause. And the documents of the time show it.)

So let's not whitewash our roles in history, eh? We've done bad things, you've done bad things, but on the balance Americans and Brits both are pretty darn decent people. Heck, our cultures are both given to overly-critical self analysis as well.

So how about we just leave the past in the past, eh? It's fun to read about, but it don't make no sense refighting wars that were over centuries before any of us were born.

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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 2:42 AM

SERGEANTX


Interesting. But I'm tempted to 'jack' further and bring up something that actually matters, like how we define "terrorism" and how a nation or military deals with a weaker enemy willing to go to unconventional extremes to achieve its goal.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 3:19 AM

HOTPOINT


Quote:

Originally posted by StarSong:
Oh fiddlesticks, that was pure pragmatism, not ethics. Heck, your very own link says so --

Quote:


This was not a general emancipation of slaves and indentured servants. Dunmore invited only those slaves to his banner who were owned by rebels, and of those, only males could bear arms.



And if the Crown was so big on stopping slavery, why were they impressing not only their own folks but ours as well into the Navy a generation later? Or heck, shipping Scots over here as indentured a generation earlier?



Well the link was just one I found with a related topic. The substance is in the textbooks I cited.

Anyhow it wasn't so much an issue of a sudden move towards abolitionism in the British Government (remember that the King was largely a figurehead Monarch the power was largely in the hands of Prime Minister Lord North and the Houses of Parliament) but rather a legal issue which is bought up in the link. I'm not trying to argue that it was just all about the righteous Anti-Slavery Brits Vs. the Odious Slaveowning Rebels but rather to voice the issue that the motivations of the founding fathers had a dark, and often sorely neglected, undertone.

English Common law and English Legal Precedent was something that could (and was) be bought into legal argument in the Colonial Courts. That was an issue that did have a possible implication to the 13 Colonies as well as the Sommersett Decision being a disquieting rallying cry for the Slaves.

Quote:

Originally posted by StarSong:

Look, there is a Loyalist argument that makes sense, and is legitimate in the context of the times -- namely, that we were freeloaders who wanted the benefits of the Crown without ponying up for 'em. That's how a lot of the folks there, and more than a few here saw 'em.

But the slavery thing? Nuh-uh. Let's leave the PC restrospectives alone, shall we? As already noted, there are REAMS of paper written at the time on our side and yours. Slavery just ain't there as a grudge, man.



There are reams of paper and documents that seem to indicate that it was, they just don't get much attention.

Read the books I suggested to BITTERBIERCE they're not just PC polemics they're fully researched and referenced history, Simon Schama for instance is one of the best known and highly respected Historians in the world. Actually when you look into the topic fully you'll discover that the traditional narratives are in some ways the Politically Correct ones since they ignore some of the factors involved.

Rebels & Redcoats is actually the book accompanying a BBC Documentary Series of the same name (presented by Professor Richard Holmes) while the BBC is also making a series this year based on Rough Crossings. You might get to see them on the other side of the Atlantic (I don't know). This stuff isn't really as "out-there" as you might first think.

Quote:

Originally posted by StarSong:
So let's not whitewash our roles in history, eh? We've done bad things, you've done bad things, but on the balance Americans and Brits both are pretty darn decent people. Heck, our cultures are both given to overly-critical self analysis as well.



I'm sorry but ignoring the role of Slavery and Slaves in the American Revolution is whitewashing History.

And I'm certainly not denying that the British have done some despicable things, the Opium Wars and the Concentration Camps in South Africa being high on the list, I'm just trying to open peoples eyes to a part of history that has been seriously unreported.

Quote:

Originally posted by StarSong:
So how about we just leave the past in the past, eh? It's fun to read about, but it don't make no sense refighting wars that were over centuries before any of us were born.



Well it wasn't me that started talking about "Ah, there's nothing quite like the sound of a hundred concealed US guns cocking all at once" so you might be better off addressing that to BITTERBIERCE I was just responding in kind. For the record whilst Redcoat may just conjure up images of the Revolutionary War to Americans it means something a lot broader to Brits in that our Army wore red from the time of the New Model Army in the English Civil War in the 1640's right up until the end of the 19th Century, basically the time when Brittania ruled the waves (and waived a few of the rules for that matter )


...................................
Hurrah, hurrah, when things are at their worst
With cries of “Death or Glory” comes the mighty Twenty-First

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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 2:35 PM

SEVENPERCENT


See, here we are over at RWED, thinking that we're the pit of the FFF universe; full of argumentative folk who like to shout at one another. Who knew the real battle lines were drawn in the UK Browncoat section?

If you UK folk don't simmer down, you're going to attract DTrove, Signy, Geezer or Citizen's attention, and before you know it, have a bunch of us moving over to your threads.

Don't say I didn't warn you.



7%

------------------------------------------
He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

Anyone wanting to continue a discussion off board is welcome to email me - check bio for details.

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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 3:08 PM

GINOBIFFARONI


Quote:

Originally posted by SergeantX:
Interesting. But I'm tempted to 'jack' further and bring up something that actually matters, like how we define "terrorism" and how a nation or military deals with a weaker enemy willing to go to unconventional extremes to achieve its goal.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock



I seemed to get hacked upon everytime I bring things like that up



" Over and in, last call for sin
While everyone's lost, the battle is won
With all these things that I have done "

The Killers

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/killers/allthesethingsthativedone.html


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