robin1234

Exactly. And they asserted the right to destroy all the artwork and iconography in other people's churches, priceless stained glass, fonts, wallpintings and screens from previous centuries. Also asserted the right to try people as witches and execute them.

morpeth

The Pilgrims were seperatists while the Puritans were non-separating Congregationalists, basically the Puritans beieved in the unity with the Church but not the way worship was praticed-i.e. they felt too many Catholic influence were still present in the Church of England.The majority of the Puritans emigrated before 1660. The pilgrims as separatists wished to follow their own denomination, and as with other groups, Quakers, Mennonites , Brethren, Moravians, Hutterites all came to America to follow their own denomination as they saw fit and escaping various degrees of oppression from state Churches. From what I can gather the Pilgrims were much more tolerant than the Puritans.

It seems that while some may have come from economic motives, generally to escape from oppression was quite common among the various Protestant groups that emigrated in the 16th,17th and 18th century. Hardly a myth. Interesting comments from the BBC :

BBC News | UK | Why the Pilgrim Fathers left England

Before 1660 Pilgrims and the Puritans since the late 16th century had been subject to oppression - executions, imprisonment, fines.

An interesting book review on the subject :

Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558-1689 | Reviews in History

dc koop

I never heard the Johnny Horton version but Lonnie Lonnie Donegan had a hit with it in 1959 which was near top of the charts for several months.

Isn't "Remember the Alamo" a well known rallying cry among Americans?
Two legends in American history died there during the siege, Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie. Several English and Scots were also among the defenders Mexican General Santa Ana was later captured by the Americans disguised as a woman

I would think if quizzed that far more American school kids would know more about the Alamo and the history connected with it than what events took place during the war of 1812

dc koop

Very much similar to ISIS it seems which has destroyed priceless relics and buildings dating back a thousand years and executed people for absurd reasons

The destruction and death caused in the name of various religions down thru the ages must be beyond comprehension.

dc koop

I can understand the reluctance of the American militia to cross the border into Canada. It wasn't so many years before 1812 that Benedict Arnold leading a large American militia force crossed into Canada with the intention of capturing Montreal and Quebec city. Montreal was captured and occupied for a brief period but the rest of the mission was a total disaster with small box taking a huge toll on the American forces and the lack of support or sympathy for them from the majority of French speaking Quebecois. Although defeated and occupied earlier by the British the Quebecois were left in peace to practice their culture, Catholic religion and maintain their language. It may be that the Americans were seen as a threat to that.

kimilseung

I think the point may be that the Alamo was during the Texas Revolution, rather than the Mexican-American War, although they both seem to be a part of American expansion in to Mexican lands.

carcajou

And you're wrong. If your point is that the Americans should have some kind of seller's remorse for leaving the UK, that isn't going to find a receptive audience - and not because the Americans are too stupid to know what's good for them or don't understand your attempts to "Brit-splain" their history to them. They do understand it. You're just wrong.

kimilseung

I see no attempt to Brit-splain nor asking Americans to regret their history.
Just stating that the myth of escaping religious persecution for freedom by some early arrivals, as opposed to the wish for freedom to practice religious intolerance, is just that a national myth. I think many Americans are not familiar with the story, as I have met several that think those on the Mayflower were the first arrivals in what was to become the US from Europe.
How do you think he is wrong?

carcajou

PS - I have a lot of family in Quebec and that must be another place that just misunderstood the "loving touch" Britain showed the ungrateful peoples of all stripes across North America. Let's ask the Acadians how so many of them ended up in Louisiana, or the descendants of the Iroquois how their deals with the British worked out.

Do not attempt to whitewash British history in North America.

At the same time as the American Revolution, wasn't the TOLERANT, JUST AND FABULOUS British Government of the time also engaging in forced deportation of petty criminals - British citizens - to Australia? No, no, no - can't be - the British Government at the time would never do that to its own citizens, no oppression or repression there, no nasty streaks at all in 1700s and 1800s British Governance. Can't imagine what those North American crazy colonists could have been thinking. Those weren't "convicts" being forced halfway around the world, they were all volunteers just out for a planetary joy ride. Better mosey on over to the Australia forum with the Brit-splaining as that's another country that needs to have its national "mythology" corrected.

steveq

Considering the previous major criminal sanction, it was a very humane thing to do.

BritInParis

Not so much a straw man argument as a straw army. Are you drunk?

carcajou

No, are you? I'm sorry it comes across to you as a shock and a "straw man" that non-Brits may view the UK's very controversial colonial history through a lens different than that of the rose-coloured loyalists.

morpeth

I am unsure why it would be considered a "myth" since throughout the 17th and 18th centuries numerous groups fled religious persecution in Britain and Europe- Pilgrims, Puritans Quakers, Mennonites and other Anabaptists such as the Brethren ,Hutterites, Huguenots and the late 19th and early 20th century the Jews. One may debate the degree of persecution at different times, and those who left more for economic reasons, but hardly a myth.

dc koop

Yet it took almost another hundred years to bring slavery to an end in the United States at the cost of a brutal war that caused the deaths of around half a million in the process

morpeth

The difficulty in discussing colonial history is for so many it is viewed by current ideological viewpoints as opposed to looking at a longer time-span considering what went on before and during the colonial period judged by the standards of the time, and a general lack of knowledge due to the current ideological viewpoints. I don't know which group is less objective, views of those who you call "rose-colored" loyalists, or those who consider British colonial rule as you write "very controversial". Any colonial or imperial rule we can fault by today's standards going back thousands or years in every part of the world; and certainly Canadians, Americans and Australians overall better off for having British rule as compared to Spanish or Belgian.