The seven years war is fantastic and is utterly critical to understanding the US Revolution as well as understanding how the Iroquois pulled a power move on the other first nations that worked, but later led to the current situation with first nations in North America.
On the revolution: Namely that corruption was so endemic in the colonies that when the UK actually started to do something about it the revolution happened albeit with a lot of pushing from the upper crust of the colonies.
Fun couterfactual to consider: how many MPs would “the colonies” have needed to blunt popular support for the revolution?
Probably can’t go very high, but maybe one per charter? If not that high (Scotland only had 45, I think), then what would have been enough “representation” to preclude the American elites from making a compelling case, or what paths to personal status would have tempted enough of them that there wouldn’t have been a critical mass of will and resources?
The British colonized the Americas, particularly North America, very differently than Spain and France did, but didn’t seem to think of the purpose or integration of colonies as any different.
For example, the factors that led the average member of “sons of liberty” in New York after the initial elite only membership was worried about the elites owning massive tracks of land and driving up the cost of land for them.
The UK trying to section off an Indian reserve as a buffer state after the French and Indian War was 100% a cause of the Revolution. Also the UK trying to step in and say “no, you are not allowed to purchase all of Kentucky from one random person.”
Funny how that’s never talked about in K-12 history. Or even undergrad. It’s all about those nasty taxes (after spending how much on troops to kill Indians who kinda had every reason to be pissed off?)
It was that the UK was saying the Ohio valley, which the entire NA part of the war was over was off limits to the colonists.
However, the UK could not have won the war when they did had those native groups not changed sides to ally with them. Given the dire state of the UK finances, its questionable how much longer they could have fought.
That land would also not have been needed had the elite of the colonies not taken ridiculous amounts of land for themselves.
At least particularly to Pennsylvania, in the middle of the war; the Iroquois interfered with a treaty that would have seen the colony recognize the land held by the Delaware tribe in the Ohio river valley as their land. They did so because they wanted to be the only tribe to make deals with the English and would force the other native groups to work through them. This strategy is also why the Delaware tribe had been relocated by the Iroquois to the Ohio valley in the first place.
It is now believed that the Ottoman military was able to maintain rough parity with its rivals until the 1760s, falling behind as a consequence of a long period of peace on its western front between 1740 and 1768, when the Ottomans missed out on the advances associated with the Seven Years’ War.[66]
The seven years war is fantastic and is utterly critical to understanding the US Revolution as well as understanding how the Iroquois pulled a power move on the other first nations that worked, but later led to the current situation with first nations in North America.
On the revolution: Namely that corruption was so endemic in the colonies that when the UK actually started to do something about it the revolution happened albeit with a lot of pushing from the upper crust of the colonies.
Fun couterfactual to consider: how many MPs would “the colonies” have needed to blunt popular support for the revolution?
Probably can’t go very high, but maybe one per charter? If not that high (Scotland only had 45, I think), then what would have been enough “representation” to preclude the American elites from making a compelling case, or what paths to personal status would have tempted enough of them that there wouldn’t have been a critical mass of will and resources?
The British colonized the Americas, particularly North America, very differently than Spain and France did, but didn’t seem to think of the purpose or integration of colonies as any different.
The answer would probably be “none”.
For example, the factors that led the average member of “sons of liberty” in New York after the initial elite only membership was worried about the elites owning massive tracks of land and driving up the cost of land for them.
The UK trying to section off an Indian reserve as a buffer state after the French and Indian War was 100% a cause of the Revolution. Also the UK trying to step in and say “no, you are not allowed to purchase all of Kentucky from one random person.”
Funny how that’s never talked about in K-12 history. Or even undergrad. It’s all about those nasty taxes (after spending how much on troops to kill Indians who kinda had every reason to be pissed off?)
Yes, it is more complex than that.
However, the UK could not have won the war when they did had those native groups not changed sides to ally with them. Given the dire state of the UK finances, its questionable how much longer they could have fought.
That land would also not have been needed had the elite of the colonies not taken ridiculous amounts of land for themselves.
TIL:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_decline_thesis