View Single Post
Old 20-10-2006, 17:37   #13
semihere
Member
 

Re: Help with English History!

Hell, everyone in the world (or at least all the areas of the world map that used to be coloured red in British textbooks) should hate England. We're responsible for millions of brutal deaths throughout our bleak history.

I do know that the ordinary folks of Lancashire came out en masse to support the Union in the American Civil War against the oppressive slave labour of the Confederate states. The British establishment, however, supported the South. But isn't that the way it's been for most of time - a class war. The establishment supporting the rich, the everyday people supporting the poor and oppressed.

There were mass demonstrations in and around Manchester by the mill workers from all of the surrounding cotton towns. They had a close affinity with the slave workers who were even worse off than themselves through the links in the cotton industry - they picked, we wove.

Even when Ghandi came to these parts to explain to the workers why he was trying to take away their livelihood he was well received - because he was sticking up for the poor and oppressed.

Anyway, don't know much about local reaction to the American war of independence, but judging by other instances of oppressor vs oppressed (such as England's unfair high taxes on the people of the colonies in this case), the majority of the ordinary people probably supported the American bid for freedom.
semihere is offline   Reply With Quote