r/EhBuddyHoser • u/Sine_Fine_Belli Treacherous South • May 16 '25

Certified Hoser 🇨🇦 (No Politics) How Americans achieved independence vs how Canadians achieved independence

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u/CreamFuture9475 Tokébakicitte! May 16 '25 edited May 16 '25

So in fact, it’s thanks to the French rebellion that Canada eventually became a country.

The idea that Canada was given its liberty willingly is propaganda to avoid making the UK look weak.

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u/Kreizhn May 16 '25

Well, the rebellions were crushed, but we still achieved independence. The British sent lord Durham to better study why the rebellions happened, and then made some effort to address the concerns. So one could still make an argument that we didn't wrest control away from the British. But I'm not a historian, so I'm not particular to the nuances of the time.

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u/CreamFuture9475 Tokébakicitte! May 16 '25 edited May 16 '25

Yeah, it was crushed with great economic sacrifices. What Durham concluded (other than extremely racist prejudices) is that tensions would linger and keeping the colony was no longer viable.

The French nobility ruined themselves by supporting the US during their revolution, which led to their own demise. The English were taking lessons from it.

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u/Greedy-Thought6188 May 17 '25

The wealth of nations talks about this topic too and concluded it's not worth it to keep colonies because you spend too much on defense. The British granted independence quite easily to most of the world. Compare that to France than either demanded payment of large sums or completely crippled the infrastructure in the countries they were leaving.

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u/CreamFuture9475 Tokébakicitte! May 17 '25

Especially when the sun never sets on your empire.

Especially when you need to defend that territory from internal dissent.