[| I, CWAS |]

Tears down the myth of the oft cited 1/3 of Americans supported the revolution. I have to cross check some things he says with other sources, but
otherwise this is one of the few scholars who actually took the question on.

http://www.independent.org/publications ... sp?id=1398

[era o divertimento]

I've heard that the American revolution was mainly England wanting the colonies to give up slaves (slaves didn't have money for British products). I got no source, no nothing, this was just relayed to me by a college student. You should have sopmething on that, CWAS

[Attila The Nun]

And that is what we call bullshit, wboxerw. England was not anti-slavery then, nor would it want it's colonies (especially colonies like America, who were an agricultural goldmine) to abandon slavery due to how heavily it was dependant on slave labour

[era o divertimento]

Damn, I actually had to research a little. I found this link, which may be what was relayed to me. I also found this.

But it seems to me that those links put forth the idea that the British tried to "turn" the slaves (who were a big part of the population) against the insurgents of the U.S. And to be honest, that doesn't sound like a big secret or amazing new discovery.

[Captain Hat]

Right on, CWAS.

The American Revolution was a widely supported movement on all levels of American society. British ineptitude during the conflict only helped to swell the ranks of the rebels.

[malachi151]

Why does he say "What is truly shocking, and depressing, however, is that beginning back twenty-two years ago, at least three historians, one of them a Marxist, the other two solid..."

It would of course be logical that a Marxist historican would find errors in history, BECAUSE Marxist historians ARE solid, not otherwise as he so banefully tries to imply.

Marxists have a well earned reputation of going back tp primary sources and giving them fresh interpretation, as I do myself.

Now, as for this claim about 1/3 for, again, and neutral, this article does not really refute such a claim, however it does possibly refute that Adams' made such a claim, but having not seen any opposing view to this I cannot take it at face value alone.

What I do know is that there is:

1) The population of the colonies vs the number of American troops

2) We have ample historical accounts of how many people fled or were driven out after the Revolution. We know roughly how many loyalists fled back to Englad, fled to Novascotia, fled to Canada, feld to the Carribean, etc. We also know how many were hanged.

3) There was no movement for revolution at all until 1776, so it wasn't an idea that had time to really build up a broad concensus anyway.

If, then, the Founding Fathers were knowingly in a minority, and they must have had some sense about whether their views were representative of a large mass of the people, there is no escaping the conclusion that they were a pretty slippery and hypocritical bunch.

Why should this be of any surpirze? I am as big asupporter of the founders as any, but they also said that "all men are created equal" and have rights, yet continued on in a system of slavery and owned slaves themselves.

To not recognize this hypocracy is to commit a fatal error in understanding the founders.

What cannot fail to strike the reader if he chooses to examine some of the misreadings of the Adams’ quote in their larger contexts—by Daniel Ellsberg, Alistair Cooke, or Sydney Harris, for example—is the obvious delight that these writers take, which is, indeed, a major reason they cite it, in the notion that it is a minority that often knows best.

A minority does often know best, and this should be of no suprize. It is typically only a minority that considers any given issue in detail and deep thought. Therefore, on any issue, be it political or otherwise, there will only be a minority that understands the issue best.

Further, the patriots managed not only to subdue the internal Loyalist opposition, which had the support of the British army, Hessian mercenaries, and Indian allies, but also to mount an assault on Canada.

Umm... HELLO! Did he compltely forget that more French troops participated in the war that patriots!?!

The alliance with France shortened the war. Wiithout it, one can speculate a long, bloody drawn-out war before the British packed up and went home.

Utter rubbish! One can speculate that without the French the Americans would have lost the war outright, we almost lost it as it was. Holy crap this guy doesn't know what he is talking about!

Disliking the use of outright force or terror against those who harbored Loyalist leanings, and because they represented a majority, the committees preferred to practice techniques which students of Chinese Communist “brainwashing” would recognize as “coercive persuasion.”

Maybe so, but there were also lynchings, propety seizures, tar and feathering, imprisonment, etc.

R. R. Palmer noted that the percentage of the population that left America was higher than in revolutions such as the French and the Russian.

Duh, which is as I said, we know that the number of people who fled America after the Revolution was high, thus supporting the idea that it was NOT a majority led revolution. I mean the guy contradicts his main point here just to make a different and lesser point.

I stopped reading there. What a bunch of poppycock.