I recently finished "Disunion Among Ourselves : The Perilous Politics of the American Revolution" by Eli Merritt. It was fascinating to learn how much fishing rights off Newfoundland was to New England colonies and access to the Mississippi was to the southern colonies. Both issues threatened the war alliance.
Per Merritt's book, even after the war, there were several issues which threatened to break the nascent USA into two or three smaller confederations!
History classes in K-12 certainly don't delve that deeply, instead relying on our core revolutionary myths.
Years ago I read "A Few Bloody Noses" by English historian Robert Harvey. If I recall, one element not mentioned in OUR history books was the treaties the British had with the native Americans west of the Appalachian mountains which promised to keep European colonists east of that line, but which Americans, eager for land, kept breaking. The colonists resented the British for keeping them coastal.
Many of the Black Loyalists ended up settling in the province of Nova Scotia and particularly the city of Halifax, which today remain among the places in Canada with the highest Black populations.
I recently finished "Disunion Among Ourselves : The Perilous Politics of the American Revolution" by Eli Merritt. It was fascinating to learn how much fishing rights off Newfoundland was to New England colonies and access to the Mississippi was to the southern colonies. Both issues threatened the war alliance.
Per Merritt's book, even after the war, there were several issues which threatened to break the nascent USA into two or three smaller confederations!
History classes in K-12 certainly don't delve that deeply, instead relying on our core revolutionary myths.
Years ago I read "A Few Bloody Noses" by English historian Robert Harvey. If I recall, one element not mentioned in OUR history books was the treaties the British had with the native Americans west of the Appalachian mountains which promised to keep European colonists east of that line, but which Americans, eager for land, kept breaking. The colonists resented the British for keeping them coastal.
Many of the Black Loyalists ended up settling in the province of Nova Scotia and particularly the city of Halifax, which today remain among the places in Canada with the highest Black populations.