Comments on: Yankees, Quakers, Cavaliers, and Scots-Irish

By: Thomas Henderson

Thomas Henderson — Fri, 05 Jun 2015 15:03:27 +0000

Canada had recently been French, yes, but the Atlantic seaboard province of Nova Scotia (which once included all the current Canadian Maritime provinces and the US state of Maine) had been a hot potato thrown between the French and the English for the better part of century. Little known trivia fact: Nova Scotia was the most fought over piece of ground in the 17th and 18th century because of its strategic location on the Atlantic trade routes. In order to pacify the territory, the British expelled the French speaking Acadians and then imported German protestants and encouraged New Englanders to migrate north (called the Planters) to repopulate the province. When the revolution broke out in the 1770s and 1780s most Nova Scotians were sympathetic with the rebels but the presence of the powerful British navy in Halifax secured their compliance. Once the revolution was over the arrival of 50,000 United Empire Loyalists in Nova Scotia – a significant number from New York and Virginia – secured its future allegiance to the British crown. Although a small province the cultural differences are still recognizable within local areas. Planters who settled in the Annapolis Valley have a different mindset than the German descendants living in Lunenburg County and who are different again from the loyalist-settled areas of Cumberland and Colchester Counties to the late arriving Scots who settled in the north and on Cape Breton Island. Only with the commitment of many locals to fighting overseas during the First World War did the barriers among these various subsets start to come down.

By: With the thoughts you'd be thinkin

With the thoughts you'd be thinkin — Fri, 05 Jun 2015 04:25:38 +0000

The West Indies were very culturally similar to the South but are islands, and the British Royal Navy was strong enough to prevent resupply. The Bahamas were actually invaded by the US.

By: Cassander

Cassander — Fri, 05 Jun 2015 00:54:05 +0000

If you’re only going to read one book about American politics, I’d make this the one.

By: Isegoria

Isegoria — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 22:45:23 +0000

At the time, Canada was a French colony that had only recently passed to the British, and the British granted them the right to maintain their language, their faith, and their customs. The colonists to the south were vocally anti-Catholic, and then their attempt to take over Canada failed miserably. (The British could support their own troops along water.) After the war, English-speaking Loyalists flooded northward, and Canada became not-so-French.

By: Thibodeaux

Thibodeaux — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 20:53:28 +0000

I have read both this book and also “American Nations.” If it was discussed, I don’t recall: why didn’t Canada join the Rebellion? Or the West Indies? Why just those 13 colonies?