@TheConversationUS@histodons
A great read and a reminder that colonial leaders were business and plantation owners and more importantly slave owners.
Private property and business interests were important to them. Actual democracy (as in rule by ordinary people) was never really in their plan.
I believe Winston Churchill speculated on how different history would have turned out if the British government had reached out and offered colonial aristocrats a role in shaping imperial policy and laws (perhaps representation in parliament).
#OnThisDay, October 7, in 1849, American writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe died from an unexplained cause after being found delirious on the streets of Baltimore (depicted in The Raven, 2012)
#OnThisDay, September 14, in 1812, the Great Fire of Moscow began as Napoleon approached the city and retreating Russians burned it (depicted in the BBC series War & Peace, 2016)
#OnThisDay, September 2, in 1864, the city of Atlanta fell to Union Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, setting the stage for Sherman’s March to the Sea and hastening the end of the war (depicted in Gone With The Wind, 1939)
#OnThisDay, July 27, in 1996, a pipe bomb exploded at Centennial Olympic Park during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia (depicted in Richard Jewell, 2019)
#OnThisDay, October 5, in 1972, Irish writer and painter Christy Brown, who had cerebral palsy and was able to write or type only with the toes of one foot, married Mary Carr (depicted in My Left Foot, 1989, starring Daniel Day-Lewis)
#OnThisDay, October 4, in 1957, the Soviet Union made history by sending the first artificial satellite into outer space (depicted in October Sky, 1999, starring Jake Gyllenhaal)
#OnThisDay, October 3, in 1712, the Duke of Montrose issued a warrant for the arrest of Rob Roy MacGregor, who was branded an outlaw for defaulting on a loan after the loan money was stolen (depicted in Rob Roy, 1995, starring Liam Neeson)
#OnThisDay, October 2, in 1902, Beatrix Potter’s “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” was published by Frederick Warne & Co. in London (depicted in Miss Potter, 2006)
#OnThisDay, September 3, in 1939, English King George VI delivered his first speech, announcing that Britain was going to war (depicted in The King's Speech, 2010)
#OnThisDay, August 26, in 1920, the 19th Amendment made laws reserving the ballot for men unconstitutional. Some American women were able to vote—due to voter suppression, Black women weren’t able to vote until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (depicted in Iron Jawed Angels, 2004)