Britain and the French

I'd never really wondered before what the British think of the American Revolution... or of America. I mean, we used to be one of their colonies. A colony. A territory who is by nature dependent on their mother country and exploited for her benefit. And here we are today, pretty much the most powerful nation in the world. Throughout my classes here, when the United States is brought up, it has usually been in the context of describing the unique relationship, the unique bond, or the unique love/hate attitude between Britain and the States. I guess in my mind our ties with Britain ended a couple hundred years ago. But here, the United States seems to still be a closely connected product of Britain. I've never given much thought really to our relationship, other than study it during certain moments of time, especially wars.

Today we were randomly split into two groups--one supporting the colonies declaring independence against Britain as the right action, and one disagreeing with the validity of their claims to independence. I was assigned to the group defending the colonies. We ended up winning, but it was still pretty interesting. The entire process of studying the Revolutionary War has been interesting. Although it's not too far off from what I remember from grade school and high school, the focus is slightly different. Here in England, much more focus was made on the fact that up until the last year or so before the Declaration of Independence, the colonists still very much viewed themselves as British citizens and simply wanted to protect their natural British rights. I also remember it being implied in our American text books that according to the Quartering Act, British troops occupied colonists' private homes. This however, was not true, and our teacher made a point to be clear on that issue. There is also more focus here on the involvement of the French in the war. Not just the magnitude of the involvement, but what that meant to England... what it still means today.

That's another thing I've been surprised about--the resentment toward the French. There is simply a general negative attitude, even today, toward the French. They are constantly the target of jokes and insults. In class today, we talked about the surrender of of the British army at Yorktown at the end of the Revolutionary War. History tells us that a British band played "The World Turned Upside Down" while the British army threw their arms down angrily in one last act of defiance and rage. However, our teacher told us that eye witness accounts of the surrender specify that the British army were not angry at the site of the colonial army, but at the presence of the French and of their humiliation in being defeated by them. Interesting that even today, Britain is more bitter with the French than the Americans regarding the American Revolution. "And England would still rather have the colonists owning that land than the French," my teacher said today, "After all, the colonists were still British."