How come Americans, out of all the Anglophone colonial nations, seemingly developed the strongest nationalist identity and almost immediate violent reaction to British Parliament claiming legislative supremacy over them?The populations of Newfoundland, the Caribbean colonies, and later Australia, South Africa, NZ, etc... seemed oddly content with British rule, when contrasted to the 13 Colonies' reaction to what were seemingly fairly banal pieces of legislation. What gives?
>>18689840We go over this weekly. American colonies had a history of self governance since their founding, in fact it was set up that way in the colonial charters issued by the British. Then all of a sudden, the British started rewriting the charters, dissolving colonial assemblies, appointing royal governors with autocratic overreach, suspending trial by jury, placing certain colonies under martial law, etc etcThe colonies in America had an independent streak because they were set up that way from the start
>>18689983This doesn't really answer why this wasn't really a thing in Australia or Canada though, which were also pretty much forced to self manage alone out of necessity from the start.
>>18690092Canada got an infusion of loyalists who fled from the 13 colonies after the war, and Australia was managed from the start to avoid this kind of thing. IIRC it was 25% of the population of the 13 colonies that fled to Canada. And as for why Canada didn't go in with the 13 colonies to begin with, it's because they were recent conquests from French rule, the French had them set up differently with less local independence on the levels required for secession.
>>18690387>IIRC it was 25% of the population of the 13 colonies that fled to Canada.Side note but that's exactly why the war of 1812 wasn't the rousing success that America anticipated. They expected an American incursion to cause the Canucks to rise up against their colonial overlords too, but forgot that they drove all the loyalists north just 30 years earlier
>>18690387Wasn't that just primarily to Nova Scotia?
>>18690387I believe modern estimates are that most Loyalists actually ended up staying in the US and an estimated 60,000 or so went to Canada >>18690403I remember reading an anecdote from the war where a Canadian militiaman actually killed his cousin on the American side, and the Canadian's reaction was essentially "serves him right for being a traitor" lmao. I'll have to find that book again, it was focused on the Great Lakes front of the war and the capture of York etc...
