Missing stuff from a HS history book

American History

When I first learned it was so Americentric. Reading a variety of historians, I always thought those high school books will soon overturn this and tell a more complete story. Nope.  They now vomit political correctness. Here’s what I mean--let’s just choose the Revolutionary War as an example. 

.     The preliminary things that are important to realize about our Revolt are that France was 4 times as big as Great Britain and Spain was twice as big.  Netherlands and Britain were small.  Second, Sugar was king in the new world, not cotton or tobacco or furs. When France lost the French and Indian War, they ceded unprofitable Canada but really held onto (are you ready for this?) Haiti.  Dutch, French, Swedes, Spanish all vied for the Caribbean Sugar Islands.  Add Portugal and they were the real villains in slave biz, not USA, as the PC assumes today. Third, Enlightenment.  When Jefferson wrote the Declaration, it was pure Enlightenment logic and it influenced Whigs in Parliament like Burke and Fox to sympathize.  Fourth George III, the monarch who wanted to think of himself as a great warrior like his dad George II, was a Palace Puppy who never even saw the sea until he was an old man (Yes, an Englishman!) He appointed second rate ministers who never went on a fact-finding mission to America either. And his generals had No Real Strategy to win and reoccupy.

            So the Americans won the logic appeal, the propaganda game, the spying game and the guerilla warfare game.  When they won at Saratoga, Oct. 1777, Benjamin Franklin went to work.  He should be as big a hero as Washington.  He got the French to ally in 1778 and America was no longer alone. Spain tacitly backed France in hopes of recovering Gibraltar.  Dutch wanted British Caribbean islands and also joined against Britain.  Then in 1781, Corwallis surrendered at Yorktown which really took the wind out of British war hawks. (And here our HS history books seem to pronounce the war over) But Brits were winning other victories and it wasn’t the end of the war.  Adm. Howe defeated Admiral De Grasse in the Caribbean saving their precious sugar islands.  They stopped the Spanish siege of Gibraltar and Britain was once again ruler of the seas. Franklin met a peace delegation in Paris and talked sense.  There was no winning for the Brits in USA. Washington had just threatened hanging a British officer in retaliation for a loyalist atrocity and suddenly opinion in England had turned from “colonists are feckless dummies” to “this Washington is one tough cookie”.  Franklin, knowing that the Canadians were ambiguous about the Revolt, offered to make no claims on Canada and leave it in British hands.  But USA must be outright independent.   Then he enticed the French with a first of its kind treaty for free international fishing in the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. French felt like they were back in the game in N. America with that provision.  (First international fishing treaty ever done) Then he wooed England with the idea that once America was recognized as independent, the 2 nations had far more to agree about than to dispute.  France and allies signed. England signed. Everyone thought they had gotten a good deal.  In the ensuing toasts in Paris, a Frenchman boasted of their alliance by saying to a Brit, “the thirteen United States will someday form the greatest empire in the World.” To which the Brit retorted, “Yes Monsieur, and they will all speak English, every one of them.” The British historians think this was the beginning of the Anglo-American Special Relationship.  (I think they forget War of 1812 and other disputes). Sly Franklin sailed home from Paris with an Independent United States of America.