Quote Originally Posted by Don Corleone
Some American historical myths that drive me insane....

In the American revolution, the Americans fought the British. Upon losing, the British moved to Canada. Wrongo! British citizens rebelled against their crown and fought other British citizens who didn't. Approximately 1/3 of the 'people born in the Americas' sided with the rebels, 1/3 with the loyalists, and 1/3 wanted no parts of it. In many ways, it was more of a civil war than the US Civil War, in that you had divisions within the same household in all of the original 13 colonies, plus the terriorties of what's now Vermont & Maine. After the war, a lot of loyalists DID move to Canada, but to believe that a bunch of redcoats came off the ships, and that's who we native born americans fought with is ridiculous (I mean, granted, a bunch of regiments DID get sent over, but as a DOMESTIC police action).
Perhaps you're right, but this is similar to another post in elsewhere, where a guy said that Washington was not american (how do you people call an Estado Unidense -your national name- in United States, i mean do you always say "american"?) but british. What gives you your nationality? The idea of nation is relatively new so... I don't think that a people that doesn't believe to belong to an older order is from a new one, is purely ideal, being born in United States doesn't make you an american, because United States is also an idea (the terrain is not marked as "USA"), so you born in a terrain, but you don't belong to a nation if you don't feel like, you don't have their culture or don't respect their ideas. Now in this case probably you're right because the idea of United States was still in formation, but from that point of view any revolution that happened on America (indepence revolution that is) was always like you say, like a civil revolt. Almost the same happened on every country formed in the american territory. For example here, spanish people rebeled themselves against the crown (because of high taxes, corruption and even pillage) but they never really felt like belonging to that crown or that the crown deserved respect, now is that what it requires to be an spanish, well i cannot answer you that...